Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - round 112

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

Rapid Fire Q and A to finish off the week: 1. I have been lying to my future wife about the actual demands and time requirements of my desired Army career....Should I tell her the truth or just stick with what I have said 2. How should a woman train for the BUD/s pipeline 3. My best friend passed ten years ago shortly after we had an argument, how do I move on and forgive myself. 4. Why do people think that it is so easy to become a police officer, as if departments will just hire anyone off the street Enjoy

Well, hello, ladies and gentlemen. It's Friday, one of my favorite days, mostly because the weekend is going to begin. But also, we get to do a little bit of Q&A. But first, what makes this podcast possible? A lot of things, primarily you guys and gals, and kids and adults and everything in between, I don't want to be exclusive that listen to the podcast and tell people about it. That's the number one. But secondly, Black Rifle Coffee does. And if you listen to the podcast, cast this year, we're halfway through the year, which is insane to say, actually more than halfway through. You know who sponsors every episode. It's Black Rifle Coffee. If you like coffee, if you like supporting amazing people and amazing brands, go to Black Riflecoffee.com and give yourself a cup of coffee. That's what you should do. Time it. Make yourself a cup of coffee, however you do, unless it's a French press, because that means you're a terrible person, and sit down and surf the website, blackwiflecoffoffer.com. And you're going to find that they have everything you could possibly want, from wearable items to drinkable items.

Yeah, and that's it. Let's get into Fall Outer Friday. Number 10012, let us begin. I'm looking at danger close now. Well then, let's dive right in. Away we go. Question one. This is not another I'm old, should I shit or get off the pot story.

I'm 31, and I'm in the progress of shitting in the pot. Quick background. SF. Special Forces has been an unwavering dream of mine since I was 13. But I had been ineligible to join because I was not actually an American permanent resident until the age of 28. At 28, I had just begun my program for nursing school where I met my now fiancé, who is also a registered nurse. Our lives are now pretty comfortable, just like she dreams of, and we could probably coast to our old age. But like all your other viewers, I'm not about to get on the regret

train and wonder what could have been. After many tears and arguments, I've convinced my fiance to let me join the Army National Guard in the infantry until I can get my citizenship and then proceed onto a shot at SFAS, which I believe stands for Special Forces Assessment S and the Q-course in a guard capacity. Problem is, although I've absolutely not lied about anything else in our three-year relationship, I find myself constantly downplaying what my dream entails regarding time, distance away, and what deployments may entail. I've made the Q-Course sound like it's less than a year, and I haven't been the most honest about the eventual needs to PCS, which stands for permanent change of station or a permanent move from one duty station to the other,

to North Carolina, if I make it, I'm afraid that I'm stuck on a train of constantly making things sound more digestible than they really are. There's no doubt in my mind. I'm 31 and I did not just sign a contract to stay as an infantryman or stay as an infantryman and fight California wildfires for six years. I'm full sending it at the risk of my perfect relationship. Do I just keep downplaying everything about the military at this point? Am I too late to rip this band-aid off and just be honest about what I know? One week and a month, two weeks a year, am I right? And in parentheses, sarcasm. Well, sir, let me just tell you, you have buttered up and created a really nice shit sandwich. Let's talk about something here for a second. You are not about to get on

the regret train and wonder what could have been. Let me pose a question to you. Let's say you sacrifice your perfect relationship and attempt to become a green beret, which is what special forces actually means. It's special operations forces is the broader umbrella. Special forces is specifically Army Green Beret. Let's say you go down that pipeline and you successfully make it through. In the process of doing so, you give up, willingly surrender your perfect relationship and your fiance right now leaves and continues on with her life. You go into the SF program pipeline community and it's not what you wanted it to be. It's not what you thought it would be. It's not what you had heard it was going to be from people who had served prior to you. So you eventually decide to get out and probably continue along

down the nursing school route. Or maybe you have another passion that you discover and you go down that path. What feeling do you think that you will have? Looking in the rear view mirror, wondering about the relationship that you could have had with somebody that you were in, your words, not mine, a perfect relationship. Now, I know that no relationship is perfect, and I suspect that you feel that way as well, but it sounds like you're in a good place with a good person. So the regret train is optional for everybody. And I hope people hear me when I say that. The regret train is optional. You do not have to look back at a life and regret not serving in the military. You can look back and maybe wish you had taken a different path, but you're wasting every

