Jocko Podcast - 92: Pushing the Envelope. Overcome and Adapt. Ultra-Winning Mindset of Marine Corps Combat Engineer, Rob Jones

Episode Date: September 13, 2017

0:00:00 - Opening.. 0:11:32 - Who is Rob Jones?  0:18:36 - First Deployment. 0:47:21 - Rob Jones, hit with IED. 1:02:44 - Recovery and mind set. 1:20:04 - The importance of milestones. 1:22:08 - Rowing in the Olympics. 1:37:36 - Doing and impossible Triathlon.  1:39:58 - Adapt and overcome.  Why Riding a bike across America is a good idea. 1:58:13 - PUSH IT.  Overcome and Adapt.  31 Marathons in 31 days. www.RobJonesJourney.com  2:13:02 - Support: JockoStore stuff, Origin Brand Apparel, Onnit Workout Gear.  Also Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), The Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual.  2:42:14 - Closing Gratitude.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 92 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. The concept of finding an IED is relatively simple. It is essentially identifying what doesn't belong in the natural area in front of you. Before one proceeds, however, one must ensure that all of the Marines with them are at a safe distance such that if the searcher, unintentionally detonates an IED during his investigation, the Marines he is with will not be harmed. The first step is to take a good look at where you are and where you plan to go.

Identify anything that looks out of the ordinary with respect to nature. The world naturally doesn't often have patterns or perfect shapes. Essentially, you are looking for areas where you suspect man has been in contact with nature. When one patrols in the same area frequently, one can establish a baseline observation for what to look for and what the area looks like normally. Thus, on subsequent visits, it is possible to identify elements that are out of place. The next step is to investigate the route that you have chosen through this danger area. The three main tools used for this investigation are the eyeballs, A metal detector and a cutting edge digging device called a human hand.

Proceeding slowly in a forward direction, one swings the metal detector in a fashion that covers every square inch of the chosen route. In order to do this, start with a metal detector to one side of the root and move it straight across to the other side, keeping the search head an inch or two above and parallel to. the ground. Once it is across, move the detector forward, half the length of the search head, and swing it in the opposite direction to the original side of the route. This is a process that continues for the entirety of your time moving through the danger area. At some point during your movement along this route, you will want to investigate certain spots that you think may contain an IED. You can be alerted to these spots. in multiple ways.

From your early assessment before proceeding through the area, newly acquired suspicions as you move through the area, and also from sounds that your metal detector makes. The process of swinging the metal detector back and forth and inching forward is time-consuming. The best of the best are the ones that can optimize safety and keep time spent to a minimum.

It is always better, however, to err on the side of caution except in the most extreme of emergencies. The investigation of a suspicious area must proceed with extreme caution. You start by kneeling down, being sure to be well-balanced and stable. You must ensure that no gear is going to accidentally fall off or slip out and touch the ground. You reach out with your fingers. And with the gentleness of a butterfly landing on,

a daisy move the dirt in front of the front edge of the metal hit proceed forward a nanometer at a time in this fashion uncovering more dirt over a wider space until you find the metal that set off the detector or you are satisfied that there's no danger from this particular metal hit if metal is found the area must be rechecked to ensure that the metal was found was not a decoy One may think that the tension during this time is akin to being Tom Cruise dangling inches above a motion sensor floor. But the necessity of having a clear mind and the amount of practice that has gone into this exact process makes it seem second nature and ordinary. After you are satisfied that you have cleared this suspicious area, proceed forward.

As you move forward, you are also proofing the line. lane. That thing, proofing the lane or confirming that is free from IEDs is usually done with a special mechanical device, but it is now being done with your feet. And don't forget as you go forward to lay down markers for everyone else who comes behind you to follow. This is the way that I handled the situation I was now in. I inched forward with my metal detector. I didn't see anything special about the area my metal detector was making noises but nothing large enough that I thought it warranted an investigation the Marines in our patrol watched and waited as I cleared and proofed the lane then it all went black that description is about as good as I have read about the act of searching for IEDs

and I actually never searched for IEDs in that type of method and of course in Ramadi everyone was always searching for IDs you were always looking you were inspecting we were suspicious of every pile of rubble every piece of junk on the road every off-colored piece of dirt or pavement or concrete or sand but we were in the city and there was pedestrian traffic And most of the IEDs were targeting vehicles, not foot patrols. But whether in a vehicle or on foot, the IED for the most part has been the biggest threat and the biggest cause of casualties in our recent wars.

and for the enemy It's a low risk high reward weapon And for us It's an evil weapon It's a cowardly weapon And it is an effective weapon It's a weapon that plants itself in your mind Always there around that corner

Under that curb on the other side of that sidewalk Now there are those Who's job job it is to actually interdict that weapon the the IED it is their job to face that fear up close and personal day in and day out you've got EOD explosive ordinance disposal is one group that does it complete professionals and the EOD technicians that I deployed with in the SEAL teams were just outside Standing and everything that they did, which by the way was not only find and disarm IEDs. They also did everything that we did. They cleared rooms and patrolled through the streets and maneuvered in fireflights just as the seals did. They were awesome and in addition to EOD

Combat engineers in the Army and in the Marine Corps also do Mine clearance and of course I talk about combat engineers a lot because of the incredible role that they played in the Battle of Vermont and the combat engineers were outstanding in their standard job of building combat outposts and building and maintaining the the infrastructure of the bases and they were they were awesome in that performance under fire but at some point the combat engineer's job morphed into mine clearance and it's because I would suspect you know they work with demolitions so so combat engineers do breaches to doors and to walls they build roads and bridges and they also clear obstacles from roads and bridges and so eventually at some point this morphed into to combat engineers doing IED clearance, both on roads and then out on foot patrols.

Now, there's jobs in the world that I wouldn't want to do, and this is one of them. It takes a massive amount of patience. It takes an incredible amount of skill, and it takes an incredible ability to overcome fear. If you're going to actually seek out and touch, the thing, the very thing that is trying to kill you in order to stop it, that's a job that I didn't want then and I don't want now.

And I am thankful that there was others that stepped up and did that job. And I'm honored to have on the podcasts tonight one of those brave men. A Marine Corps combat engineer who served in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and the guy, by the way, who wrote that opening description of what it was like to go out and hunt for IEDs, a guy by the name of Mr. Rob Jones. Rob, welcome to the show. This is an honor for me to be.

I just really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to come on the show. Oh man, trust me, the honors all ours. A thousand percent. You can't even argue with that point. We won't let it happen. Give us, just before we jump into your Marine Corps career, just give us a little pre-Marine Corps background on growing up

and where that was and what it was like. Can I answer your question about how combat engineers came to find IED? Yeah, please do. So when you go to combat engineer school, One of the things they teach you is minefield and placement and defeat. And to do that, you use mine detectors and metal detectors. So I think that's the main reason that it transferred over. I wonder at what point, you think that came from World War II?

I don't know. That's a good question. Because, yeah, when I said it morphed into, I was thinking, like, back, you know, must have been sometime in World War II where they said, you know, okay, we're going to get over this river. Okay, so a common engineer is going to get over the river. We're gonna secure this compound. Okay, we're gonna secure the compound

or we're gonna rebuild this compound. Okay, well, at some point they said, you know what? What if there's mines there? Okay, well, we gotta get them cleared out. Yeah. So at some point, they realized that you can't build if you can't clear, right?

Yeah. And you can't move if you can't clear. So guys gotta do it. Yeah, somebody's got to do it. And they weren't able to slough off that job onto somebody else, which is what I would have been trying to do. Which is what I would have absolutely been trying to do.

like, hey, can we get somebody else to do that job? Yeah, so that's good. So how did you end up in the Marine Corps? Oh, yeah, my background. I grew up on a farm. Nothing really special about my upbringing besides that. What kind of farm? It was a horse farm.

I hated horses because I always had to pick up there to the North. So wait a second. What is, what do you do? What is the purpose of a horse farm? The farm that I grew up on, the purpose of it was my parents would take people on horseback riding trips. And they would pay them money and they take them out for a couple hours in the forest.

Got it, got it. And so it was my duty to clean up after the horses, feed the horses, stack their hay bales in the summertime, get them their water. So I didn't really enjoy the horses as much as most people would.

But, you know, I'm thankful that I had that experience because I think it did instill in me a work ethic that a lot of people don't get. Yeah. So, and then... I think when you come from, because you know, a lot of guys when they come in the military, they've never worked hard

before. But the guys I've met in the military that came from some kind of a farming background, they're like, hey, I'm so happy here. I'm not up at three o'clock in the morning, you know, milking cows or whatever, or cleaning up horseshit in your case. Oh, man. The number of times, I had to wield this wheelbarrow full of manure up a, a, um, a horse shit in your case. fence board onto this big pile and the

times I fell off that thing. Every time I just curse those horses I hated them so much. Now I like horses fine that I don't have to clean up. You've gotten over your horse PTSD from growing up. And so you graduated from high school

and then you went to college, right? Yeah, I went to Virginia Tech. I was actually a computer science major. I'm already suspect. I'm impressed. It goes impressed. I'm a

suspect. At some point during that during my college career, my sophomore year I decided that computer science was not for me. How do you feel now, at all? That's right. Betrayed, really. And I decided, I don't know, I felt like I had spent the first 20 years of my life kind of looking after

myself and now I needed to do something that was beyond my own self-interest. and a buddy of mine had just joined the Marine Corps so I read a couple books about the Marine Corps Brotherhood of Heroes about the Battle of Pele-Loo

and I said yep that's what I want to do I want to join the Marine Corps so before telling my parents before telling anybody looked up where the recruiter was went down there he wasn't there Marine Corps recruiter wasn't there

Air Force recruiter tells me to come in his office and tells me about the Air Force And I said, yeah, just tell me when the Marine Corps crew is back. Nothing against the Air Force, but I had already decided on Marine Corps. Yeah. And so I joined up. I think it's, I, this may be right or wrong.

I'm pretty sure it's right. The Marine Corps has like the lowest recruiting budget. And they have the highest recruiting numbers because it's the Marine Corps. It's just their approach, I guess. Yeah. Like, oh, you want to be one of us, right? Maybe. Yeah.

See if you can. Yeah. Good luck. What are you going to do? Yeah. So I joined up as a reservist. My original plan, because I was after my junior year, so I wanted to finish college at least. So my original plan was I did the 92-day reservist program where I went to boot camp after my junior year. Then I finished my last year of college.

And then I went to job school and MCT. How did your academic performance change or did it between pre-boot camp and post-boot? camp? It didn't a whole lot because I think I kind of checked out of college after my junior year. I was like, I just want to go deploy, but I just kind of want to get this degree done. Just so I have it. Now, after I deployed a couple times and had a little bit more life experience, there'd probably be a lot different. But just those three months of boot camp didn't really change my academic skill set. My academic approach. I was plenty smart. I was smart enough. I just didn't care that much about it anymore.

Yeah. So my original plan was to do that and then have a little bit of experience as an enlisted guy and then use my degree to become an officer. But when I was in engineer school after that second summer, my company, my reserve company, said, we're sending a volunteer platoon to Iraq. So I said, well, that's the whole reason I joined up was to go fight the war. So screw being an officer, I'm going to deploy. And so then we go to my first deployment.

So I thought it was pretty, you got a good note in here about the Marine Corps. And I'm just going to read this. I'm taking this stuff from your journal that you have online, which is awesome read. So here we go. Back to the journal. The Marine Corps began to shape me long before I ever arrived at boot camp in Paris Island, South Carolina. Carolina it started when I read the book Brotherhood of Heroes the tale of the Battle of Tallulhu in World War II it was through the stories of the of the Marines told in

those pages that I was introduced to the courage spirit tenacity altruism and Brotherhood that the Marines possess qualities that I would soon be ingrained with as well the basics of these qualities were taught to me and my fellow recruits in boot camp through rudimentary but effective means, the proverbial stick. It was through punishment that we were shown what it meant to possess the attributes of a Marine. Punishment would come in a variety of modes based on the same concept, countless push-ups, sit-ups, sprinting, carrying, and, of course, screaming. The drill instructors would use any excuse, not that they needed one, to inflict pain upon us, not being loud enough, looking in the wrong place, imperfection in uniform, dirty squad bay,

and not moving fast enough for their inspections to name a few. The reality of the situation was that we were never loud enough, always looking in the wrong place, never had perfect uniforms, the squad bay was always too dirty, and we were simply too slow. The idea wasn't simply to pointlessly inflict pain, but to teach lessons using the pain as the instructor. It was to force us to make ourselves better so the whole platoon as a whole would be better. The idea was to form a brotherhood through shared suffering and shared dependence. It was to teach us to keep fighting the pain so that the platoon as a whole could stop being punished. The point was that once we reached perfection, the requirements changed so that we were forced to constantly reach for it,

thus forcing us to become better than we ever knew we could be. This is how the Marine Corps takes hunks of iron and turns them into jewel steel. That's why the Marine Corps doesn't need a lot of recruiting money. But so true. And I like what you pointed out, the shared dependence and how when you're going through boot camp scenarios and training scenarios that are really hard, you realize you're not going to be able to do this alone. And you're going to have to rely on these other guys who you may not in the civilian world you wouldn't have even been associated with

And now you're not only associated with them you depend on them for For your survival and to get through it and that's I think that's what makes That's what makes that military experience and certainly the Marine Corps does an outstanding job of it of Formulating that bond that is is unique to the military experience and certainly the Marine Corps does an outstanding job of it of of? I'm a bond that is unique to the military. Yeah, that's the thing that makes Marines what they are and brings out the best in peoples when they're doing something not for their own self-interest,

but for somebody else. And I would volunteer for the worst stuff so that I could prevent my buddies from having to do it, like walking through the Euphrates River, looking for whatever trying to find weapons caches in Iraq and then getting back at the end of the day just totally soaked and covered in trash water

you know and they come in and say we're doing it again who wants to go and I'm like yeah I'll go go again you know and that's I think that's why I really I kind of enjoyed the combat engineer role too because I'm going out there protecting people protecting my buddies

protecting other Marines and taking the risk on me. And, I mean, that's what being a Marine is all about. Anybody else would have done it, too. Yeah. And so you go your first deployment to Iraq, and what was that deployment like? Where'd you go?

