October 6, 2025 • 59 mins
📍Former Navy SEAL David Rutherford sits down with Adam McClain, U.S. Marine infantry rifleman and author of the bestselling book When Violence is Virtue.
In this powerful conversation, Adam shares his journey from college dropout to Marine rifleman, his combat deployments in Afghanistan, and the hard lessons about rules of engagement, leadership failures, and the price of restraint. Together, they explore themes of warrior ethos, courage in the face of fear, false peace, societal decay, and legacy.
📖 Order When Violence is Virtue: https://a.co/d/cf1VI6k
📲 Follow Adam on Twitter: @BangSwitch5000
Timestamps:
00:00 - Book Excerpt Intro
05:23 - Why Adam Chose To Be A Marine
11:16 - 2014 Deployment, ROE frustration
29:09 - Why Adam Wrote The Book
37:57 - The Warrior Ethos
42:06 - Embracing Fear
45:27 - Passivity Isn’t Virtue
50:37 - The Compassionate Warrior
55:08 - A Warrior’s Legacy
56:51 - Order the book and follow Adam
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
There is such an amplification of violence, and we're gonna
have to face it as a culture. We're gonna have
to unify on this. We're gonna have to stand up
together collectively and say no more.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Does that mean we need to.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Have troops on the street everywhere, a policeman on every corner. No,
that's not what I'm calling for. But society is going
to have to take a shift. We're going to have
to take the deep look inside and address this rot
that's coming or that has manifested itself.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
The duality of man is a false dichotomy, at least
when it comes to violence with just cause. The armed
and trained are painted as itching for a fight. The
war fighter, especially the combat veteran, is cast as broken, danger,
and one spark away from disaster.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
This is the shallow comfort of a culture.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Addicted to easy labels calm or chaotic, peaceful or aggressive.
But the real world isn't that clean. In the crucible
of war, the street and the places where decisions shape
life and death, opposites live side by side. There is
calmness and violence. Peace grows in the discipline of preparing
(01:29):
for war. These are not contradictions, They are the deeper
truths known only to those who have walked both past
and return change. This book is not a celebration of violence.
It is a study of it. I am pretty moved
(01:56):
when I read the words that are in this book,
and that doesn't happen a lot for me. You know,
from reading the Book of Five Rings, to The Gates
of Fire, to all the other books that have been
written throughout history, you know, when you read something powerful
(02:19):
and profound. And that's why I really wanted to bring
Adam McLean, United States Marine Infantry Riflemen onto the David
Rutherford Show to be able to explain the importance of
this book When Violence Is Virtue, and why he wrote it,
(02:41):
and what he hopes the impact will be not only
on those of us who've gone to war, but on
those in the country and around the world who maybe
feel like they need to start preparing for the idea
that violence is virtue. So, without further Ado just honored
to welcome Adam McLain to the show.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Adam, thank you for joining me.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
No, no, thank you for for having me. The The
honor is uh is certainly mine. You know this this book,
it's something that I'm seeing how much it resonates and
(03:26):
that means a lot. You know this, Uh, this is
my first book, uh, you know, and a couple of
months ago, I was not an author. I was just me,
you know, like uh, and I'm still digesting that, and uh,
you know, going from you know, we make the jokes
of marines, you know, cran eaters, knuckle draggers, and oh
(03:49):
you were you were an O three eleven boy. You
were an aspab waiver for that too, weren't you?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
You know?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
And and now this book is has best seller attached
to it on Amazon. And this the comments I get
from people when as they're reading this, and it's it's
been many obviously, you know, it's I'm on.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Twitter and I'm seeing it there.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
That's you know, when Clay Martin endorsed it, you know,
I wanted him to read it, and and I was
just like, hey, I want to send you a copy
because I want you to read it and I want
your comments. But that was a private message. I I
just wanted his opinion. And now here we are today
on uh and he helped, you know, blow this up.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
And I saw it, you know, Adam, I mean, I'm
I'm a I'm a huge fan of Clay, you know,
had him on the show to talk about veteran suicides
and psychedelics and yeah, you know, and he's a true
war fighter.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I mean, that guy's been there and done it.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
And when he promoted it, I was like, I've got
to get this and got to read it, and then
you know, instantaneously it was like, all right, I need
to understand you why you wrote it and what you
want the impact to be for sure?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, and you know, you know, so I did two deployments.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I did a MEW which was also funny.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Can you tell me first, though, tell everybody why you
wanted to bring marine in the first place, because I
think you know that's that's for all of us. It's
like this very intimate decision, in particular knowing that there's
a g WAT going on. It's not like it's pre nine,
you know, nineties or whatever. I mean, like there's a
(05:44):
war's happening. So can you explain that first before you.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yes, absolutely, absolutely so. I graduated high school in two
thousand and three. I didn't join until twenty eleven. Obviously,
that's quite a bit of a discrepancy in the timeframe
that the g WAT was occurring. You know, when I
graduated high school, i'd see marine recruiters. My best friend
and I. First thing we would do when we'd see
was we we'd grab hands and pretend, you know, because
(06:09):
at the time that was a little not quite acceptable
in the military and the country. It was a different world,
and you know, we had no interest in you know,
I had no interest in joining the military. But quite frankly, though,
I realize, you know, things you realize in retrospect, is
I didn't really have a lot of.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Drive in general.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
And why the Marine Corps probably helped that. My brother
was in the military. You know, he did thirteen years
in the Navy, and so that probably helped me be
a driving motivator. But I didn't want to enjoy it
before you Yeah, yeah, he went in after high school.
He graduated in ninety eight, so I think it was
(06:55):
about ninety nine years or so when he went in,
maybe a little later, but.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
You know, he was in the.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Navy, and I didn't want to go in the Navy
because I didn't want to be on a ship, which
is I ran. My first deployment was on a ship,
and I spent more time out at sea than my
brother did in his entire thirteen year career. Another irony,
but you know, I didn't want to go in the
Air Force. I want Maybe it was those uniforms of
the Marine slaying the dragon and getting his dress blues.
(07:25):
You know that got a lot of us. But I
knew something had to change. And I graduated college because
my parents would go to college, you got to get
a degree. And I all halfway through college is like,
I want to drop out in a list, and they
were like, no, You're finishing college. And so I was like, okay,
all right, well we'll finish this. And then so I
graduated college. I'm living back in my parents' place, working
(07:48):
three jobs, one of which was the same one that
I had been working while in college. And I knew
something had to change. And at this point, I certainly,
you know, I had humped up like I was two
hundred and fifty some pounds, like I was a big guy.
Uh and and I just was like, I'm I'm I
(08:08):
need something has to change. I have to do something
drastically different. And so that was I think a big
catalyst for for joining the Marine Corps was everyone knows
that is a challenge.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Right, Like.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
We have movies made about how you know, crazy it
is to join the Marine Corps and how how that
lifestyle is just it's It was a complete opposite of
what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
And I think.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
That's that's what was part of the drive was I'm
doing this, it's getting me nowhere.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Let's break the cycle.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
And so I lost forty pounds, i you know, and
I joined the Marine Corps, and I was like, I
want to be an three eleven. You know, I had
a degree, but I was thinking, if this career works out,
then I'll go Mustang. But I wanted to be in
the fight, like you know it was, and so that's
(09:12):
what I did. I remember going into the recruiter as
you know, two hundred and fifty pounds and tell him
I'm here for the job. And one of the recruiters
who was a sergeant, he was a he was a Morderman,
and he made my life hell until I left there,
and thank god he did because he helped.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
He pissed me off, and that drove me more.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And I don't know if he understood that or if
he was trying to get me out of there because like,
you don't fit here.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Either way, I made it through and.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
You know they kept you know, when I passed the ASPAB,
I got like a eighty forty seven something like that.
And my sergeant who was my recruiter, he was like,
you can have any job you want the Marine Corps
with this. I'm like, i want infantry. He reiterates, you
can have any job you want.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
In the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And I'm like, no, this is what I want to do.
I'm not here. I'm not here just for a job.
I need this challenge. I needed it.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I may not I've known it.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Quite fully then, but that's what it was.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I needed it.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
And then so obviously I go through all that. First
deployment ends up being the MEW, which was insane. I
was on the USS New York. The bow of that
ship was made from steal from the trade towers. Wow,
the whole ship is there's just so much pictures, photos
(10:42):
from nine to eleven. It's a memorial to those who
fell there, and so to serve on that was really cool.
And also I remember, you know, on nine to eleven,
twenty twelve, we all Benghazi on on on the news
(11:03):
on the ship after being stood down, uh from going
in there.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Wow, And that was that was quite.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Quite an experience that I think made me real bitter
for a long time.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
You and me both, brother.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Those were my friends who got killed, and that was
supposed to be my nest station with g RS. And
just watching that and knowing how many assets were in
the area and how many all the things they could
have done, it just it shatters you when you begin
to think, wait, there's it's not about like doing the
(11:38):
right thing right. It's because like you're when as you're
talking about going in and being an infantryment, like there's
the allure of that is is the historical legacy of
those guys who hit Iwo Jima. You know, those guys
at Bell Bell Bell Bellow always mess that up and yeah, yeah, yeah,
(11:59):
bellowood sorry, and you know, and and it's all the
way back to the Barbary Wars, right, you know, and.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
You know there's a there's a history.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Of that, that reality. And when you see the moments
where it doesn't play out as it should, you're like, wait.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
What wait, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
So I can imagine you're on that mew you're watching it,
You're like, we're right here, what the hell?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Oh no, we were we were stood down.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Uh Uh, we had marines already on the bird.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I was.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
We had our gear stage on the New York on
there was this long hallway that all our our kid
was staged. We had our rifles, we were we had
magazines loaded which and we and I remember the look
of a marine I served with, just this bewilderness. His
face was just he didn't even know what's going on here,
(12:53):
like like we were on the bird and now we're
pulled off the bird when we were when we were
a heeler right away. So that's with me, and uh
that was that was a rough deployment.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
For a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Uh muser mus are uh not fun. The next deployment
that was the real show, right that was Afghanistan. And
I was with one two Alpha Company as I was
with the MEW.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
And we uh we were.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
They had a space out of Camp Weatherneck during the
retrograde in twenty fourteen, which is kind of an interesting
period period of time because when no one really talks
about it. Uh, you know, we talked about uh, Fallujah,
we talked about you know, all these all these big
battles in the global war and terror role.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
We're just in O nine. The Marja Push.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I mean that I was there with the Agency during
that and I remember there's a guy at Ground Branch
who was on my base who was a former lieutenant
colonel in the Core and his son was was, you know,
out doing over daylight patrols, you know, and they got
you know, they get hit with it IEDs and it
(14:14):
was you know, You're just like, wait, what is going on.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
It's two thousand and nine and the Roes they're not
We're not allowing.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Our guys that are out there supposed to pacify these
providences to do what they're supposed to fucking do. And
it's just like, I don't I didn't get it. I
didn't understand it. And so you know, tell us a
little bit about fourteen because I think those are the
years that are really lost on people.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So I'd love to hear your perspective.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So, first, we were supposed to be the last combat
units in Afghanistan when when we left Leatherneck that I
was supposed to be it, and we see how that went.
