Rob Jones - Double Amputee OIF OEF Veteran, US Marine Corps, Professional Speaker

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What is the roadmap to defeat self sabotage, negative thinking and learned helplessness in these unprecedented times? You must get connected, get growing, get certain and Get Attitude. The Get Attitude Podcast. And welcome to the Gap. The Get Attitude Podcast and baby, we are going to get some attitude today. This is Glenn Bill, international best selling author, keynote speaker and host of the Get Attitude Podcast and the award winning Get Attitude Podcast. My producer Jason Jolliffe is with us today. And let me tell you something, we have an extremely inspirational guest. We have, in my opinion, a war hero that I'm sure he'll never do it because most of our veterans never consider themselves heroes. But. But he is. And he's just going to have to take that today. And when we talk about bridging the gap from who you are to who you want to become and from where you are, which is this man's story to where he wanted to go, I'm telling you, you're going to learn a lot. You're going to have insight a lot. And I think you're going to get attitude from this. We are with the one and only Rob Jones. He's a motivational keynote speaker. He is our guest. And Jason, let's go ahead and pull up Rob on stage. Here we go. A little quick introduction.

Having a good character is the most important thing. It's who you are as a person. So there's really nothing more important than that.

I'm a Marine, retired Marine.

I was wounded in Afghanistan, 2010. I was a combat engineer primarily tasked with finding IEDs. On July 22, 2010, I was in Afghanistan attempting to find an IED and my luck ran out and the IED found me first and that resulted in double above knee amputations. My mission for my life was still the same. I wanted to have a positive experience. I wanted to have an enjoyable life, and I wanted to have a meaningful life. And that doesn't change just because you've been injured. When somebody sees an example of what is possible for them, then it makes it so much easier for them to rise to the occasion and achieve that. So when I was in therapy, I had guys that had been there a long time before me for a year or so, and I could see that they were walking and running and doing all these things I wanted to do. And because I saw that, I was able to foresee myself doing it and.

Then make that happen.

All right. And here on the Get Attitude podcast, the one and only Rob Jones. Rob, what is up? Welcome to the Gap.

Good morning. Thanks a lot. How are you guys doing?

We're good. Today we're sitting here in Indianapolis. Where are you located?

Middleburg, Virginia. Northern Virginia area.

Okay. With plenty of vets hanging out around Virginia, I'm sure.

Oh, yeah, there's a big population here.

I love it. Now, I saw you getting tackled by your son. I got three sons. How many kids you got? That was so cool. It took me back just one right now.

His Name's Harry. He's 19 months old. He is. That was his tryout video to try and make the Virginia Tech football team.

And boy, did Virginia Tech have a huge win. Did you. Why? Are you a Virginia Tech fan?

Yeah, I went there for college and. Oh, yeah, I guess they'd be. They'd be my team if I. I don't watch a whole lot of sports, but.

Cool. Well, they just smacked down. They put the smack down at home against the number 10 rated North Carolina blue, whatever the hell they are. So. Yeah, so it was cool. They're. They're good. You might want to give them a watch this year. They're fun to watch.

Yeah, it's always a lot more fun to watch when your team is good. I'm an Orioles fan as well, so this season's been painful.

Yeah.

I think that's a recurring theme with the poor Orioles. So hopefully that will change for you. I love what you said in the video, that when people are able to see somebody else, they actually feel like they can feel that lift, that help that they're needing. Let me ask you this, I'd love to know what is your definition of attitude and who was your first attitude coach who gave you the attitude that you've had to come through what you've come through?

I guess I would Say my definition of attitude is just your, your, your mindset towards a situation or towards a person. And I would say my current attitude probably is founded in the Marine Corps. I mean, I was a pretty different person before in terms of attitude and mindset before joining the Marine Corps and then now. And so I think I learned the basis for what my personal philosophy and what I think about things these days from joining the Marine Corps and reading about the stories of the Marines of World War II and just Marines that came before, before me. And I mean that's the reason I joined the Marine Corps in the first place. Just because I read those stories and I saw what was missing in my life.

Yeah, cool. So when you mentioned your personal philosophy today, what is your personal philosophy?

I mean, it's just everything that I think. But my personal philosophy in terms of my injury is survive, recover, live. It's kind of the three stages of facing any challenge is you survive the challenge, then you recover from it and then you use it to improve your life more than you thought it to a point that it's better than you thought it could ever have been. And so I kind of try and show people that's how, that's what I did. Use myself as a test case and do what I can to help people see that they can do the same thing.

Talk to me about Rob pre Marine. What was the attitude of Rob pre Marine?

I think it was more self centered and less. I just didn't, I didn't really care about a whole lot besides what was going on in my own, my own life. I wasn't a bad person or anything, but I think I was just cared a bit more about what was good for me. And that kind of led me to a point where I was lonely in college, wasn't doing very well. I just felt like there were pieces of my life that were missing. I was, wasn't in a good, in a good place. And so my friend had joined the Marine Corps the year before and I just researched the Marine Corps to see what he was doing and was intrigued. And then I read this book called Brotherhood of Heroes about the battle of Peleliu in World War II. Wow. And that's when I read about these Marines exhibiting courage and brotherhood and selflessness. And I realized that that was what was missing from my life. And so the best way to find those pieces was to join the Marine Corps and go to war.

And so were you inspired by September 11th? You came in in 03, was that correct?

I joined the Marine Corps in 2000. Well, I signed up in 2005 and I went to boot camp in 2006.

Okay.

I don't think 911 wasn't the. I certainly was impacted by it, like everybody was, and it was certainly a contributing factor, but I don't think it was the driving force. I think it was more the personal search for missing pieces of my life and being part of a brotherhood. And then with the added bonus that I was going to get the opportunity to go try and kill some terrorists that. That did that.

I like it. What, tell me, where did you do basic and who was the biggest prick drill sergeant you had?

