Smoke & Standards: A Ranger's Tale of Teaching the Next Generation

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"When you got a barrel of monkeys, you put a gorilla in charge." With these words, a drill sergeant forever shaped Michael Megan's understanding of leadership – wisdom he now passes to the next generation of military officers at Texas A&M University.

Megan brings over 13 years of experience from the prestigious 75th Ranger Regiment to his role as Senior Enlisted Advisor for Rudder's Company, an elite organization within Texas A&M's Army ROTC program named after James Earl Rudder, former university president and WWII Ranger commander. His transition from special operations to academia wasn't merely a career move but a mission to shape future officers and strengthen the critical officer-NCO relationship that underpins military effectiveness.

Throughout our conversation, Megan reveals what truly makes elite units exceptional – not flashy tactics or equipment, but relentless accountability and fundamentals. "The regiment just gets back to the basics constantly," he explains, highlighting how the organization's unique structure with lower-enlisted personnel creates both its greatest strength and challenge. His candid reflections on the selection process, the difficulty of maintaining standards, and the brotherhood that develops through shared hardship offer rare insights into one of America's premier fighting forces.

Perhaps most fascinating is Megan's ability to identify tactical patterns across different domains – drawing direct parallels between military operations, football strategies, and combat sports techniques. This pattern recognition helps him teach complex concepts by meeting cadets where they are, using familiar frameworks to explain unfamiliar tactics. Under his guidance, Texas A&M's Ranger Challenge team has secured back-to-back national championships, outperforming hundreds of ROTC programs nationwide.

Whether you're fascinated by military culture, leadership development, or the psychological elements of high-performance teams, this episode offers valuable insights applicable far beyond the battlefield. Follow Megan's continuing mission to prepare the next generation through his "Ranger U" podcast, available on all major platforms.


Ranger U Podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/michael-meegan1/
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I tried to get fired but he told me he said Megan,
come here, he goes.
You know why you're the platoonguy.
I was like negative drillsergeant.
I wish I wasn't.
He was like shut the fuck up,listen to me, he goes.
When you got a barrel ofmonkeys, you put a gorilla in
charge.
I was like okay.
He was like so, do whatever yougot to do.

(00:24):
I'm like what do you mean bythat?
People act up, yeah, like I'llclose the door yeah, welcome to
the big text ordinance podcast.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'm ike.
Co-hosts today are ian and betoand then our guest today is
mike vegan from Texas A&M ROTCprogram up there, just down the
road, kind of local to us.
So yeah, he's coming down fromTexas A&M today and just going
to chat with us for a bit.
So I'll let you go ahead andtake it away.
Give us a little bit about yourbackground, kind of how you

(00:59):
ended up where you are now, andjust kind of give us the rundown
on that.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yes, sir, I appreciate you guys having me.
Uh, first off, the setups, uh,really awesome.
If I, uh, if I had this setup,I would be a much more
consistent podcaster.
I'll tell you that right now,cause, uh, doing those solo
shows, man, you speak into theether and you're like is anybody
listening?
Does anybody care?
Is?
It just me getting high onfarts over here.

(01:24):
No I um no, I appreciate that.
Thanks for having me down today.
Yeah, so, um, I uh helloeveryone out there.
I'm sorry, first class.
Michael Vincent, megan, I uh Iam the uh rudders uh company.
Uh rudders Rangers is a is a umorganization within uh army,
rotc at Texas A&M.
I am their senior enlistedadvisor I guess that's the best

(01:47):
way that you could put it.
That company has been aroundsince 1959.
It's named after the namesakeof James Earl Rutter, the
university president and alsothe former commander of 2nd
Ranger Battalion in World War II.
Actually hit the beaches atD-Day, all that stuff like that.

(02:09):
That's the namesake of theplace For me.
I take a lot of pride in thatorganization and what we do
there.
Obviously, we also have ourRanger Challenge team that is
nested within the company aswell.
I've been at that assignmentnow for two years, starting year
number three.
Prior to that, I was with the75th Ranger Regiment for my

(02:33):
entire career out there.
At the time when I was there itwas Fort Benning.
It is now called Fort Moore,went there in 2009 when I joined
up and never left until 2022.
I was there a while.

(02:54):
I was there with CharlieCompany, 3rd Ranger Battalion
and then across the street atRegimental Special Troops
Battalion, at Regimental, atRegimental Special Troops
Battalion, at RegimentalSelection and Training Company
sorry, rstc as a pre-rangerinstructor for a couple of years

(03:14):
.
Then I came back to 3rd RangerBattalion with Headquarters
Headquarters Company and thenfinished out my time with Delta
Company, serving in in the,serving in the sniper platoon,
and then uh, with uh, theheadquarters element there
before taking the position uh atTexas A&M.
So, um, that's kind of thesynopsis, short cliff notes.

(03:39):
You know of uh, of the, thecareer so far, um, originally
from Florida, so Florida man,alive and well here, uh, you
knew I was going to be a wildboy as a, uh, as a native
Floridian.
Um and uh, married, got twobeautiful kids and, um, I've
been dragging them through themud of my career ever since.

(04:01):
But they're very supportivemost days, um and uh and and
they allow me to, they allow meto play fast, as you say, right,
they allow me to get in thereand do what I do.
So how does that?

Speaker 3 (04:12):
work from, like going from the regiment and then to
senior list of advisor at?
Is that like a that you pickthat job, or the army picked
that job for you?

Speaker 1 (04:23):
So I did.
Actually, I'm glad you askedthat question.
So I got to a point in regimentwhere, I'll be honest, you know
, like, I hit my limit ofadvance, right, like everybody
has their expiration date inthat unit nature of it, right,
um, like you, you are probablyabout as likely to run into an

(04:47):
active NFL player as you are torun into an active U S army
Ranger Right, so there's not somany slots.
Right, there's not so manyslots.
So it comes to a point wherethere is, you know, a war and a
competition for talent and somepeople understand that, like
yours truly, and I knew I was atmy time and I wanted to still

(05:08):
go and be impactful somewhereelse, right, and so in in the
regiment, uh, at a certain pointin time, uh, they, they have a
saying right, or a charge to golive the charter, right, we're
talking about, uh, generalAbrams charter, which was you
were supposed to take originallyyour skills from the Ranger

(05:31):
regiment and then go make thearmy better, a better army.
Right, you were supposed to gomake an impact somewhere else
right now, over the early on,right before the global war on
terror.
That's exactly what happened.
People did very short termturns in the range of regiment
and then they would go and servein other capacities, do those
kinds of things.
Well, the GWAT kicked off andthe regiment kept finding ways

(05:53):
to make itself very, very useful.
So they kept that band togetherfor longer and longer.
And now you're seeing, you know, people able to stay in the
regiment for longer amounts oftime.
But for me, I I knew I wantedto continue to be impactful,
right, I I've told people thisover the years that either ETS

(06:14):
out of the regiment or PCSsomewhere else, don't stop being
a Ranger.
Like, don't stop being a Ranger, don't stop being what made you
who you are and made yousuccessful in this organization.
Take it with you, whetherthat's in the army, out of the
army, whether you're coachinglittle league, I don't give a
shit.
What you're doing.
Right, like, continue to bethat guy, right.

