Wednesday Jul 19, 2023

#012 The Absurd Army Anxiety

This Week on Another Brother:

In episode #012, The Absurd Army Anxiety, the brothers respond to their first listener write-in question, and it's a doozy! Just what advice would they give themselves as kids knowing what they know now? And Josh spills the beans on just how to get out of Army Basic Combat Training if you find yourself in over your head, or, should we say, in over your knee... ? SPOILER: You're not getting out of Basic...

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Episode Links (***Spoiler Alert***):

Transcript:

The following transcript was created using the OpenAI Whisper API:

[00:00:00] This Week on Another Brother

[00:00:22] Another Brother Theme Song

[00:00:40] Stewnerds Segment

Jacob: all right brothers both in this room and elsewhere got a little update I just wanted to share with everyone we might have be about to have a saga on our hands well we'll find out

Josh: did you say saga?

Jacob: saga. so yesterday was 4th of July

Alex: yeah

Jacob: Heather's parents were with her grandma and her uncle

Alex: oh my gosh oh my gosh!

Jacob: and so Melanie my mother-in-law texted me yesterday middle of the day, "Craig, Heather's uncle-"

Alex: yeah yeah!

Josh: okay

Jacob: "-says he can most certainly get you all on to SkinwalkerRanch -"

Josh: no way!

Alex: oh my gosh!

Jacob: "-but Brandon Fugal the owner won't let his kids go on the property, Craig's wife won't let him go either, Craig's got some good stories from Brandon he's been telling us today." so then I texted her and she texted back, "He says people go home and seem to have things follow them. I asked if they are all bad things or if there are good things? no answer. But Brandon bought it- but Brandon bought the ranch to discover the science behind the stories and quickly became astounded. He tries to figure out if the veil is thin there, or a window, or another realm. If people ask if he's a believer he says he doesn't have to believe he's seen it."

Josh: See that's like Tom- okay well first of all, ahhhhhhh yeahh baby!!!!

Jacob: so let me real quickly let me let me temper a little bit I texted Craig today and he said, "just be aware I'm not certain about how many people Brandon lets go out there, so it's possible he might say no." so that that's all just got keep in mind-

Josh: you emphasized people... because they'll allow total like complete herds of cattle. is that why you did that? okay okay

Jacob: but speaking of- oh go ahead.

Josh: sorry- no no I'm just I'm preparing myself right now. boom. all right, prepared.

Jacob: I was gonna say speaking of the ranch this morning episode 10 got published that was the episode where we first spoke about the ranch.

Alex: Oh episode 10 of the podcast yes right

Jacob: yeah yeah it only published like two or three out of our total channels. it didn't publish anywhere else I had to go back in and manually hit update and then it went to the rest of our channels and even then it took hours until our show nuts finally got to Spotify.

Josh: oh so they are on spotify

Jacob: they are now yep

Josh: cuz I looked probably around 2 p.m. and they still weren't there I think

Jacob: yeah I think it was around 7 that I looked again. so anyway just more weird stuff that's all

Josh: yeah that hasn't happened on any of the previous ten published tracks

Jacob: no, it hasn't.

Alex: a lot of "this has never happened before" on that episode

Jacob: oh no, I'm wrong sorry, shownotes still are not there

Josh: they're still not on, right?

Alex: sorry everybody, if the ranch doesn't want you to read them, it doesn't want you to read them

Josh: well, but I got them on the website. I'm in control of that, not you, Ranch.

Alex: Don't challenge the Ranch you crazy!

Josh: No, I'm gonna bring smudge sticks and rosary- not a rosary-

Jacob: the show notes are everywhere else it's only Spotify

Alex: sage. you need bundles of sage.

Josh: sage, yeah, for the smudging.

Alex: yeah right

Josh: I mean that would be awesome and if we're new people we'd be new people to the ranch and if they're prepared and like okay let's see if the ranch is gonna respond you know we could help produce some science for them.

Jacob: I think that's part of the problem I don't think they want random strangers coming in-

Alex: right

Josh: right, so I mean hopefully they would they would coordinate and we'd set a time so that they can make sure that current ongoing experiments are completed and or they're at a stage of an experiment where they're ready to maybe stimulate some responses.

Jacob: no no, that's what I'm saying I don't think they want people-

Josh: oh they don't want people to stimulate the Ranch

Jacob: I don't think so. I mean you keep hearing how much how safety conscious they are.

Alex: True

Jacob: I don't want things to happen as a result of bringing guests to the Ranch other than experts

Alex: Brandon seems- Brandon- right exactly, Brandon seems to me to be pretty mindful of the optics around the ranch they get real professionals real experts to come do whatever extra tests the normal crew can't handle I don't know that he would want it hitting the news that three bing bongs like us went out to the ranch and like died or something

Josh: we better not die, I mean it's still a ranch, I don't plan on dying, but I mean like you know we grew up in the Pacific Northwest we have respect for like the native cultures and and spiritual things and we're not gonna be like these like ghost-hunter type guys that are gonna be, you know-

Jacob: Dumb.

