Jocko Podcast - 60: The Importance of Standing Up Against Evil, and its Heavy Cost. "The Rape of Nanking"

Episode Date: February 1, 2017

0:00:00 - Opening 0:14:06 - "The Rape of Nanking" (Unspeakable Darkness) 1:15:21 - "The Woman Who Could Not Forget" by, Dr. Ying Ying Chang  1:58:25 - Lessons from the books.  Your Reality VS. Actual Reality. 2:12:01 - How to Get in the GAME. Support Stuff. Onnit, Amazon, JockoStore stuff, with Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Jocko's Kids Book--Way of the Warrior Kid,  Extreme Ownership (book) and The Muster002 2:33:07 - Closing Gratitude.  Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 60 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. What I am about to relate is anything but a pleasant story. In fact, it is so very unpleasant that I cannot recommend anyone without a strong stomach to read it. For it is a story of such crime and horror as to almost be unbelievable. The story of depredations of a horde of degraded criminals of incredible bestiality on a peaceful, kindly law-abiding people. I believe it has no parallel in modern history.

And that is a warning that was written by a man by the name of George Fitch, who was an American in the city of Nan King, China. He was working for the YMCA in 1937 when the Imperial Japanese Army invaded. And I'm going to tell you that that warning is not strong enough. And I know that many of you listen to this podcast with your children. And I am going to tell you right now this podcast, this episode is not for children. this episode is barely even for adults and I'm sure that some of you will not make it through this podcast and I almost decided not to do it this podcast this episode this episode is going to review a book called the Rape of Nan King by an author by the name of Iris Chang and

part of the reason that I decided that I had to cover this book is because of the story that follows the story. And that is of Iris Chang, the author, a bright, beautiful, intelligent, successful, and loving woman who was consumed. by darkness. And I will discuss her fate in a book that was written by her mother, Ying Ying Chang, in a book called The Woman Who Could Not Forget. And what happened in the city of Nanking is it is beyond darkness. It is beyond evil.

It is pure savagery. wanton savagery of the highest order and Part of me thinks maybe it's best If it is forgotten Maybe that's the best way to prevent it from happening again But part of me knows that that is wrong and The only way to learn is to study and to understand and to try and and ban and

vanish this from our memories to me that leaves a door leaves a door open for something like this to happen again somewhere sometime but I want to warn you again that there are parts of this episode that are extremely graphic and I didn't put it all in there but I absolutely wanted people to understand that this is what happened and I feel compelled to discuss it for for one for Iris Chang who in my mind sacrificed everything to tell this story to help ensure that those who suffered are remembered and also to ensure that the human race at large has the knowledge has the warning that evil exists and that mankind is capable of becoming engulfed in that evil and that man can act without mercy or remorse or the slightest shred of humanity at all to prepare for the inevitable war with

China. Japan had spent decades training its men for combat. The molding of young men to serve in the Japanese military began early in life, and in the 1930s, the martial influence seeped into every aspect of Japanese boyhood. Toy shops became virtual shrines to war, selling arsenals of toy soldiers, tanks, helmets, uniforms, rifles, anti-aircraft guns, bugles, and howitzers. memoirs from that time describe pre-adolescent boys waging mock battles in the streets using bamboo poles as imaginary rifles. Some even tied logs of wood on their back and fantasized about dying as human bomb heroes in suicide missions. Now, I can tell you, I grew up doing all that stuff. We played war all the time.

All the time. So I don't find anything shocking about that. Back to the book, Japanese schools operated like miniature military units. Indeed, some of the teachers were military officers who lectured students on their duty, on their duty to help Japan fulfill its divine destiny of conquering Asia and being able to stand up to the world's nations as a people second to none. Now we're starting to get off course. They taught young boys how to handle wooden models of guns and older boys how to handle real ones. Textbooks became vehicles from military propaganda.

One geography book even used the shape of Japan as justification for expansion. We appear to be standing in the vanguard of Asia, advancing bravely into the Pacific. At the same time, we appear ready to defend the Asian continent from outside attack. teachers also instilled in boys hatred and contempt for the Chinese people, preparing them psychologically for a future invasion of the Chinese mainland. One historian tells the story of a squeamish Japanese schoolboy in the 1930s who burst into tears when told to dissect a frog. His teacher slammed his knuckles against the boy's head and yelled, Why are you crying about one lousy frog? When you grow up, you'll have to kill 100, 200 chinks.

Japanese Minister of Education declared that schools were run not for the benefit of the students, but for the good of the country. Elementary school teachers were trained like military recruits with student teachers housed in barracks and subject to harsh discipline and indoctrination. In 1890, the imperial re-script on education emerged. It laid down a code of ethics to govern not only students and teachers, but every Japanese citizen. The re-script was the civilian equivalent of Japanese military codes, which valued above all obedience to authority and unconditional loyalty to the emperor. In every Japanese school, a copy of the re-script was enshrined with a portrait of the emperor and taken out each morning to be read. It was reputed that more than one teacher who accidentally stumbled over the wards committed suicide to a child. atone for the insult to the sacred document.

So we've got a, that's 1890, by the way, 1890. So this is generations now that this is being plugged into the, to the students' brains. And these things, you know, when we talk about students, we talk about children, we teach them generally, freedom is the ultimate goal. freedom is the ultimate the ultimate the ultimate thing to strive for the ultimate thing to defend is freedom and here they're getting taught that the ultimate thing was obedience to authority and unconditional loyalty back to the book it was commonplace for teachers to behave like sadistic drill sergeant slapping children across the cheeks hitting them with their fists or

bludgeoning them with bamboo or wooden swords students were forced to hold heavy objects, sit on their knees, stand barefoot in the snow, or run around the playground until they collapsed from exhaustion. There were certainly few visits to the schools by indignant or even concerned parents. The pressure to confirm to authority intensified if the schoolboy decided to become a soldier. Vicious hazing and relentless and relentless pecking order usually squelched any residual spirit of individualism within him obedience was touted as a supreme virtue and a sense of individual self-worth was replaced by a sense of value as a small cog in the larger scheme of things to establish the sublimation

of individuality to the common good superior officers of older soldiers slapped recruits for almost no reason at all or beat them severely with heaven wood and rod heavy wooden rods according to the author Toshio officers often justified unauthorized punishment saying I do not beat you because I hate you I beat you because I care for you do you think I perform these acts with hands swollen and bloody in a state of madness some youths died under such brutal physical conditions others committed suicide the majority became tempered vessels into which the military could pour a new set of life goals.

So this is complete, you know, militant raising of children. And what I want to note here is anybody that thinks, you know what, that probably produced some incredible warriors. You're actually wrong. Did it produce warriors? Yes, it did. But let's remember that these warriors that were raised in this manner, when they had American soldiers and Marines that had to face them when they were in incredibly well-dugged

in defensive positions and the Americans had to take beach fronts and beachheads, the free-thinking American soldier proved to be the better. Back to the book. Training was no less grueling a process for aspiring officers. Above all, the Japanese cadets were to adopt a will which knows no defeat. So terrified were the cadets of any hint of failure that examination results were kept secret to minimize the risk of suicide. So that's what, again, this was going all the way back to 1890. So we've got 40, 50 years worth before we get into this, where this massacre takes place.

Back to the book. In the summer of 1937, Japan finally succeeded in provoking a full-scale war with China. So Japan was now engaged in a war. China. They went to Shanghai. The Japanese invaded Shanghai, you know, big giant city. And they thought they were going to have no factor, right? Because they're getting told all the time that they're the best and they're the supreme warriors and all this. Well, going back to the book here, Japanese military leaders had boasted and seriously believed that Japan could conquer all of mainland China within three months. We got some arrogance going on here. But when a battle in a single

Chinese city alone, that was Shanghai, dragged from summer to fall, and then from fall to winter, it shattered Japanese fantasies of an easy victory. Here, this primitive people, illiterate in military science and poorly trained, had managed to fight the superior Japanese to a standstill. When Shanghai finally fell in November, the mood of the imperial troops had turned ugly. And many say, and many, it was said, lust. for revenge as they marched towards Nan King. So they're on route now. They had a hard time taking down Shanghai.

They got vengeance on their mind when they're going into the city of Nan King. Back to the book, little was spared on the path to Nan King. Japanese veterans remember raiding tiny farm communities where they clubbed or bayoneted everyone in sight. But small villages were not the only casualties. Entire cities were raised to the ground. Consider the example of Su Chow, a city on the east bank of Taihu Lake.

One of the oldest cities in China, it was prized for its delicate silk embroidery palaces and temples. Its canals and ancient bridges had earned the city its western nickname as the Venice of China. On November 19th, on a morning of pouring rain, a Japanese advance guard marched through the gates of Suu, wearing hoods that prevented the Chinese centuries from recognizing them. Once inside, the Japanese murdered and plundered the city for days, burning down ancient landmarks and abducting thousands of Chinese women for sexual slavery. The invasion, according to the China Weekly Review, caused the population of the city to drop from 350,000 to less than 500.

But the worst was still to come. Now, there was a general that was sort of in charge of the Japanese that were heading to to Nanking. His name was General Matsui. And he seemed to have some semblance of honor to him and gave some pretty good, I would say, benevolent type, as benevolent as you can be when you're going into war of orders. So here's one of the things that he proclaimed. Back to the book, The entry of the Imperial Army into a foreign capital is a great event in our history, attracting the attention of the world.

Therefore, let no unit enter the city in a disorderly fashion. Let them know beforehand the matters to be remembered and the position of foreign rights and interests in the walled city. Let them be absolutely free from plunder. He's given some pretty, like I said, About as benevolent orders as you could give. That was Matsui. Well, unfortunately, Matsui gets sick.

And he can't be the leader. Although he kind of goes in and out of a leadership position as this is going on. There's a new guy that comes in. And the new guy that comes in his actual royalty named Prince Asaka. Now Prince, Prince Asaka gets word. He starts to get to understand the situation that they're going into. And he gets told that, yeah, they're going to be. when they take Nanking, they're going to have about 300,000 Chinese troops to deal with.

And they get some preliminary word that it sounds like the Chinese are ready to surrender. They kind of hear that intelligence. They have spies in there and whatnot. Back to the book. After Asaka heard this report, it was said that his headquarters sent out a set of orders under his personal seal marked secret to be destroyed. We now know that the message of these orders was clear. Kill all captives.

And they actually do have a copy of an order that came out. And this was on December 13th, 1937, the Japanese 66th Battalion received the following command. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but here's parts of it. Battalion Battle Reporter at 2.00 received order from the regiment commander to command, to comply with orders from the brigade commanding headquarters, all prisoners of war are to be executed. Method of execution, divide the prisoners into a group of a dozen, shoot to kill separately. Goes on to give some details about who's supposed to run this, and then it continues. Back to the book, the vicinity of the imprisonment must be heavily guarded.

Our intentions are absolutely not to be detected by the prisoners. Every company is to complete preparation before 0500. Executions are to start promptly by that time, and action is to be finished by 7.30. So there you go. Straight up orders. They're going to kill everyone. And it's very important to note here that he says,

our intentions are absolutely not to be detected. So they weren't going to make it very clandestine and keep the Chinese from knowing that they were going to, Kill them all. Back to the book, there was a ruthless logic to the order. The captives could not be fed, so they had to be destroyed. Killing them would not only eliminate the food problem, but diminish the possibility of retaliation.

Moreover, dead enemies could not form up into guerrilla forces. So they have their orders. They go in and begin the operation. And here we go. Back to the book. All this was easier to achieve than the Japanese had had anticipated. had anticipated. Resistance was sporadic. Indeed, it was practically non-existent. Having thrown away their arms when attempting to flee the city, as the Japanese closed in, many Chinese

soldiers simply turned themselves in, hoping for better treatment. Once the men surrendered and permitted their hands to be bound, the rest was easy. So the Chinese give up their weapons. and allow themselves to be taken. Not a good idea. Now we're gonna go to a quote from a Japanese soldier named Azuma. It was funny yet pittable when I imagined how they gathered whatever white cloth they could find,

attached it to a dead twig, and marched forward just to surrender. I thought, how could they become prisoners with the kind of force that they had, more than two battalions, and even without trying to show any resistance. There must have been a considerable number of officers for this many troops, but not a single one remained, all of them having slipped away and escaped, I thought.

