May 9, 2024 • 36 mins
How did Eric, a directionless fat kid, who wasn't even eligible to enlist in the military re-create himself into a Special Forces Green Beret? His journey wasn't easy, but to hear him tell it, it's something anyone can do. In the second half of the show, we interview the Alabama National Guard Adjutant General, Brig. Gen. David K. Pritchett about his life, command philosophy and the future of the Alabama National Guard.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
You're listening to AGR Alabama Guard Radio, the official podcast at the alvam A
National Guard. I'm Staff Sergeant JacobHearn and with me today is Sergeant Megan
Terry. We couldn't be more excitedto have Major Eric be here with us
today. He's someone who started atthe bottom of the ranks and rose his
way up, navigating through self doubtand difficult challenges while overcoming the most difficult
schools that the army has to offer. But what's interesting is you'll never guess
(00:23):
where he started. I was seventeenyears old. I didn't know what I
wanted to do with my life,which I think is most seventeen year olds.
But I just figured I'd do whateverybody else did. After you graduate
high school, you go to college, and then job and pay off all
your debts, and then get marriedand then have a dog and you know,
white picket fence. At some pointthat magic would just happen. And
(00:45):
then it kind of changed. Iwas seventeen. My brother is seventeen months
older than I am. He crushedthe act and SATs. He is a
very smart guy, so smart thathe should wear like velcrow shoes, you
know, because he might forget totie him. I've saved his life on
multiple occasions by stop him from readinga book while crossing the street. But
yeah, if you're out of college, and I remember my dad asked me,
so, what are you gonna do? And it's funny because like my
(01:07):
dad has always had like this thismantra of like you can do anything you
want to do when you turn eighteen, you just can't do it here.
It's like you can leave my houseat eighteen. That's what you can do,
and that's it. I mean,it sounds funny now, but when
you hear it at every birthday sinceyou were three years old, that's pretty
pretty impactful. And eventually just nowI'm Peter Pan I'll never grow up.
But then I was like, hey, you know, Dad, I thought
Grandma passed away and we had alike college money stuff. He's like,
(01:29):
oh, yeah, soun come here. He's like you see the big screen
TV, see those Harvard Flors.He's like, thanks, college fun.
So I started looking around and Iwas like, okay, you know,
I grew up on Clint Eastwood moviesand John Wayne, the Green Berets and
Rambo. And I was like,I'll go join the army. Walked into
an Army recruiter's office and I waslike, hey, I'd like. I
was like, what's the hardest thingin the Army? And I knew about
special forces very vaguely, but Iwas like that I've never I'll never be
(01:51):
able to do. He was likeArmy ranger and I was like, awesome,
I want to do that. Andhe just looked at me up and
down. He's like, do youknow you're fat? And I was like,
yes, I'm well aware. Butyou know, for context, this
is prior to nine to eleven.You know, the recruiting effort wasn't there.
The incentives weren't there. It wasjust like, yeah, you can
be an Army ranger, but notyou can't be an Army ranger. So
yeah, Eric persisted. He tookhis Asbab got top scores. Recruiters said
(02:14):
he could have done anything he wantedthe military, but unfortunately, Eric was
still struggling with his weight, andnone of the active duty components would recruit
a kid who had that high ofa percentage of body fat. So Eric
decided to go talk to a NationalGuard recruiter. And I went over the
Guard and they're like, yeah,we're full of fat guys. Come on
over, and that's joking. Buthe said no, He's like, here's
here's your opportunities. You can dowhatever you want. But I was under
(02:36):
the perception that I had to getinto the unit that was where I live.
I joined a field artillery unit inthe town that I was in at
the time, you know. Andso I joined field artillery. I had
to actually, because I was seventeen, I had to get my dad to
sign off on the paper. Iwent down and recruiters like, all right,
listen, I've talked to a lotof parents, you know, I
know how to talk to him.All right, let me just take care
of everything. So I went tomy dad's office and we went side.
(03:00):
My dad looked at me, helooked at the recruiter and he's like,
all right, where do I sign? I was like, man, you
are good. That was a shortspeech of here's the paperwork. Cool Eric
was in. He had his paperwork, his ASBAB scores, and a spot
in a combat arms unit. AllI had to do now was get through
MEPs. The Military Interests Processing Stationis the last obstacle that recruits need to
(03:21):
get into the military. Eric wasstill nervous, however, because MEPs could
still disqualify him for being too overweight, so he needed to figure out how
he was going to get past thatobstacle. I get in there. It
was actually a Navy corman was gettingready to leave and he's like, do
you know you are too fat tobe in the army? And I was
like, I mean I thought thatI would lose weight, and he's like,
check it out. You have tobe a certain percentage of body fat
(03:43):
just for me to sign off onthese papers. And you're not close.
He said, you would have tolose about fifteen pounds just to go to
basic drink. He's like, butif you can do ten push ups right
now, show me you want togo, I will sign off on this
paper. It kind of started tohit me, especially as I got down
to try to do ten push ups, which I struggled with mighty that I
was really not in very good shapeto join the military. And then everybody
(04:03):
I knew, who I thought wouldbe proud of my decision was like,
why would you do that? Likeyou are not going to make it.
That Navy corman who didn't know me, was the first person that actually was
like, all right, show meyou want to do this, and I
was like, that's what I'll do. I will at least have a put
in the effort to stop being fatand lazy and stop doubting myself and at
least just try. At least I'lltry. I shipped basic training, and
(04:26):
then I met the next person whowas going to believe in me more than
I believed in me. And thatwas my drill sort. And he was
not about positive affirmation. He didn'ttell me every day like all right,
young man, you can do it. I just need you to try hard
today. No, he used thetough love approach, and he absolutely yelled
at me and called me all themost foul names, told me I was
(04:46):
fat, and I was just gonnahave to do more with less, more
runs, more pt, more yelling. But the thing he never did was
told me I couldn't be a soldier, never recommended that I be removed from
basic training. All he did wastell me to run faster, push harder,
And that's what it was. It'slike, sometimes you need somebody to
push you beyond where you think youcan go. And that was the first
time that that had ever happened forme, and I was like, man,
I can do a lot more thanI thought I could, So to
(05:09):
kind of sum it up, Ilost fifteen pounds just to make weight to
go to basic training. And thenat basic training, on my first PT
test, I did eleven push ups, twelve sit ups, and ran a
twenty four forty six two mile.Then over the next several months I lost
forty pounds, and then I finishedup Basic training doing forty six push ups,
(05:32):
fifty eight sit ups, and runninga fourteen forty six So Eric joined
pre nine eleven. But while hewas in basic training is actually when the
terrorists attacked the World Trade Center.What's crazy about his telling is that him
and his fellow soldiers and training weren'ttold what had happened, and when someone
finally explained that something was going on, they kept things pretty vague. And
finally a couple of days later,you know, we had our battalion commander
(05:55):
came down. He was like alittle snivelly guy and he had big glasses.
It's like, all right, guys, I just you know, there
was a there was an incident.An incident occurred. It was a catastrophic
incident. You know, it wasreal bad and uh, you know,
America's we're figuring it out. Youknow, some things are happening and the
military will probably be involved. We'relike, what is going on? And
then you know, he walked offand our first sergeant got out there.
And the first sergeant was the firstguy I'd ever seen in the combat patch,
(06:17):
so it'd actually been overseas he hadbeen and jumped into just called ranger
regimen. I can't I can't recall, but huge dude always spoke at the
same volume. But it wasn't likeif you were close to him or you
were in the back of the formation, you always heard him with the same
level. And he was like,all right, man, we've been hit
and I swear that the American flagis gonna be flying high or some third
world dirt hole and we're gonna getthem. And we're like a We all
(06:39):
went out and ran three miles andI was like, you know, basic
training is where I kind of startedto become, like I culturated into like
the military mentality. I liked thepeople I was with, and it was
people from all walks of life,all across the country, and it was
like we all had to go throughthis hardship together. Now, we also
all thought that they told every Basictraining class they were going to war,
like this is something that they didto everybody, And it wasn't actually till
(07:00):
months later. I was on myfirst pass and I was like, immediately
ran over to the PxC a sliceof Pizza's my fat kid. That's what
I did on my first pass.And I actually saw the twin Towers get
hit on the news. I wasshocked. I was like, how can
people can still be walking around?But for them it was a month old,
two months old. They had allseen it. It was It was
just a shock. So now Igraduated, I was like, you know,
base train wasn't that bad. ButI did find out one other thing
I realized. I ended up endedup becoming an NCO over time. So
(07:24):
like I made E five, whichis as a sergeant, and I knew
at basic training I would be aterrible NCA because I have two left feet.