Well, everybody on the east coast, everybody east of the Mississippi in the Marine Corps goes to Parris Island, South Carolina, and then everybody west of the Mississippi goes to San Diego Recruit Depot. I mean, all, all the drill instructors are dicks. That's kind of the idea. But there's different levels of dick.

Yes.

You have your senior drill instructor. He's nice to you sometimes because he's kind of your main mentor. He's like your dad. And then the other two drill instructors are kind of like your older brothers. And so they're kind of equally. They're equal dick, equally dicky. And then they just, you know, they just want to break you down. But then there's like, even with it between those two brothers, there's the one that's kind of your. He teaches you all the drill and he's kind of the guy you spend the most time with, so he's a little bit nicer. And then there's just the third drill instructor who just got there, and he's kind of a new drill instructor, and his whole job is just to thrash you and make your life miserable. So Sergeant Smith was his name.

Sergeant Smith. Here's the Sergeant Smith. So talk to me about. I don't know if you got off of a bus or a plane, but I always think about, you know, had I joined the Marines or. I know this goes through civilians minds. You step and you go, oh, shit, I'm doing this. Like, what was your attitude? Or was there a wake up call? Were you nervous? Were you scared? Were you. All of the above. What was your attitude when you said, okay, here we go, let's do this?

Yeah, certainly all the above. I mean, there's definitely nervous, definitely scared. But at the same time, I had prepared in that I'd been physically training. I knew what the physical fitness test involved, what I needed to be able to do. So I did a lot of. I was doing a lot of push ups and a lot of pull ups and running and crunches and that kind of thing. So I had been getting in shape. I've been preparing myself as much as I could. I read books about what boot camp was like in order to, you know, prepare myself. And so when I got there, I kind of knew what to expect. But that doesn't necessarily make it easier to endure. It makes it a little bit easier to endure when you know what to expect, but doesn't make it any less scary. And so, yeah, I was definitely. I didn't know how I was going to react. And. But they also make it really simple for you. All you have to do is listen to what you're told to do, do what you're told to do, scream at the top of your lungs every time you open your mouth, and just do everything as fast as you possibly can. So they make it really simple. So as long as you're. As long as you do that, then everything's going to be okay.

Were you an athlete in high school before or not really?

I kind of grew up all the way through middle school. I kind of grew up being an athlete, but then I think I had a late growth spurt in high school. I was like £90 in my ninth grade year and I wanted to continue sports, but I just wasn't making any teams. And so that kind of kind of discouraged me. And so I kind of translated. I went from being into sports to being into computers. And so I kind of just went with that through high school and then I went to Virginia Tech trying to major in computer science. But through this kind of the personal stuff that I was experiencing at the time, you know, I ended up with majoring in interdisciplinary studies after I joined the Marine Corps.

Wow. And when you go into the Marine Corps, how many brothers are you with? Like, you know, I don't know, is there. Are you like with 20 guys that you're with all the time or is that 50 guys or is it 100 guys? I don't know if that's battalion, company or what's the hierarchy there?

Yeah, well, so there's the whole depot, and then the depot has four battalions, or when I was there, had four battalions. I don't know what. What it is anymore. And then each battalion has a couple companies and I was in hotel company, which had six platoons, or, I don't remember, maybe three platoons. I don't. It has three to six platoons, and each platoon has 90 recruits.

All right, so you and 90 brothers walked in day one together. How long does it take to become a quote unquote Marine out of basic.

Boot camp at that time was 13 weeks.

Wow.

From day one to graduation day, 13 weeks long.

And then after 13 weeks, how many of the 90 made it through? Do you have any idea? What's the ratio of that?

It was most of them. I mean, it's not, it's not like Marine Corps boot camp isn't like, you know, Navy SEAL buds where the attrition rate is 80, 80, 90%.

Right.

Boot camp is more. It's probably, I'd say, you know, graduation rate was probably up around 90 plus percent. Because they make it really hard for you to quit. I mean, you can quit, but they make it. It's not something that they really let you do easily. Right. And so. And it's not, it's not something. It's not designed to make you quit really. It's designed to transform you into, you know, basically trained Marine. They don't want you to quit. They just, they. They're breaking you down and remolding you into what they need you to be.

How was the food?

It was good. I mean, you wouldn't. I mean, I was so hungry every meal that didn't matter. I don't even know if I. And they only give you two minutes, two, three minutes to eat, so you don't have a whole lot of time to taste flavor. You just get a couple slices of bread, pile everything onto the piece of bread and eat it like a sandwich and then.

Inhale. What was the toughest day of basic or was there ever a day where you said, shit, man, I don't know if I'm going to get through this?

I don't think there was ever a day where I doubted whether or not I'd be able to do it because it becomes pretty. The days don't change a whole lot. It's a pretty standard schedule. So once I kind of recognize what the schedule is going to be and it doesn't get a whole lot harder as you go throughout boot camp. I think it probably gets easier throughout boot camp because you kind of adapt to the schedule and what's happening. Waking up at 4:30 or whatever and the PT, honestly the hardest part for me was having to hold my pee because you're just drinking water constantly and you can only go to the bathroom at certain times. And so just. That was as weird as it is. That was probably the hardest thing.

And I'm guessing people would just piss themselves, correct?

Sometimes, yeah. Yeah, sometimes. I mean, you can usually ask for a head call, but if you did, you would get thrashed later.

So yeah, that shit you were going to pay for for that privilege. What's a day in the life of pe? What's a normal. So like everybody that's listening to this who's like, I can't get up, I can't work out and I just don't know that I can do a 5K or whatever or walk around the block just to get healthy. Just give me a little smattering of the physical requirements of a Marine day.

