443: Spiritual Warfare On The Battlefield. "Fight The Good Fight"

This is Jocko, podcast number 443 with Echo Charles and me, Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo.

Good evening.

There are bodies of Communist soldiers on the roads. Bodies flattened by tanks. Bodies without heads or arms or legs. Bodies beginning to decay with the warm spring sun. I have actually had the experience of being forced to drive my jeep over these bodies. And as we pressed forward in the attack, there was not time to even remove them from the road.

Then there are the bloated carcasses of the Chinese pack animals, adding to the awful stench.

Then there are the wounded. And sometimes they seem worse than the dead because of the awful suffering many have to endure for days. We kept running upon scores of our own American GIs who had been left wounded on the hills by their buddies. When they had to retreat so fast, they were taken prisoner by the Chinese. But because they had no medical facilities or very inadequate ones, nothing was done for them. And when in the turn, when they in turn retreated, these men were left lying again on the hills. When our infantry men brought them into our aid stations, the smell of their bodies was almost unbearable, and they knew it.

Every wound was filled with maggots.

It takes a strong stomach to stand near and try and say something comforting while an arm, perhaps hanging by a few shreds of flesh for days, is cut off by a doctor trying so hard to be tender. And incidentally, one doesn't have to tell those men that God answers prayers. They told me it was in very vivid terms, too.

And then, perhaps the most pathetic of all sites we see are the little children, hordes of them, wandering through the streets of a battered town where the battle has just ended. One will see a little girl so dirty and emaciated that it would be difficult to tell how old she is. She might be seven or 17.

Perhaps. She squints one eye, for her other eye has been blinded by shrapnel. Her hair is matted with caked blood and mud. Her only garment is a white dress so filthy could never be really white again. And strapped to her back will be an infant not more than a year old. The child's head hangs backward in an unnatural way, and his eyes are open, yet he doesn't see.

He is dead, the victim of starvation.

Perhaps this sounds overdrawn, but it isn't.

Just yesterday I spent the day trying to help out in a house where some of our infantrymen had found nearly 150 children, with a brave man and two women trying to take care of them. At least a third of them were victims of acute malnutrition. And one has to see their tiny bodies, shrunken so that they look like just a tight skin stretched over a skeleton, and has to look into their little eyes and see the glassy stare and then hear the faint whimpers that seem to come from their very souls in order to realize how utterly horrible, horrible war can be.

Oh, how this poor, stricken, desolate land needs prayer.

And ho. How the world needs prayer.

And that was a letter written from the front lines of Korea to the National Missions Committee to inform them of what was happening in the war. And the letter was written by Dr. Robert G. Rayburn, an army chaplain serving on the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team, the Rakasans, which comes from the word Japanese word, falling umbrellas. They were the first soldiers to parachute into onto Japanese soil in World War II. They're part of the 101st Airborne Division, the Screaming Eagles, who we actually had the honor of serving with in the Battle of Ramadi. The first, the 506th, red curry. And Chaplain Rayburn had also served In World War II as a chaplain, where he also saw combat. But.

Additionally, he wrote a book, and the book is called Fight the Good Fight. And the book centers around his experiences in the Korean War. He talks a little bit about World War II, but the lesson that he learned there, and many of the lessons that he learned are comparisons between combat on the battlefield and, of course, because he was a chaplain, Spiritual warfare.

Turns out to be a very interesting lesson, a very interesting read, and also a lot of very interesting lessons to learn. So let's get to this book by Chaplain Dr. Robert G. Rayburn. Here we go.

It will not be difficult for the reader to imagine the surprise and the shock I received when, in the midst of a busy and happy pastorate at the college church on the edge of Wheaton College campus in Wheaton, Illinois, I suddenly received a summons to report for a physical examination, preliminary orders recalling me to active duty in the Army. So this guy was in World War II, gets done with World War II, comes back, he's now a normal chaplain out there in the world. He's got his little pastorate by Wheaton College, living a happy life. He's married, got kids. He's just carrying on with his life. But do you know when you join the military, you sign up, let's say you sign up for four years, and then they usually will hook you into, like, two more years of something called reserve duty, which, you know, when you go two weekends or one weekend a month and two weeks in the summertime. And then they have something else. It's in the fine print. It's called inactive reserve, meaning you're not gonna do anything, but you're still part of the military and if we need you, we're gonna call you up.

So is it kind of like tears where. I guess, for lack of better term, tears, where it's like, okay, you're just active duty, then you're active duty.

Yep.

And then reserves is if we need you, and then inactive reserves is if we really need you kind of a thing.

You nailed it. Yeah, but pretty much when you're on inactive reserve, it's almost unheard of that the call comes super low. Especially after you just got done with a massive world war where you kind of sorted out the problems of the world everyone fought. Right. So you're probably signing that thing. Y' all stay in the inactive reserve. Cool. Hey, there's some little benefit maybe helps you, the va. I don't know what the benefits are.

Yeah.

Reserve. No, you no pay. Just like what we're doing for. Yeah, but reserve is reserve. You get paid. Yeah, Inactive reserve. We just got you. We just got your number, basically. Yeah, like if we need you, we'll call you.

All right.

Yeah. So he gets this letter, this summons, and he goes into Chicago and he goes to see the. The army chaplain from the 5th Army. So this is like the high ranking guy. And the chaplain tells him, you can just forget about being recalled chaplain. Unless the situation gets much worse. We are going to take care of this emergency with those chaplains who volunteer to return to turn return to active duty. And with those who are already on active duty status, you don't need to worry. So he goes in, he gets the summons. He goes in and the dude's like, hey, don't worry about it, bro. Like we get it. You're someone, we just want to know where you're at. But don't worry about it. You're not going to get recalled then. He gives a little background here. I'd served as a chaplain of World War II and had the com and had had combat experience with field artillery in the European theater of war. I was in France when my first baby girl was born in far off Seattle, Washington. I'd known something of the heartaches and trials of war. Not only had I seen it on the battlefield, but also from the separations and loneliness I personally endured. So look, man, he's done with this military stuff, but he did stay in the reserves. He kind of talks about how he wasn't really sure. He kind of had the notion in the back of his mind, like, look, I'll stay in the reserves. I'll stay in the inactive reserves if they need me that bad. All right, I get it.

I had been assured that inactive reservists would be the very last to be called in the event of an emergency, that all the active reservists and the National Guard would go first. So you forgot about you got the reservists and then you got the National Guard, and now you're down to the enact reserves. So he thinks he's going to be good to go.

But he does get activated.

When the first summons came and I faced the necessity of leaving my family, my friends, and the work that I love, by the way, I'm only reading little highlights of this book. I'm obviously not reading the whole thing. There's a lot more detail in it. When I first. When the first summons came and I faced the necessity of leaving my family, my friends, and the work that I loved and in which the Lord had so wonderfully blessed me, a feeling of resentment rose within me. This was not fair. Had I not done my duty for the country in the last war? Weren't there others who had not already sacrificed years with their families who could step in and meet this present need? So ran my thoughts. But then the Holy Spirit himself began to speak sharply and plainly to me. I had preached to young people that when they turned their lives over to the Lord, he made no errors in what he did with them. His ways were perfect. And even though they should be called upon to face more difficult things which were not of their own choosing, he would, according to his own promise, work everything together.

Had I preached to others something I was not willing to believe firmly for myself? So he's been telling people, look, man, the Lord will take care of you. So when the Lord brings something to you, don't worry about it. The Lord's got a plan for you. And now all of a sudden he's like, hey, the Lord plan showed up and I'm not down. He starts questioning it.

So he has to make some adjustments in his mind. It's one of those things you realize you're not following your own word.

Or in his case, he realizes not following the word.

So he goes he garage of that. He's going to move forward with it. He gets his physical exam, no factor. He's concerned about his family now, even though he got recalled. So he's like, yep, you're coming back to active duty. But you remember, remember when General Mukuyama got recalled back to active duty for the Gulf War, and he didn't go to Iraq or to the Middle east, he stayed here and backfilled some training commands and took over training. So he kind of gets. Rayburn here gets the same reassurance. He says, again, the chaplain was most reassuring. No chaplain, he said to me, you don't need to worry about going overseas very soon. You are just recalled for 21 months of active duty, and you will probably have all of that right here in the States. I think you can safely count on a year at least before you'll be ordered overseas, and you probably will not go over even then. I would by all means suggest that you make plans to take your family with you. So that's what he's going to get relocated to a spot. And it kind of looks like, okay, you're going to be doing some training or overseeing some recruits or something like that. We get it. You're just in active reserve. We're not going to, like, send you overseas. So he goes to Camp Carson, and he's getting. He's getting moved to Camp Carson, and he says this fast forward list in Colorado. So he's moving from Illinois out to Colorado. The day before the moving van was to have pulled up in front of our home to load our household goods for the trip to West, I received a telegram from the War Department telling me I was to report after a short furlough to Camp Stoneman, California, for shipment to the Far East.

Bro, by the way, I always like to mention this. You know Dick Winters from Band of Brothers? This happened to him. And he got called after World War II, got called to go to Korea. And when they got to the ships up in San Francisco, they're like, hey, if any of you. I forget it as a point system. But if any of you World War II vets and you spent X amount of time overseas, you can leave. He's like, cool, I'm leaving. And he did. He did his part, and he didn't think he needed to do anymore. However, not. Not Chaplain Rayburn.

He says. So now, of course, he's getting orders to go to the Far east and going back to the book. Why should this happen to me? Was it fair when there were a number of chaplains in the same camp who had never spent a day in combat duty? But again, the Lord gained a real victory in my life. I recognized and confessed my complaints as sin. I realized clearly that his hand was guiding.

So he's like, okay, this is what we're doing. This is what the Lord's plan is. Let's roll. Good attitude adjustment. So he spends the last few days with his family, gets on the Navy transport. They set sail from San Francisco. Eleven days they're in Japan. Spend a little bit of time in Japan. Fast forward a little bit. Then it's from Japan to Korea. It's one one night on the ship. You show up in Korea again. Bunch of cool details in the book. It's going to be really hard to get this book, by the way. It's going to be hard to get this book. Maybe somebody will put it in a reprint. But I looked on Amazon today. There's. There's the one copy.

How did you get it?

His grandson sent it to me.

Oh, damn.

Yeah, his grandson sent it to me, who inserted me a few years ago. But as you know, I have a big stack of books.

Yes.

So finally got to this one. His grandson, who also served as a chaplain.

Oh, right on.