second that you are looking in the rearview mirror as opposed to looking out the windshield in the direction that you are going. My point in saying this is there's no guarantee in any of these directions that you may go. You may regret not becoming a green beret, but you also may regret dedicating your life and giving up the relationship that you have with your fiancé now. So you have a difficult choice to make as to the path that you want to go. Now to the question about honesty, which is basically what this email is about. You have been honest with your fiancé about everything, but what you're really doing is rounding the edges on what you know the military pipeline you want to pursue is going to be like. And all I think I really need to do is ask you,

how you would feel if the situation was reversed. If your fiancé, I don't know a good example of a pipeline or a program that she may want to go down, but just imagine for a very good period of time, she described it as one thing. And then you come to find out it's completely different and that she knew about it the entire time. How would you feel? Would you feel awesome about that? Would you feel resentment? Would it impact how you feel about your perfect relationship? I think the answer to all of those questions is probably yes. So you could probably expect that from her if you continue down the course that you are on. I was going to say, and I think I already did say that you have a difficult choice to make,

but you actually don't. What you need to do is hard stop right now and have a very difficult conversation with the person that you are at least on paper planning to share the rest of your life with. because you're not being honest with her. You may not be outright telling her lies, but I bet you you've heard the phrase lying by omission. Keeping key details out of a sentence that obfuscates what the actual picture that you're trying to describe to somebody is, it's still lying.

I get the desire to do that, right? It feels almost as if it's the easier thing to do. I'm doing it for their benefit, you know, because I'm trying to make it land a little bit softer. All those are bullshit. You're doing it for your benefit because what you are prioritizing is what you want to do. And I'm not saying that's wrong, but I don't think you should drag somebody else into that with you. So what I think you need to do is 100% hard stop and come clean with your fiancé and tell her exactly how you feel. Don't make this a journey of exploration for her over the next 18 months to two years as you are constantly doing things that are different than what you told her.

who they were going to be. Because let me just tell you what that journey the exploration is going to be like. That's going to be an exploration down into the seventh level of hell. Have you ever heard the saying, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned? Because if you have,

that's what you're loading up right now and you need to stop that shit right now. And maybe in this really difficult conversation, you are going to come to the realization or you both will come to the realization that your desires and her desires when you're actually being truthful, full are not commensurate with each other. Now, if you get to that place, that really sucks,

but I think it sucks less than getting to that place two or three years down the road with a whole bucket load of resentment and ammunition for somebody to come after you for being dishonest. I'd rather have you make that decision now than make it years from now. And you'll still be at this point. Like, let's say you decide that you're going to pursue this path by yourself. You may look back and have that regret and wonder, but at least you're making that decision from a foundation of honesty and integrity. Because if you're not doing that, let me just tell you right now, your moral compass is fucked. And the Q course and most special operations courses, I'd like to say all, but I don't know about all of them, they select for character. That's

actually kind of at the end of the day, they're looking for a lot of things, but character is one of them. And it's not character when people are watching. It's character when you feel at the lowest points that you've ever been, and nobody's watching. And you have the opportunity to do something selfish, which is what you are doing right now. And I hate to give it to you in those terms, but those are the brass tacks. You need to stop right now before it goes any farther and course correct. And that might mean that your journey together branches off. That doesn't mean you can't come back together later on. Maybe she wants to go pursue something while you're going through the pipeline, which I believe is going to be about a two-year course, not a one-year course. It probably

could be a year course if you went like end date on a Friday for one of the evolution, start date on a Monday, the following Monday for the next one. And continuously did that throughout the course. In my experience from the people I know, that's not how it happens. So don't line it up like that. probably hard to hear i apologize for that but deal with the problem now not the problem years from now it's not going to get any better and uh do me favor send me an email let me know how that conversation goes question number two subject line please help hello i'm a 21 year old woman and i'm training to become a u.s navy seal how should a woman prepare for buds which stands for basic underwater demolition slash seal training how are

women treated in buds, do you have any advice for preparation? According to what some buds dropouts told me, one female seal candidate broke her legs in basic orientation, which is the first three weeks of butts, another female seal candidate broke her legs in Bud's prep, and a third female seal candidate got rolled back in B-O, which is that basic orientation for stress fractures. None of them made it. In November of 2021, a woman made it to first phase of buds for the first time in history, but she quit on day one after the first hour. Interesting email. And I'm going to give you some feedback that you might not enjoy.

