Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 14

Episode Date: August 14, 2020

Rapid-fire Q and A with a five-minute time cap to all answers: 1. Thoughts on various military occupations outside of SOF 2. BJJ/MMA training during Covid-19 3. Advice on returning home from deployment 4. Suggestions for someone looking for a good CrossFit gym 5. Are we headed towards a revolution, how would it play out 6. The one thing left on my bucket list 7. Is the Danny's burger as good as the legend says they are.. Enjoy

Okay, got the red smoke. Gun runs, north and south. West of the smoke. West of the smoke. Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. Come on winter, baby. Give it to me.

I need it. You're cleared hot. Copy, cleared hot. What's going on, ladies and gentlemen? It's Friday morning. Actually, fuck, I hope you're not listening to this Friday morning. This would be a rough wake-up call to a 5 a.m. But it is full auto Friday.

And you know the deal. I got some questions. I got five minute time limit. But I actually really enjoyed the Twitter Q&A at the end. So I tried to hook people up this week and actually give them a chance to answer because last week I think I gave them about 20 minutes. And that wasn't fair or enough. So I have three questions pick out. And I will do my best to hold myself to that five minute time limit.

And then beyond that, what we're going to do is some quitter. quitter, well, we are going to talk about buds a little bit, so quitters will probably come up. Twitter, rapid fire, Q&A. Haven't even looked at the questions. I'll pull up my phone and we'll take a look at them. Here we go. Also, before here we go, for everybody who has reached out last week, I explained how to, the easiest way to submit a question, holy shitballs. I was not prepared for the volume of messages that I got, but I can't thank everybody enough for taking the time to actually

send them in. So I'm doing my best and I'm trying to pick topics that I haven't covered and topics that aren't always the same. Most of the questions were military based. I get it because of my background. But if I'm being totally honest, military questions are not my favorite because I would like to move past that at some point. Having said that, here we go. First question comes from Scott. And just for people who know who write in, I'm only at best going to use your first name. I'm sure most people want some level of anonymity. So here we go. First, I want to lead with the United States of America is the greatest country in the world because of its citizens.

That being said, I have heard many people in the military in general and the special operations community in particular lament their recruiting issues with young people. I believe there are plenty of young people who love America and want to serve. But maybe they feel like I am not the ranger or the sea. type? What are some cool military occupational specialties that you had touchpoints with in your career that could make you think if I hadn't become a seal, that might have been a cool job. I think I heard you got your pilot's license, so rotary or fixed wing aviation is an easy answer. But I geek out on the pilot stuff too, so throw that in there. Then there's a bonus question at the bottom. We'll get to that. All right, Scott, I like this question because the military, if you look at

special operations, I don't know the exact percentage of military members who are in the special operations community, but it's super small. So it makes total sense that most people, when they are talking about the military or their desire to serve in the military, they're not going to lead with that. It's a small percentage of people who are drawn to that career path. And the advice I want to give is to anybody who is looking at the military in general for any type of service, because I often get these questions. And what I will say and open with is that the military is going to get their pound of flesh out of you. You need to understand you are going to sign, you are going to sign an enlistment contract, and you are going to be held to that contract, absent some very bizarre circumstances

that may allow you out of that. And that's okay. If you go into it with that understanding, you should also take into that situation the understanding that you too can get your pound of flesh. It's going to be a give and take, and the military is going to take priority most times over your personal desires and goals. But there really is something in the military for, I think, everybody. There are people who can go for job training. There are people who can go for educational benefits. There are people who could go to escape their socioeconomic situation and kind to elevate themselves in that standing and climb the ladder out of wherever they are. I serve with all of those people.

What I would say is determine what you want to do. Rotary wing and fixed wing aviation, Scott, say specifically, those would have been really cool options. And it goes beyond just the person flying the aircraft or the one or two people flying the aircraft. If you're interested in aviation, but more on the mechanical side of the house, or the design side of the house, or the engineering side of the house, they have specialties for that in each one of the military services.

Oftentimes people make a joke about military intelligence, but I often found them to be very interesting people to talk to. And they specialize in some of them, human intelligence or signals intelligence. I saw weathermen and women who specialized. They were, you know, essentially exactly what you would see. I don't know the training for somebody you see doing the weather on the news, but these people were specialists in the weather. And we would rely on them in our briefing process as well. There are people, you know, I was in the Navy, obviously, which is most people would probably think boats and submarines. To me, that's not my cup of tea.