But the Roes man, you have me fired up on
that because we were afraid to do our We thought
(15:01):
if we take out you know, insurgents who are who
are coming at us, attacking us, that our command was
gonna fry us. Uh.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
That is.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Something that doesn't make you feel confident in doing what
you're doing. And eventually, though the job, it made me
very apathetic to life at that point. You know.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I remember at one point, Uh, so we were on.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Me.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
We were seeing from the base that you know, because
we're we're you know, we we have all these fortifications
along you it's basically just a big dirt wall, and
then you have post. Well, we're on post and we
see these guys way out in the distance they're digging holes.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So what are we going to go do. We're gonna go.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Look, we're gonna go. And so a day or two later,
we go out on the m wrap. So we're checking
these holes out and uh, you know, the highest ranking
guy there as a corporal. Uh and uh we at
this point where we found where they're digging, we just
we don't even think about the fact, hey, maybe they
put something here, maybe they may booby trap this or
(16:17):
whatever it is. So we're all just kicking it up
and getting in there. And and just like I'm like, wait,
like we don't even care anymore.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
We're all just in this.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Gaggle right here. Who knows what it what it could
have been.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
And it turned out that they had a A and
a uniform stage there and I think a few other
miscellaneous things. So obviously they were trying to I guess
breach the perimeter and that was their their planning for it.
But that was an interesting experience. And but we did
(16:49):
that was later in the deployment. You know, you know,
while we were there the whole time, we see the
base just shrinking, shrinking, right, they kept the outer perimeter,
but all the stuff, like you know, there's a million
d facts that you know, we never got to go
to be because we were working. But uh, you know,
all the stuff started being compressed, and there was this
(17:09):
great fast difference of desert between where our posts were,
uh and where the base actually resided on Camp Weathernecks.
Camp Weatherneck was part of Also there was a British
Air Base Bashion and then there was uh the A.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
N A side. Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
I forget what their their name with the base was
for for them, but it's but it's all together.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
On our side was just compressing, compressing.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
But we we did two Alpha company, Uh, we did
two pushes big pushes out into.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
An area called Natalie where we knew.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
That they the Taliban had been uh stashing weapons uh
and we as part of us getting ready to leave
and hand it over the base, We're like, well we
need to go take this out uh and before that
gets used on the A n A when we when
we leave.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
So it's kind of uh.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
And so so the whole plan of combat operation at
this point was like, how do we help with the
transition and this?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Those two.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Combat operations that were out for uh for for most
several days at a time.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
UH, those two.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Ended up being interesting because well, they started firing all
their cashes at US. UH.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You know they they had a lot of RPGs. Yeah,
a lot, like it was uh.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And and one of the interesting ro os we had
was whenever they would start shooting uh RPGs at US,
we would stop our m wraps. I don't know about you,
but I think a moving target is a harder target
to hit than the one.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
But I was not uh.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I mean, I was a lance corporal. I got promoted
into corporal at some point during that deployment. I don't
remember the time frames. This athlete gets blurred. It's been
a decade. Uh but it was that was wild, you know.
And another interesting thing I remember, you know, we we
had put seawire down on their roads. Their roads, it's
(19:10):
just a dirt path and then you could go around
them be it very easily. It is kind of silly,
but I remember just you know, getting up in the
morning and uh, me and three other marines were tasked
to go pick it up, and we ended up using
my if we had got attacked, you know, I mean
one of the two most dangerous times down in dusk, right,
So we're out there a DoD picking up seawire, me
(19:31):
with two other marines, and we're using my sixteen to
hold the sea wire like a buddy's holding the barrel
and I'm holding the butt stock. So if we got engaged,
I can't fight the enemy. Uh well they didn't, you know,
our leadership didn't go they said go get this. I'm like,
there's no hey, take a shovel or something. It was
just go go do this. And so that was kind
(19:52):
of a more comical story. And but all those things
turned into like between the restrictive roe s, between just
the ridiculousness of the scenario that we were put forth
there It kind of just really changed me and made
me very apathetic for a while. Like I remember being
asked if I was extending to go on, Oh, it's
(20:13):
another thing part of the halfway through the point they
start telling us about the next deployment and like we're like, guys,
you already killing arm around here. So I got out,
like I left active duty, and then I did come back.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
In twenty seventeen into the reserves.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I had a prior service recruiter call me and he's like, Hey,
did you know you can go play marine and get
paid and you can quit whenever you want. Wait, I
have master mastery over my career with you.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Now.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Why didn't you guys tell me this years ago?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
And so I spent about a year in the reserves,
and ultimately that kind of came to an end. Though
I was in Michigan doing Operation Northern Strike. We were
setting up fighting holes to just do the t any where.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
We were gonna have ranges and get you know.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Attack whatever, and just shoot out at the targets they
put we'd put up. Uh So my team, my two guys,
they they dig their skirmishers. Now it's my turn to
dig my skirmisher, right, client, clank with etol to the right, clank,
clank to the left, clank forward.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Pull it up? What do I pull up? Well? I
pull out this what I think was a rock.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I live in New Hampshire, right like, and so I
just think big granted rock in the ground.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Well I pull it out.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It was a live arty round. No, I'm holding a
live lady round. They had EOD came out. Uh. They
used a couple of pounds of C four to blow
it up. They told me it was live, and then
I should buy a lotto ticket.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
And my girlfriend who's now my wife, she was like, dude,
you got to make a decision. You almost not only
like if that would have blown up right for me
taking it, it would have just been me, It would
have been my entire platoon.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
That would have been national news.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Can you imagine what would happen if a platoon of
marine got taken out in training in Michigan.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
By a live already round? No?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, And so so after that, I was like, okay, guys, like,
it's one thing if if if this were to happen
in war, and you know what, I was only here
to have fun, hang out with the boys training next
generation for a little bit. I'm just going to hand
off my thools which which was like a just a
manual military manual which was hard to get and good
(22:30):
knowledge in there. I just handed that off to one
of my marines who was under me, who I thought
could showed potential to be a leader. Uh, And I
called her today and that wrapped up my military career.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
So I realized.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
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Speaker 2 (22:57):
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Speaker 3 (22:58):
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Speaker 2 (24:32):
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Speaker 3 (24:36):
What I find interesting is that, you know, I felt
a very similar thing in the beginning of the war,
because I was in Afghanistan in the summer vote too
and felt, you know, apoplectic about the decisions that seemed to.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Not being that weren't being made in.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Terms of a tactical focus or mission or you know
I mean. And later on I end up finding out
that you Pakistan was flying senior level members of al
Qaeda out after Tora, Bora, and Talban just all went
into Aqueta where mul Omar was, his whole tribe was.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
And it's like, you know, I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
And then you know, the subsequent times I went back,
ending with you know, my last trip over there in
twenty ten, I was there, a couple of deployments with
the agency.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It's almost like nothing to change. And then what you're
telling telling.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Me right now, you know, on the way out, a
very similar sensation was taking place. Now, I do have friends,
you know, at Tier one units that you know that
they were getting.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
The job done.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
But for the rest of us, you know, I think
other than some very strategic times, there was this kind
of hidden hurdle, hidden hurdles for those of us that
were trying to do our due right where to find
(26:01):
that virtuousness and violence and.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
And and it just wasn't.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
The opportunities seemed to be thwarted at every step. And
and and you know, did you realize that a knit
like when it was happening in it or did it
really set in later on? Uh?
Speaker 1 (26:21):
I think it was there, you know, it was, it
was there. I may not have fully known it at
the time, but I felt it and you could see it.
You know, when you're when you're nervous about doing your
job and engaging the enemy because that might get you
thrown in jail. That that blows your mind right, like
it's it's like, well, what are we even here for?
(26:42):
If you know, you tell me, I'm you know, you
hand me this gun, you tell me that there's bad
guys over there, and I go over there where.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
There's bad guys.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
And oh, by the way, uh, you know, if you
take out the bad guys and we don't like the
way you.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Did it, uh, you're not going worth forever. Yeah. Yeah,
So it was.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
It was wild and you know, I remember when we're
out there, we had we had uh we knew there
was a motorcycle. We didn't tell there was a motorcycle,
a five hundred pounds v bid uh and well and
behold as we're u uh you know, we're.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Out there and uh in in Watkins Glenn was the
name of the operation.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
When we're uh, when we're out in Nautai, we uh,
you know, we had this riot happen where all these
women and children were throwing rocks at our m wraps
and uh uh surrounding our vehicles and doing this and banging.