I'm not going to apologize for that up front, actually. What I'm going to say is your headspace is completely wrong. And that is based off of the second sentence in the first paragraph. How should a woman prepare for buds? Bud's basic underwater demolition seal is not about a man or a woman attempting the curriculum. It is about every single candidate that attends Bud's training meeting the minimum standard before they are allowed to move forward. Those standards should be theoretically, hypothetically, driven by the demands. of the real world battle space that you would likely be asked to operate inside of.

Are they challenging? Yes, they are. Do the vast majority of candidates who attempt seal training fail? Yes, they do. Why? Well, there's a variety of reasons, but at the end of the day, it's because the standards are maintained. The standards are blind. There is no way that a woman should prepare for buds versus how a man should prepare

for buds. I understand physiologically that there are differences between the male and female body. The standards at buds don't give a fuck. A combat environments, a bullet flying through the air, does not give a fuck if you are a man or a woman. Now, some of the enemy that you may be fighting, if you are successful in this path that you want to pursue, and by all means, I hope that you are, some of the enemy that you may be fighting, they absolutely would care. if you are a woman. That's a conversation and topic, perhaps, for a later day, because you need to actually get to that point.

But the fact that you are looking at buds training and you are looking for a way as a woman to train for it specifically, instead of just asking me, how do I train to successfully complete buds? It tells me that you are viewing this problem from what I would consider to be a skewed perspective. There are no standards in buds for women. and then another standard for men. As long as that is maintained in my mind where there is a blind standard and everybody

either meets it or they are sent home regardless of who they are as a person, what's between their legs, what's sex or gender. And at this point, I actually don't even know the correct way to describe that. But it doesn't matter because the standards are blind. The day that they change that, where there is a standard for women and there's a standard for men, the seal pipeline is completely and utterly fucked. because like I said at the end of the day the standards have to be driven by the real world operational environment and they as much as anybody else in the world doesn't matter how much other people in the world may care that environment doesn't and that's the environment you are training for so get rid of how do I do this as a woman and get your head into the space where all you need to do is train for the requirements that are going to be thrown at you now some of the things you said according to what some of the buds dropouts told me be very careful taking a lot of information from people who did not successfully complete the course.

All I can say about that is very often it is biased and flavored through their own experience and you may not be getting a clean shake about what to expect. What I would do if I were you is find people who have successfully made it through and talk to them. Now, two of the women that you mentioned broke their legs and the other one got roll back for stress fractures. I am assuming at this point that you know there is a substantial amount of running that takes place in the Buds program. When I went through in the 90s, it was nine miles a day just for food. And that was before we did a single evolution because it was 1.5 miles to the chauho in the morning for breakfast. And obviously that's a round trip. So there's three, then there's lunch,

then there's dinner. And guess what? They didn't let you skip dinner because, you know, fuck us. We're the students. And I get it. I didn't let the students skip dinner either when I was an instructor. That's what was done to me. I'm not saying that's right. But point of all that is there's a substantial amount of running. I don't know how the women broke their legs. I don't know if women are more susceptible to legs breaking than men. I don't think so.

I'm certainly not a doctor, though. Anybody who listens to this podcast would agree with that. But stress fractures is one of the most common injuries in buds. A lot of people fall off obstacles. People trip and fall. Broken legs, I don't necessarily. I mean, again, I would need to live. bit more information on where the first two women broke their legs, but you need to condition

your body to be able to tolerate the wear and tear that's going to come from that movement. I mean, human beings are bipeds. When they tell you to go somewhere in buds, let me just tell you right now, you're not walking except for the week after hell week. It's literally called walk week and you're going to wear tennis shoes. So your lower body can recover a little bit. It's not recovered at all. Trust me, after that week. And then when you start running the week after, it is horrendous. I actually felt like my hip flexors were destroyed. But you have to condition yourself to be able to deal with that level of stress, man or woman. Again, because it doesn't matter. You either meet the standards or you pack your bag. It's, hey, here's the standard or chicken or steak,

window or aisle. Those are your choices. And you know, to the point with the woman in November of 2021 who quit the first hour of first phase, you'd be shocked at the number of the number of the of people who actually put in, God, it's got to be years at that point to even get to day one. Because there's the desire to become a seal, the research that goes into that. Most people are training before they even get into the military. They join the military, a lot of them on an SO contract. Go through the entire pipeline, which is competitive because there's more slots. I'm sorry, there's more people than there are slots available.