Although we had two companies, and those 7,000 prisoners had already been disarmed, our troops could have been annihilated had they decided to rise up and revolt. And I didn't go through too much of this, but it was a chaos. scene when the Chinese realized what was going to happen and as that indicated a lot of the senior leadership they fled the city and so it left these soldiers there now with no

leadership and what are they going to do and you know the Japanese did psychological warfare on them and drop leaflets that said hey if you surrender you'll be treated well we have rice for you and that's what they did they lied of course back to the book when the Japanese military received orders on December 17th to kill prisoners they proceeded with extra caution. That morning, the Japanese announced that they were going to transport the Chinese prisoners

to a small island in the middle of the Yancey River. They explained to the captives that they needed to take special precautions to move for the move and bound the captive's hands behind their backs, a task that took all morning and most of the afternoon.

Sometime between 4 and 6 p.m., the Japanese divided the prisoners into four columns and marched them to the war. west skirting the hills and stopping at the river bank after three or four hours of waiting and not knowing what was going on the prisoners could not see any preparations for crossing the river the corporal wrote it was going dark they did not know that Japanese soldiers already encircled them in a crescent formation along the river

and that they were in sights of many machine guns by the time the execute by the time the executions began it was too late for the Chinese to escape. Suddenly, all kinds of guns fired at once. Kariha, Ritchie wrote, the sound of the firearms mingled with the desperate yelling and screams. For an hour, the Chinese struggled and thrashed about desperately until there were few sounds coming from the group.

From evening until dawn, the Japanese bayoneted the bodies, one by one. And that scene took place over and over and over again because what they did is they indicated and then in that order, if you missed it, they separated the group. So they had them captured inside the city and then they took them in small units of 30, 40 Chinese soldiers

tied their hands and said, yep, we're going to transport you. And they did this all over the city at the same time, coordinated, and then took them out to different places outside the city and killed them. But it wasn't only the source. soldiers that they did this to. Back to the book, after the soldiers surrendered on mass, there was virtually no one left to

protect the citizens of the city. Knowing this, the Japanese poured into Nanking on December 13, 1937, occupying government buildings, banks and warehouses, shooting people randomly in the streets, many of them in the back as they ran away. Using machine guns, revolvers, and rifles, the Japanese fired at the crowds of wounded soldiers, elderly women and children who gathered in the north and central roads and nearby alleys. They also killed Chinese civilians in every section of the city. Tiny lanes, major boulevards, mud dugouts, government buildings, city squares. As victims toppled to the ground, moaning and

screaming, the streets, alleys and ditches of the fallen capital ran rivers of blood, much of it coming from people barely alive with no strength left to run away. The Japanese systematically killed the city dwellers as they conducted house-to-house searches for Chinese soldiers in Nanking. But they also massacred the Chinese in nearby suburbs and countryside. Corpses piled up outside the city walls along the river by ponds and lakes and on hills and mountains. In villages near Nanking, the Japanese shot down in a young man.

who passed under the presumption that he was likely to be a former Chinese soldier. But they also murdered people who could not possibly be Chinese soldiers. Elderly men and women, for instance, if they hesitated or even if they failed to understand orders, which were delivered in Japanese language. And obviously, not every Chinese person spoke Japanese. So this is now just a full-on killing spree. and I'm going to read a section here. There was military war correspondents that were there from the Japanese military.

And I will read this one is from a military war correspondent named Yukio Omata. And he saw the Chinese prisoners being brought and lined up along the river. Back to the book, those in the first row were beheaded. Those in the second row were forced to dump the severed bodies into the river before they themselves were beheaded. The killing went on non-stop from morning until night, but they were only able to kill 2,000 persons in this way. The next day, tired of killing in this fashion, they set up machine guns. Two of them raked a crossfire at the lined-up prisoners, rat, tat, tat, tat. Triggers were pulled.

The prisoners fled into the war. But no one was able to make it to the other shore Systematic murder of everyone is basically what we're dealing with and when they got their momentum Going on the extermination of most of the men they turn their attention to the women back to the book Women suffered the most Takakoro Kozu a former soldier in the 114th division of the general Japanese army in Nang king recalled no matter how young or old they all could not escape the fate of being raped we sent out coal trucks to the city streets and

villages to seize a lot of women and then each of them was allocated to 15 to 20 soldiers for sexual intercourse and abuse surviving Japanese veterans claim that the army had officially outlawed rape of enemy women. But rape remained so deeply embedded in Japanese military culture and superstition that no one took the rule seriously. Many believe that raping virgins would make them more powerful in battle. Soldiers were even known to wear amulettes made from the pubic hair of such victims, believing that they possessed magical powers against injuries.

The military policy forbidding rape only encouraged soldiers to kill their victims afterwards. During an interview for the documentary in the name of the emperor, Azuma Shiro, a former Japanese soldier, spoke candidly about the process of rape and murder in Nanking. We took turns raping them. It would be all right if we only raped them. I shouldn't say all right, but we always stabbed and killed. them because dead bodies don't talk Takakoro Kozo shared Azuma's bluntness in discussing the issue after raping we would also kill them he recalled these women would start to flee once we let them go then we would bang shoot them in the back and finish them up according to surviving veterans

many of the soldiers felt remarkably little guilt about this perhaps when we were raping her we looked at her as a woman Azuma wrote but when we killed her we just thought of her as something like a pig where is this mindset comes from that permits this kind of behavior I'm going to the book the Japanese soldier was not simply hardened for battle in China he was hardened for the task of murdering Chinese combatants and non-combatants alike indeed very very Various games and exercises were set up by the Japanese military to numb its men to the human instinct against killing people who are not attacking. For example, on the way to the Capitol, Japanese soldiers were made to participate in killing competitions, which were avidly covered by the Japanese media-like sporting events.

The most notorious one appeared in the December 7th issue of the Japan advisor. are under the headline. Sub-Lutentants race to fell 100 Chinese running close contest. Sub-Lutinent Mukai Toshiyaki and Sub-Lutinent Noda Takesishi. They were in a contest, friendly contest, to see which one of them will first fell 100 Chinese individuals, individual sword combat before the Japanese forces completely occupy Nanking. They're well in the final phase of their race running almost neck to neck. On Sunday, December 5th, the score, according to Ashahee, was Sub-Lutnant Mukai, 89, and Sub-Lutnant Noda, 78.

And just to give some more context on this, these were just lining people up and chopping their heads off. That's what this was. Just lining up civilians and let's see who can get to 150 or 100 first. Back to the book. A week later, the paper reported that neither man could decide who had passed the 100 mark first. So they up the goal to 150. Mackay's blade was slightly damaged in the competition that Japan advisor reported. He explained that this was the result of cutting a Chinese in half, helmet and all.

The contest was. was fun he declared another Japanese soldier talking about his experience Tomi Nagas Shozzo wrote we made them like this good sons good daddies good elder brothers at home were brought to the front to kill each other human beings turned into murdering demons everyone became a demon within three months in interview after interviewed Japanese veterans from the Nanking Massacre reported honestly that they experienced a complete lack of remorse or sense of wrongdoing even when torturing helpless civilians. Nagatomi Hakudo spoke candidly about his emotions in the fallen capital.

Quote, I remember being driven in a truck along a path that had been cleared through piles of thousands and thousands of slaughtered bodies. wild dogs were gnawing at the dead flesh as we stopped and pulled a group of Chinese prisoners out of the back Then the Japanese officer proposed a test of my courage He unsheathed his sword spat on it and with a sudden mighty swing he brought it down on the neck of a Chinese boy Cowering before us The head was cut clean off and tumbled away on the group as the body slumped forward blood spurting out into great gushing fountains from the neck the officer suggested i take the head home as a souvenir i remember smiling proudly as i took his sword and began killing people few know that soldiers impaled babies on bayonets and tossed them still alive into pots of boiling water they gang raped women from ages

of 12 to 80 and then killed them when they could no longer satisfy sexual requirements. I beheaded people, starved them to death, burn them, and buried them alive over 200 in all. It is terrible that I could turn into an animal and do these things. There are really no words to explain what I was doing. I was truly a devil. Beyond those situations, torture was also completely common. And here's what the book says. The torture that the Japanese inflicted upon the native population at Nanking almost suppresses,

suppresses the limits of human comprehension. Here are only a few examples. Live burials. The Japanese directed burial operations with the precision and efficiency of an assembly line. Soldiers would force one group of Chinese captives to dig a grave, a second group to bury the first, and then a third group to vary the second, and so on. Some victims were partially buried to their chest or necks so that they would endure further agony, such as being hacked to pieces by swords or run over by horses and tanks. Mutilation. The Japanese not only disemboweled, decapitated, and dismembered victims, but performed more excruciating varieties of torture.

Throughout the city, they nailed prisoners to wooden boards and ran over them with tanks, crucified them to trees and electrical posts, carved long strips of flesh from them, and used them for bayonet practice. At least 100 men reportedly had their eyes gouged out and their noses and ears hacked off before being set on fire. Another group of 200 Chinese soldiers and civilians were stripped naked, tied to columns and doors of a school, and then stabbed by special needles with handles on them in hundreds of points along their bodies, including their mouths, throats, and eyes. Death by fire.

The Japanese subjected large crowds of victims to mass incineration. A Japanese soldier bound Chinese captives together ten at a time and pushed them into a pit where they were sprayed with gasoline and ignited. On Taiping Road, the Japanese ordered a large number of shots. clerk's to extinguish a fire, then bound them together with rope and threw them into the blaze. Japanese soldiers even devised games with fire. One method of entertainment was to drive mobs of Chinese to the top stories or roofs of buildings, tear down the stairs, and then set the bottom floors on fire.

Many such victims committed suicide by jumping out of windows or off rooftops. Another form of amusement involved dousing victims in fuel, shooting them, and watching them explode into flame. In one infamous incident, Japanese soldiers forced hundreds of men, women, and children into a square, soaked them with gasoline, and then fired on them with machine guns. Death by ice, thousands of victims were intentionally frozen to death during the rape of Nanking. For instance, Japanese soldiers forced hundreds of Chinese prisoners to march to the edge of a frozen pond where they were ordered to strip naked, break the ice, and plunge in the water to go fishing. Their bodies hardened into floating targets that were immediately riddled with Japanese bullets.

In another incident, the Japanese tied up a group of refugees flung them into a shallow pond and bombarding them with hang grenades causing an explosive shower of blood and flesh. by dogs one diabolical means of torture was to bury victims to their waste and watch them get ripped apart by German shepherds. Witnesses saw Japanese soldiers strip a victim naked and direct German shepherds to bite sensitive areas of his body. The dogs not only ripped open his belly, but jerked out his intestines along the ground for a distance. The incidents mentioned above are only a fraction of the methods that the Japanese used to torment their victims. The Japanese saturated victims in acid, impaled babies with bayonets, hung people by their tongues. One Japanese reporter who later investigated the rape of Nanking learned that at least one Japanese soldier tore the heart and liver out of a Chinese victim to eat them.

Even genitals apparently were consumed. A Chinese soldier who escaped from Japanese custody saw several dead people in the streets with their penises cut off. He was later told that the penises were sold to Japanese customers who believed that eating them would increase fertility. With regards to the fate of the women, they don't know how to determine the exact number of the women that were raped in Nanking. They do know that it was universal. back to the book the japanese raped nanking women from all classes farm wives students teachers white collar and blue collar workers wives of ymCA employees university professors even buddhist nuns some of whom were gang raped to death and they were systematic in their recruitment of women in nang king japanese soldiers searched for them constantly as they looted homes and dragged men off for execution Some actually conducted door-to-dure searches demanding money and young girls. Chinese women were raped in all locations and at all hours.