(06:34):
So that's what I wanted to doand really make an impact in a
way that I thought would paydividends in across the force.
Right, and that for me is 100%ROTC.
You, you get them while they'reyoung.
Right, you're able to show whata good officer and NCO

(06:56):
relationship should look likefor the force.
Um, and be able to be beimpactful on them.
Right, like, there's a lot ofnon-commissioned officers in the
list of guys complain aboutofficer this and officer that.
This field grade fucking sucksand this PL is clueless.

(07:19):
You know Well, did we createthat problem?
You know well, did we createthat problem?
I think we had a much biggerhand in it than I think you know
NCOs and enlisted might want toadmit, because who was shaping
them right?
Who was guiding them?
Like?
You're right, they don't knowshit because they didn't run
into the, the the correctnon-commissioned officer to show
them the ropes at this point,right, and so it builds that

(07:40):
distrust which hurts our forceinto the the correct
non-commissioned officer to showthem the ropes at this point,
right, and so it builds thatdistrust which hurts our force.
So I wanted to go somewherewhere we could get at that.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
That's why you see, I mean so many officers that go
from you know enlisted, toofficer side that are better
officers because they were ncosprior, served xyz as a e3, e5,
whatever, before going to thatofficer side.
I mean, that's my experiencewith it.
And then you have the dudesthat come straight to the
officer side.
They have so much more learningto do because they've never

(08:15):
experienced that before.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
Yep so 100, yeah, 100 , so yeah, and, and, of course,
if I was going to do that jobright, then so if I was going to
, if I was going to do that jobright, then so if I was going to
, if I was going to do that job,at you know, texas A&M just was
the most logical, yeah, mostlogical spot.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
Most logical spot.
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Yeah, I really.
I didn't know anything about it.
I was clueless, you know, whenit came to like cadet, command,
ROTC, any of that shit.

Speaker 4 (08:46):
Like you know, I'm I don't know what the fuck's going
on here right, but, like youknow, I knew that texas a&m was
prestigious right, you know,like you uh before

Speaker 1 (08:53):
yeah, yeah exactly, like you know, I got.
I'm a big college football guytoo, right.
So, like you know, you're up toget the free tickets.
I killed Mike Megan.
I took all this stuff.
Um no, the uh.

(09:15):
But you know you, you would seethe core cadets and and I
remember like even being a youngkid, 10 years old, you know
you'd turn on the TV, see TexasA&M on TV.
I always kind of dug it Like Ialways thought it was kind of
cool and I wasn't like a fanfrom they weren't my team but,
like you know, you see the corecadets.

(09:36):
I remember my dad saying likethat's a, that's a military
school.
He didn't know what the hellhe's talking about.
But like you know, you turnaround and you see Datwin out
there cracking people.
You see these cadets forgettingI could get behind it.
Like I was down with it, right.
So like I've never.
I've never had any ill willtowards the institution and I
was like, well, if you're goingto do it, then do it big.
You know, outside of a serviceAcademy, texas A&M produces, you

(10:00):
know, uh or commissions at thehighest rate outside of the
service academy let's say what'swhat's a and m look like
compared to like west point, thecitadel right yeah so the
citadel and vmi and thoseschools are actually all in the
same brigade as texas a and m.
It's considered a seniormilitary college.
Yeah, because it has a core ofcadets right, so okay so every

(10:22):
branch is represented.
and then they have a cadet corpswithin the college which makes
it a senior military college.
At that point, with texas a&mum, because of the sheer numbers
and the sheer size of the corpsof cadets it's approaching 3
000 at this point in time youknow we've got somewhere in the
neighborhood of about 600 inArmy.

(10:44):
Rotc Rutter's company startsoff with 200 every year and then
we a trip down usually to about130 to 150 for various reasons.
You know, some people, a newsplash, it ain't fucking for
everybody.

Speaker 3 (11:01):
Are they going to Ranger School once they take
commission right away?

Speaker 1 (11:07):
So, or while they're at A&Mm, no so they don't do
that anymore.
They used to do that okay, usedto be able to go to ranger
school as a cadet, but theystopped doing.
That is that?
Is there an interesting storybehind that at all?

Speaker 3 (11:16):
uh, people sucked at patrols and they were there for
fucking ever, you know.

Speaker 4 (11:20):
So, like you, know, if you can't do it in like two
months over the summer you'rekind of missing classes and shit
.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Right.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
So, yeah, that's, that's kind of that's what it
was, a timing thing.
So now you know they'llcommission, they'll go to their
basic leadership courses.
You know infantry, I Bullock,armor a Bullock, you know
something like that, right,whatever they branch commission
into.
And then, yeah, ranger Schoolmay be in their future.

(11:46):
For my infantry guys itabsolutely is in your future
because there's new policy nowthat basically states you are
going to be at Fort Moore untilyou get a Ranger tab, or I break
you right as the Department ofthe army, like there will be,

(12:06):
and that's all.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
New commissioned officers are going to infantry
specifically.
Okay, infantry, specificallyOkay Cause we'll go to Bullock
at yeah, at um Benning, yeahCause like don't are the days of
, you know, infantry PLs thatdon't have their shit.
Yeah Right, you'll, you'll just, you'll be there until you get

(12:31):
it, until you get broken or theyfind some other use for you and
you're going to go pro insomething else.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Yeah, exactly Right.
Motor T yeah, exactly so.
There's never been, honestly, abigger premium on being
successful at Ranger school.
And so shameless plug Ranger,you right, that's a.
That's my show, Um and uh.
And Instagram, right.
Holla at me and uh so you know,having done the time at pre

(12:57):
Ranger and now at ROTC, um, youknow, I, I had given these, um,
you know I, I had given these,these classes and these blocks
of instruction over and over andover and over and, um, you know
, probably pitched a raid class200 times by now, you know.
And um, I started to think tomyself like, okay, I was young

(13:23):
and completely fucking cluelessat one time.
Um, I was reading through myRanger handbook with no clue
what that actually meant, untilthe experience came along with
it.
Right, and when you're aprivate and battalion, if you're
not sitting in that lockerreading your Ranger handbook and
prepared to get the questionthat they're going to inevitably

(13:46):
ask you wrong so they can fuckyou up.
Um, at some point in time, right, uh, you became familiarized
with that ranger handbook, butyou didn't really know what it
really meant.
Right, it would say theperformance step, but it didn't
really explain it, didn't?
Yeah, you know the words, butnot the message exactly it?
It's the what, not the how,right, exactly, it's the what,
not the how, right?

(14:06):
And so that's what I wanted tokind of bring as an instructor I
believe that was our job wasthe how, and then if we get to
the real graduate level,thinking the why Right?
So the what is there, I'm goingto teach you how and tell you
why Right, it's important.
So I was like, hey, you know,what would have really helped is

(14:27):
like an audio book that I couldhave like followed along in
this thing, so that's, that'skind of where Ranger you started
, like that's, that's, um,that's what I've done on the
podcast side of the house andI'll tell you a hundred percent.
I'll tell you this right nowI'm the most inconsistent
podcaster on the planet.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
I'll put one out.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
It'll be like three weeks.
I'll do another one A monthlater.
I got this one and then I dotwo in a week.
You know it's like it's allover the place because it's just
the schedule.
Like I, you know, unfortunatelylike I said, I wish I had
something like this.
I could talk to people aboutthis shit.