Well, PT in boot camp is kind of continuous. I mean, you have formal, you have formal PT sessions where you either go for a run or you do pull ups and you do kind of calisthenics and you do obstacle course and things like that. Body weight exercises mostly and Marine Corps martial arts training. But really PT in the Marine Corps boot camp is happening all the time because that's how you get punished. That's how you are bonded together as a platoon. And so if you screw up, you just end up doing push ups until your arms are noodles. And they tell you to do more push ups, you just don't have a choice. And then if they have some extra time and one of the vast majority or one of a million things that could piss off a drill instructor happens, like you move your eyes the wrong way, then they just tell you to run over there. And then they, they just say that you weren't fast enough so you have to run over there. And then you run over there and they just kind of run you back and forth. Wow. Until they run out of. So it's just, you know it's going to end because you know that there's a training schedule that they have to stick with. But it's really just, they just run you or push you into to exhaustion and just, you just have to keep going. Or they take you into the sand pit and they just make you. And they say, we're not going to stop doing push ups until everybody is pushing up. And of course there's 90 people all in varying ranges of fatigue. So at any given point, nobody. It's hardly ever the case that everybody's like in the up of a push up position. Everybody's getting tired and dropping down. So they just say, well, we're not going to leave here until everybody's up.

Yeah.

And then eventually, you know, people figure it out that you just have to push it out for a little bit longer.

And the sand, the sand pit does not sound like a fun place. Let me ask you this. What was the attitude lesson? So you got through it? I think the answer may be obvious, but was there an attitude lesson or a mindset lesson that once you were done that you said, wow, something clicked. There was a new thought, there was a new mantra, there was a new philosophy. What did you learn?

There's a lot of stuff that you learn in boot camp that you probably don't recognize at the time. But in retrospect, looking back on it, I can identify all these different things. But I think the main lesson that they want you to leave boot camp with is it's not about you anymore. It's about your country first, the Marine Corps second, your fellow Marines third. And then you. So you're, you know, the, your preferences and what's important to you gets dropped way down. But at the same time, because you have those three things in front of you as in terms of importance, you are actually going to be able to get more out of yourself and accomplish greater things than you would if you put yourself first. Because you're more about your country, the Marine Corps, and your fellow Marines than you do yourself. And so if you're doing something just on your own behalf, just for you, then you get to a certain level. But since you have these other, these three new things that are more important than you, then there's three more levels that you have that you can go to.

Yeah, that's awesome. Attitude booster number 10 in the ABCs of Attitude book, which is be a part of something bigger than you. And you lived that. So you graduate from the Marines and you get on a plane where you deployed to Afghanistan first. Was that your deployment? Boom, right now, out of that, or did you do a little something in between or. Give me that story. And then what I want to know is when you stepped off that plane in Afghanistan, if that's where you landed, you know, what was your first day like? That's what I want to know.

So I, when I got from boot camp, I was, I joined as a reservist, what's called the 92 Day Reservist. And so what it is, is it's kind of a program for people in college. Yeah. So I had finished my junior year at Virginia Tech and then went to boot camp. And normally the normal process would be go to boot camp, then you go to your Marine combat training, and then you go to your job school, and then you go to your unit. But the way it happened for me was I went to boot camp and then I went to my reserve unit in Roanoke, Virginia, and I drilled with them for a year while I finished my last year of college. And then the next summer I went to Marine combat training, and then I went to combat engineer school. And during that time, my reserve unit said they were sending a volunteer platoon to Iraq to habane, Iraq in 2008. And so I volunteered for that deployment. And that deployment was seven months long. And we primarily were finding buried weapons caches. So like Al Qaeda would. They would have buried, you know, artillery shells, machine guns, and things like that in various places. And then the local populace would alert us to those places. We'd go and find it, and then explosive ordnance disposal would get rid of it.

Wow.

Then it came back from that deployment, and my reserve unit said, pretty much immediately said they were going to send another volunteer platoon to Afghanistan, and I volunteer for that deployment. And that was in 2010. And first day in Afghanistan and Iraq too is. It's just kind of getting you to. You get off the plane and then you have to get to, like, where you're gonna be ultimately. But it takes a long time to get there because you have to wait for when. Iraq, it didn't take that long because we were stationed right next across from the airport. So basically we got off the airplane, we got on a truck, and we were taken to our. Our lodging. But in Afghanistan, you know, we arrived in Afghanistan and then we had to stay at Camp Leatherneck for a couple weeks while we waited for. We did a little bit of training, and we waited for a helicopter to take us to ultimately where our Ford operating base is going to be. Wow. So it's kind of like a. It's not like you get off the plane and you're immediately just like, get in. Get down on a knee and start shooting at the enemy.

Yes.

It's controlled descent into. Into war.

Yeah. Where you ended up. And so when you jumped on that helicopter, you said, oh, shit, here I'm getting ready to go into some stuff. I'm guessing you probably went to some mountainous regions, some places you've never seen before. How many people were on your helicopter and how many people were stationed with you when you landed on that first journey?

The number of people on a helicopter, the first helicopter was. It was just transporting us with all of our stuff right to this larger base. It's like, it's. It takes a lot of different transportation to finally get you all the way out to, like, the front lines or where you're gonna be ultimately. And so the first helicopter was from Camp Levinek to Camp Delarom. And that was still another kind of just a transportation movement where we had all of our stuff and it was really. There was no combat or it wasn't exciting. It was just like taking a flight from D.C. to New York, you know, just like shuffling along and like waiting your turn to get on and off. And then we stayed there, and then we got on trucks that drove us through the desert to our forward operating base. And that was probably a six to eight hour drive. And at the end of it, we were just covered in this dust. Wow. And then at the forward operating base, there were two for us. There was one that was kind of company size with just three platoons and attachments. Right. And then there was another one further out that I got sent to, which was one platoon, which is about, you know, 40, 40 Marines or so.

Wow.

And then that's where I spent the first half of the deployment in this kind of maybe two, three football field sized patch of desert surrounded by what we call HESCO barriers, which is basically like chain link fence filled with dirt.

