we're gonna kind of wrap up this section right now with one last little piece of
the book here and this is one of the guys named lavender last name lavender
he gets killed and the lieutenant takes the blame
himself he feels that that blame and part of it he kind of blames on his his
thinking about his girl back home Martha and he's thinking he wasn't doing
everything he could do and what could he have done better and where did he let
his guys down and what he could do different from now on
and I'm going to the book he loved her but he hated her no more fantasies he
told himself henceforth when he thought about Martha it would be only to think
that she belonged elsewhere he would shut down the daydreams this was not
Mount Sebastien it was another world where there were no pretty poems or
midterm exams a place where men died because of carelessness and gross
stupidity kiowa was right boom down and you were dead never
partly dead briefly in the rain lieutenant cross saw Martha's gray eyes
gazing back at him he understood it was very sad he thought the things men
carried inside the things men did or felt they had to do
he almost nodded at her but he didn't instead he went back to his Maps
he was now determined to perform his duties firmly and without negligence it
wouldn't help lavender he knew that but from this point on he would comport
himself as an officer he would dispose of his good
pebble swallow it maybe or use lease trunks slingshot or just drop it along
the trail on the March he would impose strict field discipline he would be
careful to send out phalanx security to prevent straggling or bunching up to
keep his troops moving at the proper pace and at the proper interval he would
insist on clean weapons he would confiscate the remainder of lavenders
dope later in the day perhaps he would call the men together
and speak to them plainly he would accept the blame for what had happened
to Ted lavender he would be a man about it he would look them in the eyes
keeping his chin level and he would issue new SOPs in a calm inter pearl
impersonal tone of voice a lieutenants voice leaving no room for argument or
discussion commencing immediately he'd tell them they would no longer abandon
equipment along the route of march they would police up their acts they would
get their shit together and keep it together and maintain it neatly in a
good working order he would not tolerate laxity he would show strength distancing
himself
so he falls back on what we fall back on all the time on discipline on standard
operating procedures on maintaining everything in good working order and one
of the things that you can see here in people we get this too is you'd think
these guys are in Vietnam of course they're gonna be paying attention of
course they're gonna keep the weapon your weapon keeps you alive in a
firefight of course you're gonna keep your weapons clean but he as the leader
he has to lead and I think that's a common misconception and we do talk
about it all the time and it's one of the most frequent questions I get asked
like well you know in the SEAL Teams you've got everyone's motivating and
everyone's focused and it's a life-or-death you know so they're gonna
stay sharp and they're gonna fall procedure no matter what and you know my
team's not like that in the business world or you know people I work with are
like that and the best teams they only follow that procedure right because
they've got leaders that are stepping up and making it happen and and look we
have some amazing people in the SEAL Teams just like we have some amazing
people in the military in Army and Marine units and other Special
Operations units etc but even with life or death on the line people get
complacent people start letting the ball drop not cleaning their weapons when
they need to or not falling a procedure or letting their guard down because well
we've done this operation a dozen times and nothing Bad's happen so nothing
Bad's gonna happen right that's it's like this common human emotion that you
just make these assumptions and so the only way that units are gonna stay
focused and not have that happening when they've got good leaders they got a
fireteam leader in charge these four guys to step it up and making sure that
these guys are squared away and staying focused they've got a you know they've
got a squad leader making sure that his squad is squared the LPO leading petty
officers out there making sure that guys are dialed or not cutting corners I mean
I always saw that with guys you know we've been these type of overwatch
positions you got like some of them had like one stairwell in and out and
someone's gonna watch that stairwell someone's got to have a weapon and
looking down that stairwell for 72 hours yeah and so you know
hopefully we can rotate some guys out so it's not just the same guy but but even
so if you it's gonna be several hours that you watch them down that stairwell
and it's boring as hell right and guess what you're the only guy watching the
stairwell and everyone else got their backs to you so if you're not doing your
job you're gonna people get shot in the back and yet if what happens
hey I've been here I've been on the stairwell Hey look man doesn't we've
done this operation dozen times or we've been in this building multiple times
nobody's ever come up the stairs I've been sitting here for hours on end like
hasn't happened so you people will fall asleep people will stop paying attention
and only if you've got good leaders who are gonna go check on that guy and make
sure that he recognizes that listen everybody's dependent on you you know
not only you're gonna get killed if someone slips up the stairs but the guys
people gonna get shot in the back and yeah they were depending on you to have
their back and it requires those good leaders at every level stepping up but
going to check it on that gun if he is tired you can't say wait rotate him out
put somebody else in there but it requires leadership at every level so
even with life and death online people get complacent and this really goes to
what you and I talk about all the time which is what does it really mean to
take care of your people you know that here well I want to be liked you know so
I don't want to be a real hard-ass and I don't want to you know I don't want to
like you know I I don't want to push too hard in that direction or like if they
cut this corner maybe it's not that big of a deal and obviously you can go too
far in that direction right but you become the slave driver but but are you
really taking care of your people if you're allowing them to cut some corners
that they shouldn't be you know are to get complacent when they shouldn't be
and the answer is no of course not you're setting them up for failure and
so you as a leader have got to step up and and make sure that your peer you
know the peers around you if you're not a leadership position but certainly as a
leader make sure that your team and those around you or toeing the line and
following those standard operating procedures and achieving that highest
standard possible because that's what is gonna allow them to stay alive on the
battlefield and ultimately accomplish the mission and certainly dominate and
win on their battlefield anywhere you know in business in life yeah you can
definitely see that but all the things that
lieutenant Krauss rattles off that he's gonna now start imposing he's gonna
start taking care he thought he was taking care of his men
before by by letting them have dirty weapons and not hounding him about that
by letting them drop gear on the trail by not sending out flank security
because it's a pain in the ass he thought he was taking care of his guys
and he got one of his guys killed and that is exactly the point when you're
taking care of your people that means you're taking care of them that means
you're holding the line you're holding the discipline and you're making sure
that they are as safe as you can possibly make them while still
accomplishing the mission and that is the that's pretty much what we had for
this book by the way again it's called Tim O'Brien the name of the book is
called The Things They Carried definitely a solid read and and I would
check it out and echo will have it up on the website and yeah I know
for those of you they're gonna come at me and say it was a fiction book so now
you're gonna start submitting to me every fiction war book that's ever been
written I don't know there's some damn good ones out there and there's probably
something I'm gonna end up doing but yeah this is one of them
that is and again it's it's it's it's fiction but clearly it's based on
experiences and it's in and once again you can see that even though war evolves
and war changes the the fundamental the fundamentals of human nature in war
don't really change I'm I'm not into fiction books I don't remember the last
time I read a fiction book I'm gonna read that book design that immediately
resonated with me it puts me back in those just the sights and smells and
them and the stuff that we carried and opens up so you know it's just I look I
look forward to digging into it and some details a good one and you know that's
the thing when when you are dealing with these books
and you start to really really listen to them and read them
there's just there's always so much more than then you get out of it the first
time you go through it so that's why for me you know reading it and then going
through it again and then sitting here and reading it and and now when I put
the headphones on and read it it's they definitely they definitely hit you and
you get more out of them in my opinion no doubt there's something magical about
putting the headphones on you know cuz you you read a couple those excerpts and
we were talking about this over the last couple days and what the park is gonna
be about and it did not it did not you know what's sitting here listening to
you read it with a headphones on it's like takes me immediately back to Ramadi
thinking about the stuff that we you know the things that we carried with us
and the moon dust that we patrolled through and those smells and sketches
and they eat and frankly I'm I'm pretty eager to go back and get something right
now I'm ready to make it happen