An estimated one-third of all rapes occurred during the day. Survivors even remember soldiers prying open to the legs of victims to rape them in broad daylight in the middle of the street and in front of crowds of witnesses. No place was too sacred for rape. The Japanese attacked women in nunneries, churches, and Bible training schools. 17 soldiers raped one woman in succession in a seminary compound. Old age was no concern to the Japanese. Matrons, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers endured repeated sexual assaults. A Japanese soldier who raped a woman of 60 was ordered to clean the penis by her mouth.

When a woman of 62 protested to soldiers that she was too old for sex, they rammed a stick up inside her instead. Many women in their 80s were raped to death and at least one woman in that age group was shot and killed because she refused a Japanese soldier's advances. If the Japanese treatment of old women was terrible, their treatment of young children was unthinkable. Little girls were raped so brutally that some could not walk for weeks afterwards. Many required surgery, others died. Chinese witnesses saw Japanese rape girls under 10 years of age in the streets and then slashed them in half by sword.

In some cases, the Japanese sliced open the vaginas of preteen girls in order to ravish them more effectively. Even in advanced stages of pregnancy did not render women immune to assault. The Japanese violated many who were about to go into labor or in labor or who had given birth only a few days earlier. One victim who was nine months pregnant was raped suffered not only stillbirth but a complete mental collapse

At least one pregnant woman was kicked to death Still more gruesome was the treatment allotted to some of the unborn children of these women After gang rape Japanese soldiers sometimes slashed open the bellies of pregnant women and ripped out the fetuses for amusement During the mass rape the Japanese destroyed children and infants often because they were in the way. Eyewitnesses report describe children and babies suffocating from clothes

stuffed in their mouths or bayoneted to death because they wept as their mothers were being raped. American and European observers of the rape of Nanking recorded numerous entries like this one. February 3rd, about 5 p.m. at Chang-Su-Zang, three soldiers came and forced a woman to throw away her baby, after raping her they went away laughing perhaps one of the most brutal forms of Japanese entertainment was the impalement of vaginas in the streets of Nanking corpses of women lay with

their legs splayed open their orifice pierced by wooden rods twigs and weeds it's painful almost mind-numbing to contemplate some of the other objects that were used to torment the Nanking women who suffered almost unendurable ordeals. For instance, one Japanese soldier who raped a young woman thrust a beer bottle into her and shot her. Another

rape victim was found with a golf stick rammed into her. And on December 22nd, in a neighborhood near the gate of tonging men, the Japanese raped a barber's wife and then stuck a firecracker in her vagina. It

blew up and killed her. Not all the victims were women. Chinese men were often sodomized or forced to perform a variety of repulsive sexual acts in front of laughing Chinese soldiers or Japanese soldiers. At least one Chinese man was murdered because he refused to commit necrophilia with the corpse of a woman in the snow. The Japanese also delighted in trying to coerce men who had taken lifetime vows of celibacy to engage in sexual intercourse. A Chinese woman had tried to disguise herself as a man trying to pass through the gates of Nanking, but Japanese guards who systematically searched all passing pedestrians by groping

at their crotches discovered her true sex. Gang raped followed, at which time a Buddhist monk had the misfortune to venture near the scene. The Japanese tried to force him to have sex to the woman they had just raped. When the monk protested, they came. Castrated him causing the poor man to bleed to death. Some of the most soared instances of sexual torture involved the degradation of entire families. The Japanese drew sadistic pleasure in forcing Chinese men to commit incest, fathers to rape their own daughters, brothers, their sisters, sons, their mothers. A Chinese battalion commander stranded in Nanking for three months after the city fell, saw or heard of at least four or five instances in which the Japanese battalion. Japanese ordered sons to rape their mothers.

Those who refused were killed on the spot. His report is substantiated by the testimony of a German diplomat who reported that one Chinese man who refused to rape his own mother was killed with saber strokes and that his mother committed suicide shortly thereafter. Those who defied the Japanese were often found later with their eyes torn out their noses, ears, and breasts cut off. As I said, this is pure. It's hard to talk about a bright spot. in the horror that is the rape of Nanking, but if one can, it is surely to shine a light on the actions of a small band of Americans and Europeans who risked their lives to defy the Japanese invaders and rescue hundreds of thousands of Chinese refugees from almost certain extermination. The courageous men and women created the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone.

So this is, you know, amongst obviously this just most sadistic and heinous. this evil, there were some Americans and some Europeans that lived and worked in Nanking. And you got to remember this is 1937, so it wasn't a world war yet. There was Germans there in Nanking, there was Americans there in Nanking. And when this started to happen, there was several of them who basically formed an area which said, You know, this is a safe zone. And one of them, interestingly, was a German. It was a Nazi.

So there's a Nazi who they ended up calling the living Buddha of Nan King. And so this individual, John Raib, was, he risked his life to set up this safety zone. And actually, you know, he was a, he was a, like I said, he was a Nazi. But he had spent so much time in Nanking that he had all these Chinese friends. And, you know, according to the background on him, you know, he's there in 19, he's been there for many years. And I don't know what year he got there, but he's not familiar with what's going on with the actual Nazi party back in Germany. He's disconnected. I mean, there's, you know, this is whatever.

There's no internet. He's not watching TV. He doesn't know what's going on. So he was just sort of there. And oh, the prominent party in Germany is the Nazi party. Oh, and I'm a diplomat. So I guess I'm a Nazi. And but when he, you know, he sounded like he was a guy that was a benevolent guy.

He actually went out into town and literally stopped rapes from happening himself. And what's interesting is, and this to me set up that you could see what they thought of the Chinese people is that all he would do is go out and stop. and he had the Nazi armband or what he had Nazi the swastika and when they saw that they would listen to him and so i mean he so like he was a white guy and they they clearly listened to him and were kind of afraid of him and yet you know obviously they had zero less than zero respect for the chinese people and so so he actually wrote a letter as well to hitler explaining what was going on and you know there's there's no one knows if Hitler actually ever read it it it sounds like he read it and ignored it but one of the most interesting and important pieces of what John Raib did is he he kept

the journal a detailed journal of what had happened so a lot of the stuff that that I just quoted which I know is is horrible he was the guy he's one of the people that that wrote it down and made sure that that it was going to be recorded and actually the the the that diary didn't get really discovered and uncovered until much later until really and and um iris chang is the one that sort of popularized and and took this journal and made it into a real document that explained what had happened there so that's you know again this this john rabe you know let's let's even in all that There was people that stepped up and spoke against it.

Another one was a guy named by the name of Robert Wilson. And he was actually grew up in Nan King and he was a Methodist missionary. But he had then left Nan King and gone back to America. He went to Princeton and then he went to Harvard Medical School. And when he got done with all of his schooling, instead of staying in America, he went back to Nan King to become a surgeon in Nan King. And he was him, along with John Raib, these were the guys that went out and set up this protective zone and did all kinds of, you know, it's sort of like a Schindler's List scenario. No, they were helping soldiers get rid of their papers and give them clothes. They didn't look like Chinese soldiers.

It's sheltering women, bringing, setting up places where the women could hide in the attics of the buildings. That's what they were doing. And it's the only thing that's, well, I guess it's not different. But, you know, it's different in the fact that they could get a. away with it because we weren't at war with the Japanese. And so this guy Wilson was, was a surgeon. So not only was he trying to protect people, he was doing surgery on them all the time, trying to get them to, trying to save them from these devastating wounds that they had.

He also kept a really detailed diary, which again, these, and this is, you know, part of the whole kind of genesis of this book is that. And I'll get to this later. But the, you know, you've heard of like Holocaust deniers. Oh, the Holocaust didn't happen. Well, it's the same thing with this event. People say, oh, it wasn't that bad. You know, it wasn't that big of a deal that we know, there was some killing.

So there was people that said that, you know, some Japanese nationalists that said, oh, that didn't, it wasn't really that bad. It was provoked or whatever they're going to say. And these documents, these, these documents that corroborated all this information were truly important. Going back to the book here, one of the worst scenes Wilson saw, Wilson saw Nanking, a scene he would remember for the rest of his life, a massive gang of, a massive gang rape of teenage girls in the street. A group of young women between the ages of 15 and 18 were lined up by Japanese and then raped in the dirt one after the other by an entire regiment. Some hebringed and died while others killed themselves shortly afterwards. But the scenes in the hospitals were even more horrifying than those in the streets.

Wilson was mortified by the women who came to the emergency room with their bellies ripped open, by the charred and horribly disfingered men whom the Japanese tried to burn alive, and by numerous other horrors, he barely had time to describe on paper. He told his wife that he would never forget a woman whose head was nearly cut off teetering from a point on her neck. the morning came this morning this is quote this morning another woman came in a sad plight and with a terrible story a hospital volunteer wrote of this woman in his diary in january 3rd 1938 she was one of the five women whom the japanese soldier had taken to one of their medical units to wash their clothes by day and be raped by night two of them were forced the two of them were forced to

forced to satisfy from 15 to 20 men and the prettiest one as much as 40 each night. This one who came to us had been called off by three soldiers into an isolated place where they attempted to cut off her head. The muscles of the neck had been cut, but they failed to sever the spinal cord. She feigned death but dragged herself to the hospital, another of the many to bear witness to the brutality of the soldiers. So Wilson just saw complete horrors. Then back to the book, he operated for free because few patients had money to pay him, but the surgeries exacted a terrible price on his own health. In the end, his family believes that only his faith as a devout Methodist combined with his love for China

gave him the courage to survive the rape of Nanking. Another one of these Europeans, in this case, American, a westerner, I should say, was Wilhelmina Votron, or Mini Votron, as they called her, as by occupation, head of the Education Department, Dean of Studies at Gingling Women's Arts and Science College, was one of the few Western women in the city during the first few weeks of the Nanking massacre. Years later, she would be remembered not only for her courage

in protecting thousands of women from Japanese soldier, but also for the diary she kept, a diary that some historians believe will eventually be recognized, much like the diary of Anne Frank, for its importance in illuminating the spirit of a single witness during the Holocaust of war. Votren, the daughter of a blacksmith, was 51 years old in 1937,

raised in the tiny farming community of Secor, Illinois. She went to live with neighbors when her mother died, despite the impoverishment of her childhood she was able to work her way through school graduating with honors in 1912 from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne so just again

a westerner in this case an American and she had the opportunity to maybe escape but she stayed in Nan King back to the book with most of the faculty gone from Nan King most had abandoned their homes to flee to cities like Shanghai Shenku and Cheshwan, Votrin was now the acting head of the institution. She labored to prepare the campus for female refugees and to evacuate wounded soldiers

from the area. To disguise their identity, she burned their military papers and garments in the college incinerator. Under her direction, furniture was moved into attics. Safes were emptied. Dorms were cleaned. And valuables were wrapped in oil paper and hidden. Meanwhile, posters, signs, and armbands for the Nank King safety zone were created and distributed among the volunteers.

Here's talking about a specific day. The following day December 17th, 1937 was even worse. The migration of women into gingling only intensified as the Japanese soldiers flooded the city. What a heartbreaking sight, Votran wrote. Weary women, frightened girls trudging with children and bedding and small packages of clothes. If only someone had time to write the story of each refugee who came in, she thought, especially the stories of the girls who had blackened their faces and cut their hair. As she accommodated the stream of wild-eyed women,

she heard stories of Japanese raping girls as young as 12 and women as elderly as 60 or raping pregnant women at bayonet point. Sick and depraved and disgusting and horrific stories go on and on and on. And the brutality page after page after page of diary and and quotes and witness accounts and then pictures there is pictures in the book and the pictures of severed heads and Chinese bound to poles being bayoneted to death and pictures of others being beheaded and pictures of giant pits filled with bodies and images of hundreds and hundreds of bodies and entangled masses on the banks of the

Yang-Z river it's it's too much for the mind to comprehend it really is it's almost too much to understand and so what we do is we package it all up right and we give it a name a massacre and atrocity I'm sure you could tell I mean even as I'm sitting here reading this I'm gone I'm just numb but we to remember that Every one of those people tortured, raped, and killed was a person. Or like your sister or like your mom or like your dad or a person like your son or your daughter. A person like you. And maybe you can get a hold of that.