Alex: Yo I'm Ricky from New Jersey!

Josh: Yeah, I mean we're cool.

Alex: I don't know what that was

Jacob: I don't either

Josh: but you got New Jersey, so...

Jacob: okay, so that's my update.

Josh: okay so...

Alex: he's been letting that hang over our heads since yesterday by the way, not having any idea what this update was gonna be-

Jacob: Yeah, I- I shouldn't- I shouldn't have said anything

Josh: I mean, I called it

Jacob: I ruined it

Alex: you did, you did, and I thought no that's no

Josh: I didn't call the precise update, but I can tell, you can tell when you've got Jacob because then he goes silent and his face gets serious and he doesn't allow himself to say anything anymore. that's when you know you spoiled his surprises.

Jacob: Yeah, that was my bad.

Josh: cool

Alex: well if our wives allow it we'll see what happens

Josh: that's the thing, like after reading some of George- some of George Knapp's recountings of stuff...

Jacob: well let's just cut it there cuz Heather's already okay with me going, so we'll leave it at that...

Josh: it sounds like a great place. it's like Disneyland.

Jacob: well should we get to it?!

Josh: okay we had our first listener provided feedback through our website, anotherbrotherpodcast.com there is a contact form where you can submit questions or input, whatever you'd like

Alex: yeah you could tell us we suck, ya know, whatever

Jacob: plase don't though

Josh: which she did start that way, no. actually she started by saying I'm one of the, I'm the wife a wife of one of the brothers!

Jacob: come on you didn't have to say that!

Josh: just cut it in post

Alex: she said she'd been listening from the beginning

Josh: okay that's true that's what she said but I read the email address so I know who it is. regardless of who it was, we had a suggestion to discuss a point or a couple points of advice that we might give ourselves in hindsight when we were growing up. yeah, so the question at hand that we will be answering is what advice would you give yourself at X age, and why? so I'll start-

Jacob: wait at X age or Y age?

Josh: 'n', no, cuz probably 'an' age...

Alex: ohhh okay

Josh: take that grammatically or mathematically if you will... which segues into my advice for myself, "take math seriously"

Jacob: Oh okay

Josh: and don't let drama and feelings and poor inner dialogue throw you off the hunt for mathematics.

Jacob: drama threw you off of math?

Alex: yeah so I'm just gonna-

Alex: it was that fever dream right where the numbers came alive?

Josh: no that was- that was horrifying though. that probably didn't help, yeah I still actually it's been a while, but I would still have it like that recur.

Jacob: that's real

Alex: really? this is a literal fever dream by the way he had a fever and had a crazy dream

Josh: I was in like 5th grade when I was memorizing the multiplication tables and I got really sick had a fever and I was like knocked out on the sofa in the TV room... no no I think I was in my bed. but anyway I had this dream of these- it started off slow it was like here's a mathematics table like the sheet and it was just kind of float- floating in vision and then it would swap out and a new one would show up and a new one would show up and then they started like spinning and they'd start spinning faster and faster, and they kept like spinning around in my view and eventually I'm like I just knew these things were like going to explode. it was terrifying. I guess I woke up screaming and sweaty. I think then mom moved me to the sofa maybe. gave me heavy dose of Tylenol. So prior to that in third grade yeah I'll say this I don't think it's wise to do these like Talented and Gifted programs or especially at that young age.

Alex: Odyssey of the Mind isn't that what you were in?

Josh: that was different though, yeah that was that that didn't make any self-perception- didn't create self perceptions of "I'm stupid" or "I'm smarter than everyone else" that was just kind of like you got to create a play and create all the- that was fun. that was like more artsy.

Alex: okay cool didn't know that

Josh: yeah but like so in second grade I got into the Oregon's talented and gifted program which did zero for me by the way I never had extra homework I never got treated differently I never was given additional assignments or-

Alex: oh really?

Josh: yeah and supposed to follow you through middle school

Alex: yeah right

Josh: it did nothing it was really it was not implemented whatsoever other than the testing in second grade, but then third grade I had an awesome teacher, I was super smart for my age and to the point where my teacher would have me grade other peoples' homework so I would get done so fast-

Alex: hahaha! what a racket!

Jacob: nerd

Josh: I know. I would get done so fast that that when I finished she'd send me into the back room that was attached to our classroom and I'd wait and then as other kids got done they'd bring me their paper.

