Jocko Podcast 71 with Echo Charles: Heroes are Not Perfect. Never Judge. “A Helmet for my Pillow”

This is Joo podcast number 71 with Echo Charles and me Joo Willink Good evening Ekko Good evening A helmet for my pillow a poncho for my bed My rifle rests across my chest The stars swing overhead into your holes and gunpits Kill them with rifles and knives Feed them with lead until they are dead and widowed are their wives Sons of the mothers who gave you honor and gift of birth Strike with the knife till blood and life run out upon the earth Marines keep faith with your glory Keep to your trembling hole Intruder feel of nipon steel can’t penetrate your soul Closing they charge all howling their breasts all targets large The gun must shake The bullets make a slaughter of their charge Red are the flashing tracers Yellow the bursting shells Horses the cry of men who die Shrill are the woundeds yells God how the night reels stricken She streaks with orange spark The mortars lash and the cannons crash Have crucified the dark St Michael angel of battle we praise you to God on high The foe you gave was strong and brave and unafraid to die Speak to the Lord for our comrades killed when the battle seemed lost They went to meet a bright defeat The hero’s holocaust False is the vault of the victor Empty our living pride For those who fell there is no hell not for the brave who died And that’s a excerpt from a poem that opens a book called Helmet for My Pillow And the book was written by a guy named Robert Leki otherwise known as Lucky Everybody called him Lucky and he was a machine gunner and then a scout with the first Marine V division in World War II And he’s a decent part of the HBO series The Pacific which is if you haven’t watched that just buy it right now and watch it It’s awesome And it’s based on a bunch of different books and a bunch of different events from the Pacific and a lot of them Eugene Sledge that’s another one with the old breed There’s a lot that he plays a main role John Baslo plays a plays a large role in that series And there’s other a bunch of other books We’ve b we’ve done a bunch of them on this podcast And this one is another one And you think to and I was thinking to myself like well you know should I do helmet for my pillow? I’d read it a long time ago and I thought to myself you know we’ve kind of covered you know the Pacific pretty well and I’m just straight up wrong So wrong because everyone’s experience is different there’s things that are the same And his viewpoint on things is is just a different viewpoint and equally important to understanding not only the war not only what they experienced in war but also a whole another side of human nature that we need to learn about And yeah there’s there a lot to go over So a little there’s a little introduction here and just to give you a little background on on Lucky Leky he enlisted on January 5th 1942 He tried to join up the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor but a surgically correctable condition disqualified him Now he was back and acceptable Just that tells us a lot He was a civilian not a professional fighting man but he became a warrior The author was one of those young men many not yet 20 who were gentle human beings that were transformed by training hardship and the war into fighting Marines These were the boys who became men and stood against and then beat back two of the world’s most vicious fighting machines They left behind them a heritage of decency that hopefully will live forever And that’s from the introduction And so again after World War after Pearl Harbor there was so you’ve seen pictures you’ve seen pictures of guys wrapped around the the block waiting to go to the recruiting office and he goes to the recruiting office He can’t go in at first Eventually he gets in It takes him a month to get in and then he’s off to boot camp And we’ve seen all kinds of representations in books and in movies of Marine Corps boot camp and in boot camp of in general But I just had to hit on this one a little bit because it’s just another perspective that shows you shows you his his view of it and and gave me a not even a better understanding a clearer understanding of what what people are going through when they’re going through boot camp And I remember actually I remember this about boot camp I they they wrote we had to write something when I was going through boot camp and I don’t know if I’ve talked about this before but we were going through boot camp I said “Hey write down you know the top three things you’re learning ” Right? You had to We all had to Okay This is a Navy boot camp And I wrote down something along the lines of I wrote something along the lines of the brainwashing seems very effective Right How old How old you? I was 18 18 or I think I just turned 19 And that’s because I was a rebellious kid right? And so I’m thinking they’re brainwashing us And I wasn’t against it I I it was kind of one of those statements where I was saying I was kind of being sarcastic but I was also kind of being right true truthful We call that Kraken but fakian Okay we’ll roll with that So that’s what I was doing Yeah And and I remember they didn’t say anything about anything anyone had written about what we were learning or whatever They called that one out the the the chiefs that were running my boot camp company they were you know said “And if you think you’re getting brainwashed you know what? This is what’s going to save you ” And they went on this big thing to counter my my assessment Mhm So there’s a little bit of that here in what what what Luckyy’s saying He says the same kind of thing and he gets the same kind of he gets to the same place but here we go Going to the book They’re at boot camp Marine Corps boot camp INDOC And here we go Sergeant Bellow marched us to the quarter masters It was there We stripped off all vestigages of personality It is the quarter masters So if you if you don’t know a quartermaster in the military is someone that basically runs supply They give you gear That’s what they are So it is the quarter masters who make soldiers sailors and marines In their presence one strips down With each divestment a trait is lost The discard of a garment marks the quiet death of an idiosyncrasy I take off my socks Gone is a propensity for stripes or clocks or checks or even solids And it is a tendency to combine purple socks with a brown tie My socks henceforth will be tan They will neither be soiled nor rolled nor goddy nor restrained nor holy They will be tan The only other thing they may be is clean So it is with it all until one stands naked struggling with an embarrassment that is entirely lost on the laconic shades who work in the quartermaster sheds Thus naked thus quivering a man is defenseless before the quartermaster Character clings to clothes that have gone into the discard As skin and hair stick to adhesive tape it is torn from you Then the quartermaster shades swarm over you with measuring tape A cascade of clothes falls upon you washing you clean of personality When you have emerged from this you are but a number 3513 niner 1 United States Marine Corps 20 minutes before there had stood in your place a human being surrounded by some 60 other human beings but now there stood one number among 60 others the sum of all to be a training platoon But the parts have no meaning except in the context of the whole So there’s a little psychological reason why they do that how they do it And you can see it works You know all those little things that you have all the little things that make you you we’re going to take them away That’s what we’re going to do And there’s so there’s this weird thing because when I went through boot camp I wanted that Yeah take it away from me And and I’ve said this before on the podcast You It’s a blank slate When you get when you go into boot camp they shave your head they take your clothes they take all all that personal stuff and you get a blank slate They tell you like “This is all you need to do to succeed here All that stuff you’ve done in the past you’re knucklehead We don’t care Here’s what you got to do now ” And and it’s awesome And for a lot of people myself included you’re now you’re you’re becoming part of something that’s bigger than you And that’s a good feeling You know it’s a good feeling I liked it I’d go so far as to say “I loved it “ And they do the same thing by the way They do the same thing to you Like when you get to your SEAL training class to your BUDS class you they you get your head shaved again You get another set of uniforms You’re all going to dress the same You’re all going to look the same Yeah I think that head shaving thing would really do it for a lot of people Yeah Yeah For sure For sure Just cuz that’s some people’s per whole personality you know their hair It’s like dang they like that hair Now of course fast forwarding a little bit but I found this interesting Back to the book In six weeks of training there seemed not to exist a single pattern apart from meals All seemed chaos marching drilling in and manual of arms listening to lectures on military courtesy and saluting The right hand will strike the head at 45°ree angle midway from the right eye Listening to lectures on marine jargon From now on everything floor street ground everything is the deck Cleaning and polishing one’s rifle until it’s shown like an ornament Shaving daily whether hairy or beardless it was all a jumble What are we going to do? Salute the Japs to death? No We’re going to blind them with spit and polish Yeah Or barber the bastards All the logic seemed to be on our side The Marine Corps seemed a madness So they’re thinking “What are we getting out of this? You want us to polish? How about you teach us how to shoot the rifle?” Yeah Continuing on it was a madness but it was discipline Apart from us recruits no one in Paris Island seemed to care for anything but discipline There was absolutely no talk of war We heard no fiery lectures about killing Japs Such as we were to hear later on in New River which is a place where they go to train Everything but discipline Marine Corps discipline was steadfastly mocked and ridiculed Be it holiness or high finance these drill instructors were dedicated martinets Like the sensualists who feels that if a thing cannot be eaten drunk or taken to bed it does not exist So were these martinets in their outlook All was discipline There you go I actually that word struck me Martinetses So I did a little you know I looked it up and the etmology of it is there was a French general that created a certain time type of drill close order drill procedures and his name was General Jean Martinette Jean Martinette So that’s where that’s where that word comes from And it means that you’re strict disciplinarian Wouldn’t it be martin? Martin I guess So for those that speak French French Canadian background right here Did not know that True story Oh that’s right Cuz you were friends with Jetty Jody Mid You You and him bonded Yeah we bonded over your Canadian roots 100% Yeah Nice Another great example or great paragraph about what this feels like Back to the book It is a process of surrender At every turn at every hour it seemed a habit or a preference had to be given up An adjustment had to be made Even in the messaul we learned that nothing mattered so little as a man’s own likes or dislikes And I think that’s what it is That that that’s what’s so cool about that’s what I loved right? When you join the military all it’s all stripped away All these little comforts that you have they strip them away and you’re left with the raw self right? The raw self That’s what you’re left with You and you start putting everything else above yourself It’s a very humbling process Back to the book Worst in all this process of surrender was the ruthless refusal to permit a man the slightest privacy Everything was done in the open Rising waking writing letters receiving mails receiving mail making beds washing shaving combing one’s hair emptying one’s bowels all was done in public and shaped to the style and stricture of the sergeant So that that one right there going to the bathroom and you get to like in Navy boot camp you the first time you go in the bathroom there’s just toilets There’s no doors There’s no walls Just just 30 toilets in a row Dang Prison style Prison style And you’re actually prisons have you’re only in there with your little roommate Not even prison cell Dang You sit down to go And by the way you can’t say I’m going to wait till no one else is in there because they give you you know you have to go from this to this to this And then okay we’re back in the barracks You can go to the bathroom now So there you go You’re going to sit down 18 inches from some other dude that’s that’s going to the bathroom that’s emptying his bowels Yeah And there’s no privacy And and those I mean you may have never taken a crap in front of another human being Most people haven’t Why would you? So you have this you have this little sanctuary right where you got to get bit private Yeah Gone Yeah It’s gone All all exposed stripped away Yeah It’s kind of how football is by the way I mean but thing is football that’s kind of like it’s cool to do that you know like the coaches don’t make you do that It’s just like if you’re shy you know or that kind of thing like sometimes they they didn’t have stalls They did but yeah they did They did but like um the point is like it was kind of like the cool culture So guys wouldn’t close the stall Okay If there was a shy guy who didn’t want to shower he’d go to his like room and shower They like you know so it was like the more open and like whatever you were the cooler it kind of was but that’s what it did Just the little cohesiveness Yeah Yeah Yeah So if you came in shy it’s like you’d have that feeling you know? Yeah But man I dig it It’s true I I actually remember that because I had never I was whatever I was 19 years old sitting down next to a dude for the first time taking a crap Mhm I’d never done that before Why would you do that? Yeah You have your own little private world You have your own little private space This is my little time No it’s not not your private time Back to the book If you are undone in Paris Island which is where Marine Corps boot camp is or one of the there’s also one here in San Diego If you are undone in Paris Island taken apart in those first few weeks it is at the rifle range that they start to put you together again So that’s and he goes into some pretty good he talks about now the rebuilding and finally and again it’s great details great information very cool read very cool perspective that’s why you get the book and read it back to the book in five weeks they had made us over another week of training remained but the desired change already had taken place Most important in this transformation was not the hardening of my flesh or the sharpening of my eyes but the new attitude of mind I was a marine Now that’s the big transformation And now like I said they go they go to start their advanced training So in boot camp you don’t you’re not learning you’re learning some technical stuff but you’re basically just learning a new attitude right? You’re learning to be a Marine And then they go from there They go to a place called New River where they’re going to do some more training and they’re going to start learning to be actual fighting Marines So here we go back to the book He’s talking about New River Here the only talent was that of the foot soldier the only tool the handgun Here the cultivated the oblique and the delicate soon perished like gardinas in the desert So we’re starting to get into some hard living and they form up into companies and he ends up in in H company second battalion first marine regiment And they get some other veterans that come to start help them prepare for combat And here’s what he says about that The first and this is the first marine regiment The first also received a vital leavenning of veteran NCOs That’s non-commission officers So these are like the midlevel enlisted guys that run the show They would teach us They would train us They would turn us into fighting troops From them we would learn our weapons From them we would take our character and temper They were the old breed and we were the new the volunteer youths who had come from the comfort of home to the hardship of war For the next three years all of these would be my comrades the men of the first marine division And that’s true They you know they always try and take veterans I shouldn’t say always because actually in D-Day they wanted a bunch of new guys They wanted people that hadn’t been in combat before But you know in the SEAL teams we do that When I got back from Romani with my task unit they took my task unit We didn’t and they split them up all put them in all different task units So we had all these guys with all this experience going into these other task units This is pretty normal And that’s where the true learning comes from right? you’re going to get that that face to face that that hands-on and that true connection to what’s going on overseas And here’s some of the things that they did Back to the book Dr Gun drill and nomenclature Know your weapon Know it intimately Know it with almost the insight of its inventor Be able to take it apart blindfolded or in the dark to put it together Be able to recite mechanically a detailed description of the gun’s operation know the part played by every member of the squad from gunner down to the unfortunates who carried wa the water can or the machine gun boxes as well as their own rifles So you’re going to learn this weapon like better than better than the inventor is what they’re saying That’s how well you need to know it And you know what? I believe that that inventor doesn’t do what these guys do with that machine gun I’ll tell you if you if you like the guys that I the pig gunners we called them guys that carried a Mark 48 which is our big heavy weapon guys that carry that when you’d watch them it’s beautiful it looks the mo it’s beautiful the how quick and how fast and how they combat load that thing and hit the ground and clear reloads it was like magic magic love that now there’s not just learning about weapons right? There’s other things you got to do You got to get you still got to continue to live a hard life You still got to get mentally and physically conditioned for combat And what better way to do that than some road marches Some road marches which we’ve talked about many times here Back to the book A whole battalion was on the march and my poor squad was tucked away somewhere at the center or center rear Clouds of red dust settled upon us My helmet banged irritably against the machine gun that was boring into my shoulder or else it was bumped forward mattingly over my eyes by the movement of my pack A mile or so out I dared not drink anymore from my canteen I had no idea how far we had to go My dungarees were saturated with sweat their light green darkened by perspiration There had been joking and even some singing the first mile out Now only the birds sang But from us there was just the thud of feet the clank of cantens the creek of leather rifle slings the occasional horse cracking of voice raised and breath wasted in a curse Every hour we got a 10-minute break Then came the command off and on It means off your behind and on your feet Cursing hating both command and commandant straining We rose to our feet and began again the dull plotting rhythm of the march Ye old road march That’s and and so they’re doing this type of hard training and they’re going they’re doing maneuvers They’re preparing They’re doing mock beach landings They’re doing all those things And they’re also getting some occasional liberty Do you guys know Do you know what liberty is as a civilian? See it’s a word that I throw out there sometimes It means time off Yeah Liberty means time off And I And it’s it’s it’s from the Navy but the Marine Corps uses as well It means time off And so these guys even though they’re working hard when boot camp you don’t get any liberty No you just stay in boot camp for 13 weeks You don’t get any liberty And once you’re you know a fleet marine or you’re in the regular Navy you get liberty So you can go and do you know go out and do some stuff And so these guys are going out and doing stuff And what do you think they’re doing? 