So they take the overnight trip to Korea, they land in Pusan, and now he. Again, fast forward a little bit, shows up, the 8th army chaplain. So this is the head chaplain in country. And he says this back to the book. He explained how difficult had been his job in recent months because of the very serious shortage of chaplains. Some had been killed in the early days of the fighting. A few had been taken prisoner by the Communists. Others had been wounded and evacuated. Altogether, there were many units without proper chaplain coverage. We were the very first group of chaplain replacements that had arrived since the outbreak of the fighting. Yo.

So you're checking in and why is there such a high demand signal? Oh, it's because a bunch of our chaplains have been wounded and killed.

So let me interrupt for a second. So, chap. So the, the position of chaplain. Oh, I know what a chaplain is. But so is that like a position in the army? So you go through training like everybody else or whatever, and then like, that's one of the positions you can take up if you want. And then when you go.

Yep. So you can be an officer, which meant you're like, you went to college to become a. Whatever religious figure you're going to become, you know, whether you're becoming a Catholic priest or whatever, a rabbi, you go through schooling, and then you'd be an officer in the military. And then there's also enlisted guys that just join out a boot camp. And they're, let's say they're religious people and they want to work in that environment. And so there's like, that's a job that you can have as an enlisted guy, too.

Okay. So it's comparable to. And let's say, you know how you imagine it, right? In the thick of fighting kind of a scenario where, you know, Saving Private Ryan. Right. You know that with that one scene where it kind of shows everybody all the little positions where all the. All the positions in the. In the. When they stormed the beach there. So has like medic, for example. You compare it to like a medic. His job is to go in there, fight, fight, fight. But when it comes time to do medic stuff, boom, he springs into action with his specialty. Same thing with the chaplain. Right. Where.

Except for the chaplains don't have the fight, fight, fight part. Not supposed to be fighting.

Oh, dang. So they're just sort of there.

They're there to provide spiritual support. And you'll have every religion, you know, I mean, not every unit will have every religion, but there's like. Like I said, there's Catholic, there's Protestant, there's Jewish, there's Islamic. Like, you'll get every religion there could be. Any religion that you could have.

Because they're in that scene on. In Saving Private Orion, there was a scene where the guy was like, dying. And so in the middle of the fight, and there was a chaplain, like, blessing him and stuff like that.

But it. That makes sense. That's true. But the chaplain most likely wasn't carrying a machine gun.

Okay.

You see what I'm saying?

Yeah. That's.

Now we're gonna get to. This guy actually ends up carrying a weapon because it was a little bit different.

It's heavy.

And he's going to talk about that. So. Yes. You ever seen, like, you know, what a conscientious objectorist.

Yeah.

Those guys that don't believe in fighting, but a lot of times they would make them medics, so they're going out and providing medical support even though they're not carrying a weapon at all.

Right. There's a movie, right, about the. What's his name? The guy from the Social Network, Whatever. Garfield, I think it was in it.

I don't know that what you're talking about. I don't know the actress, but yes.

Okay.

Yes, there's a movie about that Medal of Honor recipient. Yeah.

So.

Now. So this guy checks in and they're saying, hey, the reason you're here is because we're losing chaplains getting killed. Yeah. And now the. This same guy, the 8th army chaplain, the chaplain in charge says, before I Give any of you an assignment? I have one post that I want to fill, if possible. We have a paratroop regiment here in Korea, and they need a chaplain. As you know, all paratroopers are volunteers, so I cannot assign one of you to that regiment unless you volunteer for the job. Is there anyone who would be willing to volunteer for Airborne? There was a moment of silence. I said nothing. I had an opportunity to go into the Airborne when I was in chaplain school at Harvard University during World War II, and I had flatly turned it down then. I was even less interested in being a paratrooper now than I had than I had been then. I was several years older, my bones were that much more brittle, and to be honest, there just wasn't anything about jumping out of airplanes that appealed to me. In a few minutes, one of the other chaplains who was on the end of the semicircle in which we were sitting in the office said, tell us what would be involved, Chaplain, first of all, said Chaplain Toby. And that's the guy that's in charge. Tell me what your denomination is. I am a Roman Catholic, was the reply. I'm sorry, Chaplain, but that eliminates you. We already have a Catholic chaplain in that regiment. We need a Protestant. This statement narrowed down the selection considerably. Of the eight chaplains, five were Roman Catholics. We three Protestants looked at one another. Count me out, said Chaplain Nierman, a Missouri Synod lutheran. I'm past 50 years of age and too old to be jumping out of airplanes. I'm afraid you'll have to count me out then, too, said Chaplain Larry Staples, a Methodist with whom I had formed a fine friendship. I have just recently recovered from an abdominal operation, and I do not believe that I am in the physical condition for anything like that.

It doesn't take a brilliant mathematician to know how many were left. All eyes were on me. I started to say, count me at to count me out, too. I'm not interested in jumping out of airplanes. But I didn't. As I started to speak, I was restrained. I am sure it was the work of the Holy Spirit. I thought, all the way over here I have been praying earnestly that the Lord would lead me to just the outfit where he wants me to work. Suppose this is it.

So there you go. He gets the job.

He actually prayed. He actually prays about it for a while. He asked for like some time and he prays about it. And he gets his answer, which is, get some, get some. And the Lord said, get some.

Here we go. Fast forward a little bit. It was not A long trip to the bivouac area of the 187th. The combat team was in camp in a large apple orchard just at the edge of what was then the large, largest air base in operation in Korea, just a few miles east of the city, when the chap. When Chaplain Dunn, the Catholic priest and his assistant, came for me, I was received with the warmest cordiality.

Fast forward a little bit so that he does that interaction, and then this happens. I was introduced to all the men in the tent he gets brought to, like where he's gonna live. I was to get to know them very well in the coming days. They seemed so friendly and hospitable that I thought to myself, the airborne is for me. I've never before experienced such a warm reception in any army unit. But then, before many minutes had passed, I discovered the least, at least part of the secret behind the cordial reception. Sit down, Rayburn, said Chaplain Dunn, when after five or 10 minutes of arranging my things, I looked like I was quite settled. I have some information which will be of interest to you. I suppose you noticed the sentries on the gate when you came into camp. That means, as you may already know, that we are on alert. You got in here, but you can't get out. We have a combat jump behind enemy lines day after tomorrow.

My eyes must have displayed my amazement. I know that, I gulped, but I couldn't go along on a combat jump. I don't know a thing about parachuting. Chaplain Toby assured me at the 8th army headquarters that I would be given several weeks of training and several practice jumps before I'd be required to make a combat jump. Oh, I know, Chaplain, but there's really nothing to this jumping, was the reply. I'll show you all you need to know about it tomorrow, and then you can come along and go with us. You'll really be in with the men if you do. Well, I don't know. It sounds a little bit too soon for me, but even as I said that, I was reminded that the Lord had known all about this jump when he had given me his precious promises. And perhaps it was good for this mission that he had brought me to this unit. So I added, but I'll think about it, and perhaps I'll go. You could, of course, come up on the land tail, but no paratrooper ever wants to do that. Was the contribution of the chaplain's assistant. I was to learn that the land tail consisted of all the vehicles of the airborne units which were not dropped with the troops. In combat, and which were were driven up to a unit after the tanks had broken through the enemy lines and established contact on the ground. So he gets like, you know, you could go up with the land units. Even he knows. Dude's never jumped out of an airplane before. His first jump is going to be a combat jump.

So then he meets his assistant.

All the chaplains have, like, their. Their assistant, which is an enlisted guy. Chaplain Rayburn, this is corporal Cliff Brewton. Cliff, I want you to meet your new chaplain, Our new chaplain, Chaplain Rayburn. Hello, Cliff. I said, extending my hand to him. After receiving a snappy salute. The young corporal took my hand and gave me a good, firm handshake. And he spoke a word of cordial greeting and looked straight into my eyes with a bright, broad smile on his fine face. I was so immediately impressed with him that I said even before I let go of his hand, you look to me, Cliff, as though you might know the lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior. Yes, sir, I do, he answered, Tightening his grip on my hand. With real earnestness, he continued, I met the Lord last summer when I was stationed in fort Bragg, North Carolina, and he's real and precious to me.

It would be quite impossible to tell you what the life of Cliff Brewton meant to me and to many of the men in that regimental combat team. During our next few weeks and months, There was never any question in my mind about his continuing as my assistant. What a splendid, attractive, consistent Christian testimony he lived. I could in no way describe the effect it had on other men. I was continually hearing some GI make a statement like, whatever Cliff Bruton has, it's the real thing. He practices what he preaches.

Fast forward a little bit. The following day, my arrival. Sorry. The day following my arrival, I was to have received some instructions from chapter chaplain. Done. But he found himself entirely too busy with other duties around the regimental area. And the day passed without a single word of instruction from him. And he's talking about he's supposed to get airborne instruction, by the way. It's just like, I'm going to talk you through. Imagine you're going into jiu jitsu tournament, and I'm like, hey, let me just tell you what it's going to be like, and that's what you're going to go with.

Yeah.

Cliff did all he could to encourage me and gave me the only real instruction that I had, carefully showing me the most important things, such as proper body position for leaving the plane and the parachute landing form. I was fully convinced that the Lord wanted me to make this jump, and I was doing all I could to be well prepared for it. So, again, like, you're going to go in your first jiu Jitsu tournament. You've never done jiu Jitsu before. And I'm like, hey, let me spend 20 minutes just kind of telling you what's going to happen. Just explaining it to you. Yeah, and then you're going to go.

Cliff and I had been assigned to jump with I Company, and it turned out to be we were in the fifth plane over the drop zone.

And then he talks a little bit about the prep. The first or main chute goes on the jumper's back. He puts his arms through the straps. He kind of talks about all that. He has to learn how to do this for the first time, talks about what the troops are carrying. Equipment is hung on the straps below the second or reserve parachute. Each man carries a bedroll wrapped in waterproof poncho to keep it dry in case of rain. A small kit bag with toilet articles, food for a day and a half, a few changes of socks and other necessary items on his right side. Each soldier carries a weapon, a Carbine or an M1 rifle. I had only a.45 pistol hanging on my belt. And he gets into that later. Why? There were 44 men in our flying box car, not one, not counting the crew of the plane. 22 men were sitting on each side with their backs against the side of the plane.

Ours were among the very first planes to take off that morning.

So he takes off.