Alex: teachers aid

Josh: yeah and I'd have like the the grading key and so I had this whole classroom to myself and I'd start grading and just mark like you know with the red pen and everything, and so I felt good like I didn't I didn't feel prideful about it at that point but it felt really good I felt like, "man I'm a smart kid this is awesome"! And a bunch of other stuff, I started dabbling with the reader board for the library and I was like programming-

Jacob: oh yeah

Alex: right

Jacob: I remember that actually

Alex: This was at Gubser?

Josh: At Gubster, yeah. yeah but anyway then fast forward to fourth grade- Mr. Kenton. and I'm putting that name out there. You're a horrible teacher.

Alex: I did not like that guy. He was bad

Josh: Horrible teacher

Jacob: oh man...

Alex: he was bad

Jacob: I only had him for math, so

Josh: I had- I had a friend that I had created a story for- this is just a little vignette, I had created a story I was telling him this story idea I had I had written most of it out he's like hey that's really cool you should come over to my house and we should type it up on my computer because I have a computer and a printer.

Alex: his friend, not Mr. Kenton

Josh: My friend, yeah my friend. and so I'm like oh cool I might make a friend out of this I go over we type up the story that's my story we don't change anything about it then I go home and I illustrate it and then we show up to class and my friend it's like "hey look at this story we wrote" and Mr. Kenton and so we like read it to the- he read it to the class. and he just refused to think that I had written any of it

Alex: cool

Josh: yeah he like just ignored me, gave all the credit to this my friend, I was so mad. but okay anyway he's just a bad teacher he made me feel really crappy about myself.

Alex: Me too.

Josh: And I'd "fidget" in my desk and he'd get mad at me

Jacob: I remember this!

Josh: and it might- it would happen with parent-teacher conference, it was a big ordeal. And I'm like what the crap dude, like I-

Alex: He thought I was restless!

Josh: were you? did you think you were?

Alex: no I have no idea what he was talking about

Josh: dude, I had an eraser inside my cubby desk that I would fiddle between my fingers. I wasn't like slamming- I wasn't making any noise whatsoever. and I'd get done with his freaking assignments in like 10 minutes, and he had those geometric shape puzzle things-

Alex: yeah

Josh: I burned through all like hundred of those in like the first few months of that school year cuz I'd be done, I didn't have anything to do, I'd get up and grab one and knock it out and I think he was just upset that he sucks as a teacher

Alex: couldn't keep you challenged

Josh: but anyway so then we had math in a separate classroom, and he had identified me as a problem child

Alex: of course

Josh: so I got put in the low- the problem kid math class

Alex: yeah me too

Jacob: what??

Josh: yeah, I remember that. yeah. and that teacher was- I can't remember her name

Alex: I don't remember her name either

Josh: I don't think she was bad but she wasn't supportive she didn't do a lot to teach

Alex: I liked her better than Mr. Kenton but yeah

Josh: oh I did too. but I didn't feel like I was really learning much. so then that- oh, you're bad at math, follows you into the fifth grade. and all of my peers that I viewed as like the most social most outgoing most fun like that were in our ward as well, went to Mrs. Ream's homeroom.

Alex: yeah that's where all my friends were too

Josh: and she was also the high math teacher

Alex: yep.

Josh: I went to Mrs. Frazier, who I loved

Alex: oh wait I did have Mrs. Kenton for like homeroom class or whatever you would call, she was my fifth grade teacher.

Jacob: who?

Josh: Ream or Frazier?

Alex: sorry sorry Mrs. Ream

Josh: yeah yeah, you had Mrs. Ream

Alex: yeah, I had Mrs. Ream

Jacob: I had Mrs. Fromherz for everything-

Josh: Or Fromherz, that's what I meant

Jacob: but she did all- when I was there she was highest for math and reading-

Josh: oh I wonder if they just rotate each year

Jacob: maybe

Josh: yeah, I had Mrs. Fromherz

Alex: I had a Curry with me in Mrs. Ream's so I have to imagine that she was considered the high. Curry's were always very high achieving

Josh: they were, yeah very gung-ho. yes and then and then I had the low math teacher again and it was just oh it was just memorizing anyway so I just really always thought I was horrible at math and whenever I had a math assignment I would like get into that internal dialogue like you're never gonna get this and it became really not fun even though I love puzzles, I love analysis, I love data, I love programming, all of these things. right to the point where like I can't math I can't has math it's frustrating.

Alex: yeah

Jacob: that's sad

Josh: yeah I don't know where I'd be or what I'd be doing now like my mechanical engineering pre-professional program-

Jacob: yeah that's what I was going to say

Josh: I couldn't continue that because I bombed the math classes... there's a lot of reasons for that... anyway, so if time is circular-

Alex: oh boy!

