Jocko Podcast - 71: Heroes are Not Perfect. Never Judge. The Will to Overcome REAL Hardship: "A Helmet for my Pillow" by Robert Leckie

Episode Date: April 18, 2017

0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:14 - "A Helmet for my Pillow" by Robert Leckie  0:07:49 - Stripped Down to Nothing in Boot Camp.  Surrender and Discipline. 0:18:53 - Advanced Training. 0:28:48 - Guadalcanal: Time to Fight. 1:07:38 - After the Battle: R&R, Partying, and Getting in Trouble. 1:23:05 - Assault on New Britain. 1:39:46 - Physical Complications and Conditions. 1:52:03 - Medical treatment / Don't Judge The Intellect of a Man by his Job. 2:00:17 - Back to Fighting - Peleliu. 2:21:18 - Battle was Won, but with Great Sacrifice.  2:26:00 - Take-away: Who are we to Judge? 2:34:57 - Support, Cool Onnit, Amazon, JockoStore stuff, with Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), (Jocko's Kids' Book) Way of the Warrior Kid, and The Muster002  3:11:01 - Closing Gratitude.   Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 71 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink Good evening echo good evening a helmet for my pillow a poncho for my bed my rifle rests across my chest The stars swing overhead Into your holes and gun pits kill them with rifles and knives Feed them with lead until they are dead and widowed are they? their wives. Sons of the mothers who gave you, honor and gift of birth, strike with the knife till blood and life run out upon the earth. Marines, keep faith with your glory. Keep to your trembling whole. Intruder feel of nippon steel can't penetrate your soul. Closing, they charge all

howling their breasts all targets large the gun must shake the bullets make a slaughter of their charge red are the flashing tracers yellow the bursting shells horses the cry of men who die shrill are the wounded's yells god how the night reels streaks with orange sparking she streaks with orange spark The morders lash and the cannons crash have crucified the dark. St. Michael, angel of battle, we praise you to God on high. The foe you gave was strong and brave and unafraid to die. Speak to the Lord for our comrades killed when the battle seemed lost. They went to meet a bright defeat, the hero's holocaust.

False is the vaunt of the victor Empty our living pride For those who fell There is no hell Not for the brave who died And that's A excerpt From a poem that opens a book

Called Helmet for My Pillow And the book Was written By a guy named Robert Lecky otherwise known as lucky everybody called him lucky and he was a machine gunner and then a scout with the first marine division in world war two and he's a decent part of the HBO series the Pacific which is if you haven't watched that just buy it right now and watch it it's awesome And it's based on a bunch of different books and a bunch of different events from the Pacific and a lot of them

Eugene Sledge that's another one with the old breed there's a lot that he plays a main role John Basloon plays a plays a large role in that series and there's other a bunch of other books we've we've done a bunch of them on this podcast and this one is another one and you think to And I was thinking to myself like, well, you know, should I do helmet for my pillow? I'd read it a long time ago. And I thought to myself, you know, we've kind of covered, you know, the Pacific pretty well. And I'm just straight up wrong. We're so wrong because everyone's experience is different.

There's things that are the same. And his viewpoint on things is is just a different viewpoint and equally important to understanding not only the war, not only what they experienced in war, but also a whole other side of human nature that we need to learn about. And yeah, there's a lot to go over. So there's a little introduction here. And just to give you a little background on Lucky Lecky. He enlisted on January 5th, 1942. He tried to join up the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, but a surgically correctable condition disqualified him.

Now he was back and acceptable. Just that tells us a lot. He was a civilian, not a professional fighting man, but he became a warrior. The author was one of those young men, many not yet 20, who were gentle human beings that were transformed by training, hardship, and the war into fighting Marines. These were the boys who became men and stood against and then beat back two of the world's most vicious fighting machines They left behind them a heritage of decency that hopefully will live forever And that's from the introduction and So again after world after Pearl Harbor there were so you've seen pictures

You've seen pictures of guys wrapped around the block waiting to go to the recruiting office and he goes to recruiting office. He can't go in at first. Eventually he gets in. It takes him a month to get in. And then he's off to boot camp. And we've seen all kinds of representations and books and movies of Marine Corps boot camp and in general. But I just had to hit on this one a little bit because it's just another perspective that shows you, shows you his view of it and gave me a, not a. Even a better understanding a clearer understanding of what people are going through when they're going through boot camp

And I remember actually I remember this about boot camp I they wrote we had to write something when I was going through boot camp And I don't know if I've talked about this before but we were going through boot camp this day write down you know the top three things you're learning Right you had to we all had to okay this is a Navy boot camp and I wrote down something along the lines of I wrote something along the lines of the brainwashing seems very effective Right how old you I was 18 18 or I think I just turned 19 and that's because I was a rebellious kid right and so I'm thinking they're brainwashing us and I wasn't against it I it was kind of one of those statements where I was saying I was kind of being sarcastic but I was also kind of being true We call that cracking but facking. Okay, we'll roll with that. I

So that's what I was doing and and I remember they didn't say anything about anything anyone had written about what we were learning or whatever They called that one out the the chiefs that were running my boot camp company They were you know said and if you think you're getting brainwashed You know what this is what's gonna save you and they went on this big thing to counter my my assessment So there's a little bit of that here in what what what what lucky saying he says the same kind of thing And he gets the same kind of he gets to the same place but here we go going to the book They're at boot camp Marine Corps boot camp in doc and here we go sergeant bellow Marched us to the quartermasters

It was there we stripped off all vestiges of personality It is the quartermasters. So if you if you don't know a quartermaster in the military is someone that basically Run supply they give you gear. That's what they are so it is the quartermaster who make soldiers, sailors, and Marines. In their presence, one strips down. With each divestment, a trait is lost. The discard of a garment marks the quiet death of an idiosyncrasy. I take off my socks.

Gone is a propensity for stripes or clocks or checks or even solids. And it is a tendency to combine purple socks with a brown tie. my socks henceforth will be tan they will neither be soiled nor rolled nor gaudy nor restrained nor holy they will be tan the only other thing they may be is clean so it is with it all until one stands naked struggling with an embarrassment that is entirely lost on the laconic shades who work in the quartermaster sheds, thus naked, thus quivering, a man is defenseless before the quartermaster. Character clings to clothes that have gone into the discard. As skin and hair stick to adhesive tape, it is torn from you. Then the quartermaster's shade swarm over you with measuring tape. A cascade of clothes falls upon you,

washing you clean of personality. When you have emerged from this, you are but a number. number three fife one tree niner one united states marine corps 20 minutes before there had stood in your place a human being surrounded by some 60 other human beings but now there stood one number among 60 others the sum of all to be a training platoon but the parts have no meaning except in the Context of the whole So there's a little psychological reason why they do that how they do it and you can see it works You know all those little things that you have all the little things that make you you we're gonna take them away That's what we're gonna do and there's so there's this weird thing

Because when I went through boot camp I wanted that Take it away from me and I've said this before on the podcast You you it's a blank slate when you get when you go into boot camp They shave your head they take your clothes. They take all all that personal stuff and you get a blank slate They tell you like this is all you need to do to succeed here all that stuff you've done in the past your knucklehead. We don't care Here's what you got to do now and and it's awesome and For a lot of people myself included you're now you're you're becoming part of something that's bigger than you That's a good feeling you know it's a good feeling

I liked it I'd go so far as to say I loved it And they do the same thing By the way they do the same thing to you When you get to your seal training class To your buds class You get your head shaved again You get another set of uniforms

You're all gonna dress the same You're all gonna look the same Yeah I think that head shaving thing Would really do it for a lot of people Yeah yeah for sure for sure Just Because that's some people's whole personality You know their hair?

Sure. It's like, dang. They like that hair. Yeah. Now, of course, fast-forwarding a little bit, but I found this interesting. Back to the book. In six weeks of training, there seemed not to exist a single pattern apart from meals. All seemed chaos, marching, drilling, and manual of arms, listening to lectures on military courtesy and saluting the right hand will strike the head at 45-degree angle midway from the right eye.

listening to lectures on Marine jargon from now on everything floor street ground everything is the deck cleaning and polishing one's rifle until it's shown like an ornament shaving daily whether hairy or beardless it was all a jumble what are we going to do salute the Japs to death no we're going to blind them with spit and polish yeah or barber the bastards all the logic seemed to be on our side the Marine Corps seemed a madness So they're thinking what are we getting out of this? You want us to pause? How about you teach us how to shoot the rifle? Continuing on, it was a madness, but it was discipline.

Apart from us recruits, no one in Paris Island seemed to care for anything but discipline. There was absolutely no talk of war. We heard no fiery lectures about killing Japs, such as we were to hear later on in New River, which is a place where they go to train. Everything but discipline. Marine Corps discipline was steadfastly mocked and ridiculed, be it holiness or high finance. These drill instructors were dedicated martinets,

like the sensualist who feels that if a thing cannot be eaten, drunk, or taken a bed, it does not exist. So were these martinets in their outlook. All was discipline. There you go. I actually I thought that word struck me Martinettes

So I did a little you know I looked it up And the etymology of it is There was a French general That created a certain type of Drill close order drill Procedures And his name was general Gene Martinette Jean Martinette

So that's where that's where that word comes from And it means that you're strict disciplinarian Wouldn't it be Martinae? Martinay? I guess so. For those that speak French. French Canadian background right here. Did not know that.

True story. Oh, that's right, because you were friends with Jodi Middick. You and him bonded over your Canadian roots. 100%. Nice. Another great example or great paragraph about what this feels like. Back to the book. It is a process of surrender at every turn, at every hour.

It seemed a habit or a preference had to be given up an adjustment had to be made Even in the mess hall we learned that nothing mattered so little as a man's own likes or dislikes And I think that's what it is that that's what's so cool about that's what I loved Right when you join the military all it's all stripped away all these little comforts that you have they strip them away and you're left with the raw self right the raw self that's what you're left with you and you start putting everything else above yourself it's a very humbling process back to the book worst in all this process of surrender was the ruthless refusal to permit a man the slightest privacy everything was done in the open rising waking writing

letters receiving mails receiving mail making beds washing shaving shaving combing one's hair emptying one's bow All was done in public and shaped to the style and stricter of the sergeant. So that that one right there going to the bathroom and you get to like in Navy boot camp you the first time you go in the bathroom There's just toilets. There's no doors. There's no walls just just 30 toilets in a row A prison style and you're actually prisons have you're only in there with your little roommate not even prison cell You sit down to go and by the way. You sit down to go and by the way you. You You can't say I'm gonna wait till no one else is in there because they give you, you know, you have to go from this to this to this and then okay, we're back in the barracks.

You can go to the bathroom now. So there you go. You're gonna sit down 18 inches from some other dude that's going to the bathroom. That's emptying his bowels. And there's no privacy. And those, I mean, you may have never taken a crap in front of another human being. Most people haven't why would you? So you have this you have this little

Sanctuary right where you're gonna get be private Gone yeah it's gone all exposed stripped the way Yeah it's kind of football is by the way okay but the thing is football that's kind of like it's cool to do that You know like the coaches don't make you do that It's just like if you're shy you know or that kind of thing like some guys didn't have stalls They did but yeah they they did did they did but like the point is like it was kind of like the cool culture so guys wouldn't close the stall oh okay if there was a shy guy who didn't want to shower he'd go to his like room and shower

they'd be like you know so it was like the more open and like whatever you were the cooler it kind of was but that's what it did just the cause if you're shyness yeah yeah yeah so if you came in shy it's like you'd have that feeling you know yeah but man i dig it's true i actually remember that because i had never I was whatever I was 19 years old Sitting down next to a dude for the first time Taking a crap I've never done that before

Why would you do that? Yeah You have your own little private world You have your own little private space This is my little time No it's not Not your private time Back to the book If you are undone in Paris Island

Which is where Marine Corps boot camp is Or one of the movie There's also one here in San Diego If you are undone in Paris Island taken apart in those first few weeks is at the rifle range that they start to put you together again so that's and he goes into some pretty good he talks about now the rebuilding and finally and again it's great details great information very cool read very cool perspective that's why you get the book and read it back to the book in

five weeks they had made us over another week of training remained but the design change already had taken place most important in this transformation was not the hardening of my flesh or the sharpening of my eyes but the new attitude of mind I was a Marine now that's the big transformation and now like I said they go they go to start their advanced training so in boot camp you don't you're not learning you're learning some technical stuff but you're basically just learning a new attitude right you're learning to be a marine and then they go from there they go to a place called new river where they're gonna do some more training and they're gonna start

learning to be actual fighting Marines so here we go back to the book it's talking about new river here the only talent was that of the foot soldier the only tool the handgun here the cultivated the oblique and the delicate soon perished Like Gardinia's in desert. So we're starting to get into some hard living. And they form up into companies. And he ends up in H company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment.

And they get some other veterans that come to start, help them prepare for combat. And here's what he says about that. The first, and this is the first, Marine Regiment the first also received a vital leavening of veteran NCOs that's non-commissioned officers so these are like the mid-level enlisted guys that run the show they would teach us they would train us they would turn us into fighting troops from them we would learn our weapons from them we would take our character and temper they were the old breed and we

We were the new, the volunteer youths who had come from the comfort of home to the hardship of war. For the next three years, all of these would be my comrades, the men of the first Marine division. And that's true. They always try and take veterans. I shouldn't say always. Because actually in D-Day, they wanted a bunch of new guys. They wanted people that hadn't been in combat before. But, you know, in the SEAL teams, we do that.

Well, I got back from Ramadi with my task unit. They took my task unit. We didn't, and they split them up, all put them in all different task units. So we had all these guys with all this experience going to these other task units. This is pretty normal. And that's where the true learning comes from, right? You're going to get that face-to-face, that hands-on and that true connection to what's going on overseas. And here's some of the things that they did.

Back to the book, Gun Drill and Nomenclature. know your weapon know it intimately know it with almost the insight of its inventor be able to take it apart blindfolded or in the dark to put it together be able to recite mechanically a detailed description of the guns operation know the part played by every member of the squad from gunner down to the unfortunates who carried the water can or the machine gun boxes as well as their own rifles so you're going to learn this weapon like better than the inventor is what they're saying. That's how well you need to know it. And you know what? I believe that. That inventor doesn't do what these guys do with that machine gun. I'll say if you,

like the guys that I, the pig gunners we call them, guys that carried a Mark 48, which is our big heavy weapon, guys that carry that when you watch them, it's beautiful. It looks the most, it's beautiful.

