Jocko Podcast - 39: Brave Men

Episode Date: September 7, 2016

0:00:00 - Opening / Brave Men by E. Pyle 1:33:37 - Cool Internet / Onnit Stuff 1:54:35 - end of podcast  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 39 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. I heard of a high British officer who went over the battlefield just after the action was over. American boys were still lying dead in their foxholes, their rifles still grasped in firing position in their dead hands. And the veteran English soldier remarked time and again in a sort of hushed eulogy spoken only to himself. Brave men. Brave men.

And that is the name of the book we are going to delve into now. Brave men. And a few episodes ago we talked with Kieran Dardy. war photographer and when we talk with him we talked about war correspondence as well and I wanted to get a war correspondent here and in this case the one that we're going to be talking to is possibly the most famous war correspondent ever guy by the name of Ernie Pyle and we will join him now on a warship steaming towards an inevitable invasion. The frontline soldier I knew lived for months like an animal and was a veteran in the cruel,

fierce world of death. Everything was abnormal and unstable in his life. He was filthy, dirty, ate if and when slept on hard ground without cover. His clothes were greasy, and he lived in a constant haze of dust, pestered by flies and heat, moving constantly deprived of all things that once meant stability. Things such as walls, chairs, floors, windows, faucets, shelves, Coca-Cola. and the little matter of knowing that he would go to bed at night in the same place he had left in the morning. The frontline soldier has to harden his inside as well as his outside, or he would crack under the strain. Some thoughts from Ernie Pyle out on a ship getting ready for this invasion talking about what the soldiers were like, and he'd been in Africa.

and now he's out there with sailors and he has something to say about the sailors as well. Of course, when sailors die, death for them is just as horrible. And sometimes they die in greater masses than soldiers. But until the enemy comes over the horizon, a sailor doesn't have to fight. A frontline soldier has to fight everything all the time. It makes a difference in a man's character. and Ernie Pyle goes on to talk about what he thinks of the frontline soldier

everyone by now knows how I feel about the infantry I'm a rabid one-man movement bent on tracking down and stamping out everybody else in the world who doesn't fully appreciate the common frontline soldier and if I haven't made myself perfectly clear in everything I say and everything I do that's the same exact feeling that I have about the infantry. Respect and admiration.

And now he's talking about what it was like, what's going through their minds as they're going to partake in this, our invasion. And you got to remember, he's going on invasion too. When these things are happening, this is a war correspondent. This isn't somebody that's reporting from some safe position. and you're going to see plenty of that here. He's going in so he can relate to what the troopers

are going through mentally. And this is a very, really accurate description. Back to the book. I don't believe one of us was afraid

of the physical part of dying. That isn't the way it is. The emotion is rather one of almost desperate reluctance to give up the future. They're not afraid of the physical stuff. It's the reluctance to give up the future. I suppose that's splitting hairs and that it really all comes under the heading of fear. Yet somehow there is a difference.

These gravely yearned for futures of men going into battle include so many things. Things such as seeing the old lady again of going to college of staying in the Navy for a career of holding on your knee just once your own kid whom you've never seen of again becoming champion salesman of your territory or driving a cold truck around streets of Kansas City once more and yes even just sitting in the sun once more on the south side of a house in New Mexico when we huddled around together on the dark decks it was these little hopes and ambitions that made up the sum total of our worry at leaving rather than any visualization of physical agony to come.

Very, very accurate. Now, and I got to say that with this book, this is a fairly, fairly thick book. What do we got? Almost 500 pages. And I had to burn through big chunks of it to get to some of the stuff that I wanted to cover, but there's a lot of very important detail in here. And one of the things that Ernie Pyle was known for was capturing what it was like, not for the big general, not for the big strategist, but what it was like to live every day as a grunt. So the invasion takes place, and I think this

was the, they went into Italy, and Ernie actually spent that invasion on the ship, the initial part of the invasion and then he goes ashore and for whatever reason he gets sick he gets like sick ill doesn't get wounded but he just gets ill and he ends up in a field hospital and we've had several

books take us into field hospitals and we know that they are a horrible horrible place but there is some pretty glorious things that come out of those two and I'll go to the book here it was flabbergassing to me to lie there and hear wounded soldiers cuss and beg to be sent right back to the fight.

Of course, not all of them did that. It depended on the severity of their wounds and on their individual personalities, just as it would in peacetime. But at least a third of the less severely wounded men asked if they couldn't return to duty immediately. So all those fears that we just talked about, and then you go into battle and you get wounded. and the first thing you do when you get back to the aid station and say, send me back to the front.

He goes into a specific case here. One big, blonde infantry men had slight flesh wounds in the face in the back of his neck. He had a patch on his upper lip which prevented him from moving it and made him talk in a grave, straight-faced manner that was comical. I've never seen anybody so mad in my life. He went from one doctor to another trying to get somebody to sign his card, returning him to duty. The doctors explained patiently that if he returned to the front,

His wounds become infected, and he would be a burden to his company instead of a help. They tried to entice him by telling him there would-be nurses back in the hospital, but in his peaceful Oklahoma drawl, he retorted to hell with the nurses, I want to get back to fighting. Dying men were brought into our tent, men whose death rattle silenced the conversation and made us all thoughtful. When a man was almost gone, the surgeons would put a piece of guard, over his face. He could breathe through it, but we couldn't see his face well. Twice within five minutes, chaplains came running. One of those occasions haunted me for hours. The wounded man was still

semi-conscious. The chaplain knelt down beside him, and two ward boys squatted nearby. The chaplain said, John, I'm going to say a prayer for you. Somehow this stark announcement hit me like a hammer. It didn't say I'm going to pray for you to get well. He just said he was going to say a prayer. And it was obvious to me that he meant a final prayer. He voiced the prayer and the weak, gasping man tried vainly to repeat the words after him. When he had finished, the chaplain added, John, you're doing fine.

You're doing fine. Then he rose and dashed off on some other call and the ward. boys went about their duties. The dying man was left utterly alone, just lying there on his litter, on the ground, lying in an aisle because the tent was full. Of course, it couldn't be otherwise, but the aloneness of that man as he went through the last few minutes of his life was what tormented me. I felt like going over and at least holding his hand.

while he died, but it would have been out of order, and I didn't do it. I wish now I had. In addition to talking about the infantry, he also talks about the engineers, and for those of you that don't know, engineers are basically military construction people that build things. They also do other jobs like getting rid of minds and doing mind clearance. They do that often as well. And we'll go back to the book. During the latter days of the Sicilian campaign,

I spent all my time with combat engineers of two different divisions. The engineers were in it up to their ears. Scores of times during the Sicilian fighting, I heard everybody from generals to privates remark that this is certainly an engineer's war. And indeed it was. Every foot of our advance upon the gradually withdrawing enemy was measured by the speed with which our engineers could open the highways, clear the mines, and bypass the blown bridges. This was the same thing that we had in Ramadi. The engineers were just absolutely, first of all, they were incredibly professional and their job was incredibly dangerous.

clearing mines. They were doing these building, these combat outposts in the middle of the city. Are they armed the engineer, like in your case? Yeah, they are, but you know, picture a guy that has to go and move sandbags to the top of a building. He's carrying a, you know, a 60 pound sandbag. He's got all of his gear

on. And it's a semi-protected area. Not fully protected. But so a lot of times, hey, they're, they might have a pistol on them, but they're working. Their construction work. They're working construction. You know, now that doesn't mean that they're not also picking up security when they have to, but, man, it's a, it's a grueling, grueling job, and so incredibly dangerous.

And the book also talks about other pieces, you know, again, we talk about infantry, but there's other pieces. There's engineers who are doing all this building. There's artillery, which is, you know, dropping bombs on the enemy. And actually, that was another. surprisingly there was art we utilized they utilized artillery fairly significantly in Ramadi yeah that it's when you think about that like the engineers in a war zone right it's not like compared to like an mma fight right the cut man where he's like facilitating all these things

giving water whatever but that's between rounds he's not part of the fight the engineer guys they're straight up yeah they're going to get hit but here's a thing then they're not there specifically to fight yeah they're there to do some other stuff so it's like man they can it blindside it like all that stuff it's incredibly and and yet you know you think oh it's engineers their construction guys you maybe people don't don't see them in the light of being legit combat warriors and i'm here to tell you 100% without any shred of doubt those guys are hardcore combat warriors that have an incredibly tough job and obviously the american engineers have been just outstanding world war two

I mean, and when I saw them in Ramadi, they were a sight to behold without question. And same thing, like I said, I was talking about the artillery. They used artillery in Ramadi as well, which was, which was, it was pretty cool for me, right? Because, you know, I always grew up watching World War II movies. And, you know, there I was. And Ramadi, man, we had tanks out there in the streets, smashing through, smashing through buildings and firing their main gun rounds. And then we had engineers out there rebuilding bridges and building combat outposts. And then we had artillery that was firing counter battery out at the enemy that was shooting mortars at us.