And by the way those kids could throw You want
to make peace over there, you teach them baseball because
our ours.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
You look at the.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Glass and you thought maybe they were shot with a
k fire or something, but no, those kids would throw
rocks and they would shatter.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Those bulletproof windows like it was insane.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Our first trip over there, we were in desert patrol
vehicles and it was so bad the kids whipping rocks
at us that I had to rig up a pistol
on my drive shaft and point my gun at kids
who were picking up brocks because we thought we were
gonna get like really hurt man.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
But yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
But to finish this story, I remember, I'm up in
the turn of our m RAP and the motorcycle and
we're all in a line, like all our vehicles are
in a line, we're rolling. This motorcycle just comes up
and cruises next to all of us. I'm like in
the middle of the vehicles, like there was four or
five vehicles behind me, there was another four or five
in front of me. Does anyone take the shot on
the motorcycle that was ten feet away from us? Nope,
(28:27):
that could have been the one that could have blown
us all up. No, no one took a shot, not
a damn soul took the shot. And we all knew
there was a motorcycle that could have blown us up
and if all he had to do was just swinging
to us, if that was the one. So that was
just something I remember. Now, did we take the fight
(28:48):
to the enemy, Yes, it did happen, But was the
fighting as did? Were we on a leash? Did we
feel on a leash the whole time? Yes, yes, yes
we did so. So it was interesting to say the
least with that.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
But let me ask you this, Adam.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
As you you know, you go in, you want to
serve at the highest level. You want to serve in
the infantry, as a rifleman in the Marine Corps. And
you know all you got to do is look at
history to prove that that is the most significant sense of.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Service there is throughout our history as a nation. Right,
And so you do it. You do it.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
You do multiple cruises, right, one combat deployment, and you
go back in and then you get out. What was
your temperament like in the middle from when you got
out to when you wrote this this this book, Because
something happened, and something happened so profoundly that you were
(29:56):
able to I don't know if it's looking past the
experience of being leashed or whatever, but because the book
itself is an absolute predicate for young men in particular
to feel the honor of what it would like, what
(30:18):
it would feel like to serve, and the responsibilities that
come with carrying. You know that that mantle, right, the
mantle of being able to be violent, to wage war,
and the profound impact it has on on on your psyche,
on your on your honor, on your nobility. So to
(30:40):
try and explain to me and to the audience, you
know what took place in there for you to say,
you know what, even in the midst of all that, Man,
I'm going to write this thing, this this I don't
want to call it a manifesto because it has such
negative undertones to it, but it's it's there. I know,
there's there's a particular world for these types of this
(31:04):
type of literature, like it's uh, you know, it's it's
these pieces, these seminal pieces of wisdom that seemed to
uh implant in people.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
In a in a deeper way.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
You know, it's something changed for sure. You know, it's
a decade of life happened. The world's changed, uh so much,
our country has changed so much. And in a way,
it kind of started as I saw someone online they
(31:40):
they they were talking about how you know, violence is
never the answer, and I'm like, wait, you know, I
see this all the time.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I see people say this.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
You know, whether it's people going, oh, well, guns are bad,
I mean, like, well, they're a tool, they're a tool
of violence. But we've been killing each other very efficiently
since the dawn time when when you know, when Grog
discovered the rock, well he figured out that that could
be a murder weapon. So so it's not that like, yeah,
sure our weapons have gotten more efficient, but something changed.
(32:12):
And the reality is is you have to meet I
knew that we had to meet violence with Bounce, and
so it started off as just kind of like a
response and me getting my thoughts together, but there was
I think what the big change was is I've changed
a lot over the last ten years, and because you
have to, I had to change, because you know, when
(32:33):
I got out of the military, I still I went
I feel like I kind of regressed a lot in
my life where I was I was a waiting tables again,
which is what I did before I enlisted, and this
is I was like, something's got to change. And so
(32:54):
I you know, I was like, hey, I got this gibo,
go back to school. Uh, And I got it. But
where it got in port was all these things started
building building building, right like ah, this this new life
just started coming and with that came responsibilities. And what
I think finally changed my life, which was kind of
(33:16):
just the completion of experiences, was you know, having my family,
my wife and my daughter who are who are dependent
on me.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Uh And so that made me go from hey.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Uh my my career isn't just spending money right Like,
it's it's not that, it's it's I.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Have people who rely on me and I can't I
cannot fail them.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I'm I'm the I'm I'm the only one responsible for
for making sure they're taken care of. And that I
realize is just in the just seeing the tone of
society where they're like, oh, you know basically where they
want people want peace at any costs. Well, there's a
price to pay for peace for safety. And that's kind
(34:08):
of where this this comes from, is is it's just
the I guess the bit of growing up that had
to be done.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Uh. And so this that's that's where a lot of
this comes.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
And it's that core of just sometimes you you have
to fight to have what you're going to have to
protect what you have, and sometimes fighting is the right
thing to do.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I love that you decided to fight with with you
know your pros too, and what that can cadure.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
And in the human mind, can you can you.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Talk up a little bit about how the book evolved
in your head, what your process was like and why
you you know why You're like, all right, I'm going to.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Start this, do this and put it out there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
So well it's it literally started again as just I
started typing up a response to to what we had
talked about of just this. Oh, we just have to
have piece piece piece. So and then I'm like, wait,
I just had more ideas kept coming.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
And what I did was.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
All these things started coming to quote started coming to me.
And in my professional career, I live in Excel, uh,
and so I pulled up Excel on my computer and
I did I just started putting it in my thoughts.
Those thoughts became chapters and I would uh, you know,
(35:34):
I'd write them up, uh, and then I could move
things around.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
And figure out.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
What what what I what I needed to where where
they needed to be for all the flow and to
all make sense. After that, I spent a lot of
time fighting with formatting, and then the cover design was
Actually it probably took me just as long to get
the cover as the book itself. But yeah, I mean
(36:04):
that's that's really. It was a simple process.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
It just.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
The writing itself was just pulling my ideas together and
just putting all these things together. And quite frankly, I
keep saying this is I don't the motivation was something bigger,
like I In some ways, I'm like, did this even
come from me?
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah? You know it's because.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Some of the things I'm like, wait I said that
I did that? Or did I? I think you can
kind of get where I'm going with with that is
just something bigger comes to us. And the timing couldn't
be more perfect. When I when I first saw all
the things going on that's been happening the last couple
of months since I wrote this, I was like, was
(36:49):
this the wrong?
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Was Oh my god? I just made this book called
When Violence.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Is a virtue and there's just all this insanity happening.
We got people getting assassinated and stabbed on buses and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
But it turned out well.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
I think, well I had that initial fear. It kind
of subsided because I'm like, wait, no, the way we
have to fight that is the point.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Of this book.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
You know, that's it may take a heavy toll, but
when we're we're we're going to fight. Now, these these
are words that are going to help us.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Oh I I completely agree because the way you you know,
I mean obviously each one of these these you know,
the chapters that you have in here and what you address.
You know, there's there's an infinite number of ways to
project the depths of of of kind of the underlying
(37:43):
meanings behind these in terms of you know, I love
how Part one is mindset and principles and so you know,
I I if it's all right, I just want to
go through a couple of the chapters that really jumped
out for me, and what what your intention so people
can get a better understanding of what you're meaning. And
(38:05):
so for me, the first one that really popped was
chapter five, The Warrior Ethos, Code of the Calm and dangerous,
and you start out with this great Sun Sou quote,
the general who wins and wins a battle makes many
calculations in his temple before the battle is even fought.
(38:27):
And you have these core principles of the warrior ethos, courage, discipline, resilience, commitment, selflessness,
never accept defeat, never quit, loyalty, honor, and mission. First,
can you talk a little bit about that ethos and
why is it important for people to contemplate that when
they think about violence.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
So these are kind of takeaways I took from Stephen
Presfield's book The Warrior Ethos. I don't know if you're
familiar with it all.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
It it was a powerful book that I remember. I
have two copies of it, and I first read it
when I was in s o I School of Infantry,
and it was powerful. And these were my takeaways from it.
And uh, you know, I could have done, you know,
(39:25):
gone with like an acronym of the JJ, did tye buckle?
You know? But this, this I felt was just let's
not revisit that. Let's you know, anyone can go find
military acronyms and roll their eyes at them for days.
But these are principles that I took away from that
book and that we have to understand. And I start
(39:49):
with courage. Why, as I talk about elsewhere in the book,
courage is not an absence of fear. Bravery is not
an absence of fear. It's pushing through it because we
have to. And that which feeds into the discipline is
I have to have the discipline to fight through things
(40:10):
I'm scared of, and that all of these things. This
is not just for combat, this is for life.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Right Like.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Big job interview. You're gonna be scared of that, right,
like nervous going into it. That can change your life,
right or uh, just however else you can apply that
next stages in your life.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Maybe you're having a kid, that's scary.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I mean, uh, you know when when my wife was pregnant,
that was that was life changing. I'm like, how am
I gonna afford this? Give her space? You know, how
am I gonna do this?
Speaker 2 (40:50):
And you have to do it? You just do it.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
I mean it's it's courage is just doing because you
have because no one else can but you.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
You're your only advocate, right Like.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
That that was that was kind of where we go
with this, And there's other things we talk about in
here is they all flow together. Everything here flows together,
like like everything right, like the selflessness, right, you have
to do stuff for for your family, right, Like it's
it's uh, you have to have that selflessness to take
(41:25):
care of them. And it's kind of a growing experience
there when you when you're rolling into that that that
you have to have. And and if you pull the
principles like that together, this will help you anything you
know in your your entire nation.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
And I think, yeah, I think what what I got,
what I extrapolated from that is that if you have
a framework, a framework of of your virtue, right, it
gives you a barriers or or a left.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
And right flank to operate it.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
And and I think that ethos is a great place
to start and is applicable in other aspects of your life.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
You talked about fear and fear.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
I've spent a tremendous amount of time in what I
teach out there. I teach a seminar call Embracing Fear.
And I love the way you address it in in
chapter seven right bravery in the face of fear and
acting through uncertainty And you know you're right Bravery isn't
(42:31):
about feeling fearless. It's about acting through fear. Fear is
managed through knowledge of self and the enemy and of purpose.
Can you expound on that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Absolutely, life's uncertain and we both know that in the
most literal sense. You know what, you make these great
plans before you go out into combat, right you know,
(43:05):
we we have these five paragraph orders, We have this
great detailed plan. Well, the enemy gets to decide, they
get to help decide how that's going to play out.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
And so.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Once that combat begins, the things change, right Like, you
have to have that be fluid.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
And again that is is way more.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Applicabal than just the you know, the battlefield. But we
have to have that flexibility and we have to stand strong,
you know, in that face of adversity, because you know,
failure in the battlefield means death, right like if it's
(43:49):
it's that life or death game. And so that's where
if you have to have that bravy bravery, you have
to have the to push through the fear and to
make the hard decisions when it matters most. And and
I've kind of grown into that more. I mean I
(44:12):
was not a leader, uh you know in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
I was.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
I did get promoted to corporal, but I didn't have
a team at the time, and so this was this
was things that I realized from just the time, you know, afterwards,
like so so much of these this book is.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Not just me, right, like.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
I'm certainly I would never try to say that, you know,
I'm a Smedley.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Butler or you know, a Dan Daily.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Uh, you know, I'm I don't put myself in that
kind of warrior class, you know, or or on that
pantheon of but I learned from good leaders, I learned
from bad leaders. I learned especially from bad leaders. And
that's where where so much of this comes from is
(45:05):
seeing that this is an ideal, right like this, this
is uh building a philosophy that's shape that's I think
shaped my life. But it had to be written out
and does does that?