18 years old getting ready to go to war They’re going to go out and get after it Yeah In a different in the classic in the classic 18-year-old sense of the word Actually that’s when I got in that context is how I got turned on to the expression get after it Oh From the context of of going out and partying Yes Right Exactly And I don’t know there partying is what we’re talking about That’s a that’s a term that it sounds pretty lame but that’s what we’re talking about I think everybody understands that term Drinking chasing girls partying That’s what that’s what we’re talking about And I guess it’s a commonly used term because you hear people say like I remember seeing an article about some school some college being the number three ranked party school Yeah So so party implies party doesn’t imply birthday cake A party Yeah Party party implies drinking getting crazy Yeah Which is different Getting crazy is different from getting nuts right? No Getting nuts is is fighting for sure Getting nuts is fighting for in Hawaii Yes Yes Yes For sure All right So we’re just talking about getting crazy and partying And that’s what these guys were doing Getting after it Yeah So here we go back to the book We were impatient We were wound up We could no more relax than we could think In those days there was not an introspective person among us We seldom spoke of of the war except as it might relate to ourselves and in an abstract way The ethics of Hitler the extermination of the Jews the yellow peril These were matters for the gentlemen of the editorial pages to discuss We lived for thrills Not the thrills of the battlefield but of the speeding auto the dimly lighted cafe the drink racing the blood the texture of a cheek the sheen of a silken calf Nothing was permitted to last All had to be fluid We wanted not actuality but possibility That’s a pretty interesting statement We all had to be fluid We wanted not actually They didn’t actually want that They wanted to chase that thing Right Right To chase We could not be still Always movement Everything changing We were like shadows fleeing Ever fleeing Condemned men Souls in hell Soon the spate of 62-hour liberties was ended Midmay of 1942 saw me go home for the last time My family would not set eyes on me again for nearly three years And again obviously there’s some very important experiences in that section That’s why you read the book Great It’s great to hear his perspective You’re going to see uh Robert Leki He’s a very he’s a very intelligent and he became a writer I mean he became a writer This isn’t the only book I think he wrote 40 plus books in his life He worked for big newspapers and he’s a he’s a writer So he’s a very smart guy and and he talks about that and we’ll get to that point in here But that’s why his perspective is so interesting and he brings a lot of that in this book But eventually obviously they finished their training No more partying and now it’s time to fight Back to the book Fires flickered on the shores of Guadal Canal Island when we came on the deck They were not great flaming leaping fires and we were disappointed We had expected to see the world a light when we emerged from the hatches The bombardment had seemed fierce Our our armada for such we judged it to be seemed capable of blasting Guadal Canal into predition But in the dirty dawn of August 7th 1942 there were only a few fires flickering like the city dumps to light our path to history We were apprehensive not frightened So in case you haven’t gathered these guys are about to do the landing at Guadal Canal And they get into the the little Higgins boats the little landing craft and here we go The assault began Now I was praying again I had prayed much the night before carefully deliberately in in impetrating God and the virgin to care for my family and friends should I fall In the vanity of youth I was positive I would die In the same vanity I was turning my affairs over to the Almighty And I think what he means by vanity that he was sure he would die You’d think somebody that’s vain would be like “Hey I can’t be killed “ But I think what he means by that is the vanity that there’s some determined outcome that that you can control or that there’s that it’s that there’s some way it’s going to go right like he’s going to die No you don’t even know that Right Right Instead he knows you know I know Yeah Yeah Yeah Exactly I know what’s going to happen I know I’m going to die That’s vanity in its own right That’s what he’s saying So they hit the landing back to the book but there was no fight The Japanese had run from somewhere came the command move out We formed staggered squads and slogged off We left our innocence on Red Beach It would never be the same They spend a night They’re they’re they’re now patrolling in and in the night they’re they’re in security positions and they hear a little gunfire and we’re going to the book At dawn we learned the import of the gunfire A medical corman had been killed He had been shot by his own men When the century had challenged him as he returned from relieving himself he had boggled over the password liipian And so met death eternity at the mercy of a liquid consonant Now little heads up liipution is not a good challenge and reply password for everyone out there You don’t want want to come up with something that’s not totally obvious but don’t make a guy that’s scared out in the middle of the jungle remember the word liipian And and you know we talk about blue on blue There you go Like their first casualty is blue on blue Their first casualty is blue on blue Their first casualty is a a medic a corman being killed by centuries It’s a nightmare Mhm And I wasn’t going to read this but I’m going to I peered at the captain Anxiety was on his face as though carved there by the night’s events It startled me Here was no warrior no veteran of a hundred battles Here was only a civilian like myself Here was a man hardly more confident than the trigger-happy sentry who had killed the corman He was much older than I but the responsibility of his charge the unknown face of war had frightened him past trusting the evidence of his senses So imagine you’re going into combat you’re in charge you’re a civilian but now you’re in charge and you’re going out on your first combat patrol You lay up and first thing you do is you kill one of your one of your own guys kills one of your other guys It’s a nightmare and he can see it on his face They spend the rest of the day out there Still no heavy enemy contact Back to the book That day was a dull lost witness to the cycle of the sun of which I have neither memory nor regret The night I shall never forget I awoke in the middle of it to see the sky on fire So it seemed It was like the red mist of my childhood dream when I imagined judgment to have come while I played baseball on the castle grounds at home We were bathed in red light as though fixed in the eye of Satan Imagine a myriad of red traffic lights glowing in the rain and you will have a replica of the world in which I awoke The lights were the flares of the enemy They hung above the jungle roof swaying gently on their parachutes casting their red glow about Motors throbbed above They were those of Japanese sea planes we learned later We thought they were hunting us but they were actually the eyes of a mighty enemy naval armada that swept into Sea Clark Channel Soon we heard the sound of cannons and the island trembled beneath us There came flashes of light white and red and great rocking explosions The Japs were hammering out one of their greatest naval victories It was the Battle of Savo Island what we learned to call more accurately the Battle of four sitting ducks They were sinking three American cruisers the Quincy Vincens and Atoria and one Australian cruiser the Canberra as well as damaging one other American cruiser and a US destroyer And so they then during this they moved towards the beach And here we go It was dusk when we reached the beach We saw wrecked and smoking ships a clean unshipped expanse of water between Guada Canal and Florida Island Our Navy was gone Gone So if you don’t know anything about the Pacific campaign you’re taking down islands and your lifeline is the Navy cuz that’s who’s going to bring you ammunition food water gun support fire support That’s where you’re going to take your casualties So you have total reliance on the Navy And these guys wake up in the morning and the Navy’s gone other than sunken ships Horrible And what what can they do? There’s nowhere to run to You can’t back You can’t There’s nowhere to go The Navy’s gone So they get ordered to take a position where they think an attack might come from And here we go back to the book We were ordered up from the beach to new positions on the west bank of the Tenneroo River Our orders commanded us to urgency The enemy was expected The Teneroo River lay green and evil like a serpent across the Palmy coastal plane It was called a river but it was not a river Like most of the streams of Oceanana it was a creek not 30 yards wide So they’re placed there to set security And they’re there for a while And finally one night here we go back to the book a man says of the eruption of battle all hell broke loose The first time he says it it is true wonderfully descriptive The millionth time it is said it has been worn into meaninglessness It has gone the way of all good phrasing It has become cliche But within five minutes of that first machine gun burst of the appearance of that first enemy flare that suffused the battlefield in unearly greenth greenish light and by its dying accentuated the reinveloping night Within five minutes of this all hell broke loose Everyone was firing every weapon with sounding voice But this was no orchestration no terribly beautiful sympa symphony of death as decadent rear echelon observers write Here was a cacophony Here was a cacophony Here was dissonance Here was wildness Here was the absence of rhythm the loss of limit for fires What when and where he chooses Here was booming sounding shrinking wailing hissing crashing shaking gibberish noise Here was hell Yet each weapon had its own sound And it is odd with what clarity the trained ear distinguishes each one and catalogs it plucks it out of the general den even though it is intermingled with coincidental with the voice of a dozen others Even though one’s own machine gun spits and coughs and dances and shakes in caleric fury So it was that our ears pricricked prickled at strange new sounds The lighter shingles snapping crack of the Japanese rifle the gargle of their extremely fast machine guns the hiccup of their light mortars And by the way the movie The Pacific or the the series The Pacific shows the battle scenes of the Tenneroo River and they’re phenomenal They they do a great job of representing what’s just what he’s talking about right there Back to the book We dived for our our holes and gun positions I jumped the gun I jumped to the gun with which Chuckler and I had left standing on the bank I unclamped the gun and fired spraying my shots as though I handling a hose All but one fell The first fell as though his underpart had been cut from him by a scythe and the others fell tumbling screaming Once again our gun collapsed and I grabbed a rifle I remember it had no sling which had been left near the gun The who had survived the who had survived was deep into the coconuts by the time I found him in the rifle sights There was his back bobbing large and he seemed to be throwing his pack away Then I fired and he wasn’t there anymore Perhaps it was not I who shot him but everyone had found their senses For not everyone had found their senses and their weapons by then but I boasted that I had Perhaps too it was a merciful bullet that pounded him between the shoulder blades for he was fleeing to a certain and horrible end black knights hunger and slow dissolution in the rainforest But I had not thought of mercy then Modern war went forward in the jungle Men of the first battalion were cleaning up Sometimes they drove a Japanese toward us He would cower on the riverbank hiding unaware that opposite him were we Already the victors numerous heavily armed lusting for more blood We killed a few more this way The fever was on us Yeah It’s interesting that he’s looking back and thinking to himself that when he kills this Japanese soldier that that was a merciful thing to do because he they haven’t suffered yet They’ve been on the island for a few days even though they’re scared even though they’ve received fire they haven’t gone to the full length of suffering that they’re going to go through So when the battle’s over and Leki gives everyone in the book he just gives them these really kind of easy to understand nicknames based on their personality So he talks about this guy here who he calls Lieutenant Ivy League which doesn’t take a lot of explanation to picture what that guy’s like So here we go back to the book Lieutenant Ivy League stroed up to our pits in the morning So this is the battle’s over He sat on a coconut log and told us what had happened He smoked desperately and stared into the river as he talked The skin around his eyes was drawn tight with strain and with shock His eyes had already taken on that aspect peculiar to Guadal Canal that constant stare of pupils that seemed darker larger rounder more absolute And he kind of gives him a debrief on what happened with the battle that where the Japanese had come from And then he says when he spoke again it was to tell us who had been killed There were more than a dozen from each company besides more than a score of wounded Four or five of the dead were from our platoon Two of them had been hacked to death A Japanese scouting party had found them asleep in their hole on the riverbank and sliced them into pieces Our regiment had killed something like 900 of them Most of them lay in clusters or in heaps before the gunpits commanding the sand spit as though they had not died singly but in groups One of the Marines went methodically among the dead armed with a pair of pliers He had observed that the Japanese have a penant for gold fillings in their teeth often for solid gold teeth He was looting their very mouths He would kick their jaws a gape peer into the mouth with all the solicitude of a Park Avenue dentist careful always careful not to contaminate himself by touch and yank out all that glittered He kept the gold teeth in an empty Bulldurham tobacco sack which he wore around his neck Souvenirs we called him That’s another nickname he g they g they called this guy souvenirs Now they’re holding in that position and and for a few nights while they were holding this position on the river they would see they didn’t know what it was They would see sort of a V in the calm water They would see like a V a disturbance in the water and they couldn’t figure out what it was They were scared at it a couple times They shot towards it They didn’t know what it was They thought it was a a spy or or a scout trying to check them out But they were crocodiles Back to the book I took the glasses from him and focused on the opposite shore where I saw a crocodile eating the fat Japanese I watched in debased fascination But when the crocodile began to tug at the intestines I recalled my own presence in that very river hardly an hour ago and my knees went weak and I relinquished the glasses That night the V reappeared in the river so they could see the the little ripple in the river Everyone whooped and hollered No one fired We knew what it was It was the crocodile Three smaller V’s trailed afterwards So there’s even more crocodiles coming They kept us awake crunching The smell kept us awake Even though we lay with our heads swath in a blanket which was now which was how we kept off the mosquitoes the smell overpowered us Smell The sense which somehow seems a joke is the one most susceptible to outrage It will give you no rest One can close one’s eyes to ugliness or shield the ears from sound but from a powerful smell there is no recourse but flight And since we could not flee we could not escape this smell and we could not sleep We never fired at the crocodiles though they returned to the repass day after day until the remains were removed to mass burning and burial which served as a funeral p for the enemy we had annihilated Our victory in the fight which we called the Battle of Hell’s Point was not so great as we had imagined it to be It was to be but one of the many fights for Guadal Canal and in the end not the foremost of them But being the first in our experience we took it for total triumph Like those who take the present for the best of all worlds having no reference to the past nor regard for the future It’s a mistake we all make You know something good happens and you think you you think you’re the victor From the high plateau of triumph we were about to descend into the depths of trial and tedium The Japanese attack was to be redoubled and prolonged and varied It would come from the sky the sea and the land In between every trial there would stretch out the tedium that sucks a man dry drawing off the juice from body and soul as a native removes the contents of a stick of sugar cane leaving it spent cracked good for nothing but the flames And there is terror coming from the interaction of trial and tedium The first shaking a man as the wind in the treetops The second eroding him as the flood at the roots So he’s got these two things that are working on him Trial which