Jocko Podcast - 216: Why You Should Do The Best You Can and Never Give Up. The Memory Endures, by Reg Curtis

Episode Date: February 12, 2020

0:00:00 - Opening  0:02:24 - The Memory Endures, by Reg Curtis--Analysis. 3:15:35 - Final thoughts and take-aways. 3:29:16 - How to stay on THE PATH. 3:48:07 - Closing Gratitude.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 216 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. In attack, most daring. In defense, most cunning, in endurance, most steadfast. They performed a feat of arms, which will be remembered and recounted, as long as the virtues of courage and resolution, have the power to move the hearts.

of men. And that right there is Winston Churchill speaking in honor of the British first airborne division at Arnhem. And he was actually making that statement on September 22nd, 1944, in which the battle was not actually even over yet. And we did cover that fateful battle on podcast 94 from the book called Metat-R-Nem by Jeffrey Powell. And it's just, it's an incredible book and an account of the British Airborne Division in that battle where they lost almost 75% of its strength. And from that point on was for all practical purposes, purposes out of the war.

So who were these men that made this stand? We saw one when we covered Jeffrey Powell's book, but obviously there were thousands more, each one a hero, and also each one a human being. And I recently got a book in the mail that someone sent me. And the book was written by one such, Man, one such human being.

The book is called The Memory Endures. And it was written by a man named Reg Curtis. So let's go to this book and meet and learn and honor a hero of a human being. Here we go. Chapter 1 is called Prelude to War. As a youth, I carried out milk. I carried out a milk round in the early morning and a newspaper round in the evening, earning four shillings a week, which helped towards the cost of the special clothing I needed as a choir boy at St. Augustine's Church near Grove Park Railway Station. When I left school in 1934 at the age of 14, I got a job at Elliott Brothers and electrical and mechanical engineers firm in Lewisham.

I cycled five miles to and from work Monday to Saturday and learned quickly under the watchful eye of the charge hand, learning how to operate a milling machine, center lathe, hydraulic press, and finally working as a capstan setter operator. I had to just read that part because you know you always hear about the old man who had to go five miles to work and five mile home uphill both ways. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Reg Curtis was doing it. After three years I was beginning to set. And by the way, he's like 14 years old at this time.

Just kind of FYI. So after three years, I was beginning to settle in for a long-term job when a series of small strikes put the damper on my enthusiasm. The persistent industrial action prompted my decision to join the army where such strikes were not tolerated. You kind of get the impression, this is a hard guy, right? He's, they're having strikes, whatever. He says, where can I go where that's not going to happen? Oh, I know, the Army.

My father had been in the Royal Army Service Corps, and my grandfather was the chairman of the Royal British Legion, so the Army seemed natural enough in my family. I was encouraged by my Uncle Fred, himself a regimental sergeant major. I chose the foot guards because after a short term of service, I would be acceptable to the city of London police. In those days, you had to be at least five feet, 10 and a half inches tall to be a policeman.

I was already 6'1 and still growing. I presented myself to the Guards recruiting office in London and enlisted with the first or grenadier regiment of the foot guards. And flowing forward a little bit, there was one Corporal Tucker, so now he's going through the boot camp scenario. There was one Corporal Tucker, my squad instructor who took great delight in marching us on to the frozen parade ground with extra zest, then put us on a charge if we slipped up so you not only received a sore rump, but also got extra parade as punishment. Another approach was to march us toward a large puddle and then give the order to mark time.

Come on, knees higher, he would shout from a safe distance, scrutinizing each man in turn and looking for any signs of crap. We were just numbers at Catterham though to this day I say it did me no harm as it instilled a self-discipline that has served me well through life That's what you're gonna get and you know you and I were talking earlier about Basically normal face basically look I'm not gonna show that this is not fun. I'm not gonna show and you were saying that you learn if you You can, if you say, look, no factor, right? No factor. I got to do this hard thing, no factor. Not, hey, I got to do this hard thing so I'm going to get mentally all fired up.

No, no, no, just no factor. And you learn over time that saying no factor, keeping it in your head, actually you get better at it. And all of a sudden, hard things, you just go, all right, I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to attack it. That's one of the things that this type of military training does. And even he's saying, look, the stuff that this guy's going to go through is. a thousand times harder than doing Mark Time March

on the parade ground for an hour thousands of times harder infinitely harder but there's a little lesson that he learned and plus he's British right and the Brits with the stiff upper lip that's like a whole culture at least it used to be

because the cultures changed a lot in Britain but this warrior culture of hey they're literally England if you think about it the stiff upper lip which is, hey, we're just going to go do it. That's the no factor culture of, hey, we got something to do. Cool, we're going to go do it. Watch this.

This is England. What do we got? What do you got? We got something hard for us? Cool. No factor. Stiff upper lip. Move forward.

Fast forward a little bit. So he gets, like one of his first jobs is, is sort of guarding the royal family. And so he does some of that and then moves on to kind of the regular. Army going back to look soon enough I left the glamour of Windsor and the comfort of Victoria Barracks behind and was sent to Pierbright in Surrey where every guardsman goes for fieldwork craft and firing on the open range. It was my duty to be able to handle and fire a gun in preparation to protect King and country in an emergency but trust my luck to have fallen foul of bad weather It was not really my cup of tea to prostrate myself on a wet and windstrap firing range With a sergeant breathing down my neck whispering words of encouragement and added supply of rainwater running over me in torrents from his ground sheet cape

This is this is not the way you would hear a US Marine describe being on the range in a rainy day You know, that's just such a British way of explaining this and then he continues on it must have done some good as I made first class shot though for what purpose I was not yet sure so guess what this is post-World World War I think I want to say this is 1939 when he enlisted so there's or maybe 30 maybe in 38 actually I think it's 37 yeah 1937 he joined the army so there's you know world war one was what 20 years in the past that was the war to end all wars sure there's a guy in Germany that might be getting a little uppity but he's saying hey look I'm I know I got to learn how to use this gun but not really sure

what I'm need to know how to do do this for. Continuing on, fast forward in a little bit. In early in 1939, I was transferred to the home of the British Army at Aldershot in Hampshire. I'll never forget the atmosphere of the night of the tattoo, which tattoo is like a word for a parade, basically. When our battalion marched on, dressed in navy blue trousers with red piping down the out seam, outside out seam of each trouser leg, long-sleeved white waiter-type jackets with

brass buttons and the guards peaked cap with red band around the crown carried out without a word of command our drill display lasted for 20 minutes the finale being the only time a command was given the battalion will advance in review order by the entire by the center quick march 450 men moved as one and the reason how that once again when you just think about human beings right psychologically in that moment look you're a A cog in the wheel. That's all you are. You're a pawn on the chessboard.

That's all you are. But, and he says it, like that feeling that you get of being a part of something that's literally bigger than you are. Hey, I'm just a guy out here in a uniform, but there's 450 of us moving as one. And there's some part of human instinct that likes to be a part of that. tribe continuing on in August some mysterious goings-on began unusual apparatus in the form of digging equipment both powered and hand-operated appeared along with wheel barrels and mountains of little sacks which turned out to be sandbags lorries loaded this lorries loaded with sand

would dump their contents at various points and instead of the usual drill parades and kit inspections we found ourselves of filling these bags with sand and building barriers I thought it must be some sort of giant exercise and had no idea that it was in preparation for a real enemy. Being confined to the barracks with its own shops and theater, we didn't mix with the public. So knew very little about matters of national importance. Indeed, in those days a servicemen was not allowed to discuss politics and we would be put on charge if caught attending a political meeting. So these guys are completely isolated. And I'm thinking about even when I joined the Navy and we go on a ship,

We had no idea what's going on. There's no internet yet. And so we had no idea what was going on in the outside world. And even living on base, I mean, at least when, even when I joined, you had cable news, right? You knew the CNN was on and you're watching CNN and you're knowing what's going on the world. There's no CNN. There's no TV. There's nothing.

So these guys are completely isolated. They're living. All the stores are going to are on base. The theater's on base. So there's living on base. paying no mind to what's going on overseas. What is put on charge? Means get in trouble.

Just in general? Yeah, just in general, like, oh, he got in trouble. Yeah, yeah, okay. So it's not like a, you know, because it's varying levels of, you know, and it covers, and I'm glad you brought that up because he uses it throughout kind of the book because you get, can get put on charge

for all kinds of stuff. Yeah, yeah. And so it's just a general term that means being in trouble. Maybe written up. Written up, yeah. Maybe sent to the brig for a little, time whatever but you know you got put on charge yeah no court martial nothing like this but could be you keep it up yeah if you well could be too you like if you did something really bad you just

got okay you know he's gonna get put on charge oh okay yeah i got you i understand is any level of trouble is what i perceived it is maybe a brit military person will let us know if i'm wrong continuing on on the third of september war was declared with germany and i realized what all the sandbagging was for. Within days, my battalion was mobilized, reservists were called up, and along with thousands of other troops.

Two weeks later, two weeks later, we were in France. I think I was quite unperturbed at the possibility of getting killed. After all, I was a soldier trained to kill, so why should I have any qualms? You know what's nuts about this?

And I mean, putting into perspective, World War I, which was now 20 years in hindsight, was so insanely savage. And yet this guy still, Reg is like, yeah, you know what? Cool. I'm not worried about getting killed. I'm a soldier.

And you think about the casualties in World War I had to beat. You had to beat. It shows you how quickly we can forget, right, what war is. Because if you witnessed a day on the battlefield in World War I, There's no way you'd want to do any of that ever again. But whatever, you're 20 years old. You're a crack shot with that rifle. Time to go get some.

Continuing on. In the forward positions, we, oh yeah, and by the way, now I'm just jumping past. Hey, they get there. And by the way, like I said, they get to France two weeks later. This isn't like, okay, we're doing a prolonged preparation. No, we're declaring war on the third. And in September, the third of September, we're declaring war. and then in September, two weeks later,

you're on the ground in France, ready to get some. In the forward positions, so now they start moving forward from France. In the forward positions, we took over a deserted village called Tromborn, about six miles from the German border. As it was snowing, our fighting patrol decided to make use of sheets to create.

So they're in these areas that are pretty much abandoned, and so they're going into houses and finding stuff. As it was snowing, our fighting patrol decided to make use of sheets to create sets of camouflage gear, White suits, gloves, over boots, hats, and coverings for our rifles, hunting around. I found a sewing machine thinking that we might as well do things the easy way. As a fighting patrol, we didn't fire a shot.

There was more a matter of listening and night reconnaissance. In our white outfits carrying only rifles and limited other gear, we traveled more comfortably than we had previously, which I skipped over the part where they're basically doing long movements to get into positions. on one night reconnaissance we became overconfident don't let that happen and one of our lads knocked up against the enemy wire it was a still bright moonlit night we were in no man's land just 75 feet from the forward German positions they're talking stopped abruptly as luck would have it we were crawling so we froze hugging the ground for an hour without moving on another occasion we were on our way back to base when from

And by the way, on that one, they make it out. On another occasion, we were on our way back to base, when from the direction of a bend in the road, 50 yards away, we saw a group of figures. We were about two miles from our lines and knew that no other patrols were out, so these men must be the enemy. Our patrol leader gave the signal to lie still.

We were straddled each side of the road in semi-open ground, but fortunately the night was not too bright. The group passed by, 10 men in all spaced six to eight feet apart. They were well-armed but wore no white suits. keeping them in view and moving only our eyes, we lay unnoticed. If we had been spotted, they would have had the advantage because of their automatic weapons and also the fact that they, as they passed down our center, we could not have fired on them for fear of hitting our own men.

Never separate your forces. Which is hard when you're walking down a road, because when you're walking down a road, you're going to be in what's called a staggered file, which means you've got guys on either side of the road, right? Which generally we're trying to stay off the roads anyway. But sometimes that road is the smartest place to move. You're going to make a bunch of noise moving through the brush and you can get on that road and move really quietly.

So it's something that can happen. But then when they see the enemy, they all get off the road. What's the quickest way to get off the road? It's on the side that you're on. And what does that mean? You're on both sides of the road. Now when the enemy walks in between you and you start shooting at the enemy, you're actually shooting at each other.

So you have to be cognizant of that, which these guys were. continuing on when I came into contact with two Germans and this is another thing about this book first of all this book is not very long but the other thing that's that's crazy and British

and no factor in step up or lip is he'll describe the most insane things that were factually crazy as like in three sentences of what and just really matter of fact you know so although there are times where he definitely adds some color, but that's the way he is.

Just kind of matter of fact, very British about the whole thing. When I came into contact with the two Germans for the first time myself, I gave them five rounds of rapid fire at a range of 50 yards as they edged towards me under the cover of garden walls and fencing. They were my first shots in anger. I didn't see the two Germans anymore, so maybe they were lucky shots. Guardsman Bateman and Elms doubled past and shouted for me to come on, and we continued into open country, making our way over to a bridge and halting after roughly a thousand yards

where we took up defensive positions. Air activity was increasingly tremendous. Messerschmitt 109s were machine gunning at low level and had strafed our troops coming over the bridge only a few minutes after I crossed. There's these talking about these and I don't know if I just never really thought about it this much detail. But he talks about these, you know, the enemy aircraft coming in at low level and strafing them all the time. And if you've ever seen a Messerschmitt, they're just really badass looking aircraft. And a lot of the German aircraft, they just were, I mean, all the aircraft back then, right? I mean, you got spitfires, you got Corsairs, you got Mustangs, you got a P38 lighting, but you got awesome looking aircraft.

And if you can imagine this, too, at that time, those were the most technologically advanced things, right? So they didn't look, they didn't look old, right? They looked like a X-wing fighter from Star Wars, right? That's what you were seeing. You were seeing this magical machine that was just, and now this thing is pointing at you at an altitude of like 300 or 400 feet and just dumping machine gun rounds at you.

And can you imagine the noise that they make with those big giant engines? I mean, yeah. And so he talks about that a lot in these books. And that's kind of the first encounter that he brings it up. The other thing that scares me about it is it's sort of random, you know, it's almost like mortar fire because the aircraft's going to come down. If it's pointed two degrees in that direction, you're fine. If it points two degrees in your direction, you're dead.

And the rounds are hitting, you know, at a spacing of six feet or whatever when they get to the ground. So if you're in between those two six feet, you're totally fine. Or you get hit in the face or in the head and you're dead. So there's this element of chance going on as well, which I never like. I never like that element of chance. Continuing on, leaving the area and traveling mainly on foot, encountering few enemy on the ground,

but experiencing continuous shelling and bombing from the air. We came to a stop by the river Ascot, near the city of Tornai, six miles from the French border. Here we went into a counterattack during which a very well-liked platoon commander Lieutenant the Duke of Northumberland was killed Lance Corporal Harry Nichols and guardsman Nash were ordered to flush out some bothersome machine gun nests 600 yards from our position that's British right You're going to describe machine gunness as bothersome The section I was in gave covering fire what is that all about? Yeah, that's called cover and move.

Fundamental. To our left, they picked their way with caution, Nichols and a light machine gun under each arm. Nichols with a light machine gun under each arm. I didn't see them anymore, but they must have completed the mission because the enemy fire ceased after a while. Lance Corporal Nichols was posted missing,

presumed killed, but later reported as being alive in enemy hands. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for this action. In the semi-built-up area, on the river the Germans afforded very good target practice for me. I found that I just could not miss, but we were all getting weary through lack of sleep and proper food. No one can live off scraps or from scavenging for long without feeling the worst for it. And enemy numbers were increasing tenfold or so, it seemed. Continuing

on, we came to another stop. This was the last time I took part in a coordinated attack with the third battalion, grenadiered guards. We went into a bayonet charge. I say again, we went into a bayonet charge at court to cure setting off I felt very scared scared and all sorts of things went through my mind like what the hell am I doing here oh yes I joined the army to become a policeman want to laugh the muck was flying fast bullets whining and splattering and I crouched lower to dodge them on I went with the rest my 16 inch Enfield bayonet blade fixed and protruding at the ready ready ready for what the only thing I'd ever stuck with a bayonet was a sack dummy then I saw them in the swirling smoke human beings not sacks real germans

blimey I trudged on wrenching my ankle in a pothole on and on until the order rang out charge charge I began to double now with my bayonet thrust at full on guard those figures growing bigger and bigger until they were just a few yards away among the din and yells of pain. There were dead bodies from both sides littering my approach. I was a foot from the two Germans when suddenly they both dropped their rifles and reached very high, chattering something about comrade. I was so bloody amazed and relieved that I said, come on then, I'll take you prisoner. Which is just that paragraph for me to think through, because I'm thinking.

thinking when I see those Germans, you know what I'm doing? I'm shooting them, right? I'm not going to continue with the bayonet charge, right? I'm not expecting to take these guys prisoner. Get some. My battalion was now badly cut up, and he uses the term cut up, meaning shot up, meaning wounded, injured. He uses that throughout the book with numbers well below effective fighting power. And we were ordered to attach ourselves to any unit and make our way to Dun Kirk, though no reason was given. And here I was stuck with two German prisoners. The journey was nerve-racking with hordes of refugees,

jamming the roads and making military transport movement almost impossible. Lorry's guns and French H-39 Hotchkiss tanks were often seen abandoned in ditches, rendered immobile, but clearly not by enemy action. What was going on? Were we throwing in the towel? So he's seen all these abandoned vehicles, and they're being destroyed by, friendly forces only because we don't want the enemy to get a hold of our tanks and he's trying to figure out what's going on and obviously anyone that knows anything about history knows that they're

heading for dunkirk to leave the route was an absolute shambles with military and civilian gear constantly getting estranged rumors were plentiful now such as the story that leopold third of jr of belgium and his army were capitulating towns all over france were falling into enemy hands French General Girode had been taken prisoner. To pile on the agony, the Germans had not let up on their bombing or machine gunning one bit, and their slaughter of refugees was unnecessary and sickening to see. We did what we could in the way of tending to civilian wounded, using their own clothing or bedding for bandages,

while their dead were either left covered or covered with something to hide their torn bodies and agonized faces. Even cattle grazing in the fields had not escaped the Blitzkrieg, and lay bloated through lack of milking or blown apart by shellfire. The carnage spread for a good two miles. After seeing those poor wretched civilians so caught up my occasional wounded soldier, the occasional wounded soldier did not seem quite so bad. My two German prisoners appeared to be as disgusted by all of this as I was. And you're going to see throughout this book the impression that he gets of the German,

And as you could see that there's definitely a wide range of Germans that they encounter. Obviously, some completely hostile, but there's some that clearly are not totally engaged in the Nazi attitude. And it's very interesting to hear as he interacts with people throughout it. Continuing on, we reach the outskirts of Dunkirk to find a mass buildup of French and British soldiers, transport tanks and artillery pieces jamming the roads like a London rush hour. The next five days were a mixture of hell, hunger, and fatigue. And I think it was only thanks to the fatigue that I overcame the hell and the hunger. I know it was five days because I put a nick in my rifle butt each morning when roused by this visiting Stookas and Messerschmits.

So they're getting bombed and they're getting machine gunned every morning. During daylight, the appointed beachmaster, a British officer mustard officers and insured. from all regiments and brief them to organize parties of men to tend to wounded bury the dead and scavenge for ammunition and food I found it most distasteful removing tins of bully beef and biscuit remains from corpses But at least I still had my life The beach was littered with abandoned lorries and trucks as well as army staff cars with wheels missing and doors hanging off as I Wander wandered around going about my task among these mutilated forms that were once carefree young men I remember thinking that I must be dreaming.

I was brought back to reality sharply by the appearance of two enemy fighter planes, which proceeded to distribute even more death and panic. I dived over a corpse and slithered down a sand dune, the staring eyes of the corpse saying to me, get your head down and arse up. After five days on the beaches, it was a relief to find that it was finally my turn to get into the snake-like line of troops readying for departure. As I drew closer to the vast mass of a ship, a minesweeper, heaving in the mucky-looking swell,

I could see its multi-barreled ACAC gun porting skyward in readiness for any stucca fighters or attack, or fighter attack, the operator seeming oblivious to our presence. One was scanning the sky with his binoculars. The water by now was well and truly up to my neck, and I still had 50 feet to go. I clung to the rope with both hands and pushed on. The man behind gave me a shove. The water kept lapping over my nose and into my eyes, gulping, choking, and spitting out the endless mouthfuls of oily, foul-tasting salt water. I was now quite submerged.

