Hard Men Podcast
Hard Men Podcast
Courage, Leadership, & the Legacy of Chesty Puller: Lessons in Masculine Strength & Ambition
Men today are told that the masculine virtues of bravery and courage, the readiness to fight, and the desire to win glory for their people and their nations are standards of a time gone past.
We are told to rejoice over the death of masculinity, but there is a reason stories like that of Chesty Puller still light fires in the hearts of good men. In today’s episode of the Hard Men Podcast we’ll reminisce on the bravery and leadership of a great man in the face of impossible odds, and discuss the evergreen need of masculine virtue.
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Speaker 2:The thermometer by the commander's tent stood at 25 degrees below zero at dawn. When the first men tried to dig graves, their picks were useless in the iron-hard earth. Dynamite crews set off blasts, but the earth heaved up in enormous black blocks of ice. The commander halted them. More than a hundred bodies waited in a row of tents, stiffly frozen, stacked like cordwood. They'll stay like that until the spring thaw, the commander said. But we can't leave them to the wild dogs. Blast out those potato sellers. When the holes had been opened, the officer called in a battalion of tanks for the burial. But there's no other way. The beams of the headlights were lost in the swirling snow and the roaring of the motors was carried away into the wind. As the tanks made to graves back and forth, crunching icy blocks of earth upon the frozen bodies, the tanks buried the dead.
Speaker 2:The commander was Colonel Lewis Burwell Puller, 52 years old, 32 years, a US Marine, he was in the process of winning his fifth Navy Cross, the nation's second highest military award. In the process of winning his fifth Navy Cross, the nation's second highest military award. No other Marine had won so many. He was not a large man, but his slight spare frame was erect to the limit of its five feet ten inches. The great thrust of his chest was obvious. Beneath the bulky uniform, the face was seamed and brown as rough-hewn as a totem pole. Beneath an ancient cap, the almond-shaped eyes glinted green. The colonel gripped a short pipe in his teeth as if he were on the point of gulping it down. His voice carried over the wind and down the rows of shuddering canvas like a navy bullhorn Among themselves. He was known to the men of the Corps only as Chesty Puller. The commandant of the Marine Corps had lately spoken of Colonel Puller. He's about the only man in the Corps who really loves to fight. I'll go further he's the only man in any of our services who loves fighting.
Speaker 2:For two weeks Puller had commanded the rear of the 1st Marine Division, cut off in the Chosen Reservoir region by hundreds of thousands of Chinese Communist troops. The colonel was visiting a hospital tent where a priest administered last rites to a wounded Marine. When the messenger came, sir, do you know they've cut us off? We're entirely surrounded. Puller replied. Those poor bastards. They've got us right where we want them. We can shoot in every direction. Now, excerpt from Marine, the Life of Chesty Puller by Burt Davis.
Speaker 2:The United States Marine Corps was founded on November 10, 1775. It was established during the American Revolutionary War by the Second Continental Congress to serve as a landing force for the Continental Navy. The Marines would, over the years, become known as one of the most hard-charging, hard-nosed military forces in the world During the first half of the 20th century. Louis Burwell Puller would distinguish himself as arguably the bravest and most tenacious soldier the United States Marine Corps has ever produced. He ended his 37 years of service with the rank of Lieutenant General, but he was affectionately known by the nickname Chesty. His name is legendary among Marines, and his leadership on the battlefield set a standard that few have ever matched.
Speaker 2:Chessie's story isn't just about medals and battles. It's about what it truly means to lead with courage, boldness and intense care for his fellow man, no matter the odds. Born in West Point, virginia, in 1898, puller's path was not one of privilege or ease. His father passed away when he was 10, and his mother raised him on stories of the Civil War and the Confederate heroes who fought in it. Inspired by their bravery, poehler was drawn to military life early on, after attempting to join the US military at the age of 16 and being blocked by his mother and spending a year at the Virginia Military Institute, he soon found his calling in the Marine Corps, enlisting in 1918. He would go on to serve for 37 years, rising through the ranks to become the most decorated Marine in American history.
Speaker 2:From the dense, humid jungles of Haiti and Nicaragua to the Pacific Theater in World War II and later the frozen mountains of Korea, chessie Puller fought his way across the globe. Yet regardless of the environment, regardless of the enemy, he demonstrated an unwavering commitment to his men and to the mission. His style of leadership was straightforward and intensely disciplined. He led from the front. He never asked anyone to do what he wouldn't do himself, and he was unrelenting in his demand and care of his men. In an era where many officers stayed back from the front lines, chesty was known for being right there, in the thick of the fight.
Speaker 2:A Haitian lieutenant told Puller during his first combat deployment as a young man that it is a matter of life or death for the officers to have respect from the men and something more adulation. They must obey orders to the letter, without question, though they die for it. It is the only way to handle men in combat. If you lose control, you lose lives. It is so simple as that. Chesty took this advice to heart. Time and again. He put his life on the line alongside his Marines. His men loved him for it and they fought harder because they knew that he had their back. That bond, the kind forged in the heat of battle, is a testament to what real leadership looks like.
Speaker 2:Chessie wasn't just a warrior. He was a protector of the men who followed him. He didn't see his Marines simply as soldiers to command. He saw them as brothers in arms and his leadership came from a deep sense of responsibility to them. Whether in the jungles of Central America or the bitter cold of Korea, chessie was always thinking about his men, how to keep them alive, how to keep them motivated and how to bring them home. He knew that his success as a leader was tied directly to the well-being and performance of his Marines. Chessie was known for demanding to be the last of his men to clean up, eat and take treatment for wounds. The men under his command carried an unparalleled morale and confidence, regardless of their losses due to his relentless leadership. Later in his life, he was able to see just how far his reputation as a leader of men had gone.