And here we go. We were now high in the air and gaining altitude steadily. I began to look around me in the plane. The men were not talking and laughing as GIs usually do when they are in a crowd. Each one was sitting quietly in his seat, gazing into space, seeing only what his mind pictured for him. I began to observe closely the expressions in their faces. I noticed that man after man wore an expression of absolute agony. Great drops of perspiration stood out on their brows. It was not because the temperature was warm, for it was chilly winter day and we were high into the air. I began to think. These men, I said to myself, know what's ahead of them. Every one of them had made many jumps before, and each one, except myself, had been in combat jump in North Korea just a few weeks before. I had heard a few tales the previous day of terrible things that had happened on that particular jump and in the hours that followed it. If these fellows that know what to expect look like that, how should I look? I thought it was just then the feeling of sheer panic seized me. I began to shake and tremble with fear. I confess I felt utterly dismayed. It seemed that I just couldn't go ahead with the jump and jump into space.

But I did the only thing that a Christian needs to do or should do in a situation like that. I dropped my head over my reserve parachute and began to pray. Dear Lord, I cried, the only reason in the world that I am up here in this plane this morning, riding along to this jump is because thou didst make it very clear to me the day before yesterday that thou didst want me here.

But I came along to repent, to represent thee to these men. I'll never be any recommendation for thee if they see that I'm shaking with fear. But I can't help myself. Thou wilt have to do something for me. Dear Lord, please give me a testimony with these men and quiet my fears.

Suddenly again, as I prayed, the Lord stopped me. And for a second time that week, he spoke to me in words unmistakable and clear. This time it was just comforting statement from the most familiar of psalms. I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.

And guess what? He falls asleep. So he goes from horrified, shaking, trembling uncontrollably. Lord comes in and calms him down, nothing to fear, and he falls asleep.

Back to the book. Fast forward a little bit. I was hardly awake when the red light came on in the end of the plane, indicating that we had just four minutes remaining before we were to jump. And then it goes through the protocols of jumping, which is interesting because these are the same. I went to army airborne school for Benning, Georgia. Get some Airborne all the way. Stand up, hook up. These are the same commands that they've been given that I got in 1991. I went to airborne school. And when we. When the red light would come on, stand up, hook up, sound off for equipment check. These are all the same quotes, this exact same thing. Pretty nostalgic. Yeah.

And then fast forward a little bit. What a glorious sensation one experiences in realizing that his parachute is open. One major peril is over.

And then I shall never forget the feeling of absolute helplessness which took over, which overtook me on the drop zone near Musan on the Good Friday morning that I made my first parachute jump. The Lord protected me and brought me safely to a landing on the bank of a little creek. The first sergeant who jumped with me went right into the water behind me. I shouted to him that it simply didn't pay to be experienced in parachuting. Before either of us could get out of his parachute, however, we began to hear bullets whizzing past our heads. We had been in the fifth plane over the drop zone that morning, so we were among the very first few men to land on the ground. When the first bullets went whistling past my head. I fell flat on the ground, and the sergeant, considering that another wedding was not to be avoided at such a time as this, dropped himself on his stomach in the shallow water. I grabbed quickly and almost instinctively for the.45 caliber pistol which was hanging on my belt on my right side. It was then that I took it from its holster and had it firmly grasped in my right hand that I. That a snickering realization overwhelmed me. I held in my hand a weapon that I knew hardly anything about. It was almost utterly useless to me, for I had no training nor practice in the handling of it at all. Chaplains in the US army do not carry weapons in combat. During World War II in Europe, we were strictly forbidden to have them on our persons. This had never presented any problem for me, for I had never had any desire to carry one. I felt that I was in the army to minister to the spiritual needs of the American soldiers, not to participate in the fighting as such. When I arrived in the Far east, however, at one of the supply points through which we had passed, I was issued a pistol. I'm a chaplain, I said to the officer who is issuing equipment. And we don't wear firearms of any kind. I don't need this chaplain, he replied. These Communists don't know anything about the Geneva Convention, and even if they did, it wouldn't make any difference to them. We've had enough chaplains killed and taken prisoner to know that they are not abiding by the rules of warfare. That little cross shining on your helmet makes a very nice bright object at which to aim from a little distance. You'd better take this weapon as a matter of self defense.

Check. That's why they're bringing weapons.

Fast forward a little, he says. I thank God that my friend Sergeant Strebe had an M1 rifle with him and that he did know how to use it. He made short work of the soldiers who were shooting at us, and soon he had left me and was leading his company. The Lord wrote that experience indelibly upon.

Upon my memory. I thought of it many times in the following days. I acquainted myself with my pistol at the first opportunity, but also pondered the spiritual lesson which the Holy Spirit had made very real to me. Alas, there are entirely Too many Christians today who are in the moral struggle that is going on between Satan and his forces and our Lord Jesus Christ with his forces, who have been reduced to ineffectiveness because they do not know the weapons of their warfare, and as a result they are depending upon others to impart spiritual strength to them and to ward off the attacks of the enemy as well.

Or perhaps they are not consciously depending on others to fight for them. They are making an effort to fight the devil with the wrong weapons.

And he goes on to say, the pistol in my hand on the drop zone was of no value to me.

No more will the weapons of your spiritual warfare be of value to you unless by his grace you learn what they are, take them, use them, become proficient in the use of them, and never allow yourself to be found without them.

So there's your lesson number one.

Continuing on, suffice it to say that within the next few days. The next few days were fierce. With fighting with comparatively little difficulty, we secured the drop zone which was just east of the village. The tanks broke through and established the vital ground link with us. Late in the evening of that same Good Friday on which we had jumped. I spent most of my time that day in the battalion aid stations and regimental collecting area, giving what comfort and help I could to the wounded. There were happily, not too many the first day.

And then fast forward a little bit. About 2,000 yards short of our ultimate objective for that day, we were forced to stop in a little burned out village where the 2nd and 3rd Battalion set up their aid stations together. All during the remaining hours after that Easter day, the medics kept bringing in the wounded and dying. Because of the continual rain and a very low ceiling, we had no air support at all. And the helicopters that evacuated the most seriously wounded from the drop zone near Musan couldn't get in to pick up any of our wounded men. A chaplain's position on the battlefield is not moving in the front line of attack where he could help and minister to only a few at best, but in the aid stations where those who need him most are brought as quickly as possible after they are wounded. As I stood over those wounded and sometimes dying men in the aid stations that day, how thankful to God I was that he brought me to that field of battle, even though he had used such an unexpected and unusual method of bringing me there. For I knew that I had a message for those men that needed it worse than anything in the world. I thanked God again and again throughout the day that I could give those men such a simple yet wonderful message and tell them of a savior who had come into this world and died in order that the death they were facing upon that battlefield would not be death, but would rather be the entrance into a more abundant life.

When a man's life blood is running out on the battlefield, he is only interested in something which is going to be good after this life is over.

The Associated Press, in a news release which was run in many newspapers in the States, told of my jumping for the first time in combat. Chaplain Rayburn jumped with his regiment in order to hold Easter services for the troops behind enemy lines. There were no Easter services in our outfit that day. But I hope and believe that someday when I reach the glory land, I shall meet some men who entered into that place of blessed rest. From the muddy battlefield that Easter.

Fast forward a little bit.

Just three weeks to the day from my first jump in Korea, I was told I was to make a second jump, and this time it was to be at night.

I had had no time to take any of the promised jump training, for we had been in the thick of the fighting. And when we had been pulled out of the front lines for a brief rest, our first responsibility had been to get our equipment in shape so it'd be ready when committed in another combat assignment. So again, there's more detail in the book, but gets done and now gets sold up. You're doing another jump. What's interesting about this jump, this jump is a training jump. So he's gonna get his first training jump and. But he's nervous about it, obviously, because it's a nighttime jump.

So he's sort of having those second guesses and thinking about it and praying to see.

What kind of support he can get.

He says this. He stopped me again in the midst of my prayer and began to speak to me slowly, clearly, as he had before from a passage of scripture in which I had no. I had had no meditation for weeks, as far as I could remember. This is what I heard him say as I knelt before him in my tent. The darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as day. The darkness and the light are both alike to thee. What a direct answer. So he again, he was going to try and figure out a way to get out of this jump. And that's what he writes about, that he's trying to figure. You know, he talks about how a chaplain, like, chaplain, they get some leeway, right? You know, they're not the combat hardened dude. They're not like you go echo. No, it's like hey. The chaplain says, hey, I'm not sure I should do this. You know, we get it. Understood. And he's thinking about going down that road. Yeah, but the Lord says otherwise. The Lord once again says, get some. He was telling me that the safety and well being which he had promised me before, were just as much to be counted on for the this occasion.

So fast forward a little bit. I was only the fourth man from the door this time, so almost as soon as the red light changed to green, I cast myself through the door and out to the inky darkness.

As I'd gone out the door on the right side of the plane, a young soldier had jumped from the left side. He was fourth in line on his side of the plane, the same place I occupied on my side. Because I was considerably heavier than he, I fell faster. And when our parachutes opened, I was quite a distance below him. One swings like a pendulum in a parachute when it first opens. And when this lad began to swing, he came right into the lines of my parachute, up very near to the canopy, and to his dismay, got himself so tangled up in the taut cords that he could not get disengaged. This is a nightmare. You got a dude above you that's wrapped up in your parachute. You know what parachute lines is like? It's little parachute cord. It's like the size of this wire, you know, it's just tiny cords and there's a bunch of them.

Yeah.

And when it gets tangled up, it's just a no go. It's. It's not, it's not gonna get untangled.

Yeah, yeah.

So this guy's all tangled up in his. In. In Rayburn's parachute. In Chaplain Rayburn's parachute.

As he struggled to free himself from the cords of my parachute, something happened which almost invariably happens when two parachutes come close to one another, one above the other. The bottom parachute, which was mine, robbed the top parachute of its air. It collapsed and hung uselessly around his feet. He could not pull his reserve parachute, for if he would have undoubtedly tangled the same cords in which he seemed fast.

If it had opened properly, it would have come open under the canopy of my parachute and further difficulties would have most surely been encountered. So he's just tangled up, his chute collapses, and now they're just a big cluster. But luckily the chaplain's parachute is still open. Having the weight of a man hanging on one side of my canopy, however, changed the angle of my descent. And when I saw as dimly as one could see on a dark night, that I was almost to the ground, realized I was going to hit in a very awkward position. Although my feet touched the ground first, my body was at such an angle that my feet and knees could not take up any of the shock of the landing. I sat down where sitting is best.

One hits the ground. Normally going about 15 miles per hour with two men on my parachute, we were falling faster. The medical officer told me that if I had hit with that force on a normally hard piece of ground at the base of my spine, I would have undoubtedly either been killed or very seriously crippled. Crippled for the rest of my life. But the Lord had given me a promise, and he had prepared a nice soft furrow of damp rice patty for my landing. I just went squish right into it.

