B (2:23)

Yeah.

C (2:24)

When the sun finally came out momentarily on our last day of graduate graduating Hell Week, I had to make new friends because everyone that I thought would make it was gone.

B (2:34)

Yeah.

C (2:35)

And it was. It was every bit as hard as I imagine in. Way worse because there was a. There was moments where there you. There was no reason to stay anymore. You know, it's mommy, daddy, don't matter anymore. They're. Distant voice. You're going, well, you come do it then, you know, like, screw you. You know, your. Your friends saying, oh, you're going to quit or whoever. You don't care about any of that. You just. It's survival of. I need heat. And I'm. I'm. Because I feel like I'm dying from within. It's so cold.

B (3:05)

Yeah. And, you know, a lot of different special operations will have something similar to that. Right. And what. And what people don't understand is, is this. When you go through something four or five days long to that degree, almost. Almost everyone can stick it out for 24 hours.

C (3:27)

Exactly 20.

B (3:28)

You can stand on your head for 24 hours. If you had to, you could.

C (3:31)

You could do a lot.

B (3:32)

It's not that the, like, what they're asking you to do is humanly impossible, but there's just something about the second day being asked to do it all over again already knowing how bad the first day was. And you're doing it not at a hundred percent because you already did that yesterday, and then the next day and then the next day. And now people are starting to separate the men from the boys.

C (3:58)

Yeah. And there's also. Brandt, you said it very well. There's also a realization that I've seen guys, that they actually. They actually know that they can make it. They actually are not quitting because it's. It's so. But they realize you can see it in their eyes. I saw a guy once, around day three of Hell Week, he was sitting. He was an all star, always number one. He was sitting across from me and he was eating, and he just slowly. He just kept getting slower, and finally he just dropped his spoon like this. And I'll never forget, a tear rolled out of his eye and turned to mud in his face kind of. Because we're all shaking and we're getting that little limited food, and I go, hey, hey, pick up your. Because if you stop doing that, they're going to come after you.

B (4:38)

Yeah.

C (4:38)

And the instructor was Coming. And he was just like, I don't. I can't go anymore. And. And I knew what he was saying. He could go, but he knew the reality of this is this is team life.

B (4:50)

The.

C (4:50)

And so the realization hits you around day three or four that, oh, my God, this is what my job's going to be like the next six years.

B (4:56)

Yeah.

C (4:57)

You know, so a lot of guys just don't want to do it anymore.

B (4:59)

Yeah. And. And I quitters for some reason. Quitters have had two different, like, reactions to me. And usually I either depends on the man or, or how they do it. Quitters either disgust me and I'm like, yeah, get the. Get out of here. Get out of here, quitter. You know, and the other. And there are. Sometimes someone quits and it's heartbreaking. It's hard because let's say, you know that man, and you know how much he wanted this and this is a dream of his, and he's trained for this, and you even know deep down he's capable of this, but he just gave up. And that pinned.

C (5:42)

Yeah.

B (5:43)

It almost hurts to watch certain men quit because, like, man, he, he had it. But just by quitting, you. You cannot be here because we can. Because there. We didn't know at the time, and you didn't know at the time, but we're gonna have worse day. You think this is the worst, worst. We are going to have worse days than this where real life and death is on the line and we cannot have quitters.

C (6:06)

No. I, And I used to think it was kind of brutal for the instructors to laugh at guys as they were walking away. Or sometimes the instructors would be like, good job. Yes, excellent, excellent. We need a couple more guys to quit before sundown. And I remember thinking, what an. But, but, but I totally, totally understand why. Because in two years time, you're on that team with that guy that was this close to quitting, or he, or he quit and then he asked, begged to come back, like some of them did. And, and there's no room for that. This is life of death. And so there was times where we clapped everybody, the whole class, because you, you know, we applaud a guy that quits when we know you said it just right. We, we know he could have done more. But you, you, you shed tears for a guy proverbially when you, you know, he's at his. It's, it's. He can't go on.