Right. Meant to protect you or to be a barrier for the enemy or whatever it may be. Correct?

Yeah. It's like bunkers. Like bunkers that you build, you know, dirt bunkers that you can build with, like. Like Legos for war kind of then.

And so what's the day in the life of a mar. After you get to where you're supposed to be? Is it a 12 hour workday? Is it a 24 hour workday? Are there days off? Does anybody give a shit about you feeling comfortable?

Is it.

Is it. Is it hostile? You know, what are the emotions? What are the attitudes that are going on with your brothers that are there?

Well, the situation when we first. When we got to this first forward operating base was different than later on. This is kind of like that deployment was kind of broken down into two halves. The first half was kind of. This was the build portion of the clear hold build strategy, or it's kind of the hold build portion. So we had a forward operating base already established, and so we sat there and what we mostly did was kind of go out on security patrols. So there were four squads of 13 Marines, and they would all kind of have. They would rotate through their responsibilities. So one squad would have security patrol responsibility for three days where they would do two patrols a day. They go out one time in the day and one time at night. And that's just a. It's to provide security for yourself, do missions like talk to locals, that kind of thing. Right. And then the other three squads would be either on rest or manning the posts around the Ford operating base.

Okay.

But for me, I was a combat engineer, so I was, you know, my job was to go out and find IEDs for the infantry Marines that I was with. Yeah. And so I spent most of my time going out on patrol, and I was the only combat engineer there, so I kind of didn't really get. Every now and then I wouldn't go on a patrol, but I kind of wanted. I tried to go on every patrol I could possibly go on because obviously the IED threat was real. Yeah, it was real threat. And so I didn't want to leave these guys without that asset.

Yeah, that's. And, and intelligence was the biggest way for you to find IEDs, or were there machines, detectors, or was it. I mean, how did, how do you go about finding an ied?

Yeah, all the above. I mean, if a local could potentially tell us if we had a relationship good enough, they could say, there's an idea over there. I don't think that ever happened, but there is potential for that to happen. Sure. A lot of the times they know where they are. Whether or not they tell you is whether or not they like you. Right. And so. But the main way was kind of through intuition and just knowing the standard tactics of the Taliban. And so what they would like to do was they, they didn't, you know, they don't have infinite IEDs. They have a limited number. And so what they would like to do was put their IEDs in the locations that they suspected we were going to go into. So what we call these is, we call them choke points or danger areas. And so a good example is north of our Ford operating base, there was a dry riverbed or dry creek bed called a wadi. And it's like got 10 to 12 foot high walls that are just like straight down. So we're not going to go up to the wall and jump down and climb back up the other side. But every now and then there would be little paths that had been worn by the locals where it kind of goes down gradually and back up the other side.

Yeah.

And so the Taliban would know that we're going to use that little bridge, that little section or so. If they were going to put any IEDs anywhere, they're going to put them there. And so we. It's like a. It's kind of like a we know that they know that we know that they know type of thing.

Sure. Yeah.

They know we're going to go there. We know they're going to try and put IDs there, but they know that we know that the word, you know, so it's like this kind of back and forth.

Wow.

So pretty much every time we would go up to one of those areas, I would sweep it with my metal detector.

Okay.

And just try. And it's like your metal detector. And then you're also using your eyes to try and discern whether or not the ground looks different than it should. Sure, I will learn skill. But luckily there weren't any IEDs that, you know, got planted in that first little half of the deployment.

What. How long. How long of arm does your metal detector have? I would think I'd want it to be about 50 damn feet, but my guess is it wasn't.

No, it was probably about 5ft long.

Yeah.

I would hold it in my. Against my forearm right here. It would extend down five feet. And then. Yeah, it would use. I mean, the search head of the metal detector would probably be a foot in front of my feet or a foot and a half in front of my feet.

That's just got to be nerve wracking. How. I mean, I know it's because you're brave. I know it's because that's how you're trained. I mean, like, how do you discern or how do you mentally go, fuck it. I'm. I'm doing this. I'm sweeping it. I mean, what's the. How did you do that? Because not a lot of people could do that.

Yeah. I mean, that's what we were talking about before. These Marines that are depending on me rate higher than my desire to not get killed by an ied. So. Right. There's no. I mean, there's no question.

Yeah.

There was never a hesitation. It's just like if. If I was pinned down and. Or if I got shot by a sniper or something, these guys are gonna run out and come get me. Right. And there's just that trust between us and there's that. That sense that they're depending on me and this is what they need me to do, so I'm gonna go out and do it. So there was never any. Any thought to the contrary?

Yeah. That's called a high level of trust. Talk to me about the. Yeah, I mean, wow. Talk to me about the day that changed your life. I mean, when that IED went off under you, when you, as you so appropriately say, when. I think you said when my luck runs out or when the IED found me. Talk to me about that day. Like, what was going on before that happened and how did you know what was the circumstance there?

Sure. I mean, so we spent about three months in this Ford operating base I told you about, and then we were moved to a new area where we were performing the clear portion of the clearhold build strategy, which was going to be. Basically, there was. It was an area that was controlled by the Taliban. So we were clearing them out, you know, clearing them out so that we could come in, build forward operating bases, provide security, and then, you know, and help help the local populace there, establish themselves in a security, in a secure environment. And so as a part of that, what we need, what. Basically what we were doing, we were doing what's called a push. So we would basically walk into Taliban territory with our vehicles, with all of our Marines, and just seize territory. And so if they wanted to resist, we killed them or they would shoot and retreat or whatever, but they knew that we were coming because, you know, this whole back and forth, we know they know, we know they know.

Right.