Speaker 4 (14:57):
Yeah, yeah, it's just me bunk up you you know,
staring at myself in thecomputer, not not doing video
because of rambling out aboutsomething.
That would be my problem.
I would just go off on tangentsif I was by myself.
Yeah, yeah, have to cut fourhours of this episode off
definitely, definitely have tohave the guided notes for it
actually everything's redacted,I probably shouldn't release

(15:18):
this to the public.
We're just gonna delete it andblacklist.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
Now the good news I the good news is I have the
Ranger handbook right, so I'msitting there just kind of oh,
this is what this means, guysListen up Makes the show sound
really boring.
I try to do a decent job with it, but yeah, Anyway, that's where
that all kind of came from.
To start that up, Like I said,with the importance now on

(15:45):
ranger school, it's huge.
And so at rudder's company, youknow, we try to prepare them
for future success, like beyondjust the cadet command
requirements, beyond just thecadet summer training
requirements, trying to set themup for success that will carry
them through their basicleadership courses, things like

(16:08):
ranger school, sapper school,any schoolhouse that has some
sort of patrolling in it, right,and then on and on.
Because if we want to get thesegreat young men and women that
we've spent the last couple ofyears developing, well, there
are some gates to making it towhere you want to go to really
make an impact, and those schoolhouses are those gates and so

(16:30):
you got to get through that.
So I think it's, you know,important.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
Yeah, how was your uh personally?
How was your transition fromthe regiment to uh, to your,
your current position?

Speaker 1 (16:41):
Man going to get real for a minute.
Uh yeah, it was, it was uh, Iwould lie if I said it wasn't
tough.
Yeah, you know, I mean it.
You're talking about growing upin a culture and being in a
place for over a decade and thenleaving it all behind.

(17:02):
Yeah, so not only you know,leave it all behind in terms of
you know, the, the unit, the,the structure, the job, Right,
but also then all thoserelationships, all your buddies,
all your friends, you know.
Yeah, Okay, Social media madethe world smaller, but it's not,
it's not the same and uh, andthen picking up from where, like

(17:25):
we are, you know, like triballyaffiliated, right in the
southeast, like that's, that'swhere we're at, yeah, and then
coming out here where you don'tknow a soul, yeah right, you get
into the gig, um, and you know,you just kind of you have some
like Jesus Christ moments.

(17:46):
You know you're kind, of likeyou're kind of looking around
like this is how okay, this ishow they do it out here.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
All right.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
Okay, all right.
Well, you know, hey, may I makea suggestion?
Or, like you know, and again,if I had not gone to Texas A&M,
I would have probably jumped outof a fucking window.
I'll be honest with you.
Like, at least I was surroundedby the folks there that
actually they know what the dealis.

(18:13):
It's a senior military college.
It's a good crew.
I've definitely seen some ofthe counterparts across the
force from some of the otherprograms and not so hot, not so
much.
I don't want to talkdisparagingly about it, but I
mean fuck it Like let's behonest, you know what I mean.
Like there there's a bell curve,exists for a fucking reason,

(18:34):
right, and some people are onthis end of it, some people are
on that end of it, right, so, um, but yeah, it was, uh, you miss
the guys.
Uh, you definitely miss.
I miss them a lot.
I have, you know, the groupchats set up.
We talk shit on their.
You know holiday season stufflike that, right, people ask me

(18:57):
what's special about theregiment, right, what's special
about the Ranger Regiment, andthe answer is really nothing
except the guys.
That's the most special thingabout that place, like the, the
quality of soldier, the qualityof human being.

(19:19):
For the most part, I mean whenwe, when we have fuck-ups, we
have big fuck-ups, but like,when, when, but for the most
part it's the, it's the bestdudes you get, it's the, the
best life insurance policy thatyou could invest in, you know,
going to war, right, and um, theguys are fantastic, they're
just incredible people.
Um, and it's what the armyshould be, right, it's not if

(19:45):
you think it's like you know theexpendables, like all this,
like crazy sexy shit all thetime.
Really, it's not like theregimen, the regiment, just, we
get back to the basicsconstantly and, yeah, we,
because it's the only specialoperations unit that has lower

(20:12):
enlisted as privates, right?
So it's the strength of theorganization and the weakness.
Ironically enough, it basicallymeans that we will always go
back to the basics.
You're always going to re-bluethat.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
You're always going to have E1s, e2s, e3s in that
organization.

Speaker 1 (20:31):
There you go, educating them on your standards
Exactly, and it drives aculture of accountability that
is fucking relentless.
But at the same time, there'salways going to be a glass
ceiling too, because of thatturnover Right, and the regimen
is a place that it's tough toget into.

(20:56):
It is exponentially harder tostay Right.
Um, like we, we will eat ourown over there.
So, um, and, and you gotta, yougotta, be a relentless
competitor.
You have to be incrediblydisciplined.
You have to be great atcompartmentalizing things.
You've got to stay on top of it.

(21:16):
If you don't, you will pay forit.
It's going to show up.
You're not going to shoot aswell as you could.
That PT session is going to beharder than it should have been,
those kinds of things.
I'll admit, you know, there'sdefinitely times where I was not
the most disciplined guy.
My buddies will tell you that.
Um, no secrets here, right?

(21:37):
But uh, you know, may, found,found a way, made it, made it
work for the amount of time thatthat I did and uh, you know, I
know I'm proud of that.
Your average career there isabout four years or so.
So you know, it's like I said,it's tough on the body, it's
tough on the mind, but it's.
It's a place that has to exist.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Yes, sir.
So how did you get into theregiment?
Did you like know going in thatI want to be a ranger, or how
did that kind of journey happen?

Speaker 1 (22:09):
That I want to be a ranger, or how did that kind of
journey happen?
Yeah, that's a good questiontoo, so I didn't know anything,
you know obviously I love you,mom, I love you, I love you, but
you didn't know anything either.
Like you know you help me out,get me in the army and stuff.
But as far as, like, that wholepipeline goes, you kind of got
to live it to figure it out,right?

(22:31):
So army throws around this wordranger, you know a lot, right,
and obviously, like I'd seenBlackhawk down, you know like
everybody, oh cool, you knowrangers and like saving Private
Ryan rangers, you know it's r,you don't?
You don't really totally knowwhat that means, right?
Um, so when I went in I hadnothing to my name, right.

(22:56):
So you know peak Obamaadministration enlistment, right
.
Six years, $3,000, no airborne,no ranger, no bonus nada yeah
not shit, right, fucking sign meup, right, all right, my mom's
like get this motherfucker outof here no more spongebob at 2

(23:20):
pm in your underwear like gofucking.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
You know, be a contributing adult, yeah right,
so there's nothing wrong withSpongeBob, though Well, I mean
at 20, it's not the sexiestthing, right?

Speaker 1 (23:36):
You know cause I?
I was going to play collegeball, man, I was going to make
it to the NFL.
I was going to get mom a houseyou know you're reading plays in
between SpongeBob.