And at nighttime, sometimes we'd fire illumination rounds just like a big assault in the World War II. So it was very, I feel very lucky to have been able to experience that almost, you know, World War II type feeling. Now, again, I'm not comparing anything that I did to do a veteran from World War II by any stretch of the imagination. But it was cool to get a little taste of it. Just a little taste of it. Just a little taste of it. And understand, I mean, I can't, you know, we were, you know, the, imagine fighting against other troops that were as well trained as you were, which is what you're doing in Germany. When you're invading France, you're going against, I mean, the insurgents, they're a hard fight.

They're an enemy that I respect their capabilities, but they're not as well trained or as well organized or as well led as, let's say, the German army in World War II, right? So it's a tough enemy. And so as he continues through the book, and as I said, this is a big, thick book, and I had to really be selective about what to call out. And he talks about the various phases of the war. He talks a pretty big chunk about the air war. But really, it's all leading towards one thing. It's all leading towards one event. It's all leading towards one invasion, and that's D-Day.

And he spends time in England. You know, they're doing the preparation, and they're doing what the Americans did in England when they were getting ready. And then finally, they get the word. that the mission is going to commence. And we'll go to the book. We felt our chances were not very good, and we were not happy about it.

Men like Don Whitehead and Clark Lee, who had been through the mill so long and so boldly, began to get nerves. Frankly, I was the worst of the lot and continued to be. I began having terrible periods of depression and often would dream hideous dreams. All the time fear lay blackly deep upon our consciousness. It bore down on our hearts like an all-consuming weight.

People would talk to us and we wouldn't want to hear what they were saying. Now those, again, those are the correspondence. Those are the war correspondence. That's who he's talking about. When they bring them together, they're talking like a squad or a platoon of war correspondence. And they are scared to death. The Army said they would try and give us 24 hours notice of departure.

Actually, the call came at 9 o'clock one morning, and we were ordered to be in a certain place with full field kit at 10.30 a.m. We threw our stuff together. Probably a smart way to do it. You know, hey, we'll give you 24 hours advance notice. Don't worry. We'll let you know. Hey, report in an hour. And he's going to talk about this.

the waiting isn't is not good that is that is the stress part you know and it's the same thing with everything anything that you actually you know like a jitzy tournament when you're waiting to compete that's the worst part once you once you go you know okay your mind is free and you're just doing what you do even during a workout if you got a hard workout that you're going to do you're dreading it and i do this i'll be like like if i have squats and i'm sitting there i'll make all kinds of, maybe I need to stretch a little bit more. You know what? Let me just grab a little bit more water and

then let me check the lineup of the music that's going to play and just make sure that that's good to go and hold on. Is this bumper plate look straight? I'm going to straighten that out. So you just sit there in Heming Hall and then finally you walk over, you press you press your start on your stopwatch and then there's no stopping. You just go

and it half an hour later the deed is done. Yep. But the waiting. Yep. It's Yeah, if it's going down, let's get it over with the kind of thing. Yeah, you know what? This is that Shakespeare court that I read one time on here, that moment in between taking the action and when you think of the action and when you take the action, that moment is an eternity.

Yeah. An abyss. So you've got to close the distance on that thing, which is exactly what they did. Oh, we'll give you 24 hours. No, we're going to close the distance. You got an hour and a half. Be here with your gear. Ready to get it on.

Back to the book. Bill Stoneman, another correspondent who had been, wounded once never showed the slightest concern. Whether he felt any concern or not, I could not tell. Bill had a humorous sardonic manner. While we were waiting for a departure into the unknown, he took out a pencil and a notebook as though starting to interview me. Tell me, Mr. Pyle, how does it feel to be an assault correspondent? Being a man of few words, I said, it feels awful. We had hardly got aboard when the lines. were cast off and we pulled out.

That evening, the colonel commanding the troops on our ship gave me the whole invasion plan in detail. The secret, the whole world had waited years to hear. Once a man had heard it, it became permanently part of it. He became permanently part of it. Then he was committed. It was too late to back out, even if his heart failed him. I asked a good many questions.

I realized my voice was shaking when I spoke. I spoke, but I couldn't help it. Yes, it would be tough, the Colonel admitted. Our own part would be precarious. He hoped to go in with as few casualties as possible, but there would be casualties. From a vague anticipatory dread, the invasion now turned into a horrible reality for me. In a matter of hours, the Holocaust of our own planning would swirl over us. No man could guarantee his own fate.

It was almost too much for me. A feeling of utter desperation obsessed me throughout the night. It was nearly 4 a.m. before I got to sleep, and then it was asleep harassed and torn by an awful knowledge. My devastating sense of fear and depression disappeared when we approached the beachhead. There was the old familiar crack and roar of big guns all around us, and the shore was a great bruntary. haze of smoke and dust and we knew that the bombers would be over us that night yet all the haunting premonition the soul consuming dread was gone the war was prosaic to me again and I believe that was true of everyone aboard even those who had never been in

combat before so again once this gig kicks off all that horror is gone and now it's time to get the job done so when you're out there in the world and you're feeling that dread and you're feeling that hesitation, just step. Go. It's not helping you to sit around and be nervous. It's not helping you to see if you need another little sip of water before you start doing what you're doing.

There's bad news to deliver in your business. There's no sense in doing another pace lap outside the room where people are waiting to hear from you. Get in and get it going. Now, he does a great job here. telling about how hard this actually was. Because, you know, we go, oh, D-Day, yeah, oh, yeah, it was a tough fight. Here's some detail on that.

I want to tell you what the opening of the second front in that one sector entailed so that you can know and appreciate and forever be humbly grateful to those both dead and alive who did it for you. ashore facing us were more enemy troops than we had in our assault waves the advantages were all theirs the disadvantages all ours the germans were dug into positions they had been working on for months although they were not entirely complete a one hundred foot bluff a couple of hundred yards back from the beach had had great concrete gun emplacements built right into the hilltop These open to the sides instead of the front, thus making it hard for naval fire from the sea to reach them. They could shoot parallel to the shore and cover every foot of it for miles with artillery fire. A hundred foot cliff, by the way. Just don't, let's not even worry about the enemy. A hundred foot cliff after you come out of the water.

That's what you're facing. Then you put in pillboxes and you put Germans in those pillboxes. By the way, more Germans than there are Americans. it's a nightmare back to the book then they had hidden machine gun nests on the forward slopes with crossfire taking in every inch of the beach these nests were connected by networks of trenches so that the German gunners could move about without exposing themselves throughout the length of the beach running zigzag a couple hundred yards back from the shoreline was an immense V-shaped ditch 15 feet deep nothing could cross it not even

men on foot until fills had been made. And in other places at the far end of the beach, where the ground was flatter, they had concrete walls. These were blasted by our naval gunfire or by explosives by hand after we got ashore. Our only exits from the beach were several swales or valleys, each one about 100 yards wide. The Germans made the most of those funnel-like traps, sewing them with buried mines. They also contained barbed wire entanglements with mines.

Attached hidden ditches and machine guns firing from the slopes This is just it's it's it's unbelievable It's unbelievable the amount of defenses that were in place and the fact that we pushed through it And I humbly use the term we all this was done on the shore But our men had to go through a maze nearly as deadly before they even got a shore Underwater obstacles were terrific. Under the water the Germans had whole fields of evil devices to catch our boats. Several days after landing, we had cleared only channels through them, and still could not approach through the whole length of the beach with our ships. Even then, some ship or boat would hit one of those mines and be knocked out of commission.

The Germans had masses of great six-pronged spiders made of railroad iron and standing shoulder-high just beneath the surface of the water for our landing craft to run into. They had huge logs buried in the sand pointing upward and outward, their tops just below the water. Attached to the logs were mines. In addition to these obstacles, they had floating mines offshore, land mines buried in the sand of the beach, and more mines checkerboard in checkerboard rows in the tall grass beyond the sand. And the enemy had four men on shore for every three men we had approaching the shore. And yet we got on. Going against a defended position is so very difficult.

The odds, well, in doctrinally, in urban warfare, you're supposed to have 10 men for every one defender. 10 men for every one defender. And here we were outmaned against a heavily defended, fortified position. So how do you do it? Well, back to the book. As one officer said, the only way to take a beach is to, face it and keep going.