So you're competing for your slots to even start buds. And then the first day of training, every class I would see this when I was an instructor. people are lining up at the bell and it is baffling because the amount of work that you put in already is just thrown down the garbage disposal and I'm not judging those people it's just fascinating to see and again it has nothing to do you know a woman quit in the first hour the first day fucking get in line there are hundreds there are thousands of people who have done exactly the same thing and to me that tells me that the curriculum is working and that again the muscle that fails at buds and the muscle that fails in the seal community more often than not is not one

that's below the neck it's the one that's between the ears that's how you end up quitting on day one um i don't know how i got off on that tangent get rid of this headspace about you need to train specifically because you're a woman and start training for the standards and only the standards because they don't care and that's the way that it should be question three anger and bullshit for fallout of Friday. Of course I'm going to read this. I am currently going through a divorce after finding out my wife has been lying to me and messing around with some other guy. Since then, she has not opened up to me about what happened and has shown no remorse about what happened. I know she hasn't been happy with herself for a while and has talked about seeing a therapist, but how do I go about trying to get

her to seek the help she needs? Also, how do I try to get over all of this without sending random fuck you text to her like I want to? I've already been going to the gym out of of anger and training BJJ to reduce stress and talking to a therapist for overall mental health. Any advice would be sweet. Well, first off, the things that you're doing sound awesome. When you say you're going to the gym out of anger, I hope you're talking about like a weightlifting gym because I wouldn't want you going to jujitsu out of anger because of the risk of hurting somebody else inadvertently. And I was having this conversation. I forget who I was having it with the other day. But we were talking about, you know, the interpersonal social dynamics of

jiu-jitsu. There's a lot of things, and I'll get to the question here, but I'm trying to explain why I don't think it's a good idea for people to go to the gym, the jiu-jitsu gym, angry. You know, it's not like just lifting weights. And actually the analogy that somebody had made, they were like, well, it's like CrossFit. You know, you could hurt yourself. It's like, yeah, you could hurt yourself doing CrossFit if you pushed it too far because you were angry, but that's not a great parallel to jujitsu because I don't know how you would get good at jujitsu without a training partner. And the amount of trust that you need with your training partners is immense. Like you really are going to break some social barriers that most people are

used to. There is some touching that goes on with jujitsu. Like arms around your neck, people trying to choke you with their clothing, trying to break your arms, trying to bend your joints in directions that they don't necessarily go. And you're really, renting your training partner's bodies when you're doing this. And they are allowing you to. It's an amazing thing to have a great training partner. And I was actually just looking at a post. The gym made a post the first day I started jujitsu. And I think today is the 27th. So tomorrow will be four years for me exactly for doing jiujitsu. There are some training partners that I have that I completely and utterly trust. And I will allow them to go so deep down the rabbit hole that they want to go with

either a choke or I will let them get me deeply into a submission if we're working or even if I'm trying to get my way out of it. The amount of trust that I have in them is immense. And I hope that they have that level of trust in me. But what I can tell you, and this to kind of wrap back to going there if you are angry, why you need to be super cautious is that that trust can be violated pretty easily and it's going to be really hard to recover. And the last thing that you want to do, I mean, I am not a fan of hurting myself, but fuck, what would keep me up at night would be hurting somebody else. And I don't want you to ever hurt your trading partners. And I have rolled with some people. And I train with some people who I would describe have, let me be the polite way to put this.

They have issues controlling their anger. I mean, that's the only way to actually put it. And you can feel it escalating in the rolls. And you can feel it escalating in the drilling. And it's actually not awesome because I have found that I have to at least elevate a little bit so I can protect myself and not get hurt. And I have watched other people get hurt, not catastrophically, but it's terrible because then that person has time off of the mat. They are going to have probably a down physical and emotional state that comes with that. And that's not how you get better at Jiu Jitsu. That's not why I love it. I love the aspect of it of working together with people. It's an individual team sport for sure. And don't hurt your teammates.

