Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Full Auto Friday - Round 36 with Jason Tuschen

Episode Date: January 15, 2021

Rapid-fire Q and A with retired 27 year Navy SEAL Jason Tuschen.  Jason spent ten years as a Master Chief (E9) in the SEAL community, so it would only be appropriate to open with some leadership-related questions.  1. I'm trying to advance in my company but keep getting passed over, when is it time to move elsewhere 2. Toxic leadership 3. What do you expect from others, and yourself in leadership positions 4. I feel like I am falling apart emotionally and physically, and I just a pussy 5. How do students shit during Hell Week Enjoy

Okay, got to red smoke. Okay, so totally shifting gears. You were just on a completely technical call that was largely and likely over both of our heads. 100%. I still struggle spelling IBM properly. Yeah, yeah, I can see that. So Friday episodes, it started actually. Actually, I think this might be like the 36th round. So I do one a week, so I'm over half a year into it. But trying to keep up with Q&A, which is tough. I get a lot of questions.

I try to pick topics that are, they come in like tranches. So I'll try to pick one from that and move on, so it's not repetitive. But having you on, having your background on leadership should probably be the soup de jour. Good times. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to go right in. I try to limit it to five minutes for your answer.

So it's a little bit of an economy of thought. idea. I go all, I used to have the name and then I went all anonymous so people don't worry about sending in a question. So actually, some of them you can kind of tell, or I assume that it's a guy. And others, you can't. So describe it in whatever terms make you feel comfortable. Question one, I'm having a debacle with my current employer and would appreciate your thoughts on the situation. Some background info. I'm a garbage man and have been for eight years. do you know any garbage men? There was a, so I went to boot camp in San Diego.

This guy, he was, I don't know, he must have had an age waiver. He was so old, but he was a garbage man and decided to join the Navy as a midlife crisis. Okay. I know none. That's the only one. Yeah, and that actually, don't worry, was not the question, but I just realized I don't know any garbage men. I started throwing trash on the back of a truck and slowly worked my way up to a driving position. I now hold the position of a driver.

trainer. I'm responsible for training all new hires within my business unit or area. While holding these positions, I put myself through college to obtain a business degree. Right on. Yeah, my aspirations lie with getting into a leadership slash management role. I've applied for several leadership roles on multiple occasions, but continuously get passed up. They always end up hiring some tool bag that lasts a short period of time, but I'm starting to lose faith in the process and that I may not have a shot at moving up. I would appreciate any recommendations you would have towards this situation. Do you think it's time to move on to a different company or continue to cross my fingers that they'll eventually select me? I have an interview tomorrow, 1-5-2021. So this has

already occurred. Hopefully it went well for a supervisor role and I'm tossing my eggs or all my eggs in this basket for this one. So do you stick it out? Should he move on? Suggestions from a leadership is that perspective. I mean, change is hard. and it's uncomfortable. It scares people. But sometimes it's the right thing to do. It kind of sounds like it's, you know, no pun intended, a toxic work environment in that they don't appreciate the effort he's put in. I mean, if I was in that company and you see it, when you see somebody who is grinding it out, you know, year after year and showing loyalty, the, loyalty is a two-way street. You know, this guy, gal is obviously loyal to the company. And doing it. And doing

additional stuff outside of the company to better himself. Like taking the, I mean, that's, that is no joke. I mean, I did that, you know, trying to, you know, be a full-time active duty senior chief and master chief at the time and knock out a business degree. It was a, it was a pain in the ass. And it was, and so I think, honestly, I mean, you might be time to look for greener passage, you know, someplace where the loyalty goes both ways. How long would you wait if you were in somebody's any business? How much time would be appropriate for you to smash your head against that door before you start looking at other options? You know, I think after the second or third Passover with a tool bag, as you said, that might be the... One of my favorite descriptors, by the way.

Three strikes you're out. That's a great one. Three strikes you're out, I think. You know, You can't appreciate the hard work I'm doing. Why am I going to remain loyal and, you know, bust my ass for you guys? Yeah, I agree. That's one thing about leadership. I don't think people discuss enough is the loyalty aspect going both directions. Totally. If they're going to continue to hire outside and have repetitive failure, I would say that's, you know, you got little Rudolph's red nose going off that perhaps it's time to check something else out.