Josh: if little Josh you're gonna listen to this in the future-

Jacob: Josh wakes up tomorrow, goes into his engineering job...

Josh: -in the future's past, give yourself a break, you're smart kid, you're capable, you you work hard, learn that math! you do you boy! old Josh out!

Alex: mic drop. well mine's not too dissimilar from that I don't know about you Jacob so I don't know if you want to go now or you want me to go?

Jacob: I'll go. okay I was telling them this is gonna end up like the the music students where they had legitimate like awesome songs with like deep personal meanings and stuff and then I was like yeah I like emo music. makes me rock! the very first thing I-

Josh: you talked about crying. that got raw.

Jacob: it's true. yeah, sure. I am generally very happy with my life and the way things have gone and I wouldn't change things so the very first thing that popped into my head I would go back and tell high school me to take a weightlifting class every single year.

Alex: okay

Jacob: because sophomore year was the only year I took a lifting class and I made huge PRs in track. I think it has to be correlated to just the the raw strength and power gain from lifting.

Alex: yeah you focused on sprinting right?

Jacob: yeah

Alex: yeah that's yeah that's a strength thing not an endurance thing

Jacob: trains those fast twitch muscles. sprinting is about explosion explosives and power. so I would go back and take away lifting class every year of high school.

Josh: and what would be even greater- here's additional advice for yourself I mean like the thing in high school was like just classical lifting but if you were able to do it and apply it to sprinting it's like yeah the explosive movements, not just your typical-

Jacob: right, which was something I might not have known about that my sophomore year but later in high school I knew that the way the way in which you perform the lifting movement has bearing on that as well yeah quick explosive. and then an actual real like sincere one-

Josh: hey that's-

Alex: there's nothing wrong with that. that's good.

Jacob: I know, I know. Be nicer to my little sister like I was just such a-

Alex: dingus

Jacob: -jerkwad to Lizzie.

Josh: you really were

Alex: what a jerk

Josh: I think it sounds like all of us were though

Jacob: well that's-

Alex: well yeah

Josh: or insensitive at least

Jacob: well great. I think I can probably say that's my one regret in life being a crappy bigger brother. I might have one other regret but like that's that's that's it that takes the cake.

Josh: that would probably be my earliest regret on a list of many. that would probably be my earliest one. my first. just not being- just not knowing what I know now and like when I'm raising my kids to like you know like the older sibling like hey beware of your younger sibling talk to them play with them well build a relationship even if they're you're you know ten years older than them.

Jacob: it wasn't even just that it was it was the the polar opposite I actively was mean to her it wasn't just like ignoring or the lack of building relationship it was that I took that to the other end which just sucks.

Josh: that does suck. we love you Lizzie.

Jacob: it's true.

Alex: it is true. is that the passing of the baton to me?

Jacob: that's it. yeah, yeah. nice. baton. I appreciate that.

Alex: Yeah, track. Okay so, like I said mine's not too dissimilar from from Josh's so after graduating high school I spent a year working to save up money to pay for for those of you for those of you that aren't members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the missionaries that go out and serve missions for our church pay for their missions this isn't something that the church pays for-

Jacob: you betcha!

Josh: the church totally could but they don't

Alex: I mean-

Jacob: where needed it does

Alex: yes it's done in such a way that every missionary pays the same oh actually that might have changed now I can't remember how it works anymore but when I was a missionary every missionary paid the same amount no matter where in the world they went on their mission. and I do believe that some of that was subsidized by the church through tithing and stuff.

Josh: 400 a month was not paying for my Plano Texas apartment and food and gas and everything

Alex: yeah totally yeah what what we paid did not pay for everything that I got in Italy but it was still a not insignificant amount of money for those two years so I spent a year before my mission working to save up money to try and pay for as much of it as I could and I became an absolute idiot. my brain just died that year working as a cashier at Sportsman's Warehouse surrounded by a genre of music I don't enjoy at all. still really good people that I worked with and as we've said before it did sort of help with the paintball hobby with those professional discounts on things. but my my advice to myself I I can't say that I would tell myself not to do that and to go to school because that was money that I think we needed to pay for my mission. but to do something to keep myself stimulated. don't go home depressed and watch nothing but Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and play video games and paintball. do something especially with music. keep playing the trumpet. get in some kind of band. I I just I had no idea how to even figure that out how to what resources were available to find people to play with. you know Craig's List wasn't exactly a thing back then.

Jacob: that was a lot harder back then compared to now.

Alex: but do something to stay active in music to keep up on math and science as much as possible because I was really good at math too at that point in time now I'm a complete reject when it comes to math. I can't I can't remember how to how to do integrals anymore.