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Oh it makes complete sense? And and that's what I
want to get to.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
On this other aspect we've talked, you'd said you really
were kind of inspired by kind of the malaise which
had really permeated into our society, which now has.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Led to you know, open and.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Growing violence in the civilian in civilian settings, whether it's
you know, uh, carjackings or homicide rates, or its political assassinations,
or it's people being jumped on the streets. You know,
I think you know this. The chapter that really hit
(46:07):
me with that was chapter nine, False Peace, The Danger
of Passivity. And you know you say, false peace is
surrender dressed in virtue.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
It is the refusal to confront evil.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Appeasement isn't peace, it's surrender in slow motion. And that
I think was beautifully put. That was really powerful. Chamberlain's
handshake with Hitler didn't prevent war and ensured it. So
can you just give people a reference of from a
civilian perspective of what how passivity can be.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Reversed with this sense of virtue?
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Yeah, you know, the we sit here as society is
coming to some very rough times.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
And when you hear people.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Talk comparing our country to falling into a situation where
they compare it to the troubles in Ireland, you know
in the from the seventies, eighties and nineties, that is
something we have to address. We can't let it come
(47:33):
to that, but it seems it is, and we're gonna
have to fight it, right like, we cannot allow this
to keep going where we've had multiple assassination attempts on
our president. Whether you like him or not, that doesn't
give you carte blanche to try to murder him.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
We've had.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
We we have conservative thought leaders.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
You know what happened with Charlie Kirk Like this is
there is such an amplification of violence and we're gonna
have to face it as a culture. We're gonna have
to unify on this. We're gonna have to stand up
together collectively and say no more.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Does that mean we need to have.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Troops, you know, on the street everywhere, a policeman on
every corner.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
No, that's not what I'm calling for.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
But society is gonna have to take a shift. We're
going to have to take the deep look inside, uh
and see and address this rot that's that's coming or
that has manifested itself.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Do I have the answer for how to fix that? Brother?
I wish I did. Well.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
I think it's pretty straightforward, and you you you reference
it several other times in the book itself and throughout
history as as you know the famous saying, you know,
hard times create hard men, you know, which create easy times,
which create weak men, which create hard times.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
You know, I think we've we've come into that.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
I think there's also a level of propaganda and manipulation
of young people's minds, much like the Bolshevik Revolution or
you know, the the you know, Nationalist Socialist Party or
whatever you want to go throughout history, that people are like, you.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Know what we're we're we're going to.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
Fight back what we interpret to be the oppression, and
we're going to you know, because it's not lots of
people that lead these revolts or create civil war, it's
it's a few thousand, it's you know, three four thousand people.
And with twenty five million people that we let in
the country in the last four years, you know, I
just had an interview with with Sarah Adams who believes
(49:58):
there's hundreds, if not thousands, of you know, classically trained terrorists.
You know, you could have narco terrorism, you could have
Chinese terrorism, which is I mean already taking place with fentanyl,
you know, and now you've put these maligned district attorneys
in who allow people to go free fourteen times at
(50:21):
end up stabbing young girls on buses.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Like at some point.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
There has to be an evelevation of violence against those
willing to commit violence on the quiet you know, few
the reluctant heroes, if you will.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
And you know the thing that really I think the the.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
There's a restraint I think from our side, not particularly
from our g WAT guys. I think GACK guys have
been vividly identifying this for the past six years, I
mean seven years probably and saying this is building, this
is going to get out of control. You know, you
guys are going to be victims. Were not because we're prepared,
We're paying attention. But there's this this.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
What is it? This malignant.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
Societal malignant that has you know, taken place that has
to be caught.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Out, and it requires violence.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
But there's also a component of this that I love
that you wrote about in chapter thirteen, and you said
it's called the compassionate warrior, strength and mercy, right, uh,
And the strongest men I've noticed with the quote you
start out, the strongest men I've known could break bones
with their hands and yet would wipe a child's tears
(51:46):
with the same fingers. Can you describe a little bit
about that chapter? And you know, power withheld is power mastered?
Can you can you talk about that and what it
will require?
Speaker 1 (52:01):
It requires so let's start with what it requires. Restraint
is something that I think when it comes to this,
the life or death restraint, it's something very few have experienced, right,
Like I remember once in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
We were dealing with teenagers.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
Well, I mean the youngest was probably about twelve or so,
and I want, that's fighting age males, right like, people
don't understand that, and the rest of the world. I
mean you, I mean, you're you're a fighting age male
if you know once you can hold that rifle.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
Car jackings.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Carjackings in Philadelphia went up seventeen. The average age of
the carjacker was thirteen to fifteen.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
It's yeah, but until you have.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Experienced aiming a rifle at what we would call a kid,
a middle schooler, a high school kid, it's hard to explain.
But when if you have taken your safety selector and
put it on fire and you're aiming you're m sixteen
at a kid that is no older than than my stepdaughter.
(53:26):
That took a while to reconcile. And that's what I
think this covers, right, Like, think the Lord, I never
had to do that. I was able to put my
rifle back on safe. We de escalated the situation, but
(53:48):
that still leaves a lasting memory on a man. It
doesn't go away that that's a traumatic experience of its own.
And so you have to know, look at the situation
and go whatever is this situation worth killing someone over. Luckily,
(54:10):
I was like, you know what, the piece of scrap
metal they stole from our base, that's part of our perimeter.
They're already, it's not hurting anything. We're out of here
in a couple of weeks. Anyways, I don't care. Just
just let them have their scrap metal, because that's what
it was over. But they were throwing rocks at us
and attacking us, trying to.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
Just get away with a piece of scrap metal.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
So you know what, timmy taliban have it.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
But that sort of restraint is.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
Something you have to know because I think it's easier
to get it once you've had a kid. You know, it's, hey,
does my kid need harsh discipline here?
Speaker 2 (54:52):
Or do they need a hug?
Speaker 1 (54:54):
And just to be calmed down and told what the matter?
Speaker 2 (54:57):
What the problem is?
Speaker 1 (54:59):
So Chapter thirteen is parenting book parenting chapters.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
I love it, I love it all right, last one
to wrap it up, and then let's close it out
is chapter fourteen legacy What do Warriors leave behind? And
I love this part. The warrior doesn't fight for medals,
He fights for those who will come after. A warrior's
true victory is not in killing, but in what survives him, character,
(55:28):
family values. The greatest gift the warrior leaves is the
strength of those who follow.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
Talk a little bit about that legacy is.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
It's what matters. What are we leaving behind? What do
we fight for? You know everyone says they want it
better tomorrow? Well, how are you making it happen? What
have you done? Like? What are you going to be
remembered for? Those are things that we have to reconcile
with ourselves, right like we what did what do we
(56:05):
fight for?
Speaker 2 (56:06):
You know?
Speaker 1 (56:06):
When we were in the military serving our country, that
maybe something the history books will talk about forever as
for what the politics was, But at the end of
the day, we I think we ended up fighting for
those who stood beside us.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
And more importantly, when when, when when I die, what
is my daughter going to remember me for? What did
I do for her? Because that's what matters. So the
big crux of why I wrote this book, that's it
(56:46):
right there.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
The legacy. Well, Adam, I think you have done that
and then some.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
I'm excited to see how this book is going to
continue to filter across not only uh G WATT veterans
and active duty members and the Marine Corps and the
teams and the Army and uh Air Force and every
every in my opinion, every every active duty guy should
read this book. It should be a part of their
(57:18):
their mandatory reading list. And and for those that have served,
I highly recommend it. I read it this week. It
was phenomenal. Every single thing is well written and it's
to the point. And I just commend you, Adam at
at at you know, deciding to uh hear that, listen
to that muse in your heart. Uh, and for putting
(57:41):
this out. I really appreciate you. Coming on, where can
people find the book and how can they follow you?
Speaker 2 (57:47):
And what do you got next coming up? Uh? Yeah,
so what's next? Great question? Uh, I'll know when I
get there. This is a whole new, whole new world
for me.
Speaker 1 (57:59):
But the book can be found on it's exclusively on
Amazon right now. Uh. You know, this was an indeed publication,
right like I don't have you know, a big publisher.
But behind this, could that change? I would love to
see it change. I would love to see this get
distributed wider and broader. But right now you can get
(58:20):
it on Amazon, available as a paperback or available as
a kindle read. And so I hope people go out there.
I am on Twitter as a bank switch. Five thousand
is my is my at, So I am there. You
(58:41):
can find me there. I should probably get a website going, right,
Maybe maybe this is I'd be.
Speaker 3 (58:45):
Good if you start deciding to put these out on
a regular basis.
Speaker 2 (58:49):
But there, you know, there's no right or wrong way
to do this.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Man.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
I've been in the game a long time.
Speaker 3 (58:55):
I've written a bunch of books, and you know, I
think this thing just is going to have a life
of its own. And you just sit back and you
let it happen. You keep going on with people's shows,
you keep doing what you did here, you keep talking
about it, and you know, you just write it out
and see what happens. Man, Because you definitely have a
(59:15):
talent with the way you can consolidate profound ideas that
are consumable for people. And I just again, I'm really
proud to have you on my show.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
Adam, thank you, oh, thank you, thank you for having me.