How quick and how fast and how they combat load that thing and hit the ground and clear reloads, It was like magic Yeah Magic Love that Now there's not just learning about weapons, right? There's other things you got to do

You got to get you still got to continue to live a hard life You still got to get mentally and physically conditioned for combat and what better way to do that than some road marches Some road marches which we've talked about many times here Back to the book a whole battalion was on the march and my poor squad was tucked away somewhere at the center or center rear clouds of red dust settled upon us my helmet banged irritably against the machine gun that was boring into my shoulder or else it was bumped forward maddingly over my eyes by the movement of my pack a mile or so out I dared not drink anymore for my canteen I had no idea how far we had to go my dungarees were saturated

with sweat their light green darkened by perspiration There had been joking and even some singing the first mile out Now only the bird sang but from us there was just the thud of feet the clank of canteens the creek of leather rifle slings the occasional horse cracking of voice raised and breath wasted in a curse Every hour we got a 10 minute break then came the command off and on It means off you're behind and on your feet and on your feet feet cursing hating both command and commandant straining we rose to our feet and began again the dull plotting rhythm of the march the old road march that's and and so they're doing this type of hard training and they're going they're doing maneuvers they're preparing they're doing mock beach

landings they're doing all those things and they're also getting some occasional liberty do you guys Know what do you know what liberty is as a civilian? See it's a word that I throw out there sometimes It means time off. Yeah Liberty means time off and it's it's it's it's from the Navy but the Marine Corps uses as well It means time off and so these guys even though they're working hard when boot camp you don't get any liberty No, you just stay in boot camp for 13 weeks. You don't get any liberty in once you're you know a fleet Marine or you're in the regular Navy You get Liberty so you can go do you know go out and do some stuff and so these guys are going out and doing stuff and what do you think they're doing 18 years old getting ready to go to war they're going to go out and get after it

in a in the classic in the classic 18 year old sense of the word actually that's when I got in that context is how I got turned on to the expression get after it oh from the context of of going out and partying yes right and I don't know that I partying is what we're talking about that's a that's a term that it sounds pretty lame but that's what we're talking about I think everybody understands that term. Drinking, chasing girls, partying. That's what we're talking about. And I guess it's a commonly used term because you hear people say, like, I remember

seen an article about some school, some college being the number three ranked party school. Yeah. So party implies, party doesn't imply birthday cake. A party. Yeah. Party. Party implies drinking, getting crazy. Yeah.

Which is different. Getting crazy is different from getting nuts. Right? No, getting nuts is fighting for sure. Yeah, getting nuts is fighting for sure in Hawaii. Yes, yes, it's for sure. All right, so we're just talking about getting crazy and partying and that's what these guys were doing getting after it. Yeah, so here we go back to the book. We were impatient. We were wound up. We could no more relaxed than we could think in those days. There was not an introspective person among us. We seldom spoke of the war except as it might relate to ourselves and in an abstract way. The ethics of Hitler, the extermination of the Jews, the yellow peril, these were matters for the gentlemen of the editorial pages to discuss. We lived for thrills. Not the thrills of the battlefield, but of the speeding auto, the dimly lighted cafe, the drink racing the blood, the texture of a cheek, the sheen of a silken calf.

Nothing was permitted to last. All had to be fluid. We wanted not actuality, but possibility. That's a pretty interesting statement. We all had to be fluid. We wanted not actually, they didn't actually want that. They wanted to chase that thing. Right, right.

We could not be still, always movement, everything changing. We were like shadows, fleeing, ever fleeing, condemned men, souls in hell. soon the spate of 62 hour liberties was ended mid may of nineteen forty two saw me go home for the last time my family would not set eyes on me again for nearly three years and again obviously there's some very important experiences in that section great it's great to hear his perspective you're gonna see robert lecky he's a very he's a very he's a very he's a very he's He's a very intelligent and he became a writer. I mean he became a writer. This isn't the only book. I think he wrote 40 plus books in his life He worked for big newspapers and he's a writer. So he's a very smart guy and

And he talks about that and we'll get to that point in here, but that's why his perspective is so interesting And he brings a lot of that in this book But eventually obviously they finish their training no more partying and now it's time to fight Back to the book fires flickered on the shores of Guadalcanal island when we came on the deck They were not great flaming leaping fires and we were disappointed we had expected to see the world a light when we emerged from the hatches The bombardment had seemed fierce our armada For such we judged it to be seemed capable of blasting Guadalcanal into perdition but in the dirty dawn of August 7th, 1942,

there were only a few fires flickering like the city dumps to light our path to history. We were apprehensive, not frightened. So, in case you haven't gathered, these guys are about to do the landing at Guadalcanal. And they get into the little Higgins boats, the little landing craft, and here we go. The assault begins.

Now I was praying again. I had prayed much the night before carefully deliberately in in in betraying God and the virgin to care for my family and friends should I fall in the vanity of youth I was positive I would die in the same vanity I was turning my affairs over to the Almighty And I think what he means by vanity that he was sure he would die you'd think of somebody that's vain would be like hey I can't be killed but I think what he means by that is the vanity that there's some determined outcome that you can control or that there's that it's that there's some way it's going to go like he's going to die no you don't even know that right right it's that he knows you know yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly I know what's going to happen I know I'm going to die that's vanity

in its own right that's what he's saying so they hit the landing back to the book but there was no fight the Japanese had run From somewhere came the command move out We formed staggered squads and slogged off We left our innocence on red beach It would never be the same They spend a night They're they're now patrolling in and in the night

They're in security positions and they hear a little gunfire and we're going to the book at dawn we learned the import of the gunfire a A medical corpsman had been killed. He had been shot by his own men. When the century had challenged him as he returned from relieving himself, he had bogled over the password Lilliputian. And so met death. Eternity at the mercy of a liquid consonant. Now, little heads up, Lilliputian is not a good challenge and reply password for everyone. You don't want to come up with something.

That's not totally obvious But don't make a guy that's scared out in the middle of the jungle Remember the word Lilliputian and and you know we talk about blue on blue there you go like their first casualty is blue on blue Their first casualty is blue on blue their first casualty is a guy a medical corpsman being killed by centuries That's a nightmare and I wasn't gonna read this but I'm going to I peered at the captain Anxiety was on his face as though carved there by the night's events it's startled me here was no warrior no veteran of a hundred battles here was only a civilian like myself Here was a man hardly more confident than the trigger happy century who had killed the Corman

He was much older than I but the responsibility of his charge the unknown face of war had frightened him past Trusting the evidence of his senses So imagine you're going into combat you're in charge you're a civilian but now you're in charge and you're going out on your first combat patrol you're You lay up and your first thing you do is you kill one of your own guys kills one of your other guys It's a nightmare and he can see it on his face They spend the rest of the day out there still no heavy enemy contact Back to the book that day was a dull lost witness to the cycle of the sun of which I have neither memory nor regret The night I shall never forget I awoke in the middle of it to see the sky on fire

So it seemed it was like the the red mist of my childhood dream when I imagined judgment to have come while I played baseball on the castle grounds at home. We were bathed in red light as though fixed in the eye of Satan. Imagine a myriad of red traffic lights glowing in the rain and you will have a replica of the world in which I awoke. The lights were the flares of the enemy. They hung above the jungle roof, swaying gently on their parachutes, casting their red glow about. Motors throbbed above. They were those of Japanese seaplanes we learned later.

We thought they were hunting us. But they were actually the eyes of a mighty enemy naval armada that swept into Sea Clark Channel. Soon we heard the sound of cannons and the island trembled beneath us. There came flashes of light, white and red, and great rocking explosions. The Japs were hammering out one of their greatest. naval victories. It was the Battle of Savo Island, what we learned to call more accurately the Battle of Four Sitting Ducks. They were sinking three American cruisers, the Quincy, Vincennes, and Astoria, and one Australian cruiser, the Canberra, as well as damaging one other American

cruiser and a U.S. destroyer. And so they then, during this, they move towards the beach. And here we go it was dusk when we reached the beach we saw wrecked and smoking ships a clean unshipped expanse of water between Guadalca now and Florida Island our Navy was gone gone so if you don't know anything about the Pacific campaign you're taking down islands and your lifeline is the Navy because that's who's going to bring you ammunition food water gun support fire support that's where you're gonna take your casualties so you have total reliance on the Navy and these guys wake up in the morning and the Navy's gone other than sunken ships horrible and what can they do there's nowhere to run to you can't back we can't there's no where to go the Navy's gone so they get ordered to take up position

where they think an attack might come from and here we go back to the book we were ordered up from the beach to new positions on the west bank of the Tenorue river our orders commanded us to urgency the enemy was expected the Tenoru River lay green and evil like a serpent across the palmy coastal plain it was called a river but it was not a river like most of the streams of Oceana it was a creek not 30 yards wide. So they're placed there to set security. And they're there for a while.

And finally, one night, here we go back to the book. A man says of the eruption of battle, all hell broke loose. The first time he says it, it is true, wonderfully descriptive. The millionth time it has said it has been worn into meaninglessness.

It has gone the way of all, good phrasing it has become cliche but within five minutes of that first machine gun bursts of the appearance of that first enemy flare that suffused the battlefield in unercially greenish light and by its dying accentuated the re-enveloping night within five minutes of this all hell broke loose everyone was firing every weapon was sounding voice but this was no orchestration no terribly Beautiful symphony of death as decadent rear echelon observers write here was a carcophany Here was a carcophony here was dissonance here was wildness here was the absence of rhythm the loss of limit for fires

What when and where he chooses Here was booming sounding shrinking wailing hissing crashing crashing shaking shaking shaking hissing crashing shaking shaking shaking shaking gibberish noise here was hell yet each weapon had its own sound and it is odd with what clarity the trained ear distinguishes each one and catalogs it plucks it out of the general din even though it is intermingled with coincidental with the voice of a dozen others even though one's own machine gun spits and coughs and dances and shakes in caloric fury So it was that our ears pricked, prickled at strange new sounds. The lighter shingle, snapping crack of the Japanese rifle,

the gargle of their extremely fast machine guns, the hiccup of their light mortars. And by the way, the movie the Pacific, or the series of Pacific shows the battle scenes of the Tenoroo River, and they're phenomenal. They do a great job of representing what's just what he's talking about right there. Back to the book, we dive for our holes and gun positions. I jumped the gun, I jumped to the gun with which Chuckler and I had left standing on the bank.

I unclamped the gun and fired spraying my shots as though I are handling a hose. All but one fell. The first fell as though his underpart had been cut from him by a scythe, and the others fell tumbling, screaming. Once again, our gun collapsed, and I grabbed a rifle. I remember it had no sling which had been left near the gun the Jap who had survived The who had survived was deep in the coconuts by the time I found him in the rifle sites There was his back bobbing large and he seemed to be throwing his pack away

Then I fired and he wasn't there anymore Perhaps it was not I who shot him but everyone had found their senses For not everyone had found their senses and their weapons by then but I I boasted that I had. Perhaps too it was a merciful bullet that pounded him between the shoulder blades for he was fleeing to a certain and horrible end. Black nights hunger and slow dissolution in the rainforest. But I had not thought of mercy then. Modern war went forward in the jungle. Men of the first battalion were cleaning up. Sometimes they drove a Japanese toward us. He would cower on the riverbank hiding unaware that opposite him were we already the victors

numerous heavily armed lusting for more blood We killed a few more this way The fever was on us yet it's interesting that he's looking back and thinking to himself that when he kills this Japanese soldier That that was a merciful thing to do because he they haven't suffered yet and he he they haven't suffered yet and They've been on the island for a few days even though they're scared even though they've received fire They haven't gone to the full length of suffering that they're gonna go through So when the battle's over and Lecky gives everyone in the book

He just gives them these really kind of easy to understand nicknames Based on their personality So he talks about this guy here who he calls lieutenant Ivy League which doesn't take a lot of of explanation to picture what that guy is like so here we go back to the book Lieutenant Ivy League strode up to our pits in the morning so this is the battle's over he sat on a coconut log and told us what had happened he smoked desperately and stared into the river as he talked the skin around his eyes was drawn tight with strain and with shock his eyes had already taken on that aspect peculiar to

Guadalcanal that constant stare of pupils that seemed dark Larger rounder more absolute and he kind of gives him a debrief on what happened with the battle That where the Japanese had come from and then he says when he spoke again it was to tell us who had been killed There were more than a dozen from each company besides more than a score of wounded four or five of the dead were from our platoon Tomb of them had been hacked to death A Japanese scouting party had found them asleep in their hole on the riverbank and sliced them into pieces. Our regiment had killed something like 900 of them. Most of them lay in clusters or in heaps before the gun pits commanding the sand spit,

as though they had not died singly but in groups. One of the Marines went methodically among the dead armed with the paramed. pliers he'd observed that the Japanese have a penchant for gold fillings in their teeth often for solid gold teeth he was looting their very mouths he would kick their jaws agape peer into the mouth with all the solicitude of a Park Avenue dentist careful always careful not to contaminate himself by touch and yank out all that glittered he kept the gold teeth in an empty bull durn tobacco sack which he wore around his neck souvenirs we called him that's another

nickname he gives they get they call this guy souvenirs now they're holding in that position and and for a few nights while they were holding this position on the river they would see they didn't know what it was they would see sort of a V in the calm water they would see like a V a disturbance in the water and they couldn't figure out what it was they were scared out of the couple times they shot towards it they didn't know what it was they thought it was a spy or or a scout trying to check him out but they were crocodiles back to the book I took the glasses from him and focused on the opposite shore where I saw

crocodile eating the fat Japanese I watched and debased fascination but when the crocodile began to tug at the intestines I recalled my own presence in that very river hardly an hour ago and my knees went weak and I relinquished the glasses That night the V reappeared in the river so they could see the little ripple in the river Everyone whooped and hollered no one fired we knew what it was It was the crocodile three smaller Vs trailed afterwards so there's even more crocodiles coming They kept us awake crunching the smell kept us awake even though we lay with our head swathed in a blanket

which was now which was how we kept off the mosquitoes the smell overpowered us smell the sense which somehow seems a joke is the one most susceptible to outrage it will give you no rest one can close one's eyes to ugliness or shield the ears from sound but from a powerful smell there is no recourse but flight and since we could not flee we could not escape this smell and we could not sleep we never fired at the crocodiles though they returned to the repast day after day until the remains were removed to mass burning and burial which served as a funeral pyre for the enemy we had annihilated our victory in the fight

which we called the Battle of Hell's Point was not so great and as we had imagined it to be. It was to be but one of the many fights for Guadalcanal, and in the end, not the foremost of them. But being the first in our experience, we took it for total triumph, like those who take the present for the best of all worlds, having no reference to the past,

nor regard for the future. It's a mistake we all make. You know, something good happens, and you think you're the victor. From the high plateau of triumph, we were about to descend into the depths of trial and tedium. The Japanese attack was to be redoubled and prolonged and varied. It would come from the sky, the sea, and the land. In between every trial, there would stretch out the tedium that sucks a man dry,

drawing off the juice from body and soul as a native removes the contents of a stick of sugar cane, leaving it spent, cracked, good for nothing but the flames. And there is terror coming from the interaction of trial and tedium. The first, shaking a man as the wind in the treetops. The second, eroding him as the flood at the roots. So he's got these two things that are working on him. Trial, which is the actual fighting, the actual attacks, and tedium, which is the boring.

them and the waiting and again if you watch the Pacific it does a great job of showing this and one of the things that really got me when I watched that for the first time is it shows this landing and there's nothing happening then you're waiting for it to happen and you know it's gonna happen and you're waiting for it and that was a real that that that that I remember that feeling of being in the streets and you're waiting for it to happen and you're just waiting and it's a you want it to happen Because then you can go. Yeah, just get it over with it. Yeah, but here's he's describing it as like a tree being eroded. So

The first shaking a man as the wind in the treetops the second. So that's that's what that's what the actual thing does to you. It shakes you around, but the tedium The second that's the tedium eroding him as the flood at the roots each fresh trial leaves a man more shaken than the last and each period of tedium With its time for speculative dread, leaves his foundations worn lower, his roots less firm for the next trial. Sometimes there is a final shattering. A man crouching in a pit beneath the bombardment of a battleship might put a pistol to his head and deliver himself. Sometimes it is partial. another man might break at the sound of a diving enemy plane and scream and shudder and wring his hands and rise to run this is the terror i meant this is the terror that strangles reason with the clawing hands of panic

i saw it twice i felt it pluck at me twice but it was rare it claimed few victims so so that's a Really I think that's just a phenomenal way to understand what these guys were going through The waiting and then the trial and then the waiting and then the trial and That's a great description Speculative dread just just thinking about okay. What's the next attack gonna be like? Are we gonna be able to get through it? And you know he's talking about guys killing themselves being so they just can't take it anymore.