I did not enjoy my time on either of those platforms. But there were people out there who totally did. And they would geek out. And I say that in the most positive way because they enjoyed what they were doing on whatever their job was, whether that be a radar scope operator or a radio man or people who are working on sonar. The stuff and the programs or, you know, nuclear propulsion. I mean, there's people in there who are doing physics for a living, incredibly intelligent, enlisted men and women, you know, keeping nuclear submarines from fucking exploding, which I hope is not that hard of a job, but I suspect that it is because it's a nuclear engine. You could become a specialist in weaponry and work on weapons. You could go the military police route. I mean, I could go on and on and on. And I think it's less about what would have been cool to me. and more about what is cool to each individual who is looking at military service.

You could, to a degree, look at military training or military service as vocational training. You could absolutely come out of a three, four, three, four, five, six year enlistment and be head and shoulders above, if not at least equal to your peers in the civilian sector in whatever vocation you may have chosen. So in addition to that, there's the educational benefits, there's the health care, and all of the other programs that are open and available to veterans. There's an amazing amount out there. Some of them you have to research and find on your own, but that's the way that it should be. It's not going to be spoon-fed to you. It really is a matter of sitting down and determining not only what you want to do in the military, but what you want to get out of your service. if you know you're not going to be a lifer, which is totally fine. I think most people in the military don't do 20 years in a wake up to get retirement.

Define your end state and where you want to be before you go in. That would be the advice that I would give myself. I got out at 17 years. I would have stayed until 20. My body was not going to support that. But if I had known I was going to get out at 17 or 15 or 10 or whatever it may be, the advice I would give my younger self is, regardless of occupation, define your end state and where you want to be so that you have a target on the wall, you can march towards your entire time.

And you can say yes to schooling or programs or no to schooling and programs that might be offered to you. So you'll be better off than when you went in. Because four years in the military, if you don't have a plan for yourself, trust me, the military will occupy four years of your time. And you will, at the end of that, if you're not thinking about getting out, you'll have probably a little bit more money in your pocket, a little bit more life experience. but where you are in that moment in comparison to where you could be, man, it's the width of the

Grand Canyon metaphorically. And I hope that helps, Scott. I'm going to skip your bonus question because it's about snacking when you're drunk. Really, the answer to that is eat whatever you want to. Question number two from Dave. I just started my 10-year-old son in MMA class, mixed martial arts class. I think most people know what that is, but you know, never know. So there you go. He was bored at home and lonely as an only child during this quarantine. I bet. That's a tough one. We wanted him to start last year, but his schedule was full of other sports. Missouri is still allowing gyms to operate and they aren't really practicing social distancing, which I get. That's going to be pretty tough to do an involved MMA class

with legitimate social distancing the entire time. Dave continues. I am torn because I'm a huge proponent of what MMA and combat sports can do for kids, and anyone really. But I'm a little concerned about the health risk for him and us. I know it is risky to be in the gym right now, but who knows when things will get back to normal? What is your stance on attending training during COVID and what decision have you made for yourself and your family? I should also say that you say thank you for preaching the podcast. positive aspects of BJJ and MMA, you and another podcast.

I regularly listen to have renewed my desire to get my son involved, and I'm also looking at starting back up. Thanks and stay safe. Dave. Well, that's awesome. I think you absolutely should get back in there and get started up. I'll start with my stance on this. If I'm being totally honest, I have not stopped training since this entire process has

played itself out. For the following reasons. And I'm going to go back to something you said in your email to answer this. You said, I know it's risky to be in the gym right now. And I agree with you, Dave, on that to a degree. Risk is something that I have been looking at and trying to assess, manage, and mitigate ever since I joined the military. You know, they call it the ORM cycle in the Navy, the operational risk management cycle.