Speaker 4 (23:44):
Yeah, yeah, I plays in between sponge.
Yeah, yeah, I was gonna do allthat.

Speaker 1 (23:46):
and then you know but then I had to go to class, yeah
, and that kind of fuckedeverything up, yeah.
So you know, oh, army it is,then let's go do this thing, you
know.
And um, so when I went, uh,when I went to basic at, uh,
fort moore, um, you know, I wentin with nothing, right, thank

(24:09):
God that I did come from thebackground, that I did with my
mom, who made me pass a PT testto the Army standard before I
could even go to MAPS, right, soshe's like you're at least
going to do this.
And I came from a sportsbackground football,
weightlifting, track and field,field, not so much track and

(24:30):
your mom was in the guard, right, she still is.
Oh, yeah, yeah, hey, ma, whenare you gonna get out?

Speaker 3 (24:36):
I'm just gonna ask you that question one of these
days.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Right, um, she's, uh, she's going on like 40 years of
, like, total service.
I think she's about to hit 30active here pretty soon.
So, yeah, so shout out to momDukes like super, super, super
proud of you, ma Where's she outof?
Uh, so she is active guard inthe state of Florida.
Okay, right, and she is.

(25:00):
I believe I hope I'm nottelling lies here.
She's the command sergeantmajor for recruiting and
retention from the state ofFlorida, so of course she
recruited me.

Speaker 3 (25:11):
So you stand up for address when you talk to your
mom, you know it's just tryingto Mom.
We'll talk about that after.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
I definitely called her sergeant major mom before
you know, and it's all fun andgames.
But no she.
So when I went in, because Ihad come from that background, I
just excelled.
You know, kind of like, took toit like a fish to water.
You go to basic, I'm sure, likeyou were in right, Nope, no,

(25:41):
nope.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
Just that guy, yeah, just him.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
So you've been boot or basic.
Where are you Army?
Army?
Yeah, okay, basic him.
So you've been, yeah, boot orbasic.
Where's your army?
Army?
Yeah, okay, basically.
So you've been a basic.
So you get there, you know it's.
It's a culture shock and andpeople getting screamed at and
all this stuff.
I'm like, well shit, my mom'sscreaming me like this, you know
I've done oh I've just sayingthe first time I've seen a knife
hand.
You know like this isn't thefirst time I've been up at the
ass crack at dawn, forabsolutely no reason.

(26:05):
You know like I went throughsome of those things, yeah, and
then, coming from the sportsbackground football, you know
like.
You know, coaches on your ass,all sorts of stuff, like that
right, you could tell that therewere some people that had did
not have that at all right.
And so you get in there, drillsergeant starts screaming and
they start, you know, with thewhole shit and we're all running

(26:27):
across the sand pit there at uh, uh, at uh, delta two, five,
eight over on sand Hill andpeople are going down like
they've been shot.
You know like, dropping theirbags and stuff and I'm just like
, okay, well, just get to theother end of the field, Right,
and you know so, of course, thefirst night you hear people like

(26:50):
fart, noises someone crying.

Speaker 4 (26:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
So, of course, across the bay someone's like man shut
the fuck up.
I'm asleep, man.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
A hundred percent, yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:05):
So like you know all the all the normal basic
training stuff, but you know allthe all the normal basic
training stuff but, um, you know, nothing was hard like for me,
nothing was hard Like, it wasall you know, whatever.
So while I was there, luckily Ihad a drill sergeant that kind
of noticed that I was theplatoon guide from day one to
day last.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
I to get that guy.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
I tried, I tried to get fired, um, but uh, he told
he.
He told me he.
He said megan, come here, hegoes.
You know where you're theplatoon guide.
I was like negative drillsergeant and I wish I wasn't.
He was like shut the fuck up,listen to me, he goes.
When you got a barrel ofmonkeys, you put a gorilla in
charge.
I was like okay.

(27:48):
He's like so good, do what youdo, whatever you got to do.
I'm like what do you mean bythat?
He's like well, you know,figure it out.
People act up.
Yeah, like I'll close the door.
I'm like oh my god, you know,it's a fucking so.
Anyway, from day one to daylast, I'm the guy, and about

(28:12):
About a month before the end, wehad a guy show up by the name
of Doug Freeman.
Doug, I don't know where youare, by the way, I haven't seen
him since my wedding.
So if anybody does know, dougFreeman spent some time in the
one 73rd first Ranger battalionback in the day.
Um, you know, try to hit him up.

(28:33):
I would love to know how he'sdoing.
But, uh, he's from Texas, bythe way.
Um, anyway, he shows up and Isee this guy.
He's got a one, seven, fivescroll on Right and I'm like,
okay, why are these guys here?
There are a couple of themshowed up.
They all had prior servicepatches.
I didn't realize there were.
You know, there's a priorservice people that are coming
back in.
You know had done some time inthe army.

(28:54):
They come back in and they makethem go to the last, like four
weeks of basic just to re-bluethem real quick, right.
And uh, the drill sergeant, uh,drill sergeant Rice.
He said uh, hey, there's anoption 40 contract that has come
available.
It's from another kid thatrecycled basic training.
So I don't think he's going tomake it.
Um, do you want it?

(29:15):
I said I don't know.
Uh, I don't know what an option40 contract is.
He was like it's a Rangercontract.
If shit, do you want it or not?
I said, yeah, I'll take it.
That's how I got it.
And Doug Freeman, um, ended upkind of being like my mentor a
little bit those last couple ofyou know, because it was picking
his brain like okay, what'swhat's it like?
What's battalion like?

(29:35):
What's what's rip?
Like, right, cause it was rip.
Then it became rasp while I wasin basic training, so went
through one of the first raspclasses back in uh, 2010 or so.
Um, so yeah, anyways, and andthat's that's how that ended up
coming, coming about.
I didn't have anything.
I was so ignorant to all of it.
Um, talking with Doug, right, Iwas like, okay, cool, so as

(29:59):
soon as I'm done with here, I goto ranger school, right.
And he's like no, it's likewhat are you talking?
No, dude, no, you got it.
You got it.
No, you're gonna go to airborneschool.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
Then you're gonna go to ranger assessment selection,
you know, and then you're gonnago to battalion and then, if you
don't totally suck and getfired there, then eventually
you'll have your shot to go toranger school yeah, because
people don't realize, like justyou could be at the regiment for
a while before you're even aranger, like you're with the
guys and but it's all learningthat whole time and then you go

(30:31):
see if you can get your scrolloh yeah, that's a whole
education yeah like I said,basic training wasn't hard.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
Airborne school was old.
Knees in the breeze wasn't hardat all.
My first that hard day in thearmy was the day they picked us
up for rasp.
Um, this van comes screaminginto the place, these dudes, the
van's literally likefishtailing into the parking lot
and the door opens and this guywalks out as it's like still
kind of moving.
I'm like holy shit and likewhat is going on yeah, I'm like

(30:59):
what the hell is this right?
just got real and they're likewhy is this all fucked up?
You got 10 seconds to get thisplace dress right, dress 10, 9,
8.
And we're like shit, you know,like this guy's not playing red
face again.
Yeah right and we're like thisguy's not playing.
You know, and it was very likeclear right off the bat that
this was not like a trade-offkind of thing.