There is such an amplification of violence, and we're gonna
have to face it as a culture. We're gonna have
to unify on this. We're gonna have to stand up
together collectively and say no more.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Does that mean we need to.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Have troops on the street everywhere, a policeman on every corner. No,
that's not what I'm calling for. But society is going
to have to take a shift. We're going to have
to take the deep look inside and address this rot
that's coming or that has manifested itself.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
The duality of man is a false dichotomy, at least
when it comes to violence with just cause. The armed
and trained are painted as itching for a fight. The
war fighter, especially the combat veteran, is cast as broken, danger,
and one spark away from disaster.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
This is the shallow comfort of a culture.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Addicted to easy labels calm or chaotic, peaceful or aggressive.
But the real world isn't that clean. In the crucible
of war, the street and the places where decisions shape
life and death, opposites live side by side. There is
calmness and violence. Peace grows in the discipline of preparing
(01:29):
for war. These are not contradictions, They are the deeper
truths known only to those who have walked both past
and return change. This book is not a celebration of violence.
It is a study of it. I am pretty moved
(01:56):
when I read the words that are in this book,
and that doesn't happen a lot for me. You know,
from reading the Book of Five Rings, to The Gates
of Fire, to all the other books that have been
written throughout history, you know, when you read something powerful
(02:19):
and profound. And that's why I really wanted to bring
Adam McLean, United States Marine Infantry Riflemen onto the David
Rutherford Show to be able to explain the importance of
this book When Violence Is Virtue, and why he wrote it,
(02:41):
and what he hopes the impact will be not only
on those of us who've gone to war, but on
those in the country and around the world who maybe
feel like they need to start preparing for the idea
that violence is virtue. So, without further Ado just honored
to welcome Adam McLain to the show.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Adam, thank you for joining me.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
No, no, thank you for for having me. The The
honor is uh is certainly mine. You know this this book,
it's something that I'm seeing how much it resonates and
(03:26):
that means a lot. You know this, Uh, this is
my first book, uh, you know, and a couple of
months ago, I was not an author. I was just me,
you know, like uh, and I'm still digesting that, and uh,
you know, going from you know, we make the jokes
of marines, you know, cran eaters, knuckle draggers, and oh
(03:49):
you were you were an O three eleven boy. You
were an aspab waiver for that too, weren't you?
Speaker 3 (03:54):
You know?
Speaker 1 (03:55):
And and now this book is has best seller attached
to it on Amazon. And this the comments I get
from people when as they're reading this, and it's it's
been many obviously, you know, it's I'm on.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
Twitter and I'm seeing it there.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
That's you know, when Clay Martin endorsed it, you know,
I wanted him to read it, and and I was
just like, hey, I want to send you a copy
because I want you to read it and I want
your comments. But that was a private message. I I
just wanted his opinion. And now here we are today
on uh and he helped, you know, blow this up.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
And I saw it, you know, Adam, I mean, I'm
I'm a I'm a huge fan of Clay, you know,
had him on the show to talk about veteran suicides
and psychedelics and yeah, you know, and he's a true
war fighter.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I mean, that guy's been there and done it.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
And when he promoted it, I was like, I've got
to get this and got to read it, and then
you know, instantaneously it was like, all right, I need
to understand you why you wrote it and what you
want the impact to be for sure?
Speaker 1 (05:13):
Yeah, and you know, you know, so I did two deployments.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
I did a MEW which was also funny.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Can you tell me first, though, tell everybody why you
wanted to bring marine in the first place, because I
think you know that's that's for all of us. It's
like this very intimate decision, in particular knowing that there's
a g WAT going on. It's not like it's pre nine,
you know, nineties or whatever. I mean, like there's a
(05:44):
war's happening. So can you explain that first before you.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yes, absolutely, absolutely so. I graduated high school in two
thousand and three. I didn't join until twenty eleven. Obviously,
that's quite a bit of a discrepancy in the timeframe
that the g WAT was occurring. You know, when I
graduated high school, i'd see marine recruiters. My best friend
and I. First thing we would do when we'd see
was we we'd grab hands and pretend, you know, because
(06:09):
at the time that was a little not quite acceptable
in the military and the country. It was a different world,
and you know, we had no interest in you know,
I had no interest in joining the military. But quite frankly, though,
I realize, you know, things you realize in retrospect, is
I didn't really have a lot of.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Drive in general.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
And why the Marine Corps probably helped that. My brother
was in the military. You know, he did thirteen years
in the Navy, and so that probably helped me be
a driving motivator. But I didn't want to enjoy it
before you Yeah, yeah, he went in after high school.
He graduated in ninety eight, so I think it was
(06:55):
about ninety nine years or so when he went in,
maybe a little later, but.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
You know, he was in the.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
Navy, and I didn't want to go in the Navy
because I didn't want to be on a ship, which
is I ran. My first deployment was on a ship,
and I spent more time out at sea than my
brother did in his entire thirteen year career. Another irony,
but you know, I didn't want to go in the
Air Force. I want Maybe it was those uniforms of
the Marine slaying the dragon and getting his dress blues.
(07:25):
You know that got a lot of us. But I
knew something had to change. And I graduated college because
my parents would go to college, you got to get
a degree. And I all halfway through college is like,
I want to drop out in a list, and they
were like, no, You're finishing college. And so I was like, okay,
all right, well we'll finish this. And then so I
graduated college. I'm living back in my parents' place, working
(07:48):
three jobs, one of which was the same one that
I had been working while in college. And I knew
something had to change. And at this point, I certainly,
you know, I had humped up like I was two
hundred and fifty some pounds, like I was a big guy.
Uh and and I just was like, I'm I'm I
(08:08):
need something has to change. I have to do something
drastically different. And so that was I think a big
catalyst for for joining the Marine Corps was everyone knows
that is a challenge.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Right, Like.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
We have movies made about how you know, crazy it
is to join the Marine Corps and how how that
lifestyle is just it's It was a complete opposite of
what I was doing.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
And I think.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
That's that's what was part of the drive was I'm
doing this, it's getting me nowhere.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Let's break the cycle.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
And so I lost forty pounds, i you know, and
I joined the Marine Corps, and I was like, I
want to be an three eleven. You know, I had
a degree, but I was thinking, if this career works out,
then I'll go Mustang. But I wanted to be in
the fight, like you know it was, and so that's
(09:12):
what I did. I remember going into the recruiter as
you know, two hundred and fifty pounds and tell him
I'm here for the job. And one of the recruiters
who was a sergeant, he was a he was a Morderman,
and he made my life hell until I left there,
and thank god he did because he helped.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
He pissed me off, and that drove me more.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
And I don't know if he understood that or if
he was trying to get me out of there because like,
you don't fit here.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
Either way, I made it through and.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
You know they kept you know, when I passed the ASPAB,
I got like a eighty forty seven something like that.
And my sergeant who was my recruiter, he was like,
you can have any job you want the Marine Corps
with this. I'm like, i want infantry. He reiterates, you
can have any job you want.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
In the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
And I'm like, no, this is what I want to do.
I'm not here. I'm not here just for a job.
I need this challenge. I needed it.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
I may not I've known it.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Quite fully then, but that's what it was.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I needed it.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
And then so obviously I go through all that. First
deployment ends up being the MEW, which was insane. I
was on the USS New York. The bow of that
ship was made from steal from the trade towers. Wow,
the whole ship is there's just so much pictures, photos
(10:42):
from nine to eleven. It's a memorial to those who
fell there, and so to serve on that was really cool.
And also I remember, you know, on nine to eleven,
twenty twelve, we all Benghazi on on on the news
(11:03):
on the ship after being stood down, uh from going
in there.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Wow, And that was that was quite.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Quite an experience that I think made me real bitter
for a long time.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
You and me both, brother.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Those were my friends who got killed, and that was
supposed to be my nest station with g RS. And
just watching that and knowing how many assets were in
the area and how many all the things they could
have done, it just it shatters you when you begin
to think, wait, there's it's not about like doing the
(11:38):
right thing right. It's because like you're when as you're
talking about going in and being an infantryment, like there's
the allure of that is is the historical legacy of
those guys who hit Iwo Jima. You know, those guys
at Bell Bell Bell Bellow always mess that up and yeah, yeah, yeah,
(11:59):
bellowood sorry, and you know, and and it's all the
way back to the Barbary Wars, right, you know, and.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
You know there's a there's a history.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Of that, that reality. And when you see the moments
where it doesn't play out as it should, you're like, wait.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
What wait, what's going on?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
So I can imagine you're on that mew you're watching it,
You're like, we're right here, what the hell?
Speaker 2 (12:25):
Oh no, we were we were stood down.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Uh Uh, we had marines already on the bird.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
I was.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
We had our gear stage on the New York on
there was this long hallway that all our our kid
was staged. We had our rifles, we were we had
magazines loaded which and we and I remember the look
of a marine I served with, just this bewilderness. His
face was just he didn't even know what's going on here,
(12:53):
like like we were on the bird and now we're
pulled off the bird when we were when we were
a heeler right away. So that's with me, and uh
that was that was a rough deployment.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
For a lot of reasons.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Uh muser mus are uh not fun. The next deployment
that was the real show, right that was Afghanistan. And
I was with one two Alpha Company as I was
with the MEW.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
And we uh we were.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
They had a space out of Camp Weatherneck during the
retrograde in twenty fourteen, which is kind of an interesting
period period of time because when no one really talks
about it. Uh, you know, we talked about uh, Fallujah,
we talked about you know, all these all these big
battles in the global war and terror role.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
We're just in O nine. The Marja Push.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
I mean that I was there with the Agency during
that and I remember there's a guy at Ground Branch
who was on my base who was a former lieutenant
colonel in the Core and his son was was, you know,
out doing over daylight patrols, you know, and they got
you know, they get hit with it IEDs and it
(14:14):
was you know, You're just like, wait, what is going on.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
It's two thousand and nine and the Roes they're not
We're not allowing.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Our guys that are out there supposed to pacify these
providences to do what they're supposed to fucking do. And
it's just like, I don't I didn't get it. I
didn't understand it. And so you know, tell us a
little bit about fourteen because I think those are the
years that are really lost on people.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
So I'd love to hear your perspective.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
So, first, we were supposed to be the last combat
units in Afghanistan when when we left Leatherneck that I
was supposed to be it, and we see how that went.
