Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Cleared Hot Episode 83 - Memorial Day Q and A

Episode Date: May 28, 2019

For this memorial day, I chose to select questions directly related to military service.  I open with my own thoughts on Memorial Day, the individuals that I see as often forgotten, and how to best remember and truly memorialize the service of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.  War crimes, and whether or not the President should pardon soldiers convicted of executing them.  Differences and similarities between JSOC commands, operators, and the opinions they sometimes hold of each other.  My closest moment to "meeting my maker," and how I found humor in others at that same moment.  In closing, the audio of Jocko Willink reading my blog post, "A Debt That Cannot be Repaid."

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It's going to be there. It's still releasing a lot. It's still releasing a on Monday. He can listen to it whenever you want to. So just take it easy, all right? Everybody calmed down. Okay, got the red smoke. Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. All right, let's get into this.

Today's episode is going to be based around listener Q&A, and it happens to fall on Memorial Day. So I wanted to open with talking about Memorial Day a little bit specifically in regards to a post that I made on social media yesterday, Day, which would have been Sunday, the Sunday before Memorial Day. And it had to do with what Memorial Day means to me and what I suspect it means to a lot of veterans that are out there.

First and foremost, I hope that Memorial Day weekend is extra time for people and provides them the extra time to celebrate, enjoy each other's company, and hopefully reflect and remember. It's tough sometimes when I listen to what Memorial Day. Day is often used for. I was driving yesterday, the day before Memorial Memorial Day, and heard multiple advertisements on the radio talking about discounted deals on

barbecues, 25% off this, and all that's great, but it just, to me, has absolutely nothing to do with what the day is actually about. And I think it can entice people to forget as well. So, to the Instagram posts. It was a picture of me

flying my absolute favorite wing suit, is my American flag suit. It's got an American flag on the top and the bottom skin, and that flag itself is actually a high-resolution photo of the shoulder patch that I wore overseas. And the purpose of the post was hopefully to, one, remind people of the importance of Memorial Day weekend or Memorial Day itself, but also to highlight an area that I think is often forgotten. And that's the fact that we have days or celebrations for veterans who are still alive. So that's obviously what Veterans Day is for. It's for those who have or have served this country and worn the uniform in any capacity.

And then we have a day for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, and that is Memorial Day. In between those two, there are no days dedicated to the individuals, to the men and women, who are struggling to just navigate their life. And I suspect that Memorial Day, specifically since we're so close, it might mean less to more veterans or be more difficult to a lot of veterans than many people might suspect. And I can only speak for myself, but I personally struggle over this weekend. And I struggle because of the totality of what it drives me and funnels me towards thinking about. For me on most days, I will have, actually not most days, on some days, on some random days, maybe weeks in a row, all I can seem to do is remember.

So for me, and I suspect for a lot of other people, every day is some flavor or essence of a memorial day, which for me is easier to deal with because I'm often reminded of just one particular individual by the smallest of things. It might be a picture. It might be a random thought. It might be a joke. And most often, it's a reminder of a story that usually involved a situation where someone nearly lost their life. And everybody else thought it was hilarious. And those are the things that occur to me every single day. And I make absolutely no effort to try to control those thoughts.

I used to, but I don't. I've just given into the fact that my mind is going to navigate my experiences the way that it's going to. And I think it is healthier for me as a person. to let go of the reins on that and let my mind just travel where it wants to. But I say it's easier because I'm generally only thinking about one person. Memorial Day is really hard for me because I think about everybody. And I think a lot about the price and the cost of what it is that we have. When I'm thinking about those individuals on a day-to-day level,

oftentimes it's actually a really happy memory. Whereas on Memorial Day, I'm generally drawn towards things that are anything but happy. The reality is is that if you touch war it's going to touch you back and that is not meant as an inherently negative sentence I've seen extremely

beautiful empathetic compassionate strong moral things happen in war and I've seen the other side of the coin as well the reality is if you engage in that environment

it's going to touch you and how it changes you as a person is probably variable on each and every person, but if you expect to come back from more the same person that you left, I think you might be a little bit surprised. So back to the people that are caught in between, which was the purpose of the social media post. I feel like they're often forgotten.

And everybody has a different level and ability to cope with the things that they either experience or they see. And I personally think that training in practice really do help your ability to filter it. and digest those experiences, but everybody does have their limit. You could be the most highly trained soldier on the face of the planet. There is an event or a culmination of events, a cascading series of things that could happen, that will take you to your tipping point.