So sorry about the jiu-jitsu rant. It wasn't meant to be like that. But I wanted to make sure I highlighted that. If you're just going into the gym and jack and steel around because you're fucking pissed and you're bouncing deadlifts off the ground, like go to town. Throw a set of Bose headsets on there. A set of ranger panties. Pull those suckers up tight and scream as much as you want to until they kick you out of the gym. That I don't care about.

Please don't do that in the jihitsu world. Okay. So back to what you got going on here. Your wife has not opened up to you about what happened and has shown no remorse about what happened. Do you actually want to know the specifics? And this is not a rhetorical question. It's something I, you know, trying to put myself in your shoes. You know that she was unfaithful. Are the exact details of that going to help you or hurt you? And that's a question that only you can answer. But hopefully you've asked yourself about it. And she's shown no remorse about what happened. Well, if somebody does that to you and doesn't show any remorse about it, I mean, sometimes, all you really need to do is listen to what people say and watch what they do. So if she doesn't care about what she did to you, she probably doesn't care about you. And that sucks, right? Because you were married to this person. I'm assuming you had time together before you got married,

unless it was like arranged and you met on the day that you got married. And I hope that's not happening in 2022 anywhere, even though I suspect it is in some places. So you probably have a history together that was anything other than her not caring about you. So this can be a really tough pill to swallow, but if she is not remorseful about what happened because she doesn't care, the best thing that you may be able to do for yourself is to put this rock down and move on. She hasn't been happy with herself for a while and has talked about seeing a therapist. Cool story. Who fucking cares? It's not your problem, right? If she's not going to even be honest with you about what happened, assuming that you want to know, and she shows no remorse,

you know, there's no way that you're going to try to get her to seek the help that she needs. that is on her to do that and maybe she needs to sit with and percolate with what has happened for longer before she's comfortable making those steps but I've said this so many times on the podcast don't let yourself on fire to keep other people warm all right so if she is unwilling to own her particular portion of what happened in this and I'm aware I'm only getting one side of the story. People don't need to freak out and be like, well, you don't know what happened. You're right. I don't fucking know what happened. I'm responding to an email that's in front of me. This to me sounds like something where your life would be better moving on. Now, how do I get over

this without sending the random fuck you text to her like you want to? What I would recommend is writing out those texts. If you want to, maybe do it in your notes app so you actually can't accidentally send it. But let's say you don't and you're going to send it. You want to, for whatever reason you want to load the gun up and put it on her contact write out everything that you would want to say to her but then delete it before you send it you'll probably feel better by verbalizing all that stuff but nothing is going to be improved by you actually sending that text what is going to improve this situation and what is going to improve your life is taking that excess energy and reinvesting it in yourself and becoming the best version of who you can possibly

possibly be. And that I understand, I've used this term already in the podcast, is a shit sandwich. It's easier to say than it is to do. And I have lived through this so I know how shitty it can actually be to eat this sandwich one bite at a time. But it is the best thing that you can do for yourself. She's not remorseful about what happened. Then you know what, man? Move the fuck on and invest that energy in yourself. Last question. Hello, Andy, a long-time listener and fan of the podcast. I'm in my late 20s, specifically 27. A few days ago was an anniversary of my childhood best friend passing 10 years ago. For six years, I just ignored and over-rided. I over-rid my feelings and how to deal with it. The past four

years, I've been trying to face this head-on. Right before he passed away, we got into a fight and it was my fault. I was young and I didn't know right from wrong. He checked me, and and I did not accept it well. Since then, I have been struggling to move on. I'm close with his father still, and I recently opened up fully about everything, and he basically said the same thing I know my best friend would have said. I'm starting to accept how he felt, but there's a part of me that can't forgive myself for how I acted.

Do you have any advice or tips for this situation? This is a tough one. This reminds me to a degree how I wish I could get a do-over. with the last conversation I had with my mom before she passed. I really, fuck. I really wish I could have been a better person in the moment of that last conversation. And I deal with not being able to forgive myself.