But the Roes man, you have me fired up on
that because we were afraid to do our We thought
(15:01):
if we take out you know, insurgents who are who
are coming at us, attacking us, that our command was
gonna fry us. Uh.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
That is.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Something that doesn't make you feel confident in doing what
you're doing. And eventually, though the job, it made me
very apathetic to life at that point. You know.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
I remember at one point, Uh, so we were on.
Speaker 3 (15:35):
Me.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
We were seeing from the base that you know, because
we're we're you know, we we have all these fortifications
along you it's basically just a big dirt wall, and
then you have post. Well, we're on post and we
see these guys way out in the distance they're digging holes.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
So what are we going to go do. We're gonna go.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Look, we're gonna go. And so a day or two later,
we go out on the m wrap. So we're checking
these holes out and uh, you know, the highest ranking
guy there as a corporal. Uh and uh we at
this point where we found where they're digging, we just
we don't even think about the fact, hey, maybe they
put something here, maybe they may booby trap this or
(16:17):
whatever it is. So we're all just kicking it up
and getting in there. And and just like I'm like, wait,
like we don't even care anymore.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
We're all just in this.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Gaggle right here. Who knows what it what it could
have been.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
And it turned out that they had a A and
a uniform stage there and I think a few other
miscellaneous things. So obviously they were trying to I guess
breach the perimeter and that was their their planning for it.
But that was an interesting experience. And but we did
(16:49):
that was later in the deployment. You know, you know,
while we were there the whole time, we see the
base just shrinking, shrinking, right, they kept the outer perimeter,
but all the stuff, like you know, there's a million
d facts that you know, we never got to go
to be because we were working. But uh, you know,
all the stuff started being compressed, and there was this
(17:09):
great fast difference of desert between where our posts were,
uh and where the base actually resided on Camp Weathernecks.
Camp Weatherneck was part of Also there was a British
Air Base Bashion and then there was uh the A.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
N A side. Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
I forget what their their name with the base was
for for them, but it's but it's all together.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
On our side was just compressing, compressing.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
But we we did two Alpha company, Uh, we did
two pushes big pushes out into.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
An area called Natalie where we knew.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
That they the Taliban had been uh stashing weapons uh
and we as part of us getting ready to leave
and hand it over the base, We're like, well we
need to go take this out uh and before that
gets used on the A n A when we when
we leave.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
So it's kind of uh.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
And so so the whole plan of combat operation at
this point was like, how do we help with the
transition and this?
Speaker 2 (18:12):
Those two.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Combat operations that were out for uh for for most
several days at a time.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
UH, those two.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Ended up being interesting because well, they started firing all
their cashes at US. UH.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
You know they they had a lot of RPGs. Yeah,
a lot, like it was uh.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
And and one of the interesting ro os we had
was whenever they would start shooting uh RPGs at US,
we would stop our m wraps. I don't know about you,
but I think a moving target is a harder target
to hit than the one.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
But I was not uh.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
I mean, I was a lance corporal. I got promoted
into corporal at some point during that deployment. I don't
remember the time frames. This athlete gets blurred. It's been
a decade. Uh but it was that was wild, you know.
And another interesting thing I remember, you know, we we
had put seawire down on their roads. Their roads, it's
(19:10):
just a dirt path and then you could go around
them be it very easily. It is kind of silly,
but I remember just you know, getting up in the
morning and uh, me and three other marines were tasked
to go pick it up, and we ended up using
my if we had got attacked, you know, I mean
one of the two most dangerous times down in dusk, right,
So we're out there a DoD picking up seawire, me
(19:31):
with two other marines, and we're using my sixteen to
hold the sea wire like a buddy's holding the barrel
and I'm holding the butt stock. So if we got engaged,
I can't fight the enemy. Uh well they didn't, you know,
our leadership didn't go they said go get this. I'm like,
there's no hey, take a shovel or something. It was
just go go do this. And so that was kind
(19:52):
of a more comical story. And but all those things
turned into like between the restrictive roe s, between just
the ridiculousness of the scenario that we were put forth
there It kind of just really changed me and made
me very apathetic for a while. Like I remember being
asked if I was extending to go on, Oh, it's
(20:13):
another thing part of the halfway through the point they
start telling us about the next deployment and like we're like, guys,
you already killing arm around here. So I got out,
like I left active duty, and then I did come back.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
In twenty seventeen into the reserves.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I had a prior service recruiter call me and he's like, Hey,
did you know you can go play marine and get
paid and you can quit whenever you want. Wait, I
have master mastery over my career with you.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Now.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Why didn't you guys tell me this years ago?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
And so I spent about a year in the reserves,
and ultimately that kind of came to an end. Though
I was in Michigan doing Operation Northern Strike. We were
setting up fighting holes to just do the t any where.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
We were gonna have ranges and get you know.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Attack whatever, and just shoot out at the targets they
put we'd put up. Uh So my team, my two guys,
they they dig their skirmishers. Now it's my turn to
dig my skirmisher, right, client, clank with etol to the right, clank,
clank to the left, clank forward.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Pull it up? What do I pull up? Well? I
pull out this what I think was a rock.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I live in New Hampshire, right like, and so I
just think big granted rock in the ground.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Well I pull it out.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It was a live arty round. No, I'm holding a
live lady round. They had EOD came out. Uh. They
used a couple of pounds of C four to blow
it up. They told me it was live, and then
I should buy a lotto ticket.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
And my girlfriend who's now my wife, she was like, dude,
you got to make a decision. You almost not only
like if that would have blown up right for me
taking it, it would have just been me, It would
have been my entire platoon.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
That would have been national news.
Speaker 3 (21:55):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
Can you imagine what would happen if a platoon of
marine got taken out in training in Michigan.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
By a live already round? No?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, And so so after that, I was like, okay, guys, like,
it's one thing if if if this were to happen
in war, and you know what, I was only here
to have fun, hang out with the boys training next
generation for a little bit. I'm just going to hand
off my thools which which was like a just a
manual military manual which was hard to get and good
(22:30):
knowledge in there. I just handed that off to one
of my marines who was under me, who I thought
could showed potential to be a leader. Uh, And I
called her today and that wrapped up my military career.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
So I realized.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
There are many choices when it comes to who you
choose for your cell phone service, and there are new
ones popping up all over the place all of the time.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
But here's the deal.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
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every American that believes.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
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Speaker 2 (23:28):
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Speaker 2 (24:32):
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Speaker 3 (24:36):
What I find interesting is that, you know, I felt
a very similar thing in the beginning of the war,
because I was in Afghanistan in the summer vote too
and felt, you know, apoplectic about the decisions that seemed to.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Not being that weren't being made in.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Terms of a tactical focus or mission or you know
I mean. And later on I end up finding out
that you Pakistan was flying senior level members of al
Qaeda out after Tora, Bora, and Talban just all went
into Aqueta where mul Omar was, his whole tribe was.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
And it's like, you know, I was like, oh my god.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
And then you know, the subsequent times I went back,
ending with you know, my last trip over there in
twenty ten, I was there, a couple of deployments with
the agency.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
It's almost like nothing to change. And then what you're
telling telling.
Speaker 3 (25:28):
Me right now, you know, on the way out, a
very similar sensation was taking place. Now, I do have friends,
you know, at Tier one units that you know that
they were getting.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
The job done.
Speaker 3 (25:40):
But for the rest of us, you know, I think
other than some very strategic times, there was this kind
of hidden hurdle, hidden hurdles for those of us that
were trying to do our due right where to find
(26:01):
that virtuousness and violence and.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
And and it just wasn't.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
The opportunities seemed to be thwarted at every step. And
and and you know, did you realize that a knit
like when it was happening in it or did it
really set in later on? Uh?
Speaker 1 (26:21):
I think it was there, you know, it was, it
was there. I may not have fully known it at
the time, but I felt it and you could see it.
You know, when you're when you're nervous about doing your
job and engaging the enemy because that might get you
thrown in jail. That that blows your mind right, like
it's it's like, well, what are we even here for?
(26:42):
If you know, you tell me, I'm you know, you
hand me this gun, you tell me that there's bad
guys over there, and I go over there where.
Speaker 2 (26:48):
There's bad guys.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
And oh, by the way, uh, you know, if you
take out the bad guys and we don't like the
way you.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Did it, uh, you're not going worth forever. Yeah. Yeah,
So it was.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
It was wild and you know, I remember when we're
out there, we had we had uh we knew there
was a motorcycle. We didn't tell there was a motorcycle,
a five hundred pounds v bid uh and well and
behold as we're u uh you know, we're.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Out there and uh in in Watkins Glenn was the
name of the operation.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
When we're uh, when we're out in Nautai, we uh,
you know, we had this riot happen where all these
women and children were throwing rocks at our m wraps
and uh uh surrounding our vehicles and doing this and banging.
And by the way those kids could throw You want
to make peace over there, you teach them baseball because
our ours.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
You look at the.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
Glass and you thought maybe they were shot with a
k fire or something, but no, those kids would throw
rocks and they would shatter.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Those bulletproof windows like it was insane.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Our first trip over there, we were in desert patrol
vehicles and it was so bad the kids whipping rocks
at us that I had to rig up a pistol
on my drive shaft and point my gun at kids
who were picking up brocks because we thought we were
gonna get like really hurt man.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
But yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
But to finish this story, I remember, I'm up in
the turn of our m RAP and the motorcycle and
we're all in a line, like all our vehicles are
in a line, we're rolling. This motorcycle just comes up
and cruises next to all of us. I'm like in
the middle of the vehicles, like there was four or
five vehicles behind me, there was another four or five
in front of me. Does anyone take the shot on
the motorcycle that was ten feet away from us? Nope,
(28:27):
that could have been the one that could have blown
us all up. No, no one took a shot, not
a damn soul took the shot. And we all knew
there was a motorcycle that could have blown us up
and if all he had to do was just swinging
to us, if that was the one. So that was
just something I remember. Now, did we take the fight
(28:48):
to the enemy, Yes, it did happen, But was the
fighting as did? Were we on a leash? Did we
feel on a leash the whole time? Yes, yes, yes
we did so. So it was interesting to say the
least with that.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
But let me ask you this, Adam.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
As you you know, you go in, you want to
serve at the highest level. You want to serve in
the infantry, as a rifleman in the Marine Corps. And
you know all you got to do is look at
history to prove that that is the most significant sense of.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
Service there is throughout our history as a nation. Right,
And so you do it. You do it.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
You do multiple cruises, right, one combat deployment, and you
go back in and then you get out. What was
your temperament like in the middle from when you got
out to when you wrote this this this book, Because
something happened, and something happened so profoundly that you were
(29:56):
able to I don't know if it's looking past the
experience of being leashed or whatever, but because the book
itself is an absolute predicate for young men in particular
to feel the honor of what it would like, what
(30:18):
it would feel like to serve, and the responsibilities that
come with carrying. You know that that mantle, right, the
mantle of being able to be violent, to wage war,
and the profound impact it has on on on your psyche,
on your on your honor, on your nobility. So to
(30:40):
try and explain to me and to the audience, you
know what took place in there for you to say,
you know what, even in the midst of all that, Man,
I'm going to write this thing, this this I don't
want to call it a manifesto because it has such
negative undertones to it, but it's it's there. I know,
there's there's a particular world for these types of this
(31:04):
type of literature, like it's uh, you know, it's it's
these pieces, these seminal pieces of wisdom that seemed to
uh implant in people.