Type of thing. When they see a bunch of Marines come into a base, they're like, okay, something's about to happen. So they started putting their IEDs in the ground, and there were IEDs all over the place to begin with because they were fighting the British there too. Right. And so as a part of this, you know, we were doing all sorts of different IED mitigation strategies. And so we would spend the day walking. We would seize compounds. I would, you know, me and other combat engineers and explosive ordinance disposal guys would sweep the compounds, make sure there weren't any IEDs in them. And then we would establish ourselves in these compounds and make them into forward operating bases. These are mud compounds with mud walls and mud buildings. And then we put sandbags on them and kind of get them set up so that we could run operations out of them. And so we just kind of do that and then push a little bit further and push further into the territory until we got where we needed to be. And so I think we did this one time, and then we did some security patrols for a couple weeks, and then we did another push. And it was on the second push that I was with a squad of marines that was kind of on outskirts of the whole thing, providing security on the flanks. And like I said, There's IEDs all over the place. And at one point, we knelt down to take a break and for the leadership to have little strategy meeting. And we stand up and it was the. The order of the patrol was, you know, the Point man was first and then it was me. And then. So the point man stepped on an ied. Like the second he stands up, he's maybe his first or second step, he steps on an ied. But the good thing about that was that the IED malfunctioned. And so an IED is built of, you know, there's a. The pressure plate. And the pressure plate's connected to a blasting cap. And the blasting cap goes into. It's like a half a pen sized piece of explosives that goes down into a jug of homemade explosives use the ammonium nitrate. And for whatever reason the IED didn't function correctly and just that little blasting cap went off. So it's kind of like a little firecracker went off next to him. But we all knew what that was. That's an ied. And where there's one ied, there's going to be two or three. So basically that area immediately became a danger area. Likelihood that there's going to be an I, another IED is 100%. So then it became my job to guide us through. And so I got, you know, I got out my metal detector and started sweeping back and forth and trying to find a safe path. And you know, just kind of one second I was using my metal detector and I take a step and then, you know, everything disappears. And then, yeah, I was hit by the ID and so I wake up probably 15, 20 seconds. It's like a. So from my perspective, I was basically sweeping for an ied and then I teleport to being on my back and screaming like you see in the war movies. Yes. And just kind of like all my senses, you know, my. I could, all I could hear were screams. All I could see was like this tunnel vision. I could was looking up at the sky and my smell and my taste was kind of dirt. And there's this really distinct kind of stench that comes along with an explosion from explosives. It's like this really chemically, it's hard to describe it. It's like a chemical smell and taste. So I could kind of taste that in my throat and everything. And then my lungs or my, my legs felt like they had been kind of like this really a painful numbness where, you know how you fall asleep on your arm and it hurts if you fall asleep on it for long enough? Yeah, like that. Except, you know, magnified by, you know, a few hundred times. And then so I wake up and I'm screaming, But after about 20 seconds, I guess the endorphins in my body Kind of take over, and I calm down, and that's when I can hear. The fellow Marines are like, they're yelling to me that they're coming, everything's gonna be okay. But they can't just run right over to me because there's probably a third IED somewhere in there. Right. So they had to get another combat engineer to come over, sweep to me so they could come over, put tourniquets on my legs, and then transport me to a. To a tank. Then the tank took. Took me to a helicopter, and the helicopter took me to the surgical area of Camp Leatherneck.

Wow. And you remained conscious during this trip?

Not the entire trip. So I wake up, and then I'm conscious from when I woke up, you know, 20 seconds after the IED blast and to the point that they put me in the tank.

Yeah.

And they gave me something to put me, put me to sleep.

And so that day changes your life. And that day begins this thing called the Rob Jones Journey.

Yeah, exactly.

And so let's, you know, I. The story's chilling, but I know, because I know service and military, that I know you aren't the only guy that this happened to. Right. And I know that you probably think about similar guys that have the same. Do you have any idea how many soldiers went through what you've gone through?

I don't know how many double above knee amputees there are. I mean, it's tens of thousands. Tens of thousands of people have been hit by IEDs, I think. I mean, I mean, I'm just kind of guessing there. I'm not sure what the exact statistic is, but I mean, you say it happens over there, but this kind of thing happens here. I mean, people lose their limbs and have these kind of traumatic injuries in cars. You know, they. They're mowing their lawn and they slip and their foot goes underneath and gets their foot chopped off. And I mean, sure, this kind of thing happens. Doesn't just happen in war, it happens to.

Yeah. Farm accidents, you know.

Yeah. I mean. Yeah. I mean, people making, making their own fireworks mess it up and they blow their hands off. So there's all sorts of stuff that happens like that here too. So it's not just the, the veteran either.

As you were rehabbing and doing the therapy, was there one person, one story that moved you, that inspired you, that helped take you to the next level to create this thing known as the Rob Jones Journey? Was there a soldier that you met that had the same thing and, and what was their attitude and what was the attitude lesson of, of that recovery period for you?

Yeah, I'd say there's probably a couple people that I used as influences in that, in that way. The first one was named. His name was Dan Canasson. And it was, it was. I mean, the, the environment at Walter Reed in the rehab clinic was one of. It was a communal. A communal effort to get everybody through recovery and everybody doing as well as they could. And so as part of that, when I was a week in the hospital, or maybe my second week in the hospital, I got a visit from guys from Walter Reed that came over and kind of answered questions for me and that kind of thing. They were wearing prosthetics, and so I kind of saw. That was my first experience with seeing these people that were wearing prosthetics and kind of knowing that I wasn't going to be in a wheelchair forever. And then when I got to the clinic, there was this guy named Dan Kanason. He was a Navy seal, double above knee amputee, just like me. And he had been there about a year longer than I had been there. And I just saw him doing everything that I wanted to be able to do. Every day in the clinic, he was by himself. He didn't have a caretaker. There's nobody looking after him. He was totally independent. And he got in there and he worked out. He does work out. And then he left and he went on with the rest of his life just like he had a normal life, you know, like it was before. And so seeing him enabled me to kind of perceive what was gonna be possible for my future a lot. Like the four minute mile, like climbing Mount Everest, all these different things where you see something firsthand and then, you know it's possible for that person. So it can definitely be possible for you. Yeah. And then the second guy was named Rudy Garcia Tolson, and he was somebody I found out about when I was trying to learn how to ride a bicycle, because it was something. There weren't any double above knee amputees that were able to ride a normal bicycle at Walter Reed, and Rudy was the only one in the whole world. And so when I wanted to try and do that, I watched videos of Rudy and I met Rudy. And so again, it was another situation where, well, if he can do it, then there's got to be a way for me to figure out how to do it too. Wow.