Habanilla. Over in Hobby. And so this is 2008? So things are pretty mellow at 2008. Yeah. Iraq had kind of slowed down at that point. Wasn't much going on. We had one tiny little incident where we were on a convoy and some guy in those

were fired maybe three AK rounds and then ran away. And it was still, you know, nothing. But that was in like the first couple weeks. Yeah, I didn't miss it. I didn't miss it. Hey, what was your response to the three rounds from an AK-47? I continued sitting in the back of the seven ton. Did like an 18-year-old Lance Corporal unload with seven?

700 rounds of 50 cow or... No, it was a long convoy, so it was way up there. And I was like, oh, I got to get out. Like, I got to get up there. But it was over before it was started. Did they shoot back? Did they return fire at him? No, I don't think so.

I mean, he like, he did one of those things where he raised over and then left. By the time anybody was able to figure out where he was, he was gone. So that was, but that was in the first couple weeks. So it was, you know, kind of off to a good start. And then, no, nothing else happened really. So what were you guys doing during that deployment? I guess it was kind of the build portion of the strategy at that point. You know, we were helping the local population build up their cities,

we were helping to build Iraqi police stations. But what I spent most of my time doing was when we would go out and find buried weapons caches. So just these old stores of RPGs and stuff that the Al-Qaeda used to be using. Right. But they had just left there. And then so the local population would – or somebody would give us a tip. Right. And we would go out to this big field.

And they'd say, yeah, supposedly somewhere in here there's a weapons cache. So we'd take out our metal detectors and sweep every square inch of that field or hill or wherever we were. tree line and until we either determine those nothing or we would find it and we'd dig it up and stack it and then the O'D would come and blow it up And were you attached to a

like an combat engineer platoon or were you attached to an infantry platoon? Yeah so the way it works for the what we call division side engineers like combat engineer battalion is one combat engineer platoon is attached to an infantry battalion and then you kind of break it down

So one squad of that platoon goes with each company. Got it. And then one team goes with the platoon. So you kind of help that platoon out. You're just pretty much attached to them the entire time. So when you guys would be doing these clearances of like, let's say a big field, it would be a platoon, a Marine Corps platoon, and you would be doing all the sweeping? Yeah. So it would be a Marine Corps platoon or a squad.

It would usually be a squad. Okay. So a squad would, we'd go out on a squad. Patrol patrol out there. They would set up security on the area and they would just wait.

And then you'd be me and one other guy and we would sweep. And sometimes we would have one of the infantry guys have a e-tool. And we'd like dig there. And then you would dig

and nothing to happen. And then when you'd find caches, would you guys blow them in place or would you recover it? I guess it would depend. We would take pictures of what we found so we could write the report

when we got back. And if it was not in the middle of nowhere. A lot of the times they would blow it in place. We have to wait for EOD. They wouldn't let us do it. That's actually really jacked up. It's so stupid.

That is so jacked up. Because there's only one EOD unit for the like four EOD guys for the entire battalion. And not to mention that's the fun part. Exactly. And I have, I know how to, they used to, back in like 2005, combat engineers were doing all that all the time. You just lay it out. You just sympathetically detonated with the, stick a C4, and that's all it is.

You know what this is? It's because the war had slowed down. Yeah. That's what it is. When the war slows down, all of a sudden, people start putting the rules and regulations. And wait, we could have a year to do that. One is that same thing. We had the heaviest.

I'm sure when you guys were in Ramadi, you just had the standard flag vest. Yeah. We had this ridiculous turtle shell front sappies, back sappies, side sappies, neck protector, groin protector, everything, butt protector. It was just the vest itself was 70 pounds. Let me tell you something interesting about that. When we were in Ramadi, not everyone had that,

and everyone wanted it. And they did their best. I remember actually the colonel, the brigade coming down and bringing side sappy plates down to combat outpost to hand them out to guys because everybody wanted them. They wanted the neck protectors, the shoulder protectors, the groin protectors, they wanted everything. Yeah.

I mean, most, many guys just, hey, you know, especially you're sitting in a turret or, yeah, like, load me up. I want all that, the neck, they wanted it all. Yeah. Because it was gnarly. Yeah, and then go try and do a hit on a house with it. Yeah. No, that part's not fun.

But, so it's probably that same thing where they're just coming up with all the safety rules and you have to have your helmet, gloves, eye protection, on at all times when you're outside the wire. So for whatever reason, they didn't let us blow it up. So we'd have to wait for EOD to come out. And then they would either blow it up there if it was out in the middle of nowhere, but if it was in the city, they would usually take it somewhere. And meanwhile, the rest of the combat engineer battalion are out helping with the building,

the structures, building schools, helping the infrastructure and stuff like that? It would depend. I mean, yeah, so whatever that platoon that they were. attached to was doing, they'd just be doing that. And then every now and then if they needed all of us back to build up an Iraqi police station, they would call everybody in or everybody, but a couple guys in, and we'd all go out as a platoon to build that. Got it. But I spent most of my time just doing the cash sweeping and going on patrols. So within the platoon are certain people designated as like mine sweepers?

Or does everyone get trained in there? No, everybody should be able to do it. Got it. How come you kept getting the, because you volunteered for that. You said, hey, I'll go find the Yeah, I mean, and my fire team was, or my squad was kind of, we didn't want to do the construction stuff because we thought it was boring. I wasn't great at construction. I could swing a hammer, but, you know, I wasn't like good at it. And so we kind of tried to put ourselves in positions where we wouldn't have to go do that stuff.

We tried to always be out with the, with the squads, with the platoons as often as we could, so we could avoid the construction stuff. But, yeah, that's what I wanted to be doing. Yeah, yeah, be out on patrol. Yeah, exactly. So then that deployment, you come home, and you had already graduated from college at this point, right? Yeah.

And so you come home, and then what happens when you get home? So what's your plan when you get home? When I get home, well, so we were in Iraq, and my buddy, Ronnie and Daniel, we were all drinking, and we were like, that was not what we wanted. You know what? The good thing is when you're drinking, that's when you make your best military decisions

about what to do with your career. But yeah. We were sitting there going, that was not what we were hoping it would be. We wanted to do some fighting, do some killing. So we were like, we got to figure out a way to go to Afghanistan.

And so we started trying to look up because we were in the reserve, so sometimes there's programs where you can be an augmentee, an individual augmentee. Did you have a civilian job at this point? I didn't because I just graduated college. You just graduated college. Then you go on deployment.

Then you come home. And now you're saying, all right, how do I get back? How do I go fight? I had $25,000 from deployment, so I bought a motorcycle, you know. Yep. Another great decision, you know. That's good investment, good long-term investment for future. But, yeah, so I was looking for a job to tide me over.

and trying everything I could to go to Afghanistan but luckily pretty shortly after we got back we go to drill and company says send a volunteer platoon to Afghanistan and boom right here because Afghanistan was heating up at this time

if you remember but but we still had to wait about eight or nine months before we went to the workup for that so I just took a job putting out traffic counters. Like there's a little tubes that go across the road and you attach a little electronic box to it. So I just took a job doing that.

That's sort of like related to IEDs, isn't it? A little bit. A little bit's on the side of the road. Crush wire. Crush wire on the road. That and I just got in shape and partied. Now did you do more drill once you're getting ready to deploy? Yeah.

So when I say drill, I guess I should explain. That's the deal for reservists to go in. It's like one weekend a month. That's your drill. That's called the drill, yeah. Do they escalate that at all when you're going to deploy? Yeah, so they kind of cater the drills that you do based on what you're going to need upcoming. So I do recall we did a couple where we would go do like an IED training.

section and then we would since I had experience now we would just take whenever we were at a drill we would just start training the other the new guys that were going to be going with us on machine guns metal detectors and just trying getting them trained up but yeah and so a lot of the training was kind of on our own because you only get that one weekend a month and they only have so much money and they have to train the whole company as opposed to just the platoon that's going right so so is So then did they activate you? How far before deployment do they activate you so you can do some like legitimate real training? We, so we did, we actually managed to get a month at Camp Lejeune at Courthouse Bay, which is the Combat Engineer school. And so we did manage to get a month-long school of, you know, just doing demolition refreshment, more IED stuff, patrol practice, you know, doing all sorts of training like that. And then your workup is pretty much just however long it takes to do Mojave Viper with your battalion. And then maybe a month before that.

So maybe three months total before you're going on the appointment if you stack it all together? Three four months. Got it. And were you, were the rest of the guys, so it's one platoon that's going? One platoon. One platoon. Wasn't even a full platoon. It was three squads.

Okay. So how many guys are that total? It was actually even short squads, too. So it was, let me think, each, there was a fire to 9, 10, 11 per squad. Yeah, so 30, 35 guys. And then 3 for the brass of the platoon. Check. Then you go, you do your desert drill and everyone's unified.

And then you leave before that and then you go on deployment? Yeah, so they give you a little bit of, yeah, they give you a little bit of leave before you have to go over. and it's like four or five days. So everybody flies home and then comes back. So now you show up in Afghanistan and how's that different from Iraq when you get there? You know what? The first portion of it was not that different. The terrain was a lot different.

So where did you first go? So in Afghanistan we were at, we started. I deployed with 3-7 as an attachment, 3rd Battalion 7th Marine Corps Regiment. And we were in Delaram, which I'm pretty sure it was in Helmand province. It was kind of right on the border, so I don't recall exactly. And pretty much Kilo Company was the company that my squad was attached to. And they got sent out just in the middle of nowhere to a fob. And then they had a patrol base that was even smaller, and even further out, that I got sent to.

I was a team later. And so usually you would have one team in the one spot. in one team in the other spot, but since we were kind of short on guys, it was pretty much I was the only engineer for that platoon. And, yeah, so we were in Del Aramom, and so in Habania was urban. Everything was, walking through a city, everything was urban, but Afghanistan was just barren. And when you got out to this forward base, what were you doing out there? What was the infantry platoon that you were attached to doing out there?

Uh, patrolling. So it was kind of similar. That's why I say it wasn't a whole lot different from Iraq because we were basically just interacting with the local populace, uh, find out what they needed, providing security for that area. Like they had a bizarre that would come every weekend, so we'd go out and provide security for that. And so I was still using my metal detector to clear danger areas if we came, there was a lot of wadis out there. So we'd have to funnel through the wadi. So I'd check that. Um, How often were you finding IEDs in that first part? I didn't find a one out there. No. So it was a pretty pacified area. I think we had one firefight that one of the squads got into, and that's it. So your first part of the deployment, and how long was that? How long was that part of the deployment? That was two and a half, three months, I think. So that's kind of like a little tune up. Right. And then we passed that area off to the Georgian Army. And that's when we moved to Sengen. to take over from the Brits. And now Sangen's in, like, that's Helmand Province Central, right? I mean, that's, that's it.

Yeah, that's Taliban Central down there. Yeah. And as soon as you get on the ground there, did you feel it when you got on the ground? We knew, yeah. I mean, we kind of did a push into that area before we actually moved out there. And we knew shit was getting real when we, uh, They just, they're like, pack up a pack, and we got on the helicopter, and they just flew us out and just dropped us off in the middle of absolutely nowhere,

and we just started walking. Just leave your packs here and start walking that way, and just basically just taking territory from the Taliban. Now, did you guys do a thorough turnover with the Brits? I wasn't a part of that, but not. Not real. I mean, we pretty much came into Fob Inkerman, and we're there for a day, day and a half. And the Brits were gone? No, no. We left. Oh, you came in and then you pushed out. So the Brits were there when you were there on the ground?

Yeah, we were both there at the same time. Probably the headquarters elements were doing a turnover. Yeah. They were like, hey, we're getting our boys out on the field. Yeah, we started pushing immediately. And we had a couple World Marines with us and some British Army with us. I think they had a small or maybe a tow that we did. didn't have so like units that we we needed from them they would send out with us and they were great um but from what i understood they just didn't have the manpower to really do much were they the guys that were with you were you were they giving you any turnover items like hey you need to look out for

this hey this is what's going on here no or i didn't receive any because i just don't think they really went out much so i don't not really sure how much they really could have told us about what was outside of the patrol bases. And I don't even remember, I think we may have talked to their combat engineers. We got some demo from them. Like, hey, can we have some deck cord? And they gave it to us, and that's about it.

Yeah. And that's because they were just completely undermanned. Yeah, from what I understand. I mean, obviously I'm not a part of the upper echelon out there and stuff, but I think that's the reason they just, they set up patrol base and they had the patrol bases, but they pretty much just sat there and got shot at every day. and didn't do a whole lot of patrolling.

So then you guys roll in, and the, like, the broad strategies, you're going to start moving from patrol base, you're going to push out, take another compound, secure it, and then operate out of there for a while, and then push on? Yeah, pretty much just take the Taliban's territory by going out, clearing a compound. And that's what a major part of what I was doing on this push was clearing compounds. just in case they were booby-trapped.

And then, yeah, we take over that compound, sandbag it up, knock down some trees with some explosives, create those fields of fire. And then once that was set up, we start doing some patrols, security patrols, and then repeat. And were you guys getting in contact

with the Taliban more often? They were pretty much shooting at us most days, mortaring us most days, not very accurate. But yeah, they were shooting. at us at least and we would go out on patrols they'd shoot at us but they're always shooting from way far away and you know we'd shoot back but it wasn't like further on in the deployment when the corn's when the corn grew a lot taller I wasn't there for it

because I got hurt by them but that was when they were like people were shooting at each other in the cornfield like five feet away so so but while you were there It was more distant, really far distant contact. Yeah. Were you guys taking any casualties? I think not tons. I mean, obviously every one is a major, major sacrifice. But there was one sniper that got killed on the initial push on Musa Kala

before we even got to Sengen. And besides that, I don't remember. Oh, my buddy Ronnie got hit in the face with a piece of R. He didn't go home. He just had to go get it taken care of. So minor stuff like that. But yeah, that minor stuff only happens when stuff is going on. Yeah, exactly. So, and by the way, that little piece of shrapnel, you know, that thing can kill you just as easily is, you know, a full piece of shrapnel. It wet in his eye. Yeah, exactly. But I would say, so you're like now, every patrol that you guys are going out is like, hey, now how often are you finding IEDs at this? point. Not tons.