It is costly at first, but that's the only way. If the men are pinned down on the beach, dug in and out of action, they may as well not be there at all. They hold up the waves behind them, and nothing is being gained. So, art of war, sons who attack, well, guess what? There's only one way to do this. You got to do it. Now, he talks about as the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, the, you know, you know, the, you

carnage after the after the initial beach had been taken he talks about some of the carnage that remains there in this shoreline museum of carnage there were abandoned rolls of barbed wire and smash boulder dozers and big stacks have thrown away life belts and piles of shells still waiting to be moved in the water floated empty life rafts and soldiers packs and ration boxes and mysterious oranges on the beach lay snarred rolls of telephone wire and big rolls of steel matting and stacks of broken rusting rifles but there was another and more human litter it extended in a thin little line just like a high watermark from miles along the beach this was the strewn personal gear

gear that would never be needed again by those who fought and died to give us our entrance into Europe there in a jumble Roll for mile on mile were soldiers packs. There were socks and shoe polish sewing kits, diaries, Bibles, hands grenades. There were the latest letters from home with the address on each one neatly razored out, one of the security precautions enforced before the boys embarked. There were toothbrushes and razors and snapshots of families back home staring up at you from the sand. There were pocketbooks, metal mirrors, extra trousers, and bloody abandoned shoes. There were broken-handled shovels and portable radios smashed almost beyond recognition

and mind detectors twisted and ruined. There were torn pistol belts and canvas water buckets, first aid kits, and jumbled heaps of life belts. I picked up a pocket Bible with a soldier's name in it and put it in my jacket. I carried it half a mile or so and then put it back down on the beach. I don't know why I picked it up or why I put it down again. Soldiers carry strange things with them ashore. In every invasion there's at least one soldier hitting the beach at 8-H-hour with a banjo slung over. his shoulder the most ironic piece of equipment marking our beach the first this beach

first of despair then a victory was a tennis racket that some soldier had brought along it lay lonesomely on the sand clamped in its press not a string broken two of the most dominant items on the beach refuse in the beach refuse were cigarettes and writing paper each soldier was issued a carton of cigarette just before he started that day those cartons by the thousand water soaked and spilled out marked the line of our first savage blow writing paper and airmail envelopes came second the boys intended to do a lot of writing in France imagine the letters now forever incapable of being written that might have filled those blank

abandoned pages now talking to little bit about the German prisoners as they start to roll up German prisoners. Some of the German officers were pleased at being captured. But the died in the wool Nazi was not. They brought in a young one who was furious. He considered it thoroughly unethical for us to fight so hard.

That's right. Did you heard what I said? He thought it was unethical how hard the Americans fought. The Americans had. attacked all night and the Germans don't like a night attacks will come to get you and this special fellow was brought in when this special fellow was brought in he protested enraged you Americans the way you fight that is this is not war this is madness the German was so outraged

he never even got the irony of his own remarks that madness though it were it worked another high-ranking officer was brought in and the first thing he asked was the whereabouts of his personal orderly when told that his orderly was deader than a mackerel he flew off the handle and accused us of depriving him of his personal comfort who's going to dig my foxhole for me he demanded little german aristocracy going on in the ranks but what a what a testament you know I was just kind of talking about how tough the Germans were which they certainly were but here's the German saying, good Lord, it's unethical that you fight this hard. That's right. The Germans thought they were rolling light, you know, hey, let's roll light. And Americans were

like, no, we're going 80-C-style. Yeah, no, no. It's on. This is the world championships. Literally the world championships. I always, you know, American, the American fighting spirit is a powerful, powerful force. And sometimes people don't recognize that. Because you know what? We're living here pretty good. And even back then. Now we were coming out of the Depression.

So you did have some hard living back in America. But you can trace that pre-Depression. Americans fight hard. There's no doubt about it. And I can, I have personally witnessed the spirit of the American soldier. And it is a damn impressive thing. I'm going to get into some... Well, the name of the chapter here is street fighting.

One of the favorite generals among war correspondents was Major General Manton S. Eddie, commander of the 9th Division. We liked him because he was absolutely honest with us, because he was sort of an old shoe and easy to talk with, and because we thought he was a mighty good general. General Eddie looked more like a school teacher than a soldier. He was a big, tall man, but he wore glasses in his eyes, had a sort of squint. Being a mid-westerner, he talked like one. He still claimed Chicago his home, although he'd been an army officer for 28 years. He was wounded in the last war. He was not glib, but he talked well and laughed easily.

In spite of being a professional soldier, he despised war, and like in any ordinary, soul was appalled by the waste and tragedy of it. He wanted to win and get home just as badly as anybody else. General Eddie especially like to show up in places where his soldiers wouldn't expect to see him. Little leadership lessons right now from General Eddie. Nothing wrong with smiling, talking with the boys, knowing what's going on, and then boom, show up in places where his soldiers wouldn't expect to see him. He knew it helped the soldiers' spirits to see their commanding general right up there at the front

where it was hot. So he walked around the front with his long stride, never ducking or appearing to be concerned at all. One day I rode around with him on one of his tours. We stopped at a command post and were sitting on the grass under a tree looking at maps with a group of officers around us. Our own military was banging nearby, but nothing was coming our way.

Then, like a flash of lightning, there came a shell just over our head so low. It went right through the treetops, it seemed. It didn't whine, it wished. It swished. Everybody including full kernels flopped over and began grabbing grass. The shell exploded in the next orchard. General Eddie didn't move.

He just said, that was one of our shells. The general also liked to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning. Once in a while to go poking around into the message centers and mess halls, giving the boys a start. It sounds like he was a little bit of an early. Riser. He was trying to be up before the enemy. He was definitely up before the enemy.

Well, apparently, you know, the Germans, they were saying, hey, you're nighttime. Yeah, yeah. He's some rest over here. During the Sherborg Peninsula campaign, I spent nine days with the ninth infantry division, the division that cut the peninsula, and one of the three that overwhelmed the great port of Chermouge. The ninth is one of our best divisions. It landed in Africa and fought through Tunisia and Sicily.

Then it went to England in the fall of night. In 1943 and trained all winter for the invasion of France. It was one of the American divisions in the invasion that had previous battle experience. The ninth did something in that campaign that we hadn't always done in the past. It kept tenaciously on the enemy's neck. When the Germans would withdraw a little, the ninth was right on top of them. It never gave them a chance to reassemble or get their balance. The ninth moved so fast, it got to be funny.

I was based at the division command post And we struck our tents and moved forward six times in seven days That worked the daylights out of the boys who took down and put up the tents I overheard one of the boys saying I'd rather be with wringling brothers But that's a little strategic importance there The ninth was just oh you're we're gonna get you and we're gonna come after you and we're not gonna stop You're not gonna get a chance to recovery not gonna a chance to rest Sometimes you got to go in that mode

no matter what what you're doing in life sometimes you got to go in that mode you don't back off and I'll tell you what you want to rest people want to rest but sometimes you can't sometimes you need to keep the pressure on

kind of like you in Twitter yes had to keep some pressure on yeah one day I went along quite accidentally I assure you with an infantry company that had been assigned to clean out a pocket

in the suburbs of Sherbourg which was typically of the way an infantry advanced into the city held by a company enemy I would like to try and give you a picture of it so he's gonna try and like explain what that was like the soldiers around us had two weeks growth of beard and before he talks about the assault he kind of gives you a little update on this on the frontline infantry troops the soldiers around us had two weeks growth of beard their uniforms were worn worn slick and very dirty the uncomfortable gaffir

ass impregnated clothes they'd come ashore in the boys were tired they had been fighting and moving constantly forward on foot for nearly three weeks without rest sleeping on the ground wet most of the time always tense eating cold ration seeing their friends die one of them came up to me and said almost belligerently why don't you tell the folks back home what this is like all all they hear about is victories and a lot of the glory stuff they don't know that for every hundred yards we advance somebody gets killed why don't you tell them how tough this life is I told them that I tried to do that all the time this fellow was pretty fed up with it all

he said he didn't see why his outfit wasn't sent home they had done all the fighting that wasn't true at all for there were other divisions that had fought more and taken heavier casualties. Exhaustion will make a man feel like that. A few days rest usually has him smiling again. You know, we've heard this time and time again. Sometimes you start get that mental fatigue. You've got to take a little breather.

So yeah, like the ninth, sometimes you've got to keep the pressure on. But if you start to break people, maybe it's time, especially an individual. And you know, Dick Winters did this. Band of Brothers, Dick Winters, Beyond. Honda Band of Brothers, he talked about, hey, I got this guy that's a little losing the bubble. I'm going to pull him back. Hey, you got some admin stuff to do in the rear. Why don't you go ahead and take care of that?

Boom, done. Let this guy heal up. That's what this guy needs. He needs a break. He needs a rest. And here we get the little briefing. A little briefing from the lieutenant who's going to tell them how they're going to push through this little, and clear out this little pocket of enemy resistance.

This is how we'll do it, the lieutenant said. A rifle platoon goes first. Right behind them will go a part of the heavy weapons. With machine guns to cover the first platoon. Then comes another rifle platoon. Then a small section with mortars in case they run into something pretty heavy. Then another rifle platoon. And bringing up the rear, the rest of the heavy weapons outfit to protect us from behind.