I'm tone deaf, so I can'tmarch and sing Cadence, and I
can't get mad about stuff that Ireally don't care about, and that seemed
to be all NCOs did. It'slike they got mad about stuff that didn't
seem important and they marched people aroundlike that was my experience with NCA.
So I was like, I needto become an officer because I hear they're
(07:45):
lazy and to hang out inside.So I'm gonna do that. My unit
got alerted like three times and thenturned down, alerted and turned down,
and I either had to sign upwith ROTC in college or I would miss
my opportunity basically because you have tohave so many years of service at the
end of your contract or end ofyour time in school to sign up.
So I was like, okay,I was like, I'll sign up.
And then immediately after that, myunit got mobilized and I wasn't able to
go because I was I was timewith RTC, So I felt pretty guilty
(08:09):
about that, and I was like, okay, well, what's amantia based
training? Going through this officer stuff? I was like, what's the next
hardest thing? People are like,oh, airborne school. Okay, all
right, I'll go to airborne school. Now. I did drop like another
ten pounds when I got to college, and thank goodness, I had gone
to the military and understood how tolike diet, do laundry, work out,
and then That's why I got inwith RTC to begin with. Was
is that they had a workout programfor the RTC cadets three or four times
(08:31):
a week, and I was like, I need somebody to go do this
with to kind of stay in shapeand keep me motivated. Otherwise, you
know, I could just fall rightback where I was before I went to
Basic training. So I end upgoing there and I compete to go to
Airborne School. I was not evenin the program at the time that I
actually went primary military instructor. Sothe colonel that ran the program, you
saw something at me that I didn'tsee, and I couldn't tell you at
any time, you know, ifI was better or worse than any of
(08:52):
the other cadets. And he wasjust like, Nope, you're gonna go
to airborne school. Finally went toAirborne school, and I was like,
I wasn't too bad now. Iwill also say I never want to jump
out of a plane again after Igot back. But some people are in
airborne units because they love jumping.I'm in an Airborne Union in spite of
the fact that we jump. That'sjust me. So I get through RTC
and my units is getting rad tomobilize a brand new lieutenant, and I
(09:13):
was like, well, what's what'sthe next hardest course? You know?
So I go to Ranger school andnow I had found out that Special Forces
was in the National Guard, andI had tried it out with the unit
closest to where I was going toschool, and I had kind of made
it. I was in really goodshape once again, both with Airborne school,
ranger school, going through Special Forcestraining. A lot of people talk
about like positive affirmation, and Iwas like, not a bit of it.
And I'll tell most of the guysthat I think the world of that
(09:35):
are just phenomenal soldiers no matter what. They're in a lot of green berets.
I asked them like, hey man, how is your experience And they
were like, oh, I thoughtI was going to fail every day.
And it's like, honestly, it'snot the positive affirmation. It's a continuous
fear of failure or not being goodenough. But also trying that drove me
to train harder, go further,and I always think I was behind or
I wasn't as good and to justdo more and so like that was kind
(09:56):
of more of a motivational factor thanevery day being like, well, you're
good, You're just fine, andthen you know, just settling. So
I think that was a bigger drivingfactor, and so I went to ranger
school. I talk about the worstday. So everybody has the worst day
of ranger school, and it's likethe day you want to quit, and
if you don't quit on that day, you'll never have a harder day.
And I will say I've never hada harder day in my line. We
(10:16):
get ready to go out there.We're in Delanaga, Georgia. It's end
of February, early March. Ithad been snowing that night and that morning
we got ready to go to themountains, it just started to like rain
and freezing rain and sleep. Andthey drive you from the base camp out
to the base of the mountains andthe training area in these basically twenty people
flatbed trucks with the with the likean army truck with a cover on top.
(10:39):
Well, the windshield wipers weren't workingon the truck that we had,
so they got rid of that oneand they just brought us a flatbed truck.
It looks like a tow truck you'dput a car on the back of.
After it stalls, and they werelike pile your rucksacks, your big
bags down the middle and then holdhands over top so you don't fall off,
right, And it is just pouringrain at this point. It's freezing.
It's blow twenty degree and we're wearingsummer uniform. You don't wear any
(11:01):
weather gear. You don't wear anywinter gear. You get one set of
hat and gloves and you don't wantto get them wet, so you never
wear them in the rain. Andthey drive us to the top and then
immediately when the truck stops, weget attacked, you know, so they're
like run, you know, artillery. And then of course you have like
an eighty pound backpack on trying torun up a mountain, so it's like
you kind of scooby do it.You know, your legs are kind of
moving, but you're not really goinganywhere, you know, like and so
(11:22):
we just kind of slowly walk upthis mountain. My guys, my platoon
did like everything wrong, Like wedidn't do a short haul to a recon
the objective. They just ran walkedright up the mountain, right down the
other side, stopped to put everybody'syou know, backpacks in a pile and
then they put us out in thisambush line. Not only were we early,
but the other unit was late,and so until they do their mission,
like our mission wasn't going to gooff, and you're trying to basically
(11:43):
do this ambush and the rain hadstopped, and I was carrying a squad
automatic weapon, so I had thismachine gun. They put me on right
side security and they laid me downbehind this big tree. And the minute
I laid down, I like brokethrough the ice and it was like laying
in a puddle. Went to adjustmyself to get this puddle, even though
this was the perfect spot behind thisgiant tree, and I just heard this.
This instructor behind me is like,Ranger, you're trying to get up
(12:05):
from behind cover, and I waslike no, and so I just laid
there. I remember like while Iwas laying there, I finally realized that
my hand had frozen to the frontof the rifle, like it had frozen
to the metal. And I wascovered in ice. And I had been
there for I mean hours felt likehours. I know it had been like
two or three hours. I lookedat my watch, I said, all
right, ten minutes, I'm gonnaquit, like this is it, Like
I'm not going any further. Andabout five minutes later, I'd look at
(12:26):
my watch and I'd be like,all right, in ten minutes, i'm
gonna quit. About five minutes later, I'd say, okay, in ten
minutes, i'm gonna quit. Idid that for about another hour, and
then I looked at my watch andI was like, all right, I
got it. In three minutes.I'm just gonna make noise so somebody comes
and gets me, because like Iam frozen. And at that point I
heard one shot go off, andI don't know if it was somebody who
had like an ignorant discharge or ifthey actually shot at something. And I
(12:50):
put two hundred rounds of belt fatamunition through that machine gun as like fast
as it would go, and Iwas just like, all right, we're
doing it. Like whatever we justshot at, let's ambush that thing.
I had noticed that the brass waswas steaming next to me because it was
so much hotter than the air aroundit, and I was like, oh,
I like I put my face downin it and I was like,
oh, it's warm. And thenI heard uh. I heard the platoon
inyre. He's like assault the salt. I was like, oh, okay,
(13:11):
I get up and move and Igo to run across the road.
My legs were so frozen, andbecause you're in the mountains, there's like
a little cut be where you haveto like step down onto the road,
and I biffit. I completely fallflat on my face on this road because
my legs are asleep and they're frozen. I dropped the machine gun. It
goes like skidding off the road.I gotta go get this thing, and
you know, it's partially tied tome. And I was like, oh
man, I feel so warm,like I've never been so warm in my
(13:33):
life. Because I finally got tomove, and I was like, yeah,
no day will ever be worse thantoday. Now. The other thing
I said was it's like I willnever go out for Special Forces because I
will never be tired, cold,wet and hungry again, never again.