I mean, you want to, it's good to hire outside as well. You don't want to have, because you want to avoid groupthink at all costs. So it's good to have a fresh set of eyes come into your organization. But also you want to have that balance with, you know, growing your own leaders from within as well. Yeah. But injecting those fresh set of eyes. So yeah, so whoever this is, Guy, Gall, whatever your name may be, hopefully that you now have a supervisory role. Yeah.

And if not, I would say perhaps now is the time. Yeah, but right on for, you know, grinding it out, you know, laboring and then working on that. degree in getting it. That's, uh, my hat's off to you. That's no joke. Same. Okay, question two. Dr. Andy. I am a doctor. I tell people that I am, by the way. Right on you and J.T. Yeah, I have a PhD in talking shit and being sarcastic. Yes, you do. Longtime listener, first time caller. Full Auto Friday question about toxic leadership. Have you encountered toxic leaders throughout your travels, specifically ones who were afraid to make decisions that would force them to have to explain themselves or ask permission from hire? Any

situations that stand out to you and how did they play out for better or worse. Jason, have you ever seen toxic leadership in your travels throughout the SEAL community? Seen a few. Yeah, it's really, yeah, it's, uh. So in broad, well, we're best probably answering this in broad terms, very broad out of it, but what stands out to you when it comes to toxic leadership? Uh, you know, it almost, I'm a, I love root cause analysis, uh, you know, Admiral Losey got me hooked on that. when there's a problem, get down to the root cause of it. Treat the problem, not the symptoms. Yeah, and it almost always, with bad leadership, boils down to arrogance in many ways.

Like, the ones I've seen have, they, and we talked about it in the podcast a bit, the, you know, passion versus emotion, right? Passionate leaders, they are, they love the problem and really want to find a solution. the arrogant, the emotional leaders love their solution to the problem, and they don't really listen. And, you know, people want to go to work for somebody they like, right? And they're going to bust their ass for you if they like you. But, you know, part of that is empowering them. You don't, no company, seal teams or Fortune 500 company or the, you know, the SciLabs in our store,

the companies I work with now. We don't go out of our way to hire buffoons and idiots. You hire good people. Who sometimes turn into buffoons and idiots. They can't. I mean, yeah, you get it right as we watching the news. You know, sometimes we get it wrong. But we get it right about 90% of the time, and I think that's probably standard throughout, you know.

That's, I would say that's a pretty damn successful rate. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're talking about human beings. Sometimes it's a coin toss. It is a, I mean, the humans are a gray area. You never know what you're going to get. But so you hire intelligent people and you want to empower them, right? And those kind of toxic leaders don't do that.

They don't empower people. They struggle explaining why you're doing something. Like my first experience in the SEAL teams, I remember calling my dad and talking to them about this, was like, you know, my first platoon were sitting in a room. And I was shocked that, you know, a guy with one platoon under his belt would question the OIC of the platoon. Like, why are we doing that? and but it was it was good because the OIC would fire back here's why and lay it out and those toxic leaders really don't do that and I think it's because they're either unsure of themselves or they don't know

why they're doing it or they don't have the courage to stand up and ask why to their higher-ups but or how about their higher-ups in the chain or how about you ask the why to your chief to your LPO who are below you technically in the rank period right solicit guidance and feedback I mean How valuable is a seasoned troop chief or platoon chief? Oh, my God. I mean, fuck. They are the knowledge nucleus of that. But they're junior.

I mean, this most junior ensign is senior to the most senior E-9. Yeah, right. We can agree that's not. You brought that up to me. In fact, when you put on your little answer on butter bars. You can call me, sir, now if you want to. It's fine. But here's the, I mean, like, that's how it be on rank paperwork.

If you're actually trying to live that in reality, stand by. Because that E9 might just take you behind the connex boxes and knock your fucking teeth out. You should. Absolutely. So that's, but again, I didn't go to the academy. I've had great experience with academy officers. Also, not some great ones. Totally.

But they go through, I have to guess, a lot of classes on leadership and probably some management stuff. And a lot of people, I think, actually confuse leadership and management from time to time. Yeah. But they're thrust into a position where they are in charge because it's a rock paper rank organization. but the dude working right underneath them, that seven, probably getting ready to put on eight. It's probably got two decades of experience. 100%.

That's a tough place to be. Yeah. I mean, actually, you're in that spot right now. You're the CEO of a tech company. Correct. And you know more about tech than me now because you're working one, but we're both morons in that field. Oh, 100%.