That's a huge difference. You get a nice little rice. Soft rice patty. Yeah, bro. In compared to freak rocks or whatever.

Yeah. So the normal. He said the normal speed is 15 miles per hour.

Yeah.

Is that current?

I don't know, but it's not. It's not a comfortable landing on the type of parachutes that they're jumping at this time. Just big round parachutes, basically, that you could throw a sack of potatoes out and it would hit. It's not like when you see a. When you see modern sky special operations guys or skydivers. Yeah. They're jumping square parachutes that have air cells in them that fill up their wing. They have lift. Like, it's a whole different ball game to a. What these dudes are doing. Yeah, a whole different ball game.

Yeah. So, like, I'm. I'm considering 15 miles per hour. And. Yeah, sure. You know, then that number seems kind of low when you compare it to, like, 30, 50, whatever. But I was on a go kart, and I hit the curb, like a high curb, and it wasn't even 15. It was probably like it was just under 15. And if my body would have hit that. Yeah. I would have been messed up at 15, too, by the way.

Yeah. So he's probably going faster than 50.

Yeah.

Because you can definitely see, like, me being a heavier dude when I would jump static line like this. Yeah, you're. And I'd have a radio with me. Like, you're hitting hard, coming in hot. Yeah, you're coming in hot. Yeah.

Yeah. And then I guess you kind of factor in everything, though, right? Because you got boots and, you know, kind of clothes. And then if. Yeah. If it's grass still, you can. That's going to be. But you can handle. For sure. But then, yeah, if It's a squish. Like, if it's like a wet, big, big puddle or something like that, you're like, that's going to make a huge difference.

Freshly plowed rice padding.

Yeah, yeah.

Back to the book. The corporal who'd ridden down with me landed feet first in a perfectly normal way. He picked himself up and came running over to me. When he was close enough to recognize me, he blurted out, well, if I'd have known who I was riding down with, I wouldn't have been half so scared. Hey, he had a good ride with the chappie. The chaplain says, yup, we're good.

Fast forward a little bit. We were on the central front, having been in combat in a number of widely scattered areas on the long fighting line which stretched across the Korean peninsula. In the particular positions which we occupied at the time when the incident which I shall describe occurred, we remained more or less stationary for some time. One evening, just about dusk, word was received that all officers were to come to the battalion CP command post for a briefing. Upon arrival there, we were told that we had received orders to move out under cover of darkness for a special mission against the enemy. Our positions were to be turned over to the rocks. Republic of Korea army the entire regimental combat team was to make a surprise attack against the enemy in a se in a sector several Myers removed from our present position. We were told that in a certain valley across one of the large tributaries of the Han river, there was believed to be a full division of communist troops. Although we were only a regiment, we were counting on the superiority of our weapons and firepower, our extreme mobility, plus the element of surprise to make it possible for our regiment to overwhelm an entire division. The area and plan of attack were carefully pointed out on the map, and we learned that it would be necessary for us to ford a large river which we would have to cross, for all bridges had been completely destroyed. We had not left the briefing tent when it began to rain. It rained heavily throughout the entire night. So they're getting ready to go over this river into this valley where they're supposed to be. They're gonna be outnumbered, but they figured with the element of sobriety, we got superior weapons, we're gonna be okay.

As they leave the tent, it starts raining hard. So just important fact, because we got a river to cross. What does rain mean? Big rain due to a river gonna make it swell. They have a little conversation. He's talking to Cliff, his assistant. I said to my assistant who was driving the jeep, cliff, how does this mission sound to you? I don't like it, Chaplain. What's his reply? It sounds very dangerous to me. I don't like it either. Cliff and I believe we ought to stop and pray about it. So that's what they do. They pull over the side of the road, they stop, they start to pray. And as a matter of fact.

In the States, and he writes about that he got a letter from the States later that his friends in the States and some of his congregation, like, had the feeling that they should pray for this regiment.

For a mission, because they. They've. Whatever. They had that. That intuition that something was going on. So that's exactly what happened. So they launched the mission. Fast forward a little bit. They're. They're trying to get over this river. Well, the river was now flowing fast. There's a bunch of trucks that are going through the river.

The water's nearly a foot deeper than it had been the previous day. Orders are getting shouted. It's like it's a disaster, right? But he's in his little jeep, and so him and Cliff, they, like, go, all right, let's try and get around the trucks. And they do it. He says the little jeep struggled valiantly in a very short period of time. We were pulling up on the slippery bank on the far east side of the river, on the far side of the river, our motor never having even sputtered. So even though there's a lot of people having trouble, he gets through it. He kind of. They do a little bit. They take. They go off the beaten path and they get. Get over. And then he says this. We will only help congest the riverbank if we stay here. I said to Cliff, let's go down on the road. I studied this area on the map, and I feel sure that I know where we are going. We should soon come upon some of our men up ahead of us. We can at least discover a command post, and we can stop there. Leaving the ford behind, we started down the muddy road. There was evidence in the ruts of the road that several of our vehicles had preceded us along the way, but not one we could see. We had covered nearly two miles and still not seen any of our own troops ahead, nor had any come up behind us. I began to grow a bit uneasy. That seems I'd be a lot uneasy.

Makes sense to me.

We were in enemy territory. A lone chaplain and his assistants would be easy prey for an enemy patrol or even a sniper. I believe we better stop here. I said, we'll wait here until some of our men come along. In the meantime, we can have some breakfast. So that's what they do. They start getting some breakfast. Well, they see some Koreans. It's cold. They see some Korean civilians. They're wearing their civilian uniforms or civilian attire, and they walk over to him, and they're like, hey, can we get warmed by your fire? And they kind of heat up some of the food and kind of have those nonverbal communications. A little awkward. He's explaining in the book. And back to the book, he says. As we were finishing our meal, we noticed a thick cloud was settling down upon the valley in which we were waiting. We were completely surrounded by high hills, and already the tops of these hills were hidden in the clouds that were coming lower and lower. I noticed a jeep racing back along the road from the forward area. The officer in the jeep hailed me. I ran to the road to talk with him. Orders have just come from the general over the radio for us to get out of here, chaplain, and we are to get out fast. Turn your jeep around and get back across the ford as quickly as possible. With those words, he was gone. I had no time for questions. So that's what they do. They get back in the jeep, they start hauling along the road. We soon joined the main body. And when they join the main body, he sees an intel guy. He says to the intel guy, say, captain, why the sudden exit? I thought we were going to make an attack on the enemy. Well, chaplain, we were. As you know, it was to have been a surprise attack. But we discovered just in the nick of time that instead of us surprising the communists, they were all set to give us a surprise. Instead of there being one division in that valley, there were actually three. They must have discovered our intentions, and they were going to let us get across the river. For then they would have had us surrounded with their artillery. They could have zeroed in on that ford and cut us off from our retreat, and they could have annihilated us. However, just as our advanced elements discovered what the situation was, that cloud settled down on the valley and covered us up completely. The enemy didn't know that we were retreating. And even if they had known, There was nothing they could do, for they couldn't see us, to shoot at us. That cloud coming down on us was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me in my life. That wasn't luck, captain, I answered him. That happened because we have a God who answers prayer. We prayed definitely about this mission this morning, chaplain, maybe you've got something there, he said. I know I have. There's no doubt in my mind it was the Lord's doing. I proceeded to tell him briefly of our experience after we crossed the fort, describing our stop to eat with the Koreans under the bridge. Chaplain, the captain broke in. Those Koreans you ate with were undoubtedly North Korean Communist soldiers who were planted there disguised as South Korean civilians in order to throw us off track. They were just waiting for a signal to take care of you. If it's any comfort to you, you had breakfast with the enemy this morning.

So it's one of those things.

Chapter seven. I haven't been reading out all the different chapter numbers, but this one's. Know your enemy, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary, the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour. Peter 5, 8.

And he goes into this a little bit. Our adversary, Satan has been most successful in dulling the consciousness of multitudes with regard to the necessity of carrying on any warfare with him at all.

Though many Christians would admit the reality of a personal devil in whose person centers all opposition to God and his Son, as well as to all that is good and righteous, they have never felt it incumbent upon them to study his tactics so that they might engage him in spiritual combat. They know nothing of what it means to resist the devil so that he will flee from them. As long, of course, as the adversary can keep a believer from actively resisting him, he has won a great victory, and the believer experiences continual defeat, even though he may be little aware of its cause.

Did you ever see.

Usual Suspects?

Usual Suspects? No.

The biggest trick the devil ever played was making people think he didn't exist. That's what this is talking about.

Yeah.

And he goes into. Our own great nation has discovered that there were enemies working within our borders during the last few years that were an important part of a worldwide conspiracy to destroy our very way of life and all that we hold most dear. Americans who willfully ignore the seriousness of subversive activities of our communist enemies in this country. Country are themselves endangering the lives and liberty of their fellow free men and are giving great comfort to the forces of the communist enemy.

One of the first lessons of warfare is that of camouflage. The communist enemy in Korea made most effective use of this method of securing advantage over our troops. I shall never forget talking to a slightly wounded GI one day just outside a battalion aid station where he had come to receive treatment for some superficial wounds received in the fighting at the front. Chaplain, he said to me, the worst thing about this messy fighting over Here is that one can never see the enemy. I've been right on the front line for four days getting fired at, and I've never yet been able to see a single enemy soldier. If I could see them, I could hit them, but it's terrible when you can't see them. Many times during those difficult days, I had officers and men tell me substantially the same thing. The rough, brush covered terrain of Korea was easy to hide in, and the Chinese particularly made very effective use of camouflage. It was often somewhat demoralizing for the United nations troops. The Christian needs to be aware that his adversary will do all in his power to keep himself and his efforts covered up completely. Often he hides behind a mantle of respectable good works.

How often Satan conceals his real intentions by posing as an angel of light. Gotta be careful. The demon is a liar. If, however, the devil cannot succeed in hiding himself completely, he may try another tactic, and that is that of confusion. This was illustrated for me vividly any number of times in Korea. We were in positions to the north and a little west.

