Take a break before you are dead, HOOAH?

The movie Gladiator with Russel Crowe is one of those movies that I can't turn away from.

Whether its the battle scenes in the beginning or the gladiator scenes throughout, I can't change the channel.

Are you still trying to figure out what "HOOAH" means?

Everything about that movie is HOOAH.

Back in the day, I liked to imagine I was made of Gladiator material.

Chain me to my battle buddy, give me a short sword and bring on the chariots......and the tigers, mutha fracker.

But when I first looked at this weeks stanza, a different scene came to mind.

Remember that scene at the end of the movie where Maximus is walking towards the setting sun while trailing his fingers through a sea of wheat?

Like all the great warrior movies, it ended. Wrapped up nice and neat leaving me wanting more.

If only it worked that way, HOOAH?

For us, the saga continues.

In the movie, Maximus had to constantly adapt to changing levels of threats. New weapons, new enemies, new problems and like a true warrior, keep his cool the whole time.

Life is rather similar. However--and this is important--you aren't a gladiator, you don't have to fight all the time. You can take breaks.

Now if you watch the news or read almost anything online, you might feel like you are in a fight.

What I loved about Gladiator was that, no matter what, Maximus handled his stuff with poise.

I thought I was made of the same stuff, until I lost it.

As you can see below, this leader lost it.

I get it. I understand.

Don't let it get that far, HOOAH?

Liberal, conservative, global warming, birth certificates, pension plans--they are all above my pay grade.

Listen up SMBRs, when you return you need to take breaks from that stuff. I know it's fun to feel entitled to yell and deservedly so, but you are putting yourself under the gun again.


Get that 4th point of contact into the woods.

Poor Maximus had to die before he got a break and then the movie ended.

Remember, all your training is still good. You are just applying it towards a different lifestyle.

Unlike the movies, this lifestyle develops over time.

Find space to develop these patterns away from the fight.

You will never stop being a warrior. You are just becoming a wiser one.

The 12th stanza of the Art of Peace, by founder and creator of the Martial Art Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba is:

Don't do anything stupid, like get yourself killed.

That was the second rule Lieutenant Dan gave Forrest Gump when they met for the first time in Vietnam. The first rule? Take care of your feet.

I experienced war from a humvee, but I understand Lt. Dan's point.

You yourself have to do certain things that, at the very least, give you the best chance to survive. The Smbrs in Nam had to hump themselves all over that country and if you have ever tried to be situationally aware when your feet are jacked up, you know why it's important.

The equivalent rule in Iraq was vehicle spacing throughout the convoy. To understand why vehicle spacing was so important let me tell you a bit about the IED that ripped through Voodoo 1143's humvee on Dec 31,2006.

We got hit by what's called an explosively formed projectile or EFP. An EFP is a concaved copper plate placed at the top of an explosive charge. At ignition, the copper turns molten and the blast sends the metal at the target at a rate of 8,000 meters per second.

This relatively simple weapon ripped through our truck with ease.

As you can see from these pictures, not only was 4.5 inches of the best armor not enough--8 inches, even 10 inches, wouldn't have been enough. Look again at the image of the main penetration: that piece of molten copper was aimed right at the drivers door and had it been my time, I'd have been a goner.

So, back to spacing.....

The bad guys liked to daisy chain IEDs like this together. Their goal was to kill as many of us as possible so they would place the road side bombs in such a way as to take out multiple trucks in one shot. This tactic was often followed by ambushes, sniper attacks and other guerrilla tactics.

What LT Dan's rule to Gump was meant to do was give him a fighting chance to survive.

Spacing out our humvees during a mission followed the same principle. Good spacing gave more of us a fighting chance to survive an ambush, adjust, move on the objective and efficiently remove said objective from this planet, HOOAH.

Now the second rule: don't do anything stupid like get yourself killed makes a lot of sense in the context of war because the simplest things like not taking care of your feet or not spacing your vehicle could get you killed.