(31:20):
You know, it's like this guy'sin shape, he looks pissed, he's
got a bunch of hair uh, you knowhe gets out, so fucks us up a
little bit, you know, getting usused to the new tempo at which
things will be done.
And, um, right there, before weeven move, he's like who wants

(31:41):
to quit right now, like a couplehands go up immediately.
Right, he's like get the fuckout of here.
So the rest of you guys getyour bags, get it on the back of
the van, doors open, we're like, and the van starts driving.
So we're just chasing it withour bags.
You know, about a mile up to,oh shit, yeah, about a mile from
airborne school up to uh wherethey were taking us in at rasp

(32:04):
and just doing the bag run.
You know, and this, uh, thisparticular nco, uh he's, he's
running in like his duty uniform, just talking shit the entire
time.
Right, he's just like you arefucking pathetic he's like hey,
he's fucking soft body, this guy, you know, tiny heart, little

(32:26):
heart, little bitch, like justright, you know, and just
running back and forth justgiving us the business the whole
time.
And I'm like jesus christ, sowe get in through the gate, do
some more stuff, do some bearcrawl and do you know all sorts
of fun stuff for about 20minutes or so.
And then he asked again allright, stop, who wants to quit?
More hands go up.

(32:46):
You know.
And I had a buddy that, uh, Ihad been basic airborne, you
know, whatever, all through hewas right next to me and he was
like boom, hand up.
And I'm like what the fuck?
Yeah, like for real, I'm like Ithought we were gonna do this
thing, you know.
And, um, I remember the, uh, the, the pre-rasp cadre, because it

(33:07):
was intake.
We weren't even in RASP yet.
We were just like welcome,welcome, it was the welcoming
party, that's what it was.
He's like hey, you want to jointhem?
Negative, sorry.
He's like then don't look athim anymore, he doesn't exist
anymore.
I was like okay, that's howthis is going to be.
I got to do that fun shit forfive weeks and then rasp picked

(33:31):
up, which was eight weeks, wholenother level of you know like
just wasn't easy.
You know pretty difficult shit.
We started with 126 or so.
We graduated 21 with recycles.
Damn think 18 originals, yeah,18 ogs and like three recycles.

(33:53):
So then I was like, oh cool man, I got my beret, I got my
scroll.
I'm the fucking man, you know,that was like the last hard
thing I got to do and I got downto battalion, got a whole
nother education.
Like I didn't realize just howlittle they gave a shit about

(34:18):
any of that.
And uh, and these guys were, youknow, coming back.
I mean, these were the guysthat were coming back from
multiple Iraq and Afghanistanrotations by that time and, like
you know, you get to thecompany and who the fuck have
you killed?
Yeah, it's like the question,right, that's like that's the
question out of the gate, youknow what I mean.

Speaker 3 (34:40):
No one.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
Not a soul, you know, and, uh, and, and these were,
these were the guys, right, theywere fucking, they're hard,
like intimidate, like guys thatyou like you better come correct
around those places.
That's all I can say about that.
Like that, that company area,like these were guys that were

(35:02):
fucking serious about what it isthat they did, um, and and,
like I said, you needorganizations like that, um,
borderline psychopaths, but youabsolutely need those guys.
And they really are like, like Isaid before, greatest guys on
the on on the planet.

(35:23):
But they're going to.
You got to pass the sniff testbecause, like, in a very short
amount of time, it, but they'regoing to.
You got to pass the sniff testbecause, like, in a very short
amount of time, they're puttingtheir life in your hands too.
Like everybody has to play thatposition.
You know, like everybody, you,you all, got to play your
position.
You got to know it inside andout, right, um, that's the other
thing.
I would say that you know, whenwe talked about things that you

(35:45):
miss from regiment, the guys,and you miss for me at least,
and I I can't speak for otherguys, but I would assume that
this is probably true becauseI've had plenty of conversations
with guys that have moved onfrom the regiment you miss being
the very best at what youfucking do and having that down

(36:12):
To a science.
You know what I mean, like beingin an organization where you
know that you are in thepercentile of a percentile of
the deadliest fucking group.
You know force on the planet.
You know at that time, like awell-oiled, rate, seasoned

(36:32):
Ranger platoon is is I'm, I'mtelling you guys, in land
warfare it is the deadliestfucking thing you've ever seen,
like they just leave shitsmoking.
You know what I mean.
There ain't, there ain'tnothing left, right and um, I
miss that.
Yeah, I do miss that.
You know, like there are dayswhen I'm like sitting at the

(36:57):
desk like hey, we've got, uh,you know, casual Friday coming
up.
I'm just like, and I'm sittingthere kind of like fantasizing
about other things and I'm likewhat Huh?

Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yeah, sounds great, awesome, and what a great thing
to bring to the, to the schoolthough.
Like that background and thatstandard, yes To A&M.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Like what Rudder's company we big on standards,
yeah, rc we big on standards.
Yeah, we're big on standards,yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
I mean that's, that's a huge, huge thing that like
will help those I don't say kids, but dudes and ladies going
into that to have a backgroundlike that to look up to and know
what they're getting themselvesinto absolutely and, like I
said there was, when I first gotto the program there was
already a great foundation, late, like you know.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
Alex royston was there before now over at AMU
like premier NCO, really taughtme the ropes.
We had Major Huebner, now up atFort Cavazos, best officer NCO
relationship, workingrelationship I've had, and
that's saying something becauseyou know Where'd he go.
So he's up at the MC pod up atFort Cavazos.

(38:14):
What is?

Speaker 3 (38:15):
Fort Cavazos, fort Hood, oh, okay, okay I haven't
heard that one yet.
Yeah, interesting, it's fordhood.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah, okay they call it cavazos.
Yeah, yeah, whatever cool I'mdown with it.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
If you would have said that I would never would
have known that I'm like where'sthis the great?

Speaker 1 (38:32):
place, you know, um, so uh, they kind of needed an
imagery brand, I guess.
But yeah, he's up there now andgreat relationship with him.
And then the guys I work withthere now you know, major
Brightwell has been in theprogram a couple of years, great
dude, and then was able tobring in another will be.

(38:55):
He's left seat, right seatingwith me right now.
He's my understudy but he willbe taking over the program when
I'm done.
There it's a staff SergeantHenson from a two, seven, five,
so he's from second range ofbattalion mortar guy, super
knowledgeable, um, young butvery, very experienced, um and
uh, and and I know he's going tocontinue to take it to another

(39:19):
level, like it'll continue to,it'll grow, you know, and that's
that, that was the main thing.
Right, that's that's what wewanted to do at that program,
because it just it should be youknow what I mean Like Texas A&M
army, rotc, that organizationit should be premier in cadet

(39:40):
command, it just should.
That's that's its position andum, and we want to try to keep
that alive and well with thethings that we're doing there
and challenge the other programsto step it up.
Come get it.
You know what I mean.
Like, come get it.
And then there's a.
There's a lot of good programsout there.
I'm not trying to shit oneverybody, it's just I think I'm
better and I think we're better, you know, and I should.

(40:02):
I'm not going to apologize forthat, so, um, but yeah Uh so on
rudders.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
How does that?
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat?