With a last mighty effort, I lunged in the direction of the boat, still grasping at that rope. It could not have been more than a minute that I was underwater, but it felt like a lifetime. Clinging on tight to the rope with my left hand. With my right, I groped for the rope mesh hanging down the side of the ship, and with great exultation, found and grabbed it. I managed to pull myself up, up, up, and up, the ship rocking and heaving with each vibration of the exploding bombs, which were arriving much too close for my liking.

So finally he's on board the ship, and they're getting bombed and strafed. Flopping down exhausted, I was soon asleep, though inevitably we had a visit from a Messerschmitt, and this woke me violently as its bullets danced along the ship's deck, causing large pieces of wood splinters to spew over everyone. These administers as much damage as the bullets to some unfortunate recipients. I dozed off again and slept like a log until we docked in England. So ended my participation with more than 300,000 others in Operation Dynamo,

better known as the history, better known to history as the miracle of Dunkirk. So that's the way you kick things off with your war. And I forget the time that passed, and I know that the time that seemed to pass was very quick, the way I just read it, skipping a bunch of stuff. But it was like 200 days that he was on the ground. This was no, hey, I was there for a week. No, they were there moving forward, fighting, drawing back, going on attack, back and forth this whole time. And, you know, that could be, you know, just that experience right there could be a whole book unto itself, right? That's how low-key, Reg Curtis is.

You know, he was literally extracted off of Dunkirk after this entire campaign falls apart, and he covers it in 20 pages, not even 20 pages, because he's getting warmed up. So he gets home, and he says there followed two weeks of leave that I enjoyed more than ever before, the sheer ecstasy of white sheets and pint after pint of beautiful beer and the days of roughing it in France soon seemed very long ago

yeah again you gotta you gotta think how hard it's like when you're going through basic seal training what they do is they during how week you've been awake for like two or three days and then they go hey they come up with this big story and they tell you that oh you're gonna we've kept you

We were too hard on you guys. The commanding officer just told us we got to put you guys to sleep for eight hours. So go get warm, dry clothes on, and we'll come back to you guys and we'll wake you up in eight hours. And of course you believe it. I mean, back in the day we believed because we didn't know any better. No one gave us any heads up. There was no Intel network providing information. There wasn't like movies about the stuff, right?

So we just thought, oh, wow, that seems kind of crazy, but okay. And then you get all dressed nice warm clothes and you're all dry and you go you go literally get in your bed and then as soon as you fall asleep like 20 minutes goes by and they're in there with machine guns and bullhorns and they're waking you up So when you think about that's that's tiny, right? That's a tiny tiny little thing when you compare it to what's going on here This guy goes to France starving like wounded and dead everywhere fear gets back to England goes on leave for two weeks and white sheets, you know, beer. It's all good. And then, you know, you know, what's going to happen? You're going to go back.

When you, when they did that to you in, was that Hell Week? Yeah. And they did? Okay. So before there was, before there was like a network, right? Yeah. And you said you believed it. Like when they say, oh, we put you all right.

Was there a part of your mind like, or as far as part of the reason why you believed it is because like they are pushing you pretty hard. At any point where you like, hey, I wonder if they're pushing us too hard. Yeah. Actually, I thought what you were going to say is, was there part of my mind? And this would have been, I would have said yes. Was there part of my mind was like, this is too good to be true? This is not happening.

That's what, you know, that, I would say the bigger part of my mind was saying that. But I kind of was like, oh, it seems like, hey, cool. Like, they're telling us this. Right. But no, no. Before that, though, like at any point where they like, I know, hell, or were you or whoever being like I know how weak's supposed to be hard but like this is kind of excessive like yeah I had no datum on which to judge it yeah you know it's going to be hard you know I was talking to

a guy that quit buds and I said you know like why did you quit and he said because it sucked and I said well didn't you know that it was going to suck when you went there I mean that's where you're going like we all know it sucks go watch it a video you know and it's like it's going to be it's going to be cold it's going to be wet it's going to be miserable it just feels like that yeah it's gonna suck like that part but then you know how like it goes sometimes in your brain anyway it'll go beyond sucked and into like whether it be dangerous I never felt like that no I was always like all this is this is just the training right oh okay and then yeah then that makes sense that you could go to when they say oh yeah here's eight hours sleep or whatever you could go out of well this might be too good to be true yeah yeah yeah oh yeah so I'm saying what you're saying is you're sure that there's guys that were like yeah man of course it's way too hard and then those are the guys that when they get, when the trick comes, they get trapped, bro. They're devastated. Yeah, they're devastated.

Mentally devastated. That's why it's one of the best things. Well, not a lot. There's a lot of people that don't get out of that bed, right? They don't get out of that bed. Because as soon as you get out, you're going straight to the surf zone. And people don't like that, man. I mean, you can hear Seals talk about it.

Guys can get scarred from liking the ocean for years, man. For years. They don't want to go in the water. They don't want to do it. it because because they just they use it as an implement of torture me I didn't care you know like I surfed and it was all good you know let's go get some sort of how back to the book so he's home he's taking a little time off he goes back and starts doing a kind of local let's call it like local guard

type activities and then we get this in August I received a telegram telling me that my home in South London had been hit by a sea mine and I was given compassionate leave to return. What the hell was a sea mine doing inland? It must be a mistake, I thought. However, apparently there was such a thing which came down attached to a parachute. So that's what the Nazis were doing. And so he gets a little leave to go and check things out. And so he goes. And here we go. This is him finding his home. Upon reaching Grove Park, as I turned into Fairfield Road, I immediately saw that our house had received a direct hit. There was now just a heap of debris where once it stood half a dozen houses

and dozens more were badly damaged. The local ARP warden told me that not one person had been killed because everyone had taken to their Anderson air raid shelters. My parents were both okay and staying with some friends a mile up the road. It was a shock to see our home destroyed, but after all I had seen in France, I think I must have become immune to any real emotions. And then this happens in October.

As a result of a directive sent out by our prime minister, Winston Churchill, we received a letter, which was read out to us by the regimental sergeant major. Volunteers, he shouted, for a new type of fighting soldier are required. He glanced over the top of the paper, BDIs registering some amusement. Soldiers, he carried on to be trained as commandos and parachutists. Now I know that you would not wish to desert the regiment But anyone wishing to volunteer one pace forward March Glaring as he did so he took three stealthy steps towards us Well, you all chicken then?

There was not a titter nor even a hesitant shuffle Meaning everyone was just standing fast I fought back to the days in France I thought of the carnage of the British prisoners of war. The Warwick Regiment hurted into a field just outside Dunkirk and machine gun to death by the Waffen SS. I thought of my home being blown to smithereens and how the Germans were blocking my ambition to become a London policeman. I took a pace forward before it was too late. And some time passes as they try and get everything organized and then it continues on.

I was to join number two Commando later renamed the 11th Special. Air Service Battalion and still later the first parachute battalion. In Britain at that time there was little or no knowledge of the techniques of parachuting, so everything had to be thought out very carefully. There were no special types of parachutes for jumping from aircraft and no suitable aircraft. The whole lot had to be devised, developed, and tested all too often with fatal casualties or severe injuries. Just learning how to conduct parachute operations from scratch.

So they start their training and the training is is really, really hard, as you can imagine. Here we go. Now we settle down to some real soldiering and I actually begin to enjoy the tests thrust upon us. I didn't realize at first that we were being used as human guinea pigs, trying out new methods of roughing it and of delivering a soldier to the place of battle. For everyone, for everyone, it was a test of strength involving. guts, sheer cunning, and a determination to win. Some conditions were abominable, but my conscience told me that this was a challenge I must rise to.

And again, this is when you got someone that's learning through repetition, how to take pain and suffering and do it in a way that is no factor. So Jumping forward here Through some training that they go through And all the training is just It's a guinea pigs, right? The training is just guinea pigs

They're just doing crazy things to these guys And then they do their first parachute jump Gets done with that Within the next week our seven jumps had been achieved And we cannot wait to sew those blue wings On the right arm of the battle dress blouse One laddie even brought his sewing kit along with him and sat down in the corner of the hangar to get them on before anyone else.

It was odd to see a man walking around in Withenshaw and Manchester with their wings, winged shoulders slightly forward of the rest of their bodies. Civilians and other non-parais soldiers were asking, who are these blokes with the wings, some sort of secret unit? That's just a little bit of unit pride, right? This is why dichotomy of leadership when Laif and Sef disobeyed Big jocco started wearing patches This is one of those things that you know I was thinking the back of my head like the if you're gonna if that makes you hold your chest out a little bit higher

And you get that unit pride I'm gonna let it slide continuing on we were training both as parachutists and also for the specialized work of the commando which meant that a lot of extra work had to be put in to achieve the very best end result. Above all, above all, it was emphasized, it was emphatically stressed that we should never accept defeat, even when up against overwhelming odds, and we were taught to persevere to the end and to be able to endure great, if not impossible, fatigue. sound familiar that's what we do

that's what we do in the military taught to persevere to the end and I guess that so much of that is so much of that is what you know how you're taught to do that because you do it because when you go to like seal training

or whatever there's no class that says okay when you get tired think about this no class that says that yeah no class that says when you feel like you want to quit then you should think about this or you should say this. No. If that's where your head is at and you want to quit,

they don't teach you anything to stop it. What you learn, the way you're taught is by, oh, I'm going to get through this. That's what's going to happen. I'm going to get through this. Of course,

we have to learn a little bit about hand-to-hand combat. We practice not only the use of the knife, but also how to best avoid one when used against us. Chinese experts taught us judo and unarmed combat with a rifle and fixed bayonet we would be flung at you or sorry a rifle with fixed bayonet would be flung at you by the instructor who would yell come on lunge at me I lunged hesitatingly for the first time come on long shanks lunge you won't get anywhere near me right mate I thought you asked for it and I took a really good lunge but this man was an old hand like lightning he parried my blow And before I knew it, I was flat on my back minus the rifle. It was the same with the fighting knife. And quite a few of us nursed cuts at the end of the day's training. Those knives were razor sharp.

Just going real world. In April of 1941, we were visited by Winston Churchill, accompanied by Sir Arthur Barrett and Major General Sir Hastings Ismay. And he goes, he actually goes, I'm not going to tell the whole story, but there's a one. point where where where where where reg has a little very short conversation with with Winston Churchill and basically he he he's reg is the receiver on a dis on like a hand-to-hand combat display and he ends up getting thrown you know like a hip toss I'm imagining and and and when he's done and he's kind of getting up off the ground and and Winston Churchill looks at him and says did you really try lad and

And Reg looks at him and says, what do you bloody think, sir? And then he said Winston Churchill, pursed his lips gave a big grin and waddled off looking delighted. So that's pretty awesome interaction with Winston Churchill. Who, by the way, we haven't even started to get into the Winston Churchill scene here on the podcast. But you know it's coming. You know it's coming. And that'll be, I'm sure, many podcasts. And this is a little glimpse into the future.

Continuing on bypassing usual military procedure, various unorthodox methods, and the use of small arms explosives were adopted and official eyes were shut so long as the end result was achieved. One such stunt was to withdraw the safety pin from a hand grenade, release the arm, which we call the spoon, release the arm, which in turn would fire the four-second fuse in the primed grenade, making it really live.

Hold it for a second and then throw it quickly, the object being to make sure the enemy would have no time to throw it back. Anyone refusing this dangerous venture would be subject to a variety of flowery names. Luckily, we had no casualties as a result. And what makes that scary is, so a grenade has a four-second fuse. When you're holding something that, what do they call it, the arm, it actually fits into the web of your hand, this piece of light aluminum.

And when you put it in the web of your hand and then you hold the grenade, that thing is stuck in place. Now, then the next thing you do is you pull the pin. Because when the pin's in there, that arm doesn't go anywhere because it's spring loaded. As soon as you pull the pin, there's tension on the spring that's ready to make that spoon

or arm fly off and that's what arms it to blow up in four seconds. The problem is is that the fuses aren't perfect. So depending on the fuse that you get, could be three seconds, could be six seconds, could be four seconds like it's supposed to be. Is there a possibility it's two seconds? Yes, there is. So when you cook, we call it cooking it off. So when you cook off that grenade, there's a possibility that it goes off.

but if you don't cook it off at all and you throw it the enemy could throw it back here especially if it's four seconds I mean one of their choices they can either jump on it they can dive away or they can grab it and throw it back if they think you haven't cooked it back well best thing to do is get it out of there remember T Fred Harvey he was getting in grenade tossing fights with the Japanese so as this training is going on

also we have to remember there's the mental fortitude part. There's the tactical training, but we can't ever forget just physically being hard. To keep on top form, we had plenty of physical training, cross-country runs,

compass marches, and night exercises. Discipline was self-imposed, and any need to impose it by a superior was frowned upon. Yes. That's what we want. We don't want to have to impose discipline. Wrote about it in leadership strategy and tactics.

That's not the, If you have to impose discipline, something's wrong. And you know what's wrong? Your leadership is wrong. Because if you're leading correctly, the troops will put discipline on themselves. They will acquire self-discipline because they understand why it's important. Psychological and physical resistance were driven to the utmost until men could take their limit and even more. But it was never enough.

We were marched, counter-marched, and marched again in fair weather and in, foul. Live ammunition fired at close range actually helped. I found myself so preoccupied with making sure I did not get hit that I became oblivious to fatigue and plotted on. At the end of the day's training, I would stretch out on the hangar floor absolutely shagged. On passing, Sergeant Sid Oxley might prod me and say something like, not bad, lad, not bad. Do better tomorrow, eh? Get stuffed was the usual quiet reply as I slipped a well-earned cigarette between my lips and drew hard. So there's a pretty good chunk of this training in there.

And again, all this training was, they just created this. They just created that this was new. We're like we're making up. And props, one thing. When I look at the course of my entire life, there's like a couple moments in time where things made an impression on me. And one of the things that made an impression on me as a little kid, was I had these toy soldiers.

I had a lot of toy soldiers. But the British commandos from World War II, they had little ladders, they had little grappling hooks, they had boats, and they had beanie's, right? You know what I'm talking about? And when you're a little,

wait, you don't know what a beanie is? I know what a beanie is, yes. Okay, you know when you see a stereotypical, like let's say a robber, in a movie and they're sneaking around and they're wearing a black beanie. I think that all stems from the British Commandos. Oh, for real. So for me, when I saw like those little soldiers that I had with black beanies and rubber rafts that look like zodiacs, they also had a little kayak for them too.

Interesting. And I think all seeing those things, I was always drawn to the maritime component of special operations. Interesting. Hey, I want to be the closest, what's the closest thing I can be to a British commando? I see these guys with boats. And the weird thing is, I mean, that's not what these guys were doing. And in fact, and I didn't say this, Reg Curtis didn't know how to swim. That's why he was so scared.

And he didn't, he doesn't say it until later in the book. That's why he was so scared at Dunkirk. That's why he's talking about how he's underwater. There's nothing he can do about. He's hanging around the rope because he doesn't know how to swim. And he's weighted down. Oh, yeah. But yeah, the British commandos, which I'm sure broke off from the parachute guys,

but that was kind of a major, a major influence on a whatever, six-year-old kid. Yeah, I don't remember any. Well, then again, I guess I wasn't into the toy soldiers element. Yeah, you were just getting like the regular big green toy soldiers from like the grocery store. Yeah, yeah, Army men, for sure. I had. NGA Joe. I graduated from.

from plain green army men to legit little soldiers that came from different units and I had all these different units and I knew what kind of gear they had with them I had the Africa Corps right the Nazi Africa Corps and again the ones that stand out were the ones that

had like looked a little bit different the Africa Corps guys were tan instead of green the British Commandos were green I had paratroopers I had the Marines The same little army men just more of the event. They were smaller than the regular army men. Smaller, huh?

Yeah, they were small. They were, I think the nomenclature is 132nd. I think they were really small. They were, you know, half an inch tall, maybe a, maybe three quarters of an inch tall. And each individual soldier. That bottom platform thing. That little bottom platform. Huh.

And I would set up battle scenes, you know, out in the yard and play by play the way things were unfolding. Yeah, it could. He probably went deep, though. Like, you know, on the regular Army men set, man, set, the guy who's crawling, you know, the low crawl guy? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, he would be flying sometimes in my... Oh, in your scenarios? Yeah, yeah, because he could be in that flying position.

Well, I had the model planes, too. I also had a teacher named Mr. McGurk in high school, and he had little army, he had little planes all throughout his room, the classroom, hanging. Like, model planes. Model planes. Model planes, too. Because it was all trying to make this battle scenario. And the weird thing is, the weird thing is about this stuff is like, okay, if my son, let's face it, if my son has army soldiers, we kind of expect that just to be normal,

right? Like, hey, of course. I mean, by the time that kid was born, he had more army soldiers that he knew what to do with. But there's some instinctual thing. Even you, you are like back in Kauai. Sure. Right?

there's no I mean your mom wasn't saying hey I really want you to be interested in military stuff Right and yet you had green army soldiers yes and even though some of them could fly Which was a little bit unrealistic some of them were still low crawling right yes some of them were engaging in battle against other Soldiers oh yeah so you have an instinct for war yes big too and I think most just like I talked earlier about the Instinct for like hey I'm part of something bigger than me yeah which is a beautiful Beautiful thing if you think about it right that's a beautiful thing like I am part of this group that I'm I'm subordinate to this group Yeah, that's a powerful thing and it has to be countered correctly because you don't want to be someone that gets brainwashed and

joins a cult right right the the Bhagwan Sri Rajneesh Coul sure right you don't want to be that person No, no that really that yeah that is weird now that you mentioned that like yet it would call it an in instinct for war. An instinct for war. Like, I think, because it's,

it's so common. Like, consider like G.I. Joe's, okay, I'll say this scenario. So we, um,

we had a, we, my dad built our house and he, well, he was one of the people who built our house. So when we're digging the, um,

the cesspool, it's like, septic tank? Septic tank, I guess. It's like a huge hole. The hole is super deep. Anyway,

they put the cap on it. Okay. Um, this big concrete cap on it. Okay. And then they fill it in and then, but as it remains, it's still a big hole, like the size of a jacuzzi. Okay.

About that size. Yep. But it's just a dirt hole. Okay. It's weird. It's literally like a dug-in jacuzzi in dirt. So. I'm not sure what this is, but go on.

Yeah, that's just the way it, it, it sorted itself out. Okay. So it sounds like a foxhole. Yeah. You know, we call it that. Yeah. But, um, for, and then it rain on quiet rains pretty much every day. Yeah, yeah, I know.

Not necessarily storming, but. Enough to put a cool little shallow puddle in the bottom of that and mud. So we're in a muddy terrain scenario. G.I. Joe wise. So we got hills. We got the top of the hill. We got the valleys. Yeah.

The water scenario at the bottom. And oh, yeah, it was like battles going on the whole time. We'd light stuff on fire and something like that. And your dad was no military experience. Your mom was no military experience. Your neighbors? My grandfather was at D-Day, but I did. Canadian side.

Canadian D-Day. That's right. Salute. But I had no idea at this point, obviously. But nonetheless, we're still doing it. G.I. Joe's good guys versus bad guys, killing. Like, you know how you could take up part of the G.I.J.

Like, you could blow them out with firecrackers and then bury them and, like, do all this stuff. You're doing ceremonies and stuff. Oh, yeah. You were going deep. Oh, yeah. Big time. Catching the whole dramatic thing. And it's not like someone, like, told me to do that.

Yeah. And how much. How much did you see, how many war movies had you seen on TV? Do you even remember? I don't remember, but, you know, you could, I mean, this is what, like 80s, we'll say? Like 1980. So maybe there's some A-team going on? A-team and watched it, not, like, religiously or nothing.