And so when I think about the Rob Jones journey, there's a stat that I saw. I still can't believe it, but meeting you, there's probably no doubt that this happened. You did 31 marathons in 31 days. Is that like every day or is there a story there?

No, it was all consecutive. It was 31 marathons, 26.2 miles, and 31 consecutive days, all in different cities around the country. And I have proof.

Holy moly. And that was with your new set of legs, correct?

That was with. Yeah, my running. My running prosthesis. I learned how to run in therapy. And yeah, so that's what I used to do it.

And so talk to us about how in the hell did that come into your crazy head? We'd love to know, number one. Yeah, I think I'm going to run 31 marathons and, and 31 days. What was the purpose? What was the mission? And then what was your attitude when you said, okay, I'm going to do this?

Yeah, so I mean, after, after I retired from the Marine Corps, I got into Paralympic sports. And so I, you know, I won a bronze medal and rowing in 2012, and that kind of got me into it got me into using sports as a tool. You know, I kind of used. I wasn't really thinking about it at the time, but I used it as a way to rediscover my own self reliance and my own self confidence. And so I established that through rowing. And then I saw how powerful, you know, the image can be of, you know, a guy that was wounded in Afghanistan and then is doing all these kind of physical things that he really shouldn't be able to do or people wouldn't expect him to be able to do. I saw how powerful that could be. I decided to use the bike riding that I learned in therapy to continue that. And so that's when I rode my bike across the country. And then with that, I also saw how I can raise money by doing these things too, for causes that helped me in my recovery and that are continuing to help other veterans. And so after the bike ride, I wanted to do another one of these things. And I had run the Marine Corps Marathon in 2015. Just kind of for fun, I ran the Marine Corps Marathon. And so I saw. And that kind of showed me. That reminded me that I had a kind of a talent for running. And it showed me that I could run a marathon. And there were just. And I. And I also saw how many eyes are on, you know, marathons that say it's kind of this. It's this thing in sports and the running community that is kind of one of the pinnacle things to try and do. So everybody's like, oh, man, if I could run a marathon one day, it was kind of this big, big achievement. It is. And so I wanted to. At the same time that all this is going on, I'm also noticing in the veteran community especially that pretty much all the stories that you see in the media and in movies, TV shows, there's kind of one of two veterans. There's the veteran, if it's at war, the movie or the story, then the veterans, this, you know, this Spartan hero that is this super admirable person and they're there with their brothers and they're this hero, the heroic, this heroic Persona. Yes. But the other veteran is when they get home. And there it's that same guy, but he's now a basket case because he can't process. And it just wasn't. That just wasn't what I was seeing in my friends and in my community of veterans in my battalion. And I didn't want to say that that's not a story that happens because obviously it does, but I just felt like it was a story that was getting more play than what happens in reality. Sure. And so I just wanted, all I wanted to do was I wanted to make sure that both sides of that story you're getting out there. Yes, there are some veterans that come home and have trouble processing work as it's the most awful thing that, you know, you can ever experience. But at the same time, there's more veterans that come home, vastly more veterans that come home and they are able to process that. So I wanted to make sure that both that stories, both those stories got out there.

Sure.

And so that was kind of my underlying cause was to create this story that people could use, veterans could use, and then ultimately civilians could use as well, that you can go, you can experience this extreme trauma and afterwards thrive from it and become stronger from it. So that's the story I wanted to get out there. And so the way that I decided to tell this story and exemplify this story, improve this story, was by creating my own story where I'm a double above knee amputee that experienced this trauma. And then I came back home and I ran 31 marathons in 31 days in 31 different cities on behalf of my fellow veterans and doing something more meaningful than I ever thought that I would have before. So that was kind of my underlying cause.

That is really cool. Is there a web link that we can promote? Is there a way for our gappers and our listeners, if they were so inclined, to donate to what you're doing for the causes that you have. Where would you suggest that we go to support. Support what you're doing?

Yeah. My website's robjonesjourney.com okay. And all my social medias, objonesjourney, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. I don't think I have donate links up there anymore. Okay. But the causes that I was raising money for, Semper Fi Fund, Tunnel to Towers foundation and Coalition to Salute America's Heroes. And they all have websites where you can go and donate there.

Great. Semper Five Fund, Tunnel Two Towers. And then the third one was Coalition.

To Salute America's Heroes.

Great. Coalition to Salute America's Heroes. That's so awesome. I hope that our gappers go to all three of those sites to support what you're doing. How's your wife through all of this?

Oh, I mean, she's fantastic. I met Pam in 2012 at the Paralympic Games. She was rowing for England and I was rowing for the United States in a different boat class. And we met there and, you know, obviously we hit it off and started dating a year later, long distance. And then we did four years of long distance and then she finally moved over here. We went through the whole green card process. Still going through the whole green card process. And now we live in a house that was given to us by television Towers Foundation. A lot like what you all are doing. They give us a mortgage free home.

Yes.

And she operates a farm on the property. We have 13 acres.

Oh my gosh.

And then I'm working on my memoir and we're raising Harry. And like you said at the beginning, I'm trying to get as many speaking engagements as I can to continue telling this story to as many people as possible.

I have been watching the Paralympics just over the past few weeks. Incredibly inspirational. Very. Just so cool. Have you thought about going back and competing or are you just too damn old and too tired and tell me maybe one of the best experiences or stories that came out of the relationships and the associations that you had when you became a bronze medalist in rowing at the Paralympic Games.