Speaker 2:During a reunion of the 1st Marines Division Association, a spotlight from the balcony stabbed through the smoky ballroom to pick out figures of generals of the Corps. As they were introduced one by one, there was a hum of voices that had not stilled. On two vast floors, more than 2,000 Marine combat veterans and their wives watched the parade at the head table. Washington's Sheraton Park Hotel had never seen such a reunion. All records for bar cells had been broken. On the first day, general David Shoup, commandant of the Corps, there was a shout for the soldiery commander, a hero of the Tarawa landing, which for the moment seemed not so long ago. Two former Commandants rose in turn Thomas Holcomb and Lemuel Shepard. The crowd applauded and continued when others stood the veteran KE Rocky, now retired, and Phil Berkey, commander of the 2nd Division. The Master of C, master of ceremonies, was himself a famous old Marine, general Julian Smith, as erect in his 70s. As in the days of World War.
Speaker 2:I Quiet fell on the crowded banquet hall. General Smith blinked against the spotlight and turned to the blackness. At the far end of the table I now give you Chesty there was a roar which drowned the speaker's voice and shook the walls. The spotlight swung to the last place at the table to reveal Puller in a linen suit, waving a hand and flashing his broad, crooked grin. As the clamor increased, he marched to the microphone in a bobbing circle of light. General Smith shouted through the tempest of sound I see, you all know Chesty Puller.
Speaker 2:Men in the crowd danced around the tables, whirling each other about and pounding their neighbors on the backs. Some climbed on chairs shouting wordlessly tears streaming down their cheeks. Others hammered the tables with cutlery or embraced women who were staring incredulously at Puller. The men broke into chants we want Chesty, we want Puller. The men broke into chants we want Chesty, we want Puller. They called for a speech, but it was about five minutes before the howling ceased. Puller faced them with a wry smile that looked as if it had been wrung from him by force. When quiet returned, he grasped the microphone and called in a penetrating voice Marines. Pandemonium broke out once more, as if he had shouted some secret watchword whose implications were known only to these men. Half the crowd was still on its feet a moment later when Puller could be heard again.
Speaker 2:If you believe the newspapers and radio and television, our country is in a hell of a shape? I don't believe it. So long as we've got the first Marine division, we'll be okay. The crowd shouted him into silence. Again Excerpt from Marine the Life of Chesty Puller by Burke Davis. Men today are told that the masculine virtues of bravery and courage, the readiness to fight and the desire to win glory for their people and their nations are standards of a time gone past. We are told to rejoice over the death of masculinity, but there is a reason. Stories like that of Chessie Puller still light fires in the hearts of good men. In today's episode of the Hard Men Podcast, we'll reminisce on the bravery and leadership of a great man in the face of impossible odds and discuss the evergreen need of masculine virtue.
Speaker 1:Well, welcome to this episode of the Hardman Podcast. And what better way to start a Hardman Podcast episode than to welcome my friend first of all, Tate Taylor Tate. Welcome to the show, to this episode of the hard man podcast. And what better way to start a hard man podcast episode than to welcome my friend first of all, tate taylor tate.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the show thank you so much, pastor khan. I appreciate it yeah, absolutely I.
Speaker 1:I mean chesty puller when you're talking about masculinity. He is kind of the creme de la creme. This is the one that I think like. If you're, you know, listening to jocko willing, he's done stuff on Chesty Puller. Just about everybody has some level, especially if you're in the armed forces, some level of respect for Chesty, the most decorated Marine of all time. I'm sure it does the same for you as it does for me. But you, you hear these stories and you're like this is a man's man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's really hard to narrow down what excerpts you're going to put in here, because there's so many that are so good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds like, by the way, a really good book. So we mentioned this in the cold open, but the actual title is Marine the life of Chesty Puller by Burke Davis, Again one that Jocko had referenced in his podcast as well. But you've read most of it. Thumbs up, recommend for people.
Speaker 2:Two thumbs up, especially if you're, I mean any age man, but especially young men. I was asked this the other day on Twitter for book recommendations for stuff like this, and I think that there's two different ways you can go. They're both good. I think great fiction is incredible. Your favorite, the Aeneid, things like the Lord of the Rings, the Narniad those are outstanding for young men. But I think that accurate biographies of great men is another place that you can go to really transform the way your mind thinks about bravery and courage and resilience, and this is a perfect example of that. It's a great book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so much. One of the things that appealed to me about Chesty Puller is we're reading through some of this and doing the research on this show. There's a term that we use which is really kind of derives from the Greco-Roman culture Roman especially of gravitas and weightiness. You'll get sort of the same thing in the Aeneid Early on they'll talk about auctoritas, with Aeneas goes to speak to his man and every man hushes and they say because he has the weight. You can even think of the gospels where it said that Jesus taught as one with authority. Right, there's a weightiness when he speaks. You listen, this is tied to gravitas. Like he's done things that make him weighty and so we'll kind of get into that, but it's all this stuff in battle, like he's not going to have the gravitas if he hasn't done something worthy of respect, but when he does.
Speaker 1:You think of a similar word gravity. You know it means you know to weigh something down. Another similar word for weightiness would be glory. So there's a gravitas and a glory about Chy. That again we'll kind of unpack some of the facets of this. But I'm curious in your life obviously probably we haven't met a chesty puller, but I'm sure you've met guys too, where it's like, when they speak, everybody shuts up and you're like the man the man is talking, yeah yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think there's a ton of chesty pullers walking around in the world. I, I don't think so Just at any point in time in history ever, that's always been just a you know a select, very few, but yeah, there there are definitely those guys that carry a certain amount of weight. Me and and some buddies here from the church recently watched a man from Snowy River.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, great old Western and we, we were talking about clancy in the movie and clancy is just the man and they're getting ready to go, uh, round up these wild brumbies. And there's I don't know 85 guys, 100 guys, and they're all on horses, they're all cowboys, they're all gonna go get these horses, but nobody will leave until clancy shows up. Yeah, and it's just like you just carry so much weight. Everybody knows that he's got this pedigree that you can't diminish.