So it's just, we're talking the instinct. That's the bottom of life. Yeah, I mean, MASH was on. I don't think I'd ever watch MASH. That's more of a comedy, though. That's not like a, but. Yeah, it is kind of a comedy. If you watch that show, it's actually, in many ways,

there's some pretty heavy episodes of MASH, actually, because I remember watching it when I was a kid. And there's definitely, I remember watching that movie going, or watching that show sometimes, and everyone's expecting to laugh, but then sometimes it would be super heavy because they would occasionally inject war. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah. So, yeah, so I think there's just an instinct that people can, have at some level. And I think obviously, just like instinct of being something bigger than yourself, that's

an instinct that people can have at different levels, right? Not everyone's a 10 in, hey, I want to be part of a group that's bigger than me. Not everyone is, in fact, I would say maybe you don't even want to be a 10 because then you're just looking for a cult to join, right? Next thing you know, you're buying a guy rolls Royces, which is what you got to watch out for, right? So we're not looking to do that. Same thing with the warlike instinct, right?

There's some people that are pretty high up on that. I believe I was pretty high up on that because I don't remember wanting to do other things. Right. So like when I thought about my future as a child, the thought was be a soldier. Like that's what I remember. Be a commando. That's what I remember. So it's, you know, it's something that, and I'm sure there's a bunch of other, you know,

like a fatherly instinct, right? Or a motherly instinct. Or here's another interesting one. Some people like to travel. Right? Yeah. Some people want to move around a lot. Some people want to stay home.

There's like different levels of instincts that people have. Some people want to settle down and hold what you got. Some people don't want to do that at all. So people have various instincts. So I would say that what they did in this training is hone the instincts that people did have and get rid of people that didn't have enough of the instinct for war. And, you know, once again, talking about seal training. they're not really teaching you anything. They're just getting rid of people that don't have the right instinct.

Yeah, can't do that. Yeah, that's what they're really doing. They're not teaching you anything. You learn only because you learn from your experience. Yeah. But it's not an active teaching protocol. Yeah, that's, so do you, what do you think? Do you think that that's, like, good?

Like, is that, and of course, I'm not going to say, is it the best way? Because who knows the best way? But is that kind of the best way to do it? Because it kind of seems like it could be. beat the best way to do it. It's definitely, you're not going to get any, well,

you're going to minimize the amount of stray voltage. Don't you kind of want to work with someone that has a higher instinct for winning than someone that's got to be coaxed and trained? Yeah, exactly. See what I'm saying?

That's what it seems like. So that's why it seems like it's a pretty good thing to me. Yeah, it's almost like, would you rather have on your football team? Someone that, now think about this, think about you're the,

who's the person that brings people under the team? It's not the coach, but like the GM, I don't know. So let's say you're in control of a football team and you're going to take this thing as far as you can. This is your only job. Do you want the guy that you get

that you have to train a bunch to get him to be able to run a fast 40? Or do you want a guy that comes out of the gate and he's kind of already there? Right. This is a no-brainer. Of course. Now, there are outliers

that I actually want this guy that was slow but he's such a hard worker and a grinder that he's going to excel. Anyways, like I want that guy. And guess what? Seal training does that. You don't, if you're a gazelle and you're a really great athlete, it doesn't test you as much as the guy that's a grinder.

Yeah. But the guy that's a really great athlete has a little bit more value out of the gate than the guy that's a grinder. Once you show up at the team, though, you want the guy that's a grinder more than you want the guy that's a good athlete. Right. Yeah. So almost like it's all sort of in the same.

That's not a guaranteed every time because there's some guys that were freaking great athletes and they were just incredible. So don't take that one wrong. But necessarily a guy that's a great athlete versus a guy that is just has, can gut through it. Probably I would lean towards the guy that can gut through it because he has a level of grit. You're not, you don't, you know, it's not there. Yeah. You're not, you don't, you know, it's not there.

Yeah. And that makes sense. I mean, it's all kind of in the same bucket, really, but where like these are just attributes, right? So how does Leif put it? He'll say, Buds is just a screening process to weed out people who we don't think have the characteristics to be successful on the battlefield, which is a very eloquent way of putting it. So those characteristics aren't necessarily who can do the most pull-ups. It's not that because, look, if you're doing like, there's a minimum though, right, obviously? Like, do you have to do a certain amount?

There is the minimum is so minimum to, like, get to Buds. The minimum is so minimum, it should be disqualifying if you can actually only do that many. I'm not kidding. The minimum pull-ups to go to buds is something like 10. Right. It's tiny. It's ridiculous. It's embarrassing.

Yeah. So just like how you said, it's like, okay, we have a minimum. We have a minimum. And that's sort of it. So who cares if you can do 50? Who cares? Really? We care about other stuff.

Yeah. Well, there's a well-rounded component, right? And that's what makes, that's the thing that makes Seal training hard is you can't just be a fast runner. You can't just be a fast swimmer. You can't just be strong upper body. You can't just be comfortable in the water. You can't just be durable. You've got to be all those things.

And what's hard is they're contrary to each other, right? Because being able to run 14 miles is one type of person that's going to be really good at that. Being able to get through the obstacle course is another person that has a lot of upper body strength. this person has a lot of insurance, this person has. And then you add in, hey, you need to be able to pick up your buddy and sprint with them over the berm. That's explosiveness. So we want this really kind of middle of the road on a bunch of different things, well-rounded,

as opposed to someone that's just really good at one particular thing. And there's all kinds of people that show up that are great athletes in one category, and it doesn't work for them. Yeah. So the attribute of all the attributes, the attribute about the guy who can gut through stuff sort of lifts up all those extra attributes if they're not that high.

So let's say that's the main one. Then yes, yes, you want the guy who that comes naturally to. Rather than the guy who it might, their teaching may falter later. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I want that to be part of you. Makes sense. Part of you.

And man, what a good quality to have. That's the thing. That's the thing. People look we everyone gets a certain amount of talent Yeah You can decide to work hard You can decide to work hard now now there are people that say that work ethic is a talent right? I get that concept and I think the reason it appears to be that way is because you get people that work so hard

That you think oh that must be a talent of theirs right to have this talent That you're gonna work so hard I don't I well I think that you're that you're You have, well, you do. You have way more influence over that talent than you do over your explosive strength. Yeah. I mean, infinitely more. Yeah, because you can't, I don't know the, obviously I'm no genetics expert, but I don't know that there's a gene or a series of genes that gives you work ethic at birth.

Yeah, I would say the answer is no. Right. I mean, not, not at all, right? I mean, we could check with the bro science like schools on that one. Yeah, that was. But they're, I bet, you know, when they start breaking down this genetic stuff, they're going to start finding stuff about people that's going to be really interesting. And some of it will be tight. I mean, I'm not going Sam Harris.

You know, every decision that you make is kind of pre-planned free will. But, you know, I'm sure Sam and I will have a chance to sit down if he has the courage to step up to the plate and have a real conversation with me. But I bet as this stuff gets uncovered, they will find that. that there's a propensity for, like a propensity for focus. Yeah. Because that's what hard work is, kind of. Is just, hey look, like when I was going to college and I would get to, I would do one semester, I took five English classes for the dumbest thing I've ever done.

I would be so crushed with reading over, you know, during the week, but then on the weekend would come and I'd have to read five English classes worth of reading. And that was when I would be like, okay, I would have to like turn the switch in my head and just go full on Sit there and read for 10 hours and read and memorize Remember what I was reading So That was a switch it was like oh and I remember thinking of myself I'd be talking to other people that had one English class And they'd say I'd say did you do the reading? Can you tell me what happened? And I'd be like yeah, of course I did the reading

And they'd be like I cannot sit down and read for that long and I'd be like I'd be like Well, A, you don't care. B, you lack discipline. C, maybe I've got a little propensity to be able to turn it on. Or maybe it's just through force of will. Look, I want to get an A in this class. Why? Because.

Yeah. Because I don't want these instructors looking at me thinking that they got a little something on me. No, you don't got anything on me. I'll read this material and I'll know it. Yeah. And all that right there is, just so everyone realizes I'm not crazy. That's just gamification. That's just gamification in my head to make things fun to make things challenging right? I'll do that with anything all day long If I've got something to do I'm gonna have a good time with it

Yeah, and it makes sense. Yeah, we're gonna have a good time with it. I'm fine So when you hear me you know I was watching someone Larry Bird Sure, and he was this he's famous for talking trash to all the other players and But he worked so hard. He was also famous for his work ethic But I think there's a little bit of gamification, right? When you go, I'm going to do this to you. I'm going to do this. Like he would come down the court and he'd say like he'd say,

here comes three, who wants it? Meaning come and try and guard me. I'm going to hit a three-pointer and he would do it. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's a little bit of gamification. People respond well to that. So that's me when I was going to college. As a 28-year-old man, by the way, I'm not talking.

I was an 18-year-old kid all worried about how I looked and what the party. I wasn't worried about any of that. Yeah, yeah. I was in there to win. and in order to win, I made it into a game for myself. Oh, you think you're going to ask me, you think that you're going to come up with a question on this reading material that you gave me

that I'm not going to know the answer to. Watch this. So that way I'm actually paying attention. Actually paying attention to what's going on. As opposed to, I don't care, doesn't really matter. I'm in the Navy anyways. Who cares what I get for a grade? Blah, blah, blah, blah.

I could make those excuses all day. You can always take the easy path if you want to. It's always there. But you just got to remember that it leads downhill. Yeah, and if you take the righteous path, well, then you're going to move in the right direction. Yeah. Yeah, but it still seems like you got all those methods, we'll say, like from, you know, like you weren't born with that, you know, kind of thing. Who knows?

It seems like. Who knows? You got. Yes, it does see. It seems like it's a choice that I make. Well, and it seems also like where you, like what you learned along the way. Right. What lessons got reinforced?

You know what lessons got reinforced for me? If I don't work hard, I'll lose. Yeah. That lesson got reinforced on me over and over and over again. If I don't work hard, I'll lose. If I work hard, I can do better. I might not win, but I can do better. And I'll tell you something else.

If your attitude is like, if your attitude is only I'm going to win, like that's why I'm doing this, you're not going to win every time. But let me tell you what your attitude can be. I might not win every time, but I'm going to get your respect. Yeah. When you get done beating me, when you get done beating me and you shake my hand,

you're going to mean it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you, you're going to mean it. I'm going to push you at a minimum. That's what's happening. So if you beat me, and by the way, I don't hold it against you when you beat me. I respect.

If you beat me, I know you worked. I know you got after it, which is cool. And I don't hold any angst whatsoever. It's good. actually because I know that this guy worked harder than me and I know I got to work even harder. So good for you. So that's that comes, that's learned.

That's me learning as a kid. Oh, I wasn't good at this. And even I look back in my life now, like I wasn't great at soccer. I never played soccer outside the soccer season. Other kids are running around dribbling the soccer ball, whatever. Going to camp, whatever. I didn't care enough. Didn't understand.

The first thing that I got, well, I got very focused in the SEAL teams and in the SEAL teams because you're going against high caliber people, not all of them, but you got some people at the top of the bell curve that are freaking badasses. And if you're, for me, so I got these incredible athletes. You know, when I checked in a SEAL Team 1, I'm going to try and think of this was probably 10 of us went to SEAL Team 1. A pretty good chunk of guys went to SEAL Team 1. there was some guys in that went to seal team one that were total athletic studs. I mean, infinitely better than me in every category of athleticism. And I knew like, okay, if I'm going to hang with these guys, I'm going to have to work really, really hard. Just to hang with them. Just to hang with them.

Not to beat them. Just to hang with them. So that idea gets reinforced over time. Oh, okay. if I don't work hard, I'll be at the bottom of the barrel. And then what it boils down to, if I'm at the bottom of the barrel, how much am I helping the team? Because if I'm a, if I'm a detriment to the team, now what am I even doing with my life? Right.

I do not want to be a detriment to the team. I want to be a positive to the team. And even though I might not be the best guy in the platoon, I might not be the strongest, the fastest, the best shot, whatever those things are. if I'm third or fourth or fifth in some of those categories, okay, well now I'm a benefit to the team. Now I can help, which is what it all boils down to. And what it all boils down to is like,

you know, you can make an excuse for yourself and live with it a little bit? Right? But you can't make an excuse for the team. Meaning, hey, look, even in extreme case, well, you know, if I'm not that great of a shot and the enemy gets a shot off quicker than me,

Oh, well, I'm going to die. That's the job I've got. That's the choice of, you know, whatever. But if you just play that out one step further, if I don't get this shot off, this guy will have the chance to shoot one of my buddies. You need to put more rounds down range. You need to shoot more.

You need to get better and faster. Faster on your reloads. Faster on your draw. Faster in your site picture. You need to get better because you don't want to let your teammates down. So when that's what's really driving you, that's powerful. That's more powerful than I just want to be the best.

I don't want to just be the best. Because you can give yourself a little slack in there. But when you look at it and you say, oh, I don't want to let my teammates down. They're counting on me. That will make you stay up later. That will make you wake up earlier. That will drive you to try and be better.

And that lesson on me got reinforced over and over again. And if I didn't work hard, then I wouldn't be. I failed something in Buds called pool competency. Yeah. And I failed it, right? And I was gonna say I shouldn't have failed it. And the reason I was gonna say I shouldn't have failed it was because I was comfortable in the water.

I'd done all the water stuff kind of first time every time, meaning not tying and life-saving. I was good, I felt really comfortable. And so when I failed it, I was sort of, I was deeply disappointed that I had failed it and I was hyper worried that maybe I'm not gonna make it through this training. And so we, me and a couple of the other guys that failed,

we spent the entire weekend in the dip tank, which is a little box that you fill with water to clean stuff in. And I don't even know why the instructors, the instructors let us use dive gear. I have no idea why. This was not safe. And maybe we just did it. I don't really remember.

But we got in this dip tank and we did pool comp to each other for hours. And we just ripped the stuff off and rip, you know, crushed each other until we went through the procedures so many times when I went to Retake pool comp it was it was easy yeah it was easy when I went to retake it on Monday So what what lesson got reinforced? I need to prepare more I need to work harder I need to go the extra distance or else I can fail so there's another little reinforcement I told you this one before I failed a run in seal training Why did I fail run? I failed to run in seal training because I paste myself and said well you know

I'll save a little something and I didn't have anything to save What I needed to do was run as hard as I could. So I failed the run when I paced myself. The next run, what did I do? When they said go, I ran as fast as I could for the entire thing. Because you're not allowed to wear a watch. So you have no idea what the time is. And so you think about that.

You think about when you're cruising on a run versus when you're running as hard as you can. It's hard to tell where that cruise levels at. Because am I running, am I running a six minute mile? If I'm cruising, am I running a 630 or am I running a 720? It can be hard to judge, especially when you're sore, like your body's sore. So, you know, if you did 500, eight-count bodybuilders at 3 o'clock in the morning, and then you go out and you run your run, your pace, you might seem like you're running faster than you really are. So what did I learn from that?

I failed the run, and now what did I have to do? I realize I can never let off again, can ever. So there's a little lesson getting reinforced. Yeah. Over and over and over again. Don't leave it up to chance. Don't leave it up to chance. Do the work.

And that's the way, that's how you develop these things. No one told me. No one told me what I just said. Maybe I wish somebody would have. And the reason I say maybe is because maybe you still don't learn it. Because there's some things that you have to actually go through. There's some things that the only thing that's going to teach you is experience. Yeah.

And even like these, you went through these things where the environment sort of provided these lessons. no matter how overt or covert they were like provided to you through the environment. Like you know how like a like a farmer or something like this? Someone who's sort of grew up just working hard as a way of life. You put them in another environment where working hard will show itself or whatever. They'll work hard. Yeah, because the environment sort of provided that or whatever. So yeah, so that makes sense.

And obviously we can't count every second of your life. And here's where this came from. And here's this, you know, obviously. But it seems like the work ethic and being. able to like show fortitude like mentally through things or whatever it seems like that's an environmental thing fully it is and that's why regg curtis was biking five miles to work and five miles home every day monday monday through saturday yeah six days a week get some uphill both ways uphill both ways so that is what they learned in this training some of these things that we

just talked about and and again the book details these things really well uh but we're going to jump ahead right now to a crew chapter five a cruise to north africa on the ship i boarded and after endless trudging along narrow passageways and up and down the steep stairs and gangways i was directed to an area below the water line after the ship soon after casting off we learned that we were heading for algiers from where we would take part to a combined operation by great britain and the united states codenamed operation torch that's legit you get on this ship to leave you don't even know where you're going you're just going to go get some Yeah, that's what you know.

You know you're going to go get some. Moving forward here, they're on the ground. And again, I hate to skip these parts. This is a book you've got to get, and I'll talk about how to get it at the end because it's not a normal book. We were informed that our objective was an enemy emergency airstrip

close to a place called Suk El Arba in Tunisia. Along the way, we were attacked by two. Emmy 109s, but these were successfully shot down by our escorts of spitfires. Boom. Thanks to the Americans easing their rule about smoking on aircraft, I managed to feel more relaxed by puffing through half a dozen cigarettes. So now they're going for their jump, by the way. They're going to jump into this emergency airstrip.

It was a three-hour journey in very hot and humid heat, and we sat in the plane, sweating like pigs, singing songs, and cracking jokes to try and hide our feelings. Chunky said, well, lofty. That's his nickname. He brings it up a couple times. Well, lofty. It won't be long now. See you in heaven.

You must be joking, mate, I replied Tursley. He's got to be a damn good Jerry to catch up with me. Then the order was bellowed out. Action stations. It made me shiver. Hook up. I was sweating like hell and felt a bit weak at the knees. I wondered out loud, what sort of reception are we going to get?

What, mate? Crabtree asked, oh nothing, I muttered. I hooked up my line with shaky fingers, managing to endure 10 minutes of standing while the plane came to in to drop us at the airfield out in the wild 70 miles from Tunis. So the reason I put that part in there is just letting everybody know,

especially you young troopers out there that are going to go out and hold the line, you're going to be scared. And even this guy, that is just a fundamental badass across the board. He's shaking fingers. He's sweating profusely. He's scared. And by the way, he's hiding

it to the best of his ability. He's stifling that emotion. Continuing on the jump master's piercing voice cut through the sound of the aircraft. Stand to the door. I swallowed hard and prepared for the exit. When the order to go rang in my ears, I

became a changed man. It suddenly felt so much cooler being whisked about in the air. All around me were hundreds of parachutes, we were finally dropping into action. There you go. So you're going to be scared once you get in the action. You'll settle down. And okay, so now this is they land, they move, and now they get into a situation.

We were machine gun constantly. One minute we were put in buses and the next taking cover. Once with Pat Dolan and. And chunky, I dashed for safety across an open ground and slid into a hollow, a hundred feet from a dirt road, as three small specks of Mishersmiths came diving straight for us from 4,000 feet. I lay on my stomach looking at the aircraft through my camouflage net scarf as they came in fast. Much closer now, and three of them opened fire. One concentrating on the road transport, the other two on our men scrambling for cover on each side of the road.

Bullets slash the ground 10 feet from us, kicking up fountains of dust. Bloody hell, Pat, that was close, said Chunky. They circled and came in for another run, this time really low, only about 50 feet from the ground. A couple of our ACAC guns let fly. Jerry let rip and muck seemed to be flying everywhere, mainly rock splinters and dust. As one aircraft clattered by, I saw quite plainly the pilot with a white scarf around his neck. You fucking fool, you might have killed us, someone shouted. and then let out a bellowing laugh.

Amazingly, after all that strafing, no one was seriously hurt, and only two of our vehicles were rendered unserviceable. As time went on, things continued to hot up, and the buses were soon abandoned in favor of foot slogging. So, again, this is like a horrifying thing to think about, these Messerschmitt 101's coming down and strafing you with machine gun. This pushing forward a little bit in the book, They're another situation.