is the the actual fighting the actual attacks and tedium which is the boredom and the waiting And again if you watch the Pacific it does a great job of showing this And one of the things that really got me when I watched that for the first time is it shows this landing and there’s nothing happening and you’re waiting for it to happen and you know it’s going to happen and you’re waiting for it and that was a real that that that I remember that feeling of being in the streets and you’re waiting for it to happen and you’re just waiting and it’s a you want it to happen right cuz then you can go Yeah Let’s get it over with Yeah But here’s he’s describing it as like a tree being eroded So the first shaking a man as the wind in the treetops The second So that’s that’s what that’s what the the actual thing does to you It shakes you around But the tedium the second that’s the tedium eroding him as the flood at the roots Each fresh trial leaves a man more shaken than the last And each period of tedium with its time for speculative dread leaves his foundations worn lower his roots less firm for the next trial Sometimes there is a final shattering A man crouching in a pit beneath the bombardment of a battleship might put a pistol to his head and deliver himself Sometimes it is partial Another man might break at the sound of a diving enemy plane and scream and shudder and ring his hands and rise to run This is the terror I meant This is the terror that strangles reason with the clawing hands of panic I saw it twice I felt it pluck at me twice But it was rare it claimed few victims So so that’s a really I think that’s just a phenomenal way to understand what these guys were going through the waiting and then the trial and then the waiting and then the trial And that’s a great description Speculative dread Just just thinking about okay what’s the next attack going to be like? are we going to be able to get through it? And you know he’s talking about guys killing themselves being so they just can’t take it anymore They can’t take it anymore And the only way out they can figure is to kill themselves which is just horrible horrible thing A lot of times criminals will do that like if they’re on their like fugitives if they’re on the run True Yeah And they’re like “When are they going to break down my door and find me?” And they get that speculative dread and they just turn themselves in Right Or I thought you were going to say that sometimes you know guys once they’re surrounded by the SWAT team Oh yeah That happens Yeah Then they just know there’s they just can’t take it anymore They kill themselves Yeah I feel like that’s more of them like I’d rather die than go to jail almost kind of thing But that speculative dread that you’re talking about even in like jiu-jitsu tournaments you know when you’re waiting around like oh am I up? Am I up? that’s like can be part of the I mean waiting Yeah I mean obviously way more lighthearted than this but you know this and and he so he says this and he says it claimed few victims meaning it didn’t actually most guys sucked it up and you’re going to hear him you know cuz he says he felt it twice It plucked at him twice but it wasn’t it was rare He says it but it was rare And then he says “Courage was common place ” So that was what was normal What was normal was courage And this is just such a good paragraph or two here Courage was was a common place It formed a club or corporation much as do those other common things upon which men for diverse reasons place so great a value like money like charity For it is in the common on which the exclusive rests Our muddy machine gun pits were transformed into courage clubs when bombs fell or Japanese warships pounded us from the sea There was protocol to be observed too And it was natural that the poor fellow who might break into momentary terror should cause pained silences and embarrassed coughs Everyone looked the other way like millionaires confronted by the horrifying sight of a club member borrowing $5 from the waiter And then he says this “But there was a bit more charity in our clubs I think we were not quite so puffed up that we could not recognize the ugly thing on our friend’s face as the elder brother of the thing fluttering within our own inards You today me tomorrow And that’s such a powerful thing to think about when you see someone going through some trouble to be able to recognize like hey got you know Ekko’s going through some issues right now And I’m not looking down at you I’m not judging you I’m recognizing that what you’re going through today could be what I go through tomorrow And they all felt he felt that you know I see Ekko losing it and and curling into a ball and not wanting to fight And I recognize that as the older brother of the thing that I actually feel too But I’ve got it under control today Tomorrow I might not but today I got it under control That’s why I’m not looking down my nose at you and that’s why I’m not judging you And I think that form such a tight bond that these guys had you know these guys had respect enough respect and enough mercy on each other to say “Look Ekko’s having a hard time right now It’s okay We’re going to get him through today I’m not going to look down on him and tomorrow it might be me and he’s not going to look down on me Powerful stuff We tend to judge Yeah Especially Yeah It seems like they So they can relate you know like Ekko’s at level eight right now He’s losing it I’m over at level two Y and luckily I can keep the two inside you know Yeah But I don’t even know when two is going to become eight Yesterday I was at one So I could very well be at you know the idea that when you’re dealing with other people you try and have their perspective You try and take their perspective and understand what they’re going through and have empathy for what’s happening to them Powerful Yeah man Instead we tend so often just to want to judge Yeah Judge Back to the book At night washing machine Charlie picked up the slack Washing machine washing machine Charlie so named for the sound of his motors was the nocturnal marauder who prowled our skies So these are Japanese bombers Like the dog whose bark is worse than its bite the throb of Charlie’s motors was more fearsome than the thump of his bombs Charlie did not kill many people but like McBth he murdered sleep To these trials was added the worst ordeal Shelling from the sea Enemy warships usually cruisers sometimes battleships stand off your coast It is night and you cannot see them nor could you if it were day as they’re miles and miles away We could see the flashes of the guns far out to sea We heard the soft poom poom of their salvos Then rushing through the night straining like an airy box car came the huge projectiles The earth rocks and shakes upon the terrifying crash of the detonation though it be hundreds of yards away Your stomach is squeezed as though a monster a monster hand were kneading it into dough You gra gasp for breath like a football player who falls heavily and has the wind knocked out of him Flash paboom They’re lowering their sights It’s coming closer Oh that one’s close The sandbags are falling I can’t hear it I can’t hear the shell It’s the one you don’t hear They say the one you don’t hear Where is it? Where is it? Flash Paboom Thank God it’s lifted It’s going the other way It’s daylight now and there are only the bombings to worry about and the heat and the mosquitoes and the rice lying in our bellies like stones So again the the unknown and uncontrollable experience of getting you know hit with mortars or artillery or in this case naval gunfire And again there’s no US Navy out there They’re just having their way It’s a nightmare They continue to press on but things are not looking good Back to the book Everyone kept saying hopefully that the army was coming in next week to relieve us Everyone was in despair We heard that the army relief force had been destroyed at sea Chuckler and I visited the cemetery It lay to the south off the coastal road that ran from east to west through the coconuts We knelt to pray before the graves of the men we had known Only palm frrons marked the place where they were buried Although here and there were rude crosses on which were nailed the men’s identification tags Some of the crosses bore mess gear tins a fixed to the wood like rude medallions and on those the marines had lovingly carved their epitaps He died fighting A real marine a big guy with a bigger heart our buddy The harder the going the more cheerful he was There was also this verse which I had seen countless times before and since the direct and unpolished cry of a marine sardonic heart And when he gets to heaven so St Peter he will tell One more marine reporting Sir I’ve served my time in hell Now part of that part of that despair that they felt came from the fact that they began to feel expendable And he goes into that here All armies have expendable items That is a part or unit the destruction of which will not be fatal to the whole In some orals a man might consider his finger expendable but not his hand Or in extremity his arm but not his heart There are expendable items which may be lost or destroyed in the field either in war or in peace without their owner being required to replace them A rifle is so expendable or a cartridge belt So are men Men are the most expendable of all Hunger the jungle the Japanese Not one nor all of these could be quite as corrosive as the feeling of expendability This was no feeling of dedication because it was absolutely involuntary I do not doubt that if Marines had asked for volunteers for an impossible campaign such as Guadal Canal almost everyone now fighting would have stepped forward But that is sacrifice That is voluntary Being expended robs you of that exaltation the self abnigation the absolute freedom of self sacrifice Being expended puts one in the role of victim rather than sacrificer and there is always something begrudging in this So luckily they do end up getting some help getting relieved The army shows up to help them out And here we go So we were glad to see the soldiers when they came trudging up to our pits They came after another air raid a very close one But the thing had not infected them yet War was still a lark Their faces were still heavy with flesh their ribs padded their eyes innocent They were older than we and averaged 25 to our average 20 Yet we treated them like children Now even though they get relieved they’re still working and still fighting and they’re still suffering Back to the book we were growing irritable Our strength was being steadily sapped and a sort of physical depression afflicted many of us The rain the rainy season was upon us On our exposed ridge it fell upon us in torance A man was drenched in seconds his teeth chattering and his hands darting swiftly to his precious cigarettes transferring them to the safety of his helmet liner cursing bitterly if he had waited too long before becoming conscious of their peril After cigarettes we were concerned about our ammunition On the downward slope of the hill the rainwater ran into our pits and holes as though they were sewer receivers We had to dash for the pits and lift the boxes of machine gun belts out of the water’s way piling them at top one another on the earth and gun platform Any dry place in the pit was reserved for ammunition He who sought refuge from the rain had to sit on the water cans There were whole days of downpour where I laid drenched and shivering grazing blankly out of my hole watching as the sheetated gray rain whipped and and undulated over the ridge At such times a man’s brain seems to cease to function It seems to retreat into a depth Much as the red corpusles retreat from the surface of the body in times of excitement one ceases to be rational One becomes only sedan like a barnacle clinging onto a ship One is aware only of life of wetness of the cold gray rain But without this automatic retreat of reasons a man can go only one way He can only go mad Certain level of detachment there Just checking out Just checking out You’re just there but you’re not there Good place to It’s a good place to visit sometimes you know I don’t think you want to live there You certainly don’t want to live there but it’s a good place to visit Why? I just think I think it’s important to get to a point where you’re just detaching from your physical suffering and your physical pain and you just say you know what I’m just turned off and you just retreat like he said you just retreat into almost like nothingness I think it’s important to gain clarity or something Yeah I think you gain some clarity and I think it’s a I think it’s a very important defense mechanism to have Oh yeah You know sometimes when you’re doing stuff you just have to do it Like you can’t think about it anymore You just have to turn your brain off and go And I think that’s what that’s what he’s talking about right there He’s not he’s not participating in it He’s just detaching from it and doing what he’s got to his body is doing what he’s got to do Now they they’re this whole time they’re expecting to be relieved They’re expecting to get get pulled off the island And one of the sergeants comes out and and makes an announcement to them Stand by to move out in the morning Yeah we moving out into a new offensive Get all your foul weather gear ready and be sure your guns is oiled up and your ammunition belts dry Eight Marines will be up to relieve us in the morning So they they they think they’re going to get relieved and go to a ship and relax and get get into get get some relief That’s what relief is right? But they get told “No you’re going on a new offensive “ So they’re in well here going back to the book after nearly five months by the way a lot of times you think of the island campaigns in Japan these are little islands you know 10 miles long you think oh that probably took a week two weeks five months after nearly five months this runner and he’s going to name all the different guys the different nicknames you can hear them runner had malaria brick barely stirred from the pit except at night who’s your Oak Stump were subject to long periods of depression Red had long since left us I had disentry Chuckler was irritable All of us were emaciated and weakened beyond measure But we were to move out on the attack We could not move to cow without gasping for breath But we were to move on the enemy We despared in the morning We crouched by our guns and waited for the order to dismantle them and move out It did not come Nor did it come the next day or the next And hope came creeping back blushing ashamed of her loyal dis of her disloyal flight but commending herself to us once more with the promise never again to desert the ramarts Then one morning the word came to move out Sergeant Dandy gave it to us “Leave the guns behind ” he said “Take only your rifles and foul weather geared ” He grinned “We’re being relieved “ It was December 14th 1942 We had been on the lines without relief since August 7th My battalion the second battalion first regiment was the last of those in the first marine division to come out of the lines Guaddle Canal was over We had won And next he’s they get pulled back off the island now and he’s climbing aboard the ship of aboard cargo nets He’s exhausted I was able to reach the top of the net but could go no further I could not muster the strength to swing over the gunnel and I hung there breathing heavily the ship’s hot side swaying away from me in the swells the very pition lapping beneath me until two sailors grabbed me under the armpits and pulled me over I fell with a clatter among the others who had been so brought aboard And I lay with my cheek pressed against the warm grimy deck my heart beating rapidly not from this exercise but from happiness And he ends up having a sailor a conversation Him and his buddy Chuckler who’s like his one of his best friends they they are end up having a a conversation with one of the sailors And he said “The soldier seems surprised ” He says “You mean Guadal Canal?” A guy says “Was it rough? How was it?” “Rough “ “Rough?” We answered mechanically Then Chuckler spoke up “You mean Guadal Canal?” The soldier seemed surprised Sorry The conversation with the soldier that was on the ship that hadn’t been to Guadal Canal The soldier seemed surprised “Of course I do ” Chuckler hastened to explain I wasn’t being wise I meant had you ever heard of the place before you got here? His astonishment startled us An idea was dawning You mean hell yes Guadd canal the first Marines Everybody’s heard of it You guys are famous You guys are heroes back home We did not see him leave for we had both looked away quickly each embarrassed by the quick tears they had not forgotten And again I kind of breezed through that part in in the book But a lot of times when they were in those moments of despair they’d be thinking “No one knows what’s going on here They don’t know how bad at this ” But the reality was was this this war or this battle that lasted five months There was all kinds of reporting and the glory of the of the Marines and what they were doing And so they were I guess you know they they were just overwhelmed with the fact that this this soldier had said you guys are you kidding me Gu canal this is it Now after they leave Gu canal they get some much needed RNR rest and relaxation They get to go to Australia to do this and they they going to the book of all the regiments ours the first was in the most advantageous position for the great debauch discipline already dissolved in the delicious squeals of the girls all but disappeared that night we’d received part of our six months a rears of pay in Australian pounds but we were issued no clothing We still wore our disheveled dungarees So you can imagine these guys are coming off of Guadal Canal Hell and now they’re rolling into Australia And and they describing here girls are waiting for them These are the heroes of Guadal Canal So they roll in and they get after it in the way that Weight talked about earlier they start they start just they’re they’re going crazy And he and this is one of one of the things I loved about this book is that this that Robert Leki is so real He’s so real He’s just a he’s just real And and guess what he likes to do? He likes to get after it He goes out He drinks They drink They chase women He goes hard and he ends up getting in some getting a little get into some trouble And he talks about brig rats basically guys that have been thrown into the brrig which is which is the military jail And on a ship they actually have a little brrig you know a little jail room and you can get thrown in there And so he talks a little bit about that It is most especially a marine sentiment sentiment And when analyzed it turns out to be not shameless or shocking but merely this A man who lands in the brig is apt to be a man of bold spirit and independent mind who must occasionally