They can't take it anymore. And the only way out they can figure is to kill themselves, which is just a horrible, horrible thing. A lot of times criminals will do that, like if they're on their, like fugitives, if they're on the run. True, yeah.

And they're like, when are they going to break down my door and find me and they get that speculative dread and they just turn themselves in? Right. Or I thought you were going to say that sometimes, you know, guys once they're surrounded by the SWAT team. Oh, yeah. Then they just know they just can't take it anymore.

They kill themselves. Yeah, I feel like that's more of them, like, I'd rather dive and go to jail almost kind of thing. But that's speculative dread that are you talking about? Yeah. Even in like jujitsu tournaments, you know, when you're waiting around like, oh, am I up? Am I up?

That's like can be part of the chat. It's the waiting. Yeah, you know, I mean, obviously way more lighthearted than this, but, you know. This. And he, so he says this, and he says it claimed few victims. Meaning it didn't actually most guys sucked it up and you're gonna hear him you know because he says he felt it Yeah twice it plucked at him twice But it wasn't it was rare he says it but it was rare and then he says courage was commonplace

So that was what was normal. What was normal was courage And this is just such a good paragraph or two here Courage was was a commonplace it formed a club or a club or corporation much as do those other common things upon which men for diverse reasons place so great a value like money like charity for it is in the common on which the exclusive rests our muddy machine gun pits were transformed into courage clubs when bombs fell or Japanese warships pounded us from the sea there was protocol to be observed too and it was natural that the poor fellow who might break into

momentary terror should cause pained silences and embarrassed coughs everyone looked the other way like millionaires confronted by the horrifying sight of a club member borrowing five dollars from the waiter and then he says this but there was a bit more charity in our clubs i think We were not quite so puffed up that we could not recognize the ugly thing on our friends face as the elder brother of the thing fluttering within our own innards. You today, me tomorrow. And that's such a powerful thing to think about. When you see someone going through some trouble to be able to recognize like, hey, you know, Echo's going through some issues right now and I'm not looking down at you

I'm not judging you I'm recognizing that what you're going through today Could be what I go through tomorrow and they all felt he felt that you know I see echo losing it and and curling into a ball and not wanting to fight And I recognize that as the older brother of the thing that I actually feel too, but I've got it under control today Tomorrow I might not but today I got under control. That's why I'm not looking down my nose at you and that's why I'm not judging you and I think that forms such a tight bond that these guys had you know these guys had respect enough respect and enough mercy on each other to say look that goes having a hard time right now it's okay we're gonna get him through today I'm not gonna look down

on him and tomorrow it might be me and he's not gonna look down on me powerful stuff we tend to judge yeah especially yeah it seems like they so they can relate you know like echo's at level eight right now he's losing it I'm over at level two

and luckily I can keep the two inside you know yeah but I don't even know when two's gonna be from eight or ten yesterday I was at one so I could very well be at you know but the idea that when you're dealing with other people you try and have their perspective you try and take their perspective

and understand what they're going through and have empathy for what's happening to them. Powerful. Yeah, man. Instead, we tend so often just to want to judge. Yeah. Judge. Back to the book.

At night, Washing Machine Charlie picked up the slack. Washing Machine Charlie so named for the sound of his motors was the nocturnal marauder who prowled our skies. So these are Japanese bombers. Like the dog who's barred.

is worse than its bite the throb of Charlie's motors was more fearsome than thump of his bombs Charlie did not kill many people but like Macbeth he murdered sleep to these trials was added the worst ordeal shelling from the sea enemy warships usually cruisers sometimes battleships stand off your coast it is night and you cannot see them nor could you if it were day as they're miles and miles away we could see the flashes of the guns far out to sea we heard the soft p p p p boom of their salvos then rushing through the night straining like an airy box car came the huge projectiles the earth rocks and shakes upon the terrifying crash of the detonation though it be hundreds of yards away your stomach is squeezed as though a monster a monster hand were needing it into dough you grab gasp for breath like a football player who falls heavily and has the wind knocked

out of him flash Paboon they're lowing their sights it's coming closer oh that one is close the sandbags are falling I can't hear it I can't hear the shell it's the one you don't hear they say the one you don't hear where is it where is it flash Paboo Thank God. It's lifted. It's going the other way. It's daylight now and there are only the bombings to worry about and the heat and the mosquitoes and the rice lying in our bellies like stones. So again the unknown and uncontrollable experience of getting you know hit with mortars or artillery or in this case naval gunfire and again Again, there's no U.S. Navy out there. They're just having their way.

It's a nightmare. They continue to press on, but things are not looking good. Back to the book, everyone kept saying hopefully that the army was coming in next week to relieve us. Everyone was in despair. We heard that the army relief force had been destroyed at sea. Chuckler and I visited the cemetery. It lay to the south off the coastal road that ran from east to west. through the coconuts.

We knelt to pray before the graves of the men we had known. Only palm fronds marked the place where they were buried, although here and there were rude crosses, on which were nailed the men's identification tags.

Some of the crosses bore mess gear tins affixed to the wood like rude medallions, and on those the Marines had lovingly carved their Repetaphs he died fighting a real marine a big guy with a bigger heart our buddy the harder the going the more cheerful he was there was also this verse which I had seen countless times before and since the direct and unpolished cry of a marine sardonic heart and when he gets to heaven so st. Peter he will tell

One more Marine reporting, sir, I've served my time in hell. Now, part of that, part of that despair that they felt came from the fact that they began to feel expendable. Then he goes into that here. All armies have expendable items. That is a part or a unit, the destruction of which will not be fatal to the whole. In some ordeals a man might consider his finger expendable, but not his hand, or in extremity, his arm, but not his heart. There are expendable items which may be lost or destroyed in the field, either in war or in peace, without their owner being required to replace them. A rifle is so expendable, or a cartridge belt.

So are men. Men are the most expendable of all. hunger the jungle the japanese not one nor all of these could be quite as corrosive as the feeling of expendability this was no feeling of dedication because it was absolutely involuntary i do not doubt that if marines had asked for volunteers for an impossible campaign such as guadal canal almost everyone now fighting would have stepped forward but that is sacrifice that is voluntary that is voluntary voluntary being expended robs you of that exaltation the self abnegation the absolute freedom of self-sacrifice being expended puts one in the role of victim rather than sacrificeer and there is always something begrudging in this so luckily they do end up getting some help getting relieved the army shows up to help them out and here we go so we were glad to see the soldiers when they came trudging up to our pits they came after another

air raid a very close one but the thing had not infected them yet war was still a lark their faces were still heavy with flesh their ribs padded their eyes innocent they were older than we and averaged 25 to our average 20 yet we treated them like children now even though they get relieved they're still working and still fighting and they're still suffering back to the book we were growing irritable our strength was being steadily sapped and a sort of physical depression afflicted many of us the rain the rainy season was a upon us. On our exposed ridge, it fell upon us in torrents. A man was drenched in seconds, his teeth chattering at his hands darting swiftly to his precious cigarettes, transferring them to the safety of his helmet liner, cursing bitterly if he had waited too long before becoming conscious of their peril. After cigarettes, we were concerned about our ammunition. On the downward slope of the hill, the rainwater ran into our pits and holes as though they

were sewer receivers. We had to dash for the the pits and lift the boxes of machine gun belts out of the water's way piling them atop one another on the earth and gun platform any dry place in the pit was reserved for ammunition he who sought refuge from the rain had to sit on the water cans there were whole days of downpour where i lay drenched and shivering graysing blankly out of my hole watching as the sheeted gray rain whipped and and the undulated over the ridge. At such times, a man's brain seems to cease to function. It seems to retreat into a depth,

much as the red corpuscles retreat from the surface of the body in times of excitement. One ceases to be rational. One becomes only sedentant, like a barnacle clinging on to a ship. One is aware only of life, of wetness, of the cold gray. rain but without this automatic retreat of reasons a man can go only one way he can only go mad certain level of detachment there just checking out just checking out you're just there but you're not there good place to it's a good place to visit sometimes you know I don't think you want to live there you certainly don't

want to live there but it's a good place to visit Why? I just think I think it's important to get to a point where you're just detaching from your physical suffering and your physical pain and you just say you know what? I'm just turned off and you just retreat like he said you just retreat into almost like nothingness I think it's important Maybe to gain clarity or something. Yeah, I think you gained some clarity and I think it's a I think it's a very important defense mechanism to have. Oh, yeah, huh? You know You know, sometimes when you're doing stuff, you just have to do it. Like you can't think about it anymore. You just have to turn your brain off and go. And I think that's what that's what he's talking about right there.

He's not, he's not participating in it. He's just attaching from it and doing what he's got to do. His body is doing what he's got to do. Now they, they're, there's this whole time they're expecting to be relieved. They're expecting to get pulled off the island. and one of the sergeants comes out and makes an announcement to him. Stand by to move out in the morning. Yeah, we moving out into a new offensive.

Get all your foul weather gear ready and be sure your guns is oiled up and your ammunition belts dry. Eight Marines will be up to relieve us in the morning. So they think they're going to get relieved and go to a ship and relax and get some relief. That's what relief is, right? But they get told, no, you're going on a new offensive. So they're in, well, here, going back to the book, after nearly five months. By the way, a lot of times you think of the island campaigns in Japan, these are little islands, you know, 10 miles long.

You think, oh, that probably took a week, two weeks, five months. After nearly five months, this runner, and he's going to name all the different guys, the different nicknames, you can hear him. Runner had malaria. Brick barely stirred from the pit except at night. Hoosier and Oak Stump were subject to long periods of depression. Red had long since left us. I had dysentery.

Chuckler was irritable. All of us were emaciated and weakened beyond measure. But we were to move out on the attack. We could not move to chow without gasping for breath, but we were to move on the enemy. We despaired. In the morning, we crouched by our guns and waited for the order to dismantle them and move out. It did not come. Nor did it come the next day or the next, and hope came creeping back, blushing,

ashamed of her disloyal flight, but commending herself to us once more with the promise never again to desert the ramparts. Then one morning, the word came to move out. Sergeant Dandy gave it to us. Leave the guns behind, he said. Take only your rifles and foul weather geared. He grinned. We're being relieved. It was December 14th, 1942.

We had been on the lines without relief since August 7th. My battalion, the 2nd Battalion, First Regiment, was the last of those in the first Marine Division to come out of the lines Guaddle Canal was over We had won And next he's They get pulled back off the island now

And he's climbing aboard the ship of the board cargo nets He's exhausted I was able to reach the top of the net but could go no further I could not muster the strength to swing over the gunwale And I hung there breathing heavily The ship's hot side side swaying away from me in the swells the very perdition lapping beneath me until two sailors grabbed me out of the armpits and pulled me over i fell with a clatter among the others who had been so

brought aboard and i lay with my cheek pressed against the warm grimy deck my heart beating rapidly not from this exercise but from happiness and he ends up having a sailor a conversation him and his buddy chuckler who's like one of his best friends They they are end up having a conversation with one of the sailors and He said the soldiers seem surprised he says you mean Guadalcanal. A guy says was it rough? How was it rough? Rough we answered mechanically then Chuckler spoke up you mean Guadalcanal? The soldier seemed surprised Sorry the conversation with the soldier that was on the ship that hadn't been to Guadalcanal the soldier seemed surprised of course I do chuckler hastened to explain I wasn't being wise I meant had you ever heard of the place before you got here his astonishment startled us an idea was dawning you mean hell yes guadal canal the first marines everybody's heard of it you guys are famous you guys are heroes back home we did not see him leave for we have

had both looked away quickly, each embarrassed by the quick tears. They had not forgotten. And again, I kind of breezed through that part in the book. But a lot of times when they were in those moments of despair, they'd be thinking, no one knows what's going on here. They don't know how bad at this. But the reality was, was this war or this battle that lasted five months. There was all kinds of reporting and the glory of the Marines and what they were doing.

And so they were, I guess, you know, they were just overwhelmed with the fact that this soldier had said, you guys, are you kidding me? Goral Canal, this is it. Now, after they leave Goral Canal, they get some much needed R&R. Rest and relaxation, they get to go to Australia to do this. And they go into the book. Of all the regiments, ours, the first, was in the most advantageous position for the great debauch. Discipline already dissolved in the delicious squeals of the girls all but disappeared that night. We'd received part of our six months arrears of pay in Australian pounds, but we were issued no clothing.

We still wore our disheveled dungarees. So you can imagine, these guys are coming off of Guadalcanal. Hell and now they're rolling into Australia and and they describe it here the girls are waiting for them these are the heroes of Guadalcanal So they roll in and they get after it in the way that we talked about earlier They start they start just they're they're going crazy and He and this is one of the things I loved about this book is that this that Robert Lecky is so real He's so real. He's just a he's just real and and guess what he likes to do he likes to get after it He goes out he drinks they drink they chase women. He goes hard

And he ends up getting in some getting a little getting some trouble and He talks about brig rats basically guys that have been thrown in the brig which is which is the military jail and on a ship they actually have a little brig you know a little jail you know a little jail room and you can get thrown in there and so he talks a little bit about that it is most especially a marine sediment sentiment and when analyzed it turns out to be not shameless or shocking but merely this a man who lands in the brig is apt to be a man of bold spirit and independent mind who must occasionally rebel against the harsh and unrelenting discipline of the camp I am not attempting to exalt what should be condemned.