Uh. In the army, it'slike use the term hua, you know,
And I like to use hua likea fuel, right. So it's
like I think everybody's born with acertain amount of it. And then the
more you're tortured, or more schoolsyou go to or the more bs you
(13:54):
have to put up with. Yougotta spend a little bit like the older
you get. And I was like, naw, my tank's done. I
got no more left, no moreschools than me. I was selected to
go to the Army Reconnaissance Course.I went to that and had a great
time. They do another super professionalschool, went to Mountain Warfare, a
couple other ones, all really wellrun courses. Learned a lot, but
(14:15):
I also got awarded so a nineteenCharlie MLS. So like at this point,
I have now been field artillery,infantry and arm or ms, all
the combat arms, so all theskills you cannot use to get a civilian
career as a civilian soldier. Andnow I'll tell people, like going to
selection for Special Forces, it's eithersomething that you want to do or it's
something you have to do. Andfor me, it's something I had to
do because the stars will never alignperfectly that you have a chance to take
(14:41):
a year off of your life togo do this. And usually it's like,
hey, my finances aren't in order, my family life's not in order,
I'm not in good enough shape,my civilian career is not perfect,
and so it's like there's always thesethings where it's not going to work out.
And the thing that I had learnedwas it's better to try and fail
than never to try it all.So it's like that stuff doesn't matter.
I got the one piece I needto have locked in, which is I
(15:01):
have a supporting family member. Restof the stuff doesn't matter. I'm gonna
go. So of course, justlike the idiot I was going to ranger
school in the winter, I wentto selection in the winter and it was
like one of the coldest Decembers ona record for North Carolina, and I
remember, like it was so coldthat so you have two court canteens that
you carry on your backpack, andthen you have one court canteens that you
carry on your combat load, andthen it all frozen, like my two
(15:22):
courts froze during landav and my onecourt. So it's just like that,
no water for the next twelve hours. All right, no problem, I
can do this. And once againthe whole time, self doubt, you're
not doing well enough, you're slow, you know you're behind time, and
then come to find out I gotselected. I couldn't believe it. So
the statistics generally work out that offifty percent who go to selection, only
fifty percent make it. Of thefifty percent selected, only fifty percent ever
(15:46):
start the Special Forces qualification courts,and of the fifty percent that start,
only fifty make it through the wholetrain for whatever reason. So, if
you think about it, if selectionhas four hundred people, two hundred people
get selected. Of those two hundred, only one hundred ever really go to
the te training for Special Forces.Now that one hundred that start, only
fifty make it through the completion ofthe course. I count myself very lucky.
You know, I've been blessed withwith the soldiers around me, just
(16:08):
good attitudes, the NCOs I've beenaround, and the Armies provided me the
opportunities to do the things that mostAmericans think about. You know, I
take the kids to Disneyland, Ilive in a nice house. I feel
very secure. But the I mean, the real thing that it taught me
was you don't really grow up,no matter how old you are, until
you start to take responsibility for yourselfand your actions. That's the level of
(16:29):
maturity. There's people who are intheir thirties who still can't do one thing
that the National Guard and joining themilitary really helps you do is realize,
like you got to take responsibility foryourself, and then you're ready to help
take responsibility for your team, squadcompany. I think those are important lessons.
What is the next hardest thing forEric? According to him, it's
taking leadership and being in charge ofsoldiers, something that he's very passionate about.
Altogether, this is an awesome story, a directionist fat kid turning himself
(16:52):
to a bona fide Special Forces badass. But what I think makes his story
so unique is just how down toearth and honesty is about a struggles his
self. Doubt, its anxiety,you know, all the normal stuff that
everyone deals with every day. Iasked him for his advice on how he
overcomes his struggles, but no,I would say that. Well, people
who know me well will always pickon me because I'll be like, oh,
(17:12):
I should have done that better,I should have done that better.
And I'm always fat right, So, like, you know, because I
like this body is morphia. Istill see the seventeen year old kid that
lost sixty five pounds between getting readyfor basic training and basic training, and
so you know, it's like that'sthe person I still see when I look
in the mirror. I'm just veryhappy that I'm spreaded by people who see
(17:33):
something more, you know, andeverybody should realize that there are those people
out there that think a lot ofyou. So don't don't don't doubt.
Don't doubt other people's opinion of you. But you can hate yourself as as
long as this for self improvement purposes. You know, that's probably not the
best thing to follow the Resiliency podcast, but it's okay to you have self
(17:56):
doubt as long as you do somethingabout you know, if you're not happy
with some part of your life,it's not going to get better waiting for
someone else to come along and fixit. You have to start the journey,
and whether it's one step at atime, whether it's a fitness goal,
whether it's a career goal, figureout what it takes to be put
(18:17):
in that position. You know.I read it in a really good book,
so I'll say it. This guypointed out, he's like I wanted
when I was a kid. Ialways wanted to be a rock star until
I realized that I wasn't practicing theguitar eighty hours a week. I just
like the idea and the lifestyle.So figure out what you really want to
do, and that's where you investyour time, because where you invest your
time is where you invest your life. Eric, thank you so much for
(18:41):
taking the time to talk with ustoday. Your story is unbelievable, and
I feel like there's something that allof us can find to take away from
this story of somebody who's going fromoverweight, not able to join to now
special Forces, I mean started Hearneand this is incredible. I think it
was a great story. I thinkit people can take away a lot from
this. The transparency of what heshares with us is just very admirable for
(19:04):
someone to speak so openly about whatthey've experienced and not solely talking on the
military agenda. And I really likethat, you know, he comes off
as such a normal guy, becausethis shows that anybody could do this as
long as they had the right mindset, the right mentors, and really pushed
themselves to get it. Now,speaking of constant changes and fluctuations and the
military and life and leadership is theAlabama National Guard Adjunet General Brigadier General David
(19:30):
Pritchett, so born and raised ina little town just north of Birmingham,
mount all of Alabama. That's whereI live. I just purchased. I
moved here less than a year ago, nine months ago, and I purchased
a home in Mount Oli. Yeah. So, so I grew up in
Mount Olig. I went to GardnellHigh School and then eventually went to Auburn.
(19:55):
I met my wife after I graduatedfrom Auburn and really thought that was
where we'd spend the rest of ourtime in Alabama, and we built our
forever house. I've learned, don'tever say you were in your forever house,
because you know we're three houses removedfrom that now. So anyway,
it's a but yeah, definitely.I'm an Alabama Guardsman and spent thirty years
(20:17):
in Alabama guard before I left fora few years. So shortly after graduating
from Auburn University, my first jobout of college was working for a technology
company out of Auburn, Alabama.It was they did several things, but
they were very focused on higher educationtechnology, and so I worked for that
(20:38):
company for about seven years before beinghired by another small startup higher education technology
company. Worked for them for almostfifteen years and was hired by one of
the larger higher education technologies in theworld world and work for them for you
(21:02):
know, Parks me five or sixyears after that, and that was certainly
the most demanding job I had becauseand I just had to spend most of
my time on the road. Soa typical week would be I'd get back
from drill on a Sunday evening,I'd get on an airplane on Monday,
and I'd come home on either Thursdayor Friday. And then oftentimes, you
(21:23):
know, at the time in twentyeighteen, when I started the title ten
position, you know, I wasa brigade commander at sixty second Troop Command.
So you know, with those unitsoften were they were drilling separate weekends,
so oftentimes, you know, Iwould be away on multiple weekends just
(21:45):
just visiting the soldiers. So itjust really became untenable to keep that same
schedule up. And so someone hadmentioned to me, well, you know,
Fort Seal is advertising for a seniori mean National Guard advisor. You
know, why don't you put apackage in, which I did, and
a few months later I was selectedfor that role, and that's what ultimately
(22:07):
took us to Fort Sill, Oklahomafor three years. So when you made
that move to Oklahoma for your family. Did it end up working out that
way? Or were things different thanyou expected? So they were, I
mean, things are never exactly likeyou kind of paint that picture in your
in your mind. And really beforewe even moved, a conversation I had
(22:33):
with my wife was was she shewas like, well, what's what's Fort
Seal? What's in Oklahoma like?And I'm like, well, you know,
it's even though it's really not theSoutheast, it's widely considered to be
the South still, and the peoplewere very much, very much like folks
here in Alabama. The weather's prettysimilar. And so we get off the
(22:56):
airplane in the middle of July andit's one hundred and fifteen degrees and she
looks at me and she says,this is not like Alabama. But to
your question, I think all ofus, you know, gained a lot
of experiences we obviously would have neverhad had we not left Alabama to go
(23:18):
out there for three years. Wasit exactly like we expected? No,
but we certainly learned a lot.And I would say that my experience there
at Fort Seal for three years waspivotal for this role, because, you
know, are both the Air Forceand the Army specifically when I was serving
(23:40):
there, We're in the middle ofour modernization and so that was largely what
I focused on was how we're transformingour army to the Army of twenty thirty
and building or planning for the Armyof twenty forty. So that was,
you know, definitely relevant experience thathelps. Here's this role is the tag
now of Alabama. I like thatyou say talking about moving up to the
(24:00):
Army of twenty thirty prepare for theArmy of twenty forty. You know,
with you being in the army forthirty years, I wanted to ask,
what have you what's your common observationsbeen. Yeah, I think I think
in a lot of ways, thingshaven't On one front, they haven't changed.