Speaker 2 (31:14):
In a in a deeper way.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
You know, it's something changed for sure. You know, it's
a decade of life happened. The world's changed, uh so much,
our country has changed so much. And in a way,
it kind of started as I saw someone online they
(31:40):
they they were talking about how you know, violence is
never the answer, and I'm like, wait, you know, I
see this all the time.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I see people say this.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
You know, whether it's people going, oh, well, guns are bad,
I mean, like, well, they're a tool, they're a tool
of violence. But we've been killing each other very efficiently
since the dawn time when when you know, when Grog
discovered the rock, well he figured out that that could
be a murder weapon. So so it's not that like, yeah,
sure our weapons have gotten more efficient, but something changed.
(32:12):
And the reality is is you have to meet I
knew that we had to meet violence with Bounce, and
so it started off as just kind of like a
response and me getting my thoughts together, but there was
I think what the big change was is I've changed
a lot over the last ten years, and because you
have to, I had to change, because you know, when
(32:33):
I got out of the military, I still I went
I feel like I kind of regressed a lot in
my life where I was I was a waiting tables again,
which is what I did before I enlisted, and this
is I was like, something's got to change. And so
(32:54):
I you know, I was like, hey, I got this gibo,
go back to school. Uh, And I got it. But
where it got in port was all these things started
building building building, right like ah, this this new life
just started coming and with that came responsibilities. And what
I think finally changed my life, which was kind of
(33:16):
just the completion of experiences, was you know, having my family,
my wife and my daughter who are who are dependent
on me.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Uh And so that made me go from hey.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Uh my my career isn't just spending money right Like,
it's it's not that, it's it's I.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Have people who rely on me and I can't I
cannot fail them.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
I'm I'm the I'm I'm the only one responsible for
for making sure they're taken care of. And that I
realize is just in the just seeing the tone of
society where they're like, oh, you know basically where they
want people want peace at any costs. Well, there's a
price to pay for peace for safety. And that's kind
(34:08):
of where this this comes from, is is it's just
the I guess the bit of growing up that had
to be done.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
Uh. And so this that's that's where a lot of
this comes.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
And it's that core of just sometimes you you have
to fight to have what you're going to have to
protect what you have, and sometimes fighting is the right
thing to do.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
I love that you decided to fight with with you
know your pros too, and what that can cadure.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
And in the human mind, can you can you.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
Talk up a little bit about how the book evolved
in your head, what your process was like and why
you you know why You're like, all right, I'm going to.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Start this, do this and put it out there. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
So well it's it literally started again as just I
started typing up a response to to what we had
talked about of just this. Oh, we just have to
have piece piece piece. So and then I'm like, wait,
I just had more ideas kept coming.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
And what I did was.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
All these things started coming to quote started coming to me.
And in my professional career, I live in Excel, uh,
and so I pulled up Excel on my computer and
I did I just started putting it in my thoughts.
Those thoughts became chapters and I would uh, you know,
(35:34):
I'd write them up, uh, and then I could move
things around.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
And figure out.
Speaker 1 (35:41):
What what what I what I needed to where where
they needed to be for all the flow and to
all make sense. After that, I spent a lot of
time fighting with formatting, and then the cover design was
Actually it probably took me just as long to get
the cover as the book itself. But yeah, I mean
(36:04):
that's that's really. It was a simple process.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
It just.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
The writing itself was just pulling my ideas together and
just putting all these things together. And quite frankly, I
keep saying this is I don't the motivation was something bigger,
like I In some ways, I'm like, did this even
come from me?
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah? You know it's because.
Speaker 1 (36:28):
Some of the things I'm like, wait I said that
I did that? Or did I? I think you can
kind of get where I'm going with with that is
just something bigger comes to us. And the timing couldn't
be more perfect. When I when I first saw all
the things going on that's been happening the last couple
of months since I wrote this, I was like, was
(36:49):
this the wrong?
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Was Oh my god? I just made this book called
When Violence.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
Is a virtue and there's just all this insanity happening.
We got people getting assassinated and stabbed on buses and whatnot.
Speaker 2 (36:58):
But it turned out well.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
I think, well I had that initial fear. It kind
of subsided because I'm like, wait, no, the way we
have to fight that is the point.
Speaker 2 (37:07):
Of this book.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
You know, that's it may take a heavy toll, but
when we're we're we're going to fight. Now, these these
are words that are going to help us.
Speaker 3 (37:22):
Oh I I completely agree because the way you you know,
I mean obviously each one of these these you know,
the chapters that you have in here and what you address.
You know, there's there's an infinite number of ways to
project the depths of of of kind of the underlying
(37:43):
meanings behind these in terms of you know, I love
how Part one is mindset and principles and so you know,
I I if it's all right, I just want to
go through a couple of the chapters that really jumped
out for me, and what what your intention so people
can get a better understanding of what you're meaning. And
(38:05):
so for me, the first one that really popped was
chapter five, The Warrior Ethos, Code of the Calm and dangerous,
and you start out with this great Sun Sou quote,
the general who wins and wins a battle makes many
calculations in his temple before the battle is even fought.
(38:27):
And you have these core principles of the warrior ethos, courage, discipline, resilience, commitment, selflessness,
never accept defeat, never quit, loyalty, honor, and mission. First,
can you talk a little bit about that ethos and
why is it important for people to contemplate that when
they think about violence.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
So these are kind of takeaways I took from Stephen
Presfield's book The Warrior Ethos. I don't know if you're
familiar with it all.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
It it was a powerful book that I remember. I
have two copies of it, and I first read it
when I was in s o I School of Infantry,
and it was powerful. And these were my takeaways from it.
And uh, you know, I could have done, you know,
(39:25):
gone with like an acronym of the JJ, did tye buckle?
You know? But this, this I felt was just let's
not revisit that. Let's you know, anyone can go find
military acronyms and roll their eyes at them for days.
But these are principles that I took away from that
book and that we have to understand. And I start
(39:49):
with courage. Why, as I talk about elsewhere in the book,
courage is not an absence of fear. Bravery is not
an absence of fear. It's pushing through it because we
have to. And that which feeds into the discipline is
I have to have the discipline to fight through things
(40:10):
I'm scared of, and that all of these things. This
is not just for combat, this is for life.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
Right Like.
Speaker 1 (40:22):
Big job interview. You're gonna be scared of that, right,
like nervous going into it. That can change your life,
right or uh, just however else you can apply that
next stages in your life.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Maybe you're having a kid, that's scary.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
I mean, uh, you know when when my wife was pregnant,
that was that was life changing. I'm like, how am
I gonna afford this? Give her space? You know, how
am I gonna do this?
Speaker 2 (40:50):
And you have to do it? You just do it.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
I mean it's it's courage is just doing because you
have because no one else can but you.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
You're your only advocate, right Like.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
That that was that was kind of where we go
with this, And there's other things we talk about in
here is they all flow together. Everything here flows together,
like like everything right, like the selflessness, right, you have
to do stuff for for your family, right, Like it's
it's uh, you have to have that selflessness to take
(41:25):
care of them. And it's kind of a growing experience
there when you when you're rolling into that that that
you have to have. And and if you pull the
principles like that together, this will help you anything you
know in your your entire nation.
Speaker 2 (41:44):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
And I think, yeah, I think what what I got,
what I extrapolated from that is that if you have
a framework, a framework of of your virtue, right, it
gives you a barriers or or a left.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
And right flank to operate it.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
And and I think that ethos is a great place
to start and is applicable in other aspects of your life.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
You talked about fear and fear.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
I've spent a tremendous amount of time in what I
teach out there. I teach a seminar call Embracing Fear.
And I love the way you address it in in
chapter seven right bravery in the face of fear and
acting through uncertainty And you know you're right Bravery isn't
(42:31):
about feeling fearless. It's about acting through fear. Fear is
managed through knowledge of self and the enemy and of purpose.
Can you expound on that a little bit.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
Absolutely, life's uncertain and we both know that in the
most literal sense. You know what, you make these great
plans before you go out into combat, right you know,
(43:05):
we we have these five paragraph orders, We have this
great detailed plan. Well, the enemy gets to decide, they
get to help decide how that's going to play out.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
And so.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Once that combat begins, the things change, right Like, you
have to have that be fluid.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
And again that is is way more.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Applicabal than just the you know, the battlefield. But we
have to have that flexibility and we have to stand strong,
you know, in that face of adversity, because you know,
failure in the battlefield means death, right like if it's
(43:49):
it's that life or death game. And so that's where
if you have to have that bravy bravery, you have
to have the to push through the fear and to
make the hard decisions when it matters most. And and
I've kind of grown into that more. I mean I
(44:12):
was not a leader, uh you know in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
I was.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
I did get promoted to corporal, but I didn't have
a team at the time, and so this was this
was things that I realized from just the time, you know, afterwards,
like so so much of these this book is.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Not just me, right, like.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
I'm certainly I would never try to say that, you know,
I'm a Smedley.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
Butler or you know, a Dan Daily.