rebel against the harsh and unrelenting discipline of the camp I am not attempting to exalt what should be condemned I’m not suggesting that because of their boldness or independence the Brig rats be be forgiven and escape punishment Brigged they must be and brigged they were Nor am I speaking of the habitual brig rat the steady maligner who the good for nothing who is more often in the brig than out of it and who seeks to avoid every consequence of his uniform even fighting I speak of the young high-hearted soldier whose very nature is bound to bring him into conflict with military discipline and to land him unless he is exceptionally lucky in the brig I speak of Chuckler and Chicken and Oak Stump and a dozen others and of course of myself So he’s saying “Look you got guys that are high-spirited go-getters and they’re going to they’re going to get after it on the battlefield and they’re going to get after it on Liberty and sometimes they’re going to get rolled up unless they’re super lucky And that doesn’t make them bad people “ And I had one of my buddies get in really big trouble This is when we were young guys back in the day Back in the day one of my bros he got in big trouble And I thought that our officer who’s one of the best officers I ever worked for I thought he was going to really you know just crush him And and I thought he was going to be really disappointed in all these horrible things And this is a guy the officer was a guy that we all loved and wanted to always impress and we wanted to do a good job for So when my buddy had this big incident that he did which you know he was drunk and got crazy and you know got arrested and all that all that bad stuff and I talked to our OIC about it and I said “Hey sir you know is I mean what’s going to happen with my buddy and the the officer goes “Hey you guys are young warriors and things like this are going to happen don’t let them happen much but they’re gonna happen and we’ll deal with it And I was said to myself I wonder why I love this guy so much but that’s that’s exactly it You know he was he knew that that you know when you had young rambunctious guys full of testosterone and then you add alcohol into the equation and you add chaos into the equation some guys might get in trouble Again I hate to to give that credence to this type of stuff cuz when I look back I wish I would have been a better leader I wish I would have been doing other things you know? But if you’re in a leadership position and you got guys like this and you condemn them instead of trying to help them you’re not helping them It goes back to this judgment thing that we talked about earlier If I’m looking at you saying “Oh you don’t you don’t uh you got in trouble You’re a bad person I don’t want you on this team ” instead of saying “Hey look we got to get you under control You got the right attitude You got the lot of energy Let’s focus it on somewhere correct Let’s focus it on something good Let’s get you doing something positive instead of doing something negative “ Instead sometimes guys go into the judgmental mode You know I’m just going to judge you and oh you got in trouble so you’re bad That’s the wrong attitude to have How about you got in trouble? How about me as the leader? I let you down I didn’t show you the right way to expend your energy I didn’t give you the opportunity to give you an outlet for this this aggression that you have cuz you aggression you’re going to have that means fighting Yeah You you don’t think you get a you get a guys that are in the military You want someone in your platoon Do you want them to be not aggressive? Of course you want I want the most aggressive bastards you can imagine And guess what? If you don’t give them to something to do with that aggression they’re going to find something to do with it and it’s not going to be good Yeah So as a leader let’s find something positive we can that they can do with their aggression Yeah It’s not like he’s out out there Not like it’s known you know like in your case you you thought he was going to get severely punished you know? So it’s like it’s not like he’s out there publicly saying “Hey that’s cool Do what you got to do player “ You’re right Right But when it happened Yeah It’s like and I think truly that officer who is a great guy he truly probably felt exactly what I just said I should have given them a better outlet for this aggression You know I should have let I should have figured something better out for them to do We got to do something You give us idle hands and pockets full of money Can you imagine these guys are getting six month pay and rolling? They were the richest guys in the world I guarantee it Especially rolling into wartime Australia I mean you know how stringent they were with with the restricting the the money that people were using and spending all over the world to save money for the war And here come these guys in richest guys ever Heroes of Gual Canal Yeah You think they’re going to get after it? They’re going to get after it Yeah So as leaders what we need to do is give them a proper outlet right? Because those guys want to get after it but you got to give them the right way You know you got to give them something positive that they can work on And if you’re gonna let them do something negative then let’s put some barriers around them so they don’t get into trouble I wish I would have known this when I was a when I was coming up I would have done more positive stuff instead of more negative stuff So now we get into the trouble piece and these he’s got so many great stories about how these guys what these guys were going through and this So they’re out He’s out drinking and one of his buddies guy that I mentioned before his name is Chuckler Chuckler’s actually on duty So he’s he’s standing duty which means he’s in uniform He’s not allowed to drink He’s watching and he’s being you know he’s he’s on duty And so here we go I found Chuckler standing glumbly outside the slophoot entrance He’d hoped for the interior guard where he might sneak a beer or two “I’ll get you one ” I promised I returned with a big glass out of which Chuckler might take a surreptitious sip There were more sideells until Chuckler said “I got to go to the head here Cover for me ” He gave me his pistol belt and helmet and made off So now Leky’s drunk right now Okay So but but Chuckler says “Hey man I got to take a piss here Take my helmet Take my pistol Cover for me “ First century to be drunk and then to desert his post and surrender as a weapon is to combine cardinal sin with unforgivable offense I was anxiously hoping that he would hurry back But then an unfortunate thing happened Lieutenant Ivy League came striding down the corridor I say it was unfortunate because Ivy League was the officer of the day More than that he was still the man who had filed my cigars the enlisted men’s cigars if you will So at one point he had gotten a hold of some cigars and this officer had taken them And by the way also you know uh uh Robert Leki he’s an Irishman and I’m not going to you know make a generalization Oh wait Yes I am He’s a hot-tempered Irishman And so he sees this he sees this guy and again he’s drunk He just got off of Guadal Canal And here’s what happens Back to the book My anger was nourished by the alcohol within me And I drew Chuckler’s pistol and pointed at him and said “Stop where you are you lousy cigar stealing son of a or I’ll blow your gentleman’s ass off “ So not not good And he ends up uh getting in pretty significant trouble And he actually gets bread and water which they still do that in the military They get bread and water You can get he gets bread and water for 5 days So in the break bread and water for 5 days That’s that’s the punishment that he gets And he gets docked pay and he gets busted down in rank One time I was on a ship deployed broke in the dirt and we were in a seal platoon and I think I’ve I’ve told this story before It was the one where the Marines like we would stay on the ship when we pulled into port and it would it would take like an hour to get off the ship because everyone would be waiting in line And so what we would do is we would just work out for that hour hour and a half and then we would go up we could just walk right off the ship Well in that hour and a half the marine this this young marine had gone off the ship and was getting carried back onto the ship like passed out drunk covered in puke in an hour and a half So that’s what I think of when I think of these poor guys Can you imagine coming off a Guadal Canal? You haven’t even had water for 6 months never mind alcohol It’s a nightmare But and of course they they don’t punish him too bad Well they they punish him but they got to keep him you know? I mean he’s an able-bodied Marine They’re not going to they’re not going to waste an able-bodied Marine And hopefully the colonel in the back of his mind was thinking to himself you know what? I want this guy in my I want this guy with me You know this guy that’s just gonna You stole cigars from me? Yeah Cool I’m gonna I’m threaten your life Yeah He’s getting nuts So they But now Australia ends They roll back out It’s time for them to start getting prepared to they go to they go to New Guinea And if you remember New Guinea that’s another hard battle was fought there primarily by the Australians I don’t if it was primarily but the Australians definitely fought because I read that letter from the Australian soldier to his two-year-old daughter That’s where he died was in New Guinea But now New Guinea is is owned by the Allies and they go there to train to start to prepare for their next big push And here we go back to the book The truck climbed a series of small hills and finally deposited us in the middle of a field of kunai grass our new home This is how the Marines train their men Keep them mean and nasty like starving beasts says the core and they will fight better When men are being moved from one place to another spare no effort to make it painful and before they’ve arrived at their destination dispatch a man ahead to survey the ground with an eye toward diff discomfort So you hear this all the time that that’s what the Marine Corps the Marine Corps is going to make you so pissed off by the time you go into battle you’re just going to kill everybody cuz you’re so sick of living in the dirt Now they do a decent amount of training and now they’re preparing to assault another island called New Britain And this is I found this very interesting So back to the book The commander called us together that night and delivered an eve of battle speech He spoke in deliberate but angry tones He spoke like a man who hated the Japanese as though he had suffered a personal affront at their hands and was bent on personal vengeance As though this were a personal not mechanical war His herang seemed unreal It was unreal because it could never produce the desired effect Kill the Japs The commander was saying “I want you to kill Japs And I want you to remember that you’re Marines We’ve got a tough job where we’re going And where we’re going you won’t have much room for ammunition So you’d better be sure you see something before you shoot Don’t squeeze the trigger until you’ve got meat in your sights And when you do spill blood Spill yellow blood That was all We walked back to the tents It was Christmas Eve And I find this it’s Christmas Eve He gets this speech and you can see like he’s sitting here just thinking “Okay this guy’s trying to get them all riled up and it’s not having any impact “ And this is what I found to be a real dichotomy here at the tents Father Strait was preparing to say midnight mass So they have a chaplain there Catholic chaplain Father Strait And here’s what he says Father Strait spoke gently He reminded us that not all of us would live to see another Christmas that perhaps some of us might die this very day He told us to be sorry for our sins to ask the forgiveness of God to forgive those who had wronged us to prepare our souls for death We sang hymns 1940 odd years ago the babe had been born in Bethlehem and we celebrated him this night in a dark and misty forest that his father had wrought We sang hymn We sang hymns to him Silent night and hark the herald angels sing Mild he lays his glory by born that man no more may die And tomorrow our hands would be stained with the blood of our brothers But we sang on half-heartedly half-hopingly sometimes mechanically sometimes with a desperate driving poignency One hand on the heart the other on the hilt of a bayonet In the morning we marched down to the ships so much more impactful on him was what father straight and much more than the fiery colonel that said we’re going to go kill Japs here these guys are I mean can you imagine you go in for comfort to midnight mass Christmas Eve and you get told that many people many of you may die this very day and to prepare your soul for death That’s what these guys are facing That’s what their most trusted the most trusted person in their lives right? Their spiritual counselor is telling them “Prepare for death “ Yeah Yeah Kind of like kind of like what we talk about sometimes where you get a guy like if you’re watching a video you know and it’s a guy getting you fired up you know he’s getting fired up to get you fired up Sometimes it could work but a lot of times that won’t really work cuz you kind of feel like he’s trying to sell you something But then if you hear someone maybe even talking to someone else or talking about something else and you just kind of extrapolate certain things that get you fired up because it’s so authentic It’s basically the indirect approach on your own mind Yeah On your mind Yeah Yes Back to the book On the sunless shores of New Britain where the rainforest crowded steeply down to the sea we of the first marine division came back to the assault And it was here that we cut the Japanese to pieces literally when that devouring jungle did not dissolve them And it was here that we pied them Now to pity the enemy is either madness or is it a sign or it is a sign of strength I think that with the first marine division on New Britain it was a sign of strength We pied him in the end This fleeing foe disorganized demoralized crawling on hands and knees even in that dissolving downpour For in the end it was we the soft feet Americans who had learned to get along in the jungle and who bore up the best beneath the ordeal of the monsoon And in these things lay our strength And I’ll tell you what I think that boils down to So what they’re saying here is the you know the Americans what what do people around the world think of the Americans even in 1943 Americans are soft Americans are lazy Americans they have too much comfort and you think the exact opposite of the Japanese especially in World War II the Imperial Japanese Army it was highly disciplined it was extremely strict it was a Spartan lifestyle but look at what happened here and why is that and I’ll tell you why in my opinion I will tell you Why? Because you have men that are fighting for freedom They’re fighting for freedom and that makes all the difference in the world Fighting for individual freedom fighting for their personal freedom and fighting for their nation’s freedom and fighting for their nation’s freedom And it’s a nation that is based upon freedom That right there is stronger than any tyrannical government or any fanatical idea The idea of freedom is stronger than them all And that is why these quote soft Americans that is why they were able to conquer and defeat this enemy this hardened enemy this well-trained enemy And this talks a little bit about what we were facing To the north one patrol discovered the body of an e company scout who had been reported missing The area bore the marks of a struggle as though he had fought handto hand His body bore dozens of bayonet wounds They had used him for bayonet practice in his mouth They had stuffed flesh they had cut from his arm His buddies said he had a tattoo there the marine emblem the fouled anchor and the globe The Japs cut it off and stuffed it in his mouth The commander was angry Again to the north two Japanese officers had been caught snooping around our positions and had been killed An e company outpost scouting the terrain at their front had discovered a Japanese force in platoon strength sleeping Sleeping on the ground sleeping They fired into them into these sleeping supermen of the jungle withdrawing upon the approach of another enemy platoon And after this after the bulk of the battle takes place and it was fair it was it was it was not a fair fight And you’re about to find out why Back to the book Four Japanese soldiers and one officer had been taken alive and had been brought down to the CP their arms bound behind them knives at their throats And from them we learned that the third company 53rd regiment of the Japanese 17th division had been dispatched from the main body at Cape Glouster to defend against our landing Their passage had been through near impenetrable jungle and they had not arrived on the scene until 2 days after our own coming Nevertheless they attacked us They attacked us some 100 of them against our force of some 1 200 And but for the prisoners we had annihilated them Were they brave or fanatical? What had they hoped to gain? Had their commander really believed that a company of Japanese soldiers could conquer a battalion of American Marines experienced confident better armed and placed on higher ground? Why had he not turned around and marched his men home again? Was it because no Japanese soldier can report failure cannot lose face? I cannot answer Our dead were six men Among them the stubby intrepid Obi whom I’d last seen in Melbourne so drunk he could barely stand whose gunpit had been overrun when the Japs overwhelmed a section of the lines in their first silent rush up the hillside Obi who had helped to drive them out in the counterattack and who had been alternatingly firing and hurling imprecations at them until one of their bullets took him squarely in the forehead May he rest in peace The Japanese dead lay in heaps on the hillside and they filled the trench where Obie’s gun had been located So that shows the will of the Japanese fighters No doubt about it They were hardcore and they got told to attack with 100 guys against 900 or 1 200 and they said “All right let’s do this “ Now the life the existence in this jungle was harsh Back to the book The puffing of my lips and eyes symbolized the mystery and poison of this terrible island Mysterious Perhaps I mean to say New Britain was evil Darkly and secretly evil A malifactor An enemy of humankind An adversary really dissolving corroding poisoning chilling sucking drenching Coming at a man with its rolling mists green mold and ceaseless downpour Tripping him was with his numberless roots and vines poisoning him with green insects and bugs and treacherous tree bark turning the sun