I'm not suggesting that because of their boldness or independence, the brig rats be forgiven and escape punishment. Brigged they must be and brigged they were. Nor am I speaking of the habitual brig rat. The steady maliner, who the good for nothing, who is more often in the brig than out of it and who seeks to avoid every consequence of his uniform, even fighting. I speak of the young, high-hearted soldier whose very nature is bound to bring him into conflict with military discipline and to land him unless he's exceptionally lucky in the brig.

I speak of chuckler and chicken and oak stump and a dozen others, and of course, of myself. So he's saying, look, you got guys that are high-spirited, Go-getters and they're gonna they're gonna get after it on the battlefield and they're gonna get after it on Liberty and sometimes they're gonna get rolled up unless they're super lucky and that doesn't make them bad people and I had one of my buddies Get in really big trouble this is when we were young guys Back in the day back in the day one of my bros He got in big trouble and I thought that our officer who's one of the best officers I ever work for I thought he was gonna really be you know know just crush him and and and I thought he's gonna be really disappointed and all these horrible things and this is a guy the officer was a guy that we all loved and wanted to

always impress and we wanted to do a good job for and so when my buddy had this big incident that he did which you know he was drunk and got crazy and you know got arrested and all that all that bad stuff and I talked to our oh I see about it and I said hey sir you know it's I mean what's gonna happen with my buddy And the officer goes, hey, you guys are young warriors and things like this are going to happen. Don't let them happen much, but they're going to happen and we'll deal with it. And I will say to myself, I wonder why I love this guy so much, but that's exactly it. You know, he knew that, that, you know, you had young, rambunctious guys full of testosterone and then you add alcohol into the equation and you add chaos into the equation.

Some guys might get in trouble. Again, I hate to give that credence to this type of stuff. Because when I look back, I wish I would have been a better leader. I wish I would have been doing other things, you know. But if you're in a leadership position and you've got guys like this and you condemn them instead of trying to help them, you're not helping them. It goes back to this judgment thing that we talked about earlier. If I'm looking at you saying, oh, you don't, you got in trouble. You're a bad person.

I don't want you on this team instead of saying hey look we got to get you under control you got the right attitude you got the lot of energy let's focus it on somewhere correct let's focus it on something good let's get you doing something positive instead of doing something negative instead of sometimes guys go into the judgmental mode you know I'm just going to judge you and oh you got in trouble so you're bad that's the wrong attitude to have how about you got in trouble how about me as leader I let you down I didn't show you the right way to expend your energy I didn't give you the opportunity to give you an outlet for this This aggression that you have because you

Aggression you're gonna have that means fighting You don't think you get a you get a guys that are in the military You want someone in your platoon do you want them to be not aggressive Of course you want me I want the most aggressive bastard you can imagine and guess what if you don't give them to something to do with that aggression? They're gonna find something to do with it and it's not gonna be Good. So as a leader, let's find something positive that they can do with their aggression. Yeah, it's not like he's out there.

Not like it's known, you know, like in your case. You thought he was going to get severely punished, you know? Right, right, right. So it's like, it's not like he's out there publicly saying, hey, that's cool. Do what you got to do, player. You're right. But when it happened. Yeah, it's like.

And I think truly that officer who is a great guy, he truly probably felt exactly what I just said I should have given them a better outlet for this aggression you know I should have let I should have figured something better out for them to do we got to do something you give us idle hands and pockets full of money can you imagine these guys are getting six months pay and rolling it they were the richest guys in the world I guarantee it you know especially you rolling into wartime Australia I mean you know how stringent they were with with the restricting the money that people were using and spending all over the world to save money for the war and here come these guys in richest guys ever heroes of Guadalcanal you think

they're gonna get after it they're gonna get after it yeah so as leaders what we need to do is give them a proper outlet right right because those guys want to get after it but you got to give them the right way yeah you know you got to give them something positive that they can work on and if you're gonna let them do something negative then let's put some barriers around them so they don't get into trouble I wish I would have known this when I was a when I was coming up I would have done more positive stuff instead of more negative stuff. So now we get into the trouble piece. And he's got so many great stories about how these guys, what these guys were going through.

And this, so they're out. He's out drinking. And one of his buddies, the guy that I mentioned before, his name is Chuckler, Chuckler's actually on duty. So he's standing duty, which means he's in uniform. He's not allowed to drink. He's watching and he's being, you know, He's on duty.

And so here we go. I found Chuckler standing glumly outside the slop shoot entrance. He'd hoped for the interior guard where he might sneak a beer or two. I'll get you one, I promised. I returned with a big glass out of which Chuckler might take a surreptitious sip. There were more sidels until Chuckler said, I got to go to the head. Here, cover for me.

He gave me his pistol belt and helmet and made off. So now, Lecky's drunk right now. Okay, so. But Chocler says, hey, man, I'm going to take a piss. Here, take my helmet, take my pistol. Cover for me. For a century to be drunk and then to desert his post and surrender his weapon is to combine cardinal sin with unforgivable offense. I was anxiously hoping that he would hurry back.

but then an unfortunate thing happened Lieutenant Ivy League came striding down the corridor I say it was unfortunate because Ivy League was the officer of the day more than that he was still the man who had filched my cigars the enlisted men's cigars if you will so at one point he had gotten a hold of some cigars and this officer had taken him and by the way also you know Robert Lecky he's

Irishman and I'm not gonna you know make a generalization oh wait yes I am he's a hot-tempered Irishman and so he sees this he sees this guy and then he's drunk he just got off Guadalcanal and here's what happens back to the book my anger was nourished by the alcohol within me and I drew Chuckler's pistol and pointed at him and said stop where you are you lousy cigar stealing son of a bitch or I'll blow your gentleman's ass off. So, not good.

And he ends up getting in pretty significant trouble. And he actually gets bread and water, which they still do that in the military. They get bread and water. You can get, he gets bread and water for five days. So in the break, bread and water for five days. That's the punishment that he gets.

And he gets docked pain. He gets busted down in rank. One time, I was on a ship deployed broken a dirty and we were in a seal platoon and I think I've told the story before it was the one where the Marines like we would stay on the ship when we pulled into port and It would it would take like an hour to get off the ship because everyone would be waiting in line and so what we would do is we would just work out for that hour hour and a half and then would go up we could just walk right off the ship well in that hour and a half and the Marine this this young Marine had gone off the ship and was getting carried back on to the ship like passed out drunk covered in Pukin in an hour and a half

So that's what I think of what I think of these poor guys can you imagine coming off of Guadal canal you haven't even had water for six months never mind alcohol It's a nightmare But and of course they they don't punish him too bad Well they they punish him, but they got to keep you know I mean he's an able-bodied marine. They're not gonna they're not gonna waste an able-bodied Body Marine and hopefully the colonel in the back of his mind was thinking himself you know what I want this guy in my I want this guy with me you know this guy that's just gonna you stole cigars from me Yeah cool he's nuts threat in your life yeah he's getting nuts So they but now Australia ends they roll back out and it's time for them to start getting prepared to

They go to they go to New Guinea and if you remember New Guinea that's another hard battle was fought there primarily by the Australians. It don't know if it was primarily, but the Australians definitely fought because I read that letter from the Australian soldier to his two-year-old daughter. That's where he died was in New Guinea. But now New Guinea is owned by the allies

and they go there to train to start to prepare for their next big push. And here we go back to the book. The truck climbed a series of small hills and finally deposited us in the middle of a field of Kunai grass, our new home. This is how the Marines train their men. Keep them mean and nasty like starving beasts, says the Corps,

and they will fight better. When men are being moved from one place to another, spare no effort to make it painful. And before they've arrived at their destination, dispatch a man ahead to survey the ground with an eye toward discomfort. So you hear this all the time that that's what the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps is going to make you so pissed off. By the time you're going to battle, you're just going to kill everybody

because you're so sick of living in the dirt. Now they do a decent amount of training, and now they're preparing to assault another island called New Britain. And this is, I found this very interesting. So back to the book, the commander called us together that night, delivered an eve of battle speech. He spoke in deliberate but angry tones.

He spoke like a man who hated the Japanese as though he had suffered a personal affront at their hands and was bent on personal vengeance as though this were a personal not mechanical war. His harangue seemed unreal. It was unreal because it could never produce the desired effect. Kill the Japs, the commander was saying. want you to kill Japs and I want you to remember that you're Marines we've got a tough job where we're going and Where we're going you won't have much room for ammunition so you'd better be sure you see something before you shoot Don't squeeze the trigger until you've got meat in your sights and when you do spill blood

Spill Yeller blood that was all We walked back to the tents It was Christmas Eve and I find this it's Christmas Eve he gets this speech and you can see like he's sitting here if they're thinking okay this guy's trying to get him all riled up and it's not having any impact and this is what I found to be the real dichotomy here at the tents Father Strait was preparing to say midnight mass so they have a chaplain there Catholic chaplain Father Strait and Here's what he says. Father Strait spoke gently. He reminded us that not all of us would live to see another Christmas that perhaps some of us might die this very day.

He told us to be sorry for our sins, to ask the forgiveness of God, to forgive those who had wronged us, to prepare our souls for death. We sang hymns. 1900 and 40 odd years ago The babe had been born in Bethlehem And we celebrated him this night

In a dark and misty forest That his father had wrought We sang him We sang hymns to him Silent night And hark the herald angels sing Mild he lays his glory by Born that man no more may die

and tomorrow our hands would be stained with the blood of our brothers but we sang on half-heartedly half-hopingly sometimes mechanically sometimes with a desperate driving poignancy one hand on the heart the other on the hilt of a bayonet in the morning we marched down to the ships so much more impactful on him was what father straight and much more than the fiery colonel that said we're going to go kill japs here these guys are i mean can you imagine you go in for comfort to midnight mass christmas eve and you get told that many people many of you may die this very day and to prepare your soul for death that's what these guys are facing That's what their most trusted, the most trusted person in our lives, right?

Their spiritual counselor is telling them prepare for death. Yeah. Kind of like what we talk about sometimes where you get a guy, like if you're watching a video, you know, and it's a guy getting you fired up, you know? He's getting fired up to get you fired up. Sometimes they can work, but a lot of times that won't really work because you kind of feel like he's trying to sell you something. Yeah. But then if you hear someone maybe even talking to someone else or. talking about something else and you just kind of extrapolate

certain things that get you fired up because it's so authentic it's basically the indirect approach on your own mind yeah right mind yeah yes back to the book on the sunless shores of new Britain where the rainforest crowded steeply down to the sea we of the first marine division came back to the assault and it was here that we cut the Japanese to pieces literally when that devouring jungle did not dissolve them and it was here that we pitied them now to pity the enemy is either madness or is it a sign or it is a sign of strength i think that with the first marine division on new britain it was a sign of strength we pitied him in the end this fleeing foe disorganized demoralized

crawling on hands and knees even in that dissolving downpour. For, in the end, it was we, the soft, a feat, Americans who had learned to get along in the jungle and who bore up the best beneath the ordeal of the monsoon, and in these things lay our strength. And I'll tell you what I think that boils down to. So what they're saying here is, you know, the Americans, what do people around the world think of the Americans? Even in 1943, Americans are soft. Americans are lazy.

Americans, they have too much comfort. And you think the exact opposite of the Japanese, especially in World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army, it was highly disciplined. It was extremely strict. It was a Spartan lifestyle. But look at what happened here. And why is that?

And I'll tell you why in my opinion. I will tell you why because you have men that are fighting for freedom They're fighting for freedom and that makes all the difference in the world fighting for individual freedom Fighting for their personal freedom and fighting for their nation's freedom and fighting for their nation's freedom and it's a nation that is based upon freedom That right there is stronger than any tyrannical government Mm-hmm or any fanatical

idea The idea of freedom is stronger than them all And that is why these quote soft Americans That is why They were able to conquer and defeat this enemy This hardened enemy this well-trained enemy And this well-trained enemy and this talks a little bit about what we were facing to the north one patrol discovered the body of an e company scout who had been reported missing the area bore the marks of a struggle as though he had fought hand to hand

his body bore dozens of bayonet wounds they had used him for bayonet practice in his mouth they had stuffed flesh they had cut from his arm his buddies said he had a tattoo there the The green emblem, the fouled anchor and the globe. The Japs cut it off and stuffed it in his mouth. The commander was angry. Again to the north, two Japanese officers had been caught snooping around our positions and had been killed. An e-company outpost, scouting the terrain at their front, had discovered a Japanese force in platoon strength. Sleeping. Sleeping on the ground, sleeping.

They fired into them. into these sleeping supermen of the jungle withdrawing upon the approach of another enemy platoon and after this after the bulk of the battle takes place and it was fair it was it was it was it was it was not a fair fight and you're about to find out why back to the book four Japanese soldiers and one officer had been taken alive and had been brought down to the CP their arms bound behind them Knives at their throats and from them we learned that the third company 53rd regiment of the Japanese 17th division had been dispatched from the main body at Cape

Gloucester to defend against our landing their passage had been through near impenetrable jungle and they had not arrived on the scene until two days after our own coming Nevertheless they attacked us they attacked us some 100 of them against our force of some 1200 and but for the prisoners we had annihilated them were they brave or fanatical what had they hoped to gain had their commander really believed that a company of Japanese soldiers could conquer a battalion of American Marines experienced confident better armed and placed on higher ground why did he not turn around and marched his men home again was it because no Japanese soldier can report failure cannot lose face I cannot answer

Our dead were six men, among them the stubby and trepid obi, whom I'd last seen in Melbourne, so drunk he could barely stand, whose gun pit had been overrun when the Japs overwhelmed the section of the lines in their first silent rush up the hillside. Oby, who had helped to drive them out in the counterattack, and who had been alternatingly firing and hurling imprecations at them until one of their bullets took him squarely in the forehead. may he rest in peace the Japanese dead lay in heaps on the hillside and they filled the trench where Obie's gun had been located so that shows the will of the Japanese fighters no doubt about it they were

hardcore and they got told to attack with a hundred guys against 900 or 1200 and they said all right let's do this now the life the existence In this jungle was harsh. Back to the book, the puffing of my lips and eyes symbolized the mystery and poison of this terrible island.