Then they turned towards us. Three stucca dive bombers approaching us at about 5,000 feet. The sky was clear and visibility was good. It was most weird not knowing whether they were interested in us or were just passing. But they were interested in us all right. The leading pilot made half a roll and nose down the preliminary commencing that awe-inspiring stucca dive angle of 85 degrees. As it whined nearer, I could see the evil gull wind shape so clearly. It seemed to be approaching me head on, and I was at my wits end

as to whether I should get out and run for it or stay safely put but possibly perish. Before I could make up my mind, I saw four black dots moving away from the aircraft. They were bombs seemingly aimed directly at me. Their descent accompanied by a high-pitched scream. I gripped my smock and braced myself the sides of my slit trench took Shook and a shower of freshly dug soil cascaded over my face partly filling the trench Christ that's close I thought aloud the other two stucas came in to repeat the treatment and there seemed to be a never-ending Secession of bombs violently vibrating around then the drone aircraft drifted away and as and as black smoke billowed slowly skyward

Voices began to ring out as men sought to sought reassurance that others were over Okay, Chunky was there on the edge of my trench asking if I was all right. Putting on a brave front, I said I was, and I was, except for a little excretion. But then getting away with nothing more than a wet pants after that lot did not hurt my pride. I didn't tell the others, though. So that freaking bombs dropped right on top of him. Pissed his pants. No factor happy to be alive

Continuing on we'd only been in and this is again skipping We had only been in Tunisia for a few days And our bag of enemy killed or captured was fast increasing Together with quite an assortment of armored cards motorbikes and weapons They get into some gun fights I found myself going on a volunteer burial party For men known to be lost or killed in action For any dead or wounded paras That's the parachute guys

the Arabs could be the biggest menace, as some of them would think nothing of stripping a corpse of its clothing and then just leaving it. If a ring would not come off the finger with ease, the finger might be severed to achieve their greedy end. At times it was reported that wounded

of both sides were mutilated by these scum. And here's out on these, basically like on a little burial party after some of these battles had taken place. We came upon two more Paras, one lying by a large rock, a jagged cut with dried blood right across his temple. The other, just a few yards away, looking a bloated blue-green.

I had seen dead soldiers before, usually just after being killed, but this retrieving of private papers and dog tags from dead men was not in my book of training. And I was lost for a moment, wondering if I was alone in this nightmare. And then there's a there's a Padre with him a minister with him and he says the Padre broke the silence by inquiring in a most serene voice now who have we here? We buried those two side by side and then he goes forward here things were beginning to hot up now and we found ourselves taking part in some large scale skirmishes with an enemy who is not going to take it all lying down And he says hot up. He doesn't say heat up. And he says that throughout the books.

That's why I probably put a little extra expression on it. So people don't think that I was misreading it. But he says things were beginning to hot up now. Maybe we'll bring that back. And here we go. Fast forward a little bit. I was just taking a position with the mortar when the CO went around firing his pistol and the open side slots of the tanks and calling for the crews to come out.

So here's the CO. And there's some tanks, some enemy tanks. And this guy's approaching him with the pistol. On reaching the third tank, shots were fired back, and he fell clutching his chest, followed by his adjutant Captain Miles Whitelock, who was hit in the face. Amid the general din of battle, I was too busy to get, trying to get dug into the rocky soil to make out exactly what had happened. But Sue learned that the CEO had been severely wounded, and Major Pearson was now to take over command. It was a great blow to me at this time, also to hear the death of my old.

friend Stanley Wondless. I was horrified by a different site, an enormous brute of a pig munching away at a dead German soldier. It seemed the pig had somehow come across the wine in this farm, got filthy drunk, and was eating everything. Such scenes became horribly familiar, but my stomach gradually grew accustomed to them. On Christmas Day, 1942, I watched the rainfall as I tried to make myself a little more comfortable in my slit trench. Rain trickled down my neck. My hands were wet and cold, and if I had had a cigarette, I would have enjoyed it.

My feet had been constantly wet for God knows how long, and I was beginning to feel a teeny bit browned off when good news we were being withdrawn for a rest. Off we went to Suk El Camis, where I thoroughly enjoyed the luxury of a mobile bath unit, delousing and refitting. It was heaven. but we soon return to the grind once more.

So again, I picked out some highlights of the first kind of action that they had, but you have to get the book to kind of follow along exactly what they'd been through, but they'd been through really tough fighting. And then finally they get the word that they're going to take a little break, which they do. But, you know, like I said earlier, it's a little break. It's not big. And just like I talked about the times where you get a little,

reprieve from the cold, wet, miserable, but then it's time to go back in and that's what you have to do. And these guys do that. Going on here, between the two, they end up in this spot, between the two towns is a hill called Jebel Mansour, the commanding height to the Pont-Du-Tunis Road. It's 2,000 feet above sea level, five miles around at the base, and has an easiest climb angle of 45 degrees also known by us as Hill 648 it was occupied by crack German Africa Corps and alpine troops and it was our job to take it at all costs I thought this word would be a tough nut to crack but the men were determined to win through

the through but the men were determined to win through and shift the enemy once and for all we checked our arms and ammunition and collected 48 hours rations So there's this dominant high ground that they need to take. And it's got the Africa Corps, who I talked about earlier. It's got the Alpine troops. These are really good German troops. And this point early in the war, you know, this is when this is when the German army, the German military was really, really good. I mean, later in the war, they were still good, but they, you know, they suffered massive casualties.

And they started having, like, little, you know, younger troops, inexperienced troop, Hitler youth. You know, kids that were 14 years old out on the front lines getting after it. This is early in the war. These are experienced troops. You know, these are the troops that were, this is where, you know, the Prussian roots of military genius are showing through in these troops. And this is it. This is, these are tough, tough, this is a tough enemy.

So going on here, we started off, and it was quite a long way over rough and uneven ground before we halted at the base of an ugly, massive-looking hill. The usual advanced bombardment that preceded most attacks was not forthcoming on this occasion as we wanted to maintain the element of surprise. This time, Jerry would be first to rock the boat. As we waited at the base of the hill, the sky now and again became bright with German nightlights,

which when we fired heavenward made the whole area quite luminous. Everyone froze until they fell to earth, and safety returned once more in the form of semi-darkness. in this waiting game I found my thoughts straying back to England what I could do for a couple of pints of English beer there's not till 4 o'clock in the next morning we ventured carefully toward forward through the undergrowth up went two more German nightlights then two more then still more

the place was illuminated like daylight they must have got wind of us or smelt us we could determine the nationality of a soldier from at 50 feet if the wind was favorable. So probably they could do the same. From the top of the hill, two machine guns began firing. Then more joined in as the place were alive with them. And they slashed and ripped mercilessly at the bracken, slicing the branches of trees,

as if an invisible sharp knife had done the job. A bullet went through my trouser leg, grazing my thigh, but I didn't think too much of it as I was still mobile. German mortar started hitting the approach slope and yells of pain here and there told me to take more care. The wine overhead was also warning that the enemy artillery was joining in. As things hoted up with the occasional tracer bullet mixed in with the machine gun fire, I could almost feel the hot lead piercing my limbs.

It was certain I would not get away with it this time. Farther back, things had gone wrong with our usual stalwart mules, the amazing animals that carried our heavy gear where men could not set foot. They didn't appreciate the sudden shelling and bolted out of control. Major Clemsby Thompson managed to round some, of them up with the help of the French officer, Major Priolu, and then all hell seemed to be let loose. Our men are men yelling, woo-hoo, Muhammad, as the R&T companies went in with their bayonets. Unfortunately, S company missed their correct route. The tapes laid to assist their assent had been

damaged or cut by the enemy activity. And at the count, we were to find that they had suffered extremely heavy casualties. And this chant of Wu-Hu Muhammad, this is throughout the time that they're fighting in Africa, and they do it when they get to Europe as well. It was something that the locals did, and they started doing it too. It's kind of like the term gung-ho,

which gung-ho, the Chinese term, which means work. It's actually a Chinese communist term, which means work together. And we use it, and they started using it, I believe it was in the Korean War They started using that term But it might have been in World War II Working with the Chinese

Anyway that must have been when it was Must have been during World War II When they were working with the Chinese And the Chinese would say Gung Ho work together Kind of means getting fired up down Well now yeah that's how we use it Americans

Yeah We can take work together and turn it in to get after it Sure The barrage we were set up against was intense and a ricocheting bullet or shell splinter often did as much damage or more than a straightforward burst of fire. We could occasionally be lucky at one time an artillery shell failed to explode on impact with the ground and went on mercilessly ricocheting three times before coming to arrest

with a dull plop. But the bombardment was unrelenting and we had to work and we had our work cut out here. There was agonizing shrieks of pain right and left of me as I passed. unrecognizable, as I passed men unrecognizable, soaked in blood being tended to by a splendid medics, those unsung, unarmed heroes. Sam Costa and Frankie Thompson had reached the summit and searched out and dealt with the enemy with no ceremony whatsoever. As Sam told me afterward, Frankie was lunging and tossing men with his bayonet as though they were sacks of straw. Frankie was a big chap

Usually very friendly and quietly spoken But in action a different man Picture that Bayonet on your rifle and you're throwing men off of it Lunging and throwing men with the bayonet as if they were sacks of straw Frankie Thompson done play Amid the turn all the turmoil and dead and wounded of both sides the curtain of fire had lifted And there was not a sound

This is once they get up to the hilltop Looking around the hilltop only a few of our men could be seen moving among the twisted forms Our R, T, and S companies had suffered very heavy casualties More than half of the battalion officers Had been killed or wounded He as they kind of get settled on the top of the hill He As they're preparing for a counterattack

which they know the Germans are going to do. He gets sort of tasked with going around and helping and gather up the sick, the wounded in the dead. He goes on here, setting about the job of collecting the wounded was something sickening. As I gazed upon the scene of our once able

and live comrades, now quite still or with torn limbs, I wondered whether there was any such thing as civilization. I bit hard on my lip and went about my task with grim determination. looking around for someone to help. I noticed a lad who was in the same troop as me early in 1941. Hello, Taffy.

And what have you been up to? Like a lift? That's how he greets this guy. Cheers, Lofty. And like I said, Lofty is the nickname of Reg. Cheers, Lofty. It's nice to see someone alive, he said, wearily. He was in a sitting position and had apparently been hit by no fewer than five bullets.

They were all clean flesh. In the calf, thigh, forearm, and one through the apex of his penis and all rather uncomfortable But no broken bones. He was pretty well saturated with blood, but cheerful Let's try a fireman's carry, I suggested He'd had a shot of morphine so I didn't think he feel he would feel too much Anything to get away from here, he said at that point Jerry started up again with artillery and mortars then a few snipers and to make it really interesting some suca dive bombers stucca side bombers to joined in the chorus let's get going before it gets too hot i've got to get you on my back i said so once again

this is you know he's saying this so kind of matter-of-factly he's up there trying to rescue this wounded guy who's obviously badly wounded he's been shot five times and then they start with artillery and mortars and then snipers and then stucca dive bombers that's what's going on and then he says he says Let's get going before it gets too hot It's like it doesn't get any hotter I've got to get you on my back. I said I managed to get him over my shoulder without causing too much pain and we started along the long Trek through wooded country ravines and open waste it was a ticklish and tender drop job But for two hours we struggled on I was sweating like two pigs and he goes through a description of

how hard it was to get this guy to an area where he could get some of the help that he needed. Once he gets that guy dropped off, continuing on, I joined a section of, I joined a section comprising men from T and S companies. They were mostly newcomers. I wondered what had become of all the friends I had not seen since the attack started. One of the lads told me that Major Conron had been killed and Captain Meller too. I felt so alone. No disrespect to the reinforcements, but the cream of our men were fast disappearing in the foothills of Tunisia.

Jerry was counterattacking in earnest now and slinging everything at us in the way of explosives with batches of stucca dive bombers joining in at two-hour intervals and making things even more deafening. The muck was falling heavily and a splinter from a nearby bursting bomb slashed a vein in my right hand, while another pranged my helmet. Nipping over rocks and creeping through bracken and bush under a hail of bullets and screaming shells, I had been become, I became cut off from the party of men I'd been attached to. I was making good progress and, stopping for a breather, dropped into a small depression in the ground. Suddenly a lone German pounced on me from the rear.

I realized what was happening instantly when I saw the field gray cuff of his uniform. My Schmeiser, which was out of ammunition, was slung bandolier fashion over my shoulder, but I had an American 45 automatic colt ready in my right hand. I went down on one knee, summoned up the unarmed combat I had been taught, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and heaved him with all my force over my head. It was my turn now, and I was not so gentle. As he rolled onto his back, I sprang and landed my 14 stone weight, feet first on his chest, grabbing the colt which I had released to dangle on its lanyard, I started to squeeze the trigger, shouting, you butcher bastard, to his, no, no, no, comrade, no, no, I pulled the trigger, but it was empty. I grabbed his rifle, checked that it was loaded, and ordered him to his feet.

Donka, donka, he kept saying, hugging his chest as we moved off. And with that, he starts moving to get this prisoner back under control, arriving back at Barada, after the formality of delivering my prisoner into custody, I rejoined the rest of the battalion. We were in great need of rest and a refit, and we were all sent by truck to a place called Taborsook, some 60 miles away, while Barada was handed over with thanks to the Americans. We were very soon back with the brigade, so they get a little breather. We were very soon back with the brigade this time in the Jebel Aboyd area.

The brigade's manpower was well down with the enemy, and the enemy usually outnumbered us three to one. Death Ridge as my first para position in Happy Valley was known, also developed the name Shell Shock Ridge. I tried closing my eyes at any given explosion. It was a terrible feeling like waiting to be massacred. The German started to mount an attack. It was daylight and I could see motorized enemy units being dropped off at points as near as they dared to our positions, three or four miles off in the direction of Sedejan.

They spread out in extended order and started toward us. We were told to hold our fire until the last minute so the whole first battalion lay very quiet and still. Enemy mortars saturated the area. I felt the draft of an exploding shell, which definitely. in my left ear and left it ringing and at the same time propelled me to the bottom of my trench making me even wetter than I already was now the mortar brought it lifted and I'm skipping the head a little bit now the mortar barrage lifted and I could hear the silence of the solathurn machine gun fire as it severed the undergrowth the enemy getting nearer all the time 60 yards 50 yards 40 yards

I peeked gingerly over the edge of my hole in the ground, 30 yards, 20 yards. Then above the din, the order was bellowed. Fire, fire, fire, advance, advance. As we went out to meet them, the battalion flung everything the enemy that it flung everything at the enemy that it could. Tommy guns, Bren guns, Sten guns, captured solitherns and schmizers, grenades, English, German, and Italian, coupled with the cry of, woo-hoo, Mohammed. Gripping my rifle, I advanced through the murderous fire, the haze of smoke, and the acrid smell of explosives. Every available man was on this one, even the cooks.

Before long the tables had turned in our favor. With two dead parrars lying to my left, I hopped over a dead German and came upon a wounded one a little to my right. He was contemplating using a luger pistol, but I booted it from his hand and clomped him in the face with the butt of my rifle. The whole episode was soon over, with the enemy beating a hasty retreat. and leaving a bag of captured, clean-shaven German parachutists flown in direct from Germany to deal with us. What a shock for them. So that's like just, again, whatever, a couple paragraphs, maybe two paragraphs.

And, I mean, it's total insanity, right? The guys are 20 yards away before they get the order not only to fire, but to advance. continuing on this is now they're doing a coordinated attack while we pushed on with two para and three para brought up the rear the British 139th brigade attacked on our right in time the pimple

this is the name of like a little knoll was retaken and our brigade proceeded to press home the final assault amidst devastating artillery and mortar fire from both sides tragically we found that we had gone a little too fast for our 25-pounders to increase their range quickly enough, and we suffered heavy casualties from our own fire.

At daylight, I passed Jock Pearson, crouched by a rock, bellowing into a field radio, and none too pleased with the person on the other end. What do you think you're doing? He roared. You're killing all my bloody men. So a little horrible blue-on-blue scenario happening. Man. Everything, but everything seemed to be in our favor now.

Even the weather was kinder. And we must have advanced about eight miles under a curtain of continuous fire until both Italians and Germany were ready to give in and we're running to be captured. So think about this scene with just massive fire and you're advancing under that fire for eight miles. They get, um, they're doing this. They're continuing to advance of this part in here. Messerschmets buzzed the area, spraying the ground spasmodically and causing those nearest to drop quickly into convenient holes.

We pushed on at a steady pace past demolition guns, past demolished guns and supply dumps. The air stinking with appalling butchery. I glanced instinctively towards a shellburst 50 yards away as I watched its jet black smoke, belched skyward. My gaze was transfixed by something odd on the ground. I wondered if it could be a human. Drawing nearer, I saw that it was the roasted body of a man in the sitting position. He must have been driving a scout car or light vehicle

as there were small pieces of charred, twisted metal spread 50 feet around, with dismembered arms and legs, torn and blood-soaked uniforms, littering the black scorched soil. The aroma was diabolical. Someone accidentally brushed the sitting form on passing and the body simply disintegrated with a sickly sound. Fast forwarding a bit, the smell of burnt flesh coat floated in my direction and I quickly and I quickened to my pace to get clear of it.

Plotting on in these awful humid and dusty conditions, I think I felt almost immune to weariness and the shocking sights of war. Nothing seemed to be able to stop us now. And this is, again, you've got to read this. book, but this sort of concludes this section. The first parachute brigade group was not destined to take part in the final push to Tunis. Our role in the campaign had come to an end, and we were withdrawn from the line. So ending five months, hard slog. And again, we're just burning through this book, and I'm skipping so many sections. This stuff is five months. This is half a year,

just about of this type of fighting. Originally trained as shock troops in Tunisia after the initial parachute assaults, we had served as plain infantry. But that's just the way the wind blew for us. Metals were plentiful and all ranks had earned them. Eight distinguished service orders. Fifteen military crosses. Nine distinguished conduct medals.

22 military medals. three Croix de Guer and one Legion de Honor. In their own way, even our German adversaries had recognized the brigade's fighting ability by naming us the Red Devils. For those who were there, though, the price of success was unspeakably high. We had lost more than 1,700 men, killed. wounded or missing so again I hate to burn through five months of insane fighting and and I'll take a dig at at reds right now like he's so matter of fact about stuff and he only hits on the high points I'm hitting on

the high points of the high points right just insane insane to think about that for five months so So from there, they're transported from Tunisia back to Algeria, and they spend time training for a drop into Sicily, a parachute drop into Sicily, which once again, you're fighting in Africa. Look, it's really tough conditions in Africa. Now you're getting closer to Germany. Like you're going into Sicily. You know what's waiting for you.

It was hoped that if Sicily could be taken, it might prompt an Italian surrender. A large proportion of my battalion, including myself, now. went down with dysentery. It goes into talking about a lot of that. This is no, this is just, it's like no, nothing's easy. Between exercises, we acclimized our reinforcements to use every, do use every type of enemy weapons, including Schmeisser automatic, which we found superior to our own Sten gun.

So now they start preparing for this mission in Sicily. There were three bridges to take in Sicily. And the password for them was to be desert rats with the reply kill Italians as the plane took off Chunky said well this is it our second operation I tried to act normally but could feel the sweat running down my cheek So once again he's stifling some emotions and here they go getting on this getting ready to do this drop and this is just it's just crazy as we drew nearer to our objective and at a thousand feet I could see the flack and tracer zipping past the wing of the aircraft for 30 minutes we dodged everything they threw at us but it was a tense half hour as we were helpless to do anything

so you're in an airplane you're getting ready to parachute and there's flack bombs exploding around you trying to take down your house your aircraft and Tracer fire zipping back you know how much protection an aircraft gives you from Tracer fire from machine gun fire zero what's flak so it's um anti aircraft they set it for a certain altitude it goes up in the air and then just blows up in hopes that some of that shrapnel will hit the aircraft and damage the aircraft and take them down gotcha so flack jacket is to probably so flat actually flack is just little chunks of it's fragmentation right it's little chunks of metal that that come off of an explosive device,

like a grenade or a artillery round. Like on purpose. Yes, purpose. That's what it's for. And then a flack jacket is to protect you from flak. Gotcha. And in the old days, like the flak jacket, term flack jacket, the flack jacket would protect you from flack.

It wouldn't protect you from a bullet. Right. Because flak isn't going as fast as a bullet is. So like an old school Vietnam flack jacket, wouldn't stop bullets. But it would protect you. you from flak. Yeah.

Like a motorcycle jacket kind of thing. Like it's like it'll it'll protect you but not from the real deal. Yeah. Yeah. So even so even nowadays, right, the expression like don't give me any flack. It's like kind of that. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. That's exactly what it is. So these guys are up there and like he says helpless. And by the way, this is a half an hour of this.