Speaker 1:When it's. This is one of the things too. It's tied to competence. So, like for younger men especially, you might think you can just walk in a room and command respect, but it doesn't work that way. One of the things I was thinking of is 2015 Denver Broncos they win the Super Bowl. Peyton Manning is. It's his last year.
Speaker 1:He's super gimpy, but there's something about they always called him the sheriff and there's something about when he stepped on the field even though he wasn't in his prime anymore. I mean, they weren't, you know, thrown for seven touchdowns a game. They were mainly running the ball. They had a great defense, but the guys like I remember them asking a keep to leave. They were like what's the difference? With Peyton on the team, and he said we just know we're going to win. The sheriff is on the field, like we have this supreme confidence that we can get the job done. I also think it's interesting too with Chesty because I'm going back to.
Speaker 1:This is Douglas Southall Freeman's biography on Robert E Lee, and so Lee is in, I believe, the Mexican war, and after getting back, he's taking all these notes on the generals and the people that he's learned under, and one of the things he said, is the key. One of the keys to victory as a great leader is audacity Beingacious, yeah, in the face of the enemy, and so I think about stuff like that. With chesty, this guy is certainly audacious. Of course, you have this one incident which we kind of reference, but I mean they, they literally are surrounded, and his response to his men is so bold and audacious where he says like hey, there's so many of them you can't even miss.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're like we we can shoot in any direction.
Speaker 1:Now, boys, we got them, we got them right where we want them and that's the kind of thing that fires your men up Right when and I think part of it too you get into the story about like PTSD, and that's maybe not how a therapist would handle that today, not even a military therapist, oh man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was reading that and I was thinking about that in kind of our church context and pastor Joel weapons quote pops into my head all the time about this. But we, we love courage as long as it's buried under six feet of dirt, oh man. And I immediately just pictured like this guy during peacetime, coming home and being in your church, he would be terrible to deal with. How would you deal with it? Like he's telling young guys like you don't have PTSD, like you just weren't prepared when you went over there for what you were going to face. And like how do you, how would you deal with somebody like this?
Speaker 2:He's got that level of courage and audacity, just, and it's not like he drops it when he comes home. He's the same guy, but he's known for that throughout his career. There's time and time and time again he's always in the front. His CP is way closer to the front line than anyone is expecting it to be, and so his superiors will come and try to try to find him, to communicate with him, and he wouldn't ever come back. He was known for just like wiring back to his, to his superiors, and going listen, we're fighting up here. If you want to talk to me, come on up here and and like making them. If they wanted to get a report, they would have to come see him, and it was on the regular. These guys would have reporters with him and, um, they would come up to see him and there would be bullets, you know, ricocheting off the ceiling or mortars going off within a couple hundred yards and people are all hitting the floor except for him and he just stands there like it's normal you know, don't be a coward.
Speaker 2:With a pipe in his mouth, and yeah, he was known for that.
Speaker 1:One day a new patient was placed in the cot next to Puller, just a foot away. The boy had come from the 5th Marines a shell shock case. He trembled and whimpered constantly and babbled in the night. The colonel made efforts to help him, but the boy was hostile. After the first few days Puller noticed that the young man no longer had tremors, except when he knew he was being watched. There's no such thing as shell shock or battle fatigue, puller said All in the mind. Until I got in this war, I never saw a bit of it. We fought all up and down Haiti and Nicaragua without it. You'll be okay.
Speaker 1:After an air alert one day, when the boy had crouched in an underground shelter for a long time, after the all clear sounded, he returned to his cot, took from his billfold the photograph of a pretty girl and began to cry. Puller looked over his shoulder Too bad, you'll never see her again. He said what do you mean? Why she'll never look at you again after this? She wouldn't spit on you. She'll never know. How could she hear? Oh, she'll find out. You ever see those big wanted posters in the post offices. That's what the Marine Corps does with its goof-offs. Your picture will go right up there, she'll find out all right.
Speaker 1:The boy reached under his cot and puller tensed, thinking that he was after his pistol. The sobbing boy dragged out his pack and hurried from the tent. A medical corpsman soon entered. Colonel, you shouldn't talk to a man like that. You brutalized him Well, it's just what he needed. You mind your business, old man. The doctor appeared the next morning at Puller's Cot, grinning Colonel, I told you that I'd send you back to your battalion within a week, but I'm going to recommend that you stay right here instead. You could do more for the war effort. Did you know that corpsman of mine you put on report this morning? No, and I don't give a damn. He reported you for roughing up that kid you sent out here. But do you know what I called the 5th Marines? And damned if he isn't back on duty, chin up and ready to go. Whatever you did was just the medicine for him.
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Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting too, I think, some of the toughness when you think of things like the formation of men. There is such a level of toughness. I think that's absent our culture today because it's not politically correct to instill this in young men. But I was thinking even the other day. I'm gonna tell a story on ethan. But he has his young boy with him and his sister shut his hand in the door of the car door. We're out at the shooting range and you know he's. He's crying, he's trying to hold back the tears and it was great. Ethan said he's like shake it off, you'll be fine. And then he immediately he, he basically tells him like no, no crying, like you got to tough it out. And you know he's making an assessment. Obviously it's not broken or anything like that, it just it was an injured hand but he'll be, he'll be all right, it's going to be sore. But he immediately he hands him the screwdriver and he says come on, we got targets to nail to the board. And he's like carrying it with one hand and like walking, like oh my God. And he's like you'll be fine.