Speaker 1 (40:44):
How's it different from from the ROTC?
Is it a basically the honorsprogram, if you will, for Army
ROTC?
Right, we do additional FTXs,we have additional ranges and I
focus completely on tactics,marksmanship, soldiering skills,
those kinds of things.
They are still beholden totheir Army ROTC curriculum with

(41:07):
their other programs, theirparent programs, if you will MS1
, freshmen, ms2, sophomores,ms3s, juniors right, they still
have to do that.
But as far as their labs go inthe afternoons, as far as the
FTXs go, as far as the ranges go, all that stuff like that, they
do that with me, which thendecompresses some of the other

(41:31):
programs to be able to run theirtraining a little more
effectively.
Because if you were to take allthose cadets and then dump them
all back on to, you know, therest of the programs there at
A&M, like your span ofresponsibility and control, and
it would get pretty crazy,pretty quick, you know, with all

(41:51):
those additional bodies.
So and um, and I'm glad thatI'm able to do that job.
Like I personally feel like Ihave the best job in all of army
ROTC, like you're telling methat I get to teach tactics,
marksmanship and soldieringskills and put it together and

(42:12):
you know, as realistic trainingas I can try to provide.
I don't have to go and teachabout bugle calls or proper
uniform, or, you know, I don'thave to get into the softer side
of Sears of stuff, you know.
I don't have to talk about millprop, I don't have to, you're
telling me.
I just get to literally prepare, you know, kids to be future

(42:34):
war fighters, you know,potentially.
Then I'm all, I'm all about it.
Right, that's, that's, that'swhy I wanted to do it.
And and um, blake Connors,right, um, you know, like, good
on, like.
I'm forever thankful for him,for having that inclination to
bring me into it to do that jobin particular.

(42:56):
So super, super happy aboutthat.
And then also the stuff that wedo with Ranger Challenge as well
.
Right, so you know, nestedwithin Rudder's company is
Ranger Challenge.
So our Ranger Challenge team,like what, if I?
So you know, texas A&M is crazyabout the pursuit of national
titles, right, correct, Okay,well, they're sitting on a
back-to-back national champion.

(43:17):
It's their Ranger Challengeteam.
Hey, A&M, it's your RangerChallenge team.
Back-to-back ROTC nationaltitle winners, rotc Cup, number
one of all 274 programs in thecountry.
Damn, all right.
And going again to pursue thatfor a third consecutive year?

(43:38):
Right Got to take care of.
What's in front of us isobviously the train up first for
the brigade competition to evenqualify, to go back and have a
chance of doing that.
You know we are oriented onthat process.
We're proud of the outcomes,but it's the process of getting
there that we care about morethan anything else.

(44:00):
Right, but I think they deservea shout out because they're
tremendous kids, they'reincredible competitors and if
you go in a day in a life of ourRanger Challenge competitor
competitor like our rangerchallenge kids, nothing else
really seems hard because likethey're up well before the sun

(44:21):
even cracks, doing you know,some grueling pt sessions, um,
as designed by the crew overthere, and uh, and nate young
and and the uh, the, the staffthat we use for strength and
conditioning over there withthose guys.
And then uh, studies all daylong and then labs, and then,

(44:43):
you know, when they're not doingthose in official capacities,
they're thinking about it,they're preparing for this next
thing.
No notice, training pops up,you know, uh, and they don't,
they just they don't flinch,they really don't flinch.
I'm incredibly proud of thosekids and uh, and I love coaching

(45:03):
and teaching and training and,like coaching Ranger challenge
is awesome, yeah, you know, likeit's uh, it has a little bit of
everything right, it has someaspects of, like the team sport,
so you got fuck in, and theyare focused on that one singular

(45:40):
thing and they're in that flowof just kicking ass and you're
just like man, this is fuckingcool.
Like I, I love having thatmoment, yeah, with uh, with
those guys, because it's like,um, yeah, I just like I, I
absolutely love getting the mostout of people and trying to get

(46:04):
them to that spot, and the mostout of myself too.
But, like you know, if I canguide and train and mentor
somebody to do or a team to do,you know, along with everybody
not just me, like this is notjust a me thing, as far from a
me thing at all Um, but ustogether right To be able to get
to that level.
It's special shit that peopledon't often accomplish or even

(46:29):
have the inclination to tryRight.
So that's that's what I loveabout it the most.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
So on Ranger challenge, what kind of
equipment do they use?
Is it just like all rack rateM4s or like do you get what's
like the?
I guess what's the competitionlook like.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Yeah, so.
So yes to your question aboutthe M4s.
It's just your standardmilitary issue irons backup iron
sights M4A1.
Military issue irons backupiron sites M4A1.
The competition itself, right,is really interesting because

(47:05):
you can format it kind of anyway you want to, but kind of
classically it's a station sortof event, right?
So you'll have multiplestations that'll be distances
apart, you know, usually about amile, mile and a half or so.
You start at one station.
Let's say that the skill thatthey're trying to get at is, uh,

(47:25):
grenades, like grenade throwingto hit a target, right, so
they'll have the grenade popper,right, um and uh, what they'll
do is, instead of just throwingthe grenade, there's, of course,
some physical thing that has tohappen in order to do that
Right.
So, whether that's individualmovement techniques, whether
that's dragging a sled, whateverthat might look like, you know

(47:48):
before you do that.
So everything is under duress,like everything right, and
everything is time-based, right.
So you hit your, you have yourpoints, you know you do well at
the skill, but then it all kindof comes back to time and how
quickly you move to the next andthen you have a timed movement.
Oh, wow, yeah, right To thenext station.

(48:09):
If you get there first, youhave a time reduction, if you
get there last, they're addingtime, right, um?
So everything is driving thatcompetition the entire time.
And then you know it might be T, triple C is the next thing.
And there's something, there'sa physical component to it,
shooting.
There's a physical component toit rifle and pistol.
Um, zodiac, right, zodiac boat,small boat, that whole thing is

(48:32):
physical.
So it's just like you know,take the fucking boat go to the
other side of the pond get thisshit and come back.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
Right.

Speaker 1 (48:39):
Um so, but watching just it all come together, right
, um, all the hours, all thereps, all the sets, all the time
you spend obsessing over thingsfrom a player perspective, from
a coach perspective, from acadre perspective and seeing it
all kind of come together, andyou know, being on that shitty

(49:04):
ass early morning flight backfrom wherever.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
but you know we got the hardware like yeah, can't
hurt me at that point in timefeeling good, you know, and uh,
and that's awesome.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
so I really do enjoy that nice, where's it held every
year, or does it move around?

Speaker 1 (49:24):
so the brigade competition right, which is
again our singular focus.
We have to get that one right.
Yeah, right, ranger challengeis an all or nothing kind of
game, right.
So like it's not like baseballor football, where you've got
multiple attempts you can havetwo losses, three laws, whatever

(49:45):
.
No, like you got one fuckingshot.
If you don't qualify, you don'tmove on.
Right, so that one is held atFort Knox because of first
brigade and then, if you qualify, out of that one for the
Sandhurst international militaryskills competition, which is a
mouthful that's held up at Westpoint.