In that circle, in that cycle, you will never. take the risk of something to zero. And that doesn't mean that you should ignore risk, because let me be very clear. There's two distinct buckets. There is risking or accepting risk, and then there is gambling. I will never gamble with my life or the life of people that I care about, but I am, always have been, and I suspect always will be comfortable and willing to absorb risk. As long as I am paying attention to it, it has been assessed, analyzed, and mitigated to the best of my ability. The reason I chose to continue training, there's a few. One, I was able to find a very small group of people to consistently train with,

and all of us were managing our social contacts and our travel, if there was any. So I felt very comfortable with the level of risk of being exposed in that environment. Two, you look at the number one risk factor when it comes to COVID-19, or the number one and the number number two. Seems to be age and obesity. So I'm not yet into the age category where I would be the highest risk and I'm certainly not in the obesity category. And the reason for that is, is I try to stay incredibly active and I take responsibility for my own health. So I don't eat like a fucking garbage disposal and expect my metabolism to be great or my body fan index, whatever it may be. I try to eat healthy and I train outside of Jiu-Jitsu as much as I can and I stay active because

I want to be a healthy person because health, my health is my personal responsibility. And then I looked at the mortality rate of COVID-19. And for where I am, not being an obese person with people that would allow me to manage my contacts, knowing what that would do to my mental health, which would probably be the number one thing in this environment that would spiral me out of control, I made the informed decision to willingly accept that threshold of risk to myself and to the people that I might be potentially exposed to. Everybody is going to have a different level of risk that they are comfortable with, but that one fit well within any boundaries that I have for myself and any risk that I thought of transmitting anything to others. And throughout that entire time period,

this last, I don't even know how long it has been, six, seven months. I have not felt ill a single time. If I had, I would have stopped training. I would have isolated myself the instant that I felt bad and I would have notified people, but that never happened, nor did it happen to anybody that I was training with. Now, I live in Montana, so we're slightly more geographically disparate, smaller populations. This may not work for everybody, but everybody has the ability to do their own risk versus reward. So that's my take on why I have continued to train. They're not going to really be able to socially distance if you take your son to an MMA class. I, I agree with you.

And this goes back to what you are willing to tolerate when it comes to that risk perspective for your own family. I think the benefits for young men and women learning how to handle themselves in an environment where violence may be present, where they are going to learn the ability to control the violent situation, to be comfortable in a violent situation, to not be bullied, to have the tools to take care of themselves. again depending on where you live those are the things that i'd be putting in the other category the opposite side of risk you know m ms is great to me when i read that i see that as a combination of striking in jiu jutsu largely so on your feet on the ground i hear people all the time talking about jiu jitsu as a superpower i was actually having this conversation today with one of

my coaches. Jiu-jitsu is not a superpower. I really wish that people would stop saying that. It doesn't stop bullets. And if somebody jumps in when you're on the ground and they have eight friends there, you're going to get your face soccer kicked into the next century. It gives you the ability to do some pretty incredible things to people who are untrained and largely to people who are trained. But if you think it's a superpower, you are, in my opinion, setting yourself up for a long-term disaster. It is not a superpower, but it's an amazing skill. It will feel like a superpower when you are physically rolling with or hands on with somebody

who doesn't have any training. But that is about it. And please keep that in the back of your mind. But it's so wildly beneficial that for me, in my life, it outweighed the risk of exposure. And Dave, I know you're probably asking or wanting for a more specific answer. And I can't give it to you because I don't know your family situation. I don't know the situation at the gym, but I would go in there and I would look at how they are cleaning. Are they taking care of the mats?

Are they taking care of the equipment? Are they taking every possible step that they can to be as hygienic as possible? Are they advocating for hand washing? Do they have a bucket on the ground when you step on and off the mats where you can clean your feet? Do they have hand sanitizer out? You know, make sure people are washing their geese. They're stressing hygiene for people coming to class with clean equipment. not used equipment. There's a lot of stuff that you can do, and I have not traveled around to a lot of

schools, but I have heard some horror stories from people who have. So make sure that the gym is doing everything that they can, and then you're going to have to sit down and make the decision for yourself. And hopefully that helped at least a little bit. Last one before we go into the Q&A. This is from Chandler. Hey, Andy, any advice or tips from coming back from a deployment? I am in the U.S. Army Reserves, and this is my first deployment, and in the process of coming home, parentheses, which sucks, I hear you and a host of other vets talk about transitioning and how it can be stressful on the individual and those around that person. I'm in a relationship, not married, and going back to a good job when I am home. Any advice is much appreciated? Love what you do.