What's in some ways even harder to grasp is the Japanese soldiers. That they, yes, they were certainly monsters. vile completely devoid of feelings but even so even though they were monsters they were human monsters mothers and fathers and sons and daughters and yet they did this what happened at nan king was so brutal and so beyond comparison with anything that ever happened was one of the things that almost caused it to be forgotten. That supreme level of brutality lasted about six weeks. And eventually that morphed into an occupation of Nan King by the Japanese.

And they ruled with an iron fist, of course. And they stole and they plundered and they abused locals. And they continued to rape, which they actually institutionalized. and eventually became, you've heard the term comfort women. And they gave out opium freely to and save people, just like happens in this day and age. People become slaves to drugs. And it stayed in that occupied state for about eight years

until finally, almost as quickly as it began. It ended. The end of Nanking's ordeal came at last in the summer of 1945. On August 6th, 1945, the United States dropped the untested uranium bomb on Hiroshima, Japan's eighth largest city, killing 100,000 of its 245 people, 245,000 people on the first day. When a Japanese surrender was not forthcoming, the Americans dropped on August 9th, a second plutonium-type bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. Less than a week later, on August 14th, the Japanese made the final decision to surrender.

The Japanese remained in the former capital of China until the day of the surrender, then quickly left the city. Eyewitnesses reported that Japanese soldier could be seen drinking heavily or weeping in the streets. Some heard rumors of unarmed Japanese men being forced to kneel by the side of the road to be beaten by local residents. Retaliation against the Japanese garrison appears to have been limited, however, because many residents hid at home

during this chaotic time too fearful to even celebrate the news of a Japanese defeat. The evacuation was swift, and there was no mass persecution or imprisonment of Japanese soldiers. One Nanking resident recalls that she stayed in her house for weeks after the Japanese surrendered,

and when she reemerged, They were gone. And so it was over. And there were some level of war crime trials. And there were some executions, mainly of the highest profile officers, Prince Asaka, who had given that order to kill all captives, he avoided prosecution.

The scale of the massacre was downplayed. There's a bunch of reasons of why the scale of the rape of Nanking got downplayed. One of them being that the now Chinese communist state was actually trying to build relationships with post-war Japan. So the massacre was quietly buried. And now you had the Chinese people were now in a communist state and there wasn't much speaking out to do. And the Japanese downplayed the horrors. as saying it was just another incident of war. And some Japanese officials were quoted as saying,

it's a story made up by the Chinese. It's tarnished the image of Japan, but it was a lie. And they said things like, I think the Nanking massacre is a lie. The women that were raped were labeled as comfort women and licensed prostitutes. And many Japanese officials say that what happened in Nanking, Man King was just a part of war.

And there's a really clear example of downplaying, not only the rape of Nan King, but of the war in general. And they put some of this in the book. And they're talking about the Japanese education system. Here we go. Back to the book, the entire Japanese education system suffers from selective amnesia. For not until 1994, where Japanese schoolchildren taught that Hirohito's army was responsible for the deaths of at least 20 million allied soldiers and Asian civilians during World War II. In the early 1990s, a newspaper article quoted a Japanese high school teacher who claimed

that his students were surprised to learn that Japan had been at war with the United States. The first thing they wanted to know was who had won. In 1977, in 1977, the Ministry of Education reduced a section on World War II within a standard history book of several hundred pages to only six pages, which consisted mainly of pictures of American firebombing of Tokyo, a picture of the ruins of Hiroshima, and a tally of Japan's war dead. The text neglected to mention the casualties on the other side, Japanese war atrocities or the forced evacuations of Chinese and Korean prisoners to labor camps in Japan. Much of the censorship might have gone unchallenged had it not been for the efforts of one brave crusader.

In 1965, the Japanese historian Enega Saburo sued the Japanese government. This lawsuit was the beginning of a legal battle that would span three decades and gain the backing of thousands of sympathetic Japanese followers. The ministry interfered with the Nega's attempts to document the Nanking massacre for schoolchildren. For example, in his textbook, Innega wrote, he wrote this, quote, immediately after the occupation of Nanking, the Japanese army killed numerous Chinese soldiers and citizens. This incident became known as the Nanking massacre. Now, when his book got checked by the examiner, the examiner commented, quote, readers might interpret this description as meaning that the Japanese army unilaterally massacred Chinese,

after the occupation this passage should be revised that it is not interpreted in such a way and here's what the passage eventually got changed to while battling the fierce resistance of the Chinese armed forces the Japanese occupied Nang king and killed numerous Chinese soldiers and civilians this incident came to be known as the Nanking massacre that a statement end quote that a statement might have been satisfied that statement might have satisfied textbook sensors as a compromise between a Nega's argument and the ministry's position on the massacre. Unfortunately, the statement is simply not true because it implies that the massacre occurred in the heat of battle. Continuing on, the examiner demanded that Naga delete his description

of the rape itself, claiming that the violation of women is something that has happened on every battlefield and every era of human history. This is not an issue that needs to be taken up with respect to the Japanese army in particular. Even the word aggression was deemed taboo. Aggression, the censors wrote, is a term that contains negative ethical connotations. And that spirit that you can see very clearly, that spirit of denial it carried on, which is why when this book came out, this book, The Rape of Nanking, when it came out, there were still Japanese nationalists that were staunchly against it.

but iris chang who researched intently and wrote with passion she gave it all right she was a daughter of chinese american immigrants and her her parents by the way had connections to nan king and escaped there and both her parents had made it to America and become college professors. And Iris was compelled to tell this story. Like I said in the beginning, she was so close to this story that it took a toll of its own. And she was a writer, obviously. She got her bachelor's degree in journalism and eventually a master's in writing from Johns Hopkins University. And there's actually a book.

book that's written about iris and the book is written by iris's mother whose name is dr ying ying chang and the book is called the woman who could not forget and i'm going to bring you through some portions of this book so this book again this is about iris chang and it's written by her mother This is how she got This is how she decided she was going to write about this Here we go Although Iris talked to us About her many book ideas for her next book while she was writing her first book

Her decision to write the rape of Nanking came all of a sudden in December 1994 As Iris told us And as described in the book she made up her mind to write about this most atrocious chapter of history When she was attending a conference in California on December 3rd 13th, 1994. At the conference, there was a photo exhibition of the war

of the war crimes committed in China in the 1930s, taken when the Japanese army invaded Chinese territory. Iris wrote in her book, though I had heard so much about the Nanking massacre as a child, nothing prepared me for these pictures. Stark, black and

white images of decapitated heads, bellies ripped open and nude women forced by their rapists into various pornographic poses. faces contorted into unforgettable expressions of agony and shame. And she continued, in a single blinding moment I recognized the fragility of not just life, but the human experience itself. Later she told us in a telephone update that she simply must write about the rape of Nanking

for her next book. It was a moral obligation and it would be justice for the victims as well. In 1998, after the rape of Nan King had been published, one Japanese reporter interviewed Iris and asked her, Why did you decide to write this book? Iris replied, when I was a little girl, my parents shocked me with the story of the rape of Nan King. They told me that the Japanese Imperial Army massacred thousands of civilians in the capital of China and butchered even small children.

This left a powerful impression on me, and I went to local libraries to learn more details, but I couldn't find a shred of. of information on the subject. There was nothing in my local school libraries or public city libraries or in my world history textbooks. Still worse, my teachers were completely ignorant of this event. The event remained a question mark in my mind for years until I saw an exhibit of photographs on the subject in 1994.

The horror of those photographs inspired me to write the book. So that's how Iris got involved in writing. writing the book and as a writer, luckily she was also a prolific letter writer. And I'm gonna quote a bunch of her letters because her mother saved a bunch of her letters. And here is one that kind of describes, I think it's a good insight into what her personality was like

when she was actually writing the book. This was a letter to her mom about what she was doing on a day to day basis as she's writing this book. And this was her second book. So she'd already written one book. It had done okay, but this one was her, you know, her current project and here's what she said about it. Quote, on a typical day, I would rise between 7 and 8 a.m. and take the bus to Silver Spring

Metro Station. Fortunately, there was a bus stop directly across from Lee's House. The trip to the National Archives took about 45 minutes on public transportation and the building was opened by 8.45 a.m. I spent my mornings in the military reference branch of the archives on the 13th floor looking through finding aids and filling out cards to request boxes from different collections of papers. Dozens of boxes would be pulled from the shelves, placed on carts, and made available to me in the second floor reading room, which stayed open until 9 p.m. on Tuesdays, third days, and Fridays. I was usually there in the afternoons and evenings, scanning documents, tagging the ones that pertained into the Nanking massacre, and Xeroxing them as quickly as possible. So she's digging deep

into this book, doing massive amount of research. And, you know, research back then was infinitely harder than it is now, because we have the internet. Now, as she began, she assembled all this information and she was starting to speak about it, starting to write some articles about it before the book came out. And she was interviewed by the San Jose Mercury News, which was a big newspaper up in the South Bay area of, you know, South Bay, San Francisco. And, um, and, um, you know, South Bay, San Francisco. And when she got done with that interview, she started getting a little bit of recognition.

So here's a letter to her mom. Dear mom, here's the latest exciting news. I shall be the master of ceremonies for what I believe will be the biggest rape of Dan King conference ever. The event will take place at Stanford University. During the first weekend of December, hundreds of people for more than 50 activist organizations

all over the globe will be there. as well as representatives from all major news media organizations of California, China, and Japan. The goal of the three-day affairs is to discuss legal strategy. How can we seek reparations for the victims through international law and UN resolutions? How can we gather evidence of atrocities for lawsuits? What methods should we use to force the Japanese

to accept responsibility for its past misdeeds? So, she's in the game, she's getting after it. She's starting to get some leadership positions in here and starting to get some recognition. Now as she's continued to work, here's another letter to her mom. Dear mom, thank you for your inspirational email. I've been working on my book all week and feel more confident about my material. The sections of the book are so short that I organize each chapter as I would a speech. Thinking of the chapters as speeches forces me to distill each idea into a tiny, hard gem.

Lately, I've been reading so many of the world's classic speeches for inspiration. They are breathtaking in their power and so much more pungent than prose. In the evenings, when I read the speeches of Napoleon or Clarence Darrow or Winston Churchill, I feel engaged in actual conversation with them. Words are the only way to preserve the essence of a soul. What excites me about speeches is that even after the soul, speakers are dead and buried, their spirit lives on. To me, this is true religion, the best form of life after death.

This is the first time I have ever devoted much attention to speeches. My previous reading had only consisted mainly of essays, plays, novels, and poetry. Love Iris. So it's pretty cool that you, first of all, I love that letter because she's recognized. the power of speech and she's realizing that what she's doing as an author is that's her that's her mark that she's going to leave on the world and it's very interesting that Ying Ying Chang is also an academic she's you know obviously a really smart person and they're able to have these sort of intellectual conversations in in letters and they're all

a really good insight into what iris's mind what was going through iris's mind as she did this Now, the book comes out, there's, it doesn't like jump out of the gates, but as it comes out, there's a little bit of controversy about it and there's starting to be some articles about it and some interviews and she's getting some interviews and the book starts to get some good traction. Back to the book. On January 14th, she flew to Washington for a TV interview with PBS. At the San Francisco airport, she left a telephone message for us and said that she'd gotten a call from her publisher and that her book was number 15 on the New York Times bestsellers list.

