Are you ready for war?

0:00 Are we ready for war? There's no former Marine. You never lose that. You get the job done and learn how to discipline myself, not only in the military. That discipline helped me so much.

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2:06 y'all to tap in and, uh, learn some new skills from us.

3:13 more than just that, learned so much more from great people, learned how to be around multi-cultures and still fit in, get the job done, and learn how to discipline myself, and not only in the military, but once I left, that discipline helped me so much.

4:19 today, one of the instances that I know is going to come up is discipline, which will tie into the last episode. So one thing that we're taught in the Army is that you're either going to be smart or you're going to be strong, and that's something that sounds funny at first. Okay, well, why can't you be both? What that statement means, for those of you who are unaware, there's a term we have called "getting smoked." Okay, so when you don't follow directions, when you don't follow orders, when you don't get things done the right way, those are the videos you guys see on YouTube or online of, uh, soldiers doing exercises.

5:22 bring that.

6:22 his fleece cap on and a long sleeve. But that night when they come through, so while you're asleep, either from your company or different companies, whoever's on that night, they come into the room, make sure everybody's asleep, make sure you're in the right uniform, all of that type of stuff, and make sure that fire guard is actually awake, all of that. So they come through, and this night it just happens to be our senior drill sergeant, and she told us that we couldn't wear any of that stuff. So even though we had permission from a drill sergeant, because she didn't know at the time, right, and because it's not what she said, she woke us all up and we all got smoked by him wearing the fleece cap, right? So he was the only one not doing anything, and the rest of us had to suffer because he had the fleece cap on, and technically he wasn't even in the wrong in that scenario.

7:24 being.

8:26 fans right in front of the thermometer, and it was like, all right, now everybody open your window. And it was like, the degrees of pain today is two degrees. So the objective before we done getting smoked, we have to raise that thermometer two degrees before it's done and over with.

9:32 every time we leave the range, and so they account for brass. They make sure there's no brass or live rounds in anything you have. So if I am going to get searched, I am not going to bring food with me to the range.

10:34 hold on to things for days or have the opportunity for somebody to find what you had, you know.

11:36 to do. All you got to do is perform and do it.

12:38 you know. A good thing on land nav is that when you go through land nav, they don't, they don't make you do it alone. You've got a team, because, you know, when you have your battle buddy there, that gives you a little more confidence to be able to say, hey, okay, I'm not sure on what to do, can you help me understand this a little bit more? And then you...

13:40 right, all these good things, it's very confusing as a 19 year old trying to figure that out.

14:44 didn't have a clue, and some of these guys were pretty good, you know, they live with, they were a little bit older than me. One guy, he had, uh, broke his leg or his ankle, I think, or something, and they recycled him.

15:46 realize when we're doing all of this stuff and you're, whether it's Basic or AIT, but particularly Basic, is we don't get sleep from the time we get there through that entire first night.

16:48 to be there. Yeah, you know, so I'm like, all right, this is what we do, like, this is finally living that lifestyle of being in the Army and freezing my butt off. And I don't mind being cold, so the opposite would have been worse for me. If it was 110, I'd have been miserable.

17:52 going to this next group, I feel bad for you're going to the House of Pain. And I was like, it's not me, you know. I was like a third guy on the list going to House of Pain because of my mouth. I want to be this guy, and man, when I got there, it was completely different than how they had us in, in processing.

18:57 from a different cloth.

20:01 That's really what pushed me as well, one, because I am competitive, so if somebody else is doing something, then I know I can, from that point of view, but also from that teamwork point of view, and then the leadership point of view, because if I want these guys to know that they can depend on me and rely upon me, then I have to be able to execute it or get the job done myself, right?

21:03 know if there's a heavy freaking tree on top of me because things flew everywhere, that he can lift that tree off of me. Or when I roll jujitsu-wise and we do our warm-ups, I never go get the 150 pound dude to put on my back to run around the mat, right? I go get the 250 pound dude, because even if you're 180 to 200 with all of your gear that you have on, you better train how you fight.

22:10 make a difference. And the one thing that people really don't know, man, is that, and your endurance, man, your endurance really matters.

23:13 properly and make the proper decisions, because your mind's everywhere.

24:17 man can change the way a whole situation goes.

25:22 pathway even more, make it a little easier for that thought to get through. Then you're gonna make it a little easier for that thought to get through with that next one. The next thing you know, the easiest thoughts to get through are the negative ones. You never created a pathway for positive thoughts.

26:25 assault pack.

27:26 different breed, where they still hold you to that standard.

28:29 whatever you need, your brain needs to be able to function.

29:32 right, they have three different parts, so there's, like, takes forever to get through training, I bet.

30:33 Yeah, so I'm sure I probably would have a much different point of view if I did start off with OSUT with the other MPs, because even within the Echoes, a lot of us were in a lot better shape than everybody else.

31:34 help you out.

32:36 once you catch up.

33:39 have to go. I mean, I had a stress fracture in my foot even before I went. I had, I fractured my L3 in my back.

34:41 a week and a half, two weeks before my back got better, but my PT score looked crazy, because, yeah, you know, the test that we took, we took three, but that middle one looked crazy, because my, I couldn't move, like, I couldn't deadlift, couldn't run, sprint, drag, carry was trash.

35:43 three times with the hex bar. The hex bar is wide, so for a short guys it's a little bit tougher, not necessarily from the weight, but because of how far your traps are spread.

36:48 That's like throwing a keg, guys.

37:49 to be 90 pounds sitting on a sled. You're going to pull that sled backwards 25 meters down, has to go all the way past the line, flip it back around, bring it 25 meters back. By the time you get done with that, your legs are toast.

38:53 pretty bad, but we couldn't get up to the scene. We had to park back and carry everything up.