On the west central front in the spring of 1951. A few days after our drop at Musan. All of a sudden I heard a loud voice coming from the direction of the front lines. I could tell it was greatly amplified and was reaching over us in a loudspeaker. I felt sure that our outfit did not have any equipment like that in use. But it was easy to determine that the voice was speaking in English. So I began an investigation to determine what was happening. It did not take long to find out. The Chinese had set up several loudspeakers on top of the ridge which represented their front line, and they were broadcasting an appeal to the soldiers in the foxholes facing them. They were telling us that we were fighting a needless war. The Koreans, they said, hadn't asked us to come over and tear up their country. We were destroying their homes and farms, making orphans of their children, and generally ruining their land. All this was because of a few Wall street capitalists had ordered us to fight a bitter war far from home to serve their interests. Our mothers, wives and sweethearts were lonely for us and longing to have us at home. It was a senseless war anyway, for the Red army was invincible, and it was foolish for us to think that we could defeat it. Why did we not just lay down our weapons and tell our superior officers that we weren't going to fight any bloody war any longer for the sake of a few capitalists?

How skillfully the devil labors to introduce confusion into the hearts and minds of Christian soldiers when they are fired with enthusiasm for onslaughts upon his territory. Through prayer and the preaching of the word, he whispers in their ears that it is foolish to think their efforts will really accomplish anything.

He will point to the weakness and failures of other Christians.

Yeah, there's going to be some propaganda out there on all fronts. That's like, even with, you know, the classic is like, you. You decide you're going to make some change in your life. You're going to do something good.

Yeah.

You know, you're going to quit drinking.

Sure.

You're going to start lifting, start training, gonna write a book. You're gonna do something productive, make an app, get a new job. You know, like that kind of stuff.

Yes, sir.

What do I say to you, dude? You work, y'. All. Why are you doing that? Yeah, what's your problem, dude? Why are you working out so much, dude? Why? You couldn't drink it. That's what's fun. Yeah, that's what happens, man. The voices. That's the devil chime in. That is.

Yeah, yeah. Pointing to the failures of other Christians. That's an interesting one. You know how like, when you have doubt in your mind. Right. Or something like that, where you're like, why do I think I could do this? So many people have tried and failed, you know? So it's like, might as well not even try, dude.

He's been working on that forever. He's not getting it done. You think you're gonna be able to do it?

Yeah. Yeah.

Freaking team guys are the worst. I told you that story. Like, Seth was wanting to apply to Princeton.

Yeah.

And people. He comes to me, he's like, dude, I was wanting to do this Princeton program, but guys are telling me not to do it. I'm like, who's telling you not to do it? They're saying it's gonna mess up. Oh, having an Ivy League freaking Masters.

Yeah.

International policy. You think that's gonna be real problem? That's gonna be real. It's gonna be real bad for you.

That's gonna hold you back pretty bad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's jacked up.

Yeah.

People do that kind of stuff all the time. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm gonna go to this jujitsu camp, you know, It's a waste of time. What?

Yeah, yeah, it's.

I mean, you know, I'm studying for that promotion exam. Dude, what are you being such a gas kisser?

Yeah. A lot of these, like, states of being that we kind of consider ourselves are really just kind of as it's a result of comparing and it's like compared to others, compared to maybe yourself, you know, in a. In a different time or whatever. Because without that comparison, it's almost like you're just kind of floating, like you don't know where you kind of stand, you know, as a person. So. And I guess that kind of goes for most things about yourself, I mean, when it really comes down to it. So yeah, you get someone around you like, you know, and it's like kind of like what? The status quo. Right. It's like normal. Right. So the comparison of me and you. I'm used to it, so we're good. We can kind of move forward like this. When that discrepancy gets too big and I see myself in a potential position of inferiority by comparison, that's when I get uncomfortable. Superiority, that's different. But inferiority. So there's what. There's probably a few ways for me to wind up inferior. That's if you. If I do worse.

Or if you do better. So I'm gonna be more inferior if you do better. Freaking. I'm over here just doing what I normally I'm doing and you're over here making me feel inferior your're making me inferior by comparison, by the way. Which is kinda how it works, you know, so it's like, ah, you can kind of understand, really. But still, you gotta understand that that's what's going on.

You know what's weird is I bought a lot of houses in my life for whatever reason. Almost every house that I've bought. Especially back in the day. Especially back in the day when it was always like a big stretch. Yeah. Basically 90% of the people would be like, dude, you paid too much for that. Dude, that's a bad like.

Right?

Just haters.

Yeah.

You know, like that's, you know, freaking. Have that mortgage hanging over your head. And I would say that as a young seal, that was one of the best things that I did. And I wasn't even that young. I wish I would have done younger. But as a seal.

Oh, just investing in general.

Yeah. Just buying a house. Yeah, buying a house.

Gotcha.

Like you have the opportunity to buy a house. So I bought a house. And some guys be like, dude, that's. That place is run down. I can't believe you're paying that much. Yeah, you know, all that kind of stuff. Just haters.

Yeah. But when you kind of think of.

What do we think of the term haters? When I try to think of another term for haters. It's hard to think of another term than haters.

It's very appropriate, right? For sure. Yeah.

It's kind of the perfect word for what it is.

I think you're correct. Yes. You know. Well, you know, it came from player hater, you know.

Okay, yeah, I did not know the etymology of this. Explain to me. It came from player hater.

Player hater. Okay. So from what I understand.

You know, don't hate the player, hate the game. Okay, so I'm a player, right? It's, let's say, put properly, it's. It's. It's an expression that was.

Did it get famous in a movie or something? Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Maybe. I don't know what particular movie, but it's essentially in the dating market, we'll say. Okay, right. So you're obviously, we know what a player is, someone who kind of plays the field, essentially.

Right.

He's a player, you know, does necessarily settle down with one person, obviously. Right. We all knew that from a long time ago. But so, you know, it kind of thinking about it goes against traditional norms, I would say. And, you know, he's a player. So people. That's going to make some people uncomfortable. Now, those people, when they're uncomfortable, they're. They're going to have negative things to say about this player. That's the player hater. Right? Because, hey, I'm over here doing, you know, I'm not breaking any rules. Maybe it's not the norm, blah, blah. So that's the player haters. They're hating the player, right? So then as a defense, the player will say, hey, don't play the player, hate the game. These girls are being accommodating to me. Even though I have more than one, they're still playing the game with me. You see, I'm saying, so don't hate the player, hate the game. So that's the whole hate the player, hate the game thing. Now, player hater.

After a while, was there any. Was there ever any connotation to like, anything else or was it all had to do with that?

At that point it was like, hey.

You know, oh, you know, Jocko's super aggressive when he's doing jiu jitsu. And like, he keeps going. Dean Lister keeps going for foot locks. Foot locks are legal, bro.

Yeah.

Like, don't hate the player. You know, we want it.

They just hate him. Yeah. So. And then, yes, after a while, like anything, the idea, it kind of gets distilled down to just the idea not the very specific idea in a specific context. So it's like, okay, you're just player hating because you're kind of jealous of it. Like, if you're a guy. Right. Player hating usually comes from other guys. I mean, especially back in those days. Not. Not the girls. Girls don't play or hate unless they're pretty sure about the other girl. Maybe, you know, something like that. But it's more common with other guys to be player hater. It's kind of like a. It's not a cool thing to be.

Such a weird branch from this book. But I'm telling you, I brought it up. I opened the door.

Yes, you did. So.

But it transferred over to just haters.

Just the idea of. Because usually player hating isn't a legit thing. Usually it's jealous. It's like a guy is like, oh, that guy gets all the girls. You know, say something for us. Kind of, he's player. He's player hating. So he'll go and talk bad about him or whatever out of jealousy. That's. He's player hating. Right. After a while, that same jealousy can go for any situation where the guy's doing good and you're jealous, so you're gonna. You're gonna tear him down a little bit. Player hating go. You know, you're over here just hating the player, you know, so then. Yeah, then it just moves on and we just go on and on. So any situation where someone's just jealous of your success and they. And instead of obvious success, obviously. Right. Let's say this guy is this. Or you're buying, you know, houses or whatever, obviously a good thing.

Let's not get crazy. I bought a house. Like in the beginning, I bought a house.

Still counts.

And I remember people were like, dude, you paid that much for that area?

It counts.

What's wrong with you?

Yep, of course. So, yeah, I don't care if it's a huge, massive success or just a little, tiny, tiny success.

Have to do is. Do something a little bit better than what you're doing.

And.

And I can. I'm open myself up for that.

Yes. Expect. Expect the hater. Yeah, the player here. So, yeah. There. There you go. So any success met with jealousy, that jealousy is. Is hating player. Well, and then it gets shortened down, obviously. So you don't say player hating anymore. You just say hating.

But then the people that are hating are haters.

Haters.

Yeah, Kind of a thing. Right. So that's what this turns into. Like these little whispering.

Yeah.

And these little things that People are saying these negative things and. Do you think that's ever worked on you? What? Where someone was like, bro, you should freaking train every day. Or, you know, do you think that you have ever gotten drawn back down into the pit? Like the crab thing, you know, the bucket thing?

Yeah. Yeah. Put it this way. I can't. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any time that I did in specific, but I'm sure.

What about when you didn't get that cattle like the first time? Don't.

Oh, that had nothing to do with anything.

Are you sure? Yeah. You didn't think it was a bit much, and you were like, oh, I can't get a Cadillac escalator. Get the gmc.

Well, me, no. Because that was. That might have been. I mean, if. If. Look, this is a stretch, but if anything, it was maybe the anticipation of it. But no one said anything. Like, no one. No one said nothing that caused me to feel.

But you were thinking. Thinking maybe they're maybe potential haters.

Yeah. You know, and more so than haters. It's just like. I don't know. I. I thought that maybe I was pursuing a. Even though I didn't think I was, maybe people would think that I was pursuing a specific Persona that wasn't like me or whatever in that very specific situation, which turned out to be not the case.

But you feel like you've adapted to it now.

Yeah, well, I'm the same exact person, so there's no adapting to anything.

You know.

The haters kind of got to you a little bit. Pre haters.

Well, there's no. It was my triggered like, there is. There was no haters. There is no haters. I can't just be like, it was potential haters. To be honest, it wasn't about haters at all. I didn't want to. Like, it was more. I was anticipating people would see me a certain way, and I was wrong about the way they'd see me. You know, kind of a thing.

You know, like, you didn't think they'd be haters. You thought they'd just be something else.

No. No, I don't. Nothing. No, nothing.

Whatever. You understand. Hey, we went through this before, you know?

You know, hey, it's all good.

It's all good.

Try not to be a hater. Let's say that.

Yeah, well, being a hater. Here's the thing that it's. What? It's one of those few things that a lot of times when you're hating, like, everyone knows you're hating, dude.

That's the thing. That's what. That's what I was thinking is like in the SEAL teams back in the day. Yeah. When someone was like, let's face it, what the boys were doing, like, we're going out, we're drinking, we're partying, we're getting after it. Just doing that. Right. So some. When someone wasn't doing that and they were doing something productive as a human.