Yeah, I mean, I'm. I'm retired from competitive sports, I don't think. I think it's one of those things that you. One of the reasons I stopped rowing was it was a little bit too selfish for. For me, it kind of have to. You have to be. You have to be selfish in order to be the best in the world. In sports, a lot of the times you have to prioritize your training needs, your rest needs, and so it wasn't. It didn't have a greater purpose, the right. Greater purpose for me. Yeah. And so I decided to retire from it because it just wasn't. It didn't feel right. And that's kind of why I moved on to doing the charitable athletic stuff, because I still liked using sports and doing physical thing. Physical challenges. So I'm retired from it. And I would say, you know, obviously, my wife. Meet my wife is the most meaningful, you know, thing that happened from it. But, you know, also I met my rowing partner, Oksana, and she's. You should definitely have her on your podcast.

Will do.

She's. She's gone on to be a 10. She's won 10 Olympic Paralympic medals now.

Wow. No kidding. I definitely.

That. And then my rowing coach, Brad Lewis, and Roger met them. They've been mentors to me. And then obviously, it just kind of set me on this. It was the first step in a path that, you know, I took that step, and then that step led me to the. To the bike ride, which led me to the month of marathons, which led me higher and higher. So it was kind of just the first, you know, as the first of those many stepping stones on the way to where I am now.

Are you a religious guy?

You know, I'm not. I'm. I never grew up with religion or anything like that. I think that a lot of the things you find in the Bible and a lot of the things that people believe that are religious are probably pretty similar to the things that I think in terms of how to behave and how to treat people.

Sure.

But I've never really come from it from a higher power type of perspective.

Yeah. Interesting. Let's talk about today's current world. Right. Not that, hey, you deserve to say anything. You deserve to say, and you are welcome to say it here. Pretty monumental times. Monumental in the pullout. What's your overall take? What's your personal take? Maybe on the withdrawal and how do you feel America's doing and what the hell? Like, if you could be president tomorrow, what would be the two or three things you think that could really shape the attitude of our nation to improve the attitude of our nation? So Afghanistan first and just your overall thoughts and strategy there. And then Rob Jones becomes president next week, what would be, like, the three things you think we could do to raise the morale and the attitude of our country?

I mean, in terms of Afghanistan, in my personal opinion, I think that pulling out is a mistake. I think we should stay there and take the time to do the job that we should be doing and that is building Afghanistan into a strong country that can stand on two feet. And I think it's kind of, it's disappointing to me that we seem to have this short sighted view and sort of a lack of will to do that job. And this is almost a bit of ignorance about what that kind of thing takes and ignorance about kind of where the reason that we were there in the first place and about how that hasn't changed. And so it's not something that can, what we were trying to do over there isn't something that can happen in 20 years. And I know that's a long time to be at war, but it's not something that happens in that time frame where you take a country from basically being in the 7th century and trying to bring it to the 21st century and stand on its own two feet with a populace that has been oppressed for the longest time. Yes, that's not something that happens in 20 years. It happens in a generation, maybe even two generations. And I mean, you can draw comparisons to South Korea. I mean, South Korea 20 years after the armistice was nowhere near what it is now. But we decided to keep troops in South Korea and we keep them in Germany and we keep them in Japan. Yes. So I just don't understand why we wouldn't keep them in Afghanistan too. Because that's the forefront of the war on terror. And if we don't keep that, if we don't keep fighting terrorism on their ground, well, then, you know, they're gonna come over here. They're not. The thing is, we may be done with that war, but they're not done.

You damn right.

It's like if you tap out in jiu jitsu and the other guy just decides that he doesn't care that you tapped out, he's gonna snap your arm in half or he's gonna choke you to death. And so both parties have to be willing to stop. And I don't think that the terrorists are willing to stop. They're just going to keep going.

The sheer horror, the vile behavior, the hatred of America is real. I don't think anybody knows that except the men and women who went over there to defend us. And if we don't think that, and I'd like your opinion, the Taliban hasn't changed. I love all the news stories and I don't know, I'm not a soldier, but oh, hey, there's this new kinder, friendlier Taliban. And I'm sitting there going, is this complete bullshit or Are they going to be training tens of thousands of people to come do harm to America? I mean, what. These are not nice people, correct?

No. I mean they have a blood alliance with Al Qaeda. They're like one in the same. And then the number two guy in the Taliban is, has his own terrorist network. So I don't see how. And that's one of the most disappointing things to me about the pull out. I mean obviously you can have your opinion about whether or not we should withdraw. I think the 99.9% of people, maybe everybody but Joe Biden thinks that the, the withdrawal was a travesty. And I think, but the, and it's okay to make a mistake in that regard. Like you can miss, you can, you can have a mistake with your pull out. That's, that can happen. It's disappointing, but it can happen. But what's the, the worst part of it is the, the, the lack of ownership of the mistake. The excuse making and blaming other people, including previous administrations for the mistake and for the lack of strategy and then trying to rationalize, you know, why the, it wasn't a bad pullout and then rationalize why the Taliban is our friends now. And then like treating them as these benevolent people even though two weeks ago they were, you know, they were still trying to kill. They're trying to kill us.

Yes.

So doing, doing all that, that's, I think that's what makes the, the deaths, the most recent deaths of the service members even more unbearable is because, because of the behavior of those in charge of this pullout.

On a scale of 1 to 10, do you believe that America is at war with forces inside our own country? The anti American sentiment and is there a greater global economic enemy or a greater global enemy that truly believes that the weaker America makes for pluses for everybody outside of America? I mean, I believe we are at war. We are being attacked. Is coronavirus a biomed attack? Are we going to see more? What's your gut as a marine? Are we in a more hostile environment than we have ever been before? And should our attitude be that of positioning and being prepared to defend and attack if needed? What's, I mean, like, what's your gut?