Speaker 1:And you know, I think a lot of people in our culture will say, oh, that was really harsh. But I think what is needed, especially among fathers, right, there are tender moments where you need to tell your sons you love them and you know, hug them and all that stuff. Tell them you're proud of them. But there's also moments when you could be tempted to give into weakness and you need a dad who will say you're fine, keep pushing. And you need a dad who will say you're fine, keep pushing. And that's developing a masculine skill of the. When we talk about hardness, this is the hardening process. I have a pastor friend who says that you know, the word of God is like an anvil and we're like the horseshoe and it takes other men to drop the hammer on us and heat to form us according to the word of God. Form us into the men we need to be. But again, you think of iron, sharpening iron. That is a not pleasant process when it's happening. No, that's, that's You're being pounded, you know, and just hammered on.
Speaker 2:And or, or in the case of like actual sharpening, if you're using a file, that process is actually scraping away unwanted metal. Yeah, it's getting rid of the things that are taking away from the sharpness of the edge. This is something me and my buddy Alex talk about all the time is like everyone loves to hang like the iron sharpens iron flag in their gym. But when some dude comes in and goes like you're not hitting full depth on those squats, what are you doing? That's never fun. Yeah, like that's never as much a like happy go lucky. Iron sharpens iron buddies. Yeah, like that's never as much like happy go lucky. Iron sharpens iron buddies.
Speaker 1:It's like the cat poster. Yeah, exactly, life isn't quite like the cat poster. I love what pastor Brian says too. We were talking about this with church discipline the other day in one of his sermons. But he said you know, people are kind of like Ryan from the office, where they're like I want to be led. And when I say I want to be led, I mean lead me when I'm in the mood to be led.
Speaker 1:And you're like, yeah, but that's the problem in the moment. Say you're under church discipline or you're under correction, or a guy tells you he's giving you harsh or just like direct feedback. In that moment it's not going to feel good, like Hebrews 12, it says this very clearly a father's discipline. Fathers are for discipline and that discipline in the moment is unpleasant. And so you could see how, like with chesty, it seems like he's being harsh, like with this kid where he tells him basically like oh, you're going to be remembered as the coward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he gives him, he paints this picture for him and I think this is important you guys talk about this a ton, but the importance of narrative and he paints this picture for him and he goes you realize that we're going to go back home, right, and you're going to be known as the coward. And like he tells the kid she's not going to spit on you, like she'll never too bad, you'll never too bad, you'll never see her again. And it's like the, the shift in the pit, like you can tell this guy, all of a sudden he has this new narrative in his head and he starts to act on it if I read my own story.
Speaker 1:Do I want to be that character exactly? Do I want to be the judas? Do I want to be the weakling? I also think that that that's a good segue. I think, to the next thing I wanted to talk about, which is that when we talk about for men, especially young men, like you want to win a bride, you want to win a woman, and especially a high value, a quality, godly, biblical you know Proverbs 31 type woman. She can do it all. She's wise, all this. Can you do that? If you're a coward Like, are you going to attract that kind of woman? Now, I think in our world today, sort of the soft left evangelical culture wants to say something like well, good, men can be weak and emotional and you know they're more like a therapist with a sweater vest Like you can be that and women will still want that. I don't actually think that's true.
Speaker 2:No, Not for a good woman. I think in some sense that you can find a woman that you would absolutely despise after a short period of time. And she probably will despise you and she will hate you too. Or you can find a woman that actually is worth her salt, but she will end up hating you because you won't do what you should be doing Right. She wants you to be courageous and you're just not.
Speaker 1:And the other part to go against all the Gnostic tendencies. It doesn't just mean a spiritual man, which that's important you need to lead spiritually but it does generally mean things like physical strength, martial courage, physical courage Spartans would talk about this like the study of fear. And what do you actually do in the battle? Right, how do you train yourself so that you're ready for the fight that you don't crack? You do have to be prepared for that, but I think certainly there is a proper shame to the guy who folds and runs, you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely To. To wrap back around for a second, because Chessie's got a really interesting story on this, he married, as far as we can tell from a from a biography standpoint, the only woman he ever loved. As a very young man he met her at a dance and asked her to marry him at the dance, audacious like that day you're right, he's that night I think they had danced twice. And he looks at her and goes, will you marry me? And she's like we just met each other.
Speaker 2:I don't even know you, and his response to her is you will. And then he doesn't dance with anyone else the rest of the night. Really, for you young guys out there that are trying to find a wife, and I understand it- can seem.
Speaker 2:Maybe not propose like immediately, maybe not quite this audacious, but, but you gotta love the heart behind it. You gotta, you gotta love the, the commitment, though, and then the. The interesting thing is that he ships off and is basically fighting foreign wars for for a long time. After that, he was in haiti for several years, then he was back home for a little bit and then he goes to Nicaragua. He writes her letters for 11 years before they they're married.
Speaker 2:Wow, but he, like he won her over and he's just like un, unrelenting in his pursuit of whatever he's doing, including this woman, and she, finally, you know, she gives in and and and is happy to submit to him. And it's just a crazy story. It's one of the most unique like marriage proposal stories I've ever heard. They weren't engaged for that long or anything like that, but he was kind of she. She talked about him as being one of her bows, um, which was, you know, terminology of the time and um, he's a hunk. Yeah, he just, he was just one of those. He just wouldn't let it go. Well, I think this is one of the time and he's a hunk. Yeah, he just, he was just one of those, he just wouldn't let it go.