from his bones and cheer from his heart dissolving him the rain the mold the damp steadily plucking each plucking each cell apart like tiny hands tearing at the petals of a flower dissolving him I say into a mindless formless fluid like the sop of mud into which his feet forever fall in a monotonous slop suck slop suck that is the sound of nothingness the song of the jungle wherein everything falls apart in hollow harmony with the pain Nothing could stand against it A letter home had to be read and reread and memorized for it fell apart in your pocket in less than a week A pair of sock socks lasted no longer A pack of cigarettes became soden and worthless unless smoked that day Pocketk knife blades rusted together Watches recorded the period of their own decay Rain made garbage of the food Pencils swelled and burst apart Fountain pens clogged and their points separated Rifle barrels turned blue with mold and had to be slung upside down to keep out the rain Bullets stuck together in rifle magazines and machine gunners had to go over their belts daily extracting and oiling and reinserting the bullets to prevent them from sticking to the cloth loops And everything lay damp and soden and squashy to the touch exuding that steady musty that is the jungle’s own That individual odor of decay rising from vegetable life so luxurian growing so swiftly that it seems to hasten the decomposition from the moment of birth It was into this green hell that we were inserted a day or two after the march And here was fought that battle with the rainforest Here the jungle and the men were locked in conflict far more basic than our shooting war with the Japanese For here the struggle was for existence itself The war was forgotten Who could comprehend it? Who cared? And [Music] what do you say? And I I have not spent that much time in the jungle I spent some I think the longest I’ve been in the jungle is maybe a month M and it wasn’t as bad as this It wasn’t raining as that much but I can’t even imagine just that constant There’s no escape from it There’s no escape from it And it’s even worse for Leki and I’ll tell you why Back to the book I would be wet not only from the rain for sometimes it stopped and at other times it did not fall so fast that a jungle hammock could not repel it but because an affliction which I had begun which had begun the moment I left Australia was now again active It had begun during the discomforts of Guadal Canal had disappeared in the civilized living of Melbourne and had reappeared on Good Enough Island New Guinea and now on New Britain I laid I learned later from doctors to call it enureesis when asleep the bladder empties and that is that So he puts that really nicely But here’s what’s going on Because of the stress that he’s under when he goes to bed he pisses in his pants And it’s just he he can’t stop it And there’s nothing he can do about it And it won’t go away In fact it went away Uh it will go away when the stress stops When he went to Melbourne it’s all good It stops Get back out there in the stress of combat the stress of the environment and when he goes to bed he pisses himself And certainly he made a decision to put that in this book for a reason Yeah And there there is there is it does fall into the story a little bit But the reason I love that he put it in there is because it’s just another thing that he’s dealing with and he’s not even ashamed of it He’s like “Yeah can’t Yeah I’m I’m stressed out I’m scared and I’m pissing myself but guess what? I’m still going on patrol “ Back to the book The last patrol was a prolonged one of several days We were taken by landing boat down the east coast to a place called Old Natimo and there deposited The place had once been inhabited by the Japs but all their imp placements were now empty Those of the enemy who were discovered were in the last extremities of ordeal Some were overtaken crawling on their hands and knees Some so badly decomposed it was as though their feet were rotting off Some weighing perhaps no more than 80 pounds Some without weapons all without food and all possessed of that indomitable fighting spirit that was the Japanese Imperial Army’s greatest asset The one single factor that made a poorly equipped soldier a first rate foe They all resisted and they were all destroyed bayonetted for the most part for it was file for it was folly to fire on patrol in unfriendly unknown territory One of these stragglers was strangled in cold blood by the kid a youngster who although already a veteran of Guadal Canal was hardly acquainted with a razor He would go mad two months later So they come up across these Japanese total 80 pounds malnourished Some of them didn’t even have weapons and they’re just trying to fight anyways He ends up with a hernia So Leki ends up with a hernia and he he gets pulled off to go take a look at his hernia and they say “Yeah you got a bad hernia but it’s not bad enough You’re going back to the front “ Then the army comes and replaces their them there and and next thing next move is they go to train at a at a place called Pavuvu Pavu Island And they’re doing another training to get ready for another island campaign And here we go back to the book The food was bad too and the tents were rotten and punctured with holes There was no water except what was caught in our helmets during the night We bathed by dashing naked into the rain soaping ourselves madly in a race against the probability of the rain ceasing and being left streaked with sticky sto soap and we washed our clothes by boiling them in cans of rainwater Our jungle rot had become so bad so persistent that there was an appointed time each afternoon for the men to take off their shoes and socks and to lie out on their sacks with corrosive feet thrust out into the sun But we had borne all this before and we could bear it again Nor could mere bad food or leaky tents press upon the aror of my comrades It was the death of hope that bore us down There had always been hope Hope of relief Hope of the sun hope of victory hope of survival But when they came and told us that none of us were going home on rotation we strangled hope and turned into wooden soldiers The future looked to innumerable enemy-held islands and innumerable assaults and we had already noticed how the ranks of the New River Originals were dwindling with every action There were even a few suicides to suggest how desparing some could find the situation Then the thing changed They came and said half of the originals could go home So these guys get the word hey look we’re preparing for another assault but half of you originals are going to go home There was joy And then once the method of selection for the stateside bound became known there was anger There would be a drawing a stateside lottery in which men’s names would be pulled from a hat but only the names of those who had never been in trouble I was among those whose name did not go into the hat and so was runner and hooer and chicken and souvenirs and a host of others It seemed that the originals of the second battalion first marines had been neatly divided into good guys and bad guys Among us there raged a profane anger I know now how a convict must feel upon being turned down a job after being turned down at job after job because of his past That was what disqualified us Our past it made no difference that we had been punished Yes punished again and again for it become customary to solve all problems of selection this way by marking brig rats for dirty duty and excluding them from special benefits Nor did it matter that we had good war records In retrospect it’s easy to forgive my commanders this but then it was hard It was too much like being unfairly condemned to death The injustice of it overwhelmed me and I burned with a resentment that was dangerous to carry around So what a what a what a nightmare They say “Look we’re going to have a little lottery Some of you guys are going to get it home Everyone’s happy ” and they say “By the way if you’ve been in any trouble you you don’t get on the list “ And that’s a death sentence The way he’s seeing it right now they’re seeing it as a death sentence Like “We’re going to keep doing this island hopping campaign We’re going to keep going There’s all these innumerable islands that need to be taken down You’re going to be on all of them and you’ve already seen x number of guys that you had killed and you’re going to keep going until you’re killed ” And so this was like a death sentence you know? Meanwhile the guys who might be able to go they’re just they’re right there And you’re like they’re right next to you Yeah man And those guys probably did a lot of the same crap right? Yeah Yeah Dang Yeah So back to the book my anuresis was more noticeable than before Perhaps to the agitation of the moment aggravated it I know that the men in my tent had been urging me to report it to sick bay I did The doctor who knew of my case ordered me to Bena I was leaving in the morning So with that he basically says “Okay you know what? I’m pissing on myself The guys have been telling me to go see the doctor about it I haven’t done that I have a hernia I’m going to go to medical ” So he goes to medical and the doctor says “Okay you’re going to go to Bonika ” Bonika is a is an island where they just are set up to handle wounded And when he gets to Bonika it’s it’s kind of shocking Back to the book Bonika was a flesh pot Bonika was the big town Bonika was Broadway Bonika had women It had buildings of steel and wood It had roads It had thousands of sailors as sleek as camp pondons It had movie amphitheaters It had electric lights It had cantens overflowing with candy and comforts And Bonika had beer Walking with the others from the beach to the Navy hospital I felt like a hick on his first visit to New York Jeeps and trucks and staff cars swept over the island’s roads raising a busy cloud of dust Cranes croaked and cranked on the beach loading and unloading the boats MPs patrolled a stockade of pointed sticks behind which dwelt the women The Navy nurses and Red Cross workers Everyone was wellfed and unworied The seat of every pair of pants was filled and happy We the lean ones who wore our discontent on our faces and carried our nervous impatience in our hands must have been a disturbing presence in that purring island incubator Yet as I walked along I was filled with the uneasy su suspicion that would it would be the image of benika and not pvu that would be presented to America as the Pacific war They do a pretty good job of this in the Pacific in the series not as good as they maybe could have done because they show they show the guys coming onto a beach and there’s nurses and they’re dressed in like beautiful clean white and they’re literally handing out lemonade and it’s such a contradiction to what they’ve been living So so you get that but but this image is even crazier in my mind of coming onto this island You’ve been coming off puvoo living in the hell and here these guys are whatever a quick flight away and they’ve got movie theaters and they’ve got beer and they’ve got women running around It’s just totally totally different And I’ve talked about that a bunch of times on here Like you could be you could be in World War II Mhm But if you were on the island of Benika wasn’t that much of a sacrifice as it was compared to somebody that was on the island hopping campaign? Just it’s not And it’s the same thing You know there’s places I was in Iraq where I would say “God this is crazy how nice this is ” They got a swimming pool The B some of the base had swimming pools Mhm They got a nice gym They got a nice chow hall Then you’d go out to some some out station in the middle of or some forward operating base and these dudes would be living hard Totally different for different people Now Leki gets put basically into a psych ward They want to look at him and he’s he starts having this conversation with a psychologist and I think this is a very important conversation Back to the book He began to question me about my experiences in war And as I told them to him he shook his head from side to side as though to indicate that my whole division not only myself ought to be psychoanalyzed Then we talked of books for he was well read and philosophy Suddenly he broke it off and said “What did you say you were?” Meaning what was he saying? Like what did you say you did in the Marine Corps? A scout I said proudly I used to be a machine gunner And the doctor says back “But that’s no place for a man of your caliber “ Now I was shocked the old shibth intelligence Had not our government been culpable enough in pampering the high IQ drafties as as though they were too intelligent to fight for their country? Could not Dr gentle See that? I was proud to be a scout and before that a machine gunner Intelligence intelligence intelligence Keep it up America Keep telling your youth that mud and danger are fit only for intellectual pigs Keep on saying that only the stupid are fit to sacrifice That America must be defended by the lowbrow and enjoyed by the highbrow Keep vaunting head over heart and soon the head will arrive at the complete folly of any kind of fight and meekly surrender the treasure to the first bandit with enough heart to demand it Be careful And that’s I think that we do a really good job now in America You get kids that are you know there’ll be enlisted kids with bachelor’s degrees and master’s degrees in the army in the Marine Corps in the SEAL teams I don’t think we have that as much but it’s definitely something that you need to watch out for And I think especially this goes back to judgment I posted that the other day I I I met some young Marine not not a young Marine but you know guy’s probably 25 27 years old and he came into the gym and you know someone’s like “Oh he was in the Marine Corps ” I said “Awesome man What’d you do in the Marine Corps?” He was like “I was a machine gunner ” I’m like “Yes ” Like “Yes that’s awesome ” And but to have somebody think “Oh you were just a machine gunner You must No no Being a machine gunner should be a vaunted and elevated position in the world Bless the machine gunners out there Machine gunner You want to talk about a person that can get stuff done go talk to a machine gunner Yeah they will make some stuff happen They’re carrying a big pig of a gun around They’re laying down fire under pressure put him I’ll put the I’ll put the machine gunner up against one of these intellectuals any day of the week Bring it But the machine gunner can be an intellectual Absolutely Absolutely That’s the point Yeah That’s the point right? Just because someone chooses to do something that’s hard doesn’t mean that they’re not smart Right In fact I’d go so as far as to say they are searching for and and discovering and becoming something that takes a level of mind power to do Yeah kind of like the the weak superficial assumption is that oh you’re going to choose that kind of that hard thing because it’s not really intuitive to just I’m going to go for the hardest thing It’s it’s intuitive to be like I’m going to get this easy thing to do cuz it’s easier So when someone chooses the hard thing to do that the kind of the assumption is that ah you had no other choice Oh yeah Yes Perfect Yes No man I think that’s I had a guy in high school where he was a year older than us and he was like a a smart guy and had all his stuff together good family and he went into the army And I remember some people were like kind of surprised cuz like oh you going just to the army that you know just like Dr Gentle here Oh what are you doing that for? Cuz I want to be a machine gunner Yeah that’s why Yeah Props to the machine gunners now out on this island He’s there He spends like a month and they’re sitting down to watch a movie at the theater I remember one time we had the awesome CBS that that worked for were in Romani with us and so they’re building they’re building bunkers I’m not kidding Like what were their priority builds when they were in Ramati with me on our little camp Mark Lee? The priorities that they were working on were bunkers were security walls on the river getting barbed wire Those were the priorities they were working on And my lead CB my CB chief he’s he had to go to our headquarters for a couple days to get money and get equipment and whatever And when he came back he was a great dude His nickname was Biggie And he was big Another one of those things Yeah Yeah No his he would he would he would like his warm-up sets on bench were 315 He was big and he was strong man He was strong And he came back and you know he says he says “Hey sir coming back from Valuia ” And I was like “Oh everything cool out there ” He goes “Let me tell you something ” I was like “What’s that biggie?” He says “You know what they’re building out there?” I said “No I have no idea I don’t care what they’re building cuz they’re building a theater I said “What?” He said “They’re building a theater ” I said “You mean a movie theater?” He goes “Yes a theater ” And and he was just beside himself cuz here we were trying to build bunkers and security walls They were building a theater Biggie didn’t like that But those CVS man they kept us They kept everything rocking and rolling Props once again Props to the machine gunners Props to the ZBS for sure So they’re in a theater that had been built out here And the movie began There was an interruption Over a public address system A voice announced “Allied troops have just invaded northern France The second front has been opened “ Cheers and shouts rose into the soft night to be followed by a buzz of excitement But then the film began and silence was restored I arose and left the amphitheater my heart throbbing in excitement It was difficult to comprehend this excitement It was a mix of thrill and pride But predominating was the heartbeat of anxiety for suddenly it had been born in upon me that great events were happening that the war was now rushing downhill to victory And here I was clad in palid pajamas and robe lounging around the hospital Yearning came upon me in a rush and I wept hurrying along the dark road back to the hospital I wanted to rejoin my comrades So he goes into see Dr Gentle goes into his office and basically they work it out Back to the book There’s not much we can do for this trouble of yours the hospital commander told me There’s no curing it out here What you need is a change of climate and a less nerve-wracking assignment You’re shipping me back to the States sir? I asked He smiled wanely Ordinarily yes Unfortunately you Marines can’t go home unless you’re carried home So we are sending you back to duty with with the suggestion that your commanding officer have the sentry wake you during the night I laughed and he laughed and Dr gentle laughed because they knew that’s not something that’s feasible What they were basically saying is you’re going to go back and you’re just going to piss yourself and you’re