Driving to close to the vehicle ahead of you in a convoy was stupid and if you did it, it could kill you. Simple. Easy rule to follow. Stupid could equal death. Don't be stupid. Roger that. Wilco. HOOAH.

I became a master over the 300 missions VooDoo 1143 went on over the course of a year at keeping a good interval between our truck and the one ahead.

What I noticed was that driving this way required the use of four techniques: acceleration, coasting, deceleration and coasting.

You see, I had to get good at keeping my spacing over and through a wide variety of terrain so just slowing down and speeding up wasn't enough. I became very sensitive to how far my acceleration would take me and then coast based on the terrain to keep my distance without having to slam on the brakes. This took practice, but I mastered it.

Now I know it's only by the grace of the Divine that the EFP didn't kill me, but I was coasting at the moment it hit. If I hadn't been, well........

I follow this same pattern of driving as a civilian.

This is a vastly different style than how I used to drive and is also vastly different from the way everyone around me drives.

While most drivers in DC are pressing up the tail pipe of any vehicle in front of them, I'm making space. While traffic on beltway is bumper to bumper at any time day or night and frantic drivers are constantly speeding up to slow down, I'm trying to keep my spacing and find the rhythms of traffic that allow me to handle a potentially volatile situation with ease.

Now, if I told a civilian that not keeping their spacing was stupid and liable to get them killed, they'd look at me like I had a phallus sticking out of my forehead.

Here it is again--I brought this up last week. When the imminent threat of death is in your face all the time, a simple rule like spacing is very significant; however, as a civilian the threat doesn't seem so great. What does spacing matter as a CVLN?

And there it is my brothers and sisters at Arms, this weeks training.

How you drive is an expression of what is going on inside you.

So on your way back from your trip out of normal and into nature to find your breath, watch how you drive and look at it in relation to your breath.

Your inhale is the gas, your exhale is the break. But don't forget the space in between!

Remember the breath is your first tool you look to in order to make space between you and that edge. It is your first resource for Armoring Down.

When you can settle and watch your breath, your situational awareness will go up.

Settle your vehicle in the middle lane. Watch how the vehicles around you race by in order to get where they are going one minute faster than the next guy.

Watch your emotions. I friggen hated getting passed in the old days. It was an affront to my manhood.

Now I chill. I find the flow and I get where I am going with ease.

Doing something stupid in War could get you killed quick, as a CVLN the same rule applies, the consequences are just slower to form.

The 11th stanza of the Art of Peace, by founder and creator of the Martial Art Aikido, Morihei Ueshiba is:

Negative, Ghost Rider. The Pattern is full.

The movie Top Gun is how I understood the military.

No kidding.

In my mind, I was weak and I believed war would make me complete.

I had a life full of wonder as a kid, but I only saw my problems.

My initial problem was how I looked.

That spread into all areas of my life as something that rendered me inferior to others.

To overcome this constant pattern of self loathing and shame I worked my butt off to prove to everyone that I was the man.

I was captain of my high school football team.

I became an eagle scout.

I joined a fraternity.

I could party with the best of them.

This was not enough.

When the war called, I answered.

Top Gun was what I wanted to happen to me.

I wanted to be changed by fire.

Remember when Maverick lands on the aircraft carrier and is greeted by throngs of cheering sailors?

He is smiling from ear to ear and then IceMan, his greatest doubter, comes up to him feigning anger only to say " you can be my wingman any time"

That all happened to me.

There were parties when I came home.

I was experiencing the walk into the sunset.

CROWN ME KING, HOOAH!

Little did I know that my old patterns were waiting.

Unlike the movies, life went on.

The wonder faded and there it was.

The boy I thought I had turned into a man crept ever so slowly back into my day.

I heard one of the presenters at the MilBlog conference last weekend say that out of 100 Smbrs maybe two would be experiencing PTS.

This presenter portrayed the military like Top Gun did.

Challenging, worthy of reverence, a humbling but ultimately life changing experience that would make you more than you were.