Speaker 1:Well, I think this is one of the interesting things. When you think about, like you know, aeneas or Homer, you know with Odysseus, the thing is we're all in in, women included, but men also, we're attracted to the courageous man, the man with gravitas, the man with auctoritas, and so this is one of the things that I counsel a lot of younger men. Usually, we're counseling them away from passivity. You actually don't want to be the guy who's like you know too afraid to ask the girl to dance. Or if you do, you're like you're not very confident in the process. There is something about a guy who's like hey, I may fail, but I'm going to shoot my shot.
Speaker 2:And I think the flavor there that you're looking for is the expectation that you're going to get a yes right, rather than the expectation that you're going to get a no because it comes across. You can go up and ask the exact same question hey, do you want to dance? And it's very clear whether you're expecting her to say yes or no.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And if you go up and go, hey, you want to dance, and like you're, you're just waiting for a yes, is very different from this Like, hey, well, I just came over to see if maybe you might want to dance. She's like, I don't know, it doesn't seem like you want to dance with me.
Speaker 1:Put a little steel in the spine, exactly, yeah, the other thing about this is, you know, it's obviously a great story reading Chesty, you know, in his biography it's a great story to inspire leadership, Uh, but I also think that it is requiring of us as men that, like we have other quality men around us, because I think the okay, take the guys who hung out with Chesty all the time in the military. That rubs off. Oh yeah, it inspires. And so I keep going back to this quote in my, my daily life. We talk about it all the time in the basement. But it's actually from Napoleon and he said leaders are dealers in hope. And so, like if and I tell my sons this all the time like I said, preparing them for marriage and for being fathers, I said when we walk in that door, I don't care how hard your day was, I don't care how much it sucks, we're going to, we're going to have the John Harbaugh attitude which his father I know you've heard the story he would always say who's got it better than us? Nobody, like, no matter what was going on. And, of course, the stories that the Harbaugh's would tell this you know, john and Jim were like yeah, no, we were in Michigan and my dad like got some really poor coaching job at the time. You know he's like a teacher, and a coach makes no money, their car breaks down middle of winter and they've got to walk to school and he's like well, boys, who's got it better than us? Nobody, yeah. And I think that if you are aspiring to be a father, you're aspiring to be a good leader, in whatever capacity the Lord's called you to.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I just keep hammering is positivity and hope. So, for example, like I could have like the hardest day of counseling, all this crazy stuff going on with the church 15 people on Twitter, you know prominent people want to like just attack us, whatever, and there's all this chaos going on. But when I walk in that door, it's hey, babe, how are you? Dude, I love that dress. You look beautiful in that dress. You give her a hug. You know you say to your boys you're like how was your day, dude? What a day to be alive Like if you bring that kind of aura and energy. And the thing that I want to tell people is like you can actually train yourself to respond that way. I've told my sons I said, when you talk to girls, you know, especially as they get older and they're like romantically involved and courting and stuff like that. I said nobody wants to be around a guy who's negative and complaining.
Speaker 4:Yeah, nobody wants to.
Speaker 1:I said like if I ever find out that you're a fusser of a human being like I would just personally come and kick your butt Like don't be a fusser. Nobody wants to be a fusser, but think about this Like again, going back to like what men want to follow and what women are attracted to. It's this kind of aura of Chessie where it's like dude, this guy is surrounded by enemies on all sides and he's like got a positive outlook, absolutely Fundamentally. This is also the Jocko thing, by the way, of like the good. Good, you've seen his good speech where you're always reframing things and like there's good in this, you know, even if it's like we're being, you know we're being surrounded, we're being attacked. Good, another lesson learned. This financial thing fell through. Good, I'm learning. Good, we'll. We'll get better, I think, as men, that's really powerful.
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Speaker 2:So on that exact topic, I do have an excerpt pulled up from the book. When they are retreating out of their chosen reservoir region, where they're surrounded, the 1st Marine Division is moving back, they're retreating and this is the first time really in his career where he's moving back, they're retreating and this is the first time really in his career where he's retreating and he's in his fifties and all the men kind of have this like downcast. I mean it's negative 25 degrees. They're all freezing to death. They can't they can't eat solid food because everything's frozen. I mean it's, it's a terrible situation and he's screaming at them. You're the first Marine division and don't forget it, we're the greatest military outfit that ever walked on this earth. Not all the communists in hell can stop you. And they're retreating. It's just like in retreat. Yeah, you're like how would you not want to fight with that guy?
Speaker 2:And there's just story after story after story where he's doing this to his men. Where there's, there's one where he's he's sort of right behind the front lines and anytime a soldier has to come back to be treated for a wound or to be helped in some way to go get more ammunition, anything like that, he scowls at them as they're coming away from the front lines and then every soldier that's running back up to the front to fight, he smiles at him and goes how you doing, old man? And it's just like this. He just understood the way to get the best out of his men. And it's just like this. He just understood the the way to get the best out of his men.
Speaker 2:And I think it's because he had the kind of courage, obviously, that that is just remarkable. But he had so much of it and he didn't hoard it. He didn't try to like keep it for himself, he didn't try to go I'm the one that's brave here. He was constantly going we're brave, yeah. And so he was constantly like he had enough that he could give it away and his men caught it. There's one story where the 1st and 5th Marine Divisions kind of get close to one another and they sort of start crossing lines in this advance. And he was leading the 1st Marines and a guy from the 1st Marines sees one of his guys from school in the 5th Marines Divisions and they're hollering at each other because they can see each other. He's like hey, who are you with? And he's like I'm in the fifth Marines. He's like who are you with? He's like I'm with Chesty.
Speaker 2:And he's like he doesn't even like it was. It was the old man's crew. Yes, guys, before they thought of themselves as the first Marines, Isn't that something?