(50:06):
Right, so that competition islike, like it says in the name,
and international competition,which means that obviously
there's teams from Sweden,denmark, canada, mexico, japan,
fricking other places there's.

(50:27):
I can't, I can't think of themall, but like there's a lot
there's there's usually about adozen international teams.
Then you've got west pointcompetition teams black and gold
, all right, and these two teamsare teams that are specifically
designated to compete at thisevery single year.

(50:47):
So it is hand-picked from thewest point population, which
means they can requisition theirdivision one athletes if they
feel like doing that Right,which they do.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:01):
I'd be, and then they have, in addition to that, if
that wasn't enough, they'llflood the field with usually
about eight to 10 outfit teams.
So you'll have about eight to10 other West Point teams which
are still fucking verycompetitive teams.
I mean, they're like West Pointcadets, right?
Yeah, so in total, west Pointusually takes up about 10 slots.
Then you have the other service, academies, right.

(51:25):
So Navy will send a school, airForce will send a school.
Air Force is really fuckinggood.
They train at altitude, sothey're like a bunch of horses.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
What are they doing in the back of the C-130?

Speaker 1 (51:40):
at 20,000 feet Getting ready for the Ranger
Challenge.
They're in the hyperbolic timechamber and then ROTC will send
I want to make sure I get thisright 16 representatives,
because it's eight brigades, twoteams from each, your top two

(52:03):
teams from each brigade andfirst brigade, the one a and M's
in, along with the Citadel, vmi, norwich university, north
Georgia and Virginia tech arethe six senior military colleges
.
There's four junior militarycolleges.
Let's see if I can get them all.
Oh, I'm playing a dangerousgame New.
Mexico Military Institute,valley Forge, francis Marion and

(52:29):
Georgia Military College.

Speaker 4 (52:30):
I got them all.
Hey y'all.
Round of applause.
Round of applause.
I see you.
I see you.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
Anyways.
So those 10 schools willcompete.
The junior military collegesare there for the experience.
They can't I don't believe theycan qualify actually for the
event.
So it really comes down tothose six.
But that big names, yeah.
Well, I was going to say thatbrigade, right is like, is like

(52:56):
sec football, yeah, you knowwhat I mean.
Like it's like okay, we onlygot 10 schools, but these are
killers in here, right, and thenyou have the other brigades
which can have a ton of schools,right, but a lot of them are
honestly just happy to be there,right, they're not like
actually hey, we're gonna winthis year, yeah yeah, this is
typically how it goes.
There's usually one killer ineach brigade.

(53:18):
That's pretty damn good.
There'll be a rotational onethat'll show up every once in a
while, but the first brigadeschools are consistent killers.

Speaker 3 (53:25):
Who are you got like?
So a and I'm spending going thelast couple years.
Who's been the number two outof out of um?

Speaker 1 (53:32):
your division us, oh, okay, yeah, nice, yeah we, we
haven't uh the brigade one in afew years.

Speaker 3 (53:41):
We, we, uh, we're a second half team.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
Let's put it that way we like to show up at Sandhurst
um.
Vmi Virginia, virginia militaryinstitute for the last two
years has one Spartan rangerchallenge uh, for the brigade,
and gone up to Sandhurst rangerchallenge uh, for the brigade
and gone up to sandhurst, uhwhere, uh, we have edged them

(54:04):
out, uh for the win nice, um,don't mean to rub it in.
But um, and then uh, but they're, they're a very good program.
And uh, and then what's itgonna say?
University of north georgia wonit four years in a row.
Yeah, before that they won notonly, uh, spartan ranger
challenge, but they also wonsandhurst rotc division.

(54:28):
Now, when I say winningsandhurst, I don't mean winning
the whole thing, I mean out ofthe ROTC division.
Right, that's why they have anROTC cup.
No ROTC program has ever wonthe competition overall.
Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Because that's the international, you got
international teams.
West Point usually wins it.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
Except for.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
Army-Navy game.
Yeah well, that's a wholenother thing Good God Jesus Talk
about.
I invited people over for thatshit you know what I mean.
It's like you invited peopleover to watch that execution.
You're just like oh my lord,you know I was sitting back.
I was like, you know, I fellasleep on the couch.
I was like I'm gonna play in adangerous game.

(55:11):
I'm about to go down a collegefootball hole.
But I'm wondering if army, forthe first time ever being a
division or a conferencechampion, because they moved to
the american, they played thethe week before against tulane.
I wonder if that cost them,because like, could have been.
You know, because they're likeoh, we feel good about ourselves
, we're a conference championand meanwhile navy's like you're

(55:32):
gonna fucking have it.
I'm so tired of it, I'm gonnaeat these guys alive you know,
should have bet on Navy, likethose seniors had never beat
Army.

Speaker 3 (55:40):
Yeah that was huge.
It was a huge upset, yeah theywanted it.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
Yeah, absolutely, you know the.
The funny thing is too likewith I absolutely love football
and I know a lot of like thetactical community doesn't right
, they're not like big on it,they're not big on football, but
they're like big on liketactics.
And like shooting.
And look closer, grasshopper,right, when you watch a football

(56:09):
game.
It is tactics, all tactics.
It's tactics, right.
Like you have lines ofscrimmage, there's your base of
fire Trying to maneuver, getoutside.
You got a pre-snap.
Look Scouting, right, you gotthe jock.
They're upstairs seeing shitcalling it down to you.
It is all tactics.
You are trying to out-leveragesomebody.

(56:32):
You're trying to maneuver onthem.
You're trying to create angles.
That's also why I love combatsports.
You take a look at combatsports.
What are you trying to do?
You're trying to create angles.
You're trying to out leveragesomebody.
You're using your jab.
There's your base of fire,here's your maneuver piece.

Speaker 3 (56:52):
Actually explain it to the cadets like that.
I'd break it down to the way tolook at it, though like I I'm a
bills fan and and like, shut uplooking at it like I've never
looked at that, like at it thatway before.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
You're like oh yeah, like that's I'll make a, I'll
make, I'll make a football fanout of the tactics guy where you
just kind of sit there and yougo, hey, look at this, there's
patterns to this thing.
I'm a big pattern guy, right, Ilike to try to meet people
where they are when I explain itto them.
So when I talk about, you know,clearing through an objective
and staying in your lane, Iliterally use the term like gap

(57:26):
sound, like gap assignment,right, like I'm not getting
fixated on this target becauseit's the known, likely and
suspected what's out there.
Right, I'm not going to getfixated on this thing, I'm
staying in my lane, kind of likekickoff, like a kickoff team.
Everybody goes in here, theyget outside, right, now, we got
issues right.
And then, with combat sports,when I explain set piece and

(57:48):
moving piece, I ask them I say,hey, what happens if we have no
moving piece and it's all setpiece, right?
Well, you're going to take abeating, right?
Kind of like a boxer standinghere like this, we're not
throwing anything, right.
And then, if you have allmoving piece, right, you got

(58:08):
nothing to cover up with, right?