Yeah.

It would be like, oh, we gonna freaking go to the library. Right.

You know, like, be mad at someone because they're gonna go read a book. You know, I mean, that's just haters, but. And I was part of the hate team.

Well, when you kind of think about it, there are specific things. Not to go too deep on it, but I think sometimes it's important to understand these things where, like, okay, so there's hating. It depends on where it's coming from. So if. If the rest of the boys are like, they're even an ounce of jealousy that this guy's going to the library, like, then, yeah, it's hating.

That's what I think it is too.

Yeah.

Cuz I know I'd see somebody doing something squared away. When I was young, I'd be like, what are you doing? You know? Yeah, come on, what's wrong with you? Will you go to a library? You're gonna take a college class? Like, this is before online. I think you could get books or something. Yeah. Do like a correspondence course.

Yeah, yeah.

And I only probably knew like three people in. In those early years. Actually, probably not even three. Probably like two. Maybe one. Sure. But, you know, oh, you're gonna do who you want to be an officer. That was another big one. Oh, yeah, that's another big one.

I thought it makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh, you become an officer.

Yeah.

Like, when I became an officer, I definitely heard some of that. And some of it was like, bro, what are you doing? Yeah, some of it was not from the haters, but some of it.

Right.

A little bit of haters.

Yeah. But there are some. There's such thing as someone, like, going against the green as far as the group of what we're all doing. And sure, it's their pursuit. And sure, when we intellectually think about it, we're like, hey, he has a right to do that, you know? In fact, we should be supporting him as a brother kind of a thing. But at the same time, there's that feeling of like, bro, like, this is what we're doing. You're. You're you're making a little bit of a divide with your. Your defection. You know, you're over there doing some other stuff, you know, except for the.

Fact that, look, if you were going to go to one bar and we were all going to a different bar, we would have a different kind of. That kind of thing.

Yeah.

Be like, dude, what are you doing? Like, that's a different thing than you're going to the library to go work on your degree. Yeah, yeah, now we're. Now we're hating a little bit. Yeah, I would say check. All right. Going back to the book. It's a heavy transition here. The most horrible day of my war experiences in Korea started off very well. Our military maneuver maneuvers had been highly successful. We were pushing the enemy back rapidly. In fact, we had him on the run. Orders had been given that we were not to stop, but we were to press our advantage to the full. If the enemy could be kept off balance and not allowed to regroup, we would be able to press forward several miles before stopping to establish a strong line of defense. As I have said, orders were given that our convoy was not to halt under any circumstances. We were pitted against the Chinese in this particular sector, and our artillery, mortars and machine guns were destroying them in such numbers that their dead bodies were actually piled on one another in spots. There were places on the road where the bodies were lying so thick that it was necessary to drive our trucks right over them. There wasn't even time to clear them off the road. The reader can imagine what it meant to me, a Christian minister, to drive over those dead men. He will understand that it was all I could do to allow my driver to continue along that road over those bodies. And this convoy of trucks, and this is a different one. Fast forward a little bit. There's a group that gets ambushed this. As this convoy of trucks and ambulances reached the narrow defile, defilet the enemy machine guns and mortars opened up from both sides of the road. Riflemen appeared behind almost every rock and tree. Their fire was murderous. They had closed the trap. None of our trucks were able to get through. In a few moments, they had all been set on fire. Even the wounded men in the ambulances were all killed. As far as I know, only one man survived that massacre, and he only for as long enough to stumble back through the darkness to the regimental command post. I talked to him briefly as he lay dying in the 80s station. Oh, Chaplain. He cried. We didn't even have a chance. They didn't even give us a Chance to surrender. For two days the enemy held that narrow cut, and it was impossible for us to get supplies and equipment through to our battalion ahead. They fought doggedly to get back to us, and we tried desperately to get through to them. Our only communication was by radio. When we finally did break through, the effort had cost us many casualties, and it was all because the enemy had concealed himself and his intentions from us, and we had not taken proper precautions in our haste.

Those were dark days, days of counterattack. It was al it was in incidentally, on such days that the American soldier displayed his true magnific magnificence.

There were never any whining complaints, never any who thought we should give up. Every man had faith that though the situation looked dark for the present, the strength and resources of his own beloved and great nation were behind him, and that the tide would be turned and the enemy would be defeated. Victory was sure to come. In spiritual warfare, there are times when, in the midst of apparent peace and victory, the devil suddenly hurls something very fierce at us. We must be prepared for the attacks of Satan wherever they come, lest Satan should get an advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices.

Know your enemy. That section is called know your enemy. Again, these are very.

Very applicable, not just to warfare, not just to business, not just to leadership, but the spiritual warfare as well. It all works.

Go to another section. Here it was dawn, and the dull light of the day was beginning to give some substance to the high hills which completely surrounded us. I was asleep in my sleeping bag on the ground under a tent which my assistant and I had hastily erected in the darkness just a few hours earlier. Suddenly I was awakened from the sleep of exhaustion by the familiar, yet somehow terrorizing sound of incoming mortar fire. By the time one has been in the thick of battle a few days, he will pick up this with his consciousness. The very first whistle of an incoming mortar artillery shell. He learns to flatten himself out quickly on the earth if he does not have a foxhole handy. By the time the second or third shell hit our area, both my assistant and I were out of our sleeping bags, had our boots on, and were stumbling around in the semi darkness, seeking a police of place of greater safety. Orders were shouted at us. We were immediately to strike our own tents, get into our trucks, and disperse at top speed. There was no delay in complying with these orders. What had happened? It did not take us long to discover, as our infantrymen had proceeded through the valley the day before in their effort to reach their ultimate objective and get dug in before nightfall. They had not been able to thoroughly flush the hills of all enemy soldiers. One very sizable group of communists had apparently escaped observation and were well entrenched in bunkers and other fortifications atop the hill which was nearest to and looked down on our bivouac area. The mortar fire was soon followed by the sharp crackle of enemy machine guns. Some of these were well below the crest of the hill. They were answered by our own machine gunners on our perimeter defense line. Then was heard the sharp crack of rifle fire. As our outpost men began to discover targets for their guns, a real fight was underway. It became immediately evident that every resource of our regiment which was available would have to be used to wipe out that enemy strong point. As long as the enemy remained on up on that hill, commanding such an excellent view of our main supply line reaching to the men out in the front, our regiment's whole position was in jeopardy. While the intermittent small arms continued at long range, our tanks were quickly brought into position position through a rough semi into a rough semicircle around the base of the hill. In what seemed like an amazingly few seconds, the skillful gunners that man the tanks had taken accurate aim of the big guns on top of on top and at the front of the tanks were hurling their heavy charges of steel into fortifications at the top of the hill. It is an awesome yet thrilling sight to stand directly behind a heavy tank and watch as with each sharp crack of explosive charge, a projectile screams its way to the target with a message of death and destruction. The eye can actually follow the shell. After a few moments of this kind of pounding by the tanks, I wondered if there could be any possibility, any possibly. I wonder if there could possibly be any of the enemy left alive in their bunkers, caves and foxholes at the top of the hill. But there were. In a little while, Air Force and the Marine Air Wing were called in to help. Darting out of the cloud filled skies, fast jet planes swooped down upon the hilltop. Their first passes were accompanied by sharp bursts from their machine guns. One after another they emptied huge tanks of napalm on the enemy positions. As those tanks of jellied gasoline hurdled to the earth, they spread searing flames over the whole crest of the hill and down sides for hundreds of feet. In some places I found myself thinking with compassion about the enemy soldiers who in this, caught in the searing flames. I had seen napalm used in maneuvers. I'd even watched it from a distance in early days of the fighting in Korea. But I'd Never seen it so close before. So close that I could hear the crackle of the flames as they hungrily licked up everything which they touched. Because even this was not enough, however, the planes, a few of them, returned once more and dropped huge blockbuster blocks, bombs on the top of that desolate hill, then veered away and disappeared from view in the clouds or behind more distant hills. Surely, I thought, there could be nothing living on the top of that hill after such bombardment from the ground and air. But the order was given to the infantry, two companies, to start slowly the ascent to the top. And slowly, painstakingly, the already weary men of those two companies began to climb toward the burned out summit of that hill. And it became apparent, even to those of us who were watching from a battalion aid station, which had been set up in the valley to receive any who might be wounded, that there was still opposition to be encountered. At least one infantryman from each platoon was wearing a bright panel of orange on his back to identify himself and the men with him to aircraft overhead. There was always the possibility of the crew of an airplane shooting the wrong men, unless the pilot has positive identification. Because of these bright panels, we were also able, which were also visible to us at the base of the hill. We could watch the progress of the men as they inched their way toward the top, occasionally having to stop and take care of a stubborn sniper. It was not an easy hill to take. Finally, less than two hours after the first platoon of infantry had started up the hill, word was received from one of the men who had carried a radio on his back that the last vestige of enemy was resistance had been wiped out and the hill was secure. Our attention could once more be turned to the task of pushing forward with the main force of our frontal attack.

This incident, which I have just described, and many others, which I experienced during months of my service as a chaplain with the heroic men of the 187th Airborne Regimental Combat team in Korea, kept very forcibly before me the striking similarity of much of which I was seeing there on the field of battle to that which a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ encounters the good fight of faith.

In the lives of believers, the arch enemy of the souls of men. Satan himself erects strongholds from these. He renders the believer impotent, robs him of real victory, and makes his life something less than the joyous experience of fruit bearing for the glory of God, which it should be. Perhaps the reader will instantly recognize that Satan has some holdouts in his own life.

Most of us know our weak spots but if we had made provisions for the flesh and allowed ourselves to live with known sin in our lives, we have permitted the Devil to erect a strong point from which he will press his attack against our lives.

The Devil's strongholds are not confined to the lives of individuals, of individual believers. Sometimes they are found in the corporate body, the church, and must be dealt with there. The important fact for all of us to remember is that the battle against evil cannot go ahead powerfully and successfully unless the Devil's strongholds are brought down, no matter where they may be found.

Those little things, little strongholds.

It is mortal warfare between all that is good and holy on one hand and all that is evil and corrupt on the other. This conflict is. Conflict has raged in full fury from the moment it began until. Until this very hour. Every tension which you feel, every trial that you experience, every crime that you read about, every sorrow that you endure, every war, every injustice, every pain is but a part of this dreadful conflict.