Speaker 1:It's crazy, it is incredible. I love this too. This is from the horse and his boy, king Loon. I've been thinking about Chesty Puller and how he's leading from the front. He's inspiring his men. But this is what Lewis wrote about King Loon. He says for this is what it means to be a King to be first in every desperate attack and last in every desperate retreat, and when there's hunger in the land, to laugh louder over a scantier meal than any man in your land. I mean kingship, and I love that. With Chessie, this is sort of like part of the Marine Corps ethos. But it's like they just like delight in being miserable. Yeah, they're. Like nobody can be more miserable than us.
Speaker 2:Like we charge the hardest.
Speaker 1:But if that is your ethos as a unit of guys, like when things get bad, you're like this is where we shine.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's like. This is what we've been waiting for is for things to suck. This is our moment. Yeah so I love that first in last out, uh, laughing loudest is, is one of my favorites, but that's in my opinion. That's the best narnia book, by the way you think.
Speaker 2:So I think I think the horse and his boy is dude, I love horse and his boy, but I'm I don't know, I'm kind of a caspian guy war yeah, there's just something about when loon stands shasta up next to his brother and he doesn't realize he's his brother yet and looks at all of his men and goes does any man here have a doubt? You're just like, oh my goodness, isn't that? It hits you right in the sternum every time it does.
Speaker 1:This is something I wanted to read because I think it ties nicely into what we're talking about. This is from Rudyard Kipling. This is the poem If, but I love this because we look down now, I think on like the British stiff upper lip and the thing that made colonialism great when it was great. Now it's like you have to apologize for everything. If you're a man, you have to. It's almost a virtue to lack confidence. So even think about theologians and pastors were applauded for saying well, I don't really know and I don't want to assert these truths because you know this will maybe defend somebody. But I love just kind of the hardness of character, a proper hardening of the character, that's represented in this poem. So it goes like this If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
Speaker 1:If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting or being lied about. Don't deal in lies or being hated, don't give way to hating and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise. If you can dream and not make dreams, your master. If you can think and not make thoughts your aim. If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same. If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools. Or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools. If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss. If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them. Hold on. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings nor lose the common touch. If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you. If all men count with you, but none too much. If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run, yours is the earth and everything that's in it and which is more, you'll be a man. My son, so good, I mean roger ki come on. Yeah, so good, but yeah, I, I kind of love this Like life is going to be hard Teddy Roosevelt spoke about this all the time.
Speaker 1:Like life is going to be a contest, it's going to be combat in one form or the other, and calling men to say, like you're made for this, though You're made to grow stronger in these trials and to maintain and even to grow your virtue. This becomes a powerful metric, I think, as we get into this concept of like. How do you train men? How do you grow men? And I think part of the you know, if you look at Ogden, I've thought about this over the years. Like every community does certain things well, and you know we're early, been here a few years, and I would say, though, I think one of the things we do well is growing men, particularly young men. So you've got to win young men's hearts, you got to be in young men's corner. But I think what calls men up specifically is like we actually don't make church or being a part of this community, it's not easy. Yeah, we're not giving you like the easy path and saying like, yeah, this won't be hard, so anyone can do it. It's more of the like no, we're calling you up to this really high standard and we're there's going to be times where there's pastors who are a little like chesty puller, like barking in your ear like son, you're going to be on the poster in downtown and everybody's going to say don't be like that fool.
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Speaker 1:Is your data spread across platforms, growing in volume and missing the clarity you need for strategic decisions? Imagine harnessing all that chaos into clear, actionable insights. At White Tree Solutions, we turn complex data environments into powerful, organized assets. Whether you're looking to advance analytics, scale AI, create a future-ready data architecture or bring in fractional data leadership, visit us at wtsdatacom or shoot us an email at info at wtsdatacom, or just check the link in the episode's description Whitetree Solutions, your trusted data and technology partner. Let's win together. So I just I'm curious, tate, you know you guys have been here for a little while now. Some of the attraction to Ogden, some of what you've seen here, it just seems like something that you don't necessarily get everywhere with masculine friendship formation.
Speaker 2:Not at all. I haven't moved around a ton in my life but I moved around a little bit, not a military kid or anything like that. But I think it is unique here the speed with which you can make genuine friendships between men and the fact that that's just normal, it's expected. Yeah, I think part of the attraction for us obviously the church, the school for our children, all of those things, but I think also just the energy of the building that is going on here and knowing that we could come here and seek to win glory and that be seen as a good thing and that that be invited and championed and gone like yeah, and like a pat on the back in that direction, Like yeah, go get them no-transcript big for your britches, Don't let your head get too big, which is, which is, it's good advice, but it's always the initial response and the prevailing one.
Speaker 1:Well, I think, um, I remember reading like a Dave Harvey book, uh, maybe when I was in seminary or a little afterwards somewhere. You know, this is a while ago but he had a book called rescuing ambition and it was kind of, I would say, like kind of pietistic book, kind of from the framework of like look, you need to be really weary of like ambition, because they want to point to like the biblical concept of selfish ambition and so. But I think the net effect was it? It kind of made people like, oh, don't even go near ambition, ambition is sin, desire, wanting to strive for things.
Speaker 1:And again to Chesty Puller like what you see in great men is do you ever get the sense that Chesty was like, oh yeah, I just want to check my heart to make sure that I don't know if my ambition is right here. And I just I want to. Just, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to do some navel gazing a lot. No, you see a guy who's like I'm going to get after it. I'm probably going to make mistakes along the way, but I'm going to inspire my man, I'm going to work hard and I'm going to be courageous.
Speaker 1:And I just think in the church. We haven't done that. Now the other, the other thing is like joel talked about in the conference, doc joel webben, we have this dynamic in a lot of evangelical churches. This is true in acts 29 where it was like the only viable, really godly thing you should aspire to is either to be a pastor or missionary. They're entirely ecclesiocentric in that in that way like church centric, meaning any guy who comes into your church who's like crushing it in business you're like the only reason you're doing well is so you can give to missions or it's.