B (6:56)

We. At. At a particular selection I was at. There was a. When I was cadre. There we, we were told as cadre, if, If a guy ever says the words, I quit, he's done. He's done that you cannot, you can't say, I quit. Get checked out. Like, you know what? I'm never, I'm, I'm not on the truck yet. I want to keep going. And what they'd say is, you can have a change of mind, but you'll never have a change of heart.

C (7:29)

Right, I like that.

B (7:30)

Yeah, you can have a change of mind. We will not have a change of heart. And you're, you're heart, your quitter at heart. And when you've mumbled the words, I quit, you can have a change of mind, but you won't have a change of heart. And that, that stuck with me. I was like, man, that's, that's absolutely true. Because the real ones, as much as they wanted to, and I'm. And I know for a fact, I know for, I didn't even do what you did, you know, as far as that, that selection process in the seals, but I know for a fact there's a moment that you thought about quitting. Yeah, yeah. But, but the, also the, the thought of you actually saying those words made you sick to your stomach.

C (8:15)

Well, yeah.

B (8:15)

You know, and it's crazy because you want to and it's frustrating. I want to quit so bad. I just don't know how to exactly.

C (8:24)

You know, and you know, they always say, what's the secret? The running joke is what's the secret to buds? You know, and they have a huge rock at the Buds compound. This massive rock. I don't know how they got it there, like a crane and they. In a. There's a plaque that says the secret to quitting, to not quitting buds is underneath this rock. Well, you know, I do have the secret to not quitting things in life. And, and I, I learned this in Hell. Week was about the third day when 40 of my guys, we had record lows and they even had a newspaper clipping of 1990. It was 1919. It was a record like a joke from God. On my class, the instructors were in parkas, in around bonfires. And you're out there, they don't care if everybody falls and, and dies there. You know, it seems like it. And I remember on, on Wednesday night, 40 guys rang the bell in a row and, and we're just sitting there on these gunnel tubes and I had a, A little MRE they allowed me to get. And I pushed the mashed potatoes up and it was. Ice was Crusted over ice. And I was sucking on it like a popsicle. That was my food. And we're about to go into this roaring ocean, crashing waves right next to us, and they're just taunting us, like, get ready. It's gonna get way worse. Well, as these guys are quitting, I remember the instructor came up and I couldn't put my arms down, and my hips hurt really bad because I had shake for, you know, you shake like this freezing cold for three days and three nights. You just don't have your. It hurts if there's pain involved. And he came over and he, and I couldn't lift my, my head up like this because it hurt to move. And he was, he, he came over and he kicked the side of the, my boat that I was seeing. He goes, watson, he goes, you're going to join your class. And usually that means join your class, means move on with your class. He was saying, join your classes. And everyone's quitting. What are you going to do? And this doesn't make me any more of man than them. Okay. Every man has his, has his breaking point. And I, I, I literally thought of getting up and joining him right when he said it, it just triggered something. And I was there, this close to doing it, and I, but I looked up at him and I almost said to, I almost was like, I, it's over. You know, yeah, I'm done. Because they were getting these hot wool blankets out of the ovens in a beanie and a cup of soup and hot coffee. But when I looked at him, I could see my room in the distance with a light on it where one of my roommates had quit, and he was probably taking a shower and he was going to sleep for three days. And I thought, man, that would be great. But when I woke up, I would, When I woke up, everything, I, I would remember that, that, you know, I had to remember what I had been through just to get there. And I would remember that the rest of my life. When I woke up, it was over.

B (11:08)

Absolutely.

C (11:09)

And so just remembering where you came from, I think people forget where. That's why CEOs get caught with the girl on the kissing cam. That's, they, they make all this money. They do. You know, people, you know, you, you went through all this hardship, you forget about it somewhere, and then you do stupid stuff because you forget about how hard it was to get there. So I remembered the pain that it took to get there.