We don't know what we're running into. And I don't want to stick right out in front. So why don't you come along with me? So he's talking to Ernie Pyle at that point saying, listen. I don't know what's going to be up front. You stick with me. We'll go in the middle of the company. I said okay

By this time I wasn't scared You sell them are once you're into something Anticipation is the worst Fortunately this little foray came up so suddenly There wasn't time for much anticipation The waiting So they take they start taking a little fire

And finally the shells stop And here we go the shells stopped And finally the order to start was given As we left the protection of a high wall we had to cross a little culvert right out in the open and then make a turn in the road. The men went forward one at a time. They crouched and ran ape-like across this dangerous space. Then beyond the culvert, they filtered to either side of the road, stopping and squawting down every now and then to wait a few moments.

The lieutenant kept yelling at them as they started. Spread it out now. Do you want to draw fire at yourselves? Don't bunch up like that. Keep five yards apart. Spread it out, damn it! there's an almost irresistible pull to get close to somebody when you're in danger. In spite of themselves, the men would run up close to the fellow ahead of them for company.

But obviously, if you're close to people and one, well, first of all, one bullet can kill two people, but you get hit with a bomb, you get hit with a grenade, you're going to kill multiple people. So you want to disperse, you want to keep your dispersion, you're going to spread out. But there's this little thing that people want to just do it. get close to other people. And everybody knows it's wrong. And actually, if you remember in the beloved captain, that's what he was constantly saying, guys spread out in the trench, hey, don't bunch up.

And the author was saying, we all just wanted to huddle together. You want to get closer together. You're in fear. So you want to huddle. And it's the wrong move. Now we get into a description of the men as they're making this cross. The men didn't talk amongst themselves. They just went.

They weren't heroic figures as they moved forward one at a time a few seconds apart. You think of attackers as being savage and bold. These men were hesitant and cautious. They were really the hunters, but they looked like the hunted. There was a confused excitement and grim anxiety in their faces. They seemed terribly pathetic to me. They weren't warriors. They were American boys who by mere chance of fate had wound up with guns in their hands sneaking up death-laden street in a strange and shattered city in a faraway country in a driving rain.

They were afraid, but it was beyond their power to quit. They had no choice. They were good boys. I talked with them all afternoon as we sneak slowly inward along the mysterious and rubbled street. And I know they were good boys. And even though they weren't warriors born to kill, they won their battles. That's the point. Regular guys.

World War II. Regular guys. And it's not depicted, they'll throw a character like that into a movie. You know, oh, he's, you know, just looks like a regular guy. But most of the guys don't look regular guys. They look like badass war hero guys And this is such a you don't hear this description where he's literally saying They weren't warriors

They seemed terribly pathetic and so you picture these guys they got this scared strange look on their face and guess what? They do their job Yeah And they do it well Yeah, it's strange. It's almost like you can look at them in both ways because on one hand They're just regular guys but when you see them in action kind of thing thing you're like oh dang they're getting that they're warriors you know like true i mean i and clearly the warriors that like he said they win their battles yeah and even what they're doing right now takes massive courage you're just getting ready to step across the street where you know

there's a machine gun fire could open up and take your life or take your legs or you know wound you that that takes some will that takes some discipline yeah i mean how can you not just cower in the first corner you see really you know when you compare it to everyday life man i mean i mean i i hate to i don't hate to but i can't help but compare it to saving private right in that that movie right and and there's a part where they indicate that everyone's been trying to guess um the the the job of the oh yes miller or whatever yep they're trying to guess it right and so that was like an exposure of Like, yeah, this is back in the, yeah, you know, back in the, and then he's like, yeah, I'm a school teacher and all this stuff, all this like normal stuff.

And then meanwhile, as the movie kind of progressed, you see him in action. It's like, dang, for a school teacher, these guys are, you know, they're really getting the job done. Well, I'll tell you, man, we were, when I first got to Ramadi, we were there with the, uh, the 2-28, which is a, which is a reserve unit from Pennsylvania, the iron soldiers. And led by a guy at the time was named Colonel Gronsky. He's now a general But those guys were school teachers They were I mean because they were reservists So there was guys there were school teachers

There was guys there that were plumbers There were guys there that were cable installers There were guys there that were mechanics There was guys there that were lawyers There just every job Yeah And yet these guys were there fighting Straight up warriors

And getting after it by the way To battle hardened And really they were so impressive We were so humbled by these guys These reservists they were badass Nothing but again Again, nothing but respect and admiration for them on the battlefield. Yeah, man, seeing exactly where if, let's say you didn't know their job outside of the, you know, the battle.

And you see them, you're like, dang, these guys are straight up. This is their thing. This is what their primary career is, you know? That's what it seems like. And I'll tell you, I mean, I just was out in Mississippi. And I was with a bunch of guys that were reserved in Mississippi. And one of the guys I was talking to, I mean, multiple guys that I was talking to, they had multiple deployments to Iraq. And these are 12-month deployment, 14-month deployments.

These guys are awesome, awesome professionals who had taken the flight to the enemy. So it's amazing that America has these reservists that live their lives. And then, oh, by the way, you're going to go on deployment to Iraq for 14 months right now and get after it. then you're come back and go into your normal job again follow right back in yeah and go and just be straight up effective yeah not like they're like timid you know because i'm hey i'm just here for 14 months back home i'm you know i'm i work at office whatever they're like nope watch me work watch me get it watch me get it on so um we get to a point now that you know that street fight continues they take down they clear that pocket there's more

combat description, but now they're getting ready to push out of Normandy Beach. So they've taken the beach, they've secured it, they've taken some hedgerows, they've got it locked, and it's been, it's been, you know, some time. But now they're getting ready to start making the push, making the push out of there. And so that's what this is, this is going to be a massive, massive attack. And they're getting ready to get a brief, and here we go, back to the book. The regimental colonel stood in the center of the officer. and went over the orders in detail.

Battalion commanders took down notes in their little books. Then General Barton arrived. The colonel called attention, and everybody stood rigid until the general gave them carry on. An enlisted man ran to the mess truck and got a folding stool for the general to sit on. He sat listening intently while the colonel wound up his instructions. The general stepped into the center of the circle.

He stood at a slouch on one foot with the other leg far out like a brace. He looked all around him as he talked. He didn't talk long. He said, this is one of the finest regiments in the American Army. It was the last regiment out of France in the last war. It was the first regiment into France in this war. It is spearheaded every one of the divisions attacks in Normandy. it will spearhead this one for many years this was my regiment and I feel very close to you and very proud

the general's lined face was a study in emotion sincerity and deep sentiment were in every contour and they shone from his eyes general Barton was a man of deep affections the tragedy of war both personal and impersonal hurt him. At the end, his voice almost broke. And I, for one, had a lump in my throat. He ended, that's all. God bless you and good luck. With that, they begin this massive operation.

The first planes of the mass onslaught came over a little before 10 a.m. They were the fighters and dive bombers. The main road running crosswise in front of us was their bomb line. They were to bomb only on the far side of that road. Our infantry had been pulled back a few hundred yards from the near side of the road. Everyone in the area had been given the strictest orders to be in foxholes for high-level bombers can and do quite excusably make mistakes. So did you understand that? right there so there's a very clear road and they say listen the bombers are going to be bombing

the other side of that road but we're going to back further away from the road just in case something goes wrong just in case bombs get dropped early obviously this indicates i'm i'm pointing that out for a reason because this gets horrible our front lines were marked by long strips of colored cloth laid on the ground with colored smoke to guide our airmen during the mass bombers bombing. Dive bombers hit it just right. We stood and watched

them barrel nearly straight down out of the sky. They were bombing about a half a mile ahead of where we stood. They came in groups diving in every direction. Perfectly timed, one after another. Everywhere we looked,

separate groups of planes were on their way down or on their way back up or slanting over for a dive or circling, circling, circling over our heads and waiting for their turn. So I want you to picture what this is like. Picture what this is like. And you don't picture that you're watching it in a movie because I understand that it's easy to picture it, okay? I want you to put your mind in this situation.

Can you imagine what that looks like? these, the plane, the sky is basically filling with planes. And they're making these incredibly aggressive attacks. And this piece, which I'm about to read a big chunk, this is one of the most magnificent descriptions of war I have read. Here we go. The air was full of sharp and distinct sounds of cracking bombs. and the heavy rips of the planes, machine guns,

and the splintering screams of diving wings. It was all fast and furious yet distinct. And then, a new sound gradually droned into our ears. A deep sound and all-encompassing with no notes in it, just a gigantic faraway surge of doom-like sound. It was the heavies. And so now he's talking about the heavy bombers that are going to bring the thunder. And there's so many of them and they're so loud.

It just drones out every other sound until just this massive faraway surge of a doom-like sound. It was the heavies. They came from directly behind us. At first, they were the merest dots in the sky. We could see the clots of them against the far heavens. Too tiny to count individually. They came on with a terrible slowness. They came in flights of 12, three flights to a group, and in groups stretched out across the sky.