I mean, and I'm reminded of that 10 times a day when I talk to the team. I'm just like, man, I'm a dumb ass. But you're recognizing that, and I've listened to you on calls for the last few days or been around when you're doing work, you know, you're there leading, not trying to do their jobs. You're letting the experts in the field do their expert stuff. And for me, in the community,

I mean, I tell people when they ask about leaders, I'm like, listen, the best leaders that I ever worked with were in the SEAL teams, comma, the worst leaders I've ever worked with or not seen some bad ones. Yeah, was that your experience too? Yeah, well, for sure. And one of the biggest things was they just, it was all about them, like you said,

they loved the solution, not the problem. They wanted to be the person to be able to raise their hand and say it was my plan. And they just wouldn't. It's arrogance, man. And they wouldn't ask why. My favorite question, and especially when it came to things like I ads, immediate action drills, or maneuvering around, or a clearance tactic. Just to say to people, hey, why do we do this?

100%. And if you can't tell me why, it's okay. Because we can fill in that background of knowledge. We can backfill that. But if you're cool with not knowing the why, I'm not cool with that at all. No, guys will eat a shit sandwich if you explain why they're going to do it, why this is important. And a lot of the failures in leadership I've found over the years have been not explaining why, not having a good answer. And then you couple that with an arrogance going, we're going to do it anyway.

It's like, that's the wrong answer, particularly when you have a high performing team, you have a group of talented people, which, like I said earlier, that's what you try to hire to. They're more than capable of understanding why you're doing it. And as a leader, if I can't explain the why, I probably need to rethink what the hell I'm doing. Yeah, and dive into being able to figure out that why. Oh, totally. And the end of this, you know, how did it play out for better or worse? And I don't know why this is the case. But in the leaders that I was around that I would describe being the most toxic, at the end of the day, it impacted them very little.

But it had a tremendous impact on the people that were around them. Totally. So the way it played out is they somehow survived. Right. And it augured in the people that were around them. To the point, some people are like, you know what? I don't want to be a seal anymore. I'm out of here.

Oh, totally. That's where, I mean, he saw a lot of that. I saw it with a lot of JOs, and you saw it with, you know, that kind of E5, E6, like, why the hell would I? You know, one bad leader will, you know, you can lose a talent that, you know, for good. Question three. Touch longer. 24 years old young man who just got promoted into a managerial position at my workplace, and I have not yet had the opportunity to lead a team. in a civilian institute. As I am close to finishing my bachelor's degree study in general management,

I more than often had the opportunity to read books and articles about leadership, but as I said, I have never had the chance to practice it. You've mentioned your podcast before that while you're in the military, you experienced some of the greatest as well as some of the worst kind of leadership. As a part-time soldier myself, I absolutely agree. As the military service in Switzerland is mandatory, There are many young and unexperienced men in leadership positions, and of course, some of them just do a horrible job in leading. Just trying to be the alpha male of a group obviously does not make you a good leader. I could not fucking agree with that more. Yeah, that's so spot on.

I would like to do a better job in leading as those above mentioned leaders, and I'm trying to find out what I should do or not do or how I should behave to be a good leader. I am well aware that there is a ton of literature which I could consult, but believe me, that's basically what I did for the last couple of years. Your analytical and clear mind of way of thinking about things impresses me. This is why I would like to hear your opinion about what it takes to be a good leader and what you personally expect from your leaders and from yourself if you are in a leadership position. That's a great question. Great one.

You know, to start off with, when he says he doesn't have any experience leading, that's not true. And I think a lot of military guys and gals when they get out, they don't realize the depth of knowledge and leadership they actually have because they're either in the military, you're either you're leading or you're being led. At all times. At all times. And so it might be you leading yourself or leading one other person or you know, you're or you know, you're being, or you're a good follower and you're underneath another leader. And so you have the experience in leadership. you've seen good and bad in that environment. And so, you know, I think there's a lot of the military, a lot of vets have a lack of confidence

that it translates to the private sector. I'm telling you flat out, it's the same thing. Especially if they had what they would consider be less than average experience or lower that average rank. Sure. That seems to really color their opinions on their ability to lead as well or their experience with it. Yeah.