I had to think about this one for a second, because I do have advice, but I was trying to figure out the most effective place to start, or the number one piece of advice that I would start. with. And the more I thought about it, because I don't know if this is a combat deployment, I don't know where you were in the world, I don't know what you did on your deployment. So I wanted to go a little bit broad. My advice, number one step, is expectation management. Whether you were involved in daily combat or you were just deployed for six months, eight months, 10, 12 months, whatever it may be, there has been a gap in your physical presence with the people that you worked with and the person that you're in a relationship with. You probably were communicating

at a level that was less than when you were face-to-face. The individuals that you worked with, they continued on with their life when you were gone. And your significant other likely had to be much more independent. Again, and this is broad because I don't know your specific relationship, but if you had a healthy relationship, they're going to have to develop some level of independence because, quite frankly, you were just gone. When you get back, it doesn't unwind all of that stuff. What it'll actually do, well, I can't say actually. What it may do is throw a little bit of a hiccup into everybody's daily life to include

yours. I have no doubt that the person you're in a relationship with will be very happy to have you back in his or her life. But if they have developed a sense of independence and they have been, you know, taking charge of things that you normally would take charge of, don't come right back in and try to come over the top and do everything. And also don't expect it to be perfect, either at your old job or in your relationship. And that's where I stay expectation management.

It's okay if it's not perfect when you come back. I would almost say you should expect it to not be perfect when you come back. when you come back and allow a little bit of space for the inhale and exhale, the natural expansion and contraction of that relationship and give it time to integrate back in smoothly. What I would recommend you not do is come in over the top, swinging for the fences, trying to be the big boss everywhere, come back in, listen more than you talk, and be grateful that you're there. Be grateful that you're there. Be happy that you're there. Enjoy the relationship with your significant other. Enjoy the fact that you're going back to a good job and hopefully the people that you're working

with, you enjoy them as well. And then, you know, in addition to that, if you were on a combat deployment in my own headspace, I often found that a lot of the decisions that people were spending a lot of time, energy and effort, just sitting there worrying about, when I got back, the decisions that didn't even matter to me because I was used to a very black and white headspace of life or death decisions and anything beneath that. It was just like you took this stereo and you drove everything down to a two and overseas, it was up at a 10. Be very cautious, being dismissive to the struggles of others or the things that other people are bothered by when you get back. If you think they're insignificant in comparison to what you just came from, do yourself a favor

and everybody else a favor. Keep your mouth shut and let people work through their own issues. Very few people, if you're coming from a kinetic combat deployment, or are going to understand what that environment is like, and that is exactly the way I wanted to be, because that means not a lot of people are actually living and working in that environment. It's a good thing. So, take a breath, take a breather realize your headspace may be different from others have some empathy have some understanding and try to enjoy the fact that your home enjoying the things that you just spent your first deployment with your toes on the line protecting and that is all I have for you Chandler I hope that helps I'm about to fire up my phone right now and it's going to get wild because

here we go rapid fire twitter q and a i have not looked at these questions holy shit there's 97 i'm going to go for the next five minutes here we go db what would you suggest someone looking to start crossfit look for in both a facility its coaches and its members love the podcast and guests i would say a couple things one and this actually goes to people looking for Jiu-Jitsu gym. Look for a diversity of members. If it's all 18 to 24-year-old men and they're trying to kill each other, it may not be the environment for you. I would look for a diversity in age and sex, and I would look for trainers that are approachable, that you can have a conversation with, that they seem genuine, and then I would go into the bathroom and take a look at how clean the

bathroom is, just like Mr. Frankel said on the full auto Friday, I had a home on with Travis Davison, go into the bathroom and see how much effort they put into cleaning the bathroom. Something I heard Greg Glassman say, and it is incredibly true. If they care about what they're doing, it'll look like you could eat dinner off the floor. They don't give a shit and it looks like a dumpster fire, perhaps go somewhere else. Do you think we are, Nick, do you think we are headed towards some kind of revolution and how do you think it would play out? Thanks. You have an awesome podcast. Thank you, Nick. I appreciate that. I do not think that we are headed towards some type of revolution. I think that the pendulum swings to the left and to the right and eventually it will

find its place in the middle. If we were to head towards a revolution and I'm going to use, maybe you're seeing things on the news like either Antifa or the protesters in Portland or Seattle or wherever they're consistently getting after it. How do I think that would actually play out if gun play specifically came into effect? What I think you would see is that those protests would vaporize almost overnight because the idea of carrying a gun and acting like you're a badass and then getting into a gunfight with a trained individual or a team of individuals is who quite a stark difference they would get their asses handed to them and i think it would shut it down almost immediately and i don't want to see that happen at all i support the first amendment as much as i support the second