Boom. Suddenly we were given, continuing on. Suddenly we were given the order to hook up. I did so and waited. The engines cut back on the approach to our drop zone. We descended to around 600 feet with all sorts of rubbish whizzing by and the plane pitching and tossing like a toy in a vast vacuum.

Then there came a terrific explosion as our tail was hit. The order, jump, man, jumped. Screamed in my ears and I tumbled through the doorway into the void below. So the aircraft finally takes a devastating hit. He doesn't mention whether the aircraft made it or not. He just says that it, you know, the tail was hit hard. I can't imagine that's super easy to fly a plane once the tail's been blown off. Now he gets on the ground.

Again, fast forward a little bit. On the ground, about 300 yards in my left was the main coastal road to the town of Catania. And enemy traffic was in tremendous confusion. To my rear, I could hear Italian voices. And about 100 yards to my right, Germans wrapping out orders. Then down the road came a 15-strong German patrol. They could have been parachutists judging by their dress and headgear. Fortunately, I was not alone when they were just a few yards off, and we opened up on them.

There were some grunts, groans, and sickly yelps, then silence. We slipped on in the direction of the bridge, around which our men were by now silently killing, harassing, and panicking the German and Italian defenders. At night, small battles raged, unsublished. ceasingly and we were pinned down for a long time by mortar fire when daylight broke though I saw for the first time the vast mountain scenery at the base of which we had been fighting again I'm just jumping through stuff then the sun starts to come up it became warm and then the heat became intense a typical you're never you can never just be comfortable it's always like freezing cold

or too hot you he had 15 minutes where it was warm and then they were too hot there had been firing for some time and I realized that the enemy was no longer with us scanning the countryside I could see burnt out cars Italian tanks and ammunition dumps the smell of burnt bodies and oil filled the air I was glad to move on such a confusion of our brigade such was the confusion of our brigade drop that come daylight three men from the men from three para discovered they spent all night fighting alongside the men of first pair without realizing it at the bridge it was clear that there had been a fierce battle. The pillboxes had been rushed and dealt with ruthlessly.

Here, the brigade mustered approximately 180 men, but the three-inch mortars and ammunition had not arrived, and there was a lack of communication with outside units. Wireless sets, those are radios, had been either incorrectly netted back in Africa, were damaged on the landing, or just did not arrive. We learned that German parachutists from the third regiment of the first Falchim Yeager division had dropped simultaneously on our drop zone the previous night. So we must have indeed

have brushed shoulders with them when we came upon that 15 man patrol. How crazy is that? You're jumping into a drop zone and the Germans are jumping in there too. And then he goes as things start to escalate. He's talking about how hot it was like hot as in not heat temperature,

but hot as in enemy action. Little wonder things were so warm. The area within an approximately two-mile radius of the bridge was festooned with 88-millimeter and 20-millimeter guns, pillboxes, machine gun pits, and also a few coastal guns, and we were engaging with crack German troops, including paratroops. They presented a good target whenever they got too near the bridge. You could not miss, but word run around that our supply of ammunition

was now drastically low. conserve ammunition and fire only when you are absolutely certain of a kill was the order but in due course members of the first and third para battalions at the northern end of the bridge withdrew to join us at the southern end the enemy was getting harder to ward off as tanks and tanks began to appear now we got tanks enemy tanks on the scene we were using captured Italian 40mm anti-tank gun along with our own anti-tank gun. The battle worked up to a terrific climax. The Germans were sending their best troops in an effort to shift us, their paratroopers,

probing for weak spots and allowing no respite. Food was in our haversacks, but there was no time to get it. It was fire, fire, and keep on firing. Finally, there was a lull at about 1830, or soon after giving us a chance to take stock. Maybe the Germans wanted to regroup. I checked my ammunition and found only four rounds. left plus one in the chamber. At 1930, we were ordered to withdraw in order to avoid capture and go in small groups.

We made it off in a westernly direction toward the Gornalunga River. If we could use the river and the road running parallel to it as a guide for a couple miles, perhaps then we could be clear of any enemy concentrated attack. So these guys are basically bagging out of the area. and as they're doing it, they're doing it in small groups. At one point, as darkness fell, we came upon a deserted farmhouse but decided not to enter as it was quite near an abandoned flak gun pit. We thought both sides would be, we thought both could be booby-trapped. It was approximately zero-200 by now.

We were very tired and hungry. We dozed off in an orchard, 20 feet from the edge. Each man at the base of a different tree so as to be less conspicuous. So they spend the night in this orchard. And then they set off once again. We saw no more of the enemy. Via Lentini. We reached Augusta, some 15 miles from Premassol Bridge,

finding the town in our hands. It was a great sight to see so many of our own troops and tanks. And so they continue on, reaching Syracuse without mishap on the 17th of July, just four days after dropping into Sicily. We soon set sail, arriving back at Suissell. in Tunisia on the 20th. Our first parachute brigade group

had not only suffered heavily in the North African campaign, but in Sicily 2, where we had lost a further 300 men killed, wounded, or missing. It was time to rest, refit, regroup, and reorganized. And we also got to relax. So, I mean, this is a group of men

that are now just hardened combat vets and yet there's no war there's no end to this insight right I mean there's no end yeah I guess if you looked at it from a strategic perspective knowing what we know today

maybe you could say there's an end in sight but if you know you're barely surviving this stuff you're barely surviving it you know what the end is I mean you have to accept what the end is probably gonna be the end is probably gonna be

you're not gonna live in early November we were told that the whole first airborne division was returning to England and the first parachute brigade would leave from Algiers at the end of the month. On the 29th of November, we shipped out of Algiers on the SS Samaria, happily heading for Liverpool. Now, one particular chap made a popular appearance. Peter, the battalion's unofficial, lovable dog. Peter liked water and jumping from planes and was the only parachute dog.

dog on record. At first he was owned by a lad named Topper Brown, and rumor had it. They had both escaped from Dunkirk in 1940. Peter was a marvel and could do almost anything asked of him, never forgetting a trick. Put a stone on his nose and back away, and he'd remain motionless. But at a given command, he would toss and catch that stone. Water was his god. There had been static tanks eight feet deep at bowl.

Olford into which a stone could be thrown, Peter would retrieve it in no time and then sit patiently, waiting for another run. When we had set off from North Africa in October, the previous year, he had been smuggled aboard the Arundle Castle, everyone helping in the scheming to get him aboard and keep him fed, exercised, and comfortable. He had been left behind in Algeria in the good care of the cooks and the rear echelon party when we went on to meet the enemy in terms. Indonesia, where Topper Brown was taken prisoner and sadly never heard of again. Corporal Jim Nash, the battalion hairdresser of our company, then took care of Peter. And it was at Maitmore in Algeria during training for the Sicily operation that Jim took him up for his first jump from an aircraft. A special bag had been made and was fixed to Jim's front with a hole at the top for Peter's head to protrude.

They made a perfect landing, Peter running off as happy as Larry wagging his tail. After various other escapades, Peter returned to Algiers and was smuggled aboard the Samaria, where he was having a great time until the locker door of his hiding place was accidentally left unsecured during one of our boat drill procedures, and he ventured out on his own. He was found wandering below by the ship's officer who ordered him to be put. over the side. We were just two days out from Liverpool. The men were furious, and it was just as well that the officer responsible could not be found

as a roving band of justice-seeking Paris could not have been expected to be lenient. As far as Peter was concerned, he had such enthusiasm from water that maybe it was fitting to end up in a sea grave, but we felt his loss. I don't mind admitting that we fighting men had a soft side Even after all we'd seen and done Perhaps especially after all we'd seen and done I wrote Peter a poem entitled epitaph to a friend Its last verse as follows

Peter made us happy and carefree He had no military apparel He made just two jumps his grave is the sea his wings truly earned and the name red devil kind of a theme that we see come up

from time to time the attachment that soldiers can get to these dogs that they come across at some point and unfortunately a recurring theme is some rear echelon person that doesn't understand killing those animals and I also thought it was you know

it's interesting that line I don't mind admitting that we fighting men had a soft side even after all we'd seen and done and he says perhaps especially after all we'd seen and done that's something that is I mean I think that's absolutely true you know you there's no better there's the sunset looks a million times infinitely better when you know the sacrifices that have been made to see the sunset. The white bed sheets that you get to sleep on, you appreciate infinitely more when you've been sleeping in the dirt for six months. And it goes on and on and on.

And so when you see the depravity that human beings are capable of, well, that can actually expose the fact that you really can cherish a innocent, innocent little dog and these guys arrived back home um get stationed the first battalion

get stationed at grims thorpe castle and at this point they know something really big is in the air and he says here in August men coming from our old training area of Tatton Park reported seeing thousands of tanks there like a giant tank park sure enough in mid-September we were

finally setting off somewhere. I checked over my gear, one gammon bomb. Two dot-36 hand grenades. Combined pick and shovel, webbing equipment with small pack, two ammunition pouches and bandelier with 303 ammunition, water bottle, mess tin, iron ration, field dressing, camouflage net scarf, triangle shape, air recognition, bright yellow silk scarf tied around the neck ready for instant use,

rifle and an escape kit comprising of a silk map of Europe, a small button compass, and a strong file the size of a nail file. That was about it, except for a kit bag strapped to the leg and parachute plus May West life jacket in case we finished up in the drink. I felt like an overdue pregnant hippo and didn't know where to put anything else, though still I added 200 cigarettes, two bars of chocolate, and some boiled sweets. It's interesting the yellow scarf for recognition. And he specifically says, tied around the neck for instant use.

And it's interesting. I always carried one. The basic reason why I always carried one is because I was a radio man when I was a young enlisted guy. And I used it at times. I had learned the value of it signaling helicopters and signaling boats in the the jungle. Like if you and the weird thing is you, when you're in a, let's say you're in a boat in a river along the jungle, there's so much jungle to look at that it's really hard to see someone waving their hand. Like it seems so obvious when you're waving at some, waving at a boat.

Hey, hey, I'm over here. First of all, they can't hear you because they're running engines, shooting machine guns. They can't hear you. And second, because they're looking at whatever, quarter mile or half a mile of green bush. They got this whole thing to try and find you, and you're in a green camouflage uniform, and you're waving your arm, they can't see you. So you need, I would always have an aircraft panel is what we called them, aircraft signal panel, which is just bright fluorescent orange,

and I could whip that thing out really quickly. And then you become a lot more visible. Same thing with an aircraft overhead. Well, in Ramadi, it didn't take long before everyone was carrying that. And they were carrying big ones, too. Like a platoon or like an element that was going in a building would have a big, one that you could hang out a window everyone we are here hey friendly forces we are here So even this guy world war two that bright yellow silk scarf important signaling device at the hand

He says I wondered how the rest of the men were going to fare on this hop I was just getting used to the new faces like Frankie Panzer Manzer bill Silberry Terry brace Dick Bingley Dolly Gray, Major Perrin Brown, Sid Oxley, Gov Beach, with his top hat. The Germans will surrender in surprise if he takes them with that, I thought. Joe McReedy, Patty McCormick, and Captain Joe Gardner. I mean, I just had to read those names for two reasons. Number one, because they sound like the best bunch of characters you could ever hang around.

And also, so everyone remembers that all these people that we're talking about, they're all people. Unfortunately, Sergeant Busty Everett had fallen ill and died at born. We were from all over the country and beyond, and on the whole, one big happy family. It was daylight when we clambered into trucks and headed toward the aerodrome at Barksdon Hall. Everyone was tense, but ready to go. come what may He goes on here Our objective was to capture and hold the bridge

Stradling the Rhine At Ardenham My first parachute battalion was to seize the high ground To the north Our escorting typhoon Spitfire and Mustang fighters were weaving Between the Dakotas and gliders As we crossed the English Channel

Tension began to mount in my plane We approached land on the other side And could see the area that had been flooded To try and stop or impede the advance of our land forces I was admiring the landscape when the order rang out. Action stations, hookup, green light, on, go. Being number 13, I had a few long seconds to wait as I shuffled forward. Then I felt a slight pat on my parachute back and again found myself tumbling out of the doorway into that familiar open void.

My parachute opened once more obediently, and I drifted down to earth without difficulty. After a good three-point landing, I was now in enemy-occupied territory, except for the occasional machine gun fire. and some blasting from enemy machine gun emplacements, the landing had been unopposed, and the whole dropping zone north of Heaslam was packed with gliders and discarded parachutes. Everyone soon collected themselves and rendezvoused at their prospective points.

The time was just after 1,500 on Sunday the 17th of September, 1944. The time was just after 1,500 on Sunday the 17th of September, 1944. Leaving the drop zone, we made our way quickly along the track running alongside the wood west of Wolfhees and south of the railway. The end of the track lined up with a road running parallel to the railway, turning right here and then over the road onto the railway sidewalk. We nosed our way toward Wolfhees Station. Suddenly, there was a loud explosion up ahead and some machine gun fire.

And now this is when things start to... get hot. Our company still up front became engaged in a fierce battle, facing armored cars, mortars, and machine guns. It was getting dark now. The whole battalion laid dogo for a while to try to avoid further detection. We lay up in the woods for some hours, pushing on occasionally, but cautiously. At one point in time, unbeknown to the enemy, they completely surrounded us in the semi-dark.

So here they are. They're kind of like laid up. They're not trying to move too much. In the semi-dark, we passed down winding lanes. This is when they start pushing forward, through the woods and along the south side of the road. We were now about five miles from the Ardenham Bridge, and so far, luck had been with us. At about 2 o'clock in the morning, there were sounds of battle ahead, apparently coming from an area northeast, north-northeast of Lichtenbeek. On arriving there at about 0500, we found that the leading companies had met fierce opposition and it suffered heavily.

Then, with no reason given at the time, the original plan to go for the high ground north of Arnhem was changed, and we instead turned south towards Mirindal and Osterbeak, some two miles from the bridge. At 0600, we entered Osterbeek where we met members of the Dutch underground movement who showed us the easiest route to the bridge. We were moving cautiously in a file ready for action and everything seemed a little bit too quiet. At 0630 as dawn was breaking, we moved up into a built-up area and then it started.

The enemy had been busy overnight, preparing gun emplacements, taking up positions at vantage points, posting snipers and concealing tanks and SP guns. German gunfire shattered the piece and I darted for cover and took a position in the neatly laid out garden of a nearby house. More firing came from the house direction. With two other men I ran around the back of the house

and fired as two Germans in the shrubbery. They must have had their chips. With two other men I round around the back of the house and fired at two Germans in the shrubbery. They must have had their chips amid the smoke and fire of machine guns, SP guns, and six-barreled mortars, the battle raged and built to such a pitch

that I became quite accustomed to it and went about the task as if on street fighting training back at home. We hadn't eaten since leaving England, but I was too busy to be hungry. Casualties were mounting incredibly fast, and in every direction, I could see motionless forms of our men cut down in their tracks.

Progress was slow, and the battle became more intense as the bridge loomed gradually nearer. With two other chaps I did not know, I chased after some Germans in a house. We threw a grenade in and dashed through the door to finish them off with stand and rifle.

Looking around for any more of the enemy, we belted to the rear of the house. I tripped over a broken fence and went sprawling. As I scrambled up, I heard a close whine and recognized, which I recognized was a mortar. I die for cover by a low wall, and the bomb landed very, near near enough to feel the draft snipers were taking pot shots at us dodging and

weaving through gardens and backyards I came to stop at opposite of factory held up by held up by heavy mortar machine gun fire yet again I threw myself into the ground it was absolute bedlam with the slicing sound of German southern so southern guns their bullets cutting the air in every direction and the repeated stonk of mortars followed by the wine and sound of hot shrapnel hitting the rooftops. A small lump of shrapnel hit my helmet, sounding like a pee on a drum. In the heat of battle, men were shouting curses, lobbing grenades through open doors and windows,

and following up with shrieks of contempt for the enemy and the cry of woo-hoo Muhammad. Casualties really began mounting. There were groans from men who had been hit. Motionless parrillas lay in the, the road and slumped over walls I saw a pair of feet protruding from a garden gateway one boat one boot blown off but leaving the foot complete such as the magical phenomenon of war the german firepower was murderous and all I could do was keep alert for the sound of english I had a horrible

feeling that my battalion was being cut to ribbons going forward a little bit there was a heck of a battle going on inside the factory and men were scrapping furiously with grenade, stens, colt handguns, and fighting knives. The wall of the house opposite received a blast of machine gun fire coming from behind me. I was about to move off in pursuit of a German in the garden of a terrorist house on my right when I felt an explosion just beneath me and a sharp pain. Reeling over and looking down, I saw that the lower part of my right leg was in a most unusual position and blood was oozing out steady and fast. I shouted for help and two parras

dashed up quickly and rendered first aid. One of them, Sergeant Nabi Hall, called for a medical orderly. I was worried but felt like a nuisance as everyone was busy enough already without being lumbered with me. I was placed on a way, I was placed on a stretcher and carried into a wooden shed a few yards away where medics cut the boot off of the foot of my shattered leg smashed by an explosive bullet it looked awful but strangely i didn't feel much pain they tore open the field dressing i had carried for so long in different parts of the world but never previously needed and carried out a quick but thorough job pandemonium was raining outside as machine so at this point obviously he's been wounded he's been wounded really bad.

His leg is in very rough shape. He can't walk. Pandemonium was raining outside as machine gun fire echoed around the built-up area. A mortar bomb landed quite near, but the medic administrating a morphine injection kept a steady hand as if he were in the safety of a hospital back in England. So the talk about detaching, the medic is just cool and calm. While the other medic hunted around for suitable makeshift splint, a young Dutch girl appeared from nowhere and offered me a welcome cup of water. I was feeling cold and clammy, and her help was a great comfort, as was the morphine which soon began to take effect.

There was another series of explosions just ahead, a clear signal to get moving, and I was carried cautiously to the corner of a house next to the road I had come down only a short while ago. Everyone was scattered Everyone was scattered And there were dead parras in the road On the sidewalk and in the gardens Snipers were busy and our men were bent on winkling them out There was a thud, a whiz and a bark of an exploding shell Followed by another and another

All bursting on the rooftops of houses 30 yards back Then something flashed from an upper window Only 20 yards ahead and bullets splattered on the wall above us The medic set me down to wait for an opportune moment To get across the road And I saw four parrass press themselves into the wall of the building opposite as they worked their way toward that flash.

Went under the window, the leading para kicked the door out and out of the window came a potato masher, which he immediately picked up and threw back in. The potato master is the classic German grenade with a long handle on it, which they did so that they could throw grenades as far as the Americans could, because we play baseball and they play soccer

and you don't kick, you don't kick grenades. got to throw him. The leading para kicked the door and out of the window came a potato masher, which he immediately picked up and threw back in, accompanied by a Mills bomb, which is their grenade thrown by another man. There was quite some explosion, following which four parrers entered the building, spraying stun gun fire in the room, and threw up through the floorboards, a trick we had learned in training.

I was more than relieved to get out of the line of fire, was carried into the relative safety of a garden wall, as I lay helpless behind the wall. I had a clear view of the clatter and confusion of the battle and through the demolished gateway. So he goes on here. Obviously, I'm not covering the whole book, but covering some sections of things that are unfolding. I was moved with a number of other wounded men to a nearby barn, where I spent a fairly easy night, thanks to the powerful effects of the morphine injection I had been given. Early the following morning, all was reasonably quiet in the immediate vicinity, although I could

hear the sound of battle not far off. Looking around the barn, I didn't recognize anyone from my first battalion and those men I spoke to did not want to know. They were either too preoccupied with their wounds or unable to talk at all. Some of them looked as though

they had just lived through a nightmare. Which I would say is an accurate statement. And again, it's like everything that he's talking about is just you know complete mayhem combat that's what he's talking about it's just totally out of control and finally it settles down a little bit for that night and it sounds like maybe the probably

the brits at that point had done a good counterattack maybe established a perimeter unfortunately doesn't last at about zero 700 two medics came up to me and said that my turn was next. This is them as they're trying to extract them. Lifting the stretcher, they carried me to a waiting Jeep. It's engine running. There were four walking wounded in the backseat and I was strapped to the front of the bonnet alongside another chap who was already strapped in on beside the windscreen. He forced to grin. What's yours? I asked. They got me in the guts, he said bluntly. That's a nasty place to cop it, I thought, feeling sorry for him.