I'm trying to think. Every now and then, not very often. I mean, because I think the area that we were in initially was still pretty close to the main fob. And then as you went out, there would be just fields of them. And the way that we were getting out to the patrol bases, we were using Mickleks. and so that was mitigating a lot of the searching that we would have had to do. So in that initial area, we weren't finding tons

just every now and then. And I don't know if this is right or not, but the closer you get to a fob, you have security on the fob, you have guys that are looking out. So it's hard for someone to come in and dig out and put an IED in the ground. So you got some level of security around the fobs

most of the time. Obviously, there could be something there pre-existing. and day-to-day life Are you guys on MREs? Are you guys getting chow or what's going on day-to-day life? Oh, man. I wish we had MRA. So at some point during the deployment, we started on MREs.

You know, I like MREs. I think they were good. You're sick. I used to like MREs when I was like 22 and then I OD'd on them. Man, I didn't mind them too much. But then when we started doing these pushes, we got these things called first strike rations, like the new MRE.

But here's the problem with these first strike. They were awesome when we first got on the first week. They were awesome. But the Marine Corps only decided it would be good to buy three different meals. And kind of at the same time, we had outrun our water supply. So we were just stopping off at, wells and guess what?

Nobody had any kind of purifying stuff. So we were just drinking well water and obviously what you would expect to happen. Everybody was getting sick. Just, you know, diarrhea, vomiting.

That's crazy. No purification tabs or anything. I guess they didn't expect us to need to use wells. But that first day, everybody ran out of water by the time of the, we ended and we're like, well, we just got to go.

get well water. Isn't that crazy? A purification pill is like, I'm talking at you, Echo, like it's a little tiny thing. Like you can carry them so easily and they completely change the game because you can take that water out of the well

or a stream. That's got whatever bacteria on it. Put that thing in there, shake it up, you're good to go. Does it taste different? No. Not really. Not really.

People use them camping. Yeah. This is iodine tablets. Yeah, yeah. And you can also bring a filter. Like when I hike, I bring a filter, Which is a little pump.

Like a brittah. No, it's not a brittah. You know, those pitchers. No, it's not that. It's a little pump, little pump. Yeah, yeah. And how long are you guys going out in the field for? Let's see, the first push Nibusiklaw was about two weeks.

And so we just, yeah, walk for two weeks. We walk to a compound, stop for the day, set security, spend the night, walk to the next one. If they shoot at us, fight back. kill him, whatever, do whatever we got to do. And then we just kept pushing out and pushing out. And then eventually we got to a point in that first Musaqala push where, for whatever reason,

they just said, all right, now you're going to walk back. So I think maybe our battalion commander had actually, he had been a little bit too aggressive and had gone beyond his limits that his boss wanted him to do. Yeah. So we ended up having to give up territory we had just taken. And, yeah, so that one was two weeks, but then once we got to Sengen, it was pretty much spend a day doing the push, take the compounds. And then you're kind of in the compound, you just go out on patrol and you come back.

So we weren't really out in the field, field for all that long, but, you know, being in a compound's still not exactly luxury. Yeah. You still don't have showers. Yeah. It's not the Konakai Resort. Definitely not All right man I'm gonna talk about

I'm gonna go to your journal here Because obviously on one of these Patrol You got hit And here's what you wrote about it Two things happened simultaneously When whatever explosive device That hit me exploded

First the shockwave cut through my toes severing them It didn't slow as it cut through my shins, severing them next. It sent dirt, grit, and shrapnel upward into my legs, buttocks, and any other part of my body that was exposed. Next, it launched me a few feet into the air and deposited me onto the ground, unconscious. Blood was pouring out of the newly opened arteries and into the dirt. muscle and bone dangled from the remnants of my legs vicious bacteria latched on and invaded through the new openings

the dust rose and settled and I woke up the first 10 seconds after waking up all I could hear were my own screams All I could see was a blurry tunnel looking up to the sky. The weird thing about the screams was that my brain wasn't telling my body to produce them. It was almost as if my mind was no longer present and my body was just reacting or more like panicking. They were the kind of screams that are emitted from a person regardless of the consideration of the personal pride that the person has. No matter how much their pride makes them resist crying out, they don't have a choice in the matter. They inhale two lungfuls of air, open their mouth as wide as it will go, and expel that air with full force, producing a scream that pierces the air and changes pitch with no control.

As seconds clicked away, my mind started to come back online and my body calmed down. I stopped screaming and my other senses returned I smelled dust and the unique chemical smell of a recent explosion I tasted it on my tongue and in my throat after that my feeling came back it wasn't so much pain as one would imagine it but more like my lower legs had fallen asleep for so long that it hurt except magnified by 50 times. I knew that they were gone, but how much?

I had decided before I left on this deployment that I could live with below the knee amputations, but anything higher than that, no thanks, I'd rather bleed out. I could hear Keith Johnson telling me that they were coming for me, and soon he and Shane Otwell were over me applying tourniquets to the bleeding stumps that used to be legs. I mustered up the courage to look at my hands,

intact. I moved them downward to check on something vastly more important. The numbness I felt down there left me unsure of its status. Just kill me, I croaked out. They ignored me, of course, and kept telling me how everything was going to be okay. They were holding my hands as the cormon knelt over me and delivered the sweet, sweet morphine that made it all better. Kill me, man, I said again. I don't want to live like this I think my dick is gone your dick is still there man

do you want me to touch it Johnson asked I chuckled with relief as I replied no I asked whether the lug legs were gone above or below the knee I was reassured to hear that both were a few inches below by this time I was high from the morphine and was saying everything that crossed my mind. As the Corman continued to work and we waited for the 10-line Kazavak to be called in, I thought about all the things I wouldn't be doing anymore. I thought about playing racquetball. I thought about working out in the gym.

I thought about being in a wheelchair for the next 50 years. I never thought about how I was bleeding profusely from two major arteries and could die. I never once thought I would die, which may seem unusual for a person in my mind. position naturally optimistic I suppose although it is hard to claim that I was being optimistic considering I wanted to cash out permanently in my defense I had no idea what life was like as an amputee and if I had back then I wouldn't have made that request either way I'm glad I stuck around around this time I decided to sit up and take a look at the damage I took a deep breath and

gulped I slowly started sitting up but when I got to the point where going further would reveal my shredded legs I had a change of heart I didn't see the blood soaked dirt I didn't see the disjointed lower parts of my calves and chins along with my feet or the jagged edge of my remaining limbs the skin roughly burned and shorned the bone sticking out and the ripped muscle dangling along the ground. I didn't want that image to be inside of my head because I knew it would be one that I would never be able to forget. I deeply regret the fact that there are those that I consider friends that were forced

to have that image in their mind and will have to live with it for their entire lives. Secondly, I was afraid of seeing the wound would make it hurt even more, much like a scraped knee as a child. I laid back down and let the more. morphine keep doing its job. I started getting sleepy. I just wanted to close my eyes. I thought maybe if I closed my eyes I would pass away easily Slap Otwell's hand slapped my cheek as he yelled at me to stay awake just let me sleep just let me sleep I mumbled closing my eyes again

another slap that was the last time I did that Finally, the stretcher that was going to carry me out arrived. Four strong men lifted me onto it, grabbed each one of the handles, and started carrying me to an assault breacher vehicle. They were carrying me away from the war I volunteered to participate in, and the Marines that I was supposed to be leading and protecting. They would have to go on without me, all because I had failed in my job, failed to find the IED that I knew was somewhere around us. That failure was a hard pill to swallow then and it remained so to this day. I didn't feel good about leaving them behind But I knew they would understand I knew they would be okay without me We got to the assault breacher vehicle and I asked Jimmy Goodwin one last time to put me out of my misery

After his refusal that was the last time I ever contemplated accepting that avenue They slid me into the back of the vehicle and with some Marines I had never met whose faces I can remember seeing but don't remember any of their features The Corman said he was gonna give me something to put me to sleep and I finally got to close my eyes As everything went black clear about what happened I remember it pretty lucidly surprisingly yeah I don't know I think I was unconscious for maybe 20 seconds, I would estimate, because they hadn't even, they hadn't gotten to me by the time I woke up. And I don't think they would have spent a whole lot of time.

Yeah. I think one of my guys might have cleared over to me, but I don't know. I kind of wish I had thought of something better to say. Like, they got me boys. There's something like. Pre-lesson learned, pre-load a really cool synonymous. cinematic moment and script to go with at the critical point. Oh, man, no, but I wish I would have thought of something better than my dick still there.

Makes sense. Oh, yeah, that was vastly more important, like I said. Yeah, yeah, something vastly more important. But the interesting thing about, they said I was below the knee. And so a lot of the times what happens, you might be. below the knee at sight of injury. But, like I said, infection, that dirt over there is nasty. We're not used to their bacteria.

It'll get in there. It'll infect, and they'll have to end up chopping you off higher to save your life because the infection is just uncontrollable. And also, if they don't have viable tissue, bones, and muscles that they can sculpt in such a way that you can put a prosthetic on there, They'll just cut you off where at the next, you know, viable spot would be. Right. Right. And there's got to be like, you know, you had to have known or you know this is a possibility, right?

When you're over there. How much did you think about that possibility? It's probably the same thing as when you were going through Ramadi. I mean, you know, everybody knows you could, you could die. you could get killed, but it's not going to be me. Yeah. It's probably not going to happen. Yeah.

But you kind of have to do that, don't you? I mean, if you, if I'm sitting there sweeping and I'm thinking, okay, here we go, this could be it. Every step, I'm not going to be effective. Yeah, there's got to be whether people refer to it the way I refer to, like, the idea of detachment and you're just like not going to think about that. Everybody must be doing that because otherwise you'd go freaking crazy. Like if you were just thinking this next step could be the one. I don't, you'd never be able to take a step. You couldn't handle it.

And you go out there on patrol and you see Marines and soldiers and the seals. Everyone's doing their job. Yeah. Just completely setting that fear aside and saying, okay, that's a possibility. Cool. I don't have time to worry about that right now. I'm going to get it done. But I have, I made a dark joke before I went to Afghanistan.

I did this 5K with a buddy. He said, oh, we're going to do it again when we get back from Afghanistan. When you get back from Afghanistan. Afghanistan. I was like, yeah, except you're going to be pulling me in a rickshaw because I'm going to have both my legs blowing off. He has yet to pull me in the rickshall. That's not funny. I mean, talk about, you know, fate or whatever. I don't know what, what. No, I don't know that's fate or that's just bad humor. I think that's what we call that.

But you know what? That is a way you deal with these. things right oh yeah I mean like hey we were kind of talking about on the caller over here just like sick humor that you end up with in the military because you have to take that thought which is in your head like it's got to be in your head so what are you gonna do with it are you gonna let it like burden you down and make you inoperable and make you not be able to do your job are you know you know what we're gonna make a joke about it and that's how we're gonna get through this so more than anything else it's actually great I shouldn't have said bad humor I

should have said great humor because that's the kind of humor that we'd hear that all the time. Yeah. You know, all the time from guys from my seals were ridiculous. My guys are just, I mean, the sickest sense of humor you could imagine. And but yeah, the same thing with the soldiers. And it wasn't even, there's no barrier. Like, there's no barrier for that sick sense of humor when you're in the military.

It's just like there. And you're allowed pretty much to say it across services. You know, you can make a joke to a Marine or an Army soldier about something. And they're not going to be, they're not going to be offended by it. It's got everyone's got that same twisted sense of humor that really, if you think about it, we're all probably using to cope with, you know, the fact that these bad things might happen. Yeah, I think I've often, I try and wonder why they say, you know, laughter is the best medicine and why it's so true. And I think it acts to normalize your situation. So you know how if you're about to try and deadlift like 1,000 pounds for you, something like that?

Sure. 8,000. If you're trying to deadlift 8,000 pounds and you're sitting there going, there's no way I'm going to deadlift this 8,000 pounds. You're going to go up to it and it's going to stick to the ground and it's that predetermination, self-predetermination. And so if you're sitting there, let's say, after I got hurt and I'm sitting there going, this is the worst thing to ever happen. this sucks I hate this it's so serious

it's such a big deal then yeah it becomes the worst thing that ever happened and I just kind of get into that groove but if you can make a joke about it

it kind of makes fun of it so it's not as serious and so when something's not as serious or not as big a deal you make fun of something it kind of becomes normal to you and a little bit easier to

to accept. Like if you saw, if I saw my drill instructor crack a smile at any point, if you even like, did anything like that, then they automatically lose their persona.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if, if, and you can tell sometimes they were getting ready to crack a smile and they'd be like, yeah, and they'd just walk off. They'd have to just walk away.

So I think, I think that, that's probably why you have to maintain your humor. in order to survive. You really do. Yeah, no doubt about that. That's awesome.

Going back to your journal here, it took me five days to make it from dusty, uncomfortable blast crater in Afghanistan to a sterile, uncomfortable hospital bed in the ICU at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. Luckily for me, I was much too high on...

What's that, Dillado? Dillot. Dillaudid? Deloaded. Delotted. Yeah. To notice the bed or the trip. My amputations had started out below the knee, but somewhere during the three hospital stops along the way, the need rose for the remaining portions below my knees to be taken off. A lot of the time, this is due to infections that are picked up from the dirt in Afghanistan.