Her voice told us she was weeping. I'm sure they were tears of joy. Shao Jin, which is the dad, and I were jubilant. We could not contain our excitement for many days. In the next phone call, we said, Iris, you've made it. So book hits the New York Times bestseller. That's a game changer for Iris. Back to the book.

On January 28th, Iris called us with excitement and said that Laurel Cook, her publicist and Jack McEwen of the CEO, had called her in the afternoon to tell her that her book was up to number 11 on the New York Times list. Her highest spot yet, only two weeks after first making the list. When they called, she could hear wild cheering, whistling, and clapping in the background. She was overjoyed. So it's like the big, the big. thing as a writer's to make the New York Times list. And her parents understand that too because they're academics and, you know, they're super stoked for Iris.

Now with the success, starts to come some stress. And that starts to reveal itself. Here's another letter that she wrote. Dear mom, I'm sorry that I sounded so rushed when you called me at Miriam's home. Sometimes I wonder if I've offended a lot of old friends. in the last few months by not returning emails, phone calls, and letters. Perhaps many people believe I've been corrupted already. It's true that I've neglected my loved ones for the last few months.

I feel ashamed that I haven't yet bought you a Mother's Day gift or even a card. Only this note that I'm hastily writing from my laptop computer perched up on a bed in Diana Zuckerman's house. How I wish you could have been there during the Woman of the Year ceremony. I told you I told the audience how you inspired me over the years how you served as my first role model So you got another big award woman of the year right Please forgive me I love you dearly even though I haven't found the time to talk to you in the last few weeks And in a few weeks we'll all be reunited and the book tour will finally be over I feel like a soldier returning from a six-month war

Love Iris So she's a person that feels greek You know and the idea that she hasn't been returning in emails and phone calls and she feels bad about it and then I found this interesting Perhaps many people believe I've been corrupted already. Oh, so you made it big time and now you're blowing me off She's feeling that pressure too back to the book when Iris's book became an international bestseller She reached the status most writers can only dream of and she became a celebrity But she also paid a price for it in February 19th 1998 after a long book tour she'd already told us that once she came home she did not want to go out anymore

All she wanted to do was stay home with Brett that was her husband she'd been married now and have a good sleep After several weeks of continuous book signings public speeches and traveling she said her life was a non-stop blur of Airport lecture hall hotel airport lecture hall hotel The responses to her speeches were overwhelming wherever she went people besieged her after every speech. When she came home, she inevitably came down with a cold or a flu, only to recover in time for the next book tour. She was physically exhausted. Not only that, but during the book signings, many old Asian people came up to her, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Singaporean, Indian. They poured out their personal stories of suffering during World War II in Asia to her.

Some of them wept and thanked her for profusely for writing such a book. They said it's so frustrating to see that Japan to this day hasn't formally acknowledged their war crimes. They exclaimed, it's about time. Iris said that on the one hand she felt rewarded, that she was sought out and greatly respected by many people. But on the other hand, she was mentally and emotionally drained after hearing those stories. On June 29th, 1998, Iris wrote, Dear Mom, I arrived safely in New York today after giving a well-received speech in Baltimore

to the women doctors. Actually, it was very depressing. During the Q&A, a Pakistani doctor told the audience about the atrocities against Bengali women in 1971. A Filipino doctor described how she escaped the rape of Manila when she was 12, and an Indian doctor had discussed the Indian traditional. of Suti, which is the burning of widows alive.

Others talked about the international sex slave industry, the trafficking of women and children, female genital mutilation in Africa. You get the idea. It seemed there were endless, gruesome stories that people were eager to share with her. On top of her busy schedule of book tours, outside people might not realize that besides her traveling signings

in books and speeches, She was constantly bombarded with additional email requests from news reporters for written interviews Sometimes there were 10 or 15 written questions for her to answers so the reporters could write a news article or profile Iris still could find time to answer those questions accordingly So she's just a she's just a go-getter right she's not stopping regardless of what's happening And now as this book has gained all this popularity now she's starting to get some attacks as well from like like I said, from the Japanese nationalists that are saying, oh, this didn't happen, you're glorifying it

or you're making it sound like worse than it was. And here's the letter that you wrote, Dear Mom, tonight I read an article about John Steinbeck's life in the Los Gatos mountain area and learn that the reception of the grapes of wrath mirrored that of the rape of Nanking. In a letter to a friend, Steinbeck wrote,

The vilification of me out here from the large landowners and bankers is pretty bad. The latest rumor started by them that the Oki's hate me for lying about them. So I'm frightened at the rolling might of this thing. It is completely out of hand. I mean the kind of hysteria about the book is growing that is not healthy. Love Iris. So she feels the same way that she's starting to get.

This book is almost becoming more powerful than she, you know, more than she can control. And here's another letter that she wrote. A few nights ago, I leaped through Richard Rhodes' autobiography, a hole in the world after our lunch together. As you know, Rhodes was starved, beaten, and psychologically abused as a child by his stepmother. His mother had committed suicide by shooting herself, and his father degenerated into an alcoholic, leaving him virtually in-kewarm. capable of protecting his family. Every time I reread this book, I'm convinced that Richard Rhodes is lucky to be alive.

He was a genuine victim. But even his experience pales in comparison to the stories of abandoned children in the PRC orphanages. That's People's Republic of China. I don't even want to get into that right now. Delving into history, into other people's stories, places all our problems into perspective.

time and again we have to remind ourselves how extraordinarily lucky we are much love iris and clearly that's something that I talk about on a regular basis you look at the suffering that other people go through and it reminds you of how lucky we are not to be in those situations but it seemed like I was having a hard time maintaining that positive outlook and she keeps getting dragged down into the darkness back to the book hearing that peanuts cartoonist charles shultz had died iris was quite sentimental and wrote me a letter and here's the letter quote dear mom i have a favor to ask you can you save the last peanuts comic strip that appeared yesterday and mail it to me i'm still reeling from the news of charles shultz's death

It's the end of an era. I still remember all the hours I spent reading Peanuts books as a child. Do you recall the time we went together to a garage sale in Champaign and you brought me my first Snoopy cartoon book, a used paperback already yellow with age? That's when I first fell in love with the Peanuts comic strip. You and Dad grew up with the Peanuts cartoon as well in Chinese newspapers in Taiwan making both of you part of the Peanuts era as well. years later in Santa Barbara, I met Charles Solch in person at the SB Writers' Conference. During his lecture, however, I was surprised by his demeanor, which was bitter, gloomy, and depressed, almost nasty. After his lecture, I stood in a long line waiting for Schultz to autograph a copy of his book.

When I finally stood in front of him, I asked Schultz if I could write a profile about him for the New Yorker or some other major magazine. Why is a young person like you interested in an old man like me was his response? At the time, I thought he was being sarcastic, but later I learned that Schultz, like Charlie Brown, is a terribly insecure person, fundamentally convinced of his own unworthiness. That was the last time I ever saw Schultz. But last year, I had one more opportunity to see him. To make a long story short, I didn't have time to make the long two-hour drive to Santa Rose, and I figured I would see Schultz

at the next Santa Barbara's Writers' Conference. I never expected that Schultz would pass away only a few months later. Do you think Charles Schultz committed suicide? Don't you find it odd that he died the night before his final strip ran in the Sunday newspaper? As you know,

Peanuts ran from 1950 to 2000, a perfect 50 years. And he died right when the strip ended. But life is seldom as neat and tidy as a cartoon box it's almost as if he timed his dramatic exit from this world achieving his final deadline love iris continuing on it seems like iris could not get the death of charles sholtz off her mind the next day she wrote to me again about him dear mom i think it was charles solst pessimism as well as his ability to understand human failure insecurity heartbreak that made

millions love peanuts you're absolutely right shawks Schultz had no reason whatsoever to be depressed after achieving wealth and fame at such an early age. But depression is not rational. Perhaps he did have a mental problem or some chemically induced condition, but whatever it was it prevented him from losing touch with the underdogs of the world. It's strange, but I still feel a void in my heart after Schultz's death, even though I never knew him and didn't particularly like him after our meeting in person. It made me wonder,

secret to Schultz's magic appeal? The answer, I believe, is simple. Schultz understands a heart of a loser. He capture those moments in life when we feel utterly unloved, unloved, unwanted, and alone. All of us, no matter how successful have felt like losers at some point in life. Love Iris. So we're starting to see there's a, there's a, an indication, right?

There's an indication. She's sort of seeing things like depression in other people, regardless of, you know, how successful they are. And at this point, you know, she's a New York Times bestseller, a woman of the year, all this other stuff. So she's successful.

And yet she's recognizing how that doesn't really mean anything and you can still be depressed. After September 11th, 2001, she wrote this a few days after, she wrote this again to her mom and dad in this case quote events are unfolding faster than I can react to them first the WTC and Pentagon tragedies then the Japanese prime minister's unexpected apology to the comfort women and now a major court victory of a former Korean slave laborer against a Japanese corporation this week I tried to work on my

book and recover from general exhaustion and a mild case of the flu but I I have to admit it's hard to stay focused. I plan to do nothing more than write, exercise, and rest for the next few weeks. Love Iris. So she's now working on her next book, still working hard, probably working too hard, not focusing enough. And her mom, now she's got a kid as well. And we know that adding a kid into the mix doesn't make things, you know, doesn't give

you more free time. We can promise you that. And she's married. now she has a son and her mom actually started like putting some pressure on her. They said, hey, you know, you got a kid now. You got to spend, you know, maybe you're going a little overboard with the work. Back to the book. On October 3rd, 2003 in an email, I asked Iris whether she was putting too much emphasis

on her career, placing her career before her family. She replied, that is not true. It's just that I believe that I have some power to shape my destiny and I want Christopher That's the son. I want Christopher to have his mother a strong role model a person who is his own individual, impervious to the whims of others. I cannot teach Christopher to be an intellectual and a socially responsible person unless I demonstrate to him through my actions that I myself am such a person. I want to teach Christopher that it is far better to belong to the critical minority than the unquestioned. majority. I want to teach him the ability to think independently to evaluate ideas and information

on his own without the official sanction of the authorities and, if possible, to create. These qualities are not universally popular in our society. My tendency to stand alone apart from the crowd has caused me a great pain and suffering throughout my life. But in the end, I am stronger and better person because of it. Now, she's continuing on. She's continuing to just kind of grind and grind and grind and there's an incident. She's gone on a trip to Louisville, Kentucky, and things start going sideways. Back to the book. That night, we went to sleep and assumed that Iris would be all right. But about 2 a.m. California time in the early morning of Friday, August 13th, we were awakened by a phone call.

I picked up the phone and it was Iris. Her voice was shaking and she told me she'd seen some frightening pictures on the TV in her hotel room. Iris and I then had a conversation about this. Apparently she could not fall asleep so she turned on the TV. I asked her what kind of pictures were on the TV screen. She said it showed some horrible atrocities and ugly images of children torn apart by wars. She said that the TV was showing something similar to scenes from hell like an unimagined World War III. She had turned off their TV, waited a while, and then turned it on again to find the ugly images had disappeared.

I responded that maybe the TV had been showing a war movie. It's very possible, I said, that during the wee hours of the night, TV stations would show such a genre of horror films. Then Iris told me she did not feel things had been quite right from the very moment she'd arrived at the hotel. The clerk at the front desk looked suspicious to her and spoke to a person who later kept looking at the window of her room. While Iris was still talking with me on the phone, she told me that she could still see that person standing outside on the lawn not far from her room. He looked at her window and as she peered through her curtain. She told me she suspected her room was wired and that what she had seen on TV was real and intentionally shown to threaten her. So she's getting paranoid.

She's paranoid that Japanese nationalists are coming after her. She's, and it's starting to affect her mind. Back to the book, it was past 5 a.m. in Kentucky. I asked her had she gotten any sleep at all. She said she couldn't fall asleep and she was exhausted and had a terrible headache. She was sick, I could tell. She had to be ill because she had not been able to sleep for three or four days prior to the trip. She also had not eaten, nor had she drunk any liquid for some time.