Mysterious. Perhaps I mean to say New Britain was evil, darkly and secretly evil, a malefactor, an enemy of humankind. An adversary really dissolving, corroding, poisoning, chilling, sucking, drenching, coming at a man with its rolling mists, green mold, and ceaseless downpour. tripping him with his numberless roots and vines, poisoning him with green insects and bugs and treacherous tree bark, turning the sun from his bones and cheer from his heart,

dissolving him. The rain, the mold, the damp, steadily plucking each cell apart, like tiny hands tearing at the petals of a flower, dissolving him. I say into a mindless, formless fluid, like the sop of mud into which is here. feet forever fall in a monotonous slop suck slop suck that is the sound of nothingness the song of the jungle wherein everything falls apart in hollow harmony with the rain nothing could stand against it a letter home had to be

read and reread and memorized for it fell apart in your pocket in less than a week a pair of socks Sox lasted no longer. A pack of cigarettes became sodden and worthless unless smoked that day. Pocket knife blades rusted together. Watches recorded the period of their own decay. Rain made garbage of the food. Pencils swelled and burst apart. Fountain pens clogged and their points separated.

Rifle barrels turned blue with mold and had to be slung upside down to keep out the rain. Bullets stuck together in rifle magazines and machine gunners had to go over their belts daily, extracting and oiling and reinserting the bullets to prevent them from sticking to the cloth loops. And everything lay damp and sodden and squashy to the touch, exuding that steady, musty reek that is the jungle's own, that individual odor of decay rising from vegetable life so luxuriant, growing so swiftly, that it seems to hasten the decomposition from the moment of birth. It was into this green hell that we were inserted a day or two after the marred. March and here was fought that battle with the rainforest here the jungle and the men were locked in conflict

far more basic than our shooting war at the Japanese for here the struggle was for existence itself the war was forgotten who could comprehend it who cared and what do you say and I have not spent that much time in the jungle I spent some I think of the longest I've been in the jungle Maybe a month and it wasn't as bad as this it wasn't raining is that much But I can't even imagine just that constant there's no escape from it There's no escape from it and it's even worse for lecky and I'll tell you why back to the book I would be wet not only from the rain for sometimes it stopped and at other times it did not fall so fast that a jungle hammock could not repel it but because an affliction which I had begun which had begun the moment I left

Australia was now again active it had begun during the discomforts of Guadal Canal had disappeared in the civilized living of Melbourne and had reappeared on good enough island New Guinea and now on New Britain I laid I learned later from doctors to call it en uresis when asleep the bladder empties and that is that so he puts that really nicely

but here's what's going on because of the stress that he's under when he goes to bed he pisses in his pants and it's just he can't stop it

and there's nothing he can do about it and it won't go away in fact it went away it will go away when the stress stops when he went to melbourne it's all good it stops get back out there in the stress of combat the stress of the environment and when he goes to bed he pisses himself

and certainly he made a decision to put that in this book for a reason and there is it does fall into the story a little bit but the reason I love that he put it in there is because it's just another thing that he's dealing with. And he's not even ashamed of it.

He said, yeah, I can't, yeah, I'm stressed out. I'm scared. And I'm pissing myself. But guess what? I'm still going on patrol. Back to the book. The last patrol was a prolonged one of several days. We were taken by landing boat down the east coast to a place called Old Natimo.

And they're deposited. The place had once been inhabited by the Japs, but all their emplacements were now empty. Those of the enemy who were discovered were in the last extremities of ordeal. Some were overtaken, crawling on their hands and knees. Some so badly decomposed it was as though their feet were rotting off. Some weighing perhaps no more than 80 pounds. some without weapons all without food and all possessed of that indomitable fighting spirit that was the Japanese Imperial Army's greatest asset the one single factor that made a poorly

equipped soldier a first-rate foe they all resisted and they were all destroyed bayoneted for the most part for it was file for it was folly to fire on patrol in unfriendly unknown territory. One of these stragglers was strangled in cold blood by the kid, a youngster who, although already a veteran of Guadalcanal, was hardly acquainted with a razor. He would go mad two months later. So they come up across these Japanese total 80 pounds.

Malnourished. Some of them didn't even have weapons and they're just trying to fight anyways. he ends up with a hernia. So Lecky ends up with a hernia. And he gets pulled off to go take a look at his hernia. And they say, yeah, you got a bad hernia. But it's not bad enough. You're going back to the front.

Then the army comes and replaces them there. And next move is they go to train at a place called Pavu. Pabuu Island are doing another training to get ready for another island campaign and here we go back to the book the food was bad too and the tents were rotten and punctured with holes there was no water except what was caught in our helmets during the night we bathed by dashing naked into the rain soping ourselves madly in a race against the probability of the rain ceasing and being left streaked with sticky soap and we washed our clothes by boiling them in cans of rainwater

Our jungle rot had become so bad, so persistent, that there was an appointed time each afternoon for the men to take off their shoes and socks and to lie out on their sacks with corrosive feet thrust out into the sun. But we had borne all this before, and we could bear it again. Nor could mere bad food or leaky tents press upon the ardor of my comrades. It was the death of hope that bore us down. There had always been hope, hope of relief, hope of the sun, hope of victory, hope of survival, but when they came and told us that none of us were going home on rotation, we strangled hope

and turned into wooden soldiers. The future looked to innumerable enemy-held islands and innumerable assaults, and we had already noticed how the ranks of the New River Originals were dwinded. with every action there were even a few suicides to suggest how despairing some could find the situation then the thing changed they came and said half of the originals could go home so these guys get the word hey look we're preparing for another assault but half of you originals are gonna go home there was joy and then once the method of selection for the stateside bound became known, there was anger. There would be a drawing,

a state side lottery, in which men's names were pulled from a hat, but only the names of those who had never been in trouble. I was among those whose name did not go into the hat, and so was Runner and Hoosier and Chicken and Souvenirs and a host of others. It seemed that the originals of the 2nd battalion 1st Marines had been neatly divided into good guys and bad guys among us there raged a profane anger i know now how a convict must feel upon being turned down a job after after job after job because of its past that was what disqualified us our past it made no difference that we had been punished yes punished again and again for to become customary to solve all problems of selection this way by marking brig rats for dirty duty and excluding

them from special benefits nor did it matter that we had good war records in retrospect it's easy to forgive my commanders this but then it was hard it was too much like being unfairly condemned to death the injustice of it overwhelmed me and I burned with a resentment that was dangerous to carry around. So what a, what a nightmare. They say, look, we're going to have a little lottery. Some of you guys are going to get home. Everyone's happy. And they say, by the way, if you've been in any trouble, you don't get on the list.

And that's a death sentence. The way he's seen it right now. They're seen it as a death sentence. We're going to keep doing this island hopping campaign. We're going to keep going. There's all these innumerable. Islands that need to be taken down you're gonna be on all of them and you've already seen X number of guys that you had killed And you're gonna keep going until you're killed and so this was like a death sentence

You know meanwhile the guys who might be able to go there just they're right there yeah, and you're like right next to you Yeah, man and those guys probably did a lot of the same crap Yeah, yeah yeah So the back to the book mine your my en ureis was more noticeable than before perhaps to the agitation of the moment aggravated it I know that the men in my tent had been urging me to report it to sick bay I did the doctor who knew of my case ordered me to Benica I was leaving in the morning so with that he basically says okay you know what I'm pissing on myself the guys have been telling me to go see the doctor about it I haven't done that

I have a hernia I'm going to go to medical So he goes to medical and the doctor says, okay, you're going to go to Benica and Benica is a island where they just are set up to handle wounded. And when he gets to Benica, it's kind of shocking. Back to the book. Bonica was a flesh pot. Bonica was the big town. Benica was Broadway. Benica had women.

It had buildings of steel and wood. It had roads. It had thousands of sailors as sleek as campons. It had movie amphitheaters. It had electric lights. It had canteens overflowing with candy and comforts. And Benica had beer. Walking with the others from the beach to the Navy Hospital,

I felt like a hick on his first visit to New York. Jeeps and trucks and staff cars swept over the island's roads, raising a busy cloud of dust. Cranes croaked and cranked on the beach, loading and unloading the boats. MPs patrolled a stockade of pointed sticks behind which dwelt the women, the Navy nurses and red crossworkers. Everyone was well-fed and unworried. The seat of every pair of pants was filled and happy.

We, the lean ones who wore our discontent on our faces and carried our nervous impatience in our hands, must have been a disturbing presence in that purring island incubator. Yet as I walked along, I was filled with the uneasy suspicion that it would be the image of Benika and not Pavuvu that would be presented to America as the Pacific War. They do the pretty good job of this in the Pacific in the series. Not as good as they maybe could have done because they show the guys coming on to a beach

and there's nurses and they're dressed in like beautiful clean white and they're literally handing out lemonade and it's such a contradiction to what they've been living so you get that but but this image is even crazier in my mind of coming on this island you'd be coming off Pavuvu you're living in the hell and here these guys are whatever a quick flight away and they've got movie theaters

and they've got beer and they've got women running around it's just totally totally different And I've talked about that a bunch of times on here. Like, you could be, you could be in World War, too. But if you were on the island of Benica, wasn't that much of a sacrifice as it was compared to somebody that was on the island happening campaign. Just, it's not. And it's the same thing.

You know, there's places I was in Iraq where I would say, God, this is crazy how nice this is. They got a swimming pool. Some of the base said swimming pools. They got a nice gym. They got a nice chow hall. Then you'd go out to some outstation in the middle of, or some, some, forward operating base and these dudes would be living hard totally different for different people now lecky gets put basically into a psych ward they want to look at him and he's he starts having

this conversation with a psychologist and I think this is a very important conversation back to the book he began to question me about my experiences in war and as I told them to him he shook his head from side to side as though to indicate that my whole division not only myself ought to be psychoanalyzed then we talked of books for he was well read and philosophy suddenly he broke it off and said what did you say you were meaning what was he saying like what did you did in the Marine Corps a scout I said proudly I used to be a machine gunner and the doctor says back but that's no place for a

man of your caliber now I was shocked the old Shibboleth intelligence had not our government been culpable enough in pampering the high IQ draftees as as though they were too intelligent to fight for their country could not dr. gentle see that I was proud to be a scout and before that a machine gunner intelligence intelligence intelligence keep it up america keep telling your youth that mud and danger are fit only for intellectual pigs keep on saying that only the stupid are fit to sacrifice that America must be defended by the lowbrow and enjoyed by the highbrow keep fainting head over heart and soon the head will arrive at the complete folly of any kind of fight and

meekly surrender the treasure to the first bandit with enough heart to demand it. Be careful. I think that we do a really good job now in America. You get kids that are, you know, there'll be enlisted kids with bachelor's degrees and master's degrees in the army, in the the Marine Corps in the SEAL teams. I don't think we have that as much, but it's definitely something that you need to watch out for. And I think especially,

this goes back to judgment. I posted that the other day. I met some young Marine. Not a young Marine, but you know, a guy's probably 25, 27 years old. And he came into the gym. And, you know,

so I was like, oh, he was in the Marine Corps. That's awesome, man. What did you do in the Marine Corps? He was like, I was a machine gunner. Like, yes. Like yes, that's awesome and it But to have somebody think Oh, you were just a machine gunner you must know

No, no Being a machine gunner should be a Vaunted an elevated position In the world Bless the machine gunners out there Do you want to talk about a person that can get stuff done? Go talk to a machine gunner They'll make some stuff happen They're carrying a big pig of a gunner

around they're laying down fire under pressure put him up with the I'll put the I'll put the machine gunner up against one of these intellectuals any day the week bring it but the machine that it can be an intellectual absolutely absolutely that's the point yeah that's the point right just because someone chooses to do something that's hard doesn't mean that they're not smart right in fact I go so as far as to say they are searching for and and discovering and becoming something that takes a level of mind power to do. Yeah. Kind of like the weak superficial assumption is that, oh, you're going to choose that kind of that hard thing

because it's not really intuitive to just, I'm going to go for the hardest thing. It's intuitive to be like, I'm going to get this easy thing to do because it's easier. So when someone chooses the hard thing to do that the kind of the assumption is that, ah, you had no other choice. Oh, yeah. You know? Yes. Perfect. But no, man, I think that's, I had a guy in high school where he was a year old in us.

And he was like a smart guy and had all his stuff to get a good family. And he went into the army. And I remember some people were like kind of surprised because it's like, oh, you're going just to the army that, you know. Just like Dr. Gentle here. Oh, what are you doing that for? Because I want to be a machine gunner Yeah That's why

Yeah Props to the machine gunners Now Out on this island He's there He spends like a month And They're sitting down to watch a movie

At the theater I remember one time We had the awesome CBs That worked for We're in Ramadi with us And so they're building They're building bunkers I'm not kidding

Like what were their priority builds when they were in Ramadi with me on our little camp camp mark Lee the priorities that they were working on were bunkers were security walls on the river getting barbed those are the priorities they were working on and my lead CB my CB chief he's he had to go to our headquarters for a couple days to get money and get equipment and whatever and when he came back he was a great dude his name name was biggie and he was big another one of those things yeah yeah no his he would he would he would he would like his warm-up sets on bench were 315 he was big and he was strong

yeah he was strong and he came back and you know he says he says hey sir coming back from Fallujah I was like oh everything cool out there he goes let me tell you something I was like what's that biggie he says you know what they're building out there I said No, I have no idea. I don't care what they're building those because they're building a theater. I said, what? He said, they're building a theater. I said, you mean a movie theater?

He goes, yes, a theater. And he was just beside himself. Because here we were trying to build bunkers and security walls. They were building a theater. Biggie didn't like that. But those CVs, man, they kept us, they kept everything wrong and rolling. Props, once you were props to the machine gunners? Props to the Cs.

for sure so they're in a theater that had been built out here and the movie began there was an interruption over a public address system a voice announced allied troops have just invaded northern France the second front has been opened cheers and shouts rose into the soft night to be followed by a buzz of excitement but then the film began and silence was restored I arose and left the amphitheater my heart throbbing in excitement it was difficult to comprehend this excitement It was a mix of thrill and pride but predominating was the heartbeat of anxiety for suddenly it had been born in upon me That great events were happening that the war was now rushing downhill to victory and here I was clad in pallid pajamas and robe lounging around

hospital yearning came upon me in a rush and I wept hurrying along the dark road back to the hospital I wanted to rejoin my comrades so he goes into see doctor gentle goes into his office and basically they work it out back to the book there's not much we can do for this trouble of yours the hospital commander told me there's no carrying it out here what you need is a change of climate and a less nerve Racking assignment. You're shipping me back to the state, sir? I asked.