Speaker 3 (58:10):
So I ask him, have you ever seen somebody win a
fight by throwing a punch likethis, cause I never have Ian,
let me punch you like that Miketo come through the door punch
me in the head because I saidhis name but you got that set
piece and you got the movingpiece right.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
And it's again so, like when we teach these things
like bounding, and you'rebreaking down the fundamentals
of fighting.
You, you have your security,you have your maneuver, you're
trying to create angles, you'retrying to limit your opponent's
options while creating moreoptions for yourself.

Speaker 4 (58:42):
And that's true in sports, that's true in fighting,
that's true in fucking combatyeah, I did a a lot of um muay
thai and mmaiu-Jitsu back inPennsylvania.
It was always a lot of supercalm combat vet dudes but they

(59:02):
were always looking at it inthat perspective of a tactics,
tactical maneuver kind of thing.
When you are already in thattactical mindset, it's hard to
not get obsessed with thingslike combat sports, football,
when you look at them throughthat aspect.
It's really funny that youbrought that up because one of
my mentors at my old MMA gym wasvery much like that, in more of

(59:23):
a jiu-jitsu sense.
But he was very much like thatand it helps open your mind to
doing moves and finishes andstuff like that.
It becomes very, very obsessivewhen you look at it that way.
Because it's the pattern.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
It's true across, yeah, and it works, things right
works, and that's why my slow,that's why, for ranger, you, my
slogan is prepare for war rightlike it is, war like life you
know what I mean like it is,like it is like the same, the
same basic principles andfundamentals that you would

(59:55):
employ in honest to God combatin war you're going to have in
life, right, like every singleday, like every.
Just look for it, look for thatpattern.
It's there, right, because,like this whole thing is a war,
just to stay alive, likeeverything's competition, like
uh, was it, uh, was it was.
It was joe rogan, it was joerogan.

(01:00:17):
I'm gonna do the classic thingit was joe rogan.
What did he say?
We're a bunch of monkeys on afloating space rock.
That's like as savage as it canget.
So how is it not war like everyday, you know?

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
you look for that pattern right so your podcast
ranger you um where, where areyou out there?
Or like, where can people findthat?

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Yeah, uh, that's uh.
It's available on.
I like to use this.
It's available on all majorpatent podcast platforms where
podcasts are sold.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, so uh.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
Apple, pods, Spotify, uh, probably just Google.
I've, I've found.
I just Google I found it onother things too, like oh shit,
I didn't realize these peoplehave it as well.
But yes, it's available on allthat.
And then, like I said, we haveInstagram as well.
What's?

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
the Instagram handle.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
It's rangeru, Because I had to put a bunch of dots in
there.
I wanted to just put RangerUjust to make it easy.
There's some guy named RangerUthat has like three followers
and no posts.
I'm like what the fuck is this?
What an asshole.
Oh man, that sucks.
Yeah, it was like damn hebought that domain already.

(01:01:27):
Man, god dang, I got screwed.
Puff it up, yeah, the um, butyes, that's, that's where they
can find it.
And uh, like I said, I thinkright now we're sitting at like
23 episodes.
Oh, I got to put out more.
Yeah, uh, I, I got to.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
I got to get those numbers up, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Oh, hell, yes, but yeah, because, as you know, you
only have so many marbles rightthe time I'm done with the A&M
guys and gals and the honey dolist.
And did I eat today?
Yeah, shit, jim.
And then you know, Ioccasionally do like to lay next

(01:02:04):
to my wife every once in awhile.
You know I don't want to belike, hey, honey, I'm going to
go podcast for the third nightin a row.

Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
Again, even though she's got this obsession with
reading these crazy magic dragonbooks these days Wait are you
married to my wife?

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
They're all the same aren't they?

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
They're all the same Dude 100%.

Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
It's always named some weird shit like a throne of
glass and thorns or some shit.
I don't know who would want tosit on that.

Speaker 4 (01:02:35):
I got lucky.
My girlfriend doesn't likebooks.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
That's good.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
That's good.
No, yeah, I was talking withsomebody else the other day.
That's literally what my wifereads all the time.
I know, dude, and it's like,first off, this is smut, but
secondly, it's a fact.
It's a fact.

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
I found that out, I was like what are you reading?
I was like that's poor, Likewhat are you reading?

Speaker 3 (01:02:59):
No, Okay, I thought it was about dragons.
Yeah, it is about dragons.

Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
You just keep those Barnes and Noble gift cards.

Speaker 3 (01:03:09):
What are we reading?
This is not the dragons.

Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
I thought, oh my God, it's like some guy named Zayden
, you know, like fucking bangingall the chicks at the wizard
school or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
Yeah, it's 100%.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
Whatever?

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
dude, dude.
Your girls make it on it thatactually sounds kind of sick.
You better look out.
You're going to come home andshe's going to be reading one of
those one day.

Speaker 4 (01:03:30):
I know she's going to see this and be like.
Actually I do like books.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
A matter of fact, here's a bag full yeah, yeah,
and it's like like he was saying, it's like it's like all of
them right yeah, yes yeah, yeahyeah, damn, I can't read, so
that's good bingo easy easy whenI listen to my books.
Yeah, back to the audio booksyeah, yeah, um, it was like a

(01:03:54):
quintessential thing happened.
It was so funny in the moment Ikind of realized that she's
deep in some chapter, aboutsomebody being deep in some
chapter, and uh, and I was, Iwas, I was sitting there next to
her, I was sitting there nextto her and I had the ranger
handbook there you go, I waslike checking on shit.

Speaker 3 (01:04:13):
I was like did I get that right?

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
and like how do I explain that better?
And and then, like I kind ofcame out of it for a minute and
I'm like honey, how do you thinkI should?
Explain.

Speaker 3 (01:04:21):
L-shaped ambush to the kids.

Speaker 4 (01:04:24):
Exactly, babe.
How about LDAs, l-shaped ambush?

Speaker 1 (01:04:26):
is in gauge eight on Matt.
You absolutely need to stopwhen you absolutely need to stop
.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
That's your lc.
Oh shit man.
Yeah, damn nice.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Well, dude thanks thanks for coming on coming down
chatting with us.
Absolutely, I had a great time,man, I appreciate you guys uh
inviting me down.
I'm glad we can awesome get onhere and tell some truths.
Yeah, hell, yeah, so so, rangeryou podcast?

Speaker 2 (01:04:50):
check them out wherever podcasts are sold.
Uh, use the Google, look themup.
Look them up on Instagram Typein all the periods, not the
other guy that has threefollowers and no posts.

Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
Yeah, don't pay attention to that guy, not that
guy.
Don't report him.
Fuck that guy.
Dude sucks.

Speaker 4 (01:05:05):
We're going to frame that domain for you the handle.

Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
Yeah, just abuse that guy Gotta get on it, gotta get
on it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
But yeah, anyways, like comment, subscribe.
Share this all that good stuff.
Check out our buddy Mike here.
I'm horrible at sign-offs.
Luckily we have Ian here, soI'm going to let him handle that
, change your socks, drink waterand Beto what do you got?
Oh, Uno reverse card here.
Uno reverse card or skip, Iguess.

Speaker 4 (01:05:32):
Don't get caught in a linear danger area.
I don't know that's a good one,that's a good one.

Speaker 1 (01:05:36):
That's a good one, that's a good one.

Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
That's absolutely a good one.
Thanks, guys.