Josh: heaven forbid I ever learned to do an integral

Alex: well, I thought I would never forget how to do integrals but I do not recall

Jacob: well I do wish I could have held on to all like science and math knowledge it makes sense it's all gone when and why would have I have ever used that at all. it does suck though.

Josh: I kind of to an extent blame our education at that time like no one was actively trying to like apply it like you need to know this right you know applied sciences applied math applied language I think but it sounds like from Shana's education and education in education things are a lot different now

Alex: yeah

Jacob: I think so

Alex: but like my life might have been a lot smoother had I done all of that you know I might be in aviation right now whether as an engineer or pilot I don't know but I've always wanted to be in aviation and I don't see that happening anymore

Josh: boooo

Alex: I don't see how that even as a private pilot license I don't I don't think that's gonna happen which is a bummer

Josh: I found a common thread! maybe not the weightlifting one...

Jacob: that's what I thought

Josh: lack of loving ourselves. yeah yeah you didn't love yourself enough to work out to lift not work out but lift or to let yourself be nice to Lizzie I didn't love myself enough to tell myself that I can do math you don't love yourself enough to go home and-

Jacob: the music and-

Alex: to accept that these were real skills that needed to be held on to at all costs

Josh: to enjoy and keep working on

Alex: for sure.

Jacob: so brothers, make sure you love yourself.

Alex: that's what brothers are for

[00:23:37] Storytime Segment

Soundbyte: Hey kids do you know what time it is? Story time!

Josh: this is gonna be kind of like an account of some of the funnier things well a mixture of it's gonna be a mixed bag of some basic combat training stories I don't think I've talked to either of you guys about any basic training stories

Alex: I don't think

Jacob: no

Josh: so to tee up the first story how basic training works is you actually you've probably seen like commercials and things or like YouTube videos of like the drill sergeant's yelling at the new recruits and they're of course getting yelled off the bus like

Alex: sure

Jacob: classic

Josh: so classic well that happens actually at what's called a reception so you take like a red-eye bus straight into the basic training base but they drive you into what's called the reception and it's kind of like a holding area for like days or weeks until the training company you're gonna join is ready to receive you and it's horrible

Jacob: at their own leisure?

Josh: yeah yeah so-

Jacob: I feel like military training is all about discomfort

Josh: it 100% is. you yeah. so this is part of it throughout the entire experience you sit when how and where they want you to you stand when how and where they want you to you make eye contact with who when they want you to everything is everything is completely regimented you have no freedom of movement or freedom of behavior whatsoever. if you want to have a smooth experience. so anyway but like so reception like you come in it's but you're basically there to just in process into the training base and so most holdovers at reception are because like some paperwork issues and or medical issues or just your training company is not ready to receive you that's also where you get chunks of your scalp ripped out-

Jacob: what?

Josh: as they're giving you your 30-second haircut-

Jacob: okay, thank you

Josh: with the razor and you take like a little mini physical fitness test and are just generally made to feel like crap and you're not getting nearly enough sleep and just being yelled at and told to go stand on this line and actually go stand on that line just stupid stuff to keep you uncomfortable and on your toes and fearful of when the next instruction is gonna come and who it's gonna come from because in reception you have people that like administratively over you but also any of these drill sergeants there because they know you're not you don't have a timeline you have nothing to do any drill sergeant there if they see you they can just like bark an order at you and you just have to go do it you have to comply. it's ridiculous.

Alex: is this just like the gatekeeping classes like pre-med classes that are meant to break someone who's not gonna be up to snuff as a doctor, sort of a thing?

Josh: that's basically all of basic, yeah that's like the entire basic because at any point people can will fall out and leave which goes into my first story and second story. so once you to go to the training company you show up at the company and it's basically your company's like it's this big kind of apartment like looking building like a stucco facade really tall like multiple floors tall and then you have these little I would call them like open- um, Whiteaker Middle School and McNary had that like center-

Jacob: courtyard

Josh: courtyard thing, okay. so it's kind of it's kind of like a courtyard but it's open on one side so and then on either side of that opening our is more concrete part of the building you know it's pretty big so you walk into this into this like opening of the courtyard and then all around you is like an open floor and then the ceiling above you. I don't know how-

Alex: in the courtyard?

Josh: I don't know how to explain this very well

Alex: there's a courtyard I or a ceiling in the courtyard?

Josh: this is like the only place that I've been that looks like this so here's a picture so that out that's where you would enter this this area

Jacob: oh okay

Josh: and on either side of this open courtyard is your platoon area and this entire area is called your company training area so there's four platoons in the company and each platoon is sectioned off in one quarter of this area and that's like where you form up and get harassed out in the open at the beginning of the day middle of the day end of the day

Alex: right

Josh: so that's kind of like where a lot of the training like a lot of the yelling training goes on and then inside you have these open bay rooms just for your platoon. males and females are separated for the entire company. but then each platoon of males have their own open bay. so it's a big open floor plan and you have two- you have bunk beds lining the outside of the room and then you have a wall locker each person in each bunk has a wall locker. and then in the dead center of the open bay is the no-man's-zone no-man's land, and you do not touch it there can be no trash on it there can be no deaths there can be no object of any kind in the no-man's-zone or you just get destroyed and we're talking like hours upon hours of getting smoked

Jacob: and is it everyone?