Or maybe there wasn't much that existed below the knees to make keeping them viable. On the bright side, however, the stumps that were remaining were, a significant length for an above knee amputation. I was left with the entire femur on my left leg and only a few inches shy on my right leg. I found it funny that throughout my entire hospital stay, the remainder of my legs were always referred to as stumps by the medical staff. I had expected a more elegant turn considering the fact that this was a hospital. At the same time, however, I enjoyed the casual nature of the word stump and even, considered naming them at one point later when perusing my medical records I found the elegant term I had been looking for residual limb along with the major injuries I sustained I also had a few minor injuries I used the term minor loosely here seeing as how these minor injuries would be considered major if they weren't sustained in tandem with the severing of one's lower legs starting from the

lower portion portions first I lost a portion of the muscle making up the inner part of my right thigh in order to close that wound I would require a skin graft taken from the skin of my left thigh my buttocks contain or sustained several large wounds from shrapnel some close to the sphincter but mostly in the more meaty parts that was okay though I have always had an extra butt muscle to go around the close proximity of these wounds to the working parts the digestive system resulted in the doctors diverting my intestines to a colostomy bag that came through my abdominal area.

The reason for doing this wasn't because of any damage to the intestines, but because the doctors wanted to make sure that the large wounds on my butt didn't get infected. As for upper body injuries, I had some minor burns to my hands and two totally perforated ear drums. The hands would heal and my ear drums would be replaced with cartilage. I consider myself extremely lucky that I still have all 10 fingers in perfect working condition, my eyes and most significantly a brain that made it through the blast with only a grade three concussion and no residual traumatic brain injuries While I may face hardships and have some sort of discomfort constantly throughout the day as a result of wearing prosthetics

At least it doesn't hurt I don't have constant pain Constant pain is much more harrowing is a much more harrowing plight than mine and I can't imagine how hard it is to withstand I spent my first week at Bethesda in the intensive care unit I had a tube down my throat one tube going into my arm a breathing tube in my nose a catheter pads monitoring my heart rate an epidural in my lower spine and a wire from my pain button both my hands were wrapped in gauze for my burns my legs were also wrapped in gauze along with having wound

vac machines attached them to suck out excess fluids leaking from my wounds my rear end had a pad of gauze for the wounds there the incision down the center of my abs used from my colostomy had been stapled back together and the bottom part parts of my stumps where the skin was reconnected were stitched together man like you know you just you it's just piling all that other stuff on to and it just like you said you you lost your legs and you're like oh you know that's pretty much what a guy like me, I focus, oh, he lost his legs, you know, obviously freaking horrible. And then you don't, you like, a guy like me, I'm not thinking about all these other injuries that

you're sustaining and all the medical things that have to happen to get that stuff straightened out. Yeah. I mean, any one of those, just, like if it happened to one of us right now, any one of those would be major. But they're just pretty much nothing compared to the actual major thing that happened. God. And you're just, so are you just drugged up at this point?

Yeah. For that first week, I mean, yeah, just dilauded haze, hallucinations and that kind of thing and surgeries.

I would hallucinate nasty things like being hit by a mortar and seeing my legs splattered for whatever reason my mom was there. and then I recall for the first couple weeks

every now and then I don't know how to describe it was something what happened you felt explosions before and there's kind of that when the shock wave goes through you and you kind of feel your brain kind of jar a little bit

I would kind of feel that and then for a split second I would kind of it would be like I was getting hit by an explosion for a split second, I'm like, like that. And I'd be like, did I just, did I just pass out or something? And I'd be like, no. I was like, what is that?

So, but that, you know, that ended up going away. Like, some kind of like mental aftershocks or something. Yeah, I don't know what it was. It's, I asked the doctors about it. They said, I'm never, I don't know what that is, but luckily it went away. And after maybe it had something to do with the drugs. I don't know. But, yeah, but, you know, eventually you get used to that.

body kind of gets adapted to it and you get your senses back and it's hard to look at a computer screen for the first couple weeks still but eventually I would see ants crawling on me but yeah so eventually all that kind of goes away and you just stuck with your little button for pain I remember they you can only hit the it'll only let you hit it every three four or five minutes or something like that and they would come in and during the first little bit and they would say you know you can only hit that thing like 12 times in a minute right so yeah and they say well you hit it about 110 times in the last hour

and I'm like well I'd be because I'd be kind of like falling asleep and then I'd hit it and do like oh make sure I got that hit so I just hit it again and so yeah but eventually

kind of get used to it And then pain starts to go away. I'm sitting here thinking about like I've been hospitalized a couple times for a couple different surgeries. And what a complete pussy I was. You know, and they're like, oh, this hurts. You know, and I, you know, this is through, you know, repair something. Like I had a hernia operation.

I had a neck surgery. Like these are planned operations. Yeah. The openings in my body were made by a highly skilled surgeon, you know. And I'm in there like, oh, this sucks so bad. I mean, I can't, like, what you have is like a thousand times, a thousand times worse. And it's hard to even imagine. And then on top of this, I'm going back to the journal here.

To top it all off, I had my pirate hat on my head. I was practically being held together by duct tape like an old dilapidated chair. You're trying to get one or one more good year out of. What's up with a pirate hat? Well, so you're not supposed to wake up. when you go through Germany. So basically, you go from site of injury to Camp Leatherneck to Bogger-Marifor's base to Launchdull, Germany, to Bethesda, Maryland for Marines,

and then just go straight to Walter Reed for anybody else. Marines and sailors go to Bethesda. And so, for whatever reason, I wake up in Germany for, I don't know, 15, 20 minutes, and my squad leader was there. He was there for something else. I don't remember what he was there for. So he was there. He kind of told me what happened and that kind of thing.

And I couldn't help but think, even though I was super drugged up, was like, my mom is going to not, she's going to be sad. And so all I could think of, I'm always trying to crack a joke or whatever. So I was like, see if you can find a funny hat. to wear it when... And he couldn't find one, right? They're not going to have funny hats in the hospital. It's a serious place.

He went and looked, I guess. Maybe he just went outside the room. I couldn't find one. He didn't go to the funny hat store. Bogram has a lot of things, or Germany has a lot of things, but maybe not a funny hat store. So couldn't find one. I get to Bethesda.

And when you get to the hospital, they pick you up from wherever they fly you into. in these big, basically semi-trackter trailer ambulances. And they have, they alert the hospital where we're coming, we're going to be there at 2 p.m. and all the doctors come down and they rush you in and do what you need to do.

And so a lot of the times that's where families will see their servicemen when they first get back, when they're unloading them. And they give them kind of, you know, 15, 20, seconds to hey good to see you and then they take you off and I don't know

how it happened but I'm rolling down the thing and there's my mom she has this pirate hat in her hand I don't know if somehow they got word back to her you still don't know that no I haven't I think I think somebody else brought it

I don't think she brought it but I don't know why they would have brought me a pirate hat unless somebody had found out that I had asked for a stupid hat or something because I've never been known to wear, you know, pirate hats or stupid hats before. So there's my mom with a stupid hat. And then so it kind of became a theme. Like people would bring me a stupid hat when they came and visited me. So I had a big bag woman eventually. But so I guess what happened, you know, I hope it kind of helped ease the pain a little bit

for my mom in that initial meeting, maybe a little bit, but I don't know. So then you spend, how long are you in, like, ICU for where they're trying to get you more stabilized? I was probably there for about a week. And then you move up to the fifth floor of the hospital, which is kind of where they put all the amputees. And there were actually three Joneses there at the time. So the nurses had to be very careful.

And on top of that, I'm Jones RR, first two initials. My buddy who got hit maybe an hour before me, his name is Jones D.D. And then the third Jones was Jones, JJ. Dang. So they had to be on it with checking what medications are going to who. Eesh. But, yeah, so then you go up to the fifth floor, and that's kind of where you start to become lucid and that's where they,

physical therapists start to come in, and that's where once you're kind of ready, like you start just lifting a leg, want 10 times, just lift your stump 10 times. And you described that in your journal, it was like exhausting for you to do that. Yeah, and it hurt. And what's making it,

is it because you've been laying there for so long, is it because it's a movement that you haven't been able to do in a while? I don't know. Or it's just all the above? I would imagine a lot of that stuff down there is just swollen and painful. You know?

I think that's probably what it would be And so, yeah, it hurts so bad Just to even move it at all And so they start with that And then eventually you get in your wheelchair And it takes about 10 minutes for you To get into your wheelchair And take about four people

To get you into your wheelchair Because you're just like sliding off And you're just so sore But, you know, eventually you get better And I could, you know, I made a big deal about the first day That I got in my wheelchair by myself and then I would go for little rolls around the floor

and somebody would have to like wheel my little IV pole and I'd have to hang my catheter bag on the... That was so scared. I was like, watch that tube. Do not let that tube get caught into anything. And so, yeah, I would just do a few laps around the ward, get out, And then when I was done I go visit my buddy Daniel because he couldn't get out of bed yet Because he had a

I don't know why he couldn't get out of bed, but he couldn't get out of bed so I'd go in his room and hang out for a little while So then and then how long is it before you're thinking yourself? Okay Or what makes you start thinking? This is my game plan. This is where I'm going Like you see guys that are further along the process and you say okay, I see what that guy's doing You know, I'm going to do that too. Well, I sent a little iPhone message to Daniel

who was still down on the fifth floor and my buddy took a little, he was like, why don't you say something to Daniel? And so I said, listen, first step, make a workout program to get back to where we were before, to get on our feet again. So it was a media. I was like, we are going to just work out

and we're going to get better. And you know, so they don't do a whole lot of prosthetics at Bethesda. Well, they do now, but they didn't back then. And so the nurses would kind of have a general idea of how the prosthetic stuff went and the physical therapist would know. But the major thing was the visits from Walter Reed, so the Wounded Warrior Battalion people would bring people that were further along

in their recovery over to visit the guys that had just been fresh. wounded. And so I got a one of those visits. I don't remember there being a double above the knee amputee that came to see me that was in legs yet. But they had a better idea, and they would say, look, you know, you're going to get over there and you're going to get your prosthetics and you're

going to be able to walk again. You're going to be able to run. You're going to be able to do this and that. And so at that point, I'm like, oh, so I'm not going to I don't have to be in a wheelchair forever. Oh, okay. You know, so it was about at that point. And then what did, how did you develop your workout program? Well, once I became lucid, I was doing pull-ups on my little triangle.

You know how they had the little triangle thing dangling down? Started getting after it. I wasn't doing, well, I was doing pull-ups. I was probably doing like horizontal rows or something. I was just like lifting myself up. whenever the physical therapist couldn't come in and do her stuff with me, I was like, all right, well, I'm just going to do, I was going to pull myself up on this thing. And so that was, and I kind of, I went off the therapist's experience for the, for most of it in the beginning,

until I kind of got on my own. Because I don't, you know, they've been doing this for nine years at that point. So they had a lot of drills and strengthening exercises that I can do and that kind of thing. So I just kind of let them take the reins and just did whatever they said and then did it again. But then once I got to a point where I was, we're kind of literally where you see me now and walking around. No problem. That's when I started venturing into trying to do regular gym stuff. And I invented my own way of doing straight leg deadlift.

So I strap myself to a pole and I cinch it down. And I just lean down and I do a straight leg dead left as a put because I can't squat. Right, right. Yeah. I thought this was a really cool part of your journal that you wrote and you're talking about getting through that kind of stuff. So here we go back to the journal. It is easy to be motivated to succeed in the beginning of an endeavor and when you are close to the end. The most difficult part and the part where people quit is when they are in the thick of it and it is unclear whether they have the strength and stamina to make it the rest of the way

While I never actually doubted my ability to walk again during my recovery I am certainly subject to the inner monologue rationalizing why it is okay to quit or to not push myself to the goal that I have written down on paper One way I've recognized to aid in shutting that monologue the fuck up is celebrating milestones. The hardest part of working toward a goal is when we are either making slow progress or negative progress and having the patience and confidence to know that the improvements we make over the long periods as opposed to the short periods are what matter. milestones are what remind us that we are making progress even if it isn't apparent every day in rowing I've heard of people that count strokes until the finish line using sets of 10 personally I like to count two 50s for making up a race when I ran the nation's

triathlon I picked points ahead of me to make it to and when I got there I'd pick a new point anything we can use to keep our minds from succumbing to the monologue will work not only in short-term goals but also in long-term goals like graduating from college or learning to use prosthetics great advice for anybody to pay attention to now you mentioned rowing there so this was no like a weekend row that you decided to do this was you got after it yeah Yeah. So how'd that come about? So I was looking for that workout program. I knew at this point, hey, I'm alive.

I'm going to still try and have the best life possible. And so I'm trying to get back what I lost, so to speak. And I used to like working out and going to the gym, getting after it. and so I'm sitting there going, well, what's another way that I can work out now? And so I started looking up, I forget what I looked up, disabled sports or disabled work, I googled something. Google getting after it. Yeah, Google. Get after it.

And so the Paralympics comes up. I don't know what the heck is the Paralympics. the Paralympics is, is that like the Special Olympics? And the answer to that question is no. And so the Paralympics is the Olympics for disabled people, for people with disabilities. It's like, all right, well, I fit into that category. Let's see what sports they got.

And I saw they had rowing. I said, well, you know what? I used to hit the rowing machine when I was working out. Mm-hmm. Getting on the concept two. Yeah, the concept two, doing some sprints on that thing. That was pretty tough, and I want something that's tough. So I was like, you know what?