God has taught me a good many things about spiritual warfare while I was on the battlefields of Korea. As I watched this spiritual precepts of His Word being illustrated before my eyes, he implanted firmly in my heart the fact that I could never expect a spiritual victory if I were willing to let the enemy erect strongholds in my life. The communist enemy could never have been driven back into the vastness of the higher mountains of North Korea had we left him strongholds on the hills behind our lines in the South. The Devil will never be driven back in retreat from our lives, nor from those whom we are spiritually responsible, if he retains strongholds from which to SAP our spiritual power.

It is my profound hope that in this little volume of personal experience I shall be able to open up to the reader clearly that which God made so very clear to me in the dust and mud, the disappointment and heartache, the problems and nightmares of a cruel war in a faraway land.

If, in the bitter experiences of the Korean War I learned the basic and important principles of spiritual warfare so that I can make them understandable in a new and challenging way to the readers of this volume. I shall be thankful to the Lord for every hardship that crossed my path and for every trial that bore down on my soul.

And I'm going to close it out. The book with the.

Section here, it says, God's people have been called to life of a warfare. Their role is that of a soldier. The believer is not chosen for a life of ease and comfort in this earth. He is a pilgrim and a stranger here and is to wage a constant warfare against the spiritual forces.

Great darkness.

So.

You can see lots of lessons to be learned.

The principles of combat can be applied to the battlefield, can be applied to business, can be applied to leadership, can be applied to jiu jitsu. And yes, they can be applied to spiritual or physical warfare against the darkness.

And Chaplain Rayburn, Robert Rayborn. Robert G. Rayburn kept up the fight, the spiritual war, even after he left the combat zone in Korea. In 1956, he joined with the envelop in Evangelical Presbyterian Church. He became the founding president of Covenant College. His brother Jim Rayburn founded Young Life, which is like a Christian youth organization still active today. The college is still active today. He wrote a book in 1980 called oh, Come Let Us Worship. There's a college in Manipur, India, which is named after him.

And as I mentioned earlier, he had four children. So Robert Rayburn had four children. And one of his grandsons, Rob Rayburn, who is also an army chaplain, actually sent me this book.

In 2021. So like over three years ago he sent me this book but. And it was in the stack, you know.

Finally got to it. So thank you to Rob for sending me this book. And it's also, you know, just, it's just so interesting. You know, we, we hear from the private sector soldiers on the front line, we hear from the platoon commanders, we hear from the company commanders, we hear from the generals, we hear from the admirals, we hear from the, we hear from everyone. But we hadn't heard from a chaplain yet. There was a few other key chaplains in, in military history that will. That I have in the stack.

So we'll get to some of them. We've mentioned a few of them before, but we'll, we'll get into some detail on them. But to me, what, what I liked about this book was how he had, how he had put the context of spiritual warfare over the context of combat. Very much the same way that I put this, the context of leadership and Jiu Jitsu and whatever else we're doing over put that overlay into combat. And it works as well. So there's something, there's something primordial about combat and how, how those principles can be applied in all directions. And it also made me think of the Musashi saying, when you know the brave, when you know the way broadly, you'll see it in all things. So.

That'S what we got. It's always reassuring.

So the.

Just for clarification, still learning a lot of this stuff. So the, so the chaplain he's in a battle, the enemy, while under the Geneva Convention, is not allowed to shoot him. Engage with the chat.

Okay, so you're not supposed to, like when a ship has a red cross on it, you're not supposed to hit it with a torpedo either.

Uh huh. And what happens if you do war crime?

War crime.

Okay, so he mentioned that the Koreans, they don't care about that. Is it because they're not part of this agreement or it's just because they're just, just crazy?

Whether they actually participated in the Geneva Convention, I don't know. But yeah, they were seeing clearly. You know, they had examples because chaplains were getting killed.

Yeah, so. So what? But what I'm saying is, so how does that work? Like if you're not part of the Geneva Convention, what, the rules don't apply to you or you're just straight up in the red as far as you're kind of a criminal element?

Well, it's kind of the same thing with like Al Qaeda, because they're not part of the Geneva Convention. So they don't follow any rules. We stick to them. Yeah, but they don't care.

Okay, so my next question would be. Okay, so let's go back or World War II, let's say Germany, were they part of. Or was that even. When was the Geneva.

Well, yeah, you could look at World War II because like they didn't use gas. Yeah, like, like there was, there was basically a rule after World War I, hey, we're not going to use chemical weapons. Okay, so they, so they kind of. And they did. You know, there's cases where they didn't follow it. I mean, clearly the Holocaust took place.

Right.

But there's cases where, you know, the Germans would capture Americans and be. And treat them.

Appropriately. And we would capture Germans and treat them appropriately.

Right, right.

Okay, so there's, there was like a level of understanding. Now could you say that about the Japanese? You know, when the Japanese would just behead people that had surrendered, you'd say, well, no, they're not complying with the Geneva Convention at all. Did the Germans in some cases do that? Yeah, the Germans had a couple massacres that took place.

So what I'm saying or asking, I guess is.

And look at America, the My Lai massacre, which we covered on this podcast. Yeah, so I mean.

Out of bounds, but those are.

Yeah, and I, and yeah, I understand. So the, I mean, obviously that's like war crimes. So it's like, yeah, me lies. Like, okay, that's obviously a war crime and somebody's gonna get in trouble for that.

Well, William Kelly got pardoned, but yeah, we can.

On paper, we'll say technically, right where that. That should be the case. That's how it works. We'll say. So let's say World War II. You're in a battle and you, you, you know, you, You.

Let's say you engage a group of guys, right? And two of the guys are dead. One guy is.

These are enemy fighters.

Enemy fighters? Germans. Yeah.

So. So American group engages the Germans. Cool. Got it.

Yeah. And two Germans dead, one German wounded, not dead. And then they have a German chaplain, and he's trying. And he's.

He's attending to the.

The wounded man.

The wounded man.

Okay.

And actually all of them. And then there's one more enemy in that group active.

Okay.

Can you, like, bomb them?

You would probably bomb them because there's one guy that's actively there.

Okay. So without. Without that guy, it's kind of like, hey, they're not engaging. So it's almost like a rules of engagement kind of a scenario.

Engagement scenario. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So you got to let them go or, like, leave them be or just what, keep an eye on.

That guy's shooting at you. You're going to shoot at him?

Yeah.

You know, whether or not you're going to drop a bomb, you're probably dropping a bomb, like, if you have the capability.

Right.

Because you got. I mean, how are you knowing what's, you know, how are you identifying what's happening?

Right.

You're taking fire, you're going to fire back.

Yeah.

You don't know that there's a chaplain up there that's, you know, given his last rights to his. Some of the other soldiers. How are you going to know that?

So it's essentially do the best you can to like, not. Oh, yeah, kill the chaplain kind of a scenario. Yeah. Yeah.

But clearly the. The communists didn't care.

Right.

Because they were just. It sounds like they killed a lot of chaplains and wounded a bunch.

Yeah. Especially.

And look, does that mean that they were intentionally doing it? Not necessarily. Like, if you're a freaking airborne chaplain and you draw. Think about it. You. You see an airborne group assaulting your position, you're gonna start shooting those people.

Yeah.

You don't know that one of them happens to be you. You probably won't even register. This guy's like a chaplain.

Yeah. See, and that's kind of part of my whole kind of point is it's crazy to. And I guess when you really think about it, It'll start to make sense. But it's crazy. You're having straight up all out war where the goal is to kill the guys, you know, when. You know, when necessary kind of a thing. And then you have these little exceptions and rules and stuff, you know, it kind of. It feels weird.

Well, think about this. When you shoot someone, if they're now incapacitated and they're no longer fighting, now you help them.

Like if you shoot, if you are a bad guy and I shoot you and you fall down and you're incapacitated and you're not holding your weapon, you're not doing anything threatening, and now I move into the building that you, that you're in. Now I actually have to work on you after, like trying to save you.

And if I don't, that's a, That's a violation of. Wow. Yeah. See? Yeah, it seems weird, but I guess not, right? I mean, I guess, you know, when you kind of like level it down a few, where you like the UFC or something, you can kick the guy as hard as you possibly can with the hardest part of your body, like the shin. That's reinforced through training, by the way. As hard as you possibly can. Right in the face, in the nose. Right. Knock them completely out. And that's literally the goal, by the way of this sport.

But you can't do it if his knee is on the ground.

Yep.

You know, it's like, it's weird. Like so. Yeah. Yeah, I guess. I mean, it starts to make sense. You know, it's like there has to be some order in this chaos if, if we can help it kind of a scenario, you know, it's like, I see what we're trying to do here. We're trying to work things out in one way or another. And how crazy it'll get. It'll get crazy. It'll get actually the crazy craziest. But even. No matter how crazy it gets, I don't care if it's up to level 10.5, 11 level crazy, there still has to be some.

Some order. Got to keep some level of order. That's why the humanity, the law of armed conflict and the gene command. Yeah. That's why those things exist. Rules of engagement.

Yeah.

They have to be there. Yeah. Otherwise you're gonna have problems.

So you can kind of imagine back in the day, before all the time, you know, before order kind of came like.

Yeah.

Way back.

And then what you were getting, you were, you were getting controlled by just the technology that you had. I mean, how many people can you kill when you have a sword?

Yeah.

You know, how many people can you kill when you have a damn bow and arrow? Like, you can kill a lot, but you're not just, like, straight just wiping out.

Look.

Yeah. No, you can wipe out villages. Yeah.

Look at what?

Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan would just go kill everybody.

Yeah.

I mean, every. Yeah, you're right. You know what? You're right. I shouldn't have even made an argument against this. Or I didn't. Wasn't making an argument. But you make a good point. Back in the day, it's like, oh, yeah, we're just gonna kill everyone.

Yeah.

There's no rules, but although there are. There are few examples of I'm gonna kill everyone, like genocide.

Yeah.

Back in the day is enslavement. Like, take property. Enslavement, rape and pillage. But as far as we're just gonna kill all of whatever you are. That didn't. That. That didn't. Hasn't happened a ton of times.

Yeah, it. It. And I don't know history the way some people do, but, you know, just generally kind of imagine we're like a Genghis Khan scenario somewhere where they're like, hey, you know, that land seems beneficial for us, and we're gonna go take it. I'm just gonna decide with my group, my team, to take it. And then whoever is in the way, like, there's no one saying, hey, wait a second, that's against the rule. You can't just sort of invade. You can't just do that. There's no rule. So they'll just go out there, and they're just cruising over there. They're farming. They're picking their, you know, strawberries and stuff like that. And they're like, oh, this is our land now. Let's. And then. Whoa, what do you say? Like, oh, you're gonna resist? Okay, kill that person. I'm gonna take this. These girls as wives. I'm gonna take these.

