Travis (2:08)

Yeah. It's funny, I. I grew up in a town called Lancaster. Yeah. You know where that is? Totally 100% Edwards Air Force Base is out there. And there's a Northrop on the east side of town. And I grew up probably like two, three miles from there.

Marine Pilot Guest (2:20)

You're watching me, too, as a kid.

Commercial Announcer (2:21)

Yeah.

Travis (2:22)

That. That was what I was going to say is there was a. There was one time shaking. I was a kid, you know what I mean? The house started shaking, and I hear this, like, super loud rumbling noise, and I was like, something's over something, you know, overhead. So I run out in the backyard, I look up, and I swear the whole sky was black like that. B2 was. Had to be, like, a couple football fields above our trees in the backyard. I was just like, that was incredible.

Marine Pilot Guest (2:47)

And that's one of those planes, too. I mean, just the design, the image of that.

Travis (2:50)

I can see that, like, iconic.

Marine Pilot Guest (2:52)

That'll get in your head.

Travis (2:52)

It also was like, that would be a bummer if that was not friendly. You know what I mean? Like, as when. By the time you hear it, it's. It's way too late. You hear it.

Commercial Announcer (3:02)

Yeah.

Travis (3:02)

Okay, so. So you grew up kind of images of these planes and things like that. So you had pretty. A high degree of clarity. And I was listening to you talk a little bit on Jocko's podcast that you had a pretty high degree degree of clarity at this point. Like, this is the path that I want to go down, even as a teenager. Right.

Marine Pilot Guest (3:16)

100%. You know, that movie comes out in 86. I'm probably, you know, just about to turn 14 somewhere around there by 16. Definitely by my senior year in high school, I can tell you, like, what squadron I wanted to be in.

Travis (3:31)

Wow.

Marine Pilot Guest (3:31)

Yeah, no doubt. So I was very, very clear in my own mind what I wanted to do.

Travis (3:37)

What do you attribute that type of clarity that early on to. It seem I have talked to so many people on my shows now, and I find that to be very rare. Yeah, like, there's a lot of people that just. They have to go. I was and still am this way. Like, I have to go touch and try and experiment and do these other things. And Is that. Is that what I want to do? Is this one I want to do. But you just have this laser focus, which, from. From what I understand, with the odds of making it to the point of your career that you did. There's a lot of luck in timing sprinkled in that that helped you get there. But I also imagine that without that type of laser focus and clarity, the odds would be even less in your favor.

Marine Pilot Guest (4:15)

Yeah. And you've heard me talk about it. I routinely talk about the attribution of good luck and good timing. I'm not 100% sure why I was like that. I can tell you I don't recommend it. Certainly not. You know, I' kids, I got teenagers and, and I by no means think or want people at that time in their life to know exactly what they want to do. Now if you do great, that's awesome. But if you don't, that's also awesome. And you're fine and you're normal and you're going to be okay.

Travis (4:43)

Yeah.

Marine Pilot Guest (4:43)

So it's not something I look back and say like, this is what caused it. And I definitely don't think it is a requirement to be successful in life for me. You know, there's, I think, a couple things going on in kind of the, just the pop culture world, like the movie Top Gun in my gener, it just had impact, you know, it's just one of those things that really made something interesting, fascinating. Growing up right by Marine base, definitely got in my bloodstream that Marines were like special. You know, I had that in my head. And then when I. I got some clarity that Marines fly fighters off carriers and like, wow, these things, all these things all exist.

Travis (5:20)

Yeah.

Marine Pilot Guest (5:20)

And I think the recognition that things that seemed almost like a fantasy were reality and all the things that interested me at the time all could be combined into one thing is what drove that. But again, to your point, I think life should not be predetermined in your head, especially if things don't work out the way that you want them to, which is how life works, then all of a sudden you're thinking you're a disappointment or a failure. That's not a good attribute to have at any age. Certainly that age, being open minded is usually a much better way to do things.

Travis (5:51)

Yeah, that was something that surprised me, even doing research for the couple of chats I had with fighter pilots on the show. Is that it? In my mind, it's like, well, you want to be a fighter pilot, you go to the Air Force.

Marine Pilot Guest (6:00)

Yeah.

Travis (6:00)

I mean, it's like, oh, it turns out the Navy. Oh, it turns out the Marines. Everybody does like a little bit of everything almost. You know what I mean? So was that sort of part of your research process to Be like, I'm going to be a Marine and I'm gonna have to, and then I'm gonna go into the, the training program that they have and it's gonna lead to this thing.