I'm going to look into this rowing thing. And maybe I'll make the Paralympics one day. And this is when I just got to the hospital. I went for the second week in the hospital. Not real strong point in the patients area, huh? Hey, you've got to set yourself a goal right away. Check. You don't have something you're working towards.

then you're just, you know, tread in water. And so, yeah, and, hey, a lot of things fell into place. There was a, I probably didn't go out and try and learn to row on the water until the next year. So my main focus at that point was still learning the prosthetics, getting my strength back. But once I kind of got my strength back and I felt like I was ready to move on kind of outside of the therapy. angle on it. I looked up places where I could learn to row and just so happened

there was one in D.C. And so I went down there and I learned. And I mean, I don't want to brag, but the guy said I was a natural. So I was like, well, maybe I can do this. And so I convinced the, they didn't have

a raw machine in the physical therapy clinic at the time. They had an elliptical. They had all sorts of equipment, but they didn't have a rowing machine. so I convinced the clinic whoever was running the clinic to get a rowing machine

for me so I could row and then when I was trained for the nation's triathlon I convinced them to let me bring my bike in and ride my bike in the clinic so I had my own I'm starting to build my own gym inside the gym and I convinced them to get

a kettlebell for me and stuff and so I convinced them to let me let me have that rowing machine. And so a couple times a week, I would go down to the water and train on the water. The other times,

I would just do some sprints on the rowing machine. And then it just kind of kept, I kept getting better and better. And this was 2011. So then the Paralympics are 2012. And... Now, is there like a specific coach

that runs the rowing team? There isn't... In some sports there are. There's a head coach that's in charge of everybody, and he'll train everybody. But for my category in Paralympic rowing, it's pretty much you find your own coach, and you show up at this race,

and if you win that race, then you represent America and all their races for that year. Dang. How far is the row? It's 1,000 meters. So what is that? Like, it takes you a couple minutes, three minutes? Um, so rowing trunk and arms only.

It's my category. So it would take me, my best ever time on the erg was probably like 3.38, I think. And that's like puke level putting out. Yeah, for me. Yeah. Yeah. And then on the water, the best in a double, so two people, my category, you have to have two people in the boat, was just right around four minutes.

If you could do four minutes, then you had a shot at winning. And that's 1,000 meters too? It's 1,000 meters. So you're always going to be a little bit slower on the water. And you say it's four minutes, you said? Yeah, about four minutes. So it's like a complete gut check.

It's equivalent of sprinting like the mile. Yeah. Because you're going four minutes, right? Four minute mile. I mean, it's no joke. It's a tough, it's a tough, tough race. And where was the Paralympics that year? The Paralympics were in London in 2012, and so I was just getting ready for that.

I was getting ready to retire. I need something to do, too. And just so happened that my coach at the time knew somebody else, knew this other coach that had a female that was looking for a partner, also a double above the amputee. And so my boat class is one guy, one girl. and so we met up, rode together, looked like we were a pretty good pair, and once I retired, moved down to Florida, started training for the Paralympics. How long did you have to train?

So I got out in late December, so let's say call it January 1st, and I, we had the Paralympic final was September 2nd. September 3rd. Okay, so you had a decent chunk of time to get ready. Yeah, good nine months. Of crushing yourself. Of, yeah, training twice a day, every day, or twice a day, six days a week, take off Sunday and just sprints, you know, technique, a lot of technique. Yeah. Do you have to do the technique in the water?

Yeah. I mean, you can do it outside of the water a little bit, but it's really, you've got to practice your technique in the water. I'm sure it's like jujitsu, you just got to... It doesn't matter if you're doing like a... In a fake scenario, it doesn't really have the same effect unless you're doing it in the real thing. Yeah. So you get to England and boom.

Yeah. How many races is there in England? Is it just one race? No, luckily. There's a couple races, so we had to win the trials race. Okay. Which was, to find out who represented America, we won that. Then we had to go qualify.

our boat for the Paralympics. And so we had to go to Serbia about maybe a month after winning the trials to qualify the boat. So we won that race, qualified our boat, and then Paralympics, you show up and you do your heat. And then if you win that heat... Is it how many boats are in heat? Six. Dang. So there were 12 boats total, six in each heat, two heats.

So if you win that heat, you automatically go to the final. If you don't win that heat, you've got to go what's called the reposage. It stands for second chance in French. And you have to come first or second in that. So we won our reposage. We lost our heat to the Chinese, which still makes me so mad. And we won our rappeachage. So we were in the final, and we started the final and dead last.

and just slowly over the course of the race This was our race plan We kind of wanted to start slow and build Slowly we just rode in one boat And the next boat and the next boat Until we got to the end And We're about

Six inches between us and the Great British boat The home team Everybody's cheering for the home team And so Third Place gets a medal Fourth Place You don't get any Right.

You get nothing yet. So, and we're doing our final sprint, and then we crossed the line, and I don't know. I wasn't looking over there. My forearms were numb. I was just trying to hold onto the oars, and then it comes up on this little board, you know, first place, China, second place, France. And then there's just this long pause. I was just looking over there. And then it goes, third place.

USA and I'm like, boom. And you look at the video, it's literally like the length of one of these knives. No kidding. Yeah, that close. Point two, point two seconds between them and us. That's crazy. So, did you meet anyone while you're on that event right there? Yes, I did, actually.

You're telling you met someone over on that event. Oh, well. So I'll tell you, when we were. first got there and we were training we were doing we would go out we were probably there a good week beforehand so we'd go out and train on the lake and continue our training get used to the area my partner my my my rowing partner and I were watching the other teams and then there's another boat class called the four so it's four people and I saw this great British four row by and there was this

gorgeous blonde in the bow of the four and I said I just bit my lip like that's a good looking chick and you know I never expected to meet her anything because you know we're not racing against each other

and she's from another team and you kind of you know until the race is over you gotta be keeping it professional sure she even though she was super high she was very high but you know and she

she'll tell me back when she told me she saw me around I was like because I was just in serious Marine Corps mode just don't talk to anybody yeah although she was pretty hot

and so racing's over we're back in the Athletes Village it's time to get after it the other kind of getting after it there's a casino outside the athlete's

village so the American contingent goes out to this casino starts we're part I'm still at this point I'm still kind of in like serious mode takes a couple days to get out of it you know serious serious mode still a little bit pissed that we lost you know to China and France it's like the two people the two countries that my buddies are like don't lose to China or France they were taking shots like every two fit they were following one at home and they, every 250, they took the show. They woke up like so early in the morning. So we're out there, then the British team comes in, the four.

They just won gold, right? And they're all happy. So we're the only two groups that speak English. Right. Bonus. Yeah, exactly. So our two groups, you know, kind of end up together. And it took them a while to get me to,

out of my shell because I was like still kind of on my guard this was the first maybe the second time I'd ever traveled outside of America for anything besides deployments I'd never traveled outside of America

Serbia was the first time England was the second time so it was kind of still on my guard a little bit but they started to feed me fosters lightened up and then just so happened

the the gorgeous blonde I saw was there So, hey, you guys know how charming I am. So, yeah, charmed her. Well, you at least fooled her. So I'm sure the alcohol helped, you know, but charmed her and now we're married. That's awesome. That's awesome.

After four years of long-distance relationship, because she kept rowing, she actually defended her gold medal in Rio. And did it again? Yeah. Got gold again. So we did about, we didn't get together right away. we did long distance for about three years. She'd living in England and I was living in America. But finally got her over here, married.

Her name's Pam. Nice. Well, obviously, I have a certain affinity for British ladies as well. It's pretty well known. Now, you mentioned real quickly you were training for triathlon in there somewhere too? Yeah, so the people at the clinic, it was, I mean, It was a team effort, everybody. So there were other amputees in there.

And, I mean, we talked about this a little bit yesterday, Dan Kanasin, the Navy SEAL, that was there for a year. Awesome guy. Stud. And Paralympian as well. Yeah. Oh, yeah, Paralympian in the biathlon. He was my idol, I guess, for when I first got there. Because he was pretty much done with therapy.

He was about to get out. He was walking everywhere on his legs, carrying backpack around. And he was almost, I mean, the exact same injury as you? I mean, above the knee. Double above the knee. Yeah.

And so I could see him from when I was just sitting in a wheelchair. Right. Like, all right, that is possible. Yeah. Because I'm seeing it with my own two eyes. It is possible. And so. And he's a stud.

Yeah. So if you want to try and be like anybody, it's be like Dan. Yeah. because, and so that's kind of the environment that they had there at Walter Reed was you could ask somebody that had been there before tips, tricks, anything like that. And so I saw Dan and I was asking him stuff and watching how he did stuff. And then eventually he left and I kind of noticed, you know, I am now, there's new guys coming in and I'm now that person that has been there. And so I need to step into that role and offer advice and work harder than anybody else in the clinic and show people what's going on and show people what's possible.

And so the therapist would always be, hey, who wants to run the Army 10-miler? Who wants to do this triathlon? They'd always be getting offers. They all be getting slots in races because people love having wounded warriors out there. They make a big deal of it and they let them go off first and everything. so yeah so and every time they'd ask me if I could if I wasn't doing anything else that day

I'd be like yeah yeah I'll do it and so they're like you want to do the nation's triathlon it's Olympic distance triathlon and there's like two people doing it and no other it's like a single blow than the amputee doing it and that's it and you're a double above knee empty

you want to do it yeah I do and check it's just so happened at the time I was learning how to ride a bicycle again, normal bicycle. So you figure you're learning how to ride a bike, might as well do a triathlon. Exactly. Hey, you got to give... One of the things that's going to drive you to push yourself is having skin in the game,

having something to lose, having something to risk. So if you say to everybody in the clinic, I'm going to do the nation's triathlon, and you don't do it, you're an idiot. You're a loser. How long is an Olympic triathlon? Triathlon? What are the distances? Limbic distance.

The swim is 1,500 meters. The bike is 40 kilometers and the run is 10 kilometers. Luckily for me, because I was not that good at swimming,

luckily for me the swim got canceled that year because there was a huge storm. There was a ton of debris in the Potomac. So we didn't do the swim, but we did the bike and the run. And yeah, so I was relearning how to ride a bicycle. Nobody had ever done that before in the history of Walter Reed,

double-above-the-amputee trying to ride a bicycle. And I had figured it out, and I kind of wanted to put it to use. You know, like, I finally figured this thing out. And so, oh, what better way to do it than do the nation's triathlon? And so it was like, you know, a baptism by fire in a way. And so it took me like four hours to do the whole thing. Did you enjoy it? I enjoyed having done it.

Okay. Because I'm just wondering at what point you made the brilliant decision that you were going to ride a freaking bicycle across the United States of America. Well. Which was your next whatever freaking psychotic idea you got? Again. Where'd that come from? I had just learned how to ride the bike. And I'm going, like I'd do something with it.

I can't make it just this pointless thing. I learned how, okay, I did it and now. never going to do it again. I was like, you know what might be fun. It's just like riding my bike across the country at some point in my life. And this is when I have, I'm not even, I'm still in the hospital, I just learned how to ride the bike. I should do something like ride, buy of a bike cross country or something like that. You know, something cool like that.

And I was rowing. I didn't do it right because I had made the commitment to do the rowing. Right. So I'm going to do rowing. But eventually I will do this cross-country bike ride. and so I did another year of rowing after that I took the time to kind of plan it out how I wanted to do it

and so I took another year of rowing and then finished world championships that year and fourth and about a month later drove up to Maine, started riding this is in October and so what was that all what was the what did that day to day look like

So I had a box truck A U-Haul box truck I bought Like I used 200,000 miles U-Haul box truck Check I laid down some carpets in the back Check

Had a couple of cots A couple sleeping bags Supplies And my little brother Who was about to turn 18 Check Roger it up to drive Good to go

That's all you need right there Box truck Water. Two cots, carpet, and a little brother. And so, you know, I didn't really train much. What I did was I made sure that my prosthetics fit correctly and I was able to ride the bike. That's all I really did. I didn't, you know, go out and ride 100 miles or anything, any kind of formal training for it.

Yeah. Because I figured what is the point? Yeah, exactly. Just start and the beginning is the training for the finish. Yeah. So the day to day would be wake up probably six, seven o'clock, you know, drive out to wherever I was starting for the day. Because you can't just like stop and then pull over. So we'd have to like drive the truck somewhere, park it in a church parking lot or a fire department parking lot.

And then start riding. Yeah, so you don't get apprehended by the cops. Yeah. So the first time. I'd be riding my bike, and then my brother would be kind of half on, half off the road. And I picked a route that we didn't have, you know, not super busy roads,

so I wouldn't get in too many people's way until I got the Pacific Coast Highway, and then people were super pissed. And at one point, this cop, the first cop I encountered, pulls over in front of us. I'm like, all right, here we go. He's going to tell me to stop, it rides over. And then he gets out and he's like,

I just want to shake your hand, man. man. It's like, whew, okay. This is how it's going to go. Awesome. So I'm going to get, the cops love me. And so I wake up, start riding probably around 7.38. I might eat breakfast beforehand.

Probably ride. I would do 30 miles a day, so I'd just break that up however I felt for the day. Take breaks. Hop in the back of the truck, sit around for a while. And I'd ride 30 miles. And then wherever I finished, 30 miles, I might go a little bit further for a better pulling off point, stop, get in the truck, drive off to wherever we might be able to park the truck, and then spend the night in the truck, and then drive back out to that spot the next day,

do it again. Luckily for me, a lot of hotels started to offer us nights to sleep. So we were really on this sleep in the truck for the first month, and then after that we were mostly in hotels. And this was like a six-month journey. Six months, October to April. Oh, so you did it through the wintertime. Yeah.

You ever heard of the polar vortex? Oh, yeah, yeah. No, no, what is that? It was polar vortex here. It was like this freezing temperatures that came down and, and, like, attacked the nation with cold. They called it the polar vortex. It sounded very threatening.

It's one step higher than a shark nado. I think it 5,180 miles In the wintertime Every day for 180 days You talk about fortitude In your journal And I'm going to read it

It was through It was through the true purpose Of the Marine Corps That I became what I am today And it is that And that is that And that is the act of fighting the battles of the United States

It is through the preparation for and the fighting of America's wars that Marines gain their fine edge and an idea of the true meaning of courage spirit tenacity altruism and brotherhood After having been imbued with the essential qualities ascribed to Marines in boot camp it is up to the individual Marine and his leadership all the way from the fire team leader to the commandant to make him the ideal tool for the Corps. And there's no better place than a war to do this. It was during my two deployments that I learned what it means to be courageous. Almost on a daily basis, my fellow Marines and I would be subjected to situations with high potential for danger and situations with infinite, unknowable, possible outcomes.