He smiled wainly. Ordinarily, yes. Unfortunately, you Marines can't go home unless you're carried home. So we're sending you back to duty with the suggestion that your commanding officer have the sentry wake you during the night. I laughed and he laughed and Dr. Gentle laughed because they knew that's not something that's feasible. What they're basically saying is you're going to go back and you're just going to piss yourself

and you're going to fight and that's exactly what he wanted gets back there and now back to the book we left pavu victors of guadal canal and new britain we went out to fight again marching into the open-jawed landing craft driven up on the beach never before were we so confident of victory never again would its price be so high pelaloo was all already a holocaust the island flat and almost featureless was an altar being prepared for the emulation of 17,000 men so they're going on to pellaloo and here we go right into it they're in their landing craft the water began to erupt in little geysers in the air became populated with exploding steel the enemy was saluting us they were receiving us with mortar and artillery fire

10,000 Japanese awaited on the island of Pelulu 10,000 men as brave and determined and skillful as ever a garrison was since the art of warfare began skillful. Yes, it was a terrible rain and it did terrible work among us before we reached the beach Our Amtrak was among the first assault waves yet the beach was already a litter of burning blackened amphibian tractors of dead and wounded a mortar garden of exploding mortar shells. Holes had beer scooped in the white sand or had been blasted out by the shells. The beach was pocked with holes, all filled with green-clad, helmeted marines.

We were pinned down. We were pinned down, but not by mortars alone. Machine-gun fire came from an invincible outpost which the Japanese had blasted out of a coral jutting into the bay. We found an opening in it and even then we're filling it with all manners of small armed fire Grenade sticks of dynamite hurled by men who had crept up to it or billowing fire from the flamethrowers who had also gained the hole But the answering fire continued to rake our deadly picnic ground and the reason for that is here for the Japanese had possessed Pelaloo for two decades

And had blasted into the coral a network of mutually supporting caves so that so these they've been there for 20 years preparing for this and so they've got this massive cave network and even to every time they hit one of these locations the more guys would just pop up and they also the Japanese also had tanks on pellaloo back to the book their tanks swooped in suddenly upon us they came tearing across the airfield a dozen or so of them it was startling they'd come out of nowhere and here were only riflemen and machine gunners to oppose them there was a violent outburst of gunfire I poked my head above the crater through the lacy branch work of the scrub trees I saw an enemy tank streaking along with

snipers and camouflage hanging on to the rear it was but a moment's glance but at the time my eye caught sight of a Marine from F company a veteran running bow-legged to the rear his face writhing shouting tanks tanks an officer grabbed him and spun him around and kicked him propelled him back to his post. In the crater, we'd prepared for defense, like a caravan, attacked by Indians. The enemy tanks whizzed past their little wheels whirling within the tracks. Machine guns clattered, bazookas whamped, our airplanes came screeching down from heaven. And there rose the detonation of their bombs and the roar of exploding tanks.

To my right, I saw a line of our tanks advancing, firing as they came, seemed to stop each time their guns stuttered. Then it was over. The Jap tanks had been destroyed. I turned to go and as I did nearly stepped on someone's hand. Excuse me, I began to say, but then I saw that it was an unattached hand, or rather a detached one. It lay there alone, open, palm upwards, clean, capable, solitary. I could not tear my eyes from it.

is the artisan of the soul it is the second member of the human trinity of head and hand and heart a man has no faculty more human than his hand none more beautiful nor expressive nor productive to see this hand lying alone as though contemptuously cast aside no longer a part of man no longer his help was to see war in all its wantonness it was to see the especially brutal savagery of our own technique of rending and it was to see men at their eternal worst turning upon one another tearing one another clawing at their own innards with the maniacal fury of the pride possessed not much i can comment on that one back to the book our casualties were extremely heavy before the day was done they

would total 500 in the first regiment something like 20% this on the first day we were advancing again our objective with bloody nose ridge this was the high ground visible from across the airfield it gave the enemy perfect observation advancing across the flat table of crushed coral on which there was hardly a single depression as we were easily cited as clay ducks in a shooting gallery but there was no other route and we had to take it grass cutting machine gun fire swept the airfield mortars mortarshells fell with the calm regularity of automation Marines fell they crumpled they staggered they pitched forward they sank to their knees they fell backwards

they kept advancing. The mortars had stopped. The first F company wave was advancing across the airstrip running low with ranks scattered breasting a withering machine gun fire that had begun to rake the runway. They were falling.

It seemed unreal. It seemed a tableau like a scene from a motion picture. It required an effort of mind to recall that these were flesh and blood Marines. men whom I knew whose lives were linked with mine still more was required in facing up to the fact that my turn was next and here is the point in battle where one needs the rallying cry Here where the banner must be unfurled or the song sung or the name of the cause flung at the enemy like a challenge

Here is the mounted charge the thing as old as warfare itself that either over overwhelms the defense and wins the battle or is broken and brings on defeat how much less forbidding might have been that avenue of death that I was about to cross had there been some holy irrational shout like Viva the Emperor or the Marine Corps forever rather than that educated voice which in a saying Freud that was at all odds with the event said Well, it's our turn now. That's all you're gonna get. That's all you're gonna get these Marines are getting tore apart by machine gun fire by mortar They're getting tore apart Marines are falling left and right they're continuing to advance They're continuing to advance and he's watching this group go across this airfield getting mowed down

He wants some kind of Motivation and what does he get well it's our turn now crazy I bade goodbye to the artist he looked at me sadly from beneath his helmet his face made darker and more angular by its shadow he cast a ruleful glance in the direction of the air strip and the still falling men good luck kid he said and turned away I began to run the heat rose and stifling waves the bullet whispered at times at other times they were not audible I ran with my head low my helmet bumping crazily to obscure my view like waves rising around a small ship in a moment I could not see lieutenant deep chest or filthy Fred I was alone and running there were men to my left

still falling I ran and threw myself down caught my breath rose again and ran again suddenly I ran into a shell crater full of men and And I stopped running. So the only cover that they have is a shell crater. And he dives into this shell crater and there's 10 guys or so in there. And one of them, he's calling this one guy, Waki-Toki. Back to the book, Waukey sat below me on the crater floor. He hunched his shoulders toward me and asked me to twirl certain dials. I did, but he could not seem to get through.

There came the screech of a shell. I braced my back for it even though I knew. that the ones you hear are not the ones to be feared. But how fear the one that gets you? The one you do not hear. Another voice was audible now. The Fifth Marines lieutenant, who was wounded, who was, in fact, dying, as I learned later,

was speaking by walkie-talkie to his regimental commander. The glorious Fifth Marines have gone through, sir, he was saying, and have achieved the objective. We are now in contact with the first regiment. Now, there's 10 guys in there. And finally, one of the captains speaks up. How many men hear from the first Marines, he asked? We raised our hands.

Six, eh? That ought to be enough. We better take that blockhouse over there. That's where all the machine gun fire seems to be, coming from as soon as this shell fire stops we'll move out against it just like that the blockhouse had resisted even naval gunfire it had taken bombs point blank and remained standing it was obviously covered by a maze of pillboxes we six of us were to take it the captain might be stupid but no one could say that he was not gallant I felt disgusted and resigned myself to an unprofitable death I looked at the men from the fifth who were regarding us with wonder and envied them for having retained diplomatic relations with the state of sanity their commander was hardly conscious now but he had heard he

waved a hand weakly in our direction and grinned as though to say you'll never make it but there's no harm in trying And of course, to a dying man, I suppose there was no harm. So you think they're going to do it? Yep, they're going to do it. They're going to charge this blockhouse, six guys, this blockhouse, this is just concrete blockhouse, massive machine gun fire coming from it. They're going to charge this thing.

That took bombs straight up. That took direct hits from bombs. They make a run for it. Back to the book, the shells drove us back to our crater. Once again walkie talkie had difficulty with the apparatus He could receive but not send battalion was asking for positions You better report back to command post captain said to me but come back out So lucky wants to go tell command post what's going on

You can imagine there's just machine gun fire mortar's going off everywhere. He runs back. He gets back to the major At the command post how is it out there lucky the major? The major out there lucky the major is Bad, sir, I said, adding nothing. For my notion of this battle was still a confused jumble of men and movement and explosions in which a blistering hot airfield was somehow involved. Then I arose and said, I better get back out. The Major nodded and waved, good luck. I took firm hold of my Tommy gun and adjusted my pack, secured my map case,

and circled a pile of shell casings to return to the shell crater. It was my last warlike act. For the last time, I set my face toward the enemy. About 100 yards out, a shell exploded in front of me. I veered to the right. Another shell exploded in front of me. I veered more. Another shell.

Another, but closer. Four more. Another closer still. I halted. A horrifying fact became clear. I had inserted myself between the enemy artillery and their target. They were hunting something. Perhaps the ammunition dumped behind me.

and were walking their fire in its direction there was no cover to go forward was to die I could only run away from this approaching death hoping to get out of the target area before it caught me I turned and ran I ran with the heat shimmering in waves of from the coral with the sweat oiling my joints and the fear drying my mouth with the shells exploding behind me closer ever closer the airfield the air filled with the angry voices of shrap demanding my life I ran with an image in my mind of the Japanese gunner atop his ridge bringing each burst carefully closer to my flying rear chasing me across that baking table in a monstrous game of cat and mouse gleeful at each greater burst of speed called forth by a closer explosion and then tiring of sport lifting the gun and dropping one before me a shell landed alongside me perhaps five feet away but it did not explode or least I do not think it did one cannot be

certain at such time there is a different space and time with fear but there was a shell a two-foot blob of burning red which struck the coral with a thunder clap and seemed to glance off into the air and go wailing away into the bay with that I called upon my remaining strength and also then the Japanese gunner hit his target the ammunition dump was hit The war ended for me. I had been shattered. No good.

A dry husk. Modern war had had me. A giant lemon squeezer had crushed me dry. Concussion, heat, thirst, tension, all had had their way with me. I must have stumbled about, unable to speak, until at last I sank my knees beside two men scratching a foxhole in the sand. they were startled as though from afar I could hear them discussing me he can't think what he thinks the matter with him search me he don't look wounded maybe he got a near miss hey fella what's wrong with you can't you say something what do you think we ought to do

with him they rose and pulled me erect got a shoulder a piece beneath my armpits and dragged me like a dummy through the sand life like a like like like a life-sized doll in whom the spring had been broken they dragged me to the doctor a corman laid me on the blanket tied a ticket to me He thrust a needle into my arm which was attached a running hose to a bottle of liquid suspended upside down on a frame on a wire frame The pair who had brought me crouched beside me what's wrong with him doc one of the masked I don't know the Corman answered he's pretty beat up though blast concussion I'm sending him back to the hospital ship One of the pair looked longingly at the Tommy gun beside me. His glance seemed to say you won't need that anymore.

I told him with my eyes to take it. And he slung it over his shoulder with immense satisfaction. Then they left. They had their reward. Mortars were falling as they carried me onto the beach with about a half a dozen other casualties. We lay there and I wondered dully if the Jap gunners were to catch me after all. At last a landing boat took us aboard and roared off for the ship.

ship I began to feel shame the others were badly wounded some put out of pain by morphine and here I lay in a corner quietly retching like a frightened kitten intact my face unblemished my bones unbroken the war was ending I was ashamed my spirit crept away from the eyes staring from the staring eyes that fastened upon us as the boat was drawn up out of the water to the deck people in white coats thronged the rail and two of these at the center gazed with authority into the boat searching for the wounded most in need of aid i shrank from that expert stare when suddenly one of them pointed at me and said him get him downstairs right away they grasped me stripping me naked as they did and hurried me down a ladder laying me on a table and again

thrusting a needle into my arm with the liquid flowing in to my body came the warm flood of returning self-respect. The dull dispiriting shame had disappeared the moment that pointing finger singled me out. I had been hurt. I was in need of aid. With a healing power of which he had no inkling, the doctor had restored my spirit to me. So the war ended for me. Each day for a week, I ascended the ladder to the deck and gazed in morbid fascination at Pelulu a mile or so away. They were still fighting. One could hear the sound of the firing.

Each day, the news was bad. We were winning, but at a fearful price. And then the battle had been won. Extermination had come to the Japanese 10,000 on Pelilu, and my regiment, the first, was licking its wounds on the beach. Of my battalion, a force of some 1,500 men. There remained but 28 effectives when the command came for the last assault on that honeycomb of caves and pillboxes

which the Japanese had carved into bloody nose ridge. In men and blood and agony, the most costly spit of land in the wide Pacific. When the command came, they rose for, their holes like shades from sepulchres and advanced they could not run they could barely walk and they dragged their weapons but they obeyed and they attacked they were taken from the line on the brink of collapse Rutherford was killed he'd been hit by a mortar shell and blown to bits white man

had been killed and the artist the artist was dead a brave man may he rest in peace captain dread not fell dead of a sniper's bullet it had become a holocaust in the fullest sense scores of others in the battalions perished there were those that have not been mentioned in this book friends who did not fit the narrative men whose faces i have not forget gotten and whose bravery and sacrifice has deposited a vast spiritual credit for our nation to draw upon these two fell wrestling that island rock from the grasp of its most tenacious defender may they rest in peace sacrifice says not the blood of your brother my friend your blood that is why women weep when their men go off to war they do not weep for their victims they weep for them as victim that is why

with the immemorial insight of mankind there are gay songs and colorful bands to send them off to fortify their failing hearts not to quicken their lust for blood that is why there are no glorious living but only glorious dead heroes turn traitor warriors age and grow soft but a victim is changeless and sacrifice is eternal sacrifice is eternal close with the book there obviously it's an incredible book incredible men and their eternal sacrifice. It's so humbling to hear of their sacrifice and I say it over and over and over again and I will continue to say it that we must live lives worthy of their sacrifice the 7100 killed at Guadalcanal the 2,336 killed at Pelaloo and all the soldiers sailors airmen and Marines who as Robert Lecky said later in his life

who fought or who foremost fighting the example of Robert Lecky who by his own admission was no angel no plaster saint but who was truly a hero and remember that good and bad qualities and people make mistakes and they do dumb things

and yet those very people are capable of so much and yet so often we judge we judge and we judge and we cast stones judge when a man like Robert lecky lucky lekey who not only drank to excess and chase girls and pulled a pistol on his superior officer and who got so nervous so scared yes I'm gonna call it scared who got so scared that he would lose control of his bladder every time he went to sleep and yet he overcame that fear with more bravery in his heart than most of us can even fathom we shouldn't judge people we should help and there's probably nothing more we can do

to live a worthwhile life than to help people, to help other people. And in helping other people, I promise, be rewarded and you will be helping yourself too. And one more thing that we see in this book,

once again, is the strength of human will. We see vested beyond anything we can imagine. And then when they pass that test one time, they get given that test again and then again. And still, they overcome the pain and the suffering and the fear. We can't get ourselves out of bed in the morning. We can't move toward a goal we've set for ourselves. Don't allow that.