They came in families of about 70 planes each. Maybe those gigantic waves were two miles apart. Maybe they were 10 miles. I don't know. But I do know they came in constant procession and I thought it would never end. What the Germans must have thought is beyond comprehension. The flight across the sky was slow and studied. I've never known a storm or a machine or any resolve of man that had about it the aura of such a ghastly relentlessness.

I had the feeling that even had God appeared beseechingly before them in the sky with palms outstretched to persuade them back they would not have had the power within them to turn from their irresistible course. This is just, that's such an incredible description of this impending doom. I stood with a little group of men ranging from colonel, to privates back to the stone farmhouse. Slit trenches were all around the edges of the farmyard, and a dugout where the tin roof was nearby. But we were so fascinated by the spectacle overhead

that it never occurred to us that we might need the foxholes. The first huge flight passed directly overhead, and others followed. We spread our feet and leaned far back, trying to look straight up until our steel helmets fell off. We'd cup our fingers around our eyes like field glasses for a clearer view. And then the bombs came. They began like the crackle of popcorn and almost instantly swelled into a monstrous fury of noise

that seemed surely to destroy all the world ahead of us. From then on for an hour and a half that had in it the agonies of centuries, the bombs came down. A wall of smoke and dust erected by them grew high in the sky. It filtered along the ground back through our orchards. It sifted around us and into our noses. The bright day grew slowly dark from it. By now everything was an indescribable cauldron of sounds. Individual noises did not exist.

The thundering of the motors in the sky and the roar of bombs ahead, filled all the space from noise on the earth. Our own heavy artillery was crashing all around us, yet we could hardly hear it. The Germans began to shoot heavy, high, acac. Great puffs of it by the score speckled the sky until it was hard to distinguish smoke puffs from planes. And then someone shouted that one of the planes was smoking. Yes, we could all see it.

A faint line of black smoke stretched straight for a mile behind one of the And as we watched, there were a gigantic sweep of flame over the plane. From nose to tail, it disappeared in flame, and it slanted slowly down and banked around the sky in great wide curves this way, and that as rhythmically and gracefully as in a slow motion waltz. Then suddenly it seemed to change its mind and swept upward steeper and steeper and ever slower until finally it seemed poised motionless on its own black pillar of smoke. and then just as slowly as it had turned over and dived for the earth,

a golden spearhead on the straight black shaft of its own creation, and disappeared behind the treetops. But before it was down, there were more cries of, there's another one smoking, and there's a third one now. Shoots came out of some of the planes. Out of some came no shoots at all. One of the white silk, caught on the tail of a plane.

Men with binoculars could see him fighting to get loose until flames swept over him and then a tiny black dot fell through space all alone. And all that time the great flat ceiling of the sky was roofed by other planes that didn't go down, plowing their way forward as if there were no turmoil in the world.

Nothing deviated them by the slightest. They stalked on, slowly and with a dreadful pall of sound as though they were seeing only something at a great distance and nothing existed between God how we admired those men up there and sickened for the ones who fell incredible it is possible to become so enthralled by some of the spectacles of war that man is momentarily captivated away from his own danger that's what happened to our little groups of group of soldiers as we stood watching the mighty bomb But that benign state didn't last long. As we watched, they're crept into our consciousness, a realization that the windrows of exploding bombs were easing back towards us, flight by flight, instead of gradually forward, as the plan called for. Then we were horrified by the suspicion that those machines high in the sky and completely

detached from us were aiming their bombs. at the smoke line on the ground and a gentle breeze was drifting the smoke line back over us an indescribable kind of panic came over us we stood tensed in muscle and frozen and intellect watching each flight approach and pass over feeling trapped and completely helpless and then all of an instant the universe became filled with gigantic rattling of as it of huge ripe seeds in a mammoth dry gourd. I doubt that any of us had ever heard that sound before, but instinct told us what it was.

It was bombs by the hundred hurtling down through the air above us. Many times I'd heard bombs whistle or swish or rustle, but never before had I heard bombs rattle. I still don't know what the explanation of it, but it was an awful sound. We dived. Some got into a dugout. Others made foxholes and ditches and some got behind a garden wall, although which side would be behind was anybody's guess. I was too late for the dugout. The nearest place was a wagon shed which formed on one end of the stone house. The rattle was right down upon us. I remember hitting the ground flat all spread out like the cartoons of people flattened by steamrollers and then squirming like an eel to get under one of the heavy ones. wagon wagons in the shed. An officer whom I didn't know was wriggling beside me. We stopped at the same time simultaneously feeling it was hopeless to move further. The bombs were already crashing around us.

We lay with our heads slightly up like two snakes staring at each other. I know it was in both our minds and in our eyes asking each other what to do. Neither of us knew. We said nothing. We just lay, sprawled, gaping at each other in a futile appeal. Our faces about a foot apart until it was over. There is no description of the sound and fury of those bombs except to say it was chaos and awaiting for darkness. The feeling of the blast was sensational. The air struck us in hundreds of continuing flutters.

Our ears drummed and rang. We could feel quick little waves of concessional. Cuncussion on our chest and in our eyes. At last the sound died down and we looked at each other in disbelief. Gradually we left the foxholes and sprawling places and came out to see what the sky had in store for us As far as we could see other waves were approaching from behind When a wave would pass a little to the side of us We were grateful for most of them flew directly overhead

time and time again the rattle came down over us bombs struck in the orchard to our left they struck into the orchards ahead of us they struck as far as a mile behind us everything about us was shaken but our group came through unhurt i can't record what any of us actually felt or thought during those horrible climaxes i believe a person's feelings at such time are kaleidoscopy and indefinable. He just waits. That's all. With an inhuman tenseness of muscle and nerves. An hour or so later I began to get sore all over, and by mid-afternoon my back and shoulders ached as though I'd been beaten with a club. It was simply the result of muscles tensing themselves too tight for too long against anticipated shock.

When we came out of our sprawling and stood. up again to watch we knew that the error had been caught and checked the bombs were falling again where they were intended a mile or so ahead even at a mile away a thousand bombs hitting within a few seconds can shake the earth and shattered the air there was still a dread in our hearts but it gradually eased as the tumult and destruction moved slightly forward it seems incredible to me that Any German could have come out of that bombardment with his sanity. When it was over, even I was grateful in a chastened way that I had never experienced before for just being alive. I thought an attack by our troops was impossible then, for it is an unnerving thing to be bombed by your own planes.

During the bad part, a colonel I had known a long time was walking up and down behind the farmhouse, snapping his fingers and saying, saying over and over again to himself, God damn it, God damn it! As he passed me once, he stopped and stared and said, God damn it! And I said, there can't be any attack now, can there? And he said no, and began walking again, snapping his fingers and tossing his arms as though he were throwing rocks at the ground. The leading company of our battalion was to spearhead the attack 40 minutes after the heavy bombing ceased.

The company had been hit. directly by our bombs their casualties including casualties and shock were heavy men went to pieces and had to be sent back the company shit was shattered and shaken yet company be attacked and on time to the minute they attacked and within the hour sent back word that they advanced 800 yards through german territory and were still going around our farm yard men with stars on their shoulders almost wept when the word came over the portable radio the American soldier can be majestic when he needs to be I'm sure that back in England that night other men bomber crews wept and maybe they did really in the awful knowledge that they had

killed our own American troops but the chaos and bitterness there in the orchards and between the Hedgeroads that afternoon soon passed. After the bitterness came, the sober remembrance that the Air Force was the strong right arm in front of us, not only at the beginning, but ceaselessly and everlastingly every moment of the faintest daylight the Air Force was up there banging away ahead of us. Anybody made mistakes. The enemy made them just the same as we did. The smoke and confusion of battle bewildered us on the ground as well in the air. And in this case, the percentage of error was really very small compared to the colossal storm of bombs that fell upon the enemy.

The Air Force was wonderful throughout the invasion, and the man on the ground appreciated it. So, obviously, we talk about blue-on-blue a lot here. I think that's about as an extreme example, as I've ever heard of. and you know the blue on blue thing is such a nightmare because

it's your own people it's your own people and it's a lack of communication and it's the fog of war and you can't do anything you can't shoot back all you can do is sit there

and wait and it's amazing one of those company that was scheduled to attack is so shaken up that they can't go forward, but then the other company just, we got this. Step aside. Now the attack starts pushing forward,

and we get a little description of one of the commanders. The commander of the regiment was one of my favorites. He was a regular army colonel, and he was overseas in the last war too. His division commander said the only trouble with him was that he got too bold, And if he weren't careful, he was liable to get clipped some fine day. When tired and dirty, he could have played a movie gangster, but either way, his eyes always twinkled.