She said she had ordered some takeout dinner. That was delivered to her room, but she did not have any appetite and hadn't eaten anything. She didn't want to drink anything either, afraid that someone might poison her. I knew that under severe sleep deprivation, people could have delusions. So her parents decide they're going to fly. Well, she has a breakdown. And they get a call saying, hey, something happened to Iris. You need to get out here.

They fly out to Louisville. As soon as they get to Louisville, they go to a home. hospital when she gets to when they get to the hospital she they they go to find her and she's in the psychiatric unit and they she was sent to the psychiatric unit because they hadn't found anything wrong with her physically which you know would include in my opinion that includes like she's not dehydrated she's not starving she's got some psychiatric issues so back to the book in the evening the doctor finally came in and met with us he briefed us on iris's condition in front of all of us. He believed Iris had experienced a so-called brief reactive psychosis due to stress conditions

such as lack of sleep and food. He added that her condition could also be a possible onset of bipolar disorder and recommended that Iris see a doctor for follow-up after her return home. He gave us a reference. He also prescribed an antipsychotic drug, resperdall, Respaid all. Two milligrams a day for Iris to take for at least a year. And then they get in the cab. And as she'd get in the cab, she's kind of like making statements and saying strange things

about what she sees. Billboard, she's making strange comments about them. And finally, they land at San Jose Airport and it'll go back to the book. We called Michael, and that's the son or Iris's brother, we called Michael to come pick us up. While we were waiting for Michael, Iris said that she felt dizzy and had a headache. She told me that things seemed distorted to her and that the expressions of people around her were strange.

At that time, we did not know how powerful psychiatric drugs were and thought that Iris's behavior was strange. I later realized that while in the hospital, Iris had been given heavy doses of rispidol and a tranquilizer to calm her down. The side effects of psychiatric drugs could be severe. That explained why she felt dizzy and had to be. a headache and distortion of her visual perception. So she's now on these drugs. She's taking the wristbeardral two milligrams a day. The medicine's making her super sleepy.

And once they're back in the Bay Area, the mom, Ying Ying starts looking for a board-certified psychiatrist to bring her to. And she ends up with this guy that they call Dr. B. Back to the bucket, Iris was now seeing Dr. B once a week and she persuaded him to reduce her dosage of risperdol by half from one milligram or from two one milligram from two down to one. From the very beginning, Iris did not like to take any drugs and she kept trying to reduce the dosage or stop it entirely. The rest of the family was hoping that with the risper doll, Iris would be less depressed.

To no avail, there was no difference. So, interestingly, Iris is saying, hey, I don't want to take this drug. You know, I want to get off of it. And they're all saying, look, just keep taking it. And eventually, he prescribes her with another drug, which is called Amplify. And as soon as, back to the book, as soon as Iris took the Amplify, 10 milligrams, she became excessively sleepy. She could sleep for 12 hours or more straight. So now she's sleeping, I mean, 12 hours a day, bad.

And back to the book, Iris felt that her illness and inability to take care of Christopher was a burden to everyone, something she hated. I could see that she was very sad and felt helpless. So this continues on and finally they go back to a meeting with Dr. B. Dr. B stunned us all with what he said next. In a very serious tone, he said he thought Iris's condition was very grave and he suggested that Iris check into a recovery facility. He said that the facility was in Sal Salisito near the beach. It was quite ideal for mental patients to recuperate. As soon as Iris heard this, she immediately showed her disapproval.

I could understand her suspicion of any facility designed for so-called mental patients. She had learned many historical instances of government persecution of political dissidents. One way was to put those dissidents into mental institutions and abused them sometimes leading to death. I did not blame her for her suspicions. She was already suspecting that evil forces were at work against her for what she had written and done in the name of justice. Dr. B. She told Dr. B that she did not think her mental state was that bad and that she didn't need to go to a recovery facility. So they start looking for someone else to take her to besides Dr. B.

And now she gets prescribed another drug, which is called Calexa. And so she's on Alexa and she's on Ablify. And back to the book, at this time, or sorry, Abilify, at this time, Iris was already experiencing the strong side effects of Abilify. Most obvious were her lack of energy and the fact that she was drowsy all the time. In addition, when she woke up from her daily nap, she complained that her shoulders and leg joints were sore, which were new symptoms that she thought likely to have been caused by the drug. I was worried about the side effects of Abilify and voiced my concern to Dr. B. He said the dosage was the lowest possible and that the side effects would gradually disappear. In retrospect, it appears to us that Abilify had a big impact on Iris's mental state.

It was a turning point in her condition became worse after she started taking Ambilify and then later worsened even more with Selexa. So now another incident takes place. She kind of disappears for a little bit. No one really knows where she is. They call the cops to find out eventually. She calls back and she says, hey, look, I was out.

I was tired. I checked into a hotel to get some sleep. That's the story she tells. And her mom says she sounds guilty as she's trying to tell this story. and then a few days later they they find the some sleeping pills and a bottle of vodka and they're kind of realized that she was you know thinking about committing suicide but you know her mom says she probably just went into a room to do that and fell asleep when she woke up I guess she

changed her mind and you know back to the book here on the drugs that she was taking we now know that Abilify website warns that the drug can affect your judgment thinking or motor skills as well as the side effects of increasing risk of suicide drowsiness anxiety and muscle stiffness and the selexa website warns about suicide anxiety and self-destructive or aggressive impulses so these drugs that you take for these problems have side effects that sound you know worse than what the problem is then she goes on to say that that the first attempt at suicide that she made so this this attempt was when she was when she was on 10 milligrams of Abilify and the other thing that that mentions in these about these drugs is that when you change prescription when you change

doses or you go on or off of them that's when you're most vulnerable and so that suicide attempt was in line with one of those changes. So they go back to now they're with another doctor, who they call Dr. C. Going back to the book, Iris stopped taking Selex on October 7th after the support group meeting. She told Dr. C on the phone that she would discontinue seeing him if he insisted on her taking the medicine.

As a compromise, Dr. C persuaded her to continue seeing him, and then he would decide whether she could gradually decrease the dosage of Risperdol, which she was still on. All of us told Iris that both the medication and the psychotherapy sessions were needed for rapid recovery. If she didn't want to take the medication, then at least she should have, she should have psychotherapy sessions with the doctor. She agreed to continue seeing Dr. C. looking back at what ended up happening, it was so ironic. Iris was the one who did not want to take the medication, whereas the rest of the family believed in doctors and thought the medication would help her. continuing on the morning of Thursday October 21st when I went to see her she was

very unhappy and complained that I was following her too closely I found she had not eaten well the night before so I suggested going out for lunch we drove to nearby restaurant in the parking lot when she stopped the car she sat there and told me without any expression that she wanted to cry but had no tears her face was greenish and in a horrible depressed state at the this time she'd already mentioned that she did not want to live anymore I also noticed that her arm and leg movements and facial expressions were rigid and it seemed even worse that she wanted to cry but had no tears back then I did not suspect that

all these symptoms could be the serious side effects of the medications iris began to feel hopeless I later realized she wanted to carry out her plan and she did not want us to find out. In the last week of her life, she prohibited me from visiting her. She did not even want me to call her and did not return my calls or my emails. In that final week, Shao Jin and I took a walk ourselves to ease our worries. I went to Apollo Alta support group on Wednesday, November 3rd. Shao Jin and I went to another support group in San Jose on Friday November 5th we tried to gather information on how to deal with depression and loved ones who were possibly suicidal for all this time she was

actively planning her final exit while we tried to find a way to rescue her we raced against her and we did not realize that she would carry out her plan so quickly one week later on November 9th she was gone is the note that was found next to Iris's computer. Dear Brett, mom, dad, and Mike, for the last few weeks, I have been struggling with my decision as to whether I should live or die. As I mentioned to Brett, when you believe you have a future, you think of terms of generations and years. When you do not, you live just by the day. You live not just by the day. You live not just by the day, but by the minute.

You don't want someone who will live out the rest of her days as a mere shell of her former self. I had considered running away, but I will never be able to escape from myself and my thoughts. I am doing this because I am too weak to withstand the years of pain and agony ahead. Each breath is becoming difficult for me to take. The anxiety can be compared to drowning in an open sea. I know that my actions will transfer some of this pain to others, indeed those who love me the most. Please forgive me. Forgive me because I cannot forgive myself.

Love Iris. Iris's mom closes out the book saying, It was an untimely death. over the years, Iris had always commented that life was too short for her to finish the thing she wanted to accomplish. She said many times that she wanted to write more books to make films and record more oral histories. It was so painful to realize that many of her dreams

were not fulfilled. Yet it is not how she died, but rather how she lived that will be her legacy. Whenever I think of Iris, the memories of a loving daughter and a beautiful soul will always remain with me. In her short 36 years, she had inspired many, many people in the world with her noble spirit, her passion, dedication, sincerity, and determination. In preserving historical truth, in pursuing justice for the voiceless victims, Iris was a woman whose heartbeat passionately for those who suffered.

She was a woman who could not forget. She could not forget their agony, and she refused to let their stories go untold. Iris's life was short, but brilliant. Like a splendid rainbow across the sky, one that the goddess she was named after would be proud of. Iris's rainbow, was magnificent

vanishing quickly and I guess that that is what we all are a rainbow vanishing quickly we vanish shine be the light be the color be the good and the strong and the brightness that drives away the dark one chance here

it's one opportunity to stretch across the sky and shine value life and know for evil so long as we stand up, stand up against all that wickedness in the world. We stand up, decompress over on the side. Sure. I was talking with Greg Train yesterday.

And you can complain about something where you can embrace. This is one of the big things that I kind of learned from you. And this is like when you look at your own situation, compared to other, you know, past situations that are way worse, right? So one, you start with, okay, your, your situation isn't that bad. That's what you start with. Then you go on to, okay, my situation, these are small, teeny tiny challenges that all you have to do is approach them in this way of, like, embracing it.

You know how like, like, anytime, okay, anytime you're feeling frustrated about your situation or whatever, right? And really, in person, when you put it in perspective, these are small. challenges that you just got to overcome you take it on as it's like yeah you want to put more work on my plate at work because I can handle it because I can handle it and I'll do it the best and watch me work you know that is good and interesting you know when when we had Tim Ferriss on here and when I did Tim Ferriss's interview the first time I was on his podcast and he it's the thing that I talked about when he came on here like I he asked the question sort of saying hey how close do you get

the darkness before it consumes you. And I've talked about before, you know, if you stare into the soul of a monster, you have to be careful because you might become a monster. Yeah. And so, I mean, I think, yeah, there's the drugs that she got put on, obviously played a role, but she got in this world where all she saw was the bad. Yeah. And I think that to Tim Ferriss's point where he was saying to me, like, hey, how often should I get close to the darkness?

You know, how often should I look at that? And, you know, my response was, hey, in order to know the light, you've got to know the darkness. But you can absolutely go too far in that direction. Yeah. And you can say to yourself, wow, the world is evil and everyone's evil. And underneath the surface, everyone could turn into this Imperial Japanese soldier and commit these atrocities. And that is what you absolutely. And I would say be careful.

I don't know if that's the right word. I guess it is the right word. Be careful. But to me, what you have to do is you have to balance it. And to me, as an American, as a,

man, there's so much good, right? I think that people generally get jaded to all the good that's out there. And that's why I say, hey, you know what?

Look over here at the darkness. But for someone that's stuck in a horrible place, in a horrible situation in life, that's those, those folks, Folks got to look out and say, wait a second, there's not, there's so much good out there. You know, if you can take a, like, that's clearly, I mean, you look at, look at Iris Chang. I mean, she is smart and successful and beautiful and well liked and had a good.

She came up with an amazing family. Her parents were adored her, right? She had everything in her life was good, right? And she lost all that. You know what it's like if you talk to anybody that flies planes, right? if you go into a cloud, you lose your orientation. It happens in diving too. It happens when you're surfing.