If that doesn't happen, or it's not possible to happen, it's likely you're a sociopath, so you probably shouldn't be in that space anyway. But for everybody else, just be aware that you do actually have a limit. And everybody has their own unique reaction. I hear a lot of terms, and I've experienced a lot of these terms, from anger, moral injury, frustration, guilt, survivors guilt, post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, withdrawal, a sense of not having anything in common, a sense of not fitting in, isolation. Those are all very real things.

And some people are going to experience more of those. Some might not experience any. Some might not be willing to admit that they are experiencing. those things, but for myself, I can't say that I've experienced all of them, but I have definitely tasted the vast majority of those things that I just listed. Often, the biggest hurdle for people to get help, and I think this was true in my situation as well, is themselves. Why?

Well, historically, I think there's a stigmatism associated with it. If you come from an A-type personality-driven environment, there's going to be likely a fear of being judged by your peers. There's going to be a fear of being considered weak, which is, again, if you come from that A-type personality, probably the number one thing that you're guarding against is the portrayal or sense of weakness. It's like the people, the piranhas in the tank that are around you, it's they, they go bananas when that drop of blood hits the water. So you start guarding against that. And then there's also the fear of asking for help, which ties into the stigmatism and judgment, fear of being considered weak.

finding that path, it can be towards health or towards an improvement. That can be really hard to navigate when you're trying to see through specifically your own pride and then you layer some pain on top of that. And what hurts my heart the most is when I talk about these people that are stuck in the middle between being a veteran or basically the difference between being alive and dead is that there are more than I would care to even list or remember and we hear about them all the time that have chosen to end their own lives, which could not be more tragic.

I travel the United States specifically, but all over the world, in pursuit of what I do for living, and there are memorials in every single city and town and state that I've ever been to. There are names on walls, buildings, parks, bricks in the ground, streets, highways, overpasses, you name it. There are memorials to people who have given their life in the service of this country all over.

And I don't want to see that list grow. I don't want to needlessly see more names added to that list. And in my experience, the people that need the help the most are the least likely to reach out. And I think it's going to take the collective

efforts of much more than just those individuals to make a difference. I truly do believe that it takes a village. if we're going to have a positive impact on this particular issue. There's a difference between being alive and truly living, and it took me personally a while to wrap my head around that. So my hope for this weekend, and for weekends like this, is that people understand and they take the time to reflect and appreciate the cost,

but more importantly, commit to seizing the opportunity that they have in front of them, that the people who are memorialized gave every ounce of who they are, in every literal and figurative sense to provide them for that opportunity. People, men and women, of all ages and backgrounds, have given their life so that we can live. Some people don't understand or they will question this connection. And I have given up trying to explain the connection

between those that have given their lives and how it is enabling and empowering for those of us that remain. And that's fine. I'm not going to have that argument with people anymore. believe what you want to believe. I've seen the connection firsthand. I've seen the sacrifice firsthand, and to me there is absolutely no doubt. And for those of you who actually want to memorialize those people, the most powerful way to do so,

the most powerful way to memorialize those that have died in the service while wearing the uniform of this country is to live your fucking life as hard as you possibly can. Leave nothing unsaid, leave nothing undone. Live your life to its fullest. And while you're doing that, keep your eyes and ears out and be willing and able to help other people that might need a helping hand

to find their own path. All right, let's take into the actual Q&A. First question today comes from Brian Ripley, and it was a two-part question. He says, not to get political, but would love to hear your thoughts on Chief Ed Gallagher. I've read everything that's out there, but it seems very difficult to truly know

the truth. You know what I mean, question mark. And he followed up with, actually, screw it. Get political, Andy. If the allegations are true, what are your thoughts on Trump pardoning Chief Gallagher? So I'm going to answer both. I'm going to start with Eddie. And I will say that as far as people that reach out to me over email or direct message, or every time I put up, at least in the recent history, a solicitation for Q&A, I get asked about this case. And I have intentionally stayed away from it because I do not know Chief Gallagher and I do not know the details. I know what my initial reaction and thoughts are, but those are completely irrelevant. I have seen the same articles that you are referencing, Brian, from every direction.

And I've heard rumors and I've heard third and fourth hand information. And that all leads me to want to make assumptions about the validity of certain charges, the validity of the case in general. And I don't think that helps anyone. And the reason I refuse to say anything about this is because, in my opinion, Chief Gallagher deserves the right to execute and work his way through the mechanism that he is currently in. The trial has to play itself out.