The dangerous and unpredictable nature of these conditions elicits its fear, nervousness and uncertainty in all people however without fail when the time came to strap on our gear and proceed forth into these conditions we did it with no hesitation because it was what we needed to do to me that is courage I learned it from the example set by my leaders and my compatriots and when it was my turn I endeavor to teach others by my own example my favorite among the many mantras of the Marine Corps is adapt and overcome It is my favorite because it embodies the spirit and tenacity that Marines must possess in order to be the world's greatest war fighting force To Marines accomplishment of their mission is of the utmost importance above that of their own lives and the ability to adapt and overcome is key

The idea is straightforward. Change whatever you need to in order to become what is required to transcend an obstacle. If there is no bridge over a river, a Marine will swim. If there is a wall in front of us, we will blow it apart. If there is an enemy on a hill that we want, we will remove him. Marines do not stop until they have accomplished their mission. regardless of any monkey wrench that gets thrown into their plan. They will change their plan a thousand times if it need be

until what needs to be done is done. And then they will move on to the next mission. It was these two qualities that kept me, that allowed me to keep fighting after I was wounded. My plan of accomplishing something with my life and making my life as good as possible was met with obstacles and monkey wrench. But since I had already learned these lessons, bypassing these obstacles and moving on was easy and natural.

The brotherhood that the Marines share is the defining feature that initially attracted me to the Marine Corps. And over the course of two deployments, I experienced it to its fullness. The reason that I was able to be courageous and adapt and overcome was because the men that stood beside me doing the same thing. And it is because we were experiencing war and hardship together that we grew close enough that I cared for them more than I cared for myself and would sacrifice my safety for their well-being even if it meant being extinguished and although it never needed to be said I knew this was reciprocated to me this is the definition of brotherhood and selflessness and And from my having been part of such a relationship is why I am loyal and put others before myself as if it were a default setting. Without the Marine Corps, I have no idea where I would be or what I would be like. All I can say for sure is that I am what I am now do in large part to what I was taught and what I experienced during my five.

years in the Marine Corps. Awesome. If there's anything that the Marine Corps teaches you, it is Brotherhood. It is endurance. How to endure situations you don't want to have to be in. Whether it's humping around with a pack or fighting in Afghanistan, Iraq, or if it's sitting in the back of a seven-ton getting drenched in rain and then have to. to set up a tent, blah, blah, blah. It teaches you those things. And so I already knew all this stuff.

I was good at it by the time I became an amputee. And then I got even better at it once I was an amputee, even more experience. And then so that led into being able to endure whatever I had to for the bike ride. And I think the slogan for the wounded warrior race, Regiment and the Marine Corps is, I don't know if this is, it's Latin, I don't know if it's, I'm pronouncing it right, it's Etium and Pugna, which is still in the fight. And, you know, I'm not still in the main fight that's going on in Iraq or Afghanistan. I've been taken out of that fight, but the overall fight, I'm still in that.

I'm still a representative of America. I'm still representative of Marines. I'm dedicating myself to help my brothers that are struggling or come back wounded. I'm still in that portion of the fight. And, I mean, just remember. You just have to remember that slogan. Just stay in the fight. Just keep fighting.

Or obviously you're staying in the fight. And I, you know, I, again, reading through your. journal stuff is awesome and there's a bunch of different things that I wanted to pull out and obviously I can't read the whole damn thing right maybe I could but I'll leave that for you but one of the things you know I'm always thinking that what you know what can I pull out that I think will be really helpful to other people and I thought that this thing that you wrote right here was just something that can be used by by anybody especially people that are facing in tough situations, which, as you just mentioned,

you are pretty dang good at dealing with tough situations. And I think this gives a little insight into that. So here we go. Back to your journal. The Kubler-Ross model explains the stages by which an individual grieves for a lost intimate. The five stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In this case, it could be said, I was grieving for myself.

the former me that had died in Sangan. Since I had a natural understanding of conservation of energy and an awareness of the time required to reach my goal, I instinctively skipped the first four steps and proceeded to the acceptance portion of the process. I had decided that to spend my limited energy resources on denial, anger, bargaining, and depression would be a pointless waste.

and would be better left off of my itinerary. I wanted to be able to expend as much energy as I could toward my goal, which would not only allow me to reach it faster, but would improve the quality of my success. The sooner I had accepted my situation, the sooner I could get to where I wanted to be. Having one's legs amputated above the knee is categorically a negative experience.

If I hadn't had the right mindset afterward, the rest of my life could have also become a negative experience. Fortunately, I was able to react to the loss by accepting the negative energy from that occurrence and using it to open doors for myself in order to be sure that my life would remain a positive experience. No matter who you are, whether you are healthy or ill, injured or able-bodied everyone's main purpose in life is to make it as good as possible this is an unchanging objective for all people no matter what happens thus now that I was a double above-the-knee amputee I needed to figure out a way to keep my life enjoyable with this in mind I researched the Paralympics to see if I could participate which led to a bronze medal at the 2012 games

Not only that, I accepted people into my life who have enriched it beyond what I could have imagined. From the experiences associated with sports, I have learned lessons that have and will continue to make me a better person. Lessons that I can pass on to others in the future. It was in this way that I was able to transform the negative experience of having lost the lower part of my legs into the positive experience and energy of participating in a sport and all that has. accompanied it if you are ill or injured use it as a way to discover a new hobby or career if someone is rude to you and makes you angry use the anger to fuel a workout if someone you know has a terminal illness use it as an opportunity to make a difference in their life and in the world the most important part of

transforming energy from negative to positive is being aware of opportunities as they are presented and having the courage to seize them energy is all around us constantly fueling and transforming it will affect us in ways we cannot be we cannot predict be a person that uses energy intelligently instead of wasting it I like to say use the weight and I kind of analogize it I like to lift weights. I'm sure you guys can probably tell. I like to analogize it with maybe like a strict press.

So the weight on the bar is whatever. Girlfriend broke up with you, whatever possible issue you're having. And you can hold that bar on your shoulders. And you can just leave it there and eventually start to hurt. And then eventually, if you leave it there long enough, You'll just be on the ground with that weight on your chest. You can't move anymore. Or when you have that weight on the bar and it's on your shoulders,

you shoulder press it. And then you do it again. And you do it again and again. And then you let your body adapt. And next time you try and lift that weight, it's nothing. You can do that weight easily. I can handle that. No problem.

And then you can handle even more weight. And then when you get good at that, you seek out the weight. You purposefully try and make things harder for yourself so that you can just become even stronger and even stronger. And you embrace that and you start to enjoy it a little bit. And so, I think that's what I was trying to say there. I think you said it. Not only did you say it, but you actually are living that current. at this time seeking out more I guess maybe I would even go so far as to say stupid things to do because you're so the next challenge that you put in front of yourself is the thing that you're about to do right now and I've never heard of a challenge like this before but you're going to do a month of marathons yeah so these things are only stupid or crazy if I fail

bike ride's not crazy because I did it if I had failed then people could say it's crazy so I'd fail this one then it's stupid no man I'll tell you what you going out there and making these things happen you know it's awesome whether you finish or not no matter what you do the fact that you're putting these hardcore challenges

in front of yourself is it's unbelievable yeah so yeah all this stuff that I've written down and what we've talked about, all the wisdom I've been able to to gain through my injury and through being in the Marine Corps.

I think this, the month of marathons I'm about to do, and everything else that I try and do, I'm trying to be an example. Because there's so many people out, when I was trying to learn to write out of the bike again, I didn't know anybody that

had ever done it before until I saw somebody that had done it. And it just made everything once you realize it's possible, it makes it so much easier. Because you know it can be done. And so I want to be an example for people to look at and they see me and they say, well, they might not be trying to run 31 marathons and 31 days and 31 different cities or ride their bike across the country.

But they can say, there's a double above knee amputee that ran 31 marathons and 31 days I can probably go walk on the treadmill so and if I just want to be an example of that and I want to be an example of all of these lessons that I've learned a person that uses the weight instead of lets it destroy their life somebody that stays in the fight keeps fighting no matter what that's what I'm trying to do.

I want to serve to show people what they can do, and especially, you know, wounded veterans and people that might be struggling with what they saw. And, you know, I'm lucky enough that my mind is clear. I had a grade 3 concussion. That's it. No traumatic brain injury. No post-traumatic stress.

Nothing like that. And so I want to show civilians and veterans alike that it is possible. to have a traumatic experience and come through and be fine and not have not have to suffer from post-traumatic stress that just overwhelms you because I think in society these days it's almost becoming expected that you're going to go to war and you're going to come back and so a lot of people might end up just being a wall I'm supposed to have post-traumatic stress so I'm going to just to manifest it in myself,

or they let it get worse, or they don't fight it, they just let it happen. And so I want to be an example of somebody that uses their experience, and it just goes and has this terrible experience, and don't make a big deal about it. And part of you doing that is running 31 freaking marathons in 31 days. Yeah. So when do you start?

So I'm going to start... In 31 different cities. In 31 different cities. So my first city, London. London on October 12th. And then I'm going to fly to Philadelphia. So basically the way it's going to work, I'll run in a city. Probably take about the whole thing.

I'll take breaks during the run. So the whole thing will probably take five and a half, six hours to do. I'll do the run on my own, just like in a park or on a trail, out in backs, loops. I'll do it on a 400 meter track if I have to. Do that. Getting my RV, drive to the next place, spend the night there. We upgraded from a box truck with the cots in the back? Well, the wife's going to be coming along.

Oh, okay, yeah. She wasn't going to be in the box truck. No, I'm going to have a crew for this one. I've got my wife, Pam, is going to be my team leader. She's just doing so much stuff. She's a team leader and everything, every job that you could possibly think of. She's doing it.

And my mom is coming because she's a massage therapist. So she's going to give me a massage, and I'm going to have a driver, not my brother this time. I think I blew them out. I blew him out the first time. But I'm going to have a driver. And so we're going to all hop in the RV, drive to, so from Philadelphia to New York,

run in New York, repeat until I go all the way around. I'm going to end November 11th Veterans Day, D.C., on the National Mall. And your goal, obviously, is to show people and lead people and set an amazing example. And on top of that, you're going to earn money for some real specific charities that you believe in and stand behind. And what are those charities? Yeah, so my goal, my main goal is obviously to be the example on all these kind of grand objectives. But, you know, how do you really, you can't quantify that really. So the way that I'm quantifying it is I'm going to be raising money for three veterans charities that I've had personal contact with that have helped me during my recovery.

And they are the Semperify Fund, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. and the coalition to salute America's heroes. And so that's how I'm going to be, that's also how I'm going to be showing veterans that America loves them, because that is something that's been made abundantly clear to me, everywhere I go all the time. I think I did three breakfast in a row where somebody paid for it anonymously. I get thanked all the time.

And so if they're saying that stuff to me, it's obvious that they love all veterans, and I'm trying to help connect that, reduce that gap between the military and the civilian worlds and get them to talk and show veterans that they're coming back to a country that appreciates them and loves them more than pretty much any other thing. And so I think by the donations and by having people come out and run with me and show me support,

then that kind of helps us to prove that to people. So where can we go donate? What's the link? Rob Jones Journey.com. Rob Jones Journey.com. There's a donate link there. And you can also see my schedule there. And I'll have details of where I'm going to be.

And it's the whole country. It's east coast, west coast, middle of the country. All the way around. As far as you can drive in a day to get to a next spot to run 26.2 miles. Like my longest drive is 12, 14 hours, and that happens maybe once or twice. So they're all pretty close to each other in major cities. And yeah, you can go to my website, robjonesjurney.com, donate there, see my schedule, R-SvP that you're going to show up. You don't have to, but if you want to, that's cool.

I'll have all the details there. And then social medias, all at Rob Jones Journey. Awesome. I It's awesome man It's just awesome and you're freaking awesome And I grabbed a couple This a little short piece from your journal

Again this is something that I just thought Is is just going to be helpful To me when I read it And we'll be helpful to anybody that that listens hears or reads this And here we go back to your journal The Conscious is in control of forming habits every time we are faced with the decision of whether to quit slow down and rationalize a reason why that's okay or keep pressing forward one of those

habits is strengthened the more times we choose to push on the stronger that habit will become it takes time and purposeful effort for these habits to become ingrained but once a person develops them in the gym doing something as simple as choosing to keep rowing hard for another minute they can apply what they have learned to the rest of their lives they will learn to take the harder path so that they are challenged more they will learn to put extra effort into daily tasks who you are depends entirely on your influences and the level of effort that is put into forging yourself into what you desire to be.

And that's awesome. Yeah. Every decision you make either gets you closer to your goal or moves you further away. And I'm not saying I never make the decisions that move me to the left move me further away. I'm human just like everybody else. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

You know, we were hanging out yesterday and I was like, I was busy. I'm like, hey, man, I got to go. So in that busyness, you know what I had for dinner last night? MREs. No, I didn't have MREs. That's not happening. No, my entire dinner was a leftover piece of a Caesar salad and a giant mint chocolate chip milkshake.