If you fall off a big wave and you're getting rolled around, sometimes it can be hard to tell which way is up, right? It can happen. You know, guys drive their airplanes. They get lost in a cloud. They drive their airplanes into a mountain or they drive it into the ground because they don't, they get disoriented and they lose sight of which way is up or you're underwater and you lose sight of which way is up.

That's what you have to watch out for. You got to be able to say, wait a second, if everything is black around me, okay, stop. Let me get oriented. Let me check my control panel. In the water, it's really easy. You've got to look for bubbles. Where are the bubbles? The bubbles are going to go up.

And so when you get trapped in that darkness, these people end up in these situations where everything looks black, stop. You're disoriented. You just can't see. You don't know the right direction. It's okay. figure out where the bubbles are, they're going to go to the surface,

and when they get to the surface, there's going to be light, and you're going to be okay. But obviously, Iris, she got dragged down and disoriented in the darkness, and she couldn't figure out that she had a husband and a son

and a family and money, and she had all these beautiful things in her life. Yeah, which a lot of times, especially if you go full speed in that direction, where you don't know which ways up, so you're going down. even the good things that come in, you know, like even, you know, when you get paranoid, something good and you're like, that's bad.

For instance, for instance, she's on a trip in Louisville going to go do a speech or whatever and someone's checking her in the hotel. Maybe someone was saying, oh, I think that's Iris Chang. I saw her on TV. Instead, she's thinking, oh, it's some nationalists that are coming to get me. So, yeah, she was absolutely. So that's something that I think, and it's something that for those of us that are not in that situation, how do you pay attention and observe people and make sure that your friends or people

you know or people that are in bad situations, how do you make sure that they're getting enough that they know how to orient themselves and get back to the surface and get away from all that horribleness? When you approach thing, and I was talking to Greg, that's kind of what, and this just reminded me of it. When you approach things like that, you, you know how like you said, you're going down? If you don't know which way is up, you're going down. A good thing, you're going to look at it.

That's a bad thing. reinforcing my whole direction, by the way. So if you approach it in a way where things that even would be frustrating to like an everyday person, if you approach it like good, you know, I'm the one to do this thing, bring the challenge because the challenges are good. You know, if that's the approach, that'll reinforce that way of thinking. Yes. So you will be going, you know, that.

And really, when you explore darkness, that's not to embrace the darkness and be dark. Like I said, don't become the death. That's basically you're trying to avoid ignorance. That's what you're doing. Yeah. Because you got no darkness. And it's a contrast. It's a contrast.

And you can see, okay, guess what? This, and for this case, I mean, obviously, I pray I never have to read anything as heinous as that again ever on this show. Yeah, me too. But that happened. Yeah. Right? That happened. That happened.

We should not. You shouldn't go through life and not realize that that happened. That that happened to you that human beings did that to other human beings as horrible as it is You need to realize that that is a part of our human history so that way you can say you could you recognize and say okay This is this can happen and we need to watch out for it and Yeah, so Yeah look out for your friends keep them knowing that there's keep them knowing which direction They're heading in and we see someone going sideways

Bring them grab them especially with it I mean this is kind of a It's specific to this story, but the the drugs you know when you take Medicaid because that's a big one man It can mess up your pre even like how you said when you get off the drugs right you know because these these are all chemical things in your brain Made for certain things for sure so When that part goes sideways you can't like reason necessarily with someone You know, they can't reason with, you can't reason with yourself, you know, stuff that would seem obvious. Hey, if I, you know, walk off this cliff, it's obvious that's bad. It doesn't really work that way if, like, your chemicals are off.

Totally. So, yeah, you kind of got to, you know, like look out for somebody if you can see that happening. Yeah, no doubt. And it's very, it's very interesting. The mind is so incredibly durable. But at the same time, it's just totally. fragile and little some little change to the to the composition or to the to the chemicals that are in or to the thought patterns that are in yeah you know can be really drastic changes on a on a person yeah you ever you ever have a real bad flu and a fever and then you're trying to go to sleep

and then yes I have you know and it's almost like a mix between dreaming hallucinating and like you because man it's like your thoughts are all jumbled up okay you want you want to tell you to echo story right now yes this will be a stupid echo story so brace yourself awesome so i was like 20 i was 23 years old or something and i was doing the dishes speaking of doing the dishes i was doing the dishes and i turned on the water and i didn't see what was happening but this little stream a tiny little stream of water had had broken through the pipe at some point in the handle and it and it started to land on my hand well I didn't know that it was water because it must have been like the similar

temperature to what my body was at the time and so I see this and it looks for for a quarter of a second it looks like my hand is blistering it's just and it's spreading so rapidly and for a quarter of a second I thought to myself I'm being attacked by chemical warfare and I'm gonna die in the next next half a second I'm dead I think we were doing some chemical warfare training or whatever. And so at that moment for about a half a second, I thought I'm about to die. And it only lasted about that. Then I realized it was water.

And I said, oh, yeah, yeah. But my point is that mentally, yeah, what if, you know, a different situation, I could get locked into that mode. And when you see Iris going, hey, these people are coming after me. Yeah. If you get mentally locked in that mode and you start seeing things that are that, that, you start imposing or overlaying your reality over actual reality. Do you start augmenting reality yourself?

That gets really, really scary. Yeah. Like when you think someone's mad at you, you read that. You think someone's mad at you? So you're looking for all the little cues, you know? Dang, is this person mad at me or are they not? And normal everyday stuff, you know? Why didn't, why didn't she text me back quickly?

Yeah, it took her five minutes. I know. Usually she puts a smiley face, no smiley face this time, you know? She hates you. Yeah, she's mad. I know she's mad. Something's wrong. But, yeah.

So, yeah, if you have meanwhile, they're like, well, I don't know what's how you're talking about. Yeah. It's interesting. Anyway, speaking of being mad or, should I say, the opposite of being mad. So this is what you do. Take alpha brain. Alpha brainy.

The pre-workout performance and strength. Mm-hmm. And go workout. See what happens. That will make you feel better. Report back. Yeah. Actually, that's something Iris and her mom both referred to a couple times in here.

They were like, her mom was. But say, you know, I want you to go exercise with me. And I should have put that in the podcast. But hey, get the book and read it yourself. I mean, that's what you need to do. I should have said that earlier, the Rapin'an King. Absolutely, you know, get it. Try and read it when you're in a happy place, right?

Yeah. It's a hard, hard read. It might be the hardest read of any read possible. I don't know what could be harder than that. And then the book, The Woman Who Could Not Forget by Ying Gang, which again, chronicles her life and it's a really beautiful story and with obviously with a tragic ending and hopefully lessons learned from it one of the lessons being be physically be physically active and her mom was trying to get her to go to the gym with her and work out with her because there's

no doubt it's it's it's it's physiologically fact physiological fact when you work out you get endorphins released you feel better yeah 100% yeah and it also which is good I just heard this on, uh, it was Joe Rogan. He had a doctor on Rhonda Patrick is her name. She was talking about how working at exercise, like is it is one of the more powerful anti-aging things.

Oh for sure. So, you know, like when you get older, um, you know, people, you know, Alzheimer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, she said not for physical aging, but for mental aging. Mental aging. Yes. That,

that's what. Yeah. Yeah. So man, it's just an all around good deal. Brad, this is, so one time,

I think I even mentioned. No, I didn't mention this. So one time I might have drank maybe the night before. This was like maybe a few months ago. And I didn't work out for a while. You know, I was like, you know, immersed in, I don't know work. I don't know. Either way, I didn't work.

It was no, no, no. I got sick and then I got hurt. So I can't, you know. So you cured that with the bottle. Don't do that. Compound. Oh, I'm going to make myself feel better. No, you're not actually.

Yeah, it works. Yeah, I probably combat. Go ahead. Continue your story and tell everyone what not. to do. Yeah, yeah, so don't do this. No, but there's a happy ending. So at it, so boom, I was over the sickness. My injury was good and I worked and I worked out kind of hard too. And it was weird because I went in the workout thinking, okay, I'm glad I get to go work out. But when, when you're done, okay, I'll admit this. And I think a lot of people have these thoughts where maybe you've done

something, like maybe your routine for whatever reason is going over and over, like just real repetitive. And then after well, yeah. Yeah, true, but I'm just saying sometimes these thoughts, like, what does all this even mean? Like, what, what, okay, I'm going to get this and this. And it's like, you think too much. After a while, so at the end of, you know, life, it's like, okay, I did all this. It just, I don't know, it just didn't really, I was having some of those thoughts. They weren't like super heavy or nothing, but they were in there.

They're like, okay, great. Anyway, so anyway, fast forward. I worked out, did the workout. God after it Textbook definition of God after it That was my workout I was done and actually not even done I was like in the middle of the workout

And I was like dang Life has straight up meaning Like this is what life is Not necessarily the workout I'm just saying everything I'm doing You know it was that feeling Was that the alpha brain? Must have been

Must have been the alpha brain So what you're saying is get alpha brain I'm saying go work out. I like that part too. You got it. I'm not saying you got it. But I'm saying if you want to yeah work out work out for sure change your life take on it big time. Yeah so the alpha brain um that's a neutral pick that helps your memory and whatnot. So anyway if you're gonna work out and you want to take some supplements which I recommend now I was never a supplement person I tried them but never was really into them or I'd be like you got to take this.

Take the pre-workout performance and strength. That's what it's called. Check. Take that one. What about Shroom Tech? I'd say take the Shroom Tech. Here's the thing with the- I've been stacking them, I'm telling you.

See, watch out. I haven't been taking Shroom Tech. Oh, really? I feel like that's like cheating. Not cheating, but I mean, in Jiu-Jitsu I mean. Hmm. I don't feel like it's cheating. No, it's not cheating, but I feel like-

You just said you thought it was cheating. I feel like. I'll tell you what, it doesn't matter. I mean, when it comes down to it shroom tech or no shroom tech, bring it. Yeah. All right. Nonetheless, my original point was, okay, working out, that's the enhancer. That's the enhancer.

If you want to enhance the enhancer. You need more alpha brain today. No, no. You keep making me think of more stuff. Okay, I'll stop talking. Yeah. And then I feel like, oh, I should talk about that. Anyway, working out is important part.

That enhances the life. Yes. Alpha brain these supplements Alpha brain shroom tech All these other ones That enhances the workout Which is the enhancers So enhance the enhancer kind of thing

Anyway if you like these things You want 10% off You don't want to pay full price Or maybe do I don't know But if you don't go on it.com slash jocco 10% off Support yourself as well And your wallet

I want to talk about Amazon Clickthrough That's a good way to support that's good because it's like you know small little thing doesn't cost you anything as you always say and you know big result big support yeah I'm gonna make the sodium in the fish tank analogy I'm gonna do it really yeah good because I wasn't expecting that at all yeah you throw the sodium in water and it blows a small piece of sodium metal boom blows up that's important that you said that but what would be more important would be to actually say how you do amazon click through yeah so yeah I think

you're right about that. So what you do is you go to joccapodcast.com, a little banner on the side. There's the, the, the, the UK one. Dot, CO. UK as well. Is there Germany?

Yes, there's Germany, I think. Yeah, I'm pretty sure, yeah. It's right there on the site. Boom. The main one, the top one, or the one on top is the US one, Amazon.com. Click through there.

Before you do your Amazon shopping, that's the way to support. It doesn't cost you anything. Small action, big reaction. Be the sodium. Be the sodium. Jocko is a store. It's called Jocko store.

URL jocco store.com. If you want shirts, discipline equals freedom, they're all Jocko approved and official. Go on there. Look at them if you like them. Get a shirt. By the way,

they're not all Jocko proof because I didn't approve the pink women's t-shirt. Yeah, that's true. That was not approved. Right. That was actually Jock unapproved. Yeah. But we...