B (11:31)

Yeah, we used to, in my selection, we used to make a, a joke. My, my My core group of guys, we'd see someone quit and someone inevitably would ask, hey, you going to quit too? And we'd always go, yeah, but I'm, I'll. I'll quit tomorrow.

C (11:49)

Yeah, right.

B (11:49)

Yeah, yeah, that was, that, that was always, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dependent, the quitting. Yeah, mama quit tomorrow. And that was always. Our answer is, we'll, we'll. We'll quit tomorrow. And guess what? Tomorrow, I'll. I'll quit tomorrow. And what's. Of course, that was just a joke because none of us were ever going to quit or of course we believed.

C (12:09)

Basically, you got to put. So you got to put it off.

B (12:11)

That's. That's right. But quitting is contagious. It really.

C (12:15)

Oh, my God.

B (12:16)

Because if someone's thinking of quitting, there's someone else thinking of quitting. And it's always. There are times you'll have ones and twosy quitters. But, but when things, when they really put the screws to you, it's amazing. It usually takes that one guy to break, and then the eight other guys are also thinking about quitting, also quit. Right. But the other thing about. But staying strong is also contagious. And, and all it takes is, is one guy on that log to laugh and be like, we'll do this all day. I got this. Come on, guys. This. Best time of my life, best job I ever had. You're paying me to work out that. And, and, and, and the mood completely changes.

C (13:01)

That's why I like to joke. That's, you know, I joke around a lot on, on my social media stuff, but you just, you just hit something real important there, you know? You know, we must laugh at man to avoid crying for him. Napoleon once said, because he had seen the battle, a point where you got to laugh your way through life. So a lot of times the guys that are joking, they're having fun. There's deep pain there. But they, they've learned to just take, take, not take things so hard and serious. And that's kind of what I did through buds. That was a secret too, is just laughing, joking. You know, they bring it up because there is a point. You brought up a great point and I, you know, is, there's a point in, In Hell week where nobody. You, you could, you could, you could kill him. The bird on the wire in GI Jane, he. It's. He'll stay there till he dies. And that's around day four or five. Nobody. Nobody. And there's a point you could have like me, I had a fractured ankle I. I just.

B (13:52)

I.

C (13:53)

It. There was a point where I. It sw. There was a. A switch that got flipped and it was. From then it was smooth selling, even though it got worse.

B (14:01)

Yeah. It's. It's a point of no return. Yeah.

C (14:03)

You were like, bring it. You would yell at them, flip the instructors off. Crazy stuff, you know, Taunt.

B (14:09)

I love that. I love. Glad I asked you about that, because I don't. You. You. I think it gets. It gets glossed over sometimes. You know, some.

C (14:16)

Everybody heard the buzz, but they've already heard it.

B (14:18)

But you don't always get to hear someone's personal story about it because I'll tell you what. Hello. Intimidates me and I'm not. I've seen a few things.

C (14:27)

It intimidates. Yeah.

B (14:28)

Okay.

C (14:28)

If it intimidates Brent, it's over.

B (14:30)

It's a. Don't get me wrong. 10 times out of 10, I. I graduate that. But you damn right but. But I. I know, I know that is difficult as a gut. It doesn't.

C (14:39)

It doesn't take away from any other. There's. There's price selections that I would have never made it because there's. They're just difficult in real hard scenarios, you know, but as far as just the grind. But I'll tell you, like what you said earlier too. It only gets harder. Yeah. You know, and I. I didn't believe the instructors I said when I was at my coldest. Guess what went to Special Missions Units. JSOG, the. The STVs.

B (15:03)

Yeah.

C (15:03)

You're. You're gonna be in pain. And there are no ambulances.

B (15:07)

You know what I mean, right?

C (15:08)

Ain't no wool blanket to get you.

B (15:09)

There's no Gunnel in the ocean.

C (15:11)

No.

D (15:19)

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