It is the mechanism for information and evidence to be discovered, to be put in front of a jury of his peers or a judge, and it needs to be allowed to complete itself. So I can't answer, and I won't answer, anything that it has to do with Eddie. So for people who are listening to this, I'll have no problem discussing afterwards once the trial has completed itself, that people have questions about my thoughts after that, no problem. But up until then, I'm not going to enter into the fray. There are already, in my opinion, far too many people using the court of public opinion to try to sway the outcome towards whichever direction they feel it should be swayed. Now, to answer the question in regards to Trump pardoning Chief Gallagher,

I'm going to remove the Chief Gallagher portion from that and just say or talk about my thoughts on Trump or any president for that matter, reaching in and pardoning an individual, a service member, for war crimes. So to do that, like I said, we'll take Eddie's name out of it, and we're just going to focus on the war crimes and the potential pardons themselves. First, it's extremely difficult to accurately describe the complexities of a war zone

and an individual's or collective participation in combat. It is so far from being the black and white that I think most people would like it to be. But having said that, at a broad level, there are some guidelines or principles or rules that really don't change, regardless of where the theater of war might be. And three of them all specifically focus on. First and foremost, you always have as a service member the inherent right to self-defense. You're authorized to take action to save your life and the lives of other service members. That is never removed.

You're never going to be in a place where you do not have the right to defend yourself. You can add to that two other criteria. And these are criteria that I'm giving you that would enable or allow a service member to make a decision or take an action that could result in the loss of life. So inherent right to self-defense. Then there's hostile act, which is pretty easy to define. Somebody is actively taking a hostile act against you. They could be shooting a rocket at you. They could be shooting a gun at you, any type of projecto.

They're actively trying to take your life. And then the third one is hostile intent. People often ask me, well, not often, but I have been asked in the past, what happens if you encounter an individual that doesn't have a weapon or somebody who is unarmed? And this is where the category of hostile intent can come into play. You do not have to actively be armed on a battlefield to be legally engaged. if you are taking actions that have a hostile intent. And an example of this would be you don't have a gun yourself,

but you're running ammunition back and forth to firing positions. You may not have your guns displayed, but we're in the middle of the kinetic engagement. Instead of doing what most people who have no desire to be involved in that engagement do, which is either seat cover or run away as fast as they can, instead you're making a flanking maneuver or attempting to achieve a high ground position, or perhaps you're sitting there and you have a radio in your hand. So instead of engaging with a weapon, you're engaging with information.

All of those criteria fall underneath hostile intent. And a service member is absolutely empowered and able to use lethal force for a right to self-defense, hostile act, or hostile intent. Now, you add on top of that, there's likely going to be some theater-specific guidance. So you're going to have ROEs or rules of engagement. And examples of that where ROE is come to play, one good one is the criteria for releasing ordinance from aircraft. In Afghanistan and Iraq, to begin with, the ROEs were, they were looser than they became towards the tail end. And if you needed to drop ordinance, the requirement to do so is very

low. By the time my last appointment there in 2010, it's not that it was difficult to release ordinance, but the amount of information that you had to provide to hire headquarters was substantially greater. And that was one of their requirements. Another one that we were levied against was nighttime operations. They wanted to reduce the amount of entries into Afghan homes by American forces because that is the number one offense to an Afghan male in that country.

Another example of an ROE or a theater-specific guidance could be a partner force, and that could be everything from your training with a partner force or for you to operate outside of the wire of your fob or forward operating base. You have to have some type of ratio, two Americans to one,

local national, one-to-one, whatever it may be. So you have the three, the inherent right to self-defense, hostile act, hostile intent. You're going to have theater-specific guidance. Of course, you're still always going to fall underneath the Geneva Convention. And it's very easy for people to think that you would need to have a rulebook on you at all times. And that these criteria, that these guidelines, principles, and rules, that what they're actually doing is they're boxing you into a corner and they're really restricting what you can do. I've heard service members also express those same concerns.

They didn't feel comfortable operating inside of the ROEs. in my opinion, that is an absolute failure on the leadership. That means that the leadership did not take the time. They were not accountable enough to their people to go and explain to them and provide to them the parameters with which they could freely operate. Because when I hear people complaining about ROEs and at limiting their ability, it doesn't mesh with my own experience. I found my own experience to be often the exact opposite.