He had a faculty for direct thought that was outstanding. The colonel went from one battalion to another during the battle, from early light till darkness. He wore a new type field jacket that fitted him like a sack, and he carried a long stick that Teddy Roosevelt. had given to him. He kept constantly prodding his commanders to push hard, not to let up and keep driving and driving. He was impatient with his commanders who lost the main point of the war by getting involved in the details, the main point, of course, being to kill Germans. His philosophy of war was expressed in the simple formula of shoot the son of bitches. Once I was at a battalion command post

When we got word that 60 Germans were coming down the road in a counterattack Everybody got excited They called the colonel on a field fold gave him on the field phone gave him details and asked him what to do He had the solution in a nutshell in a nutshell he said shoot the sons of bitches and hung up Gotta keep things simple And you got to keep your your tasks very focused You know, what's all this complication? We're here to kill Germans.

So kill them, sons of bitches. Now we get to a younger soldier that he goes through a description of. Clayton's weirdest, this guy named Clayton, Clayton's weirdest experience would be funny if it weren't so filled with pathos. He was returning with a patrol one moonlit night when the enemy opened up on them. Tommy leaped right through a hedge and spotting a foxhole plunged into it. To his amazement and fright, there was a German in that foxhole sitting pretty holding a machine pistol in his hands. Clayton shot him three times in the chest before you could say

scat. The German hardly moved. And then Tommy realized the man had been killed earlier. He had been shooting a corpse. All his experiences seem to have had no effect on this mild soldier from Indiana, except perhaps to make him even quieter than before. The worst experience of all is just the accumulated blur and the hurting vagueness of being too long in the lines, the everlasting alertness, the noise and fear, the cell-by-cell exhaustion, the thinning of surrounding ranks as day follows nameless day,

and the constant march into eternity of one's own, small quota of chances for survival those are the things that hurt and destroy and soldiers like Tommy Clayton went back to them because they were good soldiers and they had a duty they could not define mental stress now they continue to push through they take Paris and it's really incredible to hear what that was like then you should definitely buy this book and read it and here's how he closes it out the final chapter is being written in the latter part of august nineteen forty four it is being written under an apple tree in a lovely green orchard on the interior of france it could well be that the european war will be over and done by the time you read this book

or it might not but the end is inevitable and it cannot be put off for long. The German is beaten and he knows it. It will seem odd when, at some given hour, the shooting stops, and everything suddenly changes again.

It will be odd to drive down an unknown road without that little knot of fear in your stomach. Odd not to listen with animal-like alertness for the meaning of every distant sound.

Odd not to have your spirit. Odd to have your spirit released from the perpetual weight that is compounded of fear and death and dirt and noise and anguish. The end of war will be a gigantic relief, but it cannot be a matter of hilarity for most of us. Somehow it would seem sacrilegious to sing and dance when the great day comes. There are so many who can never sing and dance again. Many, many thousands of Americans have come to join the ones who have already slept in France for a quarter of a century. For some of us, the war has already gone on too long. Our feelings have been wrung and drained.

They cringe from the effort of coming alive again. even the approach of the end seems to have brought little inner elation it has only brought a tired sense of relief I do not pretend that my own feeling

is the spirit of our armies if it were we probably would not have the power to win most men are stronger our soldiers still can hate or glorify or be glad with true emotion. For them,

death has a pang and victory a sweet scent. But for me, war has become a fiat. Black depression without highlights, a revulsion of the mind and an exhaustion of the spirit. The war in France has been especially vicious

because it was one of the enemy's last stands. We have won because of many things. We have won partly because the enemy was weakened from our other battles. The war in France is our grand finale, but the victory here is the result of all other victories that went before. It is a result of Russia and the western desert and the bombings and the blocking of the sea. It is a result of Tunisia and Sicily and Italy. We must never forget or belittle those campaigns.

We have won because we have had magnificent top leadership at home and in our allies and with ourselves overseas. Surely America made its two perfect choices in General Eisenhower and General Bradley. They are great men, to me doubly great because they are direct and kind. We won because we are audacious. one could not help but be moved by the colossus of our invasion. It was a bold and mighty thing, one of the epics of all history. In the emergency of war, our nation's powers are unbelievable. The strength we have spread around the world is appalling even to those who make up the individual cells of that strength.

I am sure that in the past two years, I have heard soldiers say a thousand times, if only we could have created all this energy for something good but we rise above our normal powers only in times of destruction we have won this war because our men are brave and because of many other things because of Russia and England and the passage of time and the gifts of natures materials we did not win it because destiny created us better than all other peoples I hope that in victory we are more grateful than we are proud. I hope we can rejoice in victory, but humbly.

The dead men would not want us to gloat. The end of one war is a great fetter broken from around our lives. But there is still another to be broken. The Pacific War may yet be long and bloody. Nobody can foresee, but it would be disastrous to approach it with easy hopes. Our next few months at home will be torn between the new spiritual freedom of half peace and the old grinding blur of half war. It will be a confusing period for us. Thousands of men will be returning to you soon.

They have been gone a long time. and they have seen and done things and felt things you cannot know they will be changed they will have to learn how to adjust themselves to peace last night we had a violent electrical storm around our countryside the storm was half over before we realized that the flashes and the crashings around us were not artillery but plain old-fashioned thunder and lightning it will be odd to hear only thunder again You must remember that such little things as that are in our souls and will take time. And all of us together will have to learn how to reassemble our broken world into a pattern so firm and so fair that another great war cannot soon be possible.

To tell the simple truth, most of us over in France don't pretend to know the right answer. Submersion in war does not necessarily qualify a man to be the master of peace. All we can do is fumble and try once more, try out of the memory of our anguish, and be as tolerant with each other as we can. In this book was dedicated by Ernie Pyle, and I'm going to read the dedication now, in solemn salute to those thousands of our comrades. great brave men that they were for whom there will be no homecoming ever and Ernie Pyle did get to experience homecoming unfortunately it was not joyous and it was not long he he battled with depression and emotional turmoil over his experiences in war and you could hear him talking about those and also his wife

who had some kind of mental issues and she'd actually been hospitalized and so he was distressed and depressed about that and on top of that the war was not over for him and he mentioned there in the end that there's only half piece because there was still a war in the Pacific and he knew that and in personal letters and in conversations that he had with his friends he explained a personal foreboding a sense that he would not live through the war but when he was asked by the Department of the Navy to join the battle against Imperial Japan and the Pacific he reluctantly, maybe fearfully, but dutifully,

agreed to go. And it was there. In the Pacific, on a tiny island called Ishma just off the coast of Okinawa that Ernie Pyle was shot and killed by a single sniper bullet and members of the 77th infantry division who he'd been there

with for the operation quickly marked where he was killed with a sign that read at this spot the 77th Infant infantry division lost a buddy earning pile on 18 April 1945 so mr. pile thank you for your service and your sacrifice and to the journalists that are out there now in this day especially the war journalists who take risks to record and report history. Thank you for what you do. Again, the book is called

Brave Men by Ernie Pyle and it will give you some real insight into the nature of war. The world is a crazy place. It's amazing that you can live the life that we live and some people go through lives their life without ever even even just brushing against this madness and I'll say this for the thousandth time I believe that it is important to these things so that you learn not just about leadership but about life and how precious and glorious life is. Life has

ups and down darkness and light and everybody's life makes those transitions and having darkness in the world or in your life does not exclude the light. In fact I think it makes that light

just a little bit better. And so when we we don't have to stay here. A respects. I guess it's a good time to answer some questions from the interwebs. From the interwebs. Sure. And actually, before we get into questions from the interwebs.

Speaking of interwebs. There's kind of some ways that you can utilize the other way, the interwebs for other things. Yep. One of them is. And by the way, this, for those that you do, don't know. Now Echo is going to say some stuff about the interwebs and about supporting the podcast.

You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to, like, I'm going to hit a switch and do a little decompression. I'm going to drink some white tea over here with a little pomegranate. And I'm going to get a little adjustment, a little mindset change, get into the zone for answering some questions. Sure.

So there's actually a dual purpose for XVI, goes discussion of how to support the podcast. Yes, it shows you how to support the podcast, which is much appreciated. Also, I can decompress for a minute. Yep. From being bombed by my own planes, from being stressed, from being back in the war zone, World War II style.

Bro, how he describes it. I mean, you can, you know, writers in general are, you're, just really good at explaining stuff. Yeah. I mean, yeah, pretty much all right. And you can see the difference in the way they, man,

this one in particular really, to me anyway, really, really delivered with the, with the descriptions and stuff. And it was like, yeah, there's so many one liners in there.