I mean, and I've seen,you know, with the career I've
(24:23):
had, I've seen a number ofdifferent weapons systems, and I've seen the
different technology. But obviously the onething that's remained constant is is the soldiers
are still soldiers now, you knowfrom my foxhoold Now they're a lot younger
than they were, you know whenI first got in. Obviously, because
(24:45):
I'm now been in for a numberof years. But but soldiers are still
soldiers, and from a leadership perspective, it's really all still about leadership and
it's about taking care of those soldiers. What has changed, you know?
Again I go back to the exampleof my own kids that it's really it's
really different now that you know,we're all walking around with devices in our
(25:07):
hands and you have the power ofhaving all this information at your at your
fingertips that you can you can getinformation on almost anything, and you can
share information real time almost anywhere inthe world as long as you have the
cell signal that's good and bad.You know. It certainly opens up the
aperture for our soldiers to to bemore knowledgeable and have access to that knowledge.
(25:33):
But we can see in Ukraine withthe Russian Ukraine conflict of how deadly
it can be. So that willbe our challenge going forward. Uh,
if we're in a large scale combatoperation with our soldiers and airmen, you
know, how do you incorporate policiesthat you know protects the individuals and your
(25:56):
organizations with with cell phones? Becausewe're all used even me fifty five years
old, I'm still used to havingI got two of them in my hand
right now. So we're all usedto that information right at our fingertips.
But what are some changes that youthink, you know, our soldiers and
really the citizens of Alabama can expectto see within the next coming, you
(26:19):
know, a couple of years andthe decade to follow with the Guard.
Well, I think our biggest challengewill be aside from and I've touched on
it already, so I won't goback to the personal devices and the cell
phones. That's that's a challenge forleadership. But I think in general,
just the technology and the speed atwhich we will have to make decisions on
(26:45):
the future battlefield. And I thinkthat is going to be a critical thing.
And so you know, we talknow about multi demain operations and you
know, the soldiers and the leadershipand airman is well as they transition to
large scale operations too, I think, you know, the soldiers and airmen
(27:06):
just have to be better critical thinkersand they have to make split second decisions
because of those decisions could be thedifference in life and death for not only
yourself, but you know, theother folks on your team. So I
think the great thing is that youknow, we have a great organization.
(27:27):
I think we have the resources.Strategic changes in our formations will obviously be
out there for the citizens to see, probably more prevalent on the air Guard
side than on the army side,just based on you know the fact that
our army formations are spread all overthe state and they're not concentrated, so
(27:48):
the citizen may not see the Alabamasystem, may not notice as much on
those transformational things going on the armyside, but you know, they're they're
definitely happening, and so systems andthe equipment that our soldiers are undergoing out
there is it's a real thing andhappening every day. My concern, and
this is one of the things thatI expressed with the Governor's staff, is
(28:14):
if you look at our national debtand you look at what our military is
going to be asked to do potentiallyin the future, I think we're in
for some knife fights out there whenit comes to budgeting. And so,
you know, I am all inon doing everything I can to make sure
that the soldiers and the airmen andthe Alabama National Guard remain best equipped,
(28:38):
best trained, and ready to goand fight and win our nation's wars if
called upon as well as be preparedhere for anything that might happen in the
homeland. And the other thing I'venote about that is that I think you'll
see and in the next large combator conflict, I should say, it's
(29:00):
going to get really blurry between what'shomeland defense and what's large scale operations,
because you know, we know thatour adversaries, you know, whether you're
talking China or Russia or even theNorth Koreans or Iran, we're being attacked
today by our adversaries, not kineticallybut through information operations and through cyber generally
(29:23):
gray zone areas. But so againI think, you know, it's it's
a blurry line between what's really homelanddefense and what's actual combat, you know.
So so I think again, Ithink what we can do organizations just
make sure our men and women areprepared for that next conflict and hopefully it
(29:44):
never comes. Yeah, I'm goingon ten eleven years at this point,
I would say most my career ism day and let's say, up until
like the past couple of years,you know, taking a higher leadership roles
in six and coming to this taxposition, really the leadership above my unit
never really concerned me. Yeah,you know, but getting to a point
(30:07):
now where I'm like, well,this really does matter and you should know
how leaders are and either you know, having to have some sort of opinion
on them, so you know,so you can make decisions of what you're
going to do in the future.Never even think about force headquarters and who's
who's the tag and what that reallymeans for them. Yeah, I don't
you know, if I think back, I don't know when I ever started
(30:30):
paying attention to who the tag was, but it was it was well into
my career, right because and youmay have seen them every now and then,
or maybe they if you're lucky,they came to your at But but
you know, it's a little different. You know, we're I think the
good thing about the military in general, you've seen a dynamic change in the
(30:51):
stolid leadership from and you heard youknow, you heard my predecessor talk about
it a lot. And but Iwould say before servant leadership was a thing
and all the people in business rightabout it. Now that that's always been
my style, you know, andit was always part of my command philosophies.
Now at this level, you don'treally write command philosophies, but you
know, if you're not willing toget out there as a battery commander,
(31:17):
it's a little bit harder as abattalion commander. But if you're not willing
to get out there and do PMCsand change the oil and the humbies or
to you know, in the artilleryworld, to punch the tubes after you've
you know, you finished firing ona weekend. And you know, soldiers
pay attention to that, and ifyou're if you think you're above that,
then they pick up on it prettyquick. And now most you know,
(31:41):
when you get to certain leadership positions, you just don't have time to do
a lot of that. But Istill think it's important to get out.
And now what you can still dois you can put a rucksack on and
you can go rut march with theinfantry guys, or you know, you
can lay down in the dirt andyou know, qualify and those kind of
things. You know, and youknow, fitness a CFT. It's a
(32:04):
big deal to me. And youknow, the day that I can't do
the a c FT and I can'tyou know, do what I'm asking the
soldiers to do, is the dayit's time for me to get out because
that's you know, I'm that's justmy leadership philosophy. You have to lead
from the front at all levels.We we you know, we've talked a
lot about leadership with some of theother people we've interviewed this week, and
you know, have to have trustin your leadership. And I think,
(32:28):
you know, it's one of thebetter parts of the National Guard is you
get to take the uniform off,you get to go home, you get
to do with your family more oftenthan you know, maybe our active duty
counterparts. But I think you reallyhave to have that trust in the National
Guard because you know, you've beenat home with your family all week,
and you know you're making all thismoney on the side, you know,
with your you know, you maybeyour career. You have to really have
(32:51):
that trust to say, yeah,I have to walk away from this for
you know, a couple of weeks, a couple of months, a year
for deployment. Uh. And ifyou don't have that trust leadership, I
feel like that's what can hurt retentionand keeping people in because if I don't
like my leader as well, yeah, I would go out into the field
when I could probably just stay homeat the House. Yeah, no,
(33:12):
I agree, And you know,I think Alabama I don't think Alabama's doing
some really good things. And I'mnot trying to take away from our recruiting
and Retention Battalion on the Army Guardside, because they they are doing a
really phenomenal job. They are leadingthe country right now. So I would
(33:34):
hope that, you know, tenyears from now, for the young soldiers
that may still be in the formationsthat you know, that they would say
that, you know, when GeneralPritchett left, you know, we were
the best equipped, the best trained, and the best taking care of that
(33:57):
we've ever had, so, youknow, and that kind of gets into
really outlining my priority. So nodifferent from what you'll hear the Army say.