By truly understanding the boundaries, I actually felt very enabled and empowered to operate inside of them. The ability to articulate my actions, regardless of what they were, inside of those structures, is very empowering. But what really helped me is that the leadership took the requisite time and effort to make sure that I knew them at all time. And then also ensured that I took the requisite time and effort to ensure that the people that worked for me understood them as well.

They are not there to limit your ability. They are there to provide structure and empower and enable people to take action when they need to. Now, war crimes. How does this fit into war crimes? Well, I would say that somebody being charged with a war crime is likely taken an action or is taking an action as being prosecuted for an action potentially taken outside of those parameters and guidance. An example of that could potentially be killing without any of those three criteria being met, indiscriminately firing at individual. into structures, physical abuse, torture. I guess you could probably think of anything that might make the national or global news.

Now, the question, though, is should the president get involved? And what I would add to that question is, does it set a bad or poor precedent? And I've been thinking about this one ever since this question was posed. And I'm landing at a place where I don't really know. I still feel like I'm on the fence a little bit. In my opinion, there has to be something that separates us from our enemy. Behavior, the guidelines, the morals, the integrity. There has to be something that separates the way we behave from the way that they behave.

If we lose that, in my opinion, we're done, and they're on their way to victory. And having said that, I also completely understand how complex, challenging, mentally and physically exhausting, morally straining, and fluid a combat environment can be. So I want there to be a difference, but I also understand how difficult it can be, the difference between a theory and practice. But does pardon someone who deviates outside of those boundaries help or hurt? Does the pardon, what does it say to other people who are watching that process? Does the pardon mean that it was okay? or does the pardon mean that as a nation we understand that those type of things happen given those

circumstances in the fluidity of the environment? I don't know. Another question I asked myself, and I don't know if this is necessarily important, but I tried to look at it from the other side of the coin. Would we be willing to pardon our enemy? And would we want them to pardon us? An example of this, a recent one that I was reminded of is John Walker-Lind, the American Taliban that was captured very early on in the war in Afghanistan. And I haven't dug in recently, and I don't want to misspeak, but I don't think he was actively involved in the fighting.

He was rolled up in the situation. He was sent into federal prison, and he was just released. And there was outrage because he was just released, because his beliefs are the same. if not likely more radicalized upon exiting prison than they were upon entering prison. But that makes me think about our own beliefs. Are our own beliefs so virtuous that they are the only ones that are deserving of forgiveness? And I'm not just talking about ISIS or radical Islamic ideology. I mean, you can look back at Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan.

Should we pardon our enemy, if we're willing to pardon our own service members for the actions that they could potentially, take outside of themselves in a moment, why would we not apply that same thing to our enemy? I think the most powerful weapon that we might be able to use occasionally is forgiveness. And again, I don't have the answer. I'm truly on the fence on this. I'm less concerned with having compassion and forgiveness, and I'm more concerned, though, with having a solid expectation and the message that that's a solid expectation is going to send. We must maintain our integrity and trust. And although I know that war crimes currently, at least for the last six months,

have been relatively high on the 24-hour media news cycle, when you look at it from a statistical perspective of the number, the vast number of operations were individuals that would be charged with something like that. They are the statistical minority. They are so vastly outnumbered by the actions of those who are living up to everything that our nations expect in the most challenging environments, which is exactly the way it should be. And I do believe that the military should be held to a higher standard. And I do believe that when a mistake is made, it should be addressed. And it should not be hidden or swept under the

rug because that directly erodes the integrity and trust. And like I said, I think at least personally, if we lose that, then we're screwed. So I guess where I land or where I land, or where we're, where I'm leaning towards is that the most powerful way to maintain that trust and integrity, and the most powerful message that we can send, is to hold the line. And when it's crossed, there should be consequences for everybody to see. So I am leaning towards that the president should probably stay out of pardoning anybody who is convicted of committing war crimes. Next question comes from Seb Torp. He asks ex-Delta guy John McPhee does podcasts where he has a lot of things to say about DevGrew and the teams in general.

Nothing positive and a lot of things I find hard to believe. Have you found that there is a noticeable difference between the J-Soc, which stands for Joint Special Operations Command, which is the umbrella or headquarters unit for Development Group and Cag, which is the Navy component and the Army component of J-Soc, when it comes to competence? All I can really say about this is everybody is entitled to their opinion. And I have never met John Mufi to the best of my ability. I do not know anything about what he is actually saying. So you're going to have to listen to what he is saying and come to your own conclusions.