I think he gave as good a presentation as someone who has never served could, but his understanding, like mine before Armor Down, is a fantasy.

Had the question line not been so long and my chair so comfortable, I would have asked him this one question:

How difficult was it to accurately portray a SMBR without having to deal with the in-your-face potential of imminent DEATH?

He wouldn't have had an answer.

I fell back into my old patterns after war because while the training gave me many new tools and the war gave me many new experiences, I was still applying them to a fantasy.

If I get a Masters, then I will be whole.

If I get married, then I'll be complete.

If I get a great job.........and on and on.

War influenced me, but it didn't save me.

There were moments of absolute darkness when I thought it had destroyed me.

No, I didn't lose my mind, but I did feel overwhelming moments of complete and utter hopelessness at the notion that if being a War Hero didn't make me whole or complete then what the hell was I gonna do now?

They don't show those moments in the movies because the movies aren't real.

You can't find peace if you are looking outside yourself for it.

You must begin creating a new pattern.

Not a plan.

A pattern.

You begin your individual, self-created pattern with your breathing.

You study it every day, every moment.

As a new sustainable pattern develops, you begin to see a different part of you emerge.

The part of you that has been there all along, but has been mucked up by fantasy and the false hope that something outside yourself will fix you.

Ironically, the tower's message that Maverick ignored is the best message to take from Top Gun.

The pattern is full.

If you don't know or notice it yet, the entire military is Armoring Down. Drones are replacing manned jets.

Hell, the Air Force didn't even send a rep to the conference.

Huge cuts are coming to personnel across the board.

If you are still looking outside, I commend your courage, but know this: we SMBRS have a couple more years of attention from the mainstream.

I don't doubt that our politicians will do their best to ensure our welfare (it's in the political interests of both sides to do so) but remember, it's us who protect them, HOOAH.

Since you gotta start working on real life, your own life, you might as well begin with the thing that you know and that sustains us all: Breath.

The 10th Stanza of the Art of Peace is:

I will be posting every Thursday for the next 104 weeks. HOOAH.

How to Triage an absence of HOOAH.

Smbrs what's the very first thing you were taught to check for during triage?

Breathing.

The absence of breath will kill you faster than anything else.

It's essential.

We were taught this stuff in class, but I truly learned it in the field.

The fact that we were taught to use breathing to be better at taking lives, as well as saving them, never held any great significance to me.

Heck, I never once thought about it until I started writing this blog.

Maybe it's just because it's so simple that I overlooked it......

As my Grandfather, a First Sergeant in WWII would say, "nobody knows".

Anyway, the "simple stuff" no longer escapes me and as I re-examine my military experience I always am reminded of the fact that in the class room I was tired and bored, but in the field I was HOOAH. Plain and Simple.

I remember the different points during land nav. I remember being happier outside in the woods.

I understand better now why that is. Reread last week's post to get a refresher, but in the woods there is constant change and growth in all its forms.

Even stagnant water is changing as mosquitos nest and thrive in the muck.

Dress right dress in the barracks, but in the field change is king.

I have outdoor places all around DC. These are the places I used to go when stuff was especially fracked up, but I now go as a way to just enjoy myself.

As my prominence in this field has grown more and more, people are asking me how to begin transitioning out of the muck and stagnation and into fecundity.

For the Marines, Infantry and Tankers fecundity means.......just kidding.....I had to look it up too and I have a friggen Masters Degree......

Fecundity means capable of creating new growth, new life, new ideas.

Fecundity and HOOAH are one in the same.

Again, most of the people I talk to one-on-one describe a feeling of stagnation, of being stuck.

My advice to everyone has been to begin to recognize the significance of your breath in an outdoor setting.

It's a bit harder with civilians because most have no idea how significant their breath is, or the many understandings of HOOAH--so, I relay the significance of the breath during shooting and triage and I think that makes them feel good to know that we Smbrs use the breath too.