You know, I think there's somethingto the people first thing. So
if you're not taking care of yourpeople, both the soldiers, the airmen,
their families, and also are civilianworkers that's the state and our federal
(34:21):
workers. And it all starts withthat. So if you can't get that
right, then it doesn't matter howgood your equipment is, because you're not
going to have soldiers and airman tofly your f thirty fives or to drive
your your humbies or you know,whatever the equipment is. So it all
starts there, and then, youknow, I think if you take care
(34:44):
of your people again, that putsyou in a position to get the best
formations in the best equipment, andthen you have the funding to train them
and then you know, and soit all starts there and it all builds
up. But that's where it allstarts, is your people. So I
hope that ten years from now thatyou know, our service members would say,
(35:06):
well, he took care of us, and he took care of our
families and the civilians that worked inour formations as well, because we oftentimes
forget about, you know, wehave uniforms on, but there's a lot
of civilians that work in this buildingand our other facilities that help us do
what we do, and so theyall fit into that as part of the
(35:29):
total picture. We just want tosay a big thank you to everyone who
took the time to come talk withus on our podcast, and also to
staff Sergeant Thomas Berlow for doing allof the music for this episode. And
I would also like to give ashout out to our boss, mister Macmuseio.
Without him, none of this wouldhave been possible. You know,
I've been doing this job for abouta year, and when I first met
(35:50):
Mac, I was a little afraid, just because I thought he might have
been one of those little snevelly guyedhe had big glasses, all right,
guys. But it turns out he'snot. So that's great. It is
a plus. It is a plus. But until this next time, thank
you for listening to a g RAlabama Guard Radio. H m hm
You're listening to AGR Alabama Guard Radio, the official podcast at the alvam A
National Guard. I'm Staff Sergeant JacobHearn and with me today is Sergeant Megan
Terry. We couldn't be more excitedto have Major Eric be here with us
today. He's someone who started atthe bottom of the ranks and rose his
way up, navigating through self doubtand difficult challenges while overcoming the most difficult
schools that the army has to offer. But what's interesting is you'll never guess
(00:23):
where he started. I was seventeenyears old. I didn't know what I
wanted to do with my life,which I think is most seventeen year olds.
But I just figured I'd do whateverybody else did. After you graduate
high school, you go to college, and then job and pay off all
your debts, and then get marriedand then have a dog and you know,
white picket fence. At some pointthat magic would just happen. And
(00:45):
then it kind of changed. Iwas seventeen. My brother is seventeen months
older than I am. He crushedthe act and SATs. He is a
very smart guy, so smart thathe should wear like velcrow shoes, you
know, because he might forget totie him. I've saved his life on
multiple occasions by stop him from readinga book while crossing the street. But
yeah, if you're out of college, and I remember my dad asked me,
so, what are you gonna do? And it's funny because like my
(01:07):
dad has always had like this thismantra of like you can do anything you
want to do when you turn eighteen, you just can't do it here.
It's like you can leave my houseat eighteen. That's what you can do,
and that's it. I mean,it sounds funny now, but when
you hear it at every birthday sinceyou were three years old, that's pretty
pretty impactful. And eventually just nowI'm Peter Pan I'll never grow up.
But then I was like, hey, you know, Dad, I thought
Grandma passed away and we had alike college money stuff. He's like,
(01:29):
oh, yeah, soun come here. He's like you see the big screen
TV, see those Harvard Flors.He's like, thanks, college fun.
So I started looking around and Iwas like, okay, you know,
I grew up on Clint Eastwood moviesand John Wayne, the Green Berets and
Rambo. And I was like,I'll go join the army. Walked into
an Army recruiter's office and I waslike, hey, I'd like. I
was like, what's the hardest thingin the Army? And I knew about
special forces very vaguely, but Iwas like that I've never I'll never be
(01:51):
able to do. He was likeArmy ranger and I was like, awesome,
I want to do that. Andhe just looked at me up and
down. He's like, do youknow you're fat? And I was like,
yes, I'm well aware. Butyou know, for context, this
is prior to nine to eleven.You know, the recruiting effort wasn't there.
The incentives weren't there. It wasjust like, yeah, you can
be an Army ranger, but notyou can't be an Army ranger. So
yeah, Eric persisted. He tookhis Asbab got top scores. Recruiters said
(02:14):
he could have done anything he wantedthe military, but unfortunately, Eric was
still struggling with his weight, andnone of the active duty components would recruit
a kid who had that high ofa percentage of body fat. So Eric
decided to go talk to a NationalGuard recruiter. And I went over the
Guard and they're like, yeah,we're full of fat guys. Come on
over, and that's joking. Buthe said no, He's like, here's
here's your opportunities. You can dowhatever you want. But I was under
(02:36):
the perception that I had to getinto the unit that was where I live.
I joined a field artillery unit inthe town that I was in at
the time, you know. Andso I joined field artillery. I had
to actually, because I was seventeen, I had to get my dad to
sign off on the paper. Iwent down and recruiters like, all right,
listen, I've talked to a lotof parents, you know, I
know how to talk to him.All right, let me just take care
of everything. So I went tomy dad's office and we went side.
(03:00):
My dad looked at me, helooked at the recruiter and he's like,
all right, where do I sign? I was like, man, you
are good. That was a shortspeech of here's the paperwork. Cool Eric
was in. He had his paperwork, his ASBAB scores, and a spot
in a combat arms unit. AllI had to do now was get through
MEPs. The Military Interests Processing Stationis the last obstacle that recruits need to
(03:21):
get into the military. Eric wasstill nervous, however, because MEPs could
still disqualify him for being too overweight, so he needed to figure out how
he was going to get past thatobstacle. I get in there. It
was actually a Navy corman was gettingready to leave and he's like, do
you know you are too fat tobe in the army? And I was
like, I mean I thought thatI would lose weight, and he's like,
check it out. You have tobe a certain percentage of body fat
(03:43):
just for me to sign off onthese papers. And you're not close.
He said, you would have tolose about fifteen pounds just to go to
basic drink. He's like, butif you can do ten push ups right
now, show me you want togo, I will sign off on this
paper. It kind of started tohit me, especially as I got down
to try to do ten push ups, which I struggled with mighty that I
was really not in very good shapeto join the military. And then everybody
(04:03):
I knew, who I thought wouldbe proud of my decision was like,
why would you do that? Likeyou are not going to make it.
That Navy corman who didn't know me, was the first person that actually was
like, all right, show meyou want to do this, and I
was like, that's what I'll do. I will at least have a put
in the effort to stop being fatand lazy and stop doubting myself and at
least just try. At least I'lltry. I shipped basic training, and
(04:26):
then I met the next person whowas going to believe in me more than
I believed in me. And thatwas my drill sort. And he was
not about positive affirmation. He didn'ttell me every day like all right,
young man, you can do it. I just need you to try hard
today. No, he used thetough love approach, and he absolutely yelled
at me and called me all themost foul names, told me I was
(04:46):
fat, and I was just gonnahave to do more with less, more
runs, more pt, more yelling. But the thing he never did was
told me I couldn't be a soldier, never recommended that I be removed from
basic training. All he did wastell me to run faster, push harder,
And that's what it was. It'slike, sometimes you need somebody to
push you beyond where you think youcan go. And that was the first
time that that had ever happened forme, and I was like, man,
I can do a lot more thanI thought I could, So to
(05:09):
kind of sum it up, Ilost fifteen pounds just to make weight to
go to basic training. And thenat basic training, on my first PT
test, I did eleven push ups, twelve sit ups, and ran a
twenty four forty six two mile.Then over the next several months I lost
forty pounds, and then I finishedup Basic training doing forty six push ups,
(05:32):
fifty eight sit ups, and runninga fourteen forty six So Eric joined
pre nine eleven. But while hewas in basic training is actually when the
terrorists attacked the World Trade Center.What's crazy about his telling is that him
and his fellow soldiers and training weren'ttold what had happened, and when someone
finally explained that something was going on, they kept things pretty vague. And
finally a couple of days later,you know, we had our battalion commander
(05:55):
came down. He was like alittle snivelly guy and he had big glasses.