Remember the Tenorue River. Remember the airfield at Guadalcanal. remember the discipline instilled in every Marine at Paris Island and remember what you you remember what you are capable of if you mobilize your will and if you keep moving forward you keep advancing remember what you are capable of if you keep attacking and keep and don't love tonight echo Charles yes while I'm over here doing a little decompression sure maybe you could mobilize your will sure to let people know I don't know how to support this podcast or so I do I will make the disclaimer it doesn't take much

will to do this but I do see it as the time to decompress a little bit bro seriously yeah Can you even imagine? You're getting tested over and over again. You're going through the hardest possible tests. With dysentery and a hernia. With dysentery and hernia. You're pissing yourself. Your friends are getting killed.

You pass that test through some miracle. And they're like, yeah, you got another test. Yeah. Right. Let's do it again. Yeah. But to prepare you for the test, we're going to make you suffer more. And then so you get tested again.

That's cool. But it doesn't matter. It's not the final exam. You're gonna do it again And you know again I say this all the time this is Thousands and thousands and thousands of people did this It's not it's not that's what's that's what's important to remember This isn't this is a civilian this guy was a civilian

Yeah it sounds like this crazy extreme This is all the cases. Yes, this is a lot of cases This is all the cases he talks about he says look courage was common There was a rare case where we'd get touched by this fear and it would overtake guys and if we bolster them back up the best we could but this isn't an anomaly this isn't the story of the singular hero right this is the story of thousands and thousands of heroes and this is the story of what people are capable of people are capable of this it's proven yeah and when you think you can't

take any more guess what you can yeah amazing you know well if i got Dysentery I wouldn't get out of bed straight up don't let alone all this other stuff Yeah, I'm in bed maybe I'd go to the hospital or something like that but then my point Hospital bed even echo Charles could employ the will in carry on with dysentery Yeah with I even say he got malaria too by the way, you know just that my thought is his friend He got it too his friend got malaria but he got right right got it. That's when they went to look at his hernia They're like hey you got to go back to the front oh but you got malaria Yeah, suffer through that for whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah. And that's four days. Okay, now you can go back. Okay, you're good now? Okay, okay. Guys are just unbelievable. All right. Well, I feel like we should talk about on it then.

That sounds like a great thing to talk about. I'll let you talk about it. I'm going to sit over here and decompress. Well, okay, so I'm really glad. And this kind of goes without saying, but I'm going to say it. I'm glad that we kind of got a line. I mean, I already took Shroom Tech before this, but actually, I guess technically it was you who really made me take krill oil, you know? I didn't make you.

Yeah, but you, let's say you influenced me enough to actually take action, as they said. But anyway, so it's like kind of I compare like the post-cryl oil and the pre-cryl oil situation. So I was, you know, I was into lifting weights and stuff. And you know how like weights is a good kind of, weights is cool because you know how strong you are kind of thing. It's pretty black and white. Yeah, it's pretty black and white. There's the number.

So you can kind of judge like, yeah, this, that guy's strong or I'm strong or I'm not strong, whatever. Right. So I considered myself pretty strong in the weight room. But, okay, this one time one of our friends came into town. We have, you know, we have the weights outside and stuff. And they're like, oh, yeah, you got the weights. and um so he gets under there and he and he you know he grabs away not heavy but he grabs him and i'm thinking in my head like i can do way more than that but then i was like i can but i have to

warm up a lot first you know because so really how strong am i you know really anyway um the point there is that was pre-cryl oil i'm not saying i could jump underneath my max no warm i'm not saying that but i'm saying like my actual strength is closer to my no non-warm-up strength now that's a good thing you ever you ever seen those videos um where probably not but go ahead I don't know you never you know the one where they they dress up the the young professional basketball player or something oh it looks like a nerd no an old an old man oh yeah yeah so there's this one it's like a I think he's like a pro CrossFit guy or a pro-weight Olympic

lift or something so he goes to this beaches this old man and he's her you you guys are strong and stuff like that i think he kind of overdoes it in my opinion with acting but whatever and everyone's believing like oh this old man you know he probably used to be a weightlifter and he um and he gets under the weight and he's just killing he's embarrassed he's he's just showing up all the guys beating him you know lifting more weights than them and whatnot um so then he kind of like does his old man walk away that's how i felt before the krill oil when it's time to lift like oh i can lift a lot but like my everyday life i'm like kind of stiff You know like oh I got like get up after all.

You know, that's it. That's the cruel oil comparison Speech and where would you recommend people get the krill oil that you speak of so highly? Anyway on it But here and I looked into that strong all my all my prompts lead towards Closure. Yeah, that's my goal. Yeah, sure. No, but I'm saying like you know you know you don't care about my goal You got your own goal I got stories to tell you got that things people want to hear about but I think but when I when I saw those videos I was like

that was me before crew or I really thought that like well that's how it feels you know kind of fine it's a funny video it's a funny thought even really but that's kind of how it feels but I don't have that problem anymore you know I don't feel like that anymore so if someone has seen that video and they might be feeling that that way maybe I can solve their problem I wish I knew that long time ago anyway looked into strong bone remember we're talking about it last week or whatever and I was like hey Does it make your bones strong? Yeah, kind of.

Did it. Went on there on it. Very resourceful. I'm a resourceful person on his very good resource. The website. And the answer is yes, it does. Helps like even like the onset of like osteoporosis. Like all this stuff.

It's like that's what it's like, I didn't memorize all the terms, but I know the point, but it's, um, oh yeah, strontium. Oh, that's what they name it after. Yes, because strontium calcium, all these things. things like make it so when you get older and you know degeneration you lose that

what yeah I'll in your natural deal you know maybe and you get the strong bone boom strong time back in your bones easy money so you take the cruel oil back in your bones or back in your joints well your joints are made up of your bones tendons ligaments does it go into everything it goes into your bones okay so you figure the tendon connection to your bone that's that's what we're trying to straighten you up yeah that can jammy up you that's what you hurt right in your bicep yeah that happened that's what I hurt yeah I heard it one day it ripped off my bone my biceet ripped off my bone anyway if I had some strong bone that one that wouldn't happen maybe it would have I don't know but nonetheless that is

what strong bone helps so guess what I did got some no worries but yeah there's not just that there's all kinds of cool stuff warrior bars that's another I've got more of those shroom tech for performance and the here's the thing I think sometimes people will kind of mistake the shroom tech when you know because it helps your oxygen uptake they think that like I'm gonna when I breathe it has

something to do with your breathing you know it's not your breathing or your lungs it's the amount of oxygen you take up when you breathe you know so they can go to your muscles to oxygen anyway that's what it helps so if you go hard like super hard or grappling

long what do you call them wads right workout of the day yeah yeah it helps keeps you out of the red but yeah go on there there's a for whatever you do

you know they even work out stuff and whatnot it's actually kind of a fun website you'd be on there for a while looking at the cool stuff that's my opinion

and my experience in our subscribe to the pod actually you know we'll talk about Amazon first so Amazon click through

this is a good way to support podcast what you do if you don't know already, before you do your Amazon shopping, go to joccopodcast.com, either on the tab on the top left in green,

or on the top menu, or on the side, kind of towards the bottom. There's a place to click on just support through, either support Jocco Podcast or Amazon click through. Anyway, before you do your Amazon shopping, click through there, then do your shopping. I actually did that the other day. And I don't know if you're watching this on YouTube,

But if you are this is what I bought Which is totally necessary and also Also if you this book I didn't matter enough made it clear enough the book that we read today is called helmet for my pillow By Robert Lecky you can get that Amazon you're gonna put it echo will have it on the website and we click that and you buy it boom You'll be good to go. Yeah, you will support the podcast. You will support the lecky family and some way because they'll be somehow being supported right because their own I'm sure this book so it's a good way to support this hero this hero's family and also get the Pacific I don't know if we could put that I don't know but anyways what the like if you could put it on click through

unless maybe someone bought the DVDs but but but watch that and you know what when you watch it like prep yourself mentally and don't watch it watch it there's other things going on sit down right right get into it on a nice situation you know logistically with a good TV set and a good speaker system thront yeah and then watch the Pacific and you only they're like maybe you can watch two at a time maybe what two episodes two episodes but watch them close together to so you kind of maintain the continuity of the situation right because that's good too and when you see it man it's just a incredibly well done thing yeah

It's awesome. And then when you have the background of the podcast of the books and you read the books, man, it's really powerful. You actually get more into it. Oh, for sure. You know, like when you know the guy's backstores. Yeah, for sure. You're more invested in the characters. Yeah.

And you realize that when you see Lucky Lucky in the thing, you have his whole backstory of his whole life when you've read the book. And it's awesome. You know, by the way, on the podcast website, there's a whole section. Whole page with all the books of all the podcasts. Make it easy for the book situation. But yeah, so yeah, before you do your Amazon shopping, click through the click through the Amazon link and then do your shopping. And yes, I did buy this item, which I'm showing.

So if you look on YouTube, you can see it. It's to add to our little collection on the table here. It's awesome. So yeah, speaking of YouTube, we have a YouTube channel. It's good. people have been telling me for real people have been telling me not just one person but they say hey you should take because okay on youtube channel we have the podcast of course the video format excerpts just like you know excerpts from the so you can like share them and stuff like that

and then there's like well what do you call them the what artistic pieces stuff that i put some like time into put some track a soundtrack echo charles videos sure i just called it i forget what i called it like discipline something I don't know so you made three categories or two two to play so basically people didn't ask me hey you should separate them and make them into playlist which I kind of knew about but I'm not deep into the YouTube thing well we know that well no as far as the customization and you know all that which which I kind of looked into so this is good what I like about this is people gave you a suggestion yeah which I saw too you you looked at it you explored it and now you executed

on it. Yeah, totally did. So if there's any other good ideas that people have, they should post them. And so that way you can improve even more and we can improve and serve for them better. Yeah, I think so. I think that's it. And of course, someone going to be like, hey, you know, and they'll say an idea, it might not be all that good, but if, or it may not seem like it's all that good, but if another person says it kind of unrelated, you know, not the kind of where some guys are they, hey, do this, you know, make this or create this. and then someone just likes it or puts a like on it or says, yeah.

So you're asking for multiple? Well, not to split hairs, but I'm not asking for anything. Oh, but that's what you act on. Yeah. So if someone says a suggestion, maybe the next day, two days, three days later, another person says the same suggestion, suggestion unrelated. And that, you know, the tendency, I see a tendency coming up. And that's when I'd start taking action.

What about the 14,000 people that told you to make more videos? I'm making more videos, yes up. Those are... No, because I was watching... I realized I was watching somebody... I can't even remember who it was, but I was watching chunks of someone speak the other night,

someone that I was... I don't know who it was. And I was so happy that they were in short clips. I was like, this is why we need more short clips. Yeah. Because it's really convenient to go, what's this idea here? Boom, you see the name of the video?

You go, here's the idea. I want to think about that idea. Boom. You're good to go. And YouTube is good like that where, if there's a bunch of them, which I think we're kind of kind of... I mean, our collections kind of growing now.

I'd say there's a bunch of them. How well did you execute when people said make, when people were like episode 42, make a video from this to this? How did you do any of that? Or did you blow everyone off? No, no, no. Yeah, that's mainly what I based it on.

Oh, okay. So, but those are, they're everywhere, you know. So some of them don't quite translate. Some of them I just, I mean, I don't want to upload like five in one day. And I've read some stuff. that it's like, I don't know, it's not good to do that, but I don't know, that's a long story. I bet I don't know. Let's not just, let's not think about what's good to do and what's not

good to do. You just got to get. We're trying to get so. Yeah, you're trying to, yeah, I dig it, man. But yeah, YouTube's good like that where if you listen to just the, like an excerpt or just a clip, two minute, three minutes, four minutes, and you're like, dang, I want to, I want to, I want to, I want to, they, not only are they there to listen if you want, but they'll suggest. So you'll have a bit of continuity there instead of like oh I'm locked into this three hour thing right now right well that's and that's one thing that's a little bit tricky about this is that when I when I'm thinking when I'm talking I'm thinking in the context of this giant two hour thing so sometimes it's hard to snip out something and you lose a little bit in my opinion yeah but you also gain a lot because

you can get it quick right and you can share it with the next guy who's more likely or the next person more likely listen to it Because even now, man, people will send me, you know, whether it be funny videos, there's this sodium video that, you know, a guy skipping a piece of sodium across the lake. Pretty awesome. Yeah, you saw that video, right? It's been going around. I don't know if people look for it and then send it to me or it's been going around. So now more people are sending it to me because the last like two weeks, everyone's been sending it to me.

And I want to actually do that. I want to get the sodium metal and I want to throw it into the water. Yeah, we're doing it at your house. I do. If we can find it, I want to do it and film it and then just see what up. See what up. All right. I got to start looking into the way to get some sodium metal, you know.

But yeah, that's, you know, these are good things. These YouTube situation. Made the playlist. They're on there. Excerpts. I'm putting more on there. There it is. Subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play and all the podcast platforms.

you know that's a good way to support because you're essentially just kind of in the game in general you know and that's really the thing because like the more people you know they'll hit us up on Twitter or just like kind of knowing and knowing what you're talking about or submitting questions this kind of stuff it does make that circle of like it's not just Jocko

telling us what to do it's kind of like we're all in this group you know well yeah and we end up with like a common It's like hanging out with your friends basically Like when I go on the road now Like I was just out with some firefighters And like we're all Everyone's telling the same jokes But they're all you know

We all get it You know what I mean Exactly right now with them Because it's like as if they were here Yeah And I was actually talking to them about them Like well it's like you know When it first happened

It would be a little bit strange to me Right Because you don't remember them sitting right there Because no one was sitting there actually And I was like well Sometimes it seemed like the podcast like was me and Echo sitting in a room alone right but then you realize no there's a lot of people sitting in here with us and they have their own spins this is what's funny is people

have their own variations on the jokes and on the inside things and on what we're talking about so it's all and you know they've already taken stuff and spun it out somewhere now they're bringing it back to me so I'm part of their right I didn't get inside their game so it's it's pretty funny yeah and that's not to mention the questions that that you answer it's all everyone's questions. Yeah, for sure. It's not like, you're like, hey, let me think up this question

that I think people have. No. You got it from certain people and, you know, you answer them. They're like, hey, you know, it's like a two, three-way street or something. Better move on.

So, yeah, when you're, when you're subscribed, you're, you know, you're kind of in the group. It's a good way to support. Also, Jocko has a store called Jocco store. Good store. Isn't it more like the podcast has a store?

Because I don't actually have Have a store. It's the podcast has a store. Yeah, I guess technically But you always make it sound like I have a store. Yeah, because it's called we have a store. Yeah, it's not jaco podcast store, it's jaco store. It's jaco store. Okay, so you're saying. I'm gonna concede to the point. There it is boom, I have a store. That's what I don't like about it. It sounds weird to say that when I say it I think it sounds cool shirts on there if you want to wear t-shirts and represent got a new design out there well kind of new two weeks three weeks maybe

I'm put a rest of card on there and actually it's a new t-shirt design t-shirt design it can be found in other places oh yeah right sure what do you mean I mean oh right right right yeah

can be found in other places yeah man it's good but hey look like on the get after it mug that's where it can be found straight up. I don't want to try playing this little game here. Like I wasn't going to say anything. It's the get after it mug.