My guidance to anyone out there who is stuck in their head, especially those who are starting to have a hard time sleeping: Take some time to go out in the woods, or the mountains, or a river, doesn't matter......just away from the dress right dress and practice: Breathing Technique Alpha.

BTA is the foundation of all other techniques. Here is how it works:

Stand or sit. Align the three points, your throat, your chest and your pelvis, as best you can.

Once you have done that, take as long and slow a breath as you can.

If the breath is long, smooth and satisfying, good, repeat.

If you feel tight or caught up, begin the process of opening the three points.

The way you do that is begin by closing you eyes.

Align best you can and as you inhale start to relax your jaw.

This will help relax your top point.

Then, exhale the tension.

Next, the middle point:

As you breathe in, let your shoulder blades relax down your back while letting your chest rise slightly.

Exhale the tension.

The third point is your pelvis.

Inhale and slightly tuck your tail bone under you.

Not much, just slightly enough to balance your pelvic floor.

Exhale the tension.

Repeat the process nine times

Why nine times?

Consciously relaxing each point nine times is about four minutes worth of work which is the minimum amount of time you need to create the relaxation response in your body.

I'll go into R&R later, but just know that it is the opposite side of the fight or flight coin otherwise known as our central nervous system.

Stay relaxed by watching your breath the same way you were taught to watch it during BRM.

Then, just friggin enjoy yourself, HOOAH.

When your mind is quiet there is so much to see.

You might just experience the HOOAH you need to move on to your next objective.

The ninth stanza of the Art of Peace is:

Cover Me while I Move!

I did basic training at Fort Benning in Georgia.

Summer heat and red sand, HOOAH.

Every moment was a moment to train.

When we would march to chow we were taught little bits of training in the form of call and respond.

The drill would march us to chow and every time the word "right" came up during the cadence step count we would all scream.....

"shoot, move, communicate, kill"

I didn't think much about it at the time. Cool statement. Sounded hardcore. But what I learned later on is a lesson I still value today.

Inertia.

A soldier in motion wants to stay in motion. A soldier at rest wants to stay a rest. A good leader knows this and adjusts his orders accordingly.

You see, in war, there is only one objective. Kill the Enemy.

I know the way things are now is all about nation building and more complicated stuff like that, but there are still Smbrs on the ground moving on an objective with the sole intent of blowing that objectives head clean off.

HOOAH! GET SOME!

I remember being kinda nervous during this training because there were some guys in my Basic who were not working with a full deck if you know what I mean.

Drill sergeant H was just as nervous. That morning he laid into us more than usual.

Anyway, those were the early steps of learning how to shoot, move, communicate and kill the enemy.

Simple and straight forward.

Now, why such a big emphasis on movement?

Think World War I.

Those poor souls in the trenches would just get zeroed in on and shelled all day, every day for months. They would take an inch of ground a week and lose 2,000 guys in the process.

Can you image how terrible that must have been?

You move because it changes your perspective. You move because it takes you into a better position. You move because when you don't--you die.

The only thing different as a civilian is the objective.

I think that the reason I liked war so much growing up was the immediacy of it.

To make a mistake meant death. Death being ever present made every moment more precious. Combat is never boring, HOOAH?

When I got back this feeling of immediacy, the preciousness of the moment, wasn't there. Well, not quite.

The first days back were pretty sweet because everything in the world was new and fun, but after a while I stagnated. I stopped growing. I didn't need to train to maintain my warriors edge, so I stopped growing.

I didn't understand that I simply needed to change my objective. I didn't understand that all of my military training could be reapplied to a different kind of growth. I didn't understand that certain types of growth were better for me than others.

It took me a while to learn these things. I feel incredibly fortunate to have found the Art of Peace as a guide for my future growth.

You see, no one ever told me that war is unsustainable. By that I mean, if your growth is directed towards war, you will burn out.

I used war as my guide for growth for a while. Preparing for societal collapse, zombie apocalypse, you know the kinda stuff that would put my training to use.

But it was a short game.