Josh: yeah everybody

Jacob: one person messes up and everyone suffers

Josh: absolutely

Alex: and getting smoked meaning meaning push-ups until you fail?

Josh: meaning if you're inside that room getting smoked the walls are dripping with sweat or you know moisture from breathing it's disgusting. we had one particular drill sergeant who we would have to run outside this would be at like 10 at night they'd wake us up we'd have to- if we were lucky enough to be asleep already- right we have to run down multiple flights of stairs grab sandbags bring them back upstairs and we would do sandbag PT sandbag physical training in our freaking room getting sand everywhere you're doing sit-ups sandbag push-ups shoulder presses

Jacob: and then you have to clean up all that stuff perfectly after

Josh: and then you have to cleanup- yes exactly. and not just not just using the broom, you have to mop so whenever you broom you have also have to follow up with a mop every single time. so just a horrible place to be. I I preferred getting smoked outside because you have the wind. but then and then at the far end of the bay was the bathroom and had two swinging doors get into the bathroom there were only four stalls-

Alex: like batwing doors?

Josh: yeah well no a full door but it just hinges open on either-

Alex: sure yeah like a restaurant kitchen or something

Josh: yeah yep okay and just you'd like four stalls for all 40 of you to use four sinks and maybe six shower heads in an open tree of life shower

Jacob: I hate those

Alex: oh boy yeah

Josh: and we're talking you had tight tight bedtimes tight hygiene times to the point where you would be given like 15 minutes to like the end of the training day you'd have 15 minutes to use a bathroom brush your teeth-

Jacob: for all 40 men

Josh: -to shower- for everybody shower and-

Alex: how?

Josh: -get dressed in your sleep uniform and-

Alex: Ha, sleep uniform

Josh: it's your PT uniform

Alex: sounds like Barney Stinson sleeping in a suit

Jacob: I just like that you have issued pajamas.

Josh: Yeah, it's your physical fitness uniform. and then and also toe the line. Toeing the line means your toe you're in position of attention toes on the line circling around the no man's no man's zone. and if anybody's missing so you have this in the morning toe the line and you have it at night before lights out, toe the line, anybody's missing all hell breaks loose and like one particular night-

Alex: this sounds like a classic scene from a movie

Josh: oh yeah

Alex: like you've like I think we've all seen the this this scenario

Josh: yes yeah usually I think it's usually like the Marines in the movies I've seen. quintessential basic training. we had one guy who had a really unfortunate bowel movement timing. so he was in the toilet we're all just like so he toes the line but then he's like oh you know I gotta go and we're all like no just wait man it's like sneaking to the bathroom after lights out come on dude he couldn't hold it and really so because the dining facility food can do just a number on you so sure enough our drill sergeant, Drill Sergeant Hong Tong, who was a crazy crazy man. he comes in he does his headcount he's like why are there only 41? where's number 42? and we're all just like just point to the bathroom I mean he goes oh yeah and he runs like these guys live to just mess you up and so he sprints down the length of the open bay, and he-

Jacob: this is- the imagery is just so good

Alex: I'm picturing the kool-aid man, "oh yeah!"

Josh: he runs and he does this flying like flying ninja kick into this- into the swinging door- and his foot no kidding makes contact with the door if you're just slice it up into quarters height wise it hits the three-quarter and the door breaks at that point and gets knocked off its hinges like it pulls the hinges out of the doorframe and he just like swats it to the side as he still just like moving right in and he's just yelling at this kid and he's like I you know he's pooping he's on the toilet he can't get off the toilet doesn't matter what you're yelling at me and so after Hong Tong's done yelling at him he comes out he's like ah! he picks the door up it's like shove the hinges back into the doorframe he's like ah! he just throws this and he was like "you guys will fix this tomorrow morning"

Alex: not an army engineer, clearly

Josh: he was um he was actually a special forces weapon certain it's called an 18B and the dude's insane

Jacob: I want to know what would have happened to that poor kid if he had kept toeing the line and it had happened like I swear I just I know that drill sergeant would have been on him just as bad