Like I said, I'm not familiar with this individual. What exactly he has said, his level of direct experience with Naval Special Warfare or development group. but what I can say is that the SEAL teams and the SEAL community is absolutely anything but perfect. I know more than a few people that have had a really bad experience and encounter with an individual SEAL or a SEAL unit, and it absolutely tainted their perception of the community as a whole. I've seen that with a poor interaction just as an individual. It really eroded the perception of that individual for the entire community, and it had consequences. What I can say for myself is that I have personally had direct interactions and experiences with CAG.

The deployment I was on in 2005 when I was shot was actually with A Squadron. I was at Gold Squadron at Development Group, but we took a small element and essentially did a cross-training workup and deployment. So we went with them to Iraq, and their individuals went with Gold Squadron to F-Ewen. Afghanistan. I have nothing but positive things to say about that command, that community, and those individuals. Are there community differences? Yes, absolutely. Are there differences at an individual and operator level? Yes, absolutely. Did I enjoy or like every single person that I encountered? No, not at all. But I'm not going to let that paint their community or their command. I would stand shoulder to shoulder with anybody from that command any day of the week.

And I have a good friend from that time, way back from 2005. I have a good friend named Tom Flanagan, who is the man behind Eagles and Angels. And I actually highly recommend that anybody who is interested in the Army Special Operations, specifically the J-Soc Special Operations, the Army component, you need to check out, go to Instagram and check out Eagles and Angels, spelled normally, Eagles and Angels, L-T-D, which I'm assuming stands for Limited. and what you're going to find is Tom preserving history and really celebrating service through American-made products

from combat uniforms. I've donated a uniform and he made a notebook cover out of it. He made some hunting hats out of it, some baseball hats, belt buckle. It's an amazing way to take pieces of history and allow them to live on. We've been friends for 14 years. We met while I was doing that cross-training deployment at Cagged.

So when it comes to this guy, you know, I'm bummed that he has nothing positive to say, but it's also likely he has a reason to feel the way that he does. So to each his own and to each his own opinion. And hopefully one day he'll have an experience that will change his mind. And if not, I get it. Last question comes from an individual with likely one of the most unique screen names I've ever seen. It's dogs or pigs. tell us the details of one of the one time you are most certain you might be going to meet your maker

though there's been more than one time so i'll start with that i have many vivid memories and reminders but there is one that i feel is a little bit more comical than others so it stands out a a little bit and it ties back into one of my favorite activities which is skydiving i have always loved jumping. Actually, let me walk that back a little bit. I have always loved free fall jumping. I have always hated static line jumping because the landing on a static line parachute is about the same feeling as walking to the top of a two-story building and falling off of it on to concrete. It sucks. I hate it and I never want to do it again. So I have not always liked static line jumping. But my jumping career did in fact start there. So I went to my entire Bud's

actually went to the Army Static Line Jump School at Fort Benning, Georgia, right after graduation. I got five jumps out of, I think of the C-130s, and they were arguably the worst experiences of my life. And from there, I went back to San Diego, interfaced and got linked in with the element that I was going to be working with, did a bunch of static line jumps in San Diego, got really tired of doing static line jumps. So I decided I was just going to go and learn how to jump on my own. And I went to Skydive San Diego and went through the civilian AFF course. which stands for accelerated free fall course. It was an eight jump program that I began on a Friday,

and by Sunday afternoon I was jumping on my own. The barriers to entry are not high. It's just gravity. It's worked since the days of Newton, and it's going to work tomorrow. If you drop something, it's going to fall. If the thing that you drop is you from an airplane, it's going to fall. If you can smile and relax, you're 90% there.

After civilian AFF, I would go every weekend and pretty much jump as much as I want to. Eventually, I had enough jump. and there was an opportunity to challenge the military curriculum. So I went out to Yuma for maybe five days and challenged a 30-day course. And then from there, really started digging in on the military side of the house. So after I became an MFF jumper military free fall, then I went to the Static Line Jumpmaster course, then the Military Free Fall Jump Master course.