We got a shirt that says get after it. And that one came highly recommended. Perfect, perfect example of people saying, you know, people were saying it so like matter of fact is, yeah, where it was to the point where they were like, hey, you should, you should do it to get after it shirt. They weren't saying that anymore. They were saying, when are they getting out, get after it shirts come out? When do they come out?

I didn't know we were doing that yet, but apparently we are. So boom, they're out. They got you with psychological work. Man, I'm glad they did because I think they turned out good. I'm real simple, like most things. Anyway, these shirts are cool, I think, but go to jocco story.com and look at them. You think they're cool? You think you want to wear one, represent in the wild?

Go ahead, get one, support one that way. Also, some, you know, some women stuff out there. Women might be underrepresented overall, but I think that the women that are kind of in the game that listen, that get after it, they get after it hard to make up for the numbers. You know, you see what I'm saying? Like the quality, it's greater than the quantity. Anyway, got some patches on there too. The rash guards, of course, I'm going to put a new one out.

It's in the works. It's like ready to be pushed out here in a few days, I think. Maybe a week. So, yeah, if you're into Jiu-Jitsu, that's why I think that's the primary reason I made them, but they're actually for surfing. bodyboarding what jacob called sponging cycling crossfit any kind of workout where you need you know like maximum mobility but you still want to go with like a shirt on sometimes you just go no shirt but yeah if you'd go

no shirt you're not supporting the podcast correct correct and you know the the I think you know we kind of did some calculations I think the new rash guard might I'm not saying it will because we don't know yet they're not here They might yield. Was it 24? Oh, so Echo did, he's got the sample one. Yeah, one sample. And the sample one, you said, gave you like 27%.

I thought I think it was 24. But you know what? Now that you mentioned it, I think it was 27. Yeah, yes. Up from 19. Yeah, which is a lot. But that's only one case study. So that's what I'm saying.

We're really going to double blind tested. And this is actually true where I went and I practiced. I did some rounds. And you look at it when you're done rounds and you're kind of talking with the boys afterwards and girls in our case because Haley was there too.

We're talking. And I thought we were done. We were done. Somebody called you. You were like, hey, guys, call. And then David, that's what I mean is Bolia? He's like Hulk Hogan's nephew.

Like actually? Actual nephew, like his dad's brother or something. I might get that part wrong, but it's, yeah. Anyway, that's a side note. He called you out. Yeah, well, he asks, is anyone still rolling?

And guess what? Stude rounds left. Shroom Tech, Rashgard. I said, yeah, we're old. Got it on with the lead. Anyway, yeah, good,

good deal, good experience, but that's got a good, deep half guard. Yeah, he has good, everything has good, everything else, but,

brown belt, solid respect. Yeah, yeah, but he's deep half guard, he's got, because he's, he's a bigger dude, but he's got the

the Jeff Gleather. Yeah, he's bigger than Jack. He's trimmed up a little bit, but nonetheless, yeah, good, good training.

Also, psychological warfare. Fair. So if you know what that is, it's an album with tracks, Jocko, talking, but he's not just talking. He's talking with the intent of getting you through any moments of weakness that you might have in your getting after it journey. It goes beyond might have. It goes into actual moments of weakness. Not that you are in a moment of weakness. You're looking at actual donuts. They're in front of you. They're breaking you down mentally. Right. Boom. Click that. No, hit play. Yeah, hit play.

Hit play. Get the track in there. The actual, not a potential moment of weakness. There's a moment of weakness is upon us. We're going to feed it. Yeah. Yeah. Psychological warfare.

Yeah. And we're getting requests now for the second one. Yeah. So I'm going to start thinking about that, what that's going to be like. Yeah. And if you want recommendations of what particular moments of weakness you might have that need to be overcome and there's a common theme as Echo referred to, we will. And if it's got to be something that I've dealt with before.

Right. Right because I can't just make up some way of overcoming a weakness that I've never experienced now I've experienced a lot of weaknesses But if you come up with something that I've never experienced then we're gonna have to just forgo that one Because I'm not gonna make it up for go I'm not gonna make up with it might not work right it's hard to manufacture You know you can't manufacture inspirato as as the great tenacious D said Yeah yeah I think that's a good idea. I got some we'll talk it comes from a quietude that's where it's got to come from. Sure.

Yeah. A stillness, a quietude. That's the D. But yeah, that's a good on psychological warfare. Jocco willing. iTunes. Amazon music. All those good.

It's probably any music outlet. A bunch of music outlets. Yeah. It's there. Yeah, just jump on that. It helps, man. And I use it. I don't recommend this.

But I used it when I was like, I don't feel like working out. This is a big thing for me. Because I kind of had it like that where I'll be like, oh, I'm just going to rest because I don't feel like it. I didn't get nine hours of sleep. So I'll just do it tomorrow. No.

Yeah. Man, and it really worked with that, the workout one. A guy, you know you said it works 100% of the time? Yes. Like the wake-up one? Yeah. Because there's three wake-up tracks. A guy on Twitter said, a number, a wake-up track didn't work.

It failed. And then he said, but I made it to the number two wake-up track, which is the way they're set. They're set, like you listen to Juan, that's going to get you up. But if it doesn't, number two is waiting. Right, right. And he got the number two, and then he woke up. So we're still batting a thousand overall. Yeah, the overall campaign, right?

Yeah, the campaign is a win, but we did take a, we did take a digger from one dude that just didn't get out of bed after listening to psychological warfare, get out of bed, track one. He had to go to track two. Yeah. But we're there. We had some reserve. That's a backup. That's what we're prepared for. Yep.

You had the spot. I don't think anyone's made it to three yet. No one's made it to the wakeup track three. They didn't been there yet. That must, to make it, even to make it to two, you must be one tired dude. Must I had like a hard night the night before and you must have a hard workout waiting for you or something. I don't know something. But yeah, man, my experience 100% success rate. But I don't, and then I started doing it just because just because I want to get fired up. Just for no reason. Yeah. And it's weird because it's not chuckle, ro, ro, roll, roll. Get this. You can. It's not that. It's almost like this. Yeah. Some people say to me, hey, can you do one of you yelling? I'm like, well, I don't really yell a lot, man. Like I didn't yell. I'm not a yeller. Yeah, now I let me say let me phrase that if we're in the gym and like I'm pushing someone like a MMA fighter that's in a workout I'm gonna come on you know I might raise my voice a little bit

But I'm not gonna yell at you You know the drill instructor type thing. It's not this not Yeah, what I do and I could see maybe like how that could be effective But in these cases that's not the mood you're in anyway You know what it could be effective for certain instances. Yes, and actually like I've been doing some little videos in the morning And I realize when I watch him that I'm getting a little bit aggressive with the way I'm talking and it's not it's not like I'm saying okay I got no I'm just starting to talk and then I start getting naturally I start escalating my own situation because I'm starting to think about when I'm when I'm saying It means something to me right. So when I'm saying hey, you know you're wasting your life right now I start thinking feel in that way because I know that there's someone that's actually Waste in their life right now and so it starts you know getting a little bit escalated

And so maybe on psychological warfare too there'll be some situation that Esk that I personally escalate on. Yeah, it would have to be a natural right kind of thing. Yeah, because you can't manufacture in Spirato Yeah, there you go, boom, but yeah, it's good. It's like because you just kind of explain like kind of the logic behind it like see what you're doing right now, but do you see that in? Yeah, well, I guess now I do shoot then you get up or you Anyway, yeah, I use it when it's now something I abuse it. I I don't know I'm feeling fired up and just put it in get more fired out get talked into feeling even better That's how dangerous thing like a good one also when you're clicking through Amazon you can also get jocco white tea Which it may not seem like a big deal and maybe it isn't but maybe it is I tell you judging from some of the some of the reviews on Amazon

I'm reading jocco white tea I found I was overcome with the insurmountable urge to get after it so much so that I was able to defeat all my foes in a short amount of time On a side note I have found that jocco white tea is best served over ice and consumed from the skulls of dead enemies Now, you know I don't know what situation this individual's in right, but obviously he's in combat situation He's got foes that need to be killed and he's drinking from their skulls and even in that Really stressful environment. You know the tea's helping him. Yeah, which is cool. I'm glad that it's helping him Doing positive things against the enemies of good in the world also good evening echo and jaco I woke up weighing 115 pounds the day the white tea arrives two cups I reweighed myself and I was now roughly 250 pounds

So he more than doubled his body weight after two cups of of jaco white tea I think my tea was a little loaded and obviously gave me more than the 20% increase in gains that was promised and I don't think we actually promised anything I didn't promise that but I think it kind of speaks for itself and this is the important this is why I wanted to make this one's very important also cruising went up roughly 200% so there's that as well yeah everybody's for everybody you know and and there you go scientific cruising is up 200% which is positive also

of the warrior kid I got the first hard copy I got it in my hands they sent me one they're sending me more but you know how dang it's three hours right now we've been talking for three hours that's my fault oh man that's a long time and I was gonna read a little excerpt and I think I'm going to anyways it's already been three hours but but so young mark is he's gonna jump off this bridge he's he couldn't swim in the beginning of the book now he knows how to swim but his goal is to jump off the bridge into the river and he's goes up there to do it and he's scared he gets scared he's not gonna he just can't jump

so uncle Jake who used to be a seal who's now with his young nephew trying to show him the warrior way goes up on the bridge and he said what's going on buddy he said in a convoice I don't know I said I'm just I'm just you're afraid aren't you Uncle Jake asked, but he wasn't even asking. He knew. He knew I was scared. There was no point in denying it. Uncle Jake knew it as plain as day.

Yes, I finally said in a quiet tone, too embarrassed that I was afraid. Then, to my surprise, Uncle Jake said, that's normal. What? I responded. Shocked at Uncle Jake's statement. I said, that's normal. You're doing something you've never. done before so it's normal to be a little hesitant it's called fear it's a normal

emotion and it's okay then he added well it's okay as long as you can control it this made no sense to me how am I supposed to control fear and how would you know you're not afraid of anything uncle Jake sat quietly for a minute then he said I wish that were true What do you mean I asked him well you said I'm not afraid of anything and that is just not true fear is normal in fact fear is good fear is what warned you when things are dangerous fear is what makes you prepare fear keeps us out of a lot of trouble so there's nothing wrong with fear but fear can also be overwhelming it can be unreasonable it can be

unreasonable it can cause you to freeze up and make bad decisions or hesitate when you need to act. So you have to learn to control fear and that's what you need to do right now. Okay, that sounds great and I would really love to make you happy and overcome my fear, but I don't know how. Uncle Jake thought about that, about what I had just said for a few seconds and then he said, okay well the first part of controlling fear you have already done and that is preparation you've done plenty of preparation to be ready for this moment to face this

fear starting with dunking your head all the way up to swimming all around and back and forth across this river you've done little jumps off the riverbank all of the last several weeks have been preparing you for this this jump and all that preparation works to help overcome the fear imagine how scared you would be if you still didn't know how to swim You would be horrified but you have prepared then why am I still scared? I asked uncle Jake simple he said Because there's still an element of the unknown you've never jumped off anything this high before so you don't know what it feels like People are afraid of what they don't know or what they don't understand but you have prepared

You know it is safe. You know you are ready. It's just this last little bit of fear that has to be overcome. And you know how you do that? I have no idea, I told him. You go. Just go, I asked Uncle Jake. Now partly thinking he was just joking.

Yes, you just go. You see, fear lives in the moment, that powerful moment between when you decide you are going to do something and when you do it. Once you go once you start you won't be afraid anymore you overcome fear by going and it is the same in many aspects of life parachuting talking in front of a crowd taking a test running a race competing in jujitsu the fear is in the waiting so once you have planned once you have prepared and trained and studied there is only one thing left to do go and that's it Yes, that's it. As soon as Uncle Jake finished those words, he stood up, looked at me, yelled out whoia, and jumped

off the bridge. Just go, I thought to myself. I stood up, stepped up onto the edge of the wall, and looked down at Uncle Jake who had just come back to the surface and was looking up at me with a big smile on his face. With all my heart and lungs, I yelled out, hooya, and stepped off the bridge, past my feet. and into the unknown I felt myself falling for a while and then whoosh I was in the water I came to the surface and had a big smile on my face I can fly I yelled I can fly so little excerpt dang that was good man from the way of the warrior kid it comes out May

second so go and go order the book For you for your kid for your neighbor for your nephew for your niece For the school of the library whoever order them so the publisher That's making this book we want them to know that they need to print a bunch of these They don't know that right now They don't know how many kids want to get after it You don't know that they don't know that and it's they're not gonna print enough It's the same thing that happened with jocco white tea right you remember that

That shortage, the anger, the frustration, the nationwide 19% drop in performance across the board. We remember that. Don't let it happen here. Same thing. You can order that. You can also pre-order. Discipline equals freedom. Field manual comes out October 17th.

1717. Hmm. That's the book that you asked for. So you can order that one too. And of course, extreme ownership. You can get that one. People buy it. And then they buy it for their team and it spreads.

So pick that up for you and your team up and down the chain of command, extreme ownership. Beyond that, if you want some direct action and interaction with your company that you work out, you can contact our company, Eschalon Front, me, Laif Babin, J.P. Dinell, Dave Burke. We can get in the game with you. Info at Eschlonfront.com. Lastly, if you don't know, we have muster,002 coming up at the Marriott Grand Marquis in New York City, May 4th and 5th. Leadership, strategy, tactics.

Again, me, Laif, JP, Dave Burke. And of course, and probably most important, Echo Charles, he's going to be there. And he might try and hide, but he can't. Because none of us can, because there's no green room, there's no backstage, there's just all of us. Together getting after it and of course before the muster you can find us we're cruising Kind of hard on the interwebs on Twitter on Instagram and in the facey book Echo is at echo Charles and I am at Jocco Willink And finally thanks to all the servicemen and women

out there who in this uncertain world and it certainly is an uncertain world today filled with evil all of you that walk away from the comforts of home and into the unknown to face our enemies thank you that to the firefighters police and law enforcement EMTs and the first responders here at home Thank you for what you do day in and day out Putting yourself at risk for us and to everyone else out there Facing what you're facing Challenges at work and challenges with family and challenges with yourself and challenges in your head and challenges with life

Remember what you as a human being are capable of remember? what your will is capable of and then moving forward keep attacking and keep attacking and keep getting after it so until next time this is echo and jocco out