Speaker 2:I've seen this a lot recently with some of the stuff that we're doing on twitter and that kind of thing is like. The response is always like well, how long have you been praying in your prayer closet? Every day, and you're like we do value that actually we, we are pretty, pretty serious about devotional time and like personal scripture, reading and prayer and we're serious about that. I just don't make videos about it and they act like if you do one thing, then you automatically couldn't be doing the other.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think this is what you've got to do in our culture, right? If you're, you know like, say for us, you keep posting the videos of the guys working out at the church parking lot or, you know, in the gym, and you're winning the young guys and you're winning the right people, and then you're going to have a bunch of critics outside the arena who are like, well, you're not doing this, right, you shouldn't do this, you know, blah, blah, blah. I would just say to maybe other pastors, if they listen. Or, you know, fathers, if you do that to your sons, if you're the critic on the outside just complaining about everything that they're doing, you're going to lose their hearts and vice versa.
Speaker 1:If you're the guy who's like, hey, love the energy, let's redirect some of this here. Let's, you know, let's show them which direction to push. Let's show them what their strength is for, Because that is one of the other things. When you look at like a chesty puller, I don't see him as a guy who's like hey, I just love attention and I'm really vain, and I see this a lot. There's kind of like crossover in some of our communities where you'll see the guy who's like doing the bodybuilding in his bikini or you know he's posting all these pictures of like you know thirst traps basically, and pictures of like you know thirst traps basically, and you're like my dude and my dudes, like that's not why we do this thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's not it's not for a navel gazing purpose. That's not the point. It's to be strong for our people. When I was working out originally with Matt Reynolds, one of the things that he told me I think it was in the first podcast we did, in fact, he cited a statistic that grip strength was one of the key things tied to longevity for you know how long and well you'll live healthspan, lifespan and I was like, wow, is that true?
Speaker 1:So I started looking this up and I'm like, well, if I can live longer to help you know, god willing do the best I can to help see my generations into the future to carry more load for the church and my people for a longer period of time, if I can do that and strength training can help me with that, then I feel like I'm a better vessel for serving my people. I'm not at all doing it because I'm like I don't have a six pack, but even if I did, I'm not. I'm not doing it for that. No, I'm not doing it even for the praise that people are like oh, you know which I don't get, but you know you could see people doing that, saying like, oh, wow, you know, I just look at your guns, you know, look at the gun show that doesn't happen Like we're not showboating.
Speaker 1:But all that said, strength is a good thing to pursue because we love our people and we want to serve them well and I think if you know, you know, as we've said before, it's like well, take the whole show, everything we said, kind of set it aside for a minute and say could Chessie Puller have done these things for 37 years in the military if he was a fat, lazy, obese slob?
Speaker 2:I don't think he could. No, it's a definite no. He obviously had to be physically fit to be this great leader and to inspire his men. At that point in our military, the fitness standards were very high. Yeah, and he still had to meet them when he was 52. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 2:He was known for when he came back, especially after Haiti and Nicaragua, he was an older, you know, he was an older soldier, but he came back in before the opening of the Pacific theater in World War II and he starts getting young recruits ready and so he's training guys up and he was known for taking his guys on 20 plus mile rucks every day. When guys would start falling out, he would take their packs from them and carry them. So he's got two packs now and he's head and shoulders older than all of these guys. They're they're all young spring chickens and they can't keep up and he was known for that. He would. He would also walk up and down the line. So he's walking. They're like he's got to walk twice as far as we do every day.
Speaker 2:You know, when you go on a hike with your dog and it just won't quit running all the time like we went six miles you had to have done 14. Chessie Puller was doing that with his, with his training training groups when they were getting ready for World War II, and it's. It's just like I don't know. You also couldn't go online and find you'd be hard pressed to find a picture of him, shirtless, posing, no, like he's just not that kind of guy.
Speaker 1:But I do love this like physiognomy wise, like if you look at the look it up picture of Chessie Puller.
Speaker 2:He's got like the chiseled greco-roman jawline. He looks exactly. I don't know if you've seen the emoji of like the stone face.
Speaker 1:Yes, he looks exactly like that dude he does. That was the same thing I noticed. We did the show on robin olds with ethan and I was like, dude, look at his jawline, he looks like a movie star. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's incredible. So Ben Garrett would made the comment the other day. He was like I just poor physiognomy, it's hard to trust, you know. And I was like, but then you look at chesty and you're like I think I could, I think I could trust that Even as an older man, like you can tell, he takes care of himself, he's in top shape.
Speaker 2:None of his guys are just going to outrun him and leave him behind in an attack or in a in a retreat or anything. And um, he was known for at the end of a long day of fighting he would still go walk all of his men's positions and talk to everybody and raise morale. And so everyone's been fighting all day long and you're absolutely wiped. And before he would go to sleep he would go make rounds and talk to everyone and regularly people would come to his CP and look for him to give you know information back and forth and he would not be there because he was walking up and down the lines.
Speaker 1:I think that you know Kipling mentions that in the poem, but it's such a great, you know line where you can walk among kings but you don't lose the common touch you know, even you look at with Christ it's like, okay, he's the king of kings, so there's royalty, but he's also a people of the commoners, like the woman at the well. He knows how to talk with the average person. Maybe one of the characters I think of most from Band of Brothers it's like the opposite of a chesty puller is Sobel, and that's, I think, the other warning cause. We have a lot of, I think we have more of those men Like if you look at, you know, the pastors in America today, especially if they're famous and have big churches, I would say the majority are Sobels, like the men hate them. Yeah, we want Dick winners and we got Sobel, and so I think this is another dynamic too with the church where, you know, even in Ogden, like I think in centuries past, we're actually not that impressive if you stack us up to like Calvin and Luther, you know, but I think our times are so desperate that it's.