A short, stocky medic jumped in the driver's seat saying, hold tight in the back and don't worry you two in front on the bonnet. We might have a rough ride and it will be a bit fast. What do you even do? I mean, they take you, they put you on a stretcher on the hood of a freaking Jeep. And they're like, and the medic says, hold on to the guys in the back and says, hey, up front. They've got them strapped down. There's nothing they can do.

They can't move. I wouldn't want to do that on a Tuesday afternoon. No. You know, going like to the market. I mean, imagine I'm like, hey, I want to take you to the market. I put you on the hood of my car, strap you down and say, hey, it's going to be a little rough. After a fast, fast forward, after a fast bumpy journey, the Jeep tore through Oosterbeak, past the divisional headquarters at the Hartenstein Hotel and pulled up sharply in the drive of the Taffelberg Hotel,

a few hundred yards farther on. Airborne medics quickly unstrapped me and took me inside, setting me down on the floor opposite a window in the entrance hall. The Hotel Taffelberg had been German Field Marshal Walthor Modell's headquarters prior to our arrival the previous Sunday, and we were now using it as an improvised military hospital. It must have taken a few knocks as it was now in absolute shambles. As usual, the British Tommy had managed to brew up, even in such hazardous conditions. And I was given a mug of tea and a bar of chocolate, my first food since leaving England two days earlier. I had not touched my ghastly iron ration. I tried to sleep, but with the interruption of shelling and mortar fire prevented that.

When night fell, I just longed for daylight to come again. I hated the nights. It was bad enough to be meeting angry Germans in battle, but it was worse to do so while I slept. The next day, Wednesday, I was grateful to be taken into the operating room, ingeniously rigged up in the kitchen of the hotel. So he gets some preliminary work done on his wounds And of course the Brits I know I've talked about this

They like to grow up their tea and they will do it That's how they roll I was returned to the entrance hall Where the din of battle and bullets hitting the wall outside made me look out I was surprised to be to see a German wandering about So pictures you're in a hospital You just got like the shrapnel cut out of your leg They sit take and set you down

And now you're watching the battle out a window and you see a German wandering around. He took up a stand positioned by the door and then began pacing up and down. Just then there was a loud crump outside and debris, plaster, and glass fell all around. I looked to see where that one landed and the German I had seen

outside only a few moments ago was now sprawled out, killed. I presume by one of his own mortar bombs. But that should tell you the situation there and there's Germans outside the window walking around. I was set down at the head of the stairs. To my right lay a glider pilot who had a face and arm injury. Amid all the wounded who covered most of the landing area came a wounded man walking.

Our eyes met. Did I know him? I hardly knew anyone. They were unrecognizable, clotted up with blood and dirt. Then up the stairs belted some combat paras and we asked them how it was going. And I had to capture this because this is just. as British as it gets. So there's, like we just said,

there's Germans walking around outside. This place is total shambles, and they see a couple of paras, and he says, hey, how's it going? And one of the paris answers, not too bad, not too bad,

could be a bit better before disappearing back down again. That's like, that's a no-factor response. Yeah, oh, by the way, we're about to get overrun, but not too bad. Nothing could be better,

but, you know, we got this. Fast forward a little bit. A wounded man with his arm and a sling, approached me with an inquiring look what unit chum he asked almost in a whisper first para i replied amid a shower of dust and smoke as yet another shell exploded very near he winced and withdrew from the direction of the shell blast just as we felt the ominous vacuum of warm air he was almost incoherent as he glanced around the terrible scene of man-made destruction i just left the bridge he said

There was quite a pause. What's it like there? I asked. He swung around glaring at me as if the whole war was my fault. His eyes hard, staring in red with fatigue. The poor fellow had been hit through with something bad. I offered him a cigarette, and with a trembling hand he took one. It hung limp in his grasp. Thanks.

I don't really smoke, but I'll have one, he said. Then he answered, it was bloody hell there. Tanks belching fire, bloke's getting killed left and right. the carnage was terrible. He paused as a medic passed by with a man clutching his side and hoveling on one leg, a bloody congealed bandage wrapped around the stump where once had been afoot. My lad drew hard on the cigarette and coughing continued. There were hordes of them.

It went on for hours, attacking, shelling. Then the bastard started burning us out. My two mates got killed. The twisted and broken bodies of our men were strewn everywhere. He leaned back against the wall, looking a little more at ease. I don't know, but I think it may have been the first, I may have been the first person he had spelt out his experiences too. Later, he told me that it was his first time in action. I thought he had ridden it bloody well. The next few days seemed to drag on forever, with my leg giving me

much more pain now than it had during the first 24 hours after I was hit. And, he had, and And so obviously these guys are rallied up and they're suffering, but it doesn't mean that they're safe continuing on. There are so many shells landing in on and around the building, plus the occasional burst of machine gun fire, spattering the inner walls that I imagine we must be slap banging in the front line or somewhere in no man's land. And by the way, that's the field hospital. There were hundreds of wounded, enemy included, as well as Dutch people caught up in the fight. so many that some got moved to the hotel's annex across the driveway. And any man with flesh wounds or injuries that did not hinder the use of a firearm was ordered outside to fight. So if you could fight, now it's time.

It was now the 23rd of September and I was lying still at the head of the broad stairway and there was commotion down below. Those ruddy hunts again, said the glider pilot. There was a shuffling in German orders were being wrapped out. Then some SS troops dashed up the stairs. A sinister looking type about 20 years old led the way and was coming right out of coming right at me. I found myself looking straight down the barrel of his schmeiser, his trigger finger shaking. I didn't bat an eyelid.

I just did not want to upset him and give him a cause to let rip. He was glaring at me with red, beady eyes. Christ, this is it, I thought. I had heard of other wounded being shot up, but my luck was in and he passed me by. He and two other SS men had a good look around and then took up firing positions at windows in rooms leading off the landing As they started to fire out Colonel Warwick dast up the stairs Swearing and rebuking them for firing from a clearly marked Red Cross building Discipline took over they looked defiant and sullen but with fingers handling their automatics hesitantly

They reluctantly obeyed the officers command and stopped firing So as I as I talked about earlier with the And clearly these are some Germans that have respect for the law of armed conflict. And they're, which, let's just start with this. We're in the hospital building and now we got the Germans in the building using it as a firing position. I don't even know what to say about this. Like what is that even, how do you even translate that into reality? You're wounded.

Your hospital is getting mortared and machine gunned. And then there's German enemy source. soldiers in your building firing from inside your building walking around looking at you Oh, and he comments about this it was most strange to have enemy in the building one minute only be replaced by your own combat men the next So that's his statement about it is that yellow strange I wondered how the rest of my first para battalion were doing Right from the Sunday night our company had a tough time losing half of its men in the DeLereuddle area Then 40 men of six platoon and Company were killed in two minutes on the approach to Arnhem.

And in the Denbrink, St. Elizabeth's Hospital and Factory Area, the rest of the battalion was badly mauled. In the midst of it all, Father Benson, a Roman Catholic priest, was busy making his rounds and answering urgent calls. One man so constantly needed. things began to get on my nerves that morning, which is kind of interesting. Because he's been through all this stuff.

He's wounded. He's surrounded by the enemy. He's on his whatever, however many hundreds of days in close combat that he's been in over the past few years. And now that he's wounded and surrounded and there's men screaming and dying all around him, things are getting on his nerves a little bit this morning. Makes sense.

That's what, That's what Reg is up to. So things began to get on my nerves that morning. What with the continuous din of battle outside and my leg getting more painful through lack of proper medical attention, I called for Father Benson to offer a few words of comfort. So he came and put me at my ease.

Later, he was too, was wounded by tank fire into the building. I'm sorry to say that he died from those wounds and was buried in the grounds of St. Elizabeth's Hospital. on the following day the disposition was frightening once again understatement the British understatement because as far as I'm concerned everything up to this point is completely horrifying on the following day the disposition was frightening our men were still doing their damnest but the Germans were slowly closing in very slowly mark you for they lost heavily and had to fight for every inch of the bloody ground they got

there with things getting hotter still I was moved again to what was thought to be a safer spot just to the other side and along the landing area suddenly there was an all-mighty explosion in the room on my right men were already wounded once twice were hit again and some were killed there were piteous cries coming from that room it was at this time that major John waddy of the 156 parachute battalion who had started his parachute days in India when the battalion was first formed was wounded again and two English medics and a dutched nurse were killed a medic now came out cradling a form in his arms the chap he carried could have been dead or unconscious he was covered in blood and his arm was

shattered and hung pathetically by his side his left leg bandaged from his first wounding christ i wish i were outside there was another resounding crash of bombs followed by curses Perhaps I was better off in here. It was bloody awful for everyone, everywhere. Outside, the situation was getting completely out of hand. Further enemy reinforcements were mustering around the perimeter in the form of powerfully armed tanks from the SS Panzer Divisions with long-barreled high explosives and armor-piercing shells.

The passage where I lay ran from front to rear the hotel, and I was facing the rear with a grandstand view of the battle through a gaping hole in the wall where once there had been a window. Now and again, one of our men would break cover to stalk the enemy, and then the enemy would repeat the process with the multiple accompaniment of shellburst, tank fire, machine gun fire, curses, and yelps of pain. I heard the ominous sound of an approaching tank. I couldn't see it, but the squeaking of its caterpillar wheels grew even louder. Then it came into view, its great gun traversing from right to left. Picking its way through the trees, it stopped.

for a few minutes to feel its way. And then the gun barked out, sending a shell across my front to an unseen target. The other wounded were lying huddled together, trying to afford each other protection. The floor was littered with debris, blood, and glass, and there was an incessant whine and explosion of mortar bombs, together with the shriek and crash of artillery,

vibrating the very foundations of the building, which I thought when at some point tumbled down. I don't know what time it was when the shelling and gun fire stopped, but after a din of the last six days, it felt very strange to suddenly be so much quieter. There was still spasmodic firing in the distance and a little shelling, but nothing to worry about. We began to converse more freely. Gone on strike, Jerry, one man almost shouted, except that is, had half his mouth bandaged

from a shell splinter wound. Nah, he's packed up as Jerry and buggered off, a cockney put in. The glider pilot was more cautious. Crafty saw it as the hunt. He's got something up his sleeve. Then I saw men being carried downstairs with great activity going on outside, but not of battle. Two medics picked me up. Both of them silent and not looking too please.

Where to now? I asked. The Elizabeth Hospital one told me. The enemy had overrun us and was calling the shots. So the Germans were now in control. He gets taken outside. Outside was a ghastly sight with the fallen dead of both our sides lying where they had gone down. British and German medical orderlies were putting the wounded into jeeps and various other vehicles, including two small vans improvised as makeshift ambulances.

Three of us stretcher cases were loaded into a small open German lorry with shallow sides, which would prevent us from bouncing off in transit. There was just enough room for five walking wounded. Now they're on this drive. We all had shattered bones of some sort, which made us cry out in pain during the rough ride in this antiquated lorry. And I was still more than pleased when it finally came to a standstill at Journey's end. At the hospital, there had clearly been heavy fighting as spent cartridges could be seen littering the floor and entranceway. I heard the familiar voice of a friend

What the hell are you doing on that stretcher? Scranging for a lift I went to answer but nothing came out Can you imagine you go to a hospital and the floor Has got bullet casings all over it? Word got around that the whole show was over And I began to wonder what really went wrong The battle had been lost but it had been some fight

As mortar sergeant Dick winning him later Riley remarked We may have lost the battle at Arnhem, but we did come in second. It should be noted that there had not only been a great loss of life in this battle, but also massive local destruction with one in four houses, totally destroyed and most of the remainder badly damaged. And so again, you know, I talked about the seeing the different sides of the Germans, and, you know, we already saw some of the Germans, the prisoners being sickened by what the kind of civilian casualties were taking places.

They evacuated Dunkirk, the Germans that were firing inside the hospital. And then when they get told by an unarmed leader, hey, get out of here, they're, okay, fine. They're grumpy, but they leave. Just the fact that the patients are, the wounded are getting treated actually pretty well. So they end up in this sort of makeshift hospital. A South African orthopedic surgeon, Captain Alexander Lipman Kessel, was going to see me. He commanded one of the surgical teams of the 16th para field ambulance. I was thankful that I was not going to have a German butcher.

I had seen the end result of a German doctor's amputation of a man's foot, crudely almost guillotined, and without anesthetic. I was carried into a large room with medical apparatus everywhere, trolleys and tables, laden with all sorts of instruments, bandages, field dressing, and splints. I was placed on a hard, narrow table about four feet from the ground. In the distance, I could hear the sound of gunfire and German flak, which meant that our aircraft were in the vicinity. The anesthesiastists put up, had his needle at the ready, and medics were preparing for the operation when there was a noise,

rather like a giant balloon having air released, and then a terrific explosion. With a very quick presence of mind, one medic threw a blanket over me and shielded me from the blast with his own body, as shattered glass fell in small pieces and slivers all over the operating theater. Then all went quiet again, and the blanket was pulled carefully to reveal yours truly with popping eyes. My treatment had to wait another day while the place was cleaned up. Fortunately for me, the next visit was uninterrupted. The wound was cleaned and redressed, and I had my first plaster cast put on.

So, like I said, it seems like at this point, it's relatively civilized. I mean, if you can forgive a bomb exploding while you're about to get surgery, but relatively civilized compared to what they'd been through. At one point, there's an SS officer comes in, and they kind of go through the different individuals there, and they finally get to him, and when he tells him he's an airborne guy, they say, you're going to a prisoner war camp. And he says, here, it was September 28th. It was the 28th of September when German orderlies carried me out of the hospital,

not so carefully as our own medics, and I had to hang on to the sides of the stretcher as we descended the stone steps at the entrance to avoid sliding off. And now he gets transported again. This time he ends up at the Vilem three Cascern barracks. We were given iron beds with straw-filled pillows and the floors were dirty. There was no heating and only a meager supply of medical necessities. and then at one point a doctor or I presume he was entered the room, accompanied by a rotten furor of the SS Medical Corps. The stench from my wound caused disapproval on the face of the doctor

and grabbing my big toe with his finger. He slowly raised the leg, which began to bend at the wound beneath the knee where both the tibia and fibia were broken. Stopping, he peered at the wound inquisitively. Do you mind that hurts? I told him. Whereupon he simply released the hold of my leg and let it fall on the hard table,

instantly turning to go, looking at me in the eyes with a sadistic expression as he did so. You bastard square-headed shite-hawk, I said. I couldn't care less if he didn't understand the phrase. He just raised an eyebrow with an inquiring look and departed while I returned to my private world of pain. Then the medics came back

with that infernal SS-Garrow. and redressed and replastered my leg. So like I said, there's, I mean, it's not great treatment, but I mean, let's face it, he's alive. And he goes on here. I was at the barracks for a little more than a week when one morning I was prepared for yet another move. This time, a short journey to the Juliana Hospital in Apple Doom, Apple Dorn.

My stay at Juliana Hospital is going to be the longest and best as far as medical cares go the hospital staffed with Dutch doctors and nurses helped by our own doctors and orderlies and the Germans left us well alone to fend for our own medical requirements. Like I said, that seems fairly civilized to me. And they're trying to help them out. And here we go. It was decided to apply a gadget called a Kirshner wire extension to my leg. As both bones were broken below the knee, the theory was to stretch the leg and try to marry

the bones in the correct position. Under an injection of Evapan, a steel bar, was shot through my ankle bone to act as an anchor. A steel cable was then attached to the anchor and to a pulley apparatus below the foot of the bed. Waits were added each day to steadily stretch the leg. Otherwise, I was told I would be left with a two inch shortening, necessitating the use of a club boot at a later date, which I didn't much care for.

But my general condition, my general and local condition had regressed considerably, and I was at my lowest ebb. I was now wishing that I could see the end of this confounded, useless lump of decaying flesh and bone. On the 19th of November, I got my reluctant wish, and my leg was amputated by Major Peter Smith of the 133rd Parachute Field Ambulance. As I later learned, it was not a moment too soon. Prior to the operation, I had been regarded as a hopeless case. One of those certain of not lasting. after surgery, however, I made such an amazingly quick recovery that I was back to life and sitting out of bed only a week later.

The medical orderlies could not do enough for us, from bass to fetching bedpans, carrying patients from the bed to the loo and back again, soothing and dying, soothing the dying, or reading a book for those two weak or exhausted to do so for themselves. They were always on call all hours of the day and night. I wondered when they managed to eat or sleep. I asked one who was passing with a bottle in his hand. He answered quite cheerfully, oh, we get 40 winks now and then with a snack in between. So there you go. I mean, almost one sentence.

No, two sentences. He was wishing that he could get this decaying hunk of flesh off of his body. And the next time, the next sentence is he got it amputated. That's how much, that's, that's, that's, that's, That's as matter of fact as you can get, I guess is where I'm going with this. This is one last little section of this. A Polish para who had dropped at Arkham was opposite me in the corner of the ward. He'd been cut up badly and was having a rough time.

A German military clergyman kept calling to say prayers and finally came to administer the last rights. As he stood there in his dark olive green uniform, black jack boots and belt, Peaked cap under his arm. I scrutinized his close-cropped bull neck and square jaw. I could not help but notice and thought how strange that he wore a gun holster. A man of the cloth with a pistol in a hospital. What next? So he talks about the care that he gets. He starts getting moved around a lot. The Germans kept shipping us out as soon as they thought we were fit enough to travel. And once again, I found myself in a truck this time heading to the rail station at Appledorn where we pulled up a long. side and boarded a red cross train and of course this stuff just never gets easy daylight came with a German doing his nut and shouting Spitfire acton spitfire acton I watched a lone spitfire turn and fly parallel to the train at about a hundred feet with the same

distance from the train it was quite cheeky I thought the pilot was having a real close look to make sure it was a hospital train I could see clearly his goggles were off in white scarf and felt like giving him a wave as he disappeared behind some pine trees We were now in Germany with snow-covered mountains and forests of fur log cabins dotted here and there making it all so picturesque As nightfall came we halted at a dismal looking place a small town. I think unfortunately the luxury was now over and we were ushered off the train In a collection on a collection of crutches of varying lengths that were produced and given to the leg amputees So they get end up in this like just junk place we were all a bit under the water weather with the added unpleasantness of an amputation.

One lad had an arm and a hand missing, another two arms off, and most like myself had lost a leg. One poor fellow was the worst for blisters on his one and only foot. We had a wounded medic, who was with us and did all he could to help with minimal medical supplies. We had only paper bandages. It was not the best of nights on the cold stone floor, but I somehow slept. Others were not so fortunate.

And one chap did not even live to see the rest of the journey, remaining motionless the next morning as we were roused by the guards. So this is transport continues, gets on a train, finally ends up at another place. The snow is quite thick and we pulled in what looked like a school in a small town near Munster. Three of the yanks and myself were told to get out and then a lorry carried on its way, leaving us standing in the crisp snow. a voice called Welcome, Buddy, come in. He was a big American from Indiana called Marvin Adams. Inside, he showed us to a room on the left. Grab yourself a pillow and bed down here.

I'll do yours, bud, he said, looking me up and down. How'd you manage that, fella? Put the best foot forward at the wrong time, I answered. Ah, well, this ain't the writs, but we'll have fun, he said. I wondered what he meant by that. Always good to be that person with a good attitude, even when you're in a damn prisoner of war camp. Going on here, the Germans guards were non-existent except at night. As we were all severely wounded, there was thick snow outside.

They were obviously not worried about a mass escape. Food was sparse but regular. And then, again, more moving. I was just getting used to this place when Ward went around that Jerry was moving us. Some of us maybe for repatriation. having only one pin meaning leg i thought i stood a good chance to be in on this then early one morning three yanks two russians and myself were ushered to a truck and taken on a passenger train in which we traveled a few miles only to detrain again perhaps to get another connection for as are yet

for our as yet to be undisclosed location destination and then they get off that train they get on another train they get on this other train after shunting around a bit and hitching up to another train we rolled off again it was dusk cold and pretty dismal all told then someone struck up our version of the song bless them all and their version of the song was sod them all sawed them all the long and the short and the tall sawed all the sergeants and the w-o-ones sawed all the corporals and their bastard sons. For we're saying goodbye to them all, as back to their billets, they crawl. You'll get no promotion this side of the ocean.