I actually, said my wife was like make me because I was working and I did you know it's you can't stop and eat when you're trying to work and so I just said can you make me just a giant mint chocolate chip milkshake now I didn't get closer to my you know physical goals but I got a lot of work done I got an extra whatever 28 minutes worth of work done because I didn't stop to eat dinner yeah yeah you got to take the wins with the losses I dig it it's all just about, you know, making that it's like

you plot your progress on a graph and you're going to have as long as it's going to go up and then it's going to go down a little bit then it's going to go up and it's going to go down so as long as that trend is upward then you know you really have nothing to worry about but if that thing

starts to level off and then you go to the other way then you need to ask yourself some questions and you need to give yourself some honest answers. Yeah, you know we had a conversation not too long ago. A guy asked about Jiu Jitsu belts and said, you know, I understand that you shouldn't pursue, because in Jiu Jitsu, it's like, hey, you shouldn't just like go to get a belt. You go because you want to get better and you want to learn. And he said, you know, I understand that you shouldn't just do it

to get the belts, but it's good to mark your progress and figure your progress out. And I was, and that's true. And that's what you're saying. Like, yeah. And I've talked about that too. You know, I related to shooting where when you focus on the target, your vision gets blurry. And so you lose track of the long term, the long term goal or the long range target. So that's why we focus on our front site, because we can keep that little thing that's right in front three feet in front of us on our rifle. You can keep that in focus. So that's what you focus on. And every once in a while, if you start that, maybe that gets a little blurry.

Well, then you look at your long term targeting because that daily grind will beat you down too. Yeah, and if you just, the daily grind, the daily grind, the daily grind beating you down, and then you forget what your goal was in the first place. But so every once in a while, yeah, you got to look up at your long-term goal and say, I want to be doing this or achieve that or whatever. I want to do 31 marathons. See, some people would have picked like February, right? We'll do 28 marathons and 28 days. You're going to the full 31. That's the difference right there.

Yeah, yeah. If I want to make these points, that's why I rode my bike from Maine to Southern California. I was sitting there going, yeah, I could ride Florida to San Diego. It would be technically be all the way across. Yeah. Technically. But there would be that butt. And I don't want any butts associated with anything that I do.

I don't want anybody to have any reason to say, oh, yeah, Rob Jones, he ran 31 marathons and 31 days. But you could have done 32 You got to do a good job on your social media When you go out on this thing You got to document this thing and post it so people can like I'm hoping so I'm working with Sports Illustrated I think they're gonna do a video nice I heard of them Yeah good outlet you've heard that

Do they do good videos? Yeah, probably yeah That's that's a discriminating judge of videos right there So yeah I plan And like, you know, I documented the bike ride. That documentary is on my website too. So, yeah, I do try and document these things. And just in case people don't happen to catch it while I'm doing it, they can go back and use that as their example for what I've done.

They can find out that way. Yeah. Well, I know you get stuff done and you hammer out your daily tasks. We're going to let Echo hammer out his daily task right now. technically weekly weekly task weekly task yeah I do

extra respect on the weight lifting analogy I think like weight lifting and exercising in general like crit is like the perfect analogy for most things you know oh yeah because it's like yeah I mean I could go into it

but yeah yeah that is good that is an outstanding analogy yeah like hey that weights on you yeah you're either going to use it to get better or you're going to let it bear you in the ground yeah the choice is yours

what are you going to do? Yeah, and it goes to show, we talk about this sometimes, where you can take, let's say, a random person, right? And you'd be like, hey, let's go to the gym. And there can be literally opposite reactions if you get two different people. So one guy can be like, hell, yeah, let's go to the gym.

I'm going to work out and he's try. I need to get in shape good. You know, it's his thing. Or he can get someone and be like, that's the worst thing in the world. I don't want to go to the gym. I don't, like, that's hard. And it hurts.

Even the next day it hurts. You know, so meanwhile, it's the same exact activity, by the way. Yeah. So you can look at in those two different ways. You know what else is messed up? Is there's activities that are also good for you and move you in a direction that you want to be moving? But maybe, like, let's say the guy, you can,

we can give you a real good example. You take a meathead, right? And you go, okay, you want to go to the gym? What does the meat head say? Yes, let's go get it But then you say to that same guy who seems all motivated and fired up to improve himself Yeah, and you say hey Let's go read a book and try and you know understand better this concept of

Whatever yeah, and what do they say then? Yeah, I'd rather go to the gym yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's interesting Yeah, the weight the weight isn't necessarily Just a physical weight right it's pressing up a against whatever it is that's gonna improve you. Yeah. You can either use it to beat you down or you can use it to make yourself better. Yeah, and again, just as a concept, right?

I think the exercise and weightlifting and like your body just kind of figuratively can demonstrate just so much, you know, that applies so much. And you especially feel that way about curls. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Depends on the thing, but yeah. Generally speaking.

Anyway, speaking. and curls. Wait, should I go into this now? Your daily task? Yeah, yeah. Your weekly task? Weekly task?

I think you should. Yeah, yeah, might as well. Well, I got Rob Jones here to listen. So what up? I can't wait to hear the support. The support. Yeah. Live, you get to witness the support live.

It's an honor. So watch Echo do his work. His life's work. His life's work right here. Support you, Boja. After this, we can go to my house. You can watch me edit a video. So, so dope, you know.

Anyway Made in America Origin That's the company OriginMain.com You started in Maine Yeah Bike right across city

That's where this place is We just got back What last week Yeah Is week and a half Whatever Yeah that's a cool spot You know he has a

Side note He has like this I think it's on like the history channel Or something like that Where it was kind of like a show And you know the story he told about getting He got this The loom right

It didn't actually make Right Right They like came and filmed some stuff, but they didn't produce it. Yeah, he showed it to me. But it was great because when he's telling the story, I'm like, man, that took it took like to eight hours or something or more than that. They're doing more than that. Yeah, like to get it.

And it's this big thing and it kind of showed it. They were there for that. Yeah, that's awesome. Moving the looms. Yeah. You know what a loom is? No. Okay.

And me neither. And he asked me, he's like, you know what a loom is? I was like loom. I've heard that like once with fruit of the loom. Right? Yeah. And when you think about it, it makes sense. Because fruit of the loom is like fabric, you know.

It has all the strings, right? Yeah, yeah, it makes fabric. Anyway, so when they say made in America, in this case, it's for real made in America. They get the cotton from America. They make it with a loom. Yeah. With looms. With looms that this guy, Pete Roberts, up at origin, which we're in league now with origin.

Yeah. But we went up into old mills, because all the mills up there, a lot of them shut down. Yeah. And actually, I think all of them shut down. And these were these were these were factories that were like half a million square feet and they were filled with looms and filled with production and filled with American workers and it all went overseas and he went in and literally bought a loom for like I think that I think it was like three thousand dollars the cost of the scrap metal that it was worth and anyways took it hired some old timers that knew still knew how to work, it brought them back to work, and then started making clothes and, well, making

jiu-jitsu geese is what he started with, but got everything being lined up to get made. And that loom, they only had that one because they were going to put in a museum or something. Yeah, they were literally going to take that one loom that they had left, and they were going to put, make it a museum piece. Historical product.

You know, that's so awesome because there's so many people out there now that are like, oh, our country has to make problems, our country has some many problems. We need to do this. We need to do that. Or they say somebody needs to do this. Somebody needs to do that.

And it's like, hey, why don't you? And here's a guy that's doing that. Yeah. People are, guess what, boom. Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting to when we went there. You can tell he's into it.

He's like, we're driving up there. He's talking about how yarn is all made and stuff. And he's like, hey, I got to calm down because I'm getting too into it. The thing is, you don't even like this. I need to say he's into it. Yeah. Because he went out and bought a broken rusty loom and refurbished it and moved it into a factory that he built on his own property. It's ridiculous.

Yeah. And it shows, too, like the geese, like you might do jiu-jitsu right today. Yeah. The geese are like, they're cool. You know, martial arts geese or whatever, but he brings like this added, like element to it. Well, because he specifically designs him for, yeah. For jiu-jitsu. Yeah, it's not the kind where it's like, hey, let me get a geese blank from overseas or whatever.

And then, like, embroider my logo on it. So it's kind of like the same thing. You don't, you don't have much innovation, freedom with a physical product. He does, though. So it's like I took, I was rolling the other day. Gee, whatever. I take off the top and you left with just the pants. So the pants are like they're by, like, sizes.

You know, you wear 36. Yeah. In regular stuff is just the, like, numbers, A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, 6. This is like fitted to you, right? So I'm wearing the pants. And they feel kind of like normal pants, you know? And I was Greg in one. They're like they were noticing.

You almost don't mind getting choked out by alcohol. This guy is so dope. This is so sweet. Here's the thing, my streak every day, and I wear it every day, I have two tops. I wear it every day and the streak is still alive. Every single time someone asks, like, what up with that key? Like, oh, let me see that.

They're dope. The way that fabric is woven is legit. Yeah. It's legit. Yeah. And see these shorts I have on right now? I kind of in a way shouldn't mention these, because B. Second Out, we're not making those shorts

because they don't make these shorts. We will make them. Oh, okay. I've worn these three days in a row, by the way. Oh, nice. That's what that smell was. Whatever I washed them once. But, yeah, they're my favorite shorts.

They're made out of the same material as one of the geese. Yeah, they look nice. Yeah. I spilled some eggs on it. You know how it leaves them? These shorts are black, by the way. So, you know how you, when you spill eggs or, I don't know, I was feeding my son yogurt and stuff, and it's spilt on it.

Uh-huh. So you just take a brush, like, you know, like a brush you find under your sink or whatever, put some water and I scrubbed it you can't do that on like your shorts it'll start to wear it out you know but a geese tough it's supposed to be tough yeah boom did it you don't have to wash it anyway sorry you can't get the shorts I don't get too fired up we'll make it we'll make them yeah so standby for that nonetheless Jiu Jitsu geese all kinds of rash guards and even like like regular clothes shirts hoodies and whatnot the joggers I keep putting on the joggers and walking around

in front of my wife she likes it that was a one weird thing because I didn't actually know what do you know what joggers are they're new joggers you know they're like they're like sweatpants they're like sweatpants they're like sweatpants they're like they're like they're like some how more high end yeah the shape is different they kind of taper down your leg like um you know like skinny jeans they're like skinny jeans they're like skinny jeans with sweatpants yeah i'm gonna go ahead and say i don't endorse that product i didn't neither did i but i put them on and i was like i was like these i don't know how i look because they didn't have a mirror in that

cabin mm-hmm except in the bathroom but nonetheless um you so I couldn't see how they looked they look kind of strange from up here but I don't know so I was like well he he wore the origin jogger pants and the matching origin sweatshirt or hoodie and he went he rolled out like that like it was like it was the deal and then he looked he was a straight-up leisure suit is what he was rolling yeah he was not playing around and then when I came in I thought people would be like oh you know you don't match in that because I'm not used to wearing but Pete said I that I looked good in it and then my wife said I looked good in it oh

well that one I'll give you credit for yeah yeah I'm not getting you credit Pete made it of course me like oh yeah I go you know great no but it was a moment of honesty because he mentioned either you I don't I think he was you or someone he was like I don't think Jock could pull it off yeah he's right like that no might have been someone else I don't think he was talking about he he's right either way Jagga doesn't want to pull it off Cove's design for girls No

Not happening Oh maybe I'm not secure in my manhead No I just don't wear girls clothes Apparently not Nonetheless Functionally that is what I noticed right when I put them on though Like when you roll out you know how like if you have And not that it's even a big deal

Even me talking about it makes it seems like a big deal Like you know how it is when it's like something happens But actually, not does I have no... You know how much is when you're wearing skinny jeans? Like, I actually have, a lot of times I have no idea what he's talking about, but I roll with it. Because we're trying to condense the timeline of the support speaking, which is hard. In the spirit of accuracy, I'm going to go down in this hole. You know when you wear, have you ever worn sweatpants ever in your life?

Not really. Any kind of sweatpants. Okay, Rob Jones. I have worn sweat. Pre-injury I have. Yeah. So consider this when you, let's say, like, I don't know, you're running or walking or whatever. Like the sweatpants are loose they flow.

Not a big deal. I dig it. I understand. But the skinny jeans, sweatpants, joggers. We shouldn't even say skinny jeans. You need to get this off my podcast. Now. Anyway, you're rejected.

They function because they don't flap around. They're like, if you're running with them, they work. I just run in shorts. Right. For that very reason. I don't care if it's three feet of snow. I just running shorts. Nonetheless.

You're pretty good to go. Don't knock it until you try it. Also, Jocko has some supplements. I don't know if you knew this, Rob Jones, but Super Krill. Available. Boom. OriginMane.com. OriginMaine.com.

Click on the top. Labs. Labs on the top of the menu. What do you call it? The top menu on the website. Labs. Super Krill. Joint warfare. Yes.

That's a big one. I mean, we know krill is like the base. Yeah. The joint warfare? Yeah. So good. And the significant. Well layers if you will I think you know maybe that's a stretch with layers but this is the the stuff that you've been taking

From yes jump yes with some bonus bonus stuff bonus stuff that I now can take in one shot So like when you're even before this podcast and stuff you're like taking Glucosamine and grill oil and all this stuff and you're like you know would be make this even better It's like you know those little elements or whatever in one day you know I'm gonna Make my own and boom it happened. It happened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're in it. Joint Warfare, that's a good one. Super krill. It has an added thing right in the Super krill. It's like super krill. Yeah, yeah. Oh, that's it. Super krill.

Doop krill. Okay. What else are you going to add? It's already super. Dupor? We could add duper. That'll be super duper krill. See, now he's going to take the market from us. Rob Jones, super duper krill oil. Just patented it Well, he does make things happen I just got the website and the Twitter handle Yeah, the domain It's true

But yeah, so basically everything you need For the joint situation, you're covered And then What about that pre-workout, pre-mission? Pre-mission? It's coming. Pre-workout? It's coming.

It's coming not available yet. Pre-mission will be coming. Soon. We're not going to talk about that one. We'll talk about it. We are, it is in the testing phase and has been being tested. Yeah.

And legit. All right. So far, so good. Boom. I'm kind of addicted to it. Yeah. Also, on it.com slash jocco. Okay, so I get all my kettlebells from Onet.