going to fight And that’s exactly what he wanted Gets back there and now back to the book We left Puvu victors of Guadal Canal and New Britain We went out to fight again Marching into the open jaw landing craft driven up on the beach Never before were we so confident of victory Never again would its price be so high Peloo was already a holocaust The island flat and almost featureless was an altar being prepared for the immolation of 17 000 men So they’re going on to Peloo and here we go right into it They’re in their landing craft The water began to erupt in little geysers in the air became populated with exploding steel The enemy was saluting us They were receiving us with mortar and artillery fire 10 000 Japanese awaited on the island of Peloo 10 000 men as brave and determined and skillful as ever a garrison was since the art of warfare began Skillful Yes it was a terrible rain and it did terrible work among us before we reached the beach Our Amtrak was among the first assault waves Yet the beach was already a litter of burning blackened amphibian tractors of dead and wounded a mortar garden of exploding mortar shells Holes had beer scooped in the white sand or had been blasted out by the shells The beach was pocked with holes all filled with greenclad helmeted marines We were pinned down We were pinned down but not by mortars alone Machine gun fire came from an invincible outpost which the Japanese had blasted out of a coral jutting into the bay We found an opening in it and even then we’re filling it with all manners of small arms fire grenade sticks of dynam dynamite hurled by men who had crept up to it or billowing fire from the flamethrowers who had also gained the hole But the answering fire continued to rake our deadly picnic ground And the reason for that is here for the Japanese had possessed Peloo for two decades and had blasted into the coral a network of mutually supporting caves So that so these they’d been there for 20 years preparing for this and so they’ve got this massive cave network and even every time they hit one of these locations the more guys would just pop up and they also the Japanese also had tanks on Peloo Back to the book Their tanks swooped in suddenly upon us They came tearing across the airfield a dozen or so of them It was startling They had come out of nowhere and here were only riflemen and machine gunners to oppose them There was a violent outburst of gunfire I poked my head above the crater Through the lacy branch work of the scrub trees I saw an enemy tank streaking along with snipers and camouflage hanging on to the rear It was but a moment’s glance but at the time my eye caught sight of a Marine from F Company a veteran running bow-legged to the rear his face writhing shouting “Tanks! Tanks!” An officer grabbed him and spun him around and kicked him and propelled him back to his post In the crater we had prepared for defense like a caravan attacked by Indians the enemy tanks whizzed past their their little wheels whirling within the tracks Machine guns clattered bazookas whammed Our airplanes came screeching down from heaven And there rose the detonation of their bombs and the roar of exploding tanks To my right I saw a line of our tanks advancing firing as they came seeming to stop each time their guns stuttered Then it was over The tanks had been destroyed I turned to go and as I did nearly stepped on someone’s hand Excuse me I began to say but then I saw that it was an unattached hand or rather a detached one It lay there alone open palm upwards clean capable solitary I could not tear my eyes from it The hand is the artisan of the soul It is the second member of the human trinity of head and hand and heart A man has no faculty more human than his hand None more beautiful nor expressive nor productive To see this hand lying alone as though contemptuously cast aside no longer a part of man no longer his help was to see war in all its wantness It was to see the especially brutal savagery of our own technique of rending And it was to see men at their eternal worst turning upon one another tearing one another clawing at their own inards with the maniacal fury of the pride possessed Not much I can comment on that one Back to the book our casualties were extremely heavy Before the day was done they would total 500 in the first regiment something like 20% This on the first day we were advancing again Our objective was bloody nose ridge This was the high ground visible from across the airfield It gave the enemy perfect observation advancing across the flat table of crushed coral on which there was hardly a single depression as we were easily cited as clay ducks in a shooting gallery But there was no other route and we had to take it Grass cutting machine gun fire swept the airfield mortars Mortar shells fell with the calm regularity of automation Marines fell They crumpled They staggered They pitched forward They sank to their knees They fell backwards They kept advancing The mortars had stopped The first F company wave was advancing across the airirstrip running low with ranks scattered breasting a withering machine gun fire that had been that had begun to rake the runway They were falling It seemed unreal It seemed a tablo like a scene from a motion picture It required an effort of mine to recall that these were flesh and blood marines men whom I knew whose lives were linked with mine Still more was required in facing up to the fact that my turn was next And here is the point in battle where one needs the rallying cry Here where the banner must be unfurled or the song sung or the name of the cause flung at the enemy like a challenge Here is the mounted charge The thing as old as warfare itself that either overwhelms the defense and wins the battle or is broken and brings on defeat How much less forbidding might have been that avenue of death that I was about to cross had there been some holy irrational shout like Viva Emperor or the Marine Corps forever rather than that educated voice which in a saying Freud that was at all odds with the event said “Well it’s our turn Now that’s all you’re going to get That’s all you’re going to get These Marines are getting tore apart by machine gun fire by mortar They’re getting tore apart Marines are falling left and right They’re continuing to advance They’re continuing to advance And he’s watching this group go across this airfield getting mowed down He wants some kind of motivation And what does he get? Well it’s our turn now Crazy I bade goodbye to the artist He looked at me sadly from beneath his helmet his face made darker and more angular by its shadow He cast a ruleful gr glance in the direction of the air air strip and the still falling men “Good luck kid ” he said and turned away I began to run The heat rose in stifling waves The bullet whispered at times at other times they were not audible I ran with my head low my helmet bumping crazily to obscure my view like waves rising around a small ship In a moment I could not see Lieutenant Deep Chest or Filthy Fred I was alone and running There were men to my left still falling I ran and threw myself down caught my breath rose again and ran again Suddenly I ran into a shell crater full of men and I stopped running So the only cover that they have is a shell crater And he dives into this shell crater And there’s a 10 guys or so in there And one of them he’s calling this one guy walkie-talkie Back to the book Walkietalkie sat below me on the crater floor He hunched his shoulders toward me and asked me to twirl certain dials I did but he could not seem to get through There came the screech of a shell I braced my back for it even though I knew that the ones you hear are not the ones to be feared But how fear the one that gets you the one you do not hear Another voice was audible Now the fifth Marines’s lieutenant who was wounded who was in fact dying as I learned later was speaking by walkie-talkie to his regimental commander “The glorious fifth marines have gone through sir ” he was saying “and have achieved the objective We are now in contact with the first regiment Now there’s 10 guys in there and finally one of the captains speaks up How many men how many men here from the first Marines? He asked We raised our hands Six Eh that ought to be enough We better take that block house over there That’s where all the machine gun fire seems to be coming from As soon as this shell fire stops we’ll move out against it Just like that The block house had resisted even naval gunfire It had taken bombs point blank and remained standing It was obviously covered by a maze of pill boxes We six of us were to take it The captain might be stupid but no one could say that he was not gallant I felt disgusted and resigned myself to an unprofitable death I looked at the men from the fifth who were regarding us with wonder and envied them for having retained diplomatic relations with the state of sanity Their commander was hardly conscious now but he had heard He waved a hand weakly in our direction and grinned as though to say “You’ll never make it ” But there’s no harm in trying And of course to a dying man I suppose there was no harm So you think they’re going to do it? Yep they’re going to do it They’re going to charge this block house six guys this block house This is just concrete block house Massive machine gun fire coming from it They’re going to charge this thing That took bombs straight up That took that took direct hits from bombs Crazy They they make a run for it Back to the book The shells drove us back to our crater Once again walkie-talkie had difficulty with the apparatus He could receive but not send Battalion was asking for positions You’d better report back to command post captain said to me but come back out So Lucky wants to go tell command post what’s going on You can imagine there’s just machine gun fire mortars going off everywhere He runs back He gets back to the major at the command post How is it out there Lucky? The major asked Bad sir I said adding nothing for my notion of this battle was still a confused jumble of men and movement and explosions in which blistering hot in which a a blistering hot airfield was somehow involved Then I arose and said “I better get back out ” The major nodded and waved “Good luck “ I took firm hold of my Tommy gun and adjusted my pack secured my map case and circled the pile of shell casings to return to the shell crater It was my last warlike act For the last time I set my face toward the enemy About a hundred yards out a shell exploded in front of me I veered to the right Another shell exploded in front of me I veered more Another shell Another but closer Four more Another closer still I halted A horrifying fact became clear I had inserted myself between the enemy artillery and their target They were hunting something Perhaps the ammunition dumped behind me and were walking their fire in its direction There was no cover To go forward was to die I could only run away from this approaching death hoping to get out of the target area before it caught me I turned and ran I ran with the heat shimmering in waves of from the coral With the sweat oiling my joints and the fear drying my mouth With the shells exploding behind me closer ever closer the airfield the air filled with the angry voices of shrapnel demanding my life I ran with an image in my mind of the Japanese gunner at top his ridge bringing each burst carefully closer to my flying rear chasing me across that baking table in a monstrous game of cat and mouse gleeful at each greater burst of speed called forth by a closer explosion And then tiring of sport lifting the gun and dropping one before me A shell landed alongside me perhaps 5 feet away but it did not explode Or at least I do not think it did One cannot be certain at such time There is a different space in time with fear But there was a shell a two-foot blob of burning red which struck the coral with a thunderclap and seemed to glance off into the air and go wailing away into the bay With that I called upon my remaining strength and also then the Japanese gunner hit his target The ammunition dump was hit The war ended for me I had been shattered No good A dry husk Modern war had had me A giant lemon squeezer had crushed me dry Concussion heat thirst tension all had had their way with me I must have stumbled about unable to speak until at last I sank my knees beside two men scratching a foxhole in the sand They were startled as though from afar I could hear them discussing me He can’t think What do you think’s the matter with him? Search me He don’t look wounded Maybe he got a near miss Hey fella what’s wrong with you? Can’t you say something? What do you think we ought to do with him? They rose and pulled me erect Got a shoulder a piece beneath my armpits and dragged me like a dummy through the sand Life like a life like a life-sized doll in whom the spring had been broken They dragged me to the doctor A corman laid me on the blanket tied a ticket to me He thrust a needle into my arm which was attached a running hose to a bottle of liquid suspended upside down on a frame on a wire frame The pair who had brought me crouched beside me “What’s wrong with him Doc?” one of them asked “I don’t know ” the corman answered “He’s pretty beat up though Blast concussion I’m sending him back to the hospital ship “ One of the pair looked longingly at the Tommy gun beside me His glance seemed to say “You won’t need that anymore I told him with my eyes to take it ” And he slung it over his shoulder with immense satisfaction Then they left They had their reward Mortars were falling as they carried me onto the beach with about a half a dozen other casualties We laid there and I wondered dully if the gunners were to catch me after all At last a landing boat took us aboard and roared off for the ship I began to feel shame The others were badly wounded some put out of pain by morphine And here I lay in a corner quietly wretching like a frightened kitten intact my face unblenmished my bones unbroken The war was ending I was ashamed My spirit crept away from the eyes staring from the staring eyes that f fast fastened upon us as the boat was drawn up out of the water to the deck People in white coats thronged the rail and two of these at the center gazed with authority into the boat searching for the wounded most in need of aid I shrank from that expert stare when suddenly one of them pointed at me and said “Him get him downstairs right away “ They grasped me stripping me naked as they did and hurried me down a ladder laying me on a table and again thrusting a needle into my arm With the liquid flowing into my body came the warm flood of returning self-respect The dull dispiriting shame had disappeared the moment that pointing finger singled me out I had been hurt I was in need of aid With a healing power of which he had no inkling the doctor had restored my spirit to me So the war ended for me Each day for a week I ascended the ladder to the deck and gazed in morbid fascination at Peloo a mile or so away They were still fighting One could hear the sound of the firing Each day the news was bad We were winning but at a fearful price And then the battle had been won Extermination had come to the Japanese 10 000 on Peloo and my regiment the first was licking its wound wounds on the beach Of my battalion a force of some 1 500 men there remained but 28 effectives When the command came for the last assault on that honeycomb of caves and pillboxes which the Japanese had carved into bloody nose ridge in men and blood and agony the most costly spit of land in the wide Pacific When the command came they rose from their holes like shades from seultures and advanced They could not run They could barely walk And they dragged their weapons but they obeyed And they attacked They were taken from the line on the brink of collapse Rutherford was killed He’d been hit by a mortar shell and blown to bits White man had been killed And the artist The artist was dead A brave man May he rest in peace Captain Dreadnot fell dead of a sniper’s bullet It had become a holocaust in the fullest sense Scores of others in the battalions perished There were those that have not been mentioned in this book Friends who did not fit the narrative Men whose faces I have not forgotten and whose bravery and sacrifice has deposited a vast spiritual credit for our nation to draw upon These two fell wrestling that island rock from the grasp of its most tenacious defender May they rest in peace Sacrifice says not the blood of your brother my friend your blood That is why women weep when their men go off to war They do not weep for their victims They weep for them as victim That is why with the immemorial insight of mankind there are gay songs and colorful bands to send them off to fortify their fa their failing hearts not to quicken their lust for blood That is why there are no glorious living But only glorious dead heroes turn traitor Warriors age and grow soft But a victim is changeless And sacrifice is eternal sacrifice is eternal And I’ll close with the book there Obviously it’s an incredible book about incredible men and their eternal sacrifice And it’s so humbling to hear of their sacrifice And I say it over and over and over again and I will continue to say it that we must live lives worthy of their sacrifice The 7 100 killed at Guadal Canal the 2 336 killed at Peloo and all the soldiers sailors airmen and marines who as Robert Leki said later in his life who fought or who foremost fighting fell And I think it’s also important to remember the example of Robert Leki who by his own admission was no angel no plaster saint but who was truly a hero And remember that that people all people have good and bad qualities and people make mistakes and they do dumb things and yet those very people are capable of so much And yet so often we judge We judge and we judge and we judge and we cast stones But but who are we to judge? Who are we to judge when a man like Robert Leki Lucky Leky who not only drank to excess and chase girls and pulled a pistol on his superior officer and who got so nervous so scared yes I’m going to call it scared who got so scared that he would lose control of his bladder every time he went to sleep And yet he overcame that fear with more bravery in his heart than most of us can even fathom So who are we to judge? We shouldn’t judge people We should help them And there’s probably nothing more we can do to live a worthwhile life than to help people To help other people And in helping other people I promise you will be rewarded and you will be helping yourself too And one more thing that we see in this book once again is the strength of human will We see men tested beyond anything we can imagine And then when they pass that test one time they get given that test again and then again And still they overcome They overcome the pain and the suffering and the fear And yet we can’t get ourselves out of bed in the morning