So cheer up me, lads, saw them all. And he says, it seemed we had joined a group of British soldiers. This was by way of an introduction. They finally make it to Bremen. We pulled in slowly, and as the train came to a stop, there were sounds of doors opening in the hustle and bustle of people getting off and making their way along the platform, and then it happened, an air raid warning wind out.

Civilian and military personnel immediately began scurring about. In the military, I noticed, did not hesitate to shove anyone else out of their way. A little shot at the German military. The civilians are getting pushed out of the way so they can get to cover. The air was humming with aircraft. American Boeing B-17 flying fortresses, and our guards quickened their step way ahead of us, periodically turning to beckon us to hurry it up. We entered the shelter, big enough for about 100 people,

and after a lot of pushing and shoving settled amid glares and remarks thrown our way. I was happy to let it happen, but somehow I had been pushed and guided into a corner of the shelter away from the door. If a bomb lands too near the Germans take it, take the blast and cushion any effect on us, I thought. There was a wooden betch fixed to the wall. I dropped to it exhausted. Three guards spread out between us and other occupants, and when the bombing started in earnest, the shelter shook.

I was sure one had landed close outside because I felt its draft reminding me of being blown off my feet in North Africa, only that time it was just 50 feet away. Everyone fell silent as the drone of aircraft and whine and crash of bombs went on with ever increasing ferocity for a good hour before dying down to a steady drumming and an occasional distant explosion. I must admit, I always think of these bombing runs as taking like, maybe 10 minutes but we're talking about a good hour people began to chatter this is once everything's kind of faded people began to chatter as interfered dispersed and

external bravado took over I could hear the gnashing of teeth glances accompanying finger pointing in our direction the crowd is getting restive and a big man started pouring forth with words of abuse a big frow about 40 years old worked her way nearer to us until she was only a couple feet away. I felt the moisture of her spittle as she argued with the guards about the privilege we had being allowed to be in the same shelter as the German people. I gathered that that was the crux of the matter. That was the crux of the matter. At this point, a heavy booted foot came out and started propelling my way. I parried firmly with my right hand and the boot just brushed my balls coming to a harmless glancing blow on my left thigh.

The guard stood firm, restraining the woman and trying to calm everyone down. It was only then that I noticed a familiar sound in French. Our guards were Frenchmen conscripted in the German army. Anyway, they saved my nuts from being cracked. There must have been another hour's wait at the station, so now they're back going to transfer again. There must have been another hour's wait at the station until an old army-type lorry with solid tires turned up.

Oh, sorry, they were waiting for a truck. I couldn't care less at this stage, provided I didn't have to hobble on crutches. Before long, I saw the large POW camp ahead with its eight-foot high wire fences and guards platforms sticking up like sore thumbs all around. There was a collection of dingy-looking huts dotting the interior. The lorry slowed at the gate, and the senior guard jumped down to go through the handing-over ceremony.

Then the big wood and wire gates creaked open, and the lorry jerked into the compound where out we tumbled. I was exhausted and sweating as if I'd just come out of a Turkish bath. My stump was throbbing. I stayed lying on the ground where I landed, managing to support myself on one elbow, while the rest of the party sat, knelt, or remained standing with the aid of their crutches. I didn't want a welcoming committee, but wished that someone would show us where to go. One of the guards was busy having a chat and laughed with his mate.

Eventually he gave us the go ahead and the party moved off slowly and wearily. I found myself left behind. I tried to get up, but I could not muster enough strength to make it. So I started crawling, dragging the crutches. I'd only managed five or six yards when I heard voices and saw two pairs of gated boots. Come on me, old mate. A voice said, we'll give you a lift. On which they lifted me with ease and carried me.

I don't know how far. I didn't even get a glimpse of their faces to say thanks. Sinking down onto a straw mattress, I just slept and slept for the next two days. When I awoke, I found that I was in Stalag X1B in Saxony, along with a large number of other airborne men. It was not long before I contracted more complaints to add to my already sorry condition. Lice and bugs were in abundance in my hut. The nights were the worst. The iron stove was stoked right up at night and the heat was awful with all the doors and windows shut tight.

Urine buckets would fill to the brim in no time making the stench nauseous. I went down with dysentery, plurzy, and scarlet fever, which together with my amputation meant that I did not feel all that good. Reg's hard as nails. If I had wanted to die, I would have. But fortunately, that didn't enter my head. Little key note. As I read that, I thought, hmm, let's think about that.

If you want to die, if you want to give up, there's the time. But luckily, fortunately for him, that thought did not enter his head. After a short time, promising news. Again, I'm jumping ahead. Like, this is, we're talking. Every little thing that he just talked about is a nightmare. And he's got them all at the same time. It's been a while since we talked about lice on the podcast.

Yeah. We've been missing out on that one. We think lice is no big deal because you're, your kid gets it and then you get some special little medicine from the store and then you put it in their hair or you shave their head and and either way problem solved These guys are got it and there's no way to get rid of it This is by the way while they've got dysentery and plurzy and Scarlet fever and an amputation However fast forward a little bit after a short time promising news. I was told that I was going to be repatriated

I boarded yet another train no sooner had we set off that there was a terrific whoosh and the train's I stopped in the middle of nowhere. I could hear the guttural twang of German civilians as they ran hell for leather on each side of the train to take cover from what must have been our own aircraft overhead. One of the guards just vemoosed and left it to us. Looking down to the track, I saw that it was much too high for me to jump with only one leg, though some of our party of eight jumped and took cover. I fouled my pants and don't know whether it was fright or the dysentery that was still with me. The planes returned.

They were two rocket-firing RAF typhoons, which specialized in ground attack. I recognized the sound as they got nearer. There was another wush, and then another, followed by an ear-splitting explosion. The carriage shook so violently that I thought we were going to topple over. As always, in such a task, with such attacks, it was over in no time, and all was suddenly peaceful again. So they have to go and repair this train, and then finally, we had reached a snug little village called Meisberg on the German side of the border with Belgium. And once again, we see some

nicer treatment. Our first job was to be cleaned up and we were taken in pairs into the shower. I was asked to remove all personal items from my pockets and all clothing was to be cleaned and fumigated. Don't worry, you'll get everything back. An English medic told me here, put this on. It was a sort of cotton smock, which tied in the back. It was just long enough to cover to the knee. First in came a great big American with the same garb with forearms like tree branches. He lifted me bodily with the ease of Samson himself. Mind you, I was down from 14 stone to just over eight since last September. And to translate that into American English, he weighed 196 pounds in September, and now he weighs 112.

On reaching the shower, his mate asked, can you stand on one leg, bud? Sure, I said, Samson had taken his smock off and proceeded to bathe me while Hercules steadied me. I was carried back to a most luxurious bed with white sheets. God knows where they scrounge the sheets, but trust the yanks. There were approximately 40 wounded. They're a mixture of English, French, and American with four American and two English orderlies. One of the walking wounded acted as a cook, all the others doing menial tasks. They did not mind, though.

So he's in this pretty, God, can I even say? Let's say, let's just say, an improved situation. An improved situation is what he is in. That goes on a little bit. No, even he calls it the luxury. Things began to liven up outside. The rumbling in the distance grew nearer and groups of bedraggled, weary-looking Germans

plotted through the village. The wounded borne by horse and cart. Field guns were manhandled. The luxury of any motorized transport being afforded to senior officers only who clearly wished to withdraw in as dignified a manner as possible leaving under officers

to do all the donkey work along with the chuteson and suffer all the humiliation of being seen by their own countrymen. It was a pathetic sight like a cutting from the First World War film archives. As the dawn approached, the throb of motorized transport and tanks was very near.

So he's seeing the Germans kind of walking back. He's seeing the officers in the vehicles, the German officers in the vehicles, and the German troops walking or being carried if they were wounded. And here's tank activity, right, which is kind of an indication where you hear tank activity, but you see people withdrawing with horses and carriages. That's an indication that perhaps the tanks that we're hearing are good friendlies. As Don approached the throb of motorized transport and the, tanks was very near you could hear the squeak of the tanks wheels rubbing against

the caterpillar track thirsty for lubrication edging and shunting into position for the impending advance in the village that noise that a tank makes in the city is just when well is awesome and and it's also horrifying like these guys when they're hearing the German tanks outside when they're in that that battle where they're about to be overrun the horror can't even imagine of tanks coming and now the joy which I got to experience some of the joy in Ramadi of hey the tanks are coming it's the glory it's glorious and God bless the tankers and here these guys feel in the same way the American orderlies were Jubilant they're here Limey the yanks are here exploded Hank anyone who get up walk hop or propel

themselves in some way momentarily forgot their wounds and discomfort they peered through the cracks the doors through the windows. I could not see anything from my window, only the Nazi flag of the local garrison, hanging listless, like the enemy itself. Bill, one of the English medics, came dashing in, not knowing which way to turn it in his excitement. There's hundreds of them. There's hundreds of tanks out there. Bloody well, hundreds of them.

Sherman tanks of General Patton's armored division had encircled the village in the early hours of that morning and were in a very advantageous position as we were in the valley and they were on the high ground. Every gun would have its own selected target with orders to open fire if fired upon. Thankfully, the tanks played a waiting game with the non-existent enemy because unknown to the Americans,

the birds had flown. An American scout car ventured cautiously toward the village. Unmolested, it reached the outskirts, scanning the buildings where white flags were protruding. No sign of the enemy. Still in view of the tanks on the hill it became boulder and cruised gently into the village. Our makeshift hospital with a painted red cross on the roof must have been in view of the scout car now. All these goings on were being shouted by one of the medics in the passageway for the benefit of all those like me,

Hugh could not see for themselves. So he's getting a play-by-play. The scout car came to a stop, its occupants clutching their automatics at the ready. they must have spotted someone stepped carefully into view. That person was a medic with a Red Cross armband, Hank, the orderly from Ohio. He was about 100 yards from the scout car, and they stealthily approached each other. Hank not wishing to be mistaken for a German ruse, though in the scout car not wishing to fall for any trick. As they drew closer, the realization dawned that they were brothers.

A wireless call was immediately sent to the tanks on the skyline. And in minutes the village was alive to their rumble as they thundered on through, leaving an acrid smell of oil and exhaust fumes. I was almost home. And you know, I got to that point in the book and I was like, well, that's where you stop. And it's definitely a good place to stop. But let's take that as a stop. that incredible glory of seeing the Americans,

seeing Patton's armored division roll in and knowing that he was almost home. But there are some things to think about and he covers them in the epilogue here. He says the casualties in the Arnhem area alone were 8,000 airborne, killed, wounded, captured, or missing. Including poles, plus more than 400, 100 RAF pilots and crew.

There were 750 Dutch civilians and underground fighters killed at least 2,500 Germans. And in the following winter of 1944 to 1945, some 200,000 Dutch died of starvation. So it's important to understand that these, you know, you see, you see this through one man's eyes, but that thousands, in fact, hundreds of thousands were affected by this particular battle. And again, that might be a good place to stop, but there's another note here. He talks about several years later,

I visited the place of thinking, if you will, of that great man and founder of the parachute regiment, Winston Churchill. The war rooms, situated far below ground at the Treasury Chamber, in Westminster. The existence of these a warren of rooms was a well-kept secret during the war years. The tour was fascinating.

Everything remained exactly as it had been back then. I sat in Churchill's chair in front of me on the desk, printed on a black card, printed in black on a card, the words of Queen Victoria. In this house, we never speak of defeat. In this house, we never speak of defeat. And he goes on, in the toilet, there was a red telephone, a direct line to President Roosevelt in Washington. In the visiting minister's room, I opened a book entitled World War II on the Sicily landings and saw a training shot of members of my 11th S.AS battalion.

To the four in the lineup were Harry Bance, Corporal Hudson, Jimmy Metcalfe, and myself. Down here beneath Westminster, I am sure, by a dedicated team, Churchill did his job extremely well. I would like to think that I did my best alongside other leopards, lions, and tigers of the first parachute brigade.

Again, I really didn't get into the fact that at one point their call signs, their code names had been the leopards, lions, and tigers, That's what they're the different battalions were called Could be a good place to stop on a go a little bit further This is actually in the preface of this book and he says when the war ended because this is He survived he was home when the war ended I found it a little difficult

Initially knuckling down to civilian life The letter from the government saying you are now a civilian seemed so sudden I couldn't face the prospect of an office job so I tried manufacturing, making handbags before joining my brother-in-law John in his landscape gardening business and then branching out on my own in the same line of work.

Having an artificial leg didn't help but I didn't let it hinder me. And the limb fitting center at Gillingham kindly reinforced my artificial knee for kneeling several times. I got a BSA motorbike and side car

and had the gears modified to operate by hand instead of I built my own house you do the best you can again I mean hey found it a little rough but guess what I'm gonna go I'm gonna go to work I'm gonna start a business I'm gonna build a house I'm gonna drive a motorbike around the country with a side car you do the best you can and I also wanted to say that he wasn't alone he obviously needed that side car for someone and I'm quite sure that that was one of the dedications of the book is for Betty Francis, Reg's wife,

who, as he puts, it helped me so much. And the last thing I'll say, and the last thing I'll read from this book, I should say, is the dedication. And he says, I dedicate this book to all my airborne friends, who never came back, whose actions made it possible for me and other airborne friends to enjoy over 70 years of living. That is, well, that's the parts I'm going to read from this book, but Reg Curtis died on January 29th, 2016, 94 years old. He was the last surviving member of the original First Parachute Battalion. The last of those initial 500 men that took that step forward and volunteered for parachute and commando training in 1940.

And the book, the book, which is called The Memory Endores, the book, it's actually not available on Amazon. It's not available in bookstores. I actually got it. I got it from somebody that sent it to me. And with no inscription in it, it says he sent me a note. It says, Dear Jocko, keep up the great work, best wishes. I believe it says Rick or Rich. So that's where I got the book from.

Luckily, it was sent to me. I wouldn't have known about it otherwise. If you want to get this book, which you should, it's available from Pilotspublishing.com. CEO.uk. And there's also a Facebook page, the memory, Facebook.com slash the memory

indoors. And as it says in the book, the author's royalties in respect of this book will be donated to the Parachute Regiment charity. And there you go. Another hero

teaching us the sacred lesson. that we must never forget that life is a gift. And as Reg Curtis tells us, what you do with that is you do the best you can. With that echo, echo Charles,

as I decompressed over here a little bit, maybe you got some ideas of how we can be the best we can't. What do you got for us? One of the many things that I took was, I don't know if it was his attitude, or if that's the culture or both. You know, could be a bit better. Well, then that was the other guy, right,

who was like, could be a bit better. Yeah, we can do a bit better. Yeah. So on these terrible conditions, right, could be a bit better. Oh, oh, you're talking about the guy that says, not too bad, not too bad, could be better. Could be better.

Yeah, a bit better. So, you know, like I said, probably both, right? Attitude plus culture. So the attitude, right, when things, when you go through adversity, you can have that attitude. Not too bad, not too bad. Could be better. Hey, we're about to get overrun. And there's a strong possibility we're going to get killed.

Right. Not too bad. Not too bad. Could be better. Yeah, could be better. There's a little positive thought pattern there. Yeah. It's kind of like, well, it's really a good news, bad news.

Yeah. It's also a realistic view, right? Yeah. Hey, I'm still walking. Hey, I still got ammunition. Yeah. And by the way, it's not too bad means we don't have to do anything. Could be better, though.

Maybe there's some things we can work on. Yes. Yeah. Well, I forget what movie it was when he's like, I got good news and bad. I think it might have been tango and cash. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not.

But anyway, he said, I got good news and bad news. He goes, what's the bad news? We're almost out of gas. And he's like, well, what's the good news? We're almost out of gas. See what I'm saying? So it's the attitude, really. Good, man.

So just, anyway, speaking to attitudes, good and bad what we're doing one of the many things is jiu jiu-jitsu okay so that's a really good news bad news scenario as well really what's the bad news bad news is you're going to get choked from time to time i know this firsthand that's that's the bad news but the good news is you are exposed to an environment that will teach you how to choke others if the need may arise Good. Yes. Good news is you're getting choked.

Or sorry, bad news is you're getting choked. Good news is you're getting choked, which means you're learning how to defend, also choke, other people. Yes. So, okay. Repetatively. Well, that could be good or bad news, whatever. So it's a matter of your attitude, really. How was your attitude lately on getting choked?

A lot of learning. You know, a lot of learning. What do you call it when you relearn something? You know. Lessons learn. Lessons. repetitive iterative learning sessions hey it's not an inoculation you know it's repetitive well it is it's both imagine that you get choked one time you'll never get choked again nope no that's not the way

it happens with the jihitsu so we are it sounds like jihitsu even though there's a negative possible thing right but it's not too bad not too bad could be better could be better if you train it yeah start training the more you train the better you get so there you go anyway while we're training we're gonna need a geek because you're going to do gee what do you do not do gee well I guess that's possible but okay how about this? Not recommended no not recommended are you gonna fight people all the time that are just

wearing shorts no no what if you're getting a street fight okay if you get a street fight at the beach maybe what if you get a street fight at the supermarket with the guy with a jean jacket yeah somebody something like this yeah yeah he's taking the last you know and really that's like that's last one I don't know broccoli or something last piece of broccoli yeah you don't like that

got to fight them for it, something like this. But that's even just one of, actually a teeny tiny way of looking at it, where it's like, okay. Oh, I see what you're saying. Because the chance of you getting in an actual fight are pretty low. If you have, you know, if you're smart about it. Not to say that you shouldn't, you know, I'm not saying that, but they're pretty low, is what I'm saying. And especially if you're going to actively avoid getting into a fight.

Yes. If you're smart. If you're smart, yes. The problem is you can't always avoid. No, you can. There may be a situation. And here's the deal. if you are forced into a situation

where you have to defend yourself and you don't know how the result is catastrophic catastrophic. Why have that catastrophic possibility? Here's the deal. If that's the only reason you were training jiu-jitsu, if that was the only reason, it would be worth it. If that was the only reason, here's the deal.

That's not the only reason. There's a thousand other reasons. There's an infinite more reasons, right? You're going to get in better conditioning. You're going to get mental stimulus. You're going to meet other human beings. You're going to develop relationships and have friends. You're going to think you're going to develop discipline in your life, right?

This is a long list. I mean, this goes on. So even if the only thing you were going to get was just you learn how to defend yourself. Totally worth it. Now, not only you're going to defend yourself, you're going to be able to get these other collateral bonus things. Which, by the way, some people, in order to work their cardiovascular system, they're riding a spin bike somewhere. Someone else in order to work their flexibility is doing a yoga class. Someone else in order to work their strength is lifting some weights.

I'm not saying, you don't do all those things. But I'm saying you can get all three of them, like a little hitter of all three of them. No problem. Get on the jihitzy mats. Yeah. Ghi, no ghee. Both of them. Yes. Well, yes. But if you're if you're doing ghee only because someone on the street might be wearing certain types of clothes,

then it's like, there's a lot more to it. Same exact same exact. Same exact point I just made. Yeah. If you're only, even if you only going to do ghee because of that, it's worth it. But there's all these other beneficial things. Yes. And I'll tell you this right now. Really the number one thing that'll keep you in Jiu-Jitsu doing it. The number one thing. And it's maybe even by far for most people is that. It's fun. I was gonna say fun. I hope we're aligned on this. It's true because look think about it. Oh, yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna do jih Tijuana for self-defense. Oh yeah, that's where everyone starts when I started when I started jiu-jitsu Me when I started I was like I'm just gonna get good enough you know so I can so I can handle myself Which is like it's about a six month period. Yeah about six months you know if you're an aggressive guy and you're a

a good athlete or strong or whatever six months you're pretty good to go right six months of jizzo you're know what's up. It's been 20 whatever years. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. And so, oh, yeah, don't, I mean, and if you tap someone out, try the first time, the first time you tap someone out, then say like, oh, yeah, that's not for you. That's, I made that up, by the way. You're trying to impinge on my, my statement. Well, you might have made up saying that, maybe bringing it to light, but the fact is true. Oh, so you're saying that I only quoted like a universal truth. Yeah, you know. Self-evident. I don't know, man,

because people used to ask how long should I train for. No, I mean, we got the question on the podcast. How long should I really don't like it? And the answer was at first, like, well, you should try it for six months, oh, three months, whatever. No, no, no.