And I can tell you firsthand that even those junior, you know, You know, in E4, E5 getting out of only a couple years, and they still know how to lead. And they're farther ahead of their age group in knowing that leadership. But in terms of, I mean, there's a thousand books out there, right? But, you know, you can really just keep it simple, right? One, don't be a dick. I mean, be humble. Being humble is huge.

No. Well, be a dick sometimes. Be an asshole. There's a fine line there, right? which I flirted with throughout my entire career. I will verify that for the entire audience. But the, you know, keep it simple, right? Don't overthink it.

Be humble. Know where you're weak and know your strengths and try to capitalize your strengths and your weaknesses, you know, look at, know what your week, be very cognizant of your weaknesses and then find those people who are going to complement your strengths and weaknesses, right, and get them involved. And I mean, the default position needs to be lead by example. You set the tone, right?

If you're in a leadership role, all eyes are on you whether you want it to or not. I mean, that was a lesson learned perpetually throughout my career. You know, if me as a, here's the best example on leading by example. Gary Richard, one of the most humble dudes I know, the Commodore of Group 1 when I was a CMC. You know, the public works was terrible. about mowing the grass at Group 1. Now, the Group 1 building at the time was, it's the oldest building on the base.

It's... You're talking about the one just inside of NAB on the left? Yeah, it was built in World War II. No, that building was built shortly after Washington crossed the Delaware. Oh, my God, yeah. As soon as they figured out what asbestos was, and they filled the building with it. Let's make the entire building of asbestos.

Oh, my God, that was a pain in the ass. But, so it looked shitty on the outside, because the grass is a remote. So one weekend, you know, he puts on his little... Patriots hoodie and his cut off shorts and he's out there mowing the grass. It's like an acre with his pushmower. Just so happened that, you know, some junior kid was coming into work that day to catch up on some stuff, you know, it's on a Saturday. And that spread like wildfire. And guess what? We never had to field day the building because the entire organization made sure shit was picked up

all the time and kept clean because if the boss is out. Because they didn't want to see the Commodore doing it. Yeah, right. And it was, it just said a great example. And I think, You can always, you know, that's a default position. It's just set the standard and be aware of your weaknesses and just always be humble, right? Yeah, and you know, no words were said in that. That's leadership absent having to sit there and break people down or yell at people. And oftentimes, I mean, you look at the movie Full Metal Jacket, which is fucking amazing. It's awesome.

And obviously the Marine Corps drill instructor who was hired to be the technical advisor, and I guess the actor just couldn't get it. And they're like, you're in, dude. It's the best 15 minutes in any moment. It's insane, but a lot of people I know think, oh, that's what military leadership is. It's like, listen, that's boot camp. Right. And also, that's Marine Corps boot camp.

Right. Where they're transitioning you from civilian fuck wit to military fuck wit. So you've got to grind the gears and make the sausage a bit. Incredible amounts of oversight, incredible amounts of in your face over the top. Yeah. Leadership or guidance. But that's not the way that it generally is. Not at all.

Don't get me wrong. I got yelled at plenty of times when I was in the SEAL team. Sure. Each and every time, deserved. 100%. I didn't feel like I deserved it in the moment, but now that I look back, I'm like, yeah, well played. But that, you know, the Commodore out there and mowing the lawn is the exact opposite of that.

Totally. So I can think of a great example, too, on the East Coast, newer guy at Gold Squadron, and I would want to come in early in the morning and work out. And I remember doing, even in the wintertime in Virginia Beach, which, you know, not necessarily as cold there as it is here. 36 and raining. But, dude, the wind, you know, like doing an early morning run down to, the you know the south fencing back yeah and i would generally i'd go in early and i remember one time

i'm sitting like yeah dude i'm kicking ass and as i'm going to start my run my team leaner is finishing his run and he just gives me the little head like the little head and i was like damn it god damn it like i can do better like he set the example totally inspirational and aspirational right on never and he ever never said a word about it and then you know again we're surrounded by even at that command a few fat fucks yeah who were doing the opposite of that. And that's something you have to be cautious up, too, because people are looking at you if you're a leadership position. Oh, yeah. And if your words say one thing and your actions say another, totally. Be prepared for them to pay attention to the actions, not the words.

Oh, that's such a spot-on assessment. Yeah, and you do see that. It's, all eyes are on you all the time. You roll your eyes in a brief, and that whole point is lost. And I've done, I've made that mistake. I have also made that mistake. Yeah, and you just can't, you can't do that. You just need to be really above reproach in many ways. Behind closed doors, you can vent and show some emotion. To the right crowd. To the right crowd. Not to your subordinates.