I got into kettlebells after this podcast kind of started. And, you know, On it has awesome stuff. Specifically the kettlebells because they're the designer ones. You've seen that kind of before it. So. So, I. get the whole set well I don't have the whole set technically I have the weights that I think I'm gonna be able to use what's your heaviest one you have at home 40 kilograms

So what is that 80 80? 88 That's cool man cool story. I got the 90 pound one so whatever so basically all 88 pounds that you have I have that plus more So no big deal stand by I'm gonna order more There you go good and it's what you wear skinny jeans or skinny joggers contemporary joggers from time to time

that subtracts at least four pounds your max kettlebell it functionally it adds it it adds it by the way got the gorilla ones

a few weeks ago the 90 pound one is the big foot just for informational purpose of they ever

going to make a hundred pound jocco head actually they said that right people have been saying there's been some requests

I don't know if anyone would actually want that Yeah. I saw a guy sent me a two, it was a 250, 200-something pound kettlebell. Dang. I don't even know what I mean. Yeah, I guess, right?

Goals. That's legit. There's like, you know how some people are just mutant strong? Yeah. One of my team guy buddies just mutant strong. And he trained jihitsu, great dude. But he got the beast. I don't know who makes it, but there's a kettlebell called the beast.

I think it's like 102 pounds or something. But there was like this little test taming the beast and he got the kettlebell out of the box did the test past it I was like I mean things that I couldn't do at all yeah I was like okay You're legit yeah Kettlebells are crazy actually it's cool that's like one of those exercises that you if you learn that the form It's like an added element because you got to learn the form yeah then the strength and the and learning the form is good for you because you're developing developing You're developing

Neuro Right muscular connections Yes boom thank you Amen you know I was lost for words and you've had me cover and move No problem I got you but yeah so you need it's basically you have to learn to balance something that's not balance Yeah, it's good like that bag I lifted in Maine This guys had been left it's good

200 pounds by the way Wow No worries You know it's super hard I failed the first time Also they got what jump ropes Maces, you know, if your workout gets boring, Jocko doesn't have that problem, we know, we know, because you just are here to win and all this stuff.

But some people, they get bored, you know, with a workout, get all this cool stuff. Anyway, onet.com slash jaco. It's a good one. Also, when you buy these, actually, I'm going to put a link to your journal, if you don't mind. Yeah, on the website. Yeah, there's nothing to buy.

It's free. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But if, you know, you go on there, I'll put in the book section and. Oh, that'd be awesome. If, yeah, man, it's good. And if you if people want to get some of the other books that Jocko talks about, you go to our website, joccopodcast.com.

Books from podcast. That's on the top menu. And then you click through there to get your books. Takes you to Amazon. Boom, click through there. Or if you do any other shopping, boom, click through that. That's good way to support. Small action, big reaction.

It is a legit way to support. For sure. It is. I've got to ask that two times now. Yeah. Once in Maine. and I think I was at an event the other day and someone asked me

does it really help? And I was like, yes, it helps. Yeah. I said it's exactly what Echo says it is. Yeah. Small action, it takes what? Like three extra seconds. Yeah.

Small action. Boom, one, two clicks, whatever. And, you know, big support, big reaction. Also, subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already. I know seems kind of obvious, right? iTunes, subscribe. But if you haven't, Or Stitcher or Google Play yeah anything that provides platforms just subscribe man good way to support easy you know boom

Also YouTube channel we have YouTube channel. I put was the last video I put on there The book video. Oh yeah Discipline equals freedom field manual video awesome job on that by the way We both thank you pretty good video I thought it was pretty good too yeah I felt Jocko did all the work really Lifting that was a hard night too I mean you're lifting after like a whole day I was like bro yeah I was that that's right that was like a long day you know him he's the kind where I'm like okay I just need like these shots you know because we're doing it for like other stuff and I'm gonna grab the steals and whatever and I was like I

just need the shots what I'll do is I'll make it here so you don't have to put on all that weight and he's like no feel like I don't put the weights I was like bro you're the man I did the same exact thing I was just shooting a video doing lifting weights and they're like yeah we're just gonna do it with no way I'm like no but the video that I want the weight that I want to be on there is 135 pounds. I want that to be on video. I don't want no weight to be on video. Yeah, he even went one further

that there was a few shots that I was getting that didn't show how much weight. It just showed the front of the, you know, it's like in an angle you could kind of see part of the weight. And he's like, no. It's like he wouldn't allow him. Well, I actually said, you know, I took the Rob Jones approach.

I was like, okay, I got to move some weight around. I'm going to use the opportunity to make myself better. I get a legit workout. I was getting after it, you know. He's a method. actor. That's what the method actors too. Exactly right. Yeah, hey, worked out for them and I dig it. But yeah.

Nonetheless, back to YouTube, boom. We put some videos on there, including but not limited to the video version of this podcast. Also additional videos, excerpts, you know, in various other video. Deleted scenes, if you will. A lot of times we talk rubbish before we

actually include, you know, or we don't include in the podcast. So sometimes we'll cut that up and put on there to add it entertainment you know hear jocco swear a lot you know he doesn't swear that much on on the record but you know he gets after from time to time

only if I'm hanging out with like one of my bros yeah yeah you know teasing them well yeah yeah that's you don't effing just effing get nuts with effing squats in your effing thing he was like yeah he like over did it nonetheless

yeah YouTube that's a good one also jocco has a store if you didn't already know guess what it's called I'm gonna go on a limb say jaco store jaco store dot com we got some t-shirts on there they're cool they're cool little you know some layers on those t-shirts layers meaning not physical layers uh what we call poetic layers poetic now on you that's really reaching yeah it's reaching a lot I think good is pretty poetic yeah it's real yeah that a sonnet or yeah I wrote that one myself You know what the layers are with that, though, right?

If you look at the good shirt, it has Jaco's head. Yeah. It's good, right? But the good is backwards. And here's the thing. That's why when people try to counterfeit that one, they don't get the layers. They just see Jackal's show, oh, that's a marketing thing or whatever. And let's sell that, but they don't get it.

They don't know the layers. So the good is backwards. And it's backwards for a reason. So they can read it in the mirror. Because who are you saying that? When you hear that, who are you saying that, too? You're not saying, you know, to your poor daughter who's crying because she skinned her knee. You don't say,

She's like oh she cries more. That's not her message. It's not your message to give somebody else. Your message to give to yourself Why are you letting your daughter cry in the first place? Well, she's you know Sensitive I'm cultivating her sensitive sight. That's all you're not wearing a t-shirt for Yourself to look down like that We're in it so other people can read it You can read it in a typical case, but not these t-shirts that t-shirt is for you Straight up for you with the message with Jocko's face Apparently that's for you too not for

everybody but this is for you nonetheless that's just an example of the layers on the shirts jococco storeth dot com there's also some hoodies on there some travel mugs bumper bumper stickers the jocco 2016 took it off go yeah we lost that election yeah you did sorry I probably got like 27 votes yeah I got some legit votes people posted them on Twitter some people wrote me in straight up they wrote me in I did said you know what I don't want Hillary Clinton I don't want Donald Trump I want Jocko. Yeah.

I think it might have been a good choice, actually. I think it might have been a good choice. Yeah, someone actually told me that I should run for vice president. That wouldn't have been a good choice. Yeah. I don't know if you would have got my vote. No, I don't know. I wouldn't have got my vote to you.

Nonetheless, there's some cool stuff on Jocco store. That's the point. You know, I'm not saying go buy some stuff. I'm saying go on there. See what up. See what's on there. And if you like something, get something. Good way to support.

Also, there's a little thing called psychological warfare. You ever heard it? Yeah, I think I have. It's pretty dope. I'll tell you what. Oh, dang, okay, so I don't have to let you know that. It's an album with tracks. Jocko tracks.

So basically, if you don't already know, Rob Jones knows, Chocco knows. I know, obviously. Let's say you're on your campaign against weakness. That's the official going turn. Campaign against Wants. weakness right and I'm gonna be disciplined in all these areas on my life waking up early diet I'm gonna work out you know however many times a day study we study get smarter work harder yeah just normal

yeah normal getting after yeah campaign campaign yeah and you have a moment of weakness like jocco with the mint chocolate chip ice cream avoid that jocco obviously didn't listen to his own album with tracks jaco tracks of psychological warfare What you do is anytime you come across these moments of weakness Listen put a track put a track in like if you're having a hard time waking up you want to hit the snooze or whatever boom Get up get up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up and get after it that's the track name Help you right through that weakness Smash the weakness out actually, but yeah psychological warfare jocco willink

mp3 iTunes wherever mp3s are being distributed that's where you can get them You can also on amazon You can get something called jocco white tea. Rob Jones had his first jocco white tea today. Delicious. Not only delicious, but I've noticed you've been very attentive. Your words are crisp and clear.

I mean, you feel the power, right? Yeah. Look at him. It totally increased. Look at him. He's ready to rock and roll. My tenacity. Yeah.

My mental capacity increased at least tenfold. Yeah. If not more. So there you go. Jocka white tea. You can get that on Amazon. It's legit though How good does it taste?

Oh, it's really good It's it doesn't it doesn't really taste like tea Right? It's like kind of tastes like tea Does it have any sugar in it? No You tell me Jocko White tea doesn't have any sugar and taste that good

And it tastes that good What does it taste like? Incredible It tastes like victory Hey we got some books on Amazon And wherever you want to buy books Extreme Ownership Combat lesson

Combat leadership lessons learned and how you can apply those to business and life. Way of the warrior kid. Yeah, way of the warrior kid. That's what you need to get for every kid you know. It is so helpful for kids. I wish I had that book when I was nine years old, 10 years old, 11 years old.

It's so helpful. And I'm getting such great feedback. So buy that for the kids you know, for sure. Coming up soon, the discipline equals freedom field manual that's right it is a field manual how to implement and execute operation discipline into your life follow the field manual you can get it from your local bookstore you can get it from barns and noble you can get it from amazon let them all know what's up also echelon front leadership consulting for your business or team

that's what we do you can email us at info at echelonfront.com and in the meantime if you need us or you just want to check in we are rolling kind of deep on the interwebs on Twitter on Instagram and a facie bohockey bohaki Rob Jones is at Rob Jones Journey at Rob Jones journey he's going to be documenting all this awesome slash could be stupid but could be mostly awesome stuff that he's doing and we like to watch people do crazy stuff so yeah we're going to watch you do that and I'll post a picture and usually I like to put a little snippet of wisdom in there it's a little paragraph for people to read nice it starts their day instead of the New York Times yeah don't don't do that just go straight to the to the Rob Jones

snippet of wisdom yeah I like the example how you say you want to be the example because some people they say I just want to be the example but they don't explain it you just explained it actually in a way that was kind of revealing to me where it makes sense you know you're like hey I'm gonna and this goes for everything by the way like if you want to I do like a special effect sometimes and I'm like man I want to do this but man that's like some high in effect I can't do it on this and then but then let's say look it up on YouTube and be like oh wait look he did it right here and then you know sometimes they show how

show how sometimes they don't but like how you said like if you don't think like if you think oh yeah that kind of can't be done yeah you know like for someone in my position or whatever you know but then you see someone oh wait he's doing it and then you're doing it where it's like you're doing even more so it's like oh you're kind of reaching more people in that way because still if you're doing these crazy things maybe one maybe two other people be like yeah I can do that too but most people they'll be like I can do that crazy stuff but I can do all this other stuff you know I mean other stuff that they didn't think they

could do before that's good that's the word that's the words crazy not stupid the stuff you're doing is awesome yeah it's crazy you gotta be crazy to do it so yeah Rob Jones journey and that includes Rob Jones journey.com as well which in that from there you can get the to the donation page for when you're starting all this all this 31 marathons in 31 days most people run a marathon and I think I've read it takes like six months to actually recover from a marathon yeah I guess it depends on your level of preparedness but yeah yeah yeah try to do it about six hours that is awesome echo is at echo charles and I am at jocco willink echo you got anything else for today thank you for coming on

rob jones rob any closing thoughts from you oh I just want to start by pointing out that I think every guest you've ever had on this podcast is somebody that I consider to be a hero. And I don't throw that around. They're patriots and they are heroes. And it is humbling for me to be included. For you to have me on the podcast is vastly humbling for me to be included among the people that you deem worthy of being on the podcast.

So I just want to thank both of you for having me. for having me and giving me this opportunity, and I just hope that some of the stuff that I said can resonate with some of the listeners. And beyond that, I've done a lot of stuff, but nobody does that by themselves. I have had so many people that have helped me. Therapists, prosodice, coaches, mentors,

and family. friends and then especially Pam I mean I told you before she's doing everything she was instrumental in getting this podcast done getting me on as as a guest here took it upon herself to to tweet you she's calling press she's helping me get venues she's it's been incredible and she's my number one supporter and uh you know too good for me but hopefully she doesn't listen to that. Hopefully still she'll continue to be diluted. But yeah, I mean, I'm

at the top of the pyramid. Like, I get all the kind of the notoriety and the congratulations for doing the stuff that I've done, but without the base of the pyramid, the pyramid is shit. Just a block on the ground. So, without all these people,

I mean, I wouldn't have accomplished it. I might have tried, but I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be where I am. probably wouldn't be on the podcast. I wouldn't have actually done anything. Well, you know, for everyone that's come on and to sit here and have you, you know, to have you and the people that have come on this podcast and have you sitting across the table from me

and be able to spend time with you yesterday and hang out with you, I am rewarded a thousandfold, a thousand fold from you to me. That's where the reward comes. And it's an honor a thousandfold for you to be here and be sitting here talking to me and I thank you for coming on I thank you for your service. I thank you for your sacrifice I thank you for the example that you're setting, which is awesome and and showing everyone what it really means to to persevere and to not only not only overcome challenges but you are embracing those challenges and turning

the harshest of challenges into something positive and something good and that is what I'm thanking you for for explaining what it really means to adapt and overcome no matter what we face and everyone out there that's listening and you're going through hard times or you're facing a rough patch or a challenge or an obstacle in your life adapt to it grow from it overcome it transcend it and use the weight of that challenge to make you stronger. And until next time, this is Rob Jones

and Echo and Jocko. Out.