We can’t move toward a goal we’ve set for ourselves Don’t allow that Remember the Teneroo River Remember the airfield at Guadal Canal Remember the discipline instilled in every marine at Paris Island And remember what you you remember what you are capable of if you mobilize your will and if you keep moving forward you keep advancing Remember what you are capable of If you keep attacking and keep attacking and keep attacking and don’t stop Don’t stop moving forward and don’t stop attacking and don’t succumb to the suffering and the pain and the fear Don’t succumb but instead move forward and attack And I think that’s all I’ve got for tonight So Echo Charles Yes sir While I’m over here doing a little decompression Sure maybe you could mobilize your will Sure To let people know I don’t know how to support this podcast or something I do I will make the disclaimer It doesn’t take much will to do this but I do see it as a time to decompress a little bit Bro seriously? Yeah Can you even imagine? Again you’re getting tested over and over again You’re going through the hardest possible test with dysentery and a hernia With dysenteria or hernia you’re pissing yourself Your friends are getting killed You pass that test through some miracle and they’re like “Yeah you got another test “ Yeah Right Yeah But to prepare you for the test we’re going to make you suffer more And then so you get tested again That’s cool But does not doesn’t matter It’s not the final exam You’re going to do it again And and you know again I say this all the time This is thousands and thousands and thousands of people did this It’s not It’s not That’s what’s that’s what’s important to remember This isn’t This is a civilian This guy was a civilian Yeah It sounds like this crazy extreme case This is all the cases This is a lot of cases This is all the cases he talks about He says the courage was common There was a rare case where we’d get touched by this fear and it would overtake guys and if we bolster them back up the best we could But this isn’t an anomaly This isn’t the story of the singular hero right? This is the story of thousands and thousands of heroes And this is the story of what people are capable of People are capable of this It’s proven Yeah And when you think you can’t take anymore guess what? You can Yeah Amazing Yep Well if I got dysentery I wouldn’t get out of bed straight up Don’t let alone all this other stuff Yeah I’m in bed Maybe I’d go to the hospital or something like that But then I hospital bed Even echo Charles could employ the will and carry on with dissentry Yeah With I I didn’t even say he got malaria too by the way You know his name I thought it was his friend I thought he got it too His friend got malaria but he got malaria too Got it That’s when they went to look at his hernia They’re like “Hey you got to go back to the front ” Oh but you got malaria Suffer through that for whatever it is That’s 4 days Okay now you can go back Okay you’re good now Okay Okay Guys are just unbelievable Dang All right Well I feel like we should talk about on it then That sounds like a great It is thing to talk about I’ll let you talk about it I’m going to sit over here and decompress Well okay So I’m I’m really glad and this kind of goes without saying but I’m going to say it I’m glad that we kind of got aligned Well I mean I already took shroom tech before this but actually I guess technically it was you who really made me take Krill Oil Mhm You know I didn’t make you take Yeah but you let’s say you influenced me enough to actually take action as as they say But anyway um so it’s like kind of I compare like the post krill oil and the pre- krill oil situation So I was you know you know I was into lifting weights and stuff and you know how like weights is a good kind of weights is cool because you know how strong you are kind of thing You know there’s the Yeah it’s pretty black and white There’s the number so you can kind of judge like yeah this that guy’s strong or I’m strong or I’m not strong whatever right? So I considered myself pretty strong in the weight room but okay this one time one of my one of our friends came in into town We have you know we have the weights at the you know outside and stuff and they’re like “Oh yeah you got the weights ” And um it so he gets under there and he and he you know he grabs the weight not heavy but he grabs them and I’m thinking in my head like “I can do way more than that ” But then I was like “I can but I have to warm up a lot first you know cuz so really how strong am I you know really?” Anyway um the point there is that was pre krill oil I’m not saying I could jump underneath my max no warm I’m not saying that But I’m saying like my actual strength is closer to my no nonwarmup strength Now that’s a good thing You ever you ever seen those videos um where probably not but go ahead I don’t know You remember you know the one where they they dress up the the young professional basketball player or something? Um Oh to look like a nerd or something No an old an old man Oh yeah Yeah So Oh there’s this one It’s like a I think he’s like a pro crossfit guy or a pro weight Olympic lifter or something So he goes to the speeches this old man and he’s you guys are strong And stuff like that I think he kind of overdo it in my opinion with acting but whatever And everyone’s believing like “Oh this old man you know he probably used to be a weightlifter ” And he um and he gets under the weight and he’s just killing he’s embarrassed He’s he’s just showing up all the guys beating them you know lifting more weights than them and whatnot Um so then he kind of like does his old man walk away That’s how I felt before the krill oil when it’s time to lift like I can lift a lot but like my everyday life I’m like kind of stiff you know like oh I got to like get up after all Anyway that’s it That’s the krill krill oil comparison speech And where would you recommend people get the krill oil that you speak of so highly? Anyway on it but here and I looked into that All my prompts lead towards closure That’s my goal Yeah sure No but I’m saying like you know how you know and you don’t care about my goal You got your own goal You got stories to tell You got things people want to hear about But I think when I thought when I saw those videos I was like that was me before Krill I really thought that like oh that’s how it feels you know? It’s kind of funny It’s a funny video It’s a funny thought even really But that’s kind of how it feels but I don’t have that problem anymore You know I don’t feel like that anymore So if someone has seen that video and they might be feeling that that way maybe I can solve their problem I wish I knew that long time ago Anyway looked into Strong Bone remember we were talking about it last week or whatever and I was like hey does it make your bones I gave you a homework assignment yeah kind of did it I mean like went on there on it very resourceful I’m a resourceful person on it is very good resource the website and the answer is yes it does helps like even like the onset of like osteoporosis like all this stuff it’s like that’s that’s what it’s like um I didn’t memorize all the terms but I know the point but it’s um oh yeah strontium you know That’s what they name it after Yes Cuz strontium calcium all these things like make it so when you get older and you know degeneration you lose that Yeah I’ll in your natural deal you know maybe And you get the strong boom Strong tum back in your bones Easy money So you take the crew oil back in your bones or back in your joints Well your joints are made up of your bones tendons ligaments Does it go into everything? It goes into your bones Okay So you figure the tendon connection to your bone That’s that’s the part that we’re trying Yeah That can jam you up You get That’s what you hurt right? In your bicep happened Yeah that’s what I heard Yeah I heard it one day It ripped off my bone My bicep ripped off my bone Anyway if I had some strong bone that wouldn’t h that wouldn’t happen Maybe it would have I don’t know But nonetheless that is what strong bone helps So guess what I did? Got some No worries Um but yeah there’s there’s not just that There’s all kinds of cool stuff Uh warrior bars that’s another I got more of those Uh shroom tech for performance and the per here’s the thing I I think sometimes people will kind of mistake the shroom tech when you know because it helps your oxygen uptake They think that like I’m going to when I breathe it has something to do with your breathing you know It’s not your breathing or your lungs It’s the the amount of oxygen you take up when you breathe you know so they can go to your muscles to oxygen Anyway that’s what it helps So if you go hard like super hard or uh grappling long what do you call them? Wads right? Workout of the day of the day Yeah Yeah It helps Keeps you out of the red Um but yeah go on there There’s for whatever you do you know they even workout stuff and whatnot It’s actually kind of a fun website you’d be on there for for a while looking at the cool stuff That’s my opinion and my experience Anyway subscribe to the podcast Actually you know what? We’ll talk about Amazon first So Amazon clickthrough This is a good way to support podcast Um what you do if you don’t know already before you do your Amazon shopping go to jockodcast com either on the tab on the top left in green or on the top menu or on the side kind of towards the bottom there’s a place to click on just support through either support J podcast or Amazon clickth through Anyway before you do your Amazon shopping click through there then do your shopping I actually did that the other day And I don’t know if you’re watching this on YouTube but if you are this is what I bought which is totally necessary And also also if you totally necessary this book I I didn’t I don’t know if I made it clear enough the book that we read today is called Helmet for My Pillow by Robert Leki You can get that Amazon You’re going to put it Ekko will have it on the website and when you click that and you buy it boom you’ll be good to go Yeah You will support the podcast You will support the Leki family in some way because they’ll be somehow being supported right? Because they’re own I’m sure this book So it’s a good way to support this hero this hero’s family and also get the Pacific I don’t know if we could put that I don’t know But anyways what the like if you could put it on clickthrough unless maybe someone bought the DVDs But but but watch that and and you know what? When you watch it like prep yourself mentally and don’t watch it while there’s other things going on Sit down Right Right Get into it on a nice situation you know logistically with a good TV set and a good speaker system Then Yeah And then watch the Pacific And you only they’re like maybe you can watch two at a time maybe what two episodes two episodes but watch them close together too so you kind of maintain the continuity of the situation right because that’s good too and when you see it man it’s just a incredibly well done thing it’s awesome and then when you have the background of the podcast of the books and you read the books man it’s really really powerful like comes you actually get more more into it oh for sure you know like when you know guys exactly You’re more invested in the characters Yeah And you realize that that when you see Lucky Leky in the thing you have his whole backstory of his whole life when you’ve read the book And it’s awesome Yeah Um there’s a by the way on the podcast website there’s a whole section whole page with all the books of all the podcasts Make it easy for the book situation But yeah so yeah before you do your Amazon shopping click through this the click through the Amazon link and then do your shopping And yes I did buy this item which I’m showing So if you look on YouTube you can see it It’s to add to our little collection on the table here It’s awesome So yeah speaking of YouTube we have a YouTube channel It’s good People have been telling me for real people have been telling me not just one person but they say hey you should take cuz okay on YouTube channel we have the podcast of course video format excerpts just like you know excerpts from the so you can like share them and stuff like that and then there’s like what do you call them the what artistic pieces stuff that I put some like time into put some track a soundtrack echo Charles videos sure I just called it I forget what I called it like discipline something I don’t know but so you made three categories or two two got it two playlist so basically people been ask me hey you should separate them and make them into playlists which I kind of knew about but I I’m not deep into the YouTube thing well we know that well no as far as the customization and you know all that which I kind of looked into so this is good what I like about this is people gave you a suggestion which I saw too you you looked at it you explored it and now you executed on it Yeah totally did Kind of So if there’s any other good ideas that people have they should post them and so that way you can improve even more and we can improve and and serve them better Yeah I think so I think that’s and and of course someone going to be like hey you know and they’ll say an idea it might not be all that good but if or it may not seem like it’s all that good but if another person says it kind of unrelated you know not the kind where some guys hey do this you know make this or create this and then someone just likes it or puts a like on it or says yeah so you’re asking for multiple well not to split hairs but I’m not asking for anything I’m saying but that’s what you act Yeah So if some someone says a suggestion maybe the next day two days 3 days later another person says the same suggest suggestion unrelated and that tend you know the tendency I see a tendency coming up then that’s when I start taking action You see what I’m saying? What about the 14 000 people that told you to make more videos? I’m making more videos Those are No because I was watching I realized I was watching somebody I can’t even remember who it was but I was watching chunks of someone speak the other night someone that I was I don’t know who it was and and I was so happy that they were in short clips and I was like this is why we need more short clips Yeah Because it’s really convenient to go what’s this idea here? Boom You see the name of the video you go here’s the idea I want to think about that idea Boom You’re good to go And YouTube is good like that where if there’s a bunch of them which I think we’re kind of coming up with or our collection is kind of growing now There’s a I’d say there’s a bunch of them right How well did you execute when people said make when people were like episode 42 make a video from this to this? How how did you do any of that or did you blow everyone off? No no no Yeah that’s that’s mainly what I base it on Oh okay Um so but those are they’re everywhere you know So some of them don’t quite translate Some of them I just I mean I don’t want to upload like five in one day And I’ve read some stuff that it’s like I don’t know It’s not good to do that But I don’t know That’s a That’s a long story I bet I I don’t know Let’s not just Let’s not think about what’s good to do and what’s not good to do You just got to get We’re trying to get something Yeah You trying to Yeah I dig it man But yeah YouTube’s good like that where if you listen to just the um like an excerpt or just a clip 2 minutes 3 minutes 4 minutes and you’re like “Dang I want to I want to listen to some more ” They not only are they there to listen if you want but they’ll suggest so you’ll have a bit of continuity there instead of like “Oh I’m locked into this threehour thing right now “ Right Well that’s and that’s one thing that’s a little bit tricky about this is that when I when I’m thinking when I’m talking I’m thinking in the context of this giant 2hour thing So sometimes it’s hard to snip out something and you lose a little bit in my opinion Yeah But you also gain a lot because you can get it quick right? And you can share it with the next guy who’s more likely or the next person to more likely listen to it Cuz even now man people will send me you know whether it be funny videos There’s this sodium video that you know a guy skipping a piece of sodium across the lake Pretty awesome Yeah you saw that video right? It’s been going around I don’t know if people looked for it and then sent it to me or it’s been going around So now more people are sending it to me because the last like two weeks everyone’s been sending it to me And I want to actually do that I want to get the sodium metal and I want to throw it into the water Yeah we’re doing it at your house I do If we can find it I want to do it and film it and then just see what up See what up All right I got to start looking into way to get some sodium metal you know Um but yeah that’s you know these are are good things These the YouTube situation made the playlist They’re on there Excerpts I’m putting more on there There it is um subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher or Google Play and all the podcast platforms um you know that’s a good way to support because you’re essentially just kind of in the game in general you know and that’s really the thing because like the more people you know they’ll hit us up on Twitter or just like kind of knowing and knowing what you’re talking about or submitting questions this kind of stuff it does make that circle of like it’s not just Joo telling us what to do it’s kind of like we’re all in this group you know well yeah and we end up with like a common It’s like hanging out with your friends basically Yeah Like when I go on the road now like I was just out with some firefighters and and like we’re all everyone’s telling the same jokes but they’re all you know we all get it You know what I mean? Exactly Right So it’s cool to hang out with them because it’s like as if they were here you know and I was actually talking to them about them like well it’s like you know when it first happened it would be a little bit strange to me right? Cuz you don’t remember them sitting right there because no one was sitting there actually And I was like well sometimes it seemed like the podcast like was me and Ekko sitting in a room alone right? But then you realize no there’s a lot of people sitting in here with us and they have their own spins This is what’s funny is people have their own variations on the jokes and on the inside things and on what we’re talking about So it’s all and you know they’ve already taken stuff and spun it out somewhere Now they’re bringing it back to me So I’m part of their right I get in get inside their game So it’s it’s it’s pretty funny Yeah And that’s not to mention the questions that that you answer It’s all everyone’s questions you know It’s not like you’re like “Hey let me think up this question