Oh, absolutely not. But, I mean, I guess the wrap it all up for the veterans out there, I mean, you know more than you think. So it's good to have a healthy self-doubt in your abilities. I think that shows humility and it motivates you to improve. But also have some, you know, couple that with confidence. know more than you think you do. Yep. All right.

So the first three are on leadership. This one is a little bit different. I'm curious to get your take on this. A little bit long, too. So, Andy, I enjoy your podcast, and I've heard you speak about emails on your podcast, and you give insight, and I'm seeking advice. I'm having some issues with life and work, and I'm interested if you or anyone you know are experiencing my issues.

I'm active. Don't live off soda and donuts, and I preface with that due to some of my issues. I'm also a blue belt and jujitsu. I exercise regular at least at least. to the point of not being a fat slob, but the fight is daily. After a less than Banner childhood, I joined the Army National Guard, but due to timing, turned into about 3.5 years active in a deployment in 0203 to Afghanistan. My deployment was not all cool movie shit, but we still had to had some horrible what-the-fuck moments. Since then I have been in LEO for 16 years, mostly

in the detective field and have dealt with every horrible kid fucker, dead body, fill in the blank in that time. I don't know if I'm a pussy or it's just wearing on me, but I'm starting to have issues both physically and emotionally. I'm having difficulty focusing, memory issues, simple typing, spelling and trouble holding in my emotions. I'm no genius, but I hold a master's degree in public policy and sometimes it takes just an extra second to remember my daughter's name. It's not that I don't know it, it's just that it takes me an extra moment to find it. I used to be able to fall asleep on a scene at work, no matter how horrible. Now I have trouble. not crying in front of the family. Every joint my body is one bad day from giving up. I've had knee

surgeries and a pending shoulder. I feel like I'm falling apart both medically and emotionally. I just feel full like I can't deal with one more scene or one more asshole in the world. Are my symptoms anything you have ever experienced or heard from others when maybe somebody has or from maybe somebody who has seen were dealt with too much? Oh, thank God. I mean, that's like that that's PTSD and TVI in a nutshell, you know? It's a lot. It is a lot. And that's really commonplace, you know.

And I think, and it requires to be, like, the fact he's talking about it, it's huge. And it's finding people you can talk to about it. But there's also, I mean, there's treatments. Like we talked about the psychedelic treatments for that. Which I'm going to guess for this person, Elio, that's off the table. Sure. Absolutely. But, you know, it's, I mean, the bulk of the issues,

discipline issues we dealt with or unfortunately, like suicides. They were a manifestation of the, I described this stuff, and again, obviously, not an expert, but I described people's stress, the ability to handle stress. You know, I have a jug here that can hold a thousand milliliters of water. And maybe that's me. Yeah. And then there were other people that could hold a thimble. Right.

And then there were other people who were a redneck guzzler, 64 ounce. Yeah. And so all three of us could be in the same situation, and it starts filling up and filling up and filling up. Some people's will spill over. Others develop coping mechanisms that help drain it. But at some point, if you don't do something to deal with the volume increasing, it will splash over. And that is what I, when you're talking about the discipline issues. In my, you know, non-professional opinion, I would say a lot of that was manifesting from the stuff building up its side and just expressing and really shitty behavior or decision making. Yeah. And it's, you know, when he's like, am I a pussy?

You're like, no, absolutely not, right? Yeah. And you wouldn't have done it for 16 years and done all this stuff if you were a pussy. Right. Yeah. And you can't put like the same threshold on every single person. Everybody's going to react differently. And it's not you or your mental toughness.

It's just the way your brain's wired, man. And, you know, you can't. And it's really hard to fix that. And, you know, first and foremost, don't self-medicate. You know, I mean, how many guys do we know that their lives been ruined or they end tragically? Or ended up dead in their late. 30s, early 40s. Yeah, from just, you know, pounding booze every night and then getting hooked on drugs or whatever else, trying to find a way to cope. You know, and find those,

I think it's hugely important to talk and get a support group. I mean, you know, if there's a support group out there nearby where it's veterans or just talk to anybody who's another vet to air it out, you know, initially up until, you know, the mid-2000s, I think, it really wasn't addressed. And it was never addressed in Vietnam. And, you know. Almost a stigma attached, I would say, to a degree. Oh, completely. It's like, I post you.