And I know that I need to move on from that. But it's hard. So I understand what you're talking about. I understand where you're coming from. Ten years for people might seem like, oh, geez, it's like been ten years. Just move on. It's not that long. I turned 45 this year. It seems like I was 35 about four seconds ago. It seems like I was 25, about two seconds ago. I'm aware that the math doesn't make sense on that, but that's what it seems like. So time doesn't necessarily heal all wounds, I guess is what I'm trying to say. There's an episode. So this podcast comes out Friday. I think this comes out early July. On the 4th of July. There's a podcast coming out with a man named Anthony. There's a fascinating, fascinating background.

And bear with me on this story a little bit because I'll tie it into what you're talking about here. He came from Venezuela, did not speak English, grew up in the Salt Lake City area in an environment that I think will probably surprise people when they hear him talk about the way that he was living and how he was able to do it. And then worked himself into the business world and then worked himself into the FBI. and had a pretty awesome career in the FBI for 20 years. And he said something in that podcast. We were talking about just the United States in general. And I'm paraphrasing a little bit, and hopefully, well, I know for a fact when the episode comes out on the fourth, that it will illuminate very precisely exactly what I'm talking about here.

But he made a comment about how much he appreciates this country. I believe he said he actually loves this country. Actually, I know for a fact he said he loves this country. But we are talking about appreciation and how sometimes context really matters because if you don't have context for somewhere else, it's really easy to, it's really easy to not be as appreciative as I think some should be on some issues that we are, not issues, but some of the things that come with living in the United States. But he made a comment which has been kicking around in my head since then. And I'm actually in the process now of I'm going to turn what he said into his shirt because I think it is so universally applicable in your personal and professional life. And this is where it ties into how do you move on? Because before I tell you what he said, let's talk about what we can change in the past.

Nothing. There is nothing that you can change about the interaction you have with your friend. And I'm sorry for that. There's nothing that I can change about the last conversation that I had with my mom. I have tried to put it down and I don't think that I can. So I have been off and on for that time period, figure out what I can do with it. And what I can do with it, what I have determined is ensure that it changes my behavior. moving forward so that it doesn't happen again. The best that we can do with something that happens in the past is to learn from it. And I think the best way that you can move on from something that has happened in the past is to use it as motivation and as the foundation for who you are moving forward, which is the only thing you have control over. So what Tony said was very simple. Earn your place. And I love it. It was so fucking simple. And like I guys, said, it applies personally and professionally. And I see this in myself, and I'm about to be a little bit critical of some things I see from people, but I'm not saying that I don't do these things as well

from time to time. I watch people who, mothers and fathers, who are over the top authoritarians that feel like because they're older and they're a mom and dad, that everything that they say should go for their children. And to me, I guess that's a way to lead. But how about the theory of earning your place as a mother and a father? Yes, biologically, the combination of the mother and father created that child. But how about you show up every single day and earn your place in that leadership position so that when your kids are looking at you and listening to you, they are setting or you are setting an example that will set them up for success in the future. Like I said, personally and professionally, probably a lot of people out here in the world listening to

this are in relationships, man or woman, or I guess everything in between in 2022. And like I said, I'm completely lost on that conversation. But regardless of who you are and where you are, how about earning your place in the relationship? How about not becoming complacent and taking the other person in the relationship that you are in for granted? And every day that you wake up, you do the best that you can to earn the place that you have in somebody else's heart. I mean, holy shit, right? How much better would we be off as a society if every morning people thought about the best way they could earn their place in society in this country and any country in the world? Like I said, it's personally and professionally.

I could sit here for hours and people could have to be. ask me like, well, what about it in this business setting or that business setting or in this position? It all applies. Regardless of what position that you have that you hold, make sure that you are worthy of it and always strive to be doing better. And I think that's all you can do with this experience that you've had in the past. But what a better way to move on than to leave that experience. And instead of trying to put it down, light that torch on fire and let it illuminate the path for you going forward. That's the best piece of advice that I can give for you. That's what I am trying to do. And like I said, Tony, he, there was such an awesome comment.

I'm sure I've heard it before, but in that setting, it just hit me like a ton of bricks. And maybe that's what I'll close with for this Friday. For everybody listening to this, get out there and earn your place. See you Monday.