Marine Pilot Guest (6:15)

Or I, I learned a bunch along the way that solidified different interests that I didn't fully know could intersect. And so yeah, you want to be a fighter pilot, you should probably join the Air Force. That's kind of the right approach. And I listen, I always wanted to be a Marine. I wanted to be a Marine. And as I started down the path of like thinking about this episode of

Travis (6:39)

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Marine Pilot Guest (9:09)

As a teenager, you know, freshman year in high school, starting to get serious about the military, I really wanted to fly. I went really deep into my pursuit of joining the Air Force. I applied for an Air Force ROTC scholarship my junior year and got got selected for it. Early in my senior year, I applied to an aviation college called Embry Riddle. And like I had these things moving in that direction as I'm progressing towards that, as I'm getting a little bit older, you know, 15, 16, coming up on 17 and I start to understand things a little bit more like you just described, like, oh, Marines fly fighters. Marines fly my favorite fighter. Oh, Marines fly that fighter off carriers in parallel. You know, like very shortly before I accepted this ROTC scholarship to go to this aviation centric college, I realized like, I didn't want to do that, which is super, I guess, odd if you think of it in those terms after you get accepted. Yeah, I remember. You know, it's all, there's no like Internet back in the day. It's all phone calls and person in person interviews. And I remember talking, they had like a liaison. This force captain or major was like a liaison for the Rossi applicants in that region. And I remember talking to him. I'm like, hey, I'm, I'm going to decline this. And he was like, you're crazy. This is a guaranteed opportunity to at least go to flight school. Wasn't a guarantee to fly, but at least, you know, had I gotten decent grades, I graduated. It's a path. And he's like, you're walking away from a, a dream for most people. But it happened That I started to learn all I wanted to be Marine. I wanted to fly fighters, I wanted to fly off carriers. And that all pieced together. I told myself, like, if I don't pursue that, I'll regret it. And I was confident enough at the time to walk away from a pretty strong opportunity that would be for almost anybody else, a dream opportunity to go get a ROTC scholarship for the Air Force and potentially go fly for the Air Force. But that's not what I wanted to do.

Travis (11:10)

Still wanted to be a Marine.

Marine Pilot Guest (11:11)

I wanted to be a Marine. And so much so that I went to the Marine Officer recruiter and the only contracts they had were ground contracts. I didn't even get an air contract.

Travis (11:20)

That's what I was going to ask. So when you're like walking to the recruiter's office, in their mind they're just basically like, whatever we can do to convince this young man to walk into our door.

Marine Pilot Guest (11:29)

Especially the Marines. Right? Yeah. Yeah, we got. Come on in here, Dave.

Travis (11:32)

Have a seat.

Marine Pilot Guest (11:32)

You know.

Travis (11:32)

Yeah, Direct path. Yeah, you can definitely fly for sure. Yeah. Later, Some other time.

Marine Pilot Guest (11:36)

That's exactly right. You would have been a great recruiter for the Marine Corps. They kind of told me what I wanted to hear. I had no idea how hard things were going to be down the road. But I roll in like my freshman year of college. I just started. I was 17 when I started college. And I'm like, I want to be Marine. And he's like, we got a spot for you, son. Have a seat. You know, and next thing you know, I'm. I'm a.

Travis (11:56)

You are uniquely qualified. Yeah.

Marine Pilot Guest (11:58)

I'm contracted as a ground officer. So I go from a full ride ROTC scholarship to I'm going to the local state school, Cal State FULLERTON, you know, 20 miles from my house with a ground contract and I got to go to Officer Candidate School. Big, big variation in those two things.

Travis (12:17)

So you immediately went to ocs?

Marine Pilot Guest (12:18)

From, from after my freshman year in college.

Travis (12:21)

Okay.

Marine Pilot Guest (12:21)

So, you know, I spend my freshman year applying paperwork, getting approved physicals, all the stuff. Yeah, I finished my freshman year and I go out to Quantico as young, immature 18 year old, thinking, I'm going to be a Marine officer. And I went to ocs and that was kind of the start of my official Marine Corps journey.

Travis (12:37)

How does that like talk to me about the differences between. If you elect to go to ocs, can everybody do that? Is there is a special path? Like, did you go to a different type of boot camp? Is it the Same boot camp, and then you apply for this thing. Tell me, like, real quick.

Marine Pilot Guest (12:49)

Marine officers, certainly back then, all of them went to ocs. So you could be an art, Navy, rotc, Marine option. You could be at the Naval Academy Marine option or what. I was in what was called the. The Platoon Leaders Class plc, which is basically, you know, classic Marine Corps. Like, we don't care where you're from, we don't care what you're studying, we don't care what your degree is in. Get a 2.0 GPA. Physical fitness stuff, you know, write some letters and whatnot. But the standard, the most common path for the Marine Corps was plc, okay? And that's where you just go to officer Candidate school. You got to go twice to make sure you really want to do. For the most part, yeah. And if you graduate with your degree and you meet all the standard requirements, you can get a commission in the Marine Corps. OCS back then certainly, too. And I'm sure it's just as hard now. But it was. It was a good screening process. It weeded out and it was. It was tough. It was tough for me. Been out here all morning, not a single bite. Guess the fish finally figured it out. Just like hackers do when Cisco Duo is on guard with Duo's end to end phishing resistance. Every login, every device, every user stays protected. No hooks, no catches, no bites. Cisco Duo fishing season is over. Learn more@duo.com.