I mean, I'm not, I'm not an expert in these subjects. So anything that I say should be taken with a whole mountain assault. But I'm there, yeah, there's certainly other countries out there that would, that want to, that would prefer to see our country be weaker because it would, it could interfere with what they want to do with Their country. So, yeah, certainly. And obviously there's. We're fighting terrorist forces across the, across the world, throughout Africa, throughout the Middle east and everywhere. Yeah. And all, obviously all of them would prefer to see a weaker America. So we have to stay at the ready to fight those battles and fight the. Unfortunately, I don't, you know, we haven't seen the last war, so we have to be ready to fight the, the future war as well.

How do you deal with anti American sentiment amongst our own citizenry? How do you deal with that?

I mean, it's one of those things that you have to accept. It's a, you know, freedom of speech issue. If you want to have your own thoughts, that's fine. I think if somebody came to my house and we were having dinner and they had those kinds of sentiments, I wouldn't, I would just have a discussion. And that, that's the biggest problem with, in the country right now, in my opinion, is the fact that we can't talk anymore to each other without people being offended and insulted on both sides. You know, like if somebody came into my house and said something racist, then that would be offending. And if somebody came into my house and said something that was anti American, that could be offending. But I'm not going to be offended. I'm going to instead have the discussion and educate and, you know, get to the, the reason and beast and just be civil. I think it's a civility thing.

Yeah. Just because we disagree doesn't mean we need to hate each other, which is what it all comes down to.

Somebody came in with an anti American sentiment. I try and get to the root of why they feel that way and, you know, try and change their mind and be open to their point of view. But obviously I'm not gonna. It's unlikely I'll ever come around to an anti American sentiment, but I've listened, listen to their point of view and just have that discussion and try and change their mind.

Awesome.

But just be open to what they're saying too.

Yeah, great, great advice. All right, now, your president, Rob Jones. What would be the three things that you would like to do if you could be a dictator president in America to make things better? What, what do you think? What do we need most? I know that you thought about running, did run lost in a primary. What, what are your thoughts to either turn this around or make things better? What, what, what's your opinion?

Well, we need civility again. And in terms of government, we need civility between lawmakers. Obviously it's Just this constant battle of who can be, you know, I guess, more offended and more benevolent and just like making enemies with each other. So we need civility in the conversation there. We need trust in the government. Again, most people don't trust that their Congress people, their senators, and the President is really looking out for, you know, the country. They. They. I think most people feel like the politicians are looking out for their. Their political career.

Yeah.

And so we need to. We need to change that. And we just need. We just need politician, you know, political leadership to be selfless again, I think, and put them. And, you know, put. Make themselves the fourth right person in line of importance and their career, put that even further down. So I think those are probably the top three things.

So what I'm hearing from you is that we could put all of the legislators on a plane, send them to Parris island, recondition their thinking, and things might be better.

They might get an attitude adjustment that could be beneficial. I think so, for our country.

Rob Jones, it's been such a pleasure and certainly such an honor to interview you and to talk with you about your experience and about your attitude. I always love to give our guests just a quick minute to talk to our gappers, to talk to our country, if you will, to talk to our civilians and. Or the fellow vets that are still out there. And I'd love to hear if you have a message of hope or if you have any words of wisdom that can stick with our gappers, with the people that are listening to this now. What would you like them to know about you, your service, and how to maintain a positive attitude and how to create that mindset for victory and for selflessness and whatever it may be. The floor is yours for any closing statement to our people.

Sure. I'll just share the top two most important lessons I think that allowed me to do this whole story that everybody's listened to. The millions of Gap fans that have listened to this podcast so far, I love it. The first one is, and I'm sure you're familiar with this, use the weight. And so it's about using the challenges in your life. Like you use a weight weight in the gym. When you have a weight on your shoulders, you don't just sit there and hold onto it, because eventually you're just gonna run out of energy and run out of effort, and it's gonna wear you down more and more and more, and eventually you're gonna fall flat on your face with that weight across your back. And those weight. The weight represents stresses and challenges. So the stresses are just gonna be weighing you down and pinning you down to the ground because you didn't do anything with them. You just tried to resist them for as long as you could. That's one option. But the second option is you take that weight that's on your shoulders, that challenge, that difficulty, and you put it to use. You lift it over your head, you strict press it, and you do it again and again and again. And as every time you do that, you adapt to it a little bit more and a little bit more. And because you adapted to that first weight or that original stress, now you can handle even bigger weights and bigger stresses further on down the line until eventually it gets to a point where you know there's not enough weight in the gym that you can put on that bar that you can't lift. And there's not a challenge in this world that's going to come your way that you're not going to be able to handle and process. And the second aspect of it is the key to overcome anything and accomplish anything in life. And the ability to get yourself to lift that weight instead of just resist that weight is what we've been talking about this whole time. And that is selflessness, is figuring out who the person is, what the place is, what the thing is that you care about more than yourself, that you put those three things that you put above yourself and that hierarchy that you care about more than yourself that are going to and figure out why you being successful, like why they are depending on you being successful and why their dependence on you necessitates you to use that weight or to do the thing that you don't want to do or to do the difficult thing. And if you can figure that out, then you will get more out of yourself than you ever could have if you're just worrying about your own personal preferences. And that's the key.

Amen to that. My good friend, Rob Jones. That was awesome. Love those final two. Use the weight and be selfless. Attitude booster number 10. Be a part of something bigger than you. Rob, it's been an honor. Thank you again for your service. Thank you for your sacrifice and every brother that and sister that you fought with over there. This is Glenn Bill signing off for the Get Attitude podcast with motivational speaker Paralympic athlete Rob Schmidt Jones. I can't wait to see what you're going to pull out of your hat. And thanks again for being with us. This podcast is a part of the C Suite Radio Network. For more top business podcasts, visit c-suiteradio.com.