Speaker 1:I had a lady tell me this just some friends from a church across the country was talking with her and her husband, but she said I'm not surprised that that many people went to your conference. I said well, why? You know, we had like a thousand people at the last one. I said why? And she said we are so starved for good leadership, we are just so hungry because we have Sobels in our pulpits. They close their churches during COVID. They won't stand up for hardly anything, they just want to keep their job and their position in their station.
Speaker 1:And so I think there's a couple of things here. I think one is the opportunity is so rich right now because we have such a soft, poor leadership class in our country that if you would just have a little courage and just start in the small areas where it's like have a little courage. When you're leading your wife, you know like you think that she wants a doormat. She doesn't, she wants a man, and so like, stand your ground, like lead well, give a direction for your family, have a mission, be about something you know. And I think if you'll start doing those things and just little by little, it's kind of the Aristotle idea of habits, where you are what you continually do, and one of the things that you can continually do is be courageous, and so Dan will always say this. I find it really helpful. You're in a situation and he'll say something like what would a courageous man do right now? And it really makes you think about that. You know like we're dealing with this conflict what would a courageous man do right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And, and. Then you start thinking more along those lines. Well, to Aristotle's point, what he called second nature was when you have practiced a habit so many times that you begin to do it unthinkingly. Yes, you, just, you're courageous.
Speaker 2:That's what you do.
Speaker 1:It becomes automatic, right, yep, you just step out encouraged. So the last thing I want to say is, like encouragement to older guys. I think in Chesty's older years that I think there are a lot of guys maybe you're 50 and a lot of guys are like I'm too old to have an impact, old to have an impact, I'm too old to lead these men, or they're not going to respect me or whatever, or I can't relate to them. I can't relate to them, and that's just not true. No, it's not. I think in one of the places you can start, I would say it really is physical courage. Like it is encouraging to see older guys that get in the gym, uh, use their bodies for for good, hard purposes.
Speaker 1:I know I'm always inspired like my years of hunting and being in the hunting industry. Uh, we had several gun writers. Uh, ron Spomer was one of them. Like famous gun writer dude, I got to do a few hunts with him. We did a coyote hunt in Nebraska one time and Ron is like I mean he's like walking the guides to death. I mean this dude is like like the guys are like we have trucks for this and he's like no, like let's just walk across the horizon there, you know, he kind of reminds me of he's got you know big mustache, kind of reminds me of a Quigley down under where he's just like a Tom Selleck like figure and I'm like young whippersnapper, I'm like running on the treadmill running triathlons and runs like he will walk you to death. Yeah, there's something about that kind of aura with an older guy where you're like I respect that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my grandfather has some of that on on my mom's side for sure, and uh, I will never forget. You just made me think of this. I was leaving his house one time and, uh, they've got property in East Texas and land and you can see that their house is up on top of hill and you can see the far FM road, um, about two miles from their house, and he had some cows that got out of their place and they were somewhere in this thicket between where we were in the road and he was like hang on a minute, Let me just, I'm gonna go with you.
Speaker 2:You just drop me off down there and I'll walk back and find them, and it's just like it's just I don't know, eight square miles of just thicket wilderness Like you wouldn't, you can't just walk through it. It's all trying to hang on to you and tear you up and, you know, brambles and thicket and nasty. He takes a little bag of cubes. It's got like five cubes in it and he was like they hear this, they'll come running and he, he pulls over and, uh, I pulled off the side of the road and he almost left his cell phone in my in my truck, cause he just doesn't care about it at all. And he's the same way.
Speaker 2:He, he was the first one that get to get me to watch quickly down under and he's got one of those mustaches and like he gets out of the car in the bar, ditch in in middle of nowhere, east Texas, with his bag of cubes in his in his uh, you know little cell phone in his front chest pocket. He's like if I don't have this, your grandmother will freak out. He's like, all right, see ya. And then, like, turns around, shuts the door, turns around and just walks off in the woods and I'm like I hope he gets back to the house before it's dark, you know. And he just like he would do stuff like that all the time and you're like I don't want to go do that, like and I'm a young guy and I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2:And he would get like him and my dad are both land surveyors and they would get us into like the nastiest situations. You're like I don't want to be here and you're like you're just drenched in sweat you don't sweat through your pants, you know and like they just kind of they're just used to it, like they just act like it ain't no big deal, dude.
Speaker 1:I love that. You know we'd we'd go on long treks like that with my dad when we were kids. It was so funny Cause I'd be like dad, my legs hurt, and he'd be like you're fine boy, I had worse than that on my eyeball Dude that's so great.
Speaker 1:Well, definitely encouragement to our listeners. Check out the biography of Chesty Puller. Yeah, absolutely, I think it's worth your time. It's a good, inspirational piece, a lot about masculinity. And once again, tate, thanks for joining me for this episode. Thanks so much for having me. We do want to thank our Patreon supporters. Could not do this show without you and if you're not yet, you can sign up on patreon today. Get exclusive content, access to early content, ad free and also take we've had a bunch of content there from you. Yeah, so, if you're talking through nutritional stuff and some workout stuff, upcoming too.
Speaker 2:so that's been, that's been great yeah, we've got some nutrition stuff on there. If you um, if you're asking questions on there I am trying to keep up with any comments or anything. So if you guys in the Patreon have questions about fitness nutrition, anything like that, I'll try to get back to you.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Well, Tate, once again, thank you so much for joining me for this episode. Excellent time. Appreciate it, Awesome and to our listeners stay frosty, fight the good fight and act like men.