You train until you tap someone out. I don't want to use the term in anger, but you tap someone out for real in a jihih Tijuana. Yeah. And then you're good. Yeah, you're right. That was a specific answer.

So yeah, that is yours. Okay. I'm just making sure because I'm over here wanting full credit. nonetheless, if you're training it just for... If you would have said it in not such a... Such a way, like the way you said it, man, you thought you, you said it as if you just created like E equals NC squared over there. You're like, you should train until you...

You were looking down your nose at me as you said it as if. So I had to call you out on that one. There, my little bro, Gino. All good. I was just remembering the other day, the Australian guy that came, Kurt is his name? Kurt. Yeah. Yeah, so I asked him.

I was like, how long have you been training? He said like a month or something. It's like some kind of kind of new or really new. And so I said, have you tapped in and he went out yet? And he said, yes. So I'm like, oh, this guy's in the game. I knew already, you know? So maybe I kind of drew from that recent experience to, you know, to kind of say it.

But nonetheless, like I was saying, if you train only for self-defense, only for self-defense. Not because it's fun. Not because it's a good workout. Not because you've gotten a bunch of new friends. Not because all this stuff. only for self-defense. After a while, not even a long while, after a short while, you're going to be like, I don't even know I'm doing it.

Like, bro, I'm not even, I'm not using it to defend myself, really, you know, because those are kind of rare, you know. Then you might not do it, you know, especially it's not fun. So there you go, fun. People, like, there are people who train jiu-jitsu for decades, literally decades, that have never got in a fight before, never got in a street fight, never got in, like, a physical fight. So it's like, yeah, are they trained for self-defense? Yeah, sure.

course, but that's not why they're in the game. Yeah, exactly, right. So, nonetheless, when we do it, like I said, do the ghee. That's going to be one of it. The other part's no gey. When you do get a gey, you get an origin key. Yeah, 100%. 100%. Best geese by far, factually. Now, same type of thing. If you're going to get an origin geese just because you want the best ghee, that's a good, that's a good, that's a good reason. Like, that's solid, right? That's my reason. If you peel, if you peel, back the layer a little bit and you want to find out what else you're going to get well guess what else you're going to get you're going to get the fact that you are literally rebuilding an industry and a community and an and an economy inside of America you know that's a little that's not even a little

bonus like there's some people that would look at that and say I'm going to buy an origin gene just because of that yeah and then if I even do jiu jih Tzu that's sort of secondary is what I'm saying I could dig it now if you're feeling it Let's say you're feeling it, you're feeling that part. You're feeling like America. You're feeling the economy. You're feeling the community. You're feeling the industry.

You're going to bring it back. You're going to help. But you still haven't gotten over the hump of showing up at a jihitzy school, but you still want to support. It's okay. We'll say a step in the right direction. We have genes that you can get, right? You can get genes. You're still going to help those other three.

I would prefer the first thing that you get. In all seriousness, the first thing I would prefer you get is a ghee because that tells me you're going to go get on the mat if you, if you, because so many people, and you know what everybody, well,

you know what 99% of people say when they finally start jiu-jitsu, I wish I would have started, well, you know, when I first, this, you know,

that's what people say. I'll tell you this. I'm meeting people now that are purple belts that started jiu-tzu when they started listening to this podcast. So we're about, probably three to four years away from having somebody that started jiu jitzu listening to this podcast will be a black belt in jiu jitsu which is an awesome achievement here's the thing

there's also people that will say i started listening to the podcast and three years went by before i started you could have been a purple belt don't wait i'm telling you right now like i'm telling you right now start jihitsu emphatically telling you that and by the way we touched on a little kind of combatives hand-to-hand combat in this book and there's a whole line of a whole thread we can pull on that and we will at some point

the British combatives program World War II very cool I've done I've read a bunch about it and we'll dig into it here because it's pretty awesome the way they were doing things their concepts etc but if they were alive today they be learning the jiu-jitsu all day yeah and and they be getting American geese even from

England they'd be like you know what those those yanks get the yank gets yourself a Yankee geet right because again really the primary reason is because it's factually the best one you know what I'm saying yep same thing for jeans where I would say since I got my pair of origin jeans which is like a while ago when you think about it when they came out so while ago, I've not worn any other jeans ever. No. Yeah. Why would you, why would you do that?

No reason. There's not even a reason to do that. No reason. I only have one pair, too. Or, no, I don't have three, but unless, that's the only ones I wear. Also, we have other stuff here at origin. We do. So, yeah, joggers, you know, more athletic wear, all kinds of good stuff.

You go to origin, main.com, Maine, like the state. Also, supplements. Keep yourself in the game. Yep. Propel yourself further down the path. Yep. As it were. Yep.

Get yourself joint warfare and krill oil. Out of the gate once again. And I feel bad because I did this on social media. Where the guy was like, hey, what can I do to help? And I was, I didn't want to be that guy. That was like, well, you know, here, try my supplement line. You know, I just don't want to be that guy. Right.

And then later I felt bad. I was like, I should have just been straight up and said, hey, listen, man. Do whatever you want to do. yourself some curle oil and joint warfare immediately order that oh what you're 36 years old and you feeling sore in your joints and you're at the guy was literally asking me how my joints and I didn't say it because I don't want to be that guy yeah right now I'm being that guy you know what guy I'm being the guy that's actually trying to help people because I didn't help that guy as much as I could have I should have said listen do what I'd you know be consistent

don't take big chunks of time off order krill oil and oil joint joint warfare right now That's what you have to do. That's my recommendation. I feel bad for not doing that. I will try not to make that mistake again. No, I had the same experience. I went on with Pete and Brian on Hands in Daylight. Okay.

I had an episode with him recently. And Pete was saying, oh, yeah, you're like durable because I don't have like ailments. You know, Pete's jammed up his back. And he's like, you know, I'm older than him, actually. And he's like, oh, yeah, you're durable, you know. And I was like, yeah, I mean, because I never. ever thought I was durable at all. Especially being hanging out with me.

Yeah, exactly. I thought I was pretty fragile, to be honest with you. It's why you guys might, because you know what Pete said to me? Like, when he was just out here, he was like, he told me I was durable. Well, you are durable. I figured that you guys had that conversation because I said, that's what Echo told me one time. And you told me, when you told me that, it had been like, when you told it to me, it had been like you had been contemplating it for quite some time.

You were like, you know what I figured out about you? And I was like, what? And you said, you're durable. like a tank. I was like, hmm, that's interesting. And I had to kind of agree with it.

Yes. And so he said that I was durable. And I was like, well, and we even said, no, Jock was durable. I don't.

And then, but then I guess on, in a way, yeah, I guess I am. You are. You're bounced back from some pretty significant,

you know, how many knee surgeries you have? I had one knee surgery, but if you need injuries, plus my loose knees, I know, I know, I know,

I know. I know. Anyway, they're loose for real. And anyway, so they pop out all the time is what I'm saying that you know and they'll get one squats I I do I do I do squats good and actually now I go deep like all the way down like

you yeah oh yeah that's the and how's they feeling tighter no no great I mean same no they still pop out in jiu jitsu like when I do but I like anyway it's long as it doesn't matter they're loose clinically the doctor orthopedic surgeon told me that anyway so anyway I don't feel like you're like I don't feel like I don't feel like I Anyway, given the circumstances, yeah, I guess I am pretty durable. But anyway, the point is we're talking about this stuff. And then I'm like saying like, oh, yeah, plus I don't take time out of it. And then I'm naturally going into plus to take joint warfare, curle oil, every day like religiously.

You know, so it's basically the point was to say you got to like actively be durable, you know, kind of thing. Oh, that's a good point. But then like purely genetic apparently. Right. Increase your durability. Also, we got other stuff. We got discipline go. in a can, which is just awesome.

It's awesome. No sugar. It tastes delicious. It has some caffeine in it. It has a little, let me, it's got some other things in there, but it's got a little kick that goes with it. Same with the discipline powder, which is what I drink pretty much all the time. It's almost, it doesn't have too much caffeine in the, in the discipline powder.

It's got like 15 milligrams a scoop, which is not crazy at all. It's a microdose. even if you have two scoops. What's that 30 mil? You know, 45 milligrams for three scoops. It's not that big of a deal, but taste delicious, has some other ingredients that give you a little kick. And then, of course, milk. Yes, protein in the form of a dessert.

For adults and kids, even though it's like, sure, the kids are going to drink the regular milk. And let's face it, the adult's going to drink the warrior kid milk as well. Warrior Kidmulk I'm surprised I haven't turned gone down in age yeah the last those are there too so and they taste insane that's the thing yeah so that's that also jocco white tea and by the way right now this all this all these supplements that you might want to try are available at the vitamin shop nationwide and everyone that's been going out and buying stuff there. It's pretty cool.

Appreciate it. They're like, hey, everything's selling out. And we're like, yeah. Get more people. People are in the game across the board. OriginMane.com. Get some. Thank you.

Also, again, reminder, if you're going to get this book. You can't get this book on Amazon. You can't get it on Amazon. You have to go to pilotspublishing.c.c.org. Go to the facebook.com. slash the memory indoors. Also, Jocko is the store.

It's called Jocko Store, and this is where you can get the gear. I don't really use the word gear that much, but I'm going to use it. The gear, T-shirts, rash guards, hoodies, hats, that kind of stuff, to represent the path.

Gear. Discipline equals freedom. Good. Take the high ground, or the high ground will take you. That's that true. Unless you want to represent while you're on the path, that's where you do it.

Jocco store. dot com. Also subscribe to this podcast if you haven't yet is if there's a possibility that you've listened to 500 hours and you've been like well I'm not quite sure yet I'm asking that you just you know go for it just just get crazy get nuts crazy and and subscribe I don't even know why someone would not subscribe you know just trying it out I guess you know okay good make sense if you also want to leave a review Some people leave really good reviews and by good reviews. I don't mean

Hey, it's a great podcast. I really like the insight that no I mean I mean reviews that are let's just say there's they've got layers layers fun colorful colorful color they make me laugh they make me chuckle Yes sir. Don't forget about the grounded podcast so shines I don't know what maybe you haven't seen a Willie Wonka in the chocolate factory lately No I to be I don't think I've seen that one Any of them. I saw part of the Johnny Depp one. No. Part of it.

Fowl. Well, foul wrong. You got to watch the original one. It's awesome. It's a great movie. All right. Interesting.

That's interesting. You heard it. Jocko. Watch that movie. It said Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is an awesome movie. Yes. It is an awesome movie. Okay.

Go watch it. Hey, man. Maybe I'll look into it. Maybe not a report back. The last grounded podcast. That's the one. We're throwing out quotes from the movie, right? We're doing Shakespeare.

We're doing the memory endures, but we're also throwing out some Willie Wonka. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Sure. All right. Well, there you go. The world makes sense. Anyway, like I was saying, a grounded podcast. It's a podcast about life.

Jiu-Jitsu. Life, Jiu-Jitsu. Jiu-Suzzi is infused into life. Or is life infused into Jiu-Jitsu. Both. Both. But more important, I think life is reflective of J-J-J-Jitsu. and jih Tzu is reflective of life.

So if you can learn from one, you will learn about both, which is important. It's true. Not quite as often as Jocko podcast, but it's out there. Which is weird, because it's like really hard to make this podcast,

and it's really easy to make a grounded one. But you know what we do? We do the hard things. Yes. That's what we focus on. Priorit to prioritize. And what is the second part? Anyway,

you almost just got a knife in the throat, bro. Also Warrior Kid podcast, which is a good one for the young trooper warrior kids. And don't be shy if you're a parent to listen because you're going to learn. I wish I would have that podcast as a parent when my kids were young. Actually, in a way, it's a parent podcast. It is. It is.

Yeah, because you know, like, you know how like when you hear of like certain people's childhoods or whatever? Like certain like people who are like successful in X, Y, Z, whether it be athletes, whatever, right? And you learn about their childhood. you could probably you could probably learn some solid stuff like oh I just just that one little thing let me try to you know start incorporating just yeah yeah so let's do the work it by because it's all in there yeah speaking of warrior kids don't forget about the warrior kid soap at Irish Oaks Ranch.com and actually right now live live is a new what's it model what's it called a new sure model it's not flavor because you

don't eat it or whatever. It's a new. A new. No. It's a scent. Come on. I'm thinking of regular soap. So, you know, like, I don't know.

What do they say? It's a new version. Right. We have a new model, a new version of soap. You actually have to check it out because it's so legit. It's called, well, what it does, let me almost, what it does is it's got some anti-microbial. Antimicrobial. I think.

elements to it. It's got some antifungal, natural elements to it. One of those elements is, like, it's got like titriol. It's got activated charcoal. And what's cool. So this is what's cool. So first of all, the soap is called killer soap. That's the name of the soap.

But what, but what it's, it couldn't be any more perfect because it is because of the charcoal, it's black. Yeah. So it's black. And it's awesome. Yeah. So get yourself some killer. Soap from Irish Oaks Ranch.com.

And by the way, this is a kid that's making it. A kid that started a company and pitched me. You know how much stuff I get pitched? I get pitched stuff five times a day. I get pitched something, this, that, and the other. This kid pitched me. But you know how he pitched me? He's like, hey, I'm already rolling.

Yeah. You know, I'm already rolling. I'm already making soap. By the way, I'm 10. And I've got a soap production line. And I've got vertical integration. I mean, he was getting after it. Yeah.

You had no choice at that point. Pitched me. Pitched me. And of course, he didn't even pitch me by, can you, no. He was like, I want you to know what I'm doing. There are openings if you would like to get a piece. Yep.

I'm like, and you invest in the people, right? Yeah. I'm looking at a kid that's 10 years old, that's sending a business plan, that's sending samples. What do you like? So anyways, we went deep to cover the grappling.

And just the, look, there's nasty things in the world. and if you want to you can get some killer soap and that will help you as a person inside and out to stay clean oh yeah good logo too are we just making everyone suffer through our own little inside jokes

and everyone goes to the good Lord please so stop it's true it's all true so you can't even be mad so yes Irish oaks ranch dot com that's where you get it and as Jocka said you know hey stay clean man right anyway YouTube channel as well Well, Jock Podcast does have a YouTube channel so you can get the video version and also excerpts and stuff like that. Some enhance videos, varying levels of acceptance and...

Varying levels of enhancement from people. So anyway, yeah, so YouTube channel subscribe to that if you want and smash the like button. I said it. I said it. Can you edit that out? Maybe. How many times was that funny? I don't know, but it wasn't more than 29.

It's only funny when you say it because it's so out of contact. I can't even say it anymore. Yeah. Because it's worn out, bro. Okay. So just note. No more. Let's stop.

No, it did. Also, don't forget about psychological warfare. Little psychological hitter. And I actually had the person point out to me, hey, that was me. Now, so that's one. I also had the person point out to me that there's a name for the type of shooting that we talked about, which is where you're shooting at where things are, you think things might be.

It's called Drake shooting. And the dude is like, he's a guy that's on Twitter who always brings up good points. He does his own personal research on stuff. But he's got a weird, like, handle that I can't remember what it is ever. I mean, I recognize it in a heartbeat. I know I can tell you all the kind of things. So anyways, I apologize for not telling you that Drake shooting, appreciate the info. He's always got good info, but the psychological hitter was someone that's realized that that's what psychological warfare is.

It's not some broad course on how to have more discipline in your life. It's just a little bit of a in case you need it. So psychological warfare. And if you need a visual hitter, you can go to flipside canvas.com. Dakota Meyer, make it a bunch of really cool, a bunch of really cool graphic images that you can hang up on your wall. so you stay on the path no matter what books hey look for this book right here the memory indoors awesome book um an honor to be able to read it thank you to rick or rich who sent it to me and yes we will keep up the work that we're doing here if you want to get this book go to pilots publishing dot co dot uk or go to facebook dot com the memory indoors and if you also be helping out the regiment the parachute regiment charity on top of that leadership strategy intact Everyone that's got it.

Thank you. You're probably going to get copies of those for the people that you know recommended. Let's get your team on board. Appreciate it. Warrior Kid 1, 2, and 3. Probably the best kids books that you can get right now, in my opinion. I'm biased, but I'm only biased because I read them. And I think, man, the lessons in these books, I wish I knew them.

I wish I knew them. So Warrior Kid Books 1, 2, and 3. Way the Warrior Kid, Mark's Mission, and where there's a will. Mikey and the Dragons, if you've got a littler kid, that wants to learn one of the most important things that you can learn as a kid

is how to overcome fear. That book shows you how to overcome fear. Discipline equals Freedom of Field Manual. Get it so that you can read two pages. Read two pages. Okay, you know, let's say we made up a pill that you could take this pill and you would get a mind shift. Sure.

Like in a positive way. Like you would you if you took this pill you would increase your discipline Factually okay would that pill pill pill sell well would people want it yes okay Read two pages this book your discipline will increase 16 to 18% by the way Yeah well increase in discipline well read two pages well in the defense of the pill people Pill advocates the whole purpose of a pill is so you don't have to do any kind of work read do all this stuff. See what I'm seeing.

Okay. So. Okay. Two pages of this book is not an extended period of time. You're finishing this in less than four minutes. Oh, so right. So this book essentially is the pill of books. So you know,

instead of like the encyclopedia set of books. See what I'm saying? We'll take it. That's a rough, loose analogy. Not sure. Not 100%. I'll think, I'll think through that one.

And then, of course, we got extreme ownership of the dichotomy. of leadership, these are the foundational books about leadership that I wrote with my brother, Lafabebben. We got Eschalon Front, which is a leadership consultancy, look, if you have a business, if you have a team, if you have a company, and you have problems, every single problem that you have is a leadership problem. I guarantee that every single problem that you have is a leadership problem. And what we do at Eschalon Front is we solve problems through leadership. So go to Eschlonfront.com for details. We got EF online.

which is leadership, interactive leadership training online. It's eFonline.com. You can get the information. You can get the repetitions. You can get put in scenarios that will help you think through problems at EF Online. We also do little live webinars where we answer questions. EFonline.com. We got the muster coming up in Dallas, Texas, Orlando, Florida.

and Phoenix, Arizona. Every event that we've done has sold out. If you want to come, go to Extremeownership.com right now and register Leadership Seminar. That's what we do there. And, of course, we've got EF Overwatch and EF Legion placement for military people

that understand extreme ownership, that understand the dichotomy of leadership. EF Overwatch is for executive leadership inside companies. EF Legion, frontline troops and frontline leaders go to EFoverwatch.com or EF Legion to get involved in that from either side. Whether you're a vet that wants to get into a civilian job or a civilian company that needs veterans to help you lead and win,

go to those websites and get that figured out. And if you have not heard enough of my overly dramatic speech patterns and excessively long pauses, and you haven't heard enough of echoes, ridiculous commentary about the heroic life of being a bouncer then we are available on the interwebs on Twitter on Instagram and on the old fashion echo is at echo Charles and I am at jockel willing and thank you all for listening to the podcast and for giving this podcast your support thanks for spreading the word thanks for telling

your friends. Thanks for getting some Def Corps gear or some origin gear, all of which allows us to do this podcast. And of course, thanks to Reg Curtis for your service and sacrifice to keep us free. And to all the military members out there in uniform right now doing the same thing, keeping the enemy at bay, and also to our police and law enforcement and firefighters and paramedics and EMTs and dispatchers and correctional officers and border patrol and seekers. service and all first responders thank you for keeping us safe every single day here at home and everyone else out there remember what reg Curtis taught us to never give up even against overwhelming odds to never accept the feet to persevere and endure until the end and then

when you get tripped up or you get knocked down even then what you do is you do the best you can. Lesson learned. Thank you, Reg Curtis. And we will be out there in your honor getting after it.

And until next time, this is Echo and Jocko. Out.