Josh: oh we would all-

Alex: but that kid would have been on everybody else too, pretty bad

Josh: oh that would have been like a major health you know violation. so that's kind of just that's kind of the environment it's just chaos all the freaking time so one of these kids that I was with I was the so for two weeks my response was always to just kind of like smile when they're yelling at me like you know well like you know they're the brim of their hat is on your forehead you're spitting in my face because I can no longer hold my rifle above my head like it's ridiculous I can't physically hold my rifle anymore now just laugh I'm like dude I had already you know I had served my LDS mission I had been to two years of college that's a pretty decent life experience I was probably as old or close in age to the drill sergeants and I'm just like dude you can't hurt like you can't your responses aren't gonna hurt me you can't do anything I know you can't touch me I'm gonna work out as hard as I can but when I can't anymore like whatever man. and so very quickly they made me the platoon sergeant- the student platoon sergeant, and then like a couple weeks after that they made me the company student first sergeant which actually really sucked. but-

Alex: not where I thought that was gonna go

Josh: well so as the platoon sergeant all these kids who are like fresh out of high school-

Jacob: right you're the oldest guy there

Josh: I'm the second oldest the oldest was like a 41 year old

Jacob: whoa

Josh: he got age waivers cuz he was he was an attorney and he's-

Alex: the life choices, I don't even...

Josh: he was it's like a midlife crisis thing he want he was going to go fly helicopters so he enlisted so he could go warrant officer to fly helicopters

Jacob: oh warrant officer, okay

Alex: so he joined the army to be a pilot? okay

Jacob: crazy

Alex: interesting choice

Josh: yeah just he was a really cool. Thurman, his name was Thurman. he was he was solid I mean he's an attorney just even keel yeah slow to temper you like you couldn't he was non plus you couldn't get to him yeah so other than him and then some junior college football player who thought he was like the shiz, he was my age he had something to prove everybody of course whatever so but most of these kids like really like looked up to me and this one kid in particular I remember I was in the bathroom brush my teeth real quick oh I think I was on fire guard which you have two shifts of fire guard every night and two people on each shift for fire guard and it's from back in the days when you'd like be bivouacked and people would be smoking and they fall asleep with their cigarette and they set fires in the camp

Alex: oh interesting

Jacob: no way

Josh: so they started- the army started setting fire guards to like respond to any sort of incidents like that so now the army uses fire guard as like a 24-7 you're just on watch so we had to do that every night in our own Bay part of the fire guards job was to also sweep and clean quietly and then if a drill sergeant comes in at night if like the fire guards asleep that's when you get woken up and you're going doing PT at like 2 in the morning and so I think I was on fire guard so I was getting ready to brush my teeth this kid comes in he's like hey Stewart uh yeah I just had a question you know what do you think would happen if someone like took like maybe 20 ibuprofen? and first of all you're not supposed to have ibuprofen you're not supposed to have any drugs with you at all

Alex: wow not even ibuprofen? dang

Josh: you can't have anything like the drill sergeants have to like they're in control of all sorts like okay right so I'm just like why are you asking like who cares we don't have like I'm like dude I don't know.

Alex: kidney failure

Josh: he's like well well okay maybe not 20 but like how many do you think you can take at once? I'm like dude what does the bottle say? like two 200 milligram tablets in four hours or something not to exceed more you know like what does the bottle say just do with the balls of them like why are you even asking me he's like oh yeah no problem yeah I I just curious one of these weird things got stuck in my head so in the weeks preceding this he's telling everybody because when the shiz really starts getting tiring and annoying and hard he's like dude I can get you out of here you want to go home let me know trust me I know how to get people out of here

Alex: what??

Josh: just like strategies to get kicked out of basic training without having to come back

Alex: oh okay wait I thought-

Jacob: is there no way to just voluntarily of your own will drop out?

Josh: I- I'm not certain because you've signed a contract. okay oh here's why I'm not certain yeah so later that night as I'm on fire guard to be honest I was asleep

Jacob: oh yeah!

Josh: I was asleep I really didn't care but all of a sudden I get woken up and I hear just this kid like screaming on top of his lungs and I hear like boom boom like someone's running up the stairs and then the back door slams open and it's another one of my soldiers and he's like oh I can't run this kid's name we'll call him Eddie whatever "Eddie oh he's hurt real bad you gotta come look" I'm like what so I run over to the stairwell I look down two flights of stairs and he's like crumpled on the landing holding his knee like ah like what the crap is going on so I run down there he's like "ah I slipped and fell and hit my kneecap ah" and there's two the guys' two rifles are on the ground on the landing

Alex: okay

Josh: which you shouldn't they shouldn't have had their rifles with them

Alex: well right yeah

Josh: so I'm like all right dude so I'm like me and the other guy who found him because he heard him screaming first we help him up the stairs and then I go down to the duty office to our other drill sergeant who's there overnight all the time and I'm like you know basically report to her and tell her what happened well come to find out he the kid who's been telling everyone that he can get you out and sent you home no problem all will be forgiven he paid this other kid $200 to break his kneecap by-

Alex: with the butt of his rifle?