I have often come back to a statement in the Bible: Matthew 5:5.

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth".

I've often thought that statement was contrary to strength.

I don't think that any more.

I think what Jesus was getting at is the fact the the most powerful people on earth are the ones that don't need power to be happy. Peace of mind and love are enough.

It's pretty simple folks.

Follow the teachings of the Art of War for training up to fight and
Follow the teachings of the Art of Peace when you are done.

The past seven weeks have been a lead up to specific techniques for creating sustainable growth for the rest of your life.

Do you know what you are supposed to yell back if a battle buddy yells "Cover Me While I Move"?

"I've Got You Covered!"

The 8th Stanza of the Art of Peace is:

On a side note. This is the new Logo. Thanks for the help.

HOOAH.

What makes a Service Member?

The answer to this question is simple: the training to kill for your country.

Now, I don't imagine this is what many have in mind and, yes, this reality gets overshadowed by the fact that very, very few Service Members (Smbrs) actually fire their weapon in combat.

But la-di-dah everybody gets trained on how to do it.

I remember a speech that was given to us by the command sergeant major the day before we were to qualify with the rifle in Basic.

He said a lot of things, but one thing I will always remember was when he said, once a soldier, always a soldier. If you don't know what HOOAH means......that is what it means.

Now, like I said, everybody gets trained to use a weapon, but not everybody uses one again or is even any good at it in the first place.

For some firing a weapon is a challenge.

During mobilization, we all had to qualify before we could go down range. I didn't have a problem, but the full bird next to me did. Haha. Officers. Gotta love'em.

Anyway, my first sergeant asked me if I wanted to fire again, and being a gun hog, I said sure.

"One thing, Corporal King" he said to me in a quiet voice, "why don't you shoot a couple of the 250 and 300 meter targets in the Colonels lane. We gotta look out for each other, HOOAH?"

I smiled and obliged.

Officers!

Now the point I am trying to make here is that all Smbrs are alike in this fashion. We are trained to go to extremes for God and Country. These extremes have far reaching consequences.

If you have ever drank too much or done any drugs you might understand this more than the laymen. The higher the highs, the lower the lows.

For us Smbrs, we have been trained to go farther than civilians. We have all jumped into the rabbit hole. Some travel further than others, but we all jump.

I wish I had understood this better before I went to Iraq.

I would have been satisfied if someone would have explained it to me when I got back.

But I don't think many people get the fact that all things exist inside certain parameters. And when those parameters are pushed they are gonna come back around.

Simple example: did you know that Smbrs returning from deployment had 13% more at-fault accidents, compared with their driving record before deployment? Now nobody is ever really going to know for sure why this is the case, but it makes my point.

Driving in a combat zone pushes the parameters of normal. It behooves all us Smbrs to understand this and be prepared to adjust when the other side comes around during transition.

I have mentioned this before and you can be sure I'm going to mention it again, but the absolute best way to practice the balance of offsetting parameters is breathing.

Every one of us was trained to use our breath as a tool to shoot. Well, for at least the next two years worth of Stanzas from the Art of Peace, I am going to be talking about how to use your breath, not just to transition, but for the rest of your life.

Your breath is an example of the parameters that hold the friggin universe together.

When you are frantic or fired up, your breath is moving fast.
When you're dead your breath is still.

When you punch something, your breath solidifies your core which generates your power.

When you dance or connect with someone in more intimate ways, your breath becomes fluid.

When you inhale your body expands.

When you exhale it contracts.

When you connect your mind to your breath and your breath to the motion of your trigger finger you are centered and can easily hit a target 300 meters away.

If your mind and breath are divided, you can't hit shit.

If you're a civilian, understand how far we Smbrs are trained to go.

Don't be afraid, just remember that our parameters are wider than yours.

The seventh Stanza of The Art of Peace is:

On another note. Armor Down has a logo. I am trying to decide between the two below. If you have a moment please leave a vote for either one or two. Vote on twitter or in the comment section.

HOOAH.