Yeah. When I was reading it, I have certain ways of, I have certain ways of notating, kind of what I'm going to read and that, you know, some of the stuff, just circled and someone's this now but but occasionally if something to me if i if it hits me

i put one single red line underneath each individual word yeah that i'm going to read and i normally i might do that like once or twice a book but there's a couple paragraphs where i had done it multiple times because those lines are just powerful like the The one that I just opened the book back up to re-read it. You can't put it down. But, you know, when he's like, and then a new sound gradually droned into our ears, a sound deep and all-encompassing with no notes in it,

just a gigantic faraway surge of doom-like sound. And this is the part that I underlined. It was the heavies. And just the power of that, just knowing like these are the heavy bombers, which, you know, it's no big deal to us now, because we have giant machines, but a heavy bomber back then was like a,

it was just this ultimate modern machine that had been created that nothing could destroy what these things, nothing was close to it. And not only who we created one of these insane power machines, we'd created hundreds and hundreds, and actually we'd created thousands of them. And they were all amassed in coming to destroy this little section it was the heavies god so yeah it's a it's a book that

definitely draws you in and his writing that he the fact that he writes a very um straight forward very very plain and direct English is I think one of the things that makes it so powerful I love how we compare where he compares like and a lot of writers do this and when you can do it good it's really powerful work Like, for example, he talked about the one plane that I think he got hit or was crashing. And he compared to me, he said it was a spear, a light lit spear with the smoke trail. It's like, dang, you can see exactly what that looks like, you know, I just pull. And it's weird, too, because although you can go watch this, I mean, they have film footage of this stuff.

But that takes you there visually. But I think what reading and listening does, it takes you there mentally. Yeah. It takes you there in your head. Yeah, way more powerful than, and this happens to me all the time when I'm reading. And I'm getting better. When we started this podcast, I could tell like, oh, that's powerful. Like, oh, yeah, that's going to be, that's a really powerful statement.

And then sometimes I would read it. It would be 12 more times more powerful where I'd be like, oh, my God, I'd be getting just power. Because when you read it aloud, and now I'm a little bit more aware that, hey, you're going to have to read this. Bro. You better get your head in the game because it's going to be powerful. Yeah. So that's something I've become more aware of as we've done this more and more. And as I've read all these books and gone through them and underlined the stuff

and thought about the way it's going to sound and thought about what it means to say, it was the heavies. Awesome. So while I attempt to decompress over here. you know go well speaking in interwebs and awesome by the way let's talk about supplements as we

do a lot of the time at this time so on it right best supplements we all know that even though we already know that that is a big deal because of the nature of just supplement companies in general so rest assured on it best one that's it

on it supplements you can get 10% off because of the jaco link, which is on it.com slash jaco, 10% off, boom. Supplement your wallet a little bit. Supplement your body. And it's your mind. In your mind. Alphabrein. Alphabrian.

For sure. But notably, I'm going to admit so I didn't take krill oil. When? Until when? Until recently. So remember, okay. And in the spirit of extreme ownership, apparently I, I, I, was not clear enough to you of you know about the fact that I wanted it oh yeah yeah

yeah when you would send me a text like hey bro you got me that grill oil stuff yeah I wasn't just wondering I kind of wanted them anyway all I didn't take that off a rain take sure it's real easy jaco bring me krill oil now yeah you know I think I said that a few times so now are you on okay so I take the creole oil and I'm not I'm not this guy who's like like has all these nagging joint pains when I go work out. Because really, that's really when I think, okay, do I have joint pain?

No, no, no. I work out good, hard. I roll jiu-jita. I do all stuff. I don't have joint pain. But here's the thing. I do have joint pain.

Oh. When I wake up in the morning. Oh, yeah. And the thing is, like I said, when you're like, when someone says, do you have joint pain?

I'm thinking when I work out. That's it. I don't think like, you know, other time unless they're, they're asking specifically. So like my daughter, she's three and a half now.

She's kind of like a bigger three and a half too and she comes runs up Wakes me up a lot of times and is like hey carry me downstairs so when I sit up she jumps on my back She was 40 pounds I'm not saying I'm you know the power lift or nothing but 40 pounds is not okay 40 pounds I don't think even has anywhere yeah for you know my work out is meaningless Yeah she's 40 pounds she jumps on the back I'm like oh I got a focus really I got to focus on like my Yeah, just because of the stiffness, not necessarily pain, but just like stiff. You know how like if you just didn't warm up at all?

You can't just jump. It's like that feeling. And then recently my ankle got jacked up one day. And I have like, I think there's torn ligaments. So you got to watch out there for lucky. Yeah. You know, but it had already been jacked by the way. So it got foot locked and then it like inflamed it.

So now I got to walk downstairs with this girl on my back with my stiffness. And I'm like, oh, hey, no problem. I do it almost every day. No problem. But let's face it. Those are all signs of jumping. It's a little bit of a challenge. Yeah, yeah.

But I take the krill oil, not the first day, not even the second day, but it was maybe a few days later. She jumps on my back. I'm still working out hard, by the way. So it's not like, oh, you're recovering. She jumps on my back. I'm like, dang, I feel solid. I can go. Like, when I stand up, I'm like, boom, popping up.

Noticably reduced. Still there. My ankle's still there. Even right now, it's still. But, bro, this was like, I would say. maybe four or five days. And this is when I know it. I was like, dang, this is, this is good.

Crill oil is real. Yeah. And there's been a bunch of, a bunch of people on Twitter have come back and said, hey, I started taking curle oil. And then, you know, a week later, they're like, man, my shoulder's good to go. You know, it really works. So it does really work. It really does.

Yeah. And like I said, that main, and here, my wife's dad was like telling her long, this is years ago, saying, no, krill oil. No, not fish oil. Fish oil was good. Crill oils. And I'm like, I look up krill.

It's the trim. Like, oh, sweet. It's joint pain. It's all this stuff or whatever. And like I said, even back then, right now, same thing. When I work, I don't have joint pain. Maybe if I have a strain or something, but that's not a joint pain general, you know? So I'm like, all right, knock yourself out with a cruel oil.

When I need it, and then I'm going to come on. Maybe I'll ask you about some stuff. So, you know, I see it. And it's cool, good. But this is the first time. Now you realize. All right, I get, I got you. The krill oils.

Now you get that. get that. So when I run out, go ahead. Give me another krill oil, okay? Yeah. That's clear. Yeah. Let me know. Let me know. I'll sell you. So back to the book. What else? Warrior bars. And this is what we, I think warrior bars are made out of a buffalo meat. They are. They are. They are. We never said that. Oh, well, my boss. Does that even matter? You know?

Yeah. Because you're eating buffalo, which must have some glorious properties to make you stronger. Well, yeah. But, um, nonetheless, to me, That makes it even more awesome. Not because, I mean, not for any specific reason other than maybe novelty, but it's still pretty dope, in my opinion. So it still tastes really good. That's meal replacement. Someone asked me on Twitter, hey, do you, you know, what meal replacement or protein shakes or whatever would you recommend if any? I said none.

Yeah. Well, that's what I said too. Someone said the same thing to me. Meal replacement. I said, why would you replace a steak? You may have a steak, brother. Exactly. But in the event, really, the answer to that is,

if meals were gross or disgusting or horrible, maybe you'd want to replace them. Yeah. But, or you don't have to. Look, I'm driving a truck. Yep. I'm driving, I don't know, an airplane or something for a long time. Yeah.

I don't want you driving my airplane. Yeah. I'll do respect. Probably right. Good idea. But, but okay. There you go, Warrior Bor. Yes.

That's the answer right there. They're a good little filler. Eat two of them. That's a big filler. Yep. They're pretty big, too. They're like, They're not messing around and they're good.

That's the thing. Like, remember back of the day, the, you know, the bars. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not even back in the, even right now. You eat one of those like, all right, I see where you're going with it. You're trying to make it like a candy bar where you're trying to. It's not like that at all. This is good.

Anyway, dude, worry bar. Another way you can support the podcast in the event of you being in the mood to support the podcast is next time you shopping at Amazon. dot com click through one of our links it's like a passive way actively aggressively aggressively efficient way yes support and super easy it doesn't cost you anything you click through you do your shopping boom it's like we get like a little referral thing what what i like about that is because i don't want to ask people like a lot of people they want to donate money i don't want you to donate money to us if you want to give us money that's awesome

but I'd rather you buy a t-shirt if you can afford it. But if let's say you can't afford anything because you're broke, that's okay. When you order something from Amazon, this is just free money that you give to us. So it's all good.

Yeah, in a way, it's almost like a collective like, hey, we all shop at Amazon. I'm running this thing together, you know, kind of thing. I don't know. It's,

and Amazon, obviously, they can spare the change. Right. They can spare a little something for the Jocko podcast. You're actively making Amazon give us money. How's that for getting after it?