Then I got my AFFI, which is accelerated freefall instructor, meaning I could teach people how to jump free fall. Then I went to the MTTB course, which is military tandem. then I became an AirOps trainer, Air Ups trainer examiner, military tandem master trainer, examiner, and I got as many schools under my belt as humanly possible in the jumping world. This particular story about where I was absolutely convinced I was going to die actually occurs at the tandem course,

which the acronym is MTTB, military tandem tethered bundle program. This is where I actually became a tandem master. and from that day on, I think I've taken somewhere between probably 1,500 to 1,500 people for their first tandem jump. So I've got to lead into this a little bit in how the military teaches tandem jumping. First, there's minimum qualifications for every military school. And a lot of it is you have to be in the military for X amount of time, or you have to have Y qualification to qualify for follow-on training. For the jumping courses, you need to have a certain amount of jumps,

which are logged in log books. and this happened more often than not. You would start looking to people's logbooks because they would have to submit them to you, and I did this when I was an instructor, and I went back as an instructor. And you start realizing that, wow, all of these entries look the same, and they're all signed with exactly the same pen.

And it's what we call pencil whipping, which basically means you take the number of experience, or the number of jumps you have, and therefore the experience that comes with them, and then you just enhance that via a pencil. what could possibly go wrong, right? And in the military, of course, the only way to learn to jump with another person

strapped to you is to take two people, regardless of their experience level, and strap them to each other and jump out of an airplane. So that's what we did. And as the passenger in front, you have some control and some input, but you don't have a ton. You're largely along for the ride.

And in this particular course, you do a jump called a tandem terminal. If you've ever watched somebody who goes to a civilian drop zone and they do a tandem, you're going to notice that there is a Kevlar sheath that is coming off the back of the tandem parachute. It is attached to a drogue parachute itself. It's a tether and a drogue parachute. And the reason that is there is that two bodies, right, the combined weight of two individuals,

largely have the surface area of one individual. So without that drogue parachute, they are hauling the mail, close to 200 miles an hour, which when you deploy a parachute at that velocity, you are going to get the best chiropractic adjustment of your life and potentially kick yourself in the face with your own feet. I've seen it happen. So you don't want to do that. So you throw the drug parachute out,

and what it does is it slows two bodies down to the speed of one. But you need to know the difference not only in what it feels like, but also what it looks like when you're looking at your altimeter because you're falling so fast, the needle is actually bouncing. So we do a jump called Tandum Terminal, where you jump out and you do not set the drug parachute, you accelerate to re-entry velocity, and then eventually you set the drug parachute,

pull the parachute. Well, I'm just going to assume that the person that I was jumping with, I was the passenger at this point, so I was in the front, had done a little bit of that pencil whipping that I was referring to because when we went out of the airplane, I think we basically were trying to repeat that top gun flat spin into space.

That was us. We were flipping, cartwheeling, spinning, blue brown, blue brown. It was an emotional experience. And we eventually got out of it. I had to go sit down for a little bit and re-question my life choices. And then I had to go and jump the partner that had just jumped me on the same horrendous evolution with the tumbling Earth-Sky, Earth-Sky, Earth-Sky still in the back of my head.

So it was a little bit emotional, but it got worse. Because passenger jumps were only half of the curriculum at that course. Like I said, it's called the MTTB, which is military tandem-tethered bundle. How to best describe a military tandem tethered bundle? It is the same parachute system, so the tandem master no longer now has a passenger, but you're wearing the same Maine and reserve parachute system. And instead of a human, what you have is essentially a refrigerator in front of you, again, with another tether hooked to your body, or not to your body specifically,

but the parachute system. And when I went through was hooked by four points of contact. I believe they changed it now. and this refrigerator is made out of the concrete forms that are used to create the cylindrical support memes or columns on freeway overpasses. So it's thick cardboard, you got N caps, you fill those things with hundreds of pounds of weight, you attach your harness your harnets to it and a skid plate or rollerboards to the bottom so you can move it in the aircraft. You load it into the aircraft, and six minutes before exiting, you start attaching yourself to this ridiculous object. seemed like a reasonable idea, at least, for me, until the airplane took off and it was time for me to strap in. And then the ramp comes down and you push the bundle towards the ramp and you have a cameraman who's holding the front of the bottle and he's hanging out of the aircraft and you got one third of the bundle over the edge of the ramp.

And you're holding on with two fabric handles. And you have but one thought. And that thought is, this is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever done in the history of bad ideas. and I am certainly absolutely going to die. And then you wait through for like 45 seconds until the airplane flies over the exit point and you go for a ride. You push this thing out as hard as you can.