Josh: yeah by buttstroking it

Jacob: oh my gosh, I knew it

Josh: so what happened low and behold so he cracked a kneecap in half what the beautiful wonderful army machine did what is because he's on a training base so it's under their watch and under their care so they put him on what's called convalescent leave take him to the hospital you know do whatever they do stitch him up whatever put him in cast put him in traction-

Jacob: off base hospital or on base?

Josh: on base. totally on base this man is owned by the army they put him on convalescent leave until he heals and finishes physical therapy and then they recycle him which means they started him over in the next class

Alex: right

Jacob: so he just prolonged his suffering

Josh: yes and this happened at like week five like we were almost done

Jacob: oh my gosh. what was ibuprofen for though did he like shove as much down as he could before cracking it?

Josh: I think that's my thought that's what he must have done

Jacob: oh my gosh. idiot

Josh: it was funny cuz when the drill sergeant later came and talked to me she called me Stuart little hated her for that because she'd also scream it in my face in front of everybody and so I'm like, come on... and she's smaller than me, yo! she loved me though she was like she's kind of like a mom she was psychotic though she was like the worst of all of them but um she's like Stuart little come into my office! I'm like, okay. she's like what the bleep happened? and I tell her everything she's like are you saying you saw rifles down there? like yeah two rifles. she's like and he asked you what about ibuprofen? I'm like yep. she's like okay thanks we're gonna get his you know butt! I'm like yeah, good do it. you know and I'm telling her all the other stuff he told everyone so I bought a lot of street cred with her so I'm like pshh I'll rat on everybody

Alex: that's not street cred. She's the man. that's not street cred!

Jacob: Eddie got the street cred!

Josh: Eddie did.

Alex: yeah

Josh: oh my gosh I wish I remembered his name cuz I would totally come up and see if he's on the like global address list or anything. but uh and then but then that goes into another story we had this other kid in another one of the platoons who were like two weeks from graduation we go into the dining facility so you you wake up really early I think I can't remember when 530 maybe five you go to physical training first and then you go straight from physical training to breakfast and then from breakfast to hygiene change get all your equipment get ready for the training day. and when you go through the dining facility line like your prim and proper like you have steps and things to do for how you walk obviously like how you walk which direction you're gonna turn how you hold the door open how to get out of the way if drill sergeant's coming

Alex: goodness

Josh: how you like walk with your tray in your hand and you have to like do facing movements like drilling ceremony facing movements so like so you'll march and then when you're ready to get your next food item you like right

Alex: right face

Josh: right face and you have like they say thank you to everybody-

Alex: present the tray

Josh: yeah basically and you do that for the entire freaking length of this dining facility line-

Jacob: oh gosh

Josh: -until you get to your table and then you get your table you know and you're like get there you set it down and you it's crazy so I'm already sitting down eating and you have like five minutes to eat period just go rawr get out and go

Alex: I mean it probably wasn't food you wanted to savor anyway right?

Josh: not yeah not particularly I don't say I don't don't really remember

Jacob: sure but that's the kind of there's a kind of habits that prevents people from towing the line

Alex: true that true that

Jacob: scarfing down in 5 minutes.

Josh: well it's beacues they forgot to eat their dinner rolls. that always clogs you up. so this one this one morning I'm sitting down it's just carvings fact I can and you just hear this kid screaming at the top of his lungs from the food line all the things that you're supposed to say to the food server like "yes ma'am thank you ma'am" and then next position "no ma'am thank you ma'am" and then the next one "yes ma'am thank you ma'am!" and he just keeps yelling like louder and louder and louder

Alex: he finally lost it

Josh: dude he broke. just like as soon as the drill sergeants hear him screaming they're on him like sharks you know they're like what do you do- what do you- and he's responding to them by yelling at the top of his lungs. and they're like soldier what the heck- you know, like what are you- you can't talk to me that way, and he's like drill sergeant i'm not talking to you anyway! you could tell when you looked at him and the things he was saying like he either did not know what he was doing or he was literally not in control of his voice box. he had lost it. and the rumor on the street was that they shipped him off to medical for like a psych eval and everything because it was like something like snapped for sure. so just a crazy time. it was actually really fun. it was mostly fun to be kind of disconnected from the drama and not really care about the pressure and what was going on and just observe everyone else just eating it and not handling it well at all was amazing. so-

Alex: 10 out of 10, would recommend?

Josh: basic training, 10 out of 10, would go again.

Jacob: has gone again!

Josh: has gone again! and recommended to everyone except for my children.

[00:46:50] Another Brother Outro

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