It's like, no, negative, man. People, there's baggage that comes with it. That book on killing, I think, you know, when that came out and people started reading it, that's when you saw a paradigm shift. And certainly in NSW on the mental health aspect of it and like things like the third location, decompression stop. Yeah. And talking about it.

And I think once you kind of break the seal. on that and you start talking about it you realize there's you're not alone there's a thousands of others like you men and women who served and and again it's not you know it's not a there's no threshold for it you could see one thing and it can affect you for life or you could you know see a thousand things that you're fine you know you can't it's it's as unique as each individual is but i think uh you know talking about it's huge don't self-medicate uh you know you got pain maybe rethink how you're doing you're doing you're doing you doing your workouts and good quality

and nutrition is huge. You know, you see guys with it's, I think some of the studies are fascinating with a ketogenic diet and MCT oil and brain health. And I think you know, switch a memory years ago talking

to a dude who was in Gray team and with, he was, we were passing each other way. He's like, hey man, you remember when like on those rough nights you're throttling the boat and it's just you're not, how bad the nods were they kept going out every time he took a hard hit. I'm like, yeah, he's like, the nods were fine. That was your brain. I'm like, holy shit. And, you know, it's Pete's Cabell. He was out talking about it. And I'm like,

well, what do you do about it? And now things have evolved to, like, I said, the psychedelics and other treatments. But initially, he's like, the best success I had was kind of doing a keto diet or, you know, and really eating clean. And reset in your brain. 100%. And I think it does that. And then in terms of, you know, like all of us who did time in the military for extended periods, particularly on the East Coast there. When you retire and go under the MRIs and they're looking at your joints, you're like, holy shit,

you lit up like a Christmas tree and your body is beat up. So instead of trying to do try by Fran every day, I got smarter and switched to kettlebells and taking, you know, it's okay to take a walk as, you know, cardio. Yeah. This to me, it's so common.

I saw it in myself. I saw it in the SEAL community. I get a bunch of emails from ELEO like this. And it's just indicative of, I mean, if you're having trouble controlling your emotions or you're always at that point where you're going to lose control of it, that is indicative to me of an issue that you need to handle or the issue is going to handle you. Absolutely. And there's, so for the LEOs, I've had quite a few reach out because one of their main concerns is getting their badge and gun taken away. Sure. So I might be messing this up a little bit.

I don't know the size of your department, but I had a guy. reach out to me from New York City, basically saying that a lot of large organizations have people that you can get in contact with to talk to, even if you're not a part of that organization, if you're worried about the internal churn coming back to you. So reach out to other organizations or other guys that you know with the point of not stopping until you find a way to either talk with somebody or join a group or deal with this, because I understand the desire to not lose your badge and gun. Like, I totally get that. But I want you to get the help that you need as opposed to having something express on the job with your badge and gun.

Yeah. That's going to negatively impact not only you, but the entire occupation. And you're not going to really do it on your own. It's bigger than you, right? So you need, you know, if you try to big tough frog man it out by yourself, it's not going to end well. You know, it's— It'll handle you if you don't handle it. 100%.

It's okay to ask for help. And there's thousands of people out there in the same exact situation that—and it's good to see people talking about. about it and getting help because it's it fucking sucks man when somebody you know kills themselves or drinks themselves to death it's the worst tragic and it's preventable yeah shifting to the last question cherry on top I told you was coming this might be the most important question of the day long-time listener first-time caller after watching the buds documentary 234 I'm left with a perplexing question how and when do recruits take a shit during hell week or buds in general also what are some of the

other areas or topics not commonly discussed regarding buds Wow, man. And it's almost like... Truly a great question. It is a great question, and I'm going to completely embarrass myself here with the Hell Week story. So you remember the dude I talked about in the podcast who he quit the second he put the regulator in his mouth? Yes. So, but he was hard as hell in Hell Week.

And we're standing outside the Chow Hall on base there. NAB side? NAB side. you know, paddle out, protecting the boats. And there's no bushes, there's no port of shit or anywhere. I'm like, hey, perish. He's like, what's up, bro? I'm like, I have to take a dump, dude.

