Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children

at paris island that you will ever see so right out of the gate um if you go enlisted in the marine corps you are going to subject yourself to an insane three months um so you know then it never leaves you you know the the impression uh of that three-month period um Probably one of the other biggest things about the Marine Corps is just how physically demanding it is.

And I'll be honest with you, I wake up hurting every day.

When I go to the gym, the first like 10 minutes, it's just like a torture session of trying to get all my joints to work.

And then I'm okay.

But I definitely have like major physical damage from my time in the Marine Corps.

And I was the first go around as an enlisted guy.

I ended up going back to school and getting commissioned as an officer.

But the first five years I was in a mortar platoon and an 81 millimeter mortar platoon.

And that involves carrying incredibly heavy mortar equipment.

And the Marine Corps doesn't, we don't believe in trucks.

We walk everywhere.

So it's very common to go on a 50-mile hike.

We call it a hump.

In the Marine Corps, it's not a hike, it's a hump.

Going 50 miles with full gear packs, heavy packs, and the weaponry that you use, which in my case was an 81-millimeter mortar tube or base plate or bipods.

It was...

So it's just incredibly physically demanding.

Even in the Marine Corps, it's physically demanding.

And then there's the other aspect of the Marine Corps, which is you're either freezing or frying.

But you are embracing misery no matter where you are out in the field.

You do a lot of training in the Marine Corps and.

I mean, I went to cold weather survival training in Pickle Meadows, California.

It's 40 below at times.

The oil that we would use to lubricate our mortars would freeze.

I mean, it was just incredibly challenging.