There was mutiny and rebellion. Yeah, which is kind of part of the game too, right? No, not really. Okay. Well, according to the shirts that we got, it is. Yeah, apparently. So that one is technically not Jocko approved, but it's Jocko unapproved, so it's dope nonetheless. And if you think they're solid, then, yeah, get a shirt, man.

Support that way. It's a good way to support. Yeah. There's some hoodies on there and some rash cards. I've beginning to see more and more people with the rash guards. Yeah, the rash cards seem to be popular. Yeah. At least in victory, M.A. and fitness.

Yeah. No, and online as well. I see you guys doing it Anyway look at them If you like something get something That's a good way to support Coming out with a new travel mug New and improved

New and improved High quality Higher quality Higher quality Yes Like technically If you put something hot in there Hope makes it keeps it hot for a long time hours

Eight hours or something like that It's cold same thing I think cold keeps it long Keep it cold longer Anyway that'll be on the store in two weeks. Yeah. Also, good way to support.

And this is actually supporting yourself big time. It's like a little helper. It's like when you're benching, you ever bench? I don't bench much anymore. Okay. So in the event of you benching, this is what it's like, if benching is the analogy. It's like someone's spotting you.

If you need it, this is what it is. It is, right? It is like a, spot. You don't need it necessarily every day. You don't need it all the time. Maybe you do. Maybe it depends on, you know, a lot of things. But if you do need it, even if you just want it, hey, can you spot me? I might get the, I'll probably get all eight. But you're there, you know, just in case, that's what this is. So if you're like, hey, I'm going to, okay, this is what it is what it is what it is what is what it is what is what is. For those who don't know, a lot of people do know, but if you don't know, but if you don't know, it's an album you can buy from iTunes with tracks on it for different scenarios of what weakness you'd call it. Moments of weakness. Moments of weakness. And you need a little spot. You need a little spot. And guess who's spot in you? Chaco.

That's the guy to spot, right? Very dependable, very reliable, punctual, all that stuff. Little two minutes. They're like two minutes long. Give or take, yeah. There's one about, you know, before you're going to go and eat.

Yeah. There's one called sugar-coated lies. Yeah. I think that one might be a good one. Yeah. You know, at the end of that one, which is, I think, One of the more memorable moments, lines, whatever, when you say, something about mobilize your will, because your will is stronger than the will of a donut.

Right. Yeah. Factual. And that's the one you hear that. Isn't it pretty sad, though? You think yourself, okay, I'm not going to eat this donut. Yeah. I'm just going to hold my willpower.

But then somehow the will, because a war is a war of wills, right? That's what war is. So now if you lose that war against the donut, means your will is weaker than a donut. The donuts, yeah. That's not going to happen. No. Now we got psychological warfare play. You put it into perspective.

You're like, here's the donut. And you're like, your will is stronger than the donut. And then you eat the donut. You basically said, I understand that this donut's will is stronger than mine. Don't want to be that person. That's your life right there. Yeah. Put into perspective.

Anyway, if you need that spot, psychological warfare from JakaWilink, do a search iTunes. And it's also on other things that aren't iTunes. Yeah, so Amazon, music. Amazon. It's on Google. It's on Google play. I'm pretty sure. Anywhere that where you can get like.

MP3 music. Yeah. Do they call it that anymore? Is that still a thing? MP3 music. Well, MP3 is just the file type. Remember there used to be MP3 players?

Yeah. Are there still? Yeah. Technically everything that can play MP3 is an MP3 player. So yeah, check that one out. That one's a good, and it's a good way to support, you know. So it's an all round circle of support in that one. Yeah.

Also, if you want to get some jaco white tea, you can get it. You can get that on Amazon. And when you get it, I know some people are a little nervous when they try it for the first time. Just be careful. You don't want to, you know, be in a situation where you, you're going to go a little bit harder than normal, right? To be ready for that when you break out the jocco. You can get, once you've used it before, you don't have to worry about it. There's no precautionary once you're using it.

Yeah. But when you start, be careful because you're going to go with that little extra stuff. Yeah. You're going to go on attack mode. Yeah. It's kind of like when you turn on your car and the volume is up a little bit more than you're ready for. You're like, oh, but then if you do it again, you're like, same thing. Same thing.

So watch out for that jaco. YT on Amazon. Also for international orders, it's on eBay. The official listing is of the Jocko podcast sold by Pro. resourcing. So if you're international and you want to get it, you can do that. And for those of you that in America, it says you see that the shipping is $100. That's not for you to get it from there. It's for you to get on Amazon if you're in America. If you're overseas, the shipping won't show $100. They'll show whatever the cost is. So if you're, I've had a couple people like say,

why is the shipping $100? It's not. It's Amazon Prime. The shipping is no cost. Don't get it from eBay. You understand what I'm saying? So if you're in the U.S. If you're in the U.S. and you Bid and try to get it. The shipping will show us $100. Don't get it from eBay. You're not supposed to. We don't want to sell to everybody in America. We can't handle that, but we can sell to some people overseas.

Here's what you do. Jockotee.com. And that has this information on it, too? So it doesn't have that particular information, but it's like just a basic website. Dang, we did. I don't know why I didn't mention this before. It's a basic website. It's like, oh, you're in the U.S.?

Order from here. You're in international? Order from here. Jockotty.com. Jockotie.com. It's on Jocco store too, but it's like you got to go to the tab and then go to the page. You know, it's, it's a thing. But go to jocco tea.com if you, if you're just down for the tea.

Just need the tea. There you go. Yeah. All right. Well, that's, well, thank you for informing us of that. Yet another website. For those of you that are asking the get after it mugs. We're looking at March, to be honest with you.

This is so. Keep looking. Also, you know, kids, we got kids out there running around. We know that kids are impressionable. Yes. Right? As they're growing up, we know that we also know that it's hard to be a kid, right? You come up against hard times.

And if you want to help kids get through some hard times, you can order this book that I just wrote pre-order it. It's called Way of the Warrior Kid. And this is the weird thing about this book. So the other day I was talking to somebody It might have even been you I was talking after I got done with edits like the final edits I was talking to someone as yeah, you know I just finished the final edits And I said and it's awesome

And then I felt kind of weird because It's not exactly the most humble way to describe your work, right? Nope So I felt that like as soon as I said I said why am I saying that this book is awesome? That's not like me I didn't walk around and go Extreme ownership the best book ever I didn't say extreme ownership is awesome. I don't say, oh, listen to my podcast, it's awesome.

No, I don't say that. I say, hey, you know, if you want to listen to it, it might be interesting. Oh, extreme ownership's good. You know, you might get some value out of it. I'm not running around saying, I'm awesome. Yeah. For some reason, I said, oh, this book, I just got done reading it, editing it. It's awesome, right?

So I kind of wondered why I said that. And then I realized that while I'm reading. Okay, so when I wrote it, right, I wrote it like, I was in a 10 year old kid. But that wasn't me. It was the guy that's in the book. Mark, he's the character. Right.

So when I read it, it sounds like him. It doesn't sound like me. It sounds like him. Yeah. So I read the book and I think it's him that wrote it, this kid. Right, right, right. And I think to myself, someone said, how's the book? And I go, man, it's awesome.

So, yeah. That's what I realized. And, but it is the kind of story that sounds, it's good to read. Mark, the kid, the 10 year old kid he's hurt right he's made fun of can't do any pull-ups

doesn't know his times tables doesn't know how to swim and he's getting bullied by Kenny Williamson you know Kenny Williamson we all know Kenny Williamson I'm gonna post a picture I haven't introduced Kenny Williamson yet to the public but I'm gonna

get a picture out to him so he's going through all this trials and tribulations but luckily his uncle Jake happens to be a big tough frog man he's going to come and stay with him for the summer and when oh guess what

when Mark breaks down because he doesn't tell his mom what's going on because his mom just is kind of mom she doesn't understand she doesn't quite you know what she's going to say oh right you'll learn that stuff

she can say oh honey you're a nice boy don't worry about that big bully he won't bother you anymore no no my mom actually he will right So, so Mark breaks down kind of He won't tell his mom, but then uncle comes And his uncle's like, hey, we're gonna hang out?

What are you gonna do? I can't do anything, I can't swim, breaks down. So you know what Uncle Jake says when Mark gets done listing all of his problems? Later. He says, good. All those problems you got, we can take care of those problems. Those are all solvable.

All we gotta do is we gotta work, we gotta study, We got to train. And that's what they do. So, like I said, I won't say it's awesome. But from the perspective of the kid, when you look at it, if a kid wrote that, you'd say, that's a pretty good story. You got there. And here's the deal.

Pre-order it on Amazon. Why? Why pre-order it? Let me tell you why. They got to print it, right? And they're going to print. They're going to go, oh, well, you know, it's a kid's book. And kids books don't sell very well.

So, you know, you just, we'll print out 80 copies or whatever, you know. They got their formula. Yeah, they got their formula, right? The formula's not going to work. Just like it didn't work for jogging. The formula is not going to work. So the earlier that you pre-order it, the more they'll print the then that we won't have the shortage, the scenario, the masses screaming in the streets and give us our books.

So pre-order it and that'll take care of that while you're doing it. Pick up Rapin'Anon King, Iris Chang. These will be on the Jocko Podcast store. Click through in the book section. No, not the store. Joccopodcast.com. Joccopodcast.com books. And the woman who could not forget,

grab that one. Of course, you can also pick up, you can pick up a couple copies of extreme ownership, which is the book written by myself and Laif Babin. And you know what? Get a few copies. And I'll tell you why. Because you got to give them to your people on the team, right?

How many people write to me and say, I gave this to so-and-so and they said, thank you. Yeah, this is great. Get them all in the game. You know they need it. If you didn't have it, would you want somebody to give it to you? Let me ask you that question. Yes, you would.

It's going to help you out with your game. So you're going to want them to do that. And by the way, if you're at your company, your business, and you need some leadership alignment. You've got some little situations going on. You can check out, Leif Babin and I, we also, we wrote a book. We also have a company called Ashlawn Front. You can check that out.

That's what we do leadership and management and consulting. and that's what we do. We get companies leadership aligned and on the same page and give them the tools to lead and win. Enough said on that. Also with extreme ownership, we got the muster coming. Muster number two,

May 4th and 5th, Marriott Marquis, New York City, boom. Yeah. Now, you know, people talk about, people say, oh, it's a game changer. Right? People say that. Sure.

I think, and you usually go, oh, really? Yeah, game changer. Hey, they got a new flavor of tortilla chips at the restaurant. It's a game changer. No, that's not a game changer. But description, kind of the most common description I've heard of muster number one that we did in San Diego is game changer. Dang. So people are getting after it.

Leadership, management, health, jiu-jitsu, the good stuff. Of course, I'm going to be there. Of course, Leif Babin. He's going to be there, obviously. Echo Charles is going to be there. J.P. Dinell, you heard him on the podcast. You're going to see him there. And we, none of us, none of us are going to be hiding backstage.

There will not be a backstage. We're not going to be there. We'll be with you out front talking, discussing, solving problems and crushing things. So come and get that May 4th and 5th. And until the muster, while we're waiting to get to the muster, you can still kick it with us absolutely because we're on the interwebs

we are on Instagram we are on Twitter as well and if you're gonna be looking for that one that Facebook we're on that one as well so you can find us there Echo is at Echo Charles

and I am at Jocko Willink and finally thanks to everyone for what you do in the military and the police and the fire department thanks to you all for keeping us safe and then the workforce the troopers around the world creating and building what we have making the world a better place thank you for what you do grinding and

pushing and making things happen and again I know that this podcast was hard to listen to I know that this episode was was hard for me to read to me it is a reminder it's a reminder to all of us that darkness is real and as I said we cannot get lost in that darkness and we can't let the people we know get lost in that darkness and it's a reminder that we have to illuminate that darkness cannot we cannot let evil thrive and permeate permeate we can't let it permeate on a mass scale like Nanking or on a personal level like the beautiful iris chang so get out there get out there live your life get after it get after it every day go out there into the world and shine until next time this is echo and jaco