that I think people have “ No you got it from certain people and you know you answer them they’re like “Hey you know it’s like a two three-way street or something “ Anyway so yeah when you’re when you’re when you’re um subscribed you’re you know you’re kind of in the group It’s a good way to support Um also Joo has a store called Joo Store Good store Is it more like the podcast has a store? Because I don’t actually have a store It’s the podcast has a store Yeah I guess technically But you always make it sound like I have a store Yeah cuz it’s called Jaco We have a store Yeah It’s not Joo podcast store It’s Joo Store Jaco the store Jaco Store It’s Jaco Store com Okay See what I’m saying? I’m going to concede to the point There it is Boom What? I have a store That’s what I don’t like about it It sounds weird I know But when I say it I think it sounds cool Shirts on there if you want to wear uh t-shirts and represent Got a new design out there Well kind of new Two weeks three weeks Maybe I’ll put a card on there And actually it’s a new t-shirt design T-shirt design It can be found in other places Oh yeah Right Sure What do you mean? I mean Oh right right right It can be found in other places Yeah man It’s good But hey look like on the get after it mug that’s where it can be found straight up I don’t know why playing this little game here Like I wasn’t going to say anything It’s the get after it mug We got a shirt that says get after it Yeah And that one came highly recommended Perfect Perfect example of people saying you know people were saying it so like um like matter of fact is Yeah where it was to the point where they were like “Hey you should you should do a get after it shirt ” They weren’t saying that anymore They were saying “When are the get get after it shirts come out? When do they come out?” Oh I didn’t know we were doing that yet but apparently we are So boom they’re out And they got you They got you with psychological work Man I’m glad they did cuz I think they turned out good and real simple like most things Anyway these shirts are cool I think But go to jocklestore com and look at them You think they’re cool? You think you want to wear one represent in the wild go ahead get one support one that way Also some you know some women stuff out there Uh women might be under reppresented overall but I think that the women that are kind of in the game that listen that get after it they get after it hard to make up for the numbers you know? You see what I’m saying? Like the quality is greater than the quantity Anyway got some patches on there too The rash guards of course I’m going to put a new one out It’s in the works It’s like ready to be pushed out here in a few days I think maybe a week Um so yeah if you’re into jiu-jitsu that’s why I think that’s the primary reason I made them But they’re actually for surfing body boarding what Jako calls sponging Sponging cycling CrossFit any kind of workout where you need you know like maximum mobility but you still want to go with like a shirt on Sometimes you just go no shirt But yeah if you go no shirt you’re not supporting the podcast Correct Correct And you know the the I think you know we kind of did some calculations I think the new rash guard might I’m not saying it will because we don’t know yet They’re not here They might yield was it 24 Oh so Ekko did he’s got the sample one Y one sample and the sample one you said gave you like 27% I thought I think 24 but you know what? Now that you mentioned it I think it was 27 Yeah Yes up from 19 Yeah Which is a lot But that’s only one case study So that’s what I’m saying We’re really going to um double blind And this is actually true where I went and I practiced I did some rounds and you know kind when you’re done rounds and you’re kind of talking with the boys afterwards and girls in our case cuz Haley was there too We’re talking and I thought we were done We were done Somebody called You’re like “Hey guys call and then David means Bolia He’s like Hulk Hogan’s nephew ” like actually actual nephew like like his dad’s brother or something I might get that part wrong but it’s Yeah Anyway that’s a side note Yeah Well he asked “Is anyone still rolling?” And guess what? I still had rounds left Shroom Techch Rashgard I said “Yeah rolled “ Got it on with the lead Anyway yeah Good deal Good experience But uh he’s got a good deep half guard Yeah he has good everything I mean he’s got good everything else but Yeah Brown belt he’s solid respect Yeah Yeah But his deep half guard he’s got cuz he’s he’s a bigger dude but he got the Jeff half guard bigger than he lost some he’s trimmed up a little bit but nonetheless yeah good good training also psychological warfare so if you don’t know what that is it’s an album with tracks Joo talking but he’s not just talking he’s talking with the intent of getting you through any moments of weakness that you might have in your getting after it journey is it goes beyond might have right? It goes into actual moments of weakness Not that you are in a moment of weakness You’re looking at actual donuts They’re in front of you They’re breaking you down mentally right? Boom Click that No Hit play Hit play Get the track in there The actual not a potential moment of weakness The moment of weakness is upon us We’re going to feed it Yeah Yeah Psychological warfare And we’re getting requests now for the second one Yeah So I’m going to start thinking about that what that’s going to be like Yeah And if you want recommendations of what particular moments of weakness you might have that need to be overcome and there’s a common theme as Ekko referred to we will and if it’s got to be something that I’ve dealt with before right? Right Because I can’t just make up some way of overcoming a weakness that I’ve never experienced Now I’ve experienced a lot of weaknesses but if you come up with something that I’ve never experienced then we’re going to have to just forgo that one cuz I’m not going to make it up For I’m not going to make up might not work right? It’s hard to manufacture you know Yeah You can’t manufacture insp as as the great tenacious D said Yeah Yeah I think that’s a good idea I got some We’ll talk about it comes from a quietude That’s where it’s got to come from Sure Yeah A stillness A quietude That’s the D But yeah that’s a good one Psychological Warfare Joo Willink iTunes Amazon Music all those good It’s probably any music outlet A bunch of music outlets Yeah it’s there Yeah just jump on that It helps man I And I used it I don’t recommend this But I used it when I was like I don’t feel like working out This is a big thing for me because I kind of had it like that where I’ll be like “Oh I’m just going to rest cuz I don’t feel like it I didn’t get nine hours of sleep so I’ll just do it tomorrow “ No Yeah man And it really worked with that the workout one A guy you know you said it works 100% of the time Yes The like the wake up one the because there’s three wakeup tracks A guy on Twitter said “Hey number wakeup track didn’t work It failed “ Interesting And then he said “But I made it to the number two wakeup track ” which is the way they’re set They’re set like you listen to one that’s going to get you up But if it doesn’t number two is waiting And he got the number two and then he woke up So we’re still batting a thousand overall Yeah the overall campaign right? Yeah the campaign is a win but we did take a we did take a digger from one dude that just didn’t get out of bed after listening to Psychological Warfare get out of bed track one He had to go to track two but we’re there We had some reserve We got some backup backup He had some spot I don’t think anyone’s made it to three yet No one’s made it to the wake up track three They haven’t been there yet That must to make it even to make it to two you must be one tired dude must have had like a hard night the night before and you must have a hard workout waiting for you or something I don’t know something But yeah man In my experience 100% success rate But I don’t And then I started doing it just cuz just cuz I want to get fired up for no reason Yeah And it’s weird because it’s not choco get this You can do it’s not that it’s almost like this uh Yeah Some people say to me “Hey can you do one of you yelling?” I’m like “Well I don’t really yell a lot man Like I didn’t yell I’m not a yeller Yeah Now let me let me rephrase that If we’re in the gym and like I’m pushing someone like a MMA fighter that’s in a workout and I’m like “Come on ” You know I might raise my voice a little bit but I’m not going to yell at you like you know the drill instructor type thing It’s not it’s not really what I do And I could see maybe like how that could be effective But in these cases that’s not the mood you’re in anyway Yeah You know what? It could be effective for certain instances Yes And actually like I’ve been doing some little videos in the morning and and and I realize when I watch them that I’m getting a little bit aggressive with the way I’m talking and it’s not it’s not like I’m saying okay I got no I’m just starting to talk and then I start getting I start escalating my own situation because I’m starting to think about when I’m when I’m saying it means something to me So when I’m saying hey you know you’re wasting your life right now I I start think I’m feeling that way because I know that there’s someone that’s actually wasting their life right now And so it starts you know getting a little bit escalated And so maybe on psychological warfare 2 there’ll be some situation that es that I personally escalate on But yeah it would have to be natural right? Kind of thing Yeah You can’t manufacture insp There you go Boom But yeah it’s it’s good It’s like cuz you just kind of explain like kind of the the logic behind it like see what you’re doing right now But do you see? And yeah well I guess now I do Shoot Then you you get up or you anyway Yeah I use it when now some I abuse it Well I don’t I’m feeling fired up and just put it in Get more fired up Get talked into feeling even better That’s how dangerous dangerous psychological warfare It’s a good one Also when you’re clicking through Amazon you can also get Jaco White tea which it may not seem like a big deal and maybe it isn’t but maybe it is I tell you judging from some of the some of the reviews on Amazon I’ll read you one After drinking Joa White tea I found I was overcome with the insurmountable urge to get after it So much so that I was able to defeat all my foes in a short amount of time On a side note I have found that jocka white tea is best served over ice and consumed from the skulls of dead enemies Now you know I don’t know what situation this individual is in right? But obviously he’s in combat situation He’s got foes that need to be killed and he’s drinking from their skulls And even in that really stressful environment you know the te’s helping him Yeah which is cool I’m glad that it’s helping him doing positive things against the enemies of of good in the world Also good evening Ekko and Jaco I woke up weighing 115 lbs the day the white tea arrives Two cups later I reweighed myself and I was now roughly 250 lbs So he more than doubled his body weight after two cups of of jocka white tea I think my tea was a little loaded and obviously gave me more than the 20% increase in gains that was promised And I I don’t think we actually promised anything I didn’t promise that but I think it kind of speaks for itself Yep And this is the important This is why I wanted to make this one’s very important Also cruising went up roughly 200% So there’s that as well Yeah Everybody for everybody you know and and there you go Scientific cruising is up 200% which is positive Also Way of the Warrior Kid I got the first hard copy I got it in my hands They sent me one They’re sending me more But you know Dang it’s three hours right now We’ve been talking for three hours That’s my fault Oh man That’s a long time And I was going to read a little excerpt and I think I’m going to anyways It’s already been three hours but but so young Mark is he’s going to jump off this bridge He’s he couldn’t swim in the beginning of the book Now he knows how to swim but his goal is to jump off the bridge into the river And he’s goes up there to do it and he’s scared He gets scared He’s not going to he’s he just can’t jump So Uncle Jake who used to be a seal who’s now with his young nephew trying to show him the warrior way goes up on the bridge and he said ‘What’s going on buddy? He said in a calm voice I don’t know I said I’m just I’m just You’re afraid aren’t you? Uncle Jake asked But he wasn’t even asking He knew He knew I was scared There was no point in denying it Uncle Jake knew it as plain as day Yes I finally said in a quiet tone too embarrassed that I was afraid Then to my surprise Uncle Jake said “That’s normal “ “What?” I responded shocked at Uncle Jake’s statement I said “That’s normal You’re doing something you’ve never done before so it’s normal to be a little hesitant It’s called fear It’s a normal emotion and it’s okay “ Then he added “Well it’s okay as long as you can control it “ This made no sense to me How am I supposed to control fear? And how would you know? You’re not afraid of anything Uncle Jake sat quietly for a minute Then he said “I wish that were true “ “What do you mean?” I asked him “Well you said I’m not afraid of anything “ And that is just not true Fear is normal In fact fear is good Fear is what warns you when things are dangerous Fear is what makes you prepare Fear keeps us out of a lot of trouble So there’s nothing wrong with fear But fear can also be overwhelming It can be unreasonable It can cause you to freeze up and make bad decisions or hesitate when you need to act So you have to learn to control fear And that’s what you need to do right now Okay that sounds great And I would really love to make you happy and overcome my fear but I don’t know how Uncle Jake thought about that about what I had just said for a few seconds and then he said “Okay well the first part of controlling fear you have already done and that is preparation You’ve done plenty of preparation to be ready for this moment to face this fear Starting with dunking your head all the way up to swimming all around and back and forth across this river You’ve done little jumps off the riverbank All of the last several weeks have been preparing you for this this jump And all that preparation works to help overcome the fear Imagine how scared you would be if you still didn’t know how to swim You would be horrified But you have prepared Then why am I still scared? I asked Uncle Jake Simple he said Because there’s still an element of the unknown You’ve never jumped off anything this high before So you don’t know what it feels like People are afraid of what they don’t know or what they don’t understand But you have prepared You know it is safe You know you are ready It’s just this last little bit of fear that has to be overcome And you know how you do that? I have no idea I told him you go Just go I asked Uncle Jake now partly thinking he was just joking Yes you just go You see fear lives in the moment That powerful moment between when you decide you are going to do something and when you do it Once you go once you start you won’t be afraid anymore You overcome fear by going And it is the same in many aspects of life Parachuting talking in front of a crowd taking a test running a race competing in jiu-jitsu the fear is in the waiting So once you have planned once you have prepared and trained and studied there is only one thing left to do Go And that’s it Yes that’s it As soon as Uncle Jake finished those words he stood up looked at me yelled out “Hooya!” and jumped off the bridge “Just go ” I thought to myself I stood up stepped up onto the edge of the wall and looked down at Uncle Jake who had just come back to the surface and was looking up at me with a big smile on his face With all my heart and lungs I yelled out “Hooya!” and stepped off the bridge past my fear and into the unknown I felt myself falling for a while and then whoosh I was in the water I came to the surface and had a big smile on my face I can fly I yelled I can fly So little excerpt Dang that was good man On the way of the warrior kid It comes out May 2nd So go and go order the book for for you for your kid for your neighbor for your nephew for your niece for the school the library whoever Order them So the publisher that’s making this book we want them to know that they need to print a bunch of these They don’t know that right now They don’t know how many kids want to get after it They don’t know that They they don’t know that And it’s they’re not going to print enough It’s the same thing that happened with Jaco White tea right? You remember that? That shortage the anger the frustration the nationwide 19% drop in performance across the board We remember that Don’t let it happen here Same thing You can order that You can also pre-order Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual Comes out October 17th 1717 M take it That’s the book that you asked for So you can order that one too And of course Extreme Ownership you can get that one People buy it and then they buy it for their team and it spreads So pick that up for you and your team up and down the chain of command Extreme Ownership Beyond that if you want some direct action and interaction with your company that you work at you can contact our company Echelonfront me Leif Babin JP Denell Dave Burke We can get in the game with you Info at echelonfront com Lastly if you don’t know we have Muster2 coming up at the Marriott Grand Marquee in New York City May 4th and 5th Leadership strategy tactics again Me Leif JP Dave Burke and of course and probably most important Echo Charles He’s going to be there Yeah And he might try and hide but he can’t because none of us can cuz there’s no green room There’s no backstage There’s just all of us together getting after it And of course before the muster you can find us We’re cruising kind of hard on the interwebs on Twitter on Instagram and in the facey book Echo is at echo Charles and I am at Joo Willink And finally thanks to all the servicemen and women out there who in this uncertain world and it certainly is an uncertain world today filled with evil all of you that walk away from the comforts of home and into the unknown to face our enemies Thank you and to the firefighters police and law enforcement EMTs and the force first responders here at home Thank you for what you do day in and day out putting yourself at risk for us And to everyone else out there facing what you’re facing challenges at work and challenges with family and challenges with yourself and challenges in your head and challenges with life Remember what you as a human being are capable of Remember what your will is capable of and then keep moving forward keep attacking and keep getting after it So until next time this is Echo and Joo out