It's like, all right, guys, I just you know, there
was a there was an incident.An incident occurred. It was a catastrophic
incident. You know, it wasreal bad and uh, you know,
America's we're figuring it out. Youknow, some things are happening and the
military will probably be involved. We'relike, what is going on? And
then you know, he walked offand our first sergeant got out there.
And the first sergeant was the firstguy I'd ever seen in the combat patch,
(06:17):
so it'd actually been overseas he hadbeen and jumped into just called ranger
regimen. I can't I can't recall, but huge dude always spoke at the
same volume. But it wasn't likeif you were close to him or you
were in the back of the formation, you always heard him with the same
level. And he was like,all right, man, we've been hit
and I swear that the American flagis gonna be flying high or some third
world dirt hole and we're gonna getthem. And we're like a We all
(06:39):
went out and ran three miles andI was like, you know, basic
training is where I kind of startedto become, like I culturated into like
the military mentality. I liked thepeople I was with, and it was
people from all walks of life,all across the country, and it was
like we all had to go throughthis hardship together. Now, we also
all thought that they told every Basictraining class they were going to war,
like this is something that they didto everybody, And it wasn't actually till
(07:00):
months later. I was on myfirst pass and I was like, immediately
ran over to the PxC a sliceof Pizza's my fat kid. That's what
I did on my first pass.And I actually saw the twin Towers get
hit on the news. I wasshocked. I was like, how can
people can still be walking around?But for them it was a month old,
two months old. They had allseen it. It was It was
just a shock. So now Igraduated, I was like, you know,
base train wasn't that bad. ButI did find out one other thing
I realized. I ended up endedup becoming an NCO over time. So
(07:24):
like I made E five, whichis as a sergeant, and I knew
at basic training I would be aterrible NCA because I have two left feet.
I'm tone deaf, so I can'tmarch and sing Cadence, and I
can't get mad about stuff that Ireally don't care about, and that seemed
to be all NCOs did. It'slike they got mad about stuff that didn't
seem important and they marched people aroundlike that was my experience with NCA.
So I was like, I needto become an officer because I hear they're
(07:45):
lazy and to hang out inside.So I'm gonna do that. My unit
got alerted like three times and thenturned down, alerted and turned down,
and I either had to sign upwith ROTC in college or I would miss
my opportunity basically because you have tohave so many years of service at the
end of your contract or end ofyour time in school to sign up.
So I was like, okay,I was like, I'll sign up.
And then immediately after that, myunit got mobilized and I wasn't able to
go because I was I was timewith RTC, So I felt pretty guilty
(08:09):
about that, and I was like, okay, well, what's amantia based
training? Going through this officer stuff? I was like, what's the next
hardest thing? People are like,oh, airborne school. Okay, all
right, I'll go to airborne school. Now. I did drop like another
ten pounds when I got to college, and thank goodness, I had gone
to the military and understood how tolike diet, do laundry, work out,
and then That's why I got inwith RTC to begin with. Was
is that they had a workout programfor the RTC cadets three or four times
(08:31):
a week, and I was like, I need somebody to go do this
with to kind of stay in shapeand keep me motivated. Otherwise, you
know, I could just fall rightback where I was before I went to
Basic training. So I end upgoing there and I compete to go to
Airborne School. I was not evenin the program at the time that I
actually went primary military instructor. Sothe colonel that ran the program, you
saw something at me that I didn'tsee, and I couldn't tell you at
any time, you know, ifI was better or worse than any of
(08:52):
the other cadets. And he wasjust like, Nope, you're gonna go
to airborne school. Finally went toAirborne school, and I was like,
I wasn't too bad now. Iwill also say I never want to jump
out of a plane again after Igot back. But some people are in
airborne units because they love jumping.I'm in an Airborne Union in spite of
the fact that we jump. That'sjust me. So I get through RTC
and my units is getting rad tomobilize a brand new lieutenant, and I
(09:13):
was like, well, what's what'sthe next hardest course? You know?
So I go to Ranger school andnow I had found out that Special Forces
was in the National Guard, andI had tried it out with the unit
closest to where I was going toschool, and I had kind of made
it. I was in really goodshape once again, both with Airborne school,
ranger school, going through Special Forcestraining. A lot of people talk
about like positive affirmation, and Iwas like, not a bit of it.
And I'll tell most of the guysthat I think the world of that
(09:35):
are just phenomenal soldiers no matter what. They're in a lot of green berets.
I asked them like, hey man, how is your experience And they
were like, oh, I thoughtI was going to fail every day.
And it's like, honestly, it'snot the positive affirmation. It's a continuous
fear of failure or not being goodenough. But also trying that drove me
to train harder, go further,and I always think I was behind or
I wasn't as good and to justdo more and so like that was kind
(09:56):
of more of a motivational factor thanevery day being like, well, you're
good, You're just fine, andthen you know, just settling. So
I think that was a bigger drivingfactor, and so I went to ranger
school. I talk about the worstday. So everybody has the worst day
of ranger school, and it's likethe day you want to quit, and
if you don't quit on that day, you'll never have a harder day.
And I will say I've never hada harder day in my line. We
(10:16):
get ready to go out there.We're in Delanaga, Georgia. It's end
of February, early March. Ithad been snowing that night and that morning
we got ready to go to themountains, it just started to like rain
and freezing rain and sleep. Andthey drive you from the base camp out
to the base of the mountains andthe training area in these basically twenty people
flatbed trucks with the with the likean army truck with a cover on top.
(10:39):
Well, the windshield wipers weren't workingon the truck that we had,
so they got rid of that oneand they just brought us a flatbed truck.
It looks like a tow truck you'dput a car on the back of.
After it stalls, and they werelike pile your rucksacks, your big
bags down the middle and then holdhands over top so you don't fall off,
right, And it is just pouringrain at this point. It's freezing.
It's blow twenty degree and we're wearingsummer uniform. You don't wear any
(11:01):
weather gear. You don't wear anywinter gear. You get one set of
hat and gloves and you don't wantto get them wet, so you never
wear them in the rain. Andthey drive us to the top and then
immediately when the truck stops, weget attacked, you know, so they're
like run, you know, artillery. And then of course you have like
an eighty pound backpack on trying torun up a mountain, so it's like
you kind of scooby do it.You know, your legs are kind of
moving, but you're not really goinganywhere, you know, like and so
(11:22):
we just kind of slowly walk upthis mountain. My guys, my platoon
did like everything wrong, Like wedidn't do a short haul to a recon
the objective. They just ran walkedright up the mountain, right down the
other side, stopped to put everybody'syou know, backpacks in a pile and
then they put us out in thisambush line. Not only were we early,
but the other unit was late,and so until they do their mission,
like our mission wasn't going to gooff, and you're trying to basically
(11:43):
do this ambush and the rain hadstopped, and I was carrying a squad
automatic weapon, so I had thismachine gun. They put me on right
side security and they laid me downbehind this big tree. And the minute
I laid down, I like brokethrough the ice and it was like laying
in a puddle. Went to adjustmyself to get this puddle, even though
this was the perfect spot behind thisgiant tree, and I just heard this.
This instructor behind me is like,Ranger, you're trying to get up
(12:05):
from behind cover, and I waslike no, and so I just laid
there. I remember like while Iwas laying there, I finally realized that
my hand had frozen to the frontof the rifle, like it had frozen
to the metal. And I wascovered in ice. And I had been
there for I mean hours felt likehours. I know it had been like
two or three hours. I lookedat my watch, I said, all
right, ten minutes, I'm gonnaquit, like this is it, Like
I'm not going any further. Andabout five minutes later, I'd look at
(12:26):
my watch and I'd be like,all right, in ten minutes, i'm
gonna quit. About five minutes later, I'd say, okay, in ten
minutes, i'm gonna quit. Idid that for about another hour, and
then I looked at my watch andI was like, all right, I
got it. In three minutes.I'm just gonna make noise so somebody comes
and gets me, because like Iam frozen. And at that point I
heard one shot go off, andI don't know if it was somebody who
had like an ignorant discharge or ifthey actually shot at something. And I
(12:50):
put two hundred rounds of belt fatamunition through that machine gun as like fast
as it would go, and Iwas just like, all right, we're
doing it. Like whatever we justshot at, let's ambush that thing.