But eventually, dude's like, no, what are we doing? You want the land? Cool. Don't kill me. Right? Some. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Slowly, over time. But I'm just saying there's no rules of engagement. There's no, like, now. You can't really do that. You know, and as far as, like, the. The differentiation between back then and now, it's kind of like. But it does make sense.

I mean, Russia just rolled into Ukraine.

Yeah, but you see, like, somebody's gonna be like, hey, wait a second. You can't do that. Let me. You know, kind of like you can't do that.

Yeah.

You know, there's somebody saying it and doing something about it. At the very least, varying levels of success. But still, I'm just saying that's in place. You know, when you think back in the day, not as much, but you do. That does make sense too, with the, with the technology where you're like, yeah, you can kill a bunch of people with a bow and arrow. Well, comparatively speaking, no, because even you just get a machine gun.

Have you ever seen the simulations on YouTube where they're like three modern infantry men with machine guns against whatever, Roman legion? Have you ever seen those things? They're like simulations. They're like little computer simulations and it's just chaos.

Yeah.

But it's, it's not some like highly technical simulation, but it's, it looks like a video game is being played. Yeah, but it looks like there's some kind of algorithm behind it, you know, where they've actually put in the, the. To run the model. You know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, fully. And that. And that's kind of what I was thinking there, where you get 10 guys with bow and arrows, 10 guys with machine guns. Or you get just, just two different runs. Right. Where you got a bunch of people with all bow and arrows or something like that, and you got 10 versus whatever. And then run the same thing with machine guns. Because machine gun is just like, what, what's the time of like potential kill per person? Like bow and arrow is like one, at least, I don't know what, four seconds. The machine gun is like not even one second per bullet. And that's one guy. And you got way more bullets. You know, how many arrows can you carry? Like, how many, how many arrows could you carry? If you're in battle with a bow and arrow, how much do you think? Realistically?

Maybe, I mean, if you really loaded out, fully loaded. Yeah, maybe 50. 50, 60.

Yeah.

Maybe even 100 if you're getting crazy, you're going along.

Yeah, let's go 100. But compare that to like a basic machine gunner. It's like. Yeah. Rolling in hot. Yeah. So I get it. I understand. It's all, it's all a process and we're trying to improve and refine it over time.

Well, we, you know, we talk about mental well being.

Yes, sir.

Talking about spiritual well being. We know that physical well being will help out on all fronts.

We do know that.

So we know we're working out and we're working Out. We need fuel. I'm going to recommend jockey fuel. Understanding hydrate over here. I'm drinking a blue raspberry hydrate. Yeah, it's very good.

Yeah, I'd say that the hydrates are like. Again, I say this before I'm saying they're surprisingly good. All take, all of them.

Yeah.

You mentioned in that video that just came out, by the way, that like, oh, the orange is tasty. Kind of indicating that that was your jam.

No, I think I said that about the lemon. Lime is go. Is the go to. But if you want, if you, if you're feeling like a nine year old that wants candy, get the fruit punch.

Yeah, that's the one like my son likes. Yeah. Yeah, but they're all good. The flavor, you know, right now, seven.

Yeah. So seven year old and you want some sugar.

Yeah.

The fruit punch tastes like Kool Aid.

Back in the day. Straight up, fruit punch.

Yeah, it's freaking drinks.

Yeah, yeah, fully. He always. Yeah, he has one going all day. Just, you know. You know, when it's finished, he grabs the next one. He just has been going all day. Hey, man, get it good.

Yeah, that's the cool thing. No downside, good.

All upside, stay hydrated. You know, kids running around. Yeah, it's true. But yeah, good. All clean, by the way.

Yep. What does that mean? It means no, the main thing is no sugar and no artificial sweeteners.

Yeah.

Because you can throw in the sucralose or whatever, those things aren't good for you. But if you sweeten it with monk fruit and allulose and fermented cane sugar, you got something tasty. So that's what we're doing anyways. We got. That just came out. Hydrate. Also, we got protein, the protein shakes, the protein powder. We got go. The clean energy for your system. And of course, we got joint warfare, Super Krill, Cold War, vitamin D. We just got all the good stuff. Check it out. Jockofuel.com, also at Wawa, also at Vitamin Shop, GNC, Military Commissaries, Aphi's, Hannaford- Stores in Maryland, Wakefern, Shoprite, HEB, Meijer, Wegmans, Harris Teeter. We're getting there. We're getting all these different places. Lifetime Fitness, we're in there. Shields, we're in there. Small gyms everywhere. If you got a gym, jiu Jitsu Gym, CrossFit Gym.

Powerlifting Gym, Olympic lifting gym. What other kinds of gyms are there? Globo gym, what other? Gymnastics gym, Pilates gym, yoga gym. Like doesn't matter. You got a studio.

Yeah, yeah.

Got an Academy. Email jfsalesjogglefuel.com get it in there. That's what we're doing. Also Origin USA we make awesome gear. Made in America. Not made by communists. We talked about the communists today. Not made by communists, made by Americans right here in America. And all the material comes from America. The cotton, the buttons.

Origin USA.com get yourself a pair of jeans. Blue jeans. American blue jeans. Isn't it sad that you're American blue jeans if you're not wearing origin? There's a 98% chance that your jeans, your American jeans are made by a 12 or 13 year old girl in a sweatshop whose pretty much a slave. That's what's happening. So don't do that. Go to originusa.com get the goods. Get some jiu jitsu gear too. Get a gi, get a rash guard. Get what you need. That's what we're doing. Hey, we also have a Jiu Jitsu training camp. We're doing it for law enforcement officers. August 27th through the 31st in Maine. Go to originusa.com to register. That's what's up. It's true.

Also, don't forget about Jocko store or discipline equals freedom. You want to represent? We got. We've got some apparel there. A lot of apparel. Some shirts, hats, hoodies, that kind of stuff.

Also the Shirt Locker. It's called the Shirt Locker. You get a new design every month subscription scenario. Some good ones on there. Current what episode this 443 so current design is back to the book.

Saying that we've all come to be very.

You made. There was an old T shirt that said back to what did we update?

It is a different one.

Got it.

Has some. Has a few more layers on it. Anyway, there's a new cool design every. People seem to like it. Anyway. Check it out. Go to Jocko store. You click on the top where it says Shirt Locker. You can kind of see little examples of what we've done in the past to get, you know, so you can understand the vibe of what we're doing.

Also, you want some steak? Check out coloradocraft beef.com Check out primalbeef.com get the highest quality steak for your life made by awesome people right here in America. That's what we're doing. Coloradocraftbeef.com primalbeef.com don't forget to subscribe to the podcast. Don't forget about Jocko Underground. We're about to record a couple of those don't forget about our YouTube channels. Jocko Podcast, Jocko Fuel Origin USA Echelon Front. We got all those different YouTube channels, different content in each one of them. Psychological Warfare. Flip side canvas flipsidecanvas.com Dakota Meyer making cool stuff to hang on your wall. The book again. Good luck getting it. Maybe they'll do a reprint of it. I'm sure. I bet they will. Fight the good fight by Robert G. Rayburn. Thanks to Rob Rayburn for sending this out to me. Also, I've written a bunch of books about leadership. I've written a bunch of books about.

Leadership for kids. Life for kids. Way the Warrior Kid. Check that out. Mikey and the Dragons. I wrote a novel called Final Spin which is about. It's about a laundromat and Brothers and Sacrifice. That's what it's about. I know it's a little strange combo, but let's face it, it's good.

And also we have a leadership consultancy. We solve problems through leadership. Go to echelonfront.com for details. If you want to do anything with us or you need help in leadership in any department, department, in any business that you're in, if you have problems, your problems are leadership problems and leadership is the solution. That's what we teach there. Go to echelonfront.com for details. There we also have an online training academy for leadership and life. Extremeownership.com check that out. Come to one of the live sessions we're on there on Mondays, talking about, answering questions, talking people through issues. Extreme ownership.com, also, if you want to help service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, Gold Star families. Check out Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee. She's got that charity organization. If you want to donate or you want to get involved, go to America's mighty warriors.org and if you want to donate specifically to the One One Ads memorial, which includes Mark Lee's name and Mikey Mansour's name, Ryan Job's name is not on there yet. I got to talk to them about that. But if you want to donate to the refurbishment of that, then you can put that specifically in the notes. Also heroes and horses.org Micah Fink up there in Montana helping the vets find themselves in the mountains. And then Jimmy May's organization beyond the brotherhood.org getting seals primarily from their service into their civilian service. So check that one out. And if you want to connect with us, go to jocko.com do you have echo.com youm don't have that Charles, echo. Charles.com. what's on it?

Nothing.

Okay, well, you know, you know. Okay. If you want to connect with me, I'm@jocko.com. if you want to, we're on social media as well. Echoes at Echo Charles. I'm at Jocko Link. Just be careful because there's the devil. He's got an algorithm. It's evil and they'll pull you into it. You won't even know what's happening. Be camouflaged.

Yeah.

You'll waste a bunch of time.

You know what the. One of the devil's tricks is to. I kind of figured it out. I think I did. I don't know, maybe I didn't. But this is what it seems like, you know, the whole short. Short term versus long term. Like he wants to entice you with.

The short term 100%.

And if you feel. If you really allow yourself to feel it. It's weird how the short term is so much more like powerful, immediate as a dose. You know, the dose is more powerful, you know, but it always screws you, you know. You know how they say the deal with the devil, that's usually what it is. It's where it's like something up front you get. That's like very hard to resist. And then you get screwed on the back end, which means later. That's what it is. That's the deal with the devil. That's the devil does.

Yeah.

So that's kind of what the algorithm does too.

Yeah.

So there you go. Don't let it get you. Don't let that short term little dope him, he can get you. Also thanks to the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines with a salute to the chaplains and religious rates and the moss in those service branches that help fight the darkness in the world alongside those who fight the enemy. Thank you for your service. Also to our police, law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service and all other first responders. Thank you you for your service here at home fighting against the darkness and everyone else out there.

Choose and know your weapons. Watch out for the camouflage and the deception. Don't forget that the darkness is everywhere. They can even make little strongholds in your own soul. So you gotta watch out for it because it's waiting. Like a lion.

Like a lion seeking whom he may devour.

Don't fall prey to that. Be vigilant, be sober and keep getting after it. And that's all we've got for tonight. Until next time, this is Echo and Jocko out.