39:54 patrol or any type of movement, we're always going to have a secondary team to back that team up should they come into contact with, uh, any enemy source. And so when they did, um, '09 was really high for IEDs, which is improvised explosive device, or roadside bomb, which you commonly hear them as, um, that's what they were attacked by. And, um, of course it was at midnight, it was, and it was just, uh, very bad. It was a couple one-five-fives that were there, so they were pretty big. If you don't know what a one-five-five round is, it's a, it's a pretty big round, um, incoming round, artillery shell, if you will. Um, so it did a lot of damage. But to react to that, you know, like I said, at midnight, yeah, adrenaline instantly spikes, and we get back into that moment where we was talking about, do you have control of your mind? Where is your mind at when that adrenaline spikes at midnight, right, you know?

40:56 them test, not a PFT, as far as the carry.

41:59 NVGs, night vision goggles, which, don't believe anything you see on TV. When you look through an NVG, it does not look like what they show, uh, night vision on a cam, camera that they're using in Hollywood, right? Um, what I want you guys to picture is, I want you guys to picture, uh, the green you see on night vision with a bunch of fuzzy...

43:04 eye, because only one eye is catching that light.

44:06 not realizing that this is what tunnel vision is, and I'm focused on one thing, right, but I should have my head on a swivel for everything.

45:07 see what we can do.

46:13 have you ever seen these guys are literally running drones with RPGs attached to them, rocket propelled grenades, and flying them into people, flying them into bunkers?

47:19 they gave us the colors to let us know, right, if you see this color, respond this way, if you see this, this color, respond this way. And I had just gotten off on my shift, and this is another way I want to know what you guys think, if you can handle this: working 12, 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., in a different time zone. I'm a night owl, so it didn't bother me too much. As soon as I get off, I said [inaudible], I'm going back, I'm going to sleep. You're getting super sweaty, it's hot out, so it's 105 degrees that day, sun coming through, no shade. We put these, uh, not, you couldn't use regular tents because it had no breeze.

48:22 uh, freaking plate carriers off, everything is off, like, just took it off, just laid down, and I'm like, man, they let us know that they were going to be dropping real gas.

49:22 I mean, we were, we were mocking it, but at the same time, that's what I would do in real life. So grab that, boom, and I'm thinking I'm getting ready to go to sleep, and I'm out pulling security, you know, trying to figure out where the threat's coming from and how they're hitting the camp, but I didn't have time to say, oh well, I didn't get to go to sleep, let me pretend that, right? You know what I mean? I'm safe because I just got off shift. Yeah, it didn't matter.

50:26 and everything, and I was blessed, you know, being on a task force, I had my own room, gotcha, but everything on my walls was on the ground.

51:29 gear. I was freezing. I don't know if it's like some type of desert sickness or some sickness they had over there, what it was, but bro, I was so deathly sick.

52:33 you should minimally be reserved for some part of your life.

53:33 don't need somebody who's supposed to be in finance holding a weapon because nobody's signing up, or nobody can hit PT standards, or nobody can stop, you know, doing all the drugs that get you kicked out.

54:37 yeah, you'd be tracked on all of it.

55:41 and, uh, we had to call truck driver out because that we found nine two-thousand-pound bombs, you know. How are we gonna get them back? You're gonna need a semi.

56:44 were to get pulled, like you said, putting the phone down, whatever it is that you use for comfort here, it's gone, gone, gone, all the way.

57:51 went to 10th Mountain, the other half, yeah, we went to, you know, we ended up going to Ranger School alerts, or do an alert program, um, or Airborne, obviously. Everybody goes to Airborne after that before you can get to anything else.

58:52 to end just because you don't like it, right? So guess what, we're still going to war. If that's the way you view it as, if you view it as a machine, cool, we're still going to war. If you view it as us protecting liberties, if you look at it as us defending our people in our Constitution, that's still going to cause wars. If you believe that we're intervening in other countries' affairs and trying to make sure that they aren't going down negative paths, and I think people don't realize that sometimes too.

59:55 Korea, because a lot of people don't know Korea is still a war zone. If you get stationed there, you're not taking your family, you know that it's still a war zone regardless, just that's that, like he's saying, that the Middle East, we're not going anywhere.

1:00:59 trying to keep track of who's there. You have to do it to everybody, everybody, you don't know who's who at that point.

1:02:04 that is we have to become united.

1:03:04 Yeah, especially when now the, they're significantly more strict punishment.

1:04:04 the training's not, and that goes back to training. Um, if that muscle memory, because let me tell you, the moment you kick in a door, boy, your heart is flying about a thousand miles a minute.

1:05:07 all I hear is somebody coming through the door.

1:06:11 where that breaking point is.

1:07:12 complete failure.

1:08:16 A neural pathway. We're going to talk about that a bit more in some of the upcoming episodes. We have plenty of content coming for you guys, whether it's military content, mental health content, helping you become more healthy as a human all the way around, and we're so excited that we get to bring this content to you.

1:09:17 Kazmierczak, founder of the EGT Universe, and it's been a pleasure being here with you on this journey. If you know someone who's starting a business, rebuilding their brand, or just needs a serious digital upgrade, hit me up. I'm at JumpCutKing on Instagram, or head over to egtuniverse.com. That's egtuniverse.com, and drop me a line. Also, show some love to Carter and the crew behind Classic Man. Head over to classicmanpodcast.com for all the guest info, all the official links, and bonus content. Also chip in, buy my cup of coffee. Let's be real, if we as men don't show up together, don't band together, we can't grow together. So check back here every week, same time, you're on your favorite podcast platform for the most up-to-date content. Don't get caught slipping, stay connected. We'll see you right here, Classic Man Podcast, next time.