I had noticed that the brass waswas steaming next to me because it was
so much hotter than the air aroundit, and I was like, oh,
I like I put my face downin it and I was like,
oh, it's warm. And thenI heard uh. I heard the platoon
inyre. He's like assault the salt. I was like, oh, okay,
(13:11):
I get up and move and Igo to run across the road.
My legs were so frozen, andbecause you're in the mountains, there's like
a little cut be where you haveto like step down onto the road,
and I biffit. I completely fallflat on my face on this road because
my legs are asleep and they're frozen. I dropped the machine gun. It
goes like skidding off the road.I gotta go get this thing, and
you know, it's partially tied tome. And I was like, oh
man, I feel so warm,like I've never been so warm in my
(13:33):
life. Because I finally got tomove, and I was like, yeah,
no day will ever be worse thantoday. Now. The other thing
I said was it's like I willnever go out for Special Forces because I
will never be tired, cold,wet and hungry again, never again.
Uh. In the army, it'slike use the term hua, you know,
And I like to use hua likea fuel, right. So it's
like I think everybody's born with acertain amount of it. And then the
more you're tortured, or more schoolsyou go to or the more bs you
(13:54):
have to put up with. Yougotta spend a little bit like the older
you get. And I was like, naw, my tank's done. I
got no more left, no moreschools than me. I was selected to
go to the Army Reconnaissance Course.I went to that and had a great
time. They do another super professionalschool, went to Mountain Warfare, a
couple other ones, all really wellrun courses. Learned a lot, but
(14:15):
I also got awarded so a nineteenCharlie MLS. So like at this point,
I have now been field artillery,infantry and arm or ms, all
the combat arms, so all theskills you cannot use to get a civilian
career as a civilian soldier. Andnow I'll tell people, like going to
selection for Special Forces, it's eithersomething that you want to do or it's
something you have to do. Andfor me, it's something I had to
do because the stars will never alignperfectly that you have a chance to take
(14:41):
a year off of your life togo do this. And usually it's like,
hey, my finances aren't in order, my family life's not in order,
I'm not in good enough shape,my civilian career is not perfect,
and so it's like there's always thesethings where it's not going to work out.
And the thing that I had learnedwas it's better to try and fail
than never to try it all.So it's like that stuff doesn't matter.
I got the one piece I needto have locked in, which is I
(15:01):
have a supporting family member. Restof the stuff doesn't matter. I'm gonna
go. So of course, justlike the idiot I was going to ranger
school in the winter, I wentto selection in the winter and it was
like one of the coldest Decembers ona record for North Carolina, and I
remember, like it was so coldthat so you have two court canteens that
you carry on your backpack, andthen you have one court canteens that you
carry on your combat load, andthen it all frozen, like my two
(15:22):
courts froze during landav and my onecourt. So it's just like that,
no water for the next twelve hours. All right, no problem, I
can do this. And once againthe whole time, self doubt, you're
not doing well enough, you're slow, you know you're behind time, and
then come to find out I gotselected. I couldn't believe it. So
the statistics generally work out that offifty percent who go to selection, only
fifty percent make it. Of thefifty percent selected, only fifty percent ever
(15:46):
start the Special Forces qualification courts,and of the fifty percent that start,
only fifty make it through the wholetrain for whatever reason. So, if
you think about it, if selectionhas four hundred people, two hundred people
get selected. Of those two hundred, only one hundred ever really go to
the te training for Special Forces.Now that one hundred that start, only
fifty make it through the completion ofthe course. I count myself very lucky.
You know, I've been blessed withwith the soldiers around me, just
(16:08):
good attitudes, the NCOs I've beenaround, and the Armies provided me the
opportunities to do the things that mostAmericans think about. You know, I
take the kids to Disneyland, Ilive in a nice house. I feel
very secure. But the I mean, the real thing that it taught me
was you don't really grow up,no matter how old you are, until
you start to take responsibility for yourselfand your actions. That's the level of
(16:29):
maturity. There's people who are intheir thirties who still can't do one thing
that the National Guard and joining themilitary really helps you do is realize,
like you got to take responsibility foryourself, and then you're ready to help
take responsibility for your team, squadcompany. I think those are important lessons.
What is the next hardest thing forEric? According to him, it's
taking leadership and being in charge ofsoldiers, something that he's very passionate about.
Altogether, this is an awesome story, a directionist fat kid turning himself
(16:52):
to a bona fide Special Forces badass. But what I think makes his story
so unique is just how down toearth and honesty is about a struggles his
self. Doubt, its anxiety,you know, all the normal stuff that
everyone deals with every day. Iasked him for his advice on how he
overcomes his struggles, but no,I would say that. Well, people
who know me well will always pickon me because I'll be like, oh,
(17:12):
I should have done that better,I should have done that better.
And I'm always fat right, So, like, you know, because I
like this body is morphia. Istill see the seventeen year old kid that
lost sixty five pounds between getting readyfor basic training and basic training, and
so you know, it's like that'sthe person I still see when I look
in the mirror. I'm just veryhappy that I'm spreaded by people who see
(17:33):
something more, you know, andeverybody should realize that there are those people
out there that think a lot ofyou. So don't don't don't doubt.
Don't doubt other people's opinion of you. But you can hate yourself as as
long as this for self improvement purposes. You know, that's probably not the
best thing to follow the Resiliency podcast, but it's okay to you have self
(17:56):
doubt as long as you do somethingabout you know, if you're not happy
with some part of your life,it's not going to get better waiting for
someone else to come along and fixit. You have to start the journey,
and whether it's one step at atime, whether it's a fitness goal,
whether it's a career goal, figureout what it takes to be put
(18:17):
in that position. You know.I read it in a really good book,
so I'll say it. This guypointed out, he's like I wanted
when I was a kid. Ialways wanted to be a rock star until
I realized that I wasn't practicing theguitar eighty hours a week. I just
like the idea and the lifestyle.So figure out what you really want to
do, and that's where you investyour time, because where you invest your
time is where you invest your life. Eric, thank you so much for
(18:41):
taking the time to talk with ustoday. Your story is unbelievable, and
I feel like there's something that allof us can find to take away from
this story of somebody who's going fromoverweight, not able to join to now
special Forces, I mean started Hearneand this is incredible. I think it
was a great story. I thinkit people can take away a lot from
this. The transparency of what heshares with us is just very admirable for
(19:04):
someone to speak so openly about whatthey've experienced and not solely talking on the
military agenda. And I really likethat, you know, he comes off
as such a normal guy, becausethis shows that anybody could do this as
long as they had the right mindset, the right mentors, and really pushed
themselves to get it. Now,speaking of constant changes and fluctuations and the
military and life and leadership is theAlabama National Guard Adjunet General Brigadier General David
(19:30):
Pritchett, so born and raised ina little town just north of Birmingham,
mount all of Alabama. That's whereI live. I just purchased. I
moved here less than a year ago, nine months ago, and I purchased
a home in Mount Oli. Yeah. So, so I grew up in
Mount Olig. I went to GardnellHigh School and then eventually went to Auburn.
(19:55):
I met my wife after I graduatedfrom Auburn and really thought that was
where we'd spend the rest of ourtime in Alabama, and we built our
forever house. I've learned, don'tever say you were in your forever house,
because you know we're three houses removedfrom that now. So anyway,
it's a but yeah, definitely.I'm an Alabama Guardsman and spent thirty years
(20:17):
in Alabama guard before I left fora few years. So shortly after graduating
from Auburn University, my first jobout of college was working for a technology
company out of Auburn, Alabama.It was they did several things, but
they were very focused on higher educationtechnology, and so I worked for that
(20:38):
company for about seven years before beinghired by another small startup higher education technology
company. Worked for them for almostfifteen years and was hired by one of
the larger higher education technologies in theworld world and work for them for you
(21:02):
know, Parks me five or sixyears after that, and that was certainly
the most demanding job I had becauseand I just had to spend most of
my time on the road. Soa typical week would be I'd get back
from drill on a Sunday evening,I'd get on an airplane on Monday,
and I'd come home on either Thursdayor Friday. And then oftentimes, you
(21:23):
know, at the time in twentyeighteen, when I started the title ten
position, you know, I wasa brigade commander at sixty second Troop Command.