And he's like, bro, it's hell weak, man. It's the only time in life you can be able to get away with doing it. I'm like, I'm just trying to hold it in. I'm finally, I knew he had a hygiene inspection coming up, so I just cleared it out and just fired away. But, no, I mean, like, it, but. Buds is, so yeah, that was- People shit in buds everywhere.

I watched a guy shit while running on a four-mile time run and barely broke stride. Just kicked it out of his greens leg. Yeah. And just, like, a little bit of like one-leg at hopping, kicked out a fucking solid turd rock and then just continued on. It's terrible, man.

Like, we had a dude, like every conditioning run. Like, you had to be in front of him because he, you know, it was falling off his UD T shorts. But we had one, we were down at camp surf. And we were digging this giant ass hole in the sand. And the OIC was like of the training. He's like, you guys all look like you need to take shits. So lock arms, you know, forward march, march down to ocean, you know, waist deep.

Prepare to drop trow? Prepare to take shit, take shit. And like 30 dudes just ploop. Yeah. That's actually the most common way the student's shit in hell week because we go tell them to go into the ocean and they just take a shit. But yeah, like Bud's outside of Hell Week or, you know, people inking during not tying. Or pool comp. Yeah, there's been a few.

It's like octopus, man. It's the worst when it's just, and then you're like, oh, I understand why the combat training tank is 99% chlorine and 1% water as opposed to the other way. I tried to do that, not counting for all the, you know, all that kind of stuff in there. You watch kids swim in the pool for two hours straight and nobody gets out to go to the, bathroom. I did the math. It's like a 55-gallon drum of a urine in that pool every day. But there's enough time like the schedule as such. It's not, you know, it's not six months of 24-7 in your face. So, I mean, it's... That's probably the number one thing I think is not discussed. It's on most weeks. It's Monday through Friday, 6 a.m., well, maybe 5 a.m. until 5 p.m.?

Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lunch break in there. And you have time to go to the bathroom like a normal human being most of the time in training. That's Hell Week. And I think that's, or not Hell Week, that's first phase. And the second phase is a little bit more of a grind because the night shifts or the night dies, but. We still give them bathroom breaks. And food breaks and all sorts of stuff. Yeah. And I think that's one of the challenges of first phase, especially, is you have, you're done at five at night and you have all that time to think about all the shit you've got to deal with the next day because it's going to start all over again and equally as bad. Yeah, I've watched far too many human being shit, I think, for.

100% for like a you know a sample size of one just me like I've seen way too many strangers shit it's uh god it was the worst because we would make the person who shit usually upon passing out get a garbage baggie and then go and collect all the fucking particles that they could it's like god damn it yeah I know it's funny like you'd see it that not tying it would happen all the time anytime you're in a breath hold and like the 50 underwater too I'm sure that got a couple people Oh, yeah. Inking is the best way. Inking, yeah.

That's what it is. It's like, you'd be observing it, you see like a cloud. And it's like, oh, God damn it. Out of the pool. Yeah. And, yeah. What else? What else is not discussed about buds?

I mean, to be honest, it's pretty well documented at this point. I bet you you could go online and find a day-by-day schedule. Oh, totally. At least written by a student. Yeah, yeah. So if people are going to do that, are they looking to do that as, like, a training tool? Just be cautious. It may not be completely accurate.

But yeah, I don't know. And even if it is, you can't, what it looks like on paper is nothing what it's going to be like on land. Yeah. And maybe the only other thing that's not talked about as much is just how chafed some sensitive areas of your body get. Yeah. And then when I went through, you know, they switched the buttonfly camis, but we used to have those greens with the zipper. That's what I had. Oh, I mean, I caught myself in that quite a few times.

Oh, yeah, like an aggressive zip up. Yeah, yeah. And then you don't even know how to, I mean, you. You're just so emasculated at that point. You don't know. You're just kind of like, what do I do? What do I do? I can't.

You don't want to pull it down. It's, what's that scene? Something about Mary? Yes. How'd you get the beans about the Franks? God. They sprayed it with the antiseptic. Yeah.

I'm like, okay, I've seen that happen probably once a day and first phase with those greens. That's the best ending ever. On that note, let's get you to the airport. Fucking hey. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thanks for taking the time to tune in, whether you're listening on an audio only platform or you're watching on YouTube. I appreciate that you take the time every week to tune in. People ask me a lot, what can they do to help me spread the word? And the answer

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