Speaker 1 (44:43):
Uh, you know, I'm I don't put myself in that
kind of warrior class, you know, or or on that
pantheon of but I learned from good leaders, I learned
from bad leaders. I learned especially from bad leaders. And
that's where where so much of this comes from is
(45:05):
seeing that this is an ideal, right like this, this
is uh building a philosophy that's shape that's I think
shaped my life. But it had to be written out
and does does that?
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Oh it makes complete sense? And and that's what I
want to get to.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
On this other aspect we've talked, you'd said you really
were kind of inspired by kind of the malaise which
had really permeated into our society, which now has.
Speaker 2 (45:42):
Led to you know, open and.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
Growing violence in the civilian in civilian settings, whether it's
you know, uh, carjackings or homicide rates, or its political assassinations,
or it's people being jumped on the streets. You know,
I think you know this. The chapter that really hit
(46:07):
me with that was chapter nine, False Peace, The Danger
of Passivity. And you know you say, false peace is
surrender dressed in virtue.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
It is the refusal to confront evil.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Appeasement isn't peace, it's surrender in slow motion. And that
I think was beautifully put. That was really powerful. Chamberlain's
handshake with Hitler didn't prevent war and ensured it. So
can you just give people a reference of from a
civilian perspective of what how passivity can be.
Speaker 2 (46:45):
Reversed with this sense of virtue?
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Yeah, you know, the we sit here as society is
coming to some very rough times.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
And when you hear people.
Speaker 1 (47:12):
Talk comparing our country to falling into a situation where
they compare it to the troubles in Ireland, you know
in the from the seventies, eighties and nineties, that is
something we have to address. We can't let it come
(47:33):
to that, but it seems it is, and we're gonna
have to fight it, right like, we cannot allow this
to keep going where we've had multiple assassination attempts on
our president. Whether you like him or not, that doesn't
give you carte blanche to try to murder him.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
We've had.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
We we have conservative thought leaders.
Speaker 3 (48:03):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
You know what happened with Charlie Kirk Like this is
there is such an amplification of violence and we're gonna
have to face it as a culture. We're gonna have
to unify on this. We're gonna have to stand up
together collectively and say no more.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Does that mean we need to have.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Troops, you know, on the street everywhere, a policeman on
every corner.
Speaker 2 (48:31):
No, that's not what I'm calling for.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
But society is gonna have to take a shift. We're
going to have to take the deep look inside, uh
and see and address this rot that's that's coming or
that has manifested itself.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Do I have the answer for how to fix that? Brother?
I wish I did. Well.
Speaker 3 (48:55):
I think it's pretty straightforward, and you you you reference
it several other times in the book itself and throughout
history as as you know the famous saying, you know,
hard times create hard men, you know, which create easy times,
which create weak men, which create hard times.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
You know, I think we've we've come into that.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
I think there's also a level of propaganda and manipulation
of young people's minds, much like the Bolshevik Revolution or
you know, the the you know, Nationalist Socialist Party or
whatever you want to go throughout history, that people are like, you.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Know what we're we're we're going to.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
Fight back what we interpret to be the oppression, and
we're going to you know, because it's not lots of
people that lead these revolts or create civil war, it's
it's a few thousand, it's you know, three four thousand people.
And with twenty five million people that we let in
the country in the last four years, you know, I
just had an interview with with Sarah Adams who believes
(49:58):
there's hundreds, if not thousands, of you know, classically trained terrorists.
You know, you could have narco terrorism, you could have
Chinese terrorism, which is I mean already taking place with fentanyl,
you know, and now you've put these maligned district attorneys
in who allow people to go free fourteen times at
(50:21):
end up stabbing young girls on buses.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Like at some point.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
There has to be an evelevation of violence against those
willing to commit violence on the quiet you know, few
the reluctant heroes, if you will.
Speaker 2 (50:37):
And you know the thing that really I think the the.
Speaker 3 (50:44):
There's a restraint I think from our side, not particularly
from our g WAT guys. I think GACK guys have
been vividly identifying this for the past six years, I
mean seven years probably and saying this is building, this
is going to get out of control. You know, you
guys are going to be victims. Were not because we're prepared,
We're paying attention. But there's this this.
Speaker 2 (51:09):
What is it? This malignant.
Speaker 3 (51:16):
Societal malignant that has you know, taken place that has
to be caught.
Speaker 2 (51:21):
Out, and it requires violence.
Speaker 3 (51:23):
But there's also a component of this that I love
that you wrote about in chapter thirteen, and you said
it's called the compassionate warrior, strength and mercy, right, uh,
And the strongest men I've noticed with the quote you
start out, the strongest men I've known could break bones
with their hands and yet would wipe a child's tears
(51:46):
with the same fingers. Can you describe a little bit
about that chapter? And you know, power withheld is power mastered?
Can you can you talk about that and what it
will require?
Speaker 1 (52:01):
It requires so let's start with what it requires. Restraint
is something that I think when it comes to this,
the life or death restraint, it's something very few have experienced, right,
Like I remember once in Afghanistan.
Speaker 2 (52:24):
We were dealing with teenagers.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
Well, I mean the youngest was probably about twelve or so,
and I want, that's fighting age males, right like, people
don't understand that, and the rest of the world. I
mean you, I mean, you're you're a fighting age male
if you know once you can hold that rifle.
Speaker 2 (52:49):
Car jackings.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Carjackings in Philadelphia went up seventeen. The average age of
the carjacker was thirteen to fifteen.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
It's yeah, but until you have.
Speaker 1 (53:02):
Experienced aiming a rifle at what we would call a kid,
a middle schooler, a high school kid, it's hard to explain.
But when if you have taken your safety selector and
put it on fire and you're aiming you're m sixteen
at a kid that is no older than than my stepdaughter.
(53:26):
That took a while to reconcile. And that's what I
think this covers, right, Like, think the Lord, I never
had to do that. I was able to put my
rifle back on safe. We de escalated the situation, but
(53:48):
that still leaves a lasting memory on a man. It
doesn't go away that that's a traumatic experience of its own.
And so you have to know, look at the situation
and go whatever is this situation worth killing someone over. Luckily,
(54:10):
I was like, you know what, the piece of scrap
metal they stole from our base, that's part of our perimeter.
They're already, it's not hurting anything. We're out of here
in a couple of weeks. Anyways, I don't care. Just
just let them have their scrap metal, because that's what
it was over. But they were throwing rocks at us
and attacking us, trying to.
Speaker 2 (54:27):
Just get away with a piece of scrap metal.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
So you know what, timmy taliban have it.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
But that sort of restraint is.
Speaker 1 (54:39):
Something you have to know because I think it's easier
to get it once you've had a kid. You know, it's, hey,
does my kid need harsh discipline here?
Speaker 2 (54:52):
Or do they need a hug?
Speaker 1 (54:54):
And just to be calmed down and told what the matter?
Speaker 2 (54:57):
What the problem is?
Speaker 1 (54:59):
So Chapter thirteen is parenting book parenting chapters.
Speaker 3 (55:03):
I love it, I love it all right, last one
to wrap it up, and then let's close it out
is chapter fourteen legacy What do Warriors leave behind? And
I love this part. The warrior doesn't fight for medals,
He fights for those who will come after. A warrior's
true victory is not in killing, but in what survives him, character,
(55:28):
family values. The greatest gift the warrior leaves is the
strength of those who follow.
Speaker 2 (55:35):
Talk a little bit about that legacy is.
Speaker 1 (55:41):
It's what matters. What are we leaving behind? What do
we fight for? You know everyone says they want it
better tomorrow? Well, how are you making it happen? What
have you done? Like? What are you going to be
remembered for? Those are things that we have to reconcile
with ourselves, right like we what did what do we
(56:05):
fight for?
Speaker 2 (56:06):
You know?
Speaker 1 (56:06):
When we were in the military serving our country, that
maybe something the history books will talk about forever as
for what the politics was, But at the end of
the day, we I think we ended up fighting for
those who stood beside us.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
Amen.
Speaker 1 (56:24):
And more importantly, when when, when when I die, what
is my daughter going to remember me for? What did
I do for her? Because that's what matters. So the
big crux of why I wrote this book, that's it
(56:46):
right there.
Speaker 2 (56:47):
The legacy. Well, Adam, I think you have done that
and then some.
Speaker 3 (56:57):
I'm excited to see how this book is going to
continue to filter across not only uh G WATT veterans
and active duty members and the Marine Corps and the
teams and the Army and uh Air Force and every
every in my opinion, every every active duty guy should
read this book. It should be a part of their
(57:18):
their mandatory reading list. And and for those that have served,
I highly recommend it. I read it this week. It
was phenomenal. Every single thing is well written and it's
to the point. And I just commend you, Adam at
at at you know, deciding to uh hear that, listen
to that muse in your heart. Uh, and for putting
(57:41):
this out. I really appreciate you. Coming on, where can
people find the book and how can they follow you?
Speaker 2 (57:47):
And what do you got next coming up? Uh? Yeah,
so what's next? Great question? Uh, I'll know when I
get there. This is a whole new, whole new world
for me.
Speaker 1 (57:59):
But the book can be found on it's exclusively on
Amazon right now. Uh. You know, this was an indeed publication,
right like I don't have you know, a big publisher.
But behind this, could that change? I would love to
see it change. I would love to see this get
distributed wider and broader. But right now you can get
(58:20):
it on Amazon, available as a paperback or available as
a kindle read. And so I hope people go out there.
I am on Twitter as a bank switch. Five thousand
is my is my at, So I am there. You
(58:41):
can find me there. I should probably get a website going, right,
Maybe maybe this is I'd be.
Speaker 3 (58:45):
Good if you start deciding to put these out on
a regular basis.
Speaker 2 (58:49):
But there, you know, there's no right or wrong way
to do this.
Speaker 3 (58:53):
Man.
Speaker 2 (58:53):
I've been in the game a long time.
Speaker 3 (58:55):
I've written a bunch of books, and you know, I
think this thing just is going to have a life
of its own. And you just sit back and you
let it happen. You keep going on with people's shows,
you keep doing what you did here, you keep talking
about it, and you know, you just write it out
and see what happens. Man, Because you definitely have a
(59:15):
talent with the way you can consolidate profound ideas that
are consumable for people. And I just again, I'm really
proud to have you on my show.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
Adam, thank you, oh, thank you, thank you for having me.
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