But then, but they're, you know, so it's like this weird like circle almost. You know, they, you know, they buy from Amazon. We're like, hey, go to Amazon, but go through us. And Amazon's like, hey, thanks for buying. Thanks for sending them. We're supporting Amazon. Whether it be books or whatever, duct tape, all this stuff. Because we're making people want to buy stuff from Amazon, i.e.

books. Sure. You know? Yeah. Nonetheless. Other things, pretty soon people can be buying chocolate. From Amazon too, which is coming. It's so good.

you know I got the full on brew so good it came out so good I'm pumped yeah that's gonna be solid that is solid currently that's solid

but yeah the Amazon anyway yeah support that way like I always say a big part of that or a big not issue but a thing in there is remembering to do it

if you want to do this the remembering to do it so we do have what's called the trooper tool all it is you go you you download it it's basically you click on it's Amazon trooper

or trooper tool Chrome extension click on it accept it it's on your thing it automatically does it for you from here on out it's dope it's like a little official thing to radio get up so solid um and we we're trying to update

I've been talking to him I'm trying to update it for Canada UK so they can have the tool for them as well that's cool yes yeah yeah we're working on that one but they yeah that's good Trooper Tool, you don't have to remember it anymore. You remember it one time.

That's all. Shop at Amazon still support aggressively, efficiently. And, of course, support by subscribing to the podcast on iTunes and YouTube channel. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Yeah. That's legit. And, of course, the Jocco store. Oh.

I think we're, I'm not, I think I know that we're trying. We are trying our best to provide multi-dimensional items. Like, even in a simple t-shirt, there's multiple dimensions to it, you know? It's not just, hey, that's a cool saying. The saying is important and extends way beyond what you'd expect on the surface. That goes for all the shirts. Including the rash cards. Including the rash cards.

Okay, so new stuff. New stuff. Rash guards. The rash cards are good. as far as the fit of course and the men they're good

and what I what's cool about I mean here's the reality when you when you when you put on a uniform you know when you put on a uniform

you change your mentality a little bit this is factually factually and so when people are like oh man I was wearing the Discipline equals Discipline equals freedom

t shirt today I got my PR on clean and jerk yeah and I'm like yeah yeah you put on your uniform and there's a mental like state of mind that makes a little adjustment in the brain you know what's real funny about that exact notion when i when we first got the first shirts in

discipline but on the gray one and i get i know that that thing that's it's my it's a psychological thing yeah you know really yeah which is by the way one of the most powerful things in your whole life psychological anyway so i put it on i was like yeah i'm going to take a picture you know of me and new shirt kind of thing and I put on it and I was going to work out anyway and man I put on it on I was like yeah I felt that exactly on the shirt that I made you know anyway yeah it's so true and the rash guard I'm not going to go into the story but I put on the rash guard yesterday it worked out good for you it worked out very well I did very well so there's some sort of a subliminal power you know that you can gain yes so true and when I was thinking

is this false advertising hey if you wear this this rash this rash your jih Tzu will improve 19%. No, it's not false at all. It's not even false. I went in to the whole rash guard situation. Like, oh yeah, we need rash guards because people were saying, hey, we need like this, rash guards.

And there were jiu jitzy people. There was a demand signal. But here's the thing. Like rash guards, like the short sleep, all that, man, this is like, if you go like biking and stuff, that's really what it's for. It's like biking, like, CrossFit, anything where you're like, surfing for sure. That's really what rash guards are.

For, I mean, Jiu Jitsu now, because there's Jiu Jitsu now. Well, we used to, back in the day, back in the day, we used to just where we, if people were wearing rash cards, there was no such thing as Jiu Jish Rash card. Right. There was only actual rash guards. You know what it is for bodyboarding is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

For all means of water sports. Yeah. Yeah. And my little brother, he's a diver. He dies spearfishing. That goes, he's dope. He's dope. too. He got this.

Anyway, he's on quiet. So same thing. You go diving, water, so it's like that's what this is for. Including but not limited to Jiu Jitsu. Yeah. Jiu Jitsu is a complete bonus on the tail end of that. However, now these are specifically designed for Jiu Jitsu.

They're just multi-person. They're just multi-purpose. Yeah. And straight up. If you wear it for Jiu-Jitsu, you're going to do better. Straight up. I'm making that claim. Straight up. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it.

I haven't enrolled with you while you're wearing it yet. Yeah, good luck. Good luck with that one. We will go to the gym of me. After this recording. Also new. That's out is patches for Jiu-Jitsu, for anything. They're just patches.

They're iron-on, but you saw them on. So-a-M-on. So-M-M-on, yeah. Patches, discipline equals freedom. There is a jujitsu-specific patch. It says, jujitsu, you know, discipline. Anyway, go on jacoustar.com, me, see them all. And women's shirts.

Women's shirts are new. Oh, wait. Back to the patches real quick. Okay. So I got a recommendation for the Velcro one. Yes. Which is, bro, I don't even know why I didn't, like, it didn't. You know why?

Because you don't wear a hat. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't wear hats. Yeah, but still. I wear a hat all the time. There's always space for a patch on there. Bro, I'm going to put it on everything. There you go.

Anyway. What about the women's shirts? Women's shirts. Okay. Yes. Thank you, Debbie. And, you know, all you guys every one of the yeah female troopers yeah i got it getting after it um yeah

yeah lisa all you yeah they're on you yeah thank you they bring the input no they bring very good input and i thank them and i respect their tenacity did you feel threatened no no i felt that we were all in this together you know um but yeah thank you so yes they are coming here here's here's the thing they're not t-shirts they're tank tops do we want t-shirts i don't know if we do then we're going to get a few shirts as well. Good. Ask the females. Female troopers.

Maybe we'll do a pink. We will not. Maybe we will, though. That's the thing. We will not. Either way, they're literally in the works. Submitted. Is that Lisa's like pink, pink, pink, pink.

Yeah. No. Not happening. Yes. Vetoed. I didn't really feel like doing the pink either. So guess what I did? The pink.

Actually, I didn't do the pink, but it's in the work still. Nonetheless, they're on the way, straight up on the way. You know what? This is decentralized. command folks on my micromanage and echo he's got the creative brain so let them run with it and humility

because just because it's not your specific opinion doesn't mean it's you know but there is a standard of yeah so hopefully you maintain it I guess I just be you know I'll try and give you the proper guidance right well there you go to make that happen anything else

jockos store.com that's it that's where they all are and thanks everyone for shopping and supporting it's awesome and should we go to the questions oh wait wait one more thing just a little technical thing okay outside of the US

if you're outside of US Canada anywhere outside of the US I put a little thing on there because just as far as just the shipping process technical thing for customs they want your phone number to create the shipping label I need your phone number I'm not going to give the phone number out

I'm not going to call no and text nobody but they just need it for the customs thing got it So I've tried to put a thing on there But hey love you're shopping You just want to check out and be done with it I understand but if it's possible Try to try to try to remember that one Otherwise you got to email them

It's no problem I'll email for forget We want the stuff now Yeah hey look especially it's got to ship a long way Exactly right in the clear in Holland Yeah It's so there's so many people This is what's really cool

Is getting feedback from people all over All over the world That's crazy right Yep That's kind of crazy, right? Yes. Is all over the world troopers getting after it? Yeah, it makes sense.

I think about it. People come in from Sweden. Yep. Oh, they came in. Yeah, came to the gym. Didn't roll, though. But we hung out. We talked about physics.

Properties of physics. Yeah. Physicist. Listen, physicists, but guess what he likes to listen to? We don't talk about physics. Okay. Yeah. No, we don't.

Indirectly, you did. But yeah, if you can, outside of the U.S., try to remember the phone number. So it just saves the step. And boom, it's on, it's on its way to you quicker. There it is. I don't mind emailing, though. In fact, I get a lot of cool little conversation. Like the Australia guys, for some reason, I love those guys.

They'll be like, hey, and they'll say the Australian stuff. I was in Australia, you know, a couple years ago or whatever. And met this guy, Jason. He's a black belt under Hickson. And he has a, anyway, I was with him doing some stuff. and he would teach me all the Australian stuff. And some I didn't know, like too easy, for example. Too easy is like.

Yeah, I got this. Yeah, like all good. Yeah, it's just this real, it's kind of ambiguous, but it, you know, I love that phrase. Anyway, nonetheless, you know, you get into fun conversations with people when you email them for, for the simple stuff for their shirt order. You're about to get 10 million emails now. I know, whatever, good, good. How long have we been? How long did that go?

Yeah. Roughly two hours, roughly. All right. Well, I actually got a pretty good stack of questions. I'm thinking that for today, we wrap it and hold off on Q&A until the next one. And we'll just do all Q&A. On the next one, I don't, be quite frank with you, it's kind of tough to even follow up with this book. so so with that thanks everybody out there for for listening for supporting the podcast thanks for taking the time

to learn with me to remember with us the depth of the world the depth of the darkness and the sacrifices that have been made for us. Remember that. Remember these men and what they were really truly afraid of. Not afraid of physical agony, not afraid of death itself, but they feared losing their future. They feared losing their future.

So we here, sitting here, today, we have a future. We have that opportunity. So make sure you take every possible advantage of the opportunity that you have and that you have in the future. And you know how to do that. to do that by getting out there and getting after it. And so until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.