You're supposed to wait until it pitches vertical, release. Most people do what we call the shopping cart because they're emotionally overwhelmed and they push it as hard as they can and they get yanked out of the aircraft. It's terrible to experience. It's unbelievable to watch. And by that I mean you can barely function

because your eyes are watering so hard from crying. I eventually became a Tandemaster examiner, so I went all the way through that program multiple times and came back to teach. And I saw as many courses as possible. And I always enjoyed watching the students having the same thoughts and realizations because it seemed like it was universal. And it always brought a smile to my face. So I absolutely thought I was going to die.

And then I enjoyed watching other people have to navigate their way through that. So hopefully that story does it for you. And I'm going to end today with a request from somebody. and that was if I could play the audio from a blog post that I made just over two years ago. I woke up one morning and a seal from a command that I used to be attached to had been killed in a firefight in Yemen. And I was extremely frustrated by hearing that information because I couldn't do anything about it. I was out of the military. There was nothing for me to do.

So I sat down from my laptop at my kitchen counter. Actually, it wasn't the kitchen counter. It was the dinner table. And I hammered away for like 10 minutes. And I just hit post on this thing. I walked away. And I titled it, a debt that cannot be repaid. And I checked in later that day, and my phone was going absolutely bananas and ended up being shared about 120,000 times the last time I looked at it. And it ended up being read on the floor of Congress. And when I did Jocko's podcast,

many years ago, he opened with his narration of what I wrote. So I am going to plug that audio in. and hopefully that helps you remember and respect and appreciate the sacrifice of men and women out there that you may never meet

and they don't care because they are willing to give their life for you. In a country that most people would struggle to find on a map in a compound that few possess the courage

to enter men from my previous life took the fight to our enemy. In that compound, they found men that pray five times a day for your destruction. Those praying men don't know me. They don't know you and they don't know America. They don't understand our compassion, our freedoms, and our tolerance. I know it may seem as if some of those things are currently missing, but they remain at our core and always will. Our capacity for them is boundless

and is only dwarfed by the hatred in those men hiding in that compound, the hatred they have for you. Those men don't care about your religious beliefs. They don't care about your political opinions. They don't care if you sit on the left, or the right liberal or conservative, pacifist, or warrior. They don't care how much you believe in diversity, equality, or freedom of speech. They don't care.

I'm sorry you have never smelled the breath of a man who wants to kill you. I'm sorry you've never felt the alarm bells ringing in your body, the combination of fear and adrenaline as you move towards the fight. instead of running from it. I'm sorry you've never heard someone cry out for help or cried out for help yourself, relying on the courage of others to bring you home. I'm sorry you've never tasted the salt from your own tears as you stand at flag-draped coffins, burying men you were humbled to call your friends.

I don't wish those experiences on you, but I do wish you had those. them. If you had them, it would change the way you act. It would change the way you value. It would change the way you appreciate. You would become quick to open your eyes and slow to open your mouth. Most will never understand the sacrifice required to keep evil men like those from that distant compound away from our doorstep. But it would not hurt you to try and understand. It would not hurt you to take a moment to respect the sacrifices that others make on your behalf whether they share your opinions or not it would not hurt you to take a moment to think of the relentless drain on family friends and loved ones that are left behind sometimes

for weeks sometimes for months sometimes for years sometimes forever ideas are not protected by words. Paper and ink may outline the foundation and principles of this nation, but it is blood. Only blood that protects it in that dusty compound. A man you have never met gave everything he had so that you have the freedom to think, speak, and act. However you choose,

He went there for all of us, whether you loved or hated what he stood for. He went there to preserve the opportunity and privilege to believe, to be, and to become what we want. This country, every single person living inside of its borders and under the banner of its flag, owe that man. We owe that man everything. We owe him the respect that his sacrifice deserves. Saying thank you is not enough. We send our best and lose them in the fight against the worst evil this world has to offer.

If you want to respect and honor their sacrifice, it needs to be more than words. You have to live it. Take a minute and look around. Soak it in. All of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. the ugly. You have the choice every day as to which category you want to be in, in which direction you want to move. You have that choice because the best among us, the best we ever had to offer,

fought and bled and died for it. Don't ever forget that. Thanks again, everybody for listening. That's all I have for you for this week. Thanks again to Duke Cannon for sponsoring the cleared hot podcast and supporting this episode. Again, if you want to get 15% off, your first order, and free shipping on orders over $35 at Dukecanon.com, go there, go shopping, and use the promo code cleared hot, one word, all capital letters. Check them out. They're a kick-ass brand. Hope you enjoy it.