Amendment. But I really don't think we're heading down that path because I think at the end of the day, nobody actually wants that to happen because it wouldn't evolve our society at all. I think it would take our country in the opposite direction. What's one thing you would like to do, but haven't gotten the chance to do that? Let me tell you, you know what, I have the exact answer to this. I want to go to Ireland because I've never been. And I want to go to the Guinness factory because I've never been there and drink Guinness from the tap and then offer them whatever amount of money that they want to allow me to swim in the Guinness tank. That is the one thing that I would like to do. In all serious, just now, I would like to go to Ireland and go see the Guinness Factory. What are some of your

favorite dishes that the Afghans and Iraqis cooked? I know community relations was important, so I figured you guys would sit down for dinner with them at times. Let me just tell you something. If forced between Afghani and Iraqi food, I would choose starvation. I could got so sick in both countries from local food that I would go to the dinners and I would pick at the things that I could recognize and I would drink more water than anything and lose weight and not eat the food. I have never been so sick in my life and I'm not talking down about Iraqi or Afghaning food, but I'm saying I've had bad experiences at both. I've never been extremely exploratory with my food choices as it is. So yeah, I choose starvation. Are you surprised

that tactical asshole actual was not banned? from IG lately. Yes, I am because I put that video back up of the dude blowing his head off and it actually stayed up. I consider that a victory over the internet. Recommended training in addition to BJJ. This is Ethan. I would say stand up of some kind. Here's the thing, manage all of your ranges and distances. So I would say manage the range when somebody has their hands on you and you can't get them off, which would be grappling and largely Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and then some striking distance. And then you know what? There's something that can add to that distance and that would be a gun if you feel comfortable doing that manage all of your

distances be competent and deadly in all of them and then you're really not going to have to worry about anybody doing anything Aaron Kaiser is a frogman burger from danny's all that it's cracked up to be I can't say I've had the frogman burger burger but they're talking about is the danies restaurant on orange avenue in Coronado the hamburgers in there are lights out good If you ever go to Coronado, go to Danes, and get a hamburger. With it, I would go with a Guinness. How accurate and badass was the act of valor hot extraction scene? I refuse to watch that movie.

I don't know what the scene is, but I'm going to say it was absolute dog shit. Matthew Webster, red velvet cake or chocolate cake, both and I'd eat him at the same time. I could put both pieces of that on one fork and shove that in my face. Brian Blankenship, a female friend of my daughter, is joining the Navy with the goal of going to buds. Other than don't quit any particular advice for a young woman who intends to pursue that path. Damn, that's interesting question. Off the top of my head, I would say expect no quarter from anybody. You either go in with the ability to achieve the standards and exceed them, or you should expect that you are going to get shit canned, period. The standard should be blind. She should expect no special

treatment, and I wish her the absolute best of luck. Who's the best archer out of you, Jocko or Rogan? I would leave that up to Dudley. How much auto is too much auto? Depends on what you're talking about. Are we talking about a car or a gun? My theory on guns when it comes to fully automatic is there's two types of people that use them. Actors and assholes.

You can pick which one you would like to be. Which dress blues uniform is the best. The Marine Corps have the best looking Class A uniforms. Hands down, anybody who says different can go fuck themselves. Pete Duffy, if you could interview anybody from the past, or present, who would it be? I'm going to go with Adolf Hitler. I would interview him and then choke him to fucking death. That way, we wouldn't have to deal with his bullshit. Last one. I'm trying to find a good one here. Do you. Have I shot a mule deer yet? If so, how big was it?

We'll end on this, because it's almost hunting season. Yes, I have shot one mule deer. Full disclosure, I have shot it many more mule deer, but I've killed one. How big was it? It was about 10 hands. And that is it for Full Out Friday. If you guys got questions, send them the same way you did. Any of the contact buttons on Andy Stumpf.com or Clearhot Podcast. Please put Full Auto Friday in the subject line so I can Google search it easily. See you next Friday.