So you know, with those unitsoften were they were drilling separate weekends,
so oftentimes, you know, Iwould be away on multiple weekends just
(21:45):
just visiting the soldiers. So itjust really became untenable to keep that same
schedule up. And so someone hadmentioned to me, well, you know,
Fort Seal is advertising for a seniori mean National Guard advisor. You
know, why don't you put apackage in, which I did, and
a few months later I was selectedfor that role, and that's what ultimately
(22:07):
took us to Fort Sill, Oklahomafor three years. So when you made
that move to Oklahoma for your family. Did it end up working out that
way? Or were things different thanyou expected? So they were, I
mean, things are never exactly likeyou kind of paint that picture in your
in your mind. And really beforewe even moved, a conversation I had
(22:33):
with my wife was was she shewas like, well, what's what's Fort
Seal? What's in Oklahoma like?And I'm like, well, you know,
it's even though it's really not theSoutheast, it's widely considered to be
the South still, and the peoplewere very much, very much like folks
here in Alabama. The weather's prettysimilar. And so we get off the
(22:56):
airplane in the middle of July andit's one hundred and fifteen degrees and she
looks at me and she says,this is not like Alabama. But to
your question, I think all ofus, you know, gained a lot
of experiences we obviously would have neverhad had we not left Alabama to go
(23:18):
out there for three years. Wasit exactly like we expected? No,
but we certainly learned a lot.And I would say that my experience there
at Fort Seal for three years waspivotal for this role, because, you
know, are both the Air Forceand the Army specifically when I was serving
(23:40):
there, We're in the middle ofour modernization and so that was largely what
I focused on was how we're transformingour army to the Army of twenty thirty
and building or planning for the Armyof twenty forty. So that was,
you know, definitely relevant experience thathelps. Here's this role is the tag
now of Alabama. I like thatyou say talking about moving up to the
(24:00):
Army of twenty thirty prepare for theArmy of twenty forty. You know,
with you being in the army forthirty years, I wanted to ask,
what have you what's your common observationsbeen. Yeah, I think I think
in a lot of ways, thingshaven't On one front, they haven't changed.
I mean, and I've seen,you know, with the career I've
(24:23):
had, I've seen a number ofdifferent weapons systems, and I've seen the
different technology. But obviously the onething that's remained constant is is the soldiers
are still soldiers now, you knowfrom my foxhoold Now they're a lot younger
than they were, you know whenI first got in. Obviously, because
(24:45):
I'm now been in for a numberof years. But but soldiers are still
soldiers, and from a leadership perspective, it's really all still about leadership and
it's about taking care of those soldiers. What has changed, you know?
Again I go back to the exampleof my own kids that it's really it's
really different now that you know,we're all walking around with devices in our
(25:07):
hands and you have the power ofhaving all this information at your at your
fingertips that you can you can getinformation on almost anything, and you can
share information real time almost anywhere inthe world as long as you have the
cell signal that's good and bad.You know. It certainly opens up the
aperture for our soldiers to to bemore knowledgeable and have access to that knowledge.
(25:33):
But we can see in Ukraine withthe Russian Ukraine conflict of how deadly
it can be. So that willbe our challenge going forward. Uh,
if we're in a large scale combatoperation with our soldiers and airmen, you
know, how do you incorporate policiesthat you know protects the individuals and your
(25:56):
organizations with with cell phones? Becausewe're all used even me fifty five years
old, I'm still used to havingI got two of them in my hand
right now. So we're all usedto that information right at our fingertips.
But what are some changes that youthink, you know, our soldiers and
really the citizens of Alabama can expectto see within the next coming, you
(26:19):
know, a couple of years andthe decade to follow with the Guard.
Well, I think our biggest challengewill be aside from and I've touched on
it already, so I won't goback to the personal devices and the cell
phones. That's that's a challenge forleadership. But I think in general,
just the technology and the speed atwhich we will have to make decisions on
(26:45):
the future battlefield. And I thinkthat is going to be a critical thing.
And so you know, we talknow about multi demain operations and you
know, the soldiers and the leadershipand airman is well as they transition to
large scale operations too, I think, you know, the soldiers and airmen
(27:06):
just have to be better critical thinkersand they have to make split second decisions
because of those decisions could be thedifference in life and death for not only
yourself, but you know, theother folks on your team. So I
think the great thing is that youknow, we have a great organization.
(27:27):
I think we have the resources.Strategic changes in our formations will obviously be
out there for the citizens to see, probably more prevalent on the air Guard
side than on the army side,just based on you know the fact that
our army formations are spread all overthe state and they're not concentrated, so
(27:48):
the citizen may not see the Alabamasystem, may not notice as much on
those transformational things going on the armyside, but you know, they're they're
definitely happening, and so systems andthe equipment that our soldiers are undergoing out
there is it's a real thing andhappening every day. My concern, and
this is one of the things thatI expressed with the Governor's staff, is
(28:14):
if you look at our national debtand you look at what our military is
going to be asked to do potentiallyin the future, I think we're in
for some knife fights out there whenit comes to budgeting. And so,
you know, I am all inon doing everything I can to make sure
that the soldiers and the airmen andthe Alabama National Guard remain best equipped,
(28:38):
best trained, and ready to goand fight and win our nation's wars if
called upon as well as be preparedhere for anything that might happen in the
homeland. And the other thing I'venote about that is that I think you'll
see and in the next large combator conflict, I should say, it's
(29:00):
going to get really blurry between what'shomeland defense and what's large scale operations,
because you know, we know thatour adversaries, you know, whether you're
talking China or Russia or even theNorth Koreans or Iran, we're being attacked
today by our adversaries, not kineticallybut through information operations and through cyber generally
(29:23):
gray zone areas. But so againI think, you know, it's it's
a blurry line between what's really homelanddefense and what's actual combat, you know.
So so I think again, Ithink what we can do organizations just
make sure our men and women areprepared for that next conflict and hopefully it
(29:44):
never comes. Yeah, I'm goingon ten eleven years at this point,
I would say most my career ism day and let's say, up until
like the past couple of years,you know, taking a higher leadership roles
in six and coming to this taxposition, really the leadership above my unit
never really concerned me. Yeah,you know, but getting to a point
(30:07):
now where I'm like, well,this really does matter and you should know
how leaders are and either you know, having to have some sort of opinion
on them, so you know,so you can make decisions of what you're
going to do in the future.Never even think about force headquarters and who's
who's the tag and what that reallymeans for them. Yeah, I don't
you know, if I think back, I don't know when I ever started
(30:30):
paying attention to who the tag was, but it was it was well into
my career, right because and youmay have seen them every now and then,
or maybe they if you're lucky,they came to your at But but
you know, it's a little different. You know, we're I think the
good thing about the military in general, you've seen a dynamic change in the
(30:51):
stolid leadership from and you heard youknow, you heard my predecessor talk about
it a lot. And but Iwould say before servant leadership was a thing
and all the people in business rightabout it. Now that that's always been
my style, you know, andit was always part of my command philosophies.
Now at this level, you don'treally write command philosophies, but you
know, if you're not willing toget out there as a battery commander,
(31:17):
it's a little bit harder as abattalion commander. But if you're not willing
to get out there and do PMCsand change the oil and the humbies or
to you know, in the artilleryworld, to punch the tubes after you've
you know, you finished firing ona weekend. And you know, soldiers
pay attention to that, and ifyou're if you think you're above that,
then they pick up on it prettyquick. And now most you know,
(31:41):
when you get to certain leadership positions, you just don't have time to do
a lot of that. But Istill think it's important to get out.
And now what you can still dois you can put a rucksack on and
you can go rut march with theinfantry guys, or you know, you
can lay down in the dirt andyou know, qualify and those kind of
things. You know, and youknow, fitness a CFT. It's a
(32:04):
big deal to me. And youknow, the day that I can't do
the a c FT and I can'tyou know, do what I'm asking the
soldiers to do, is the dayit's time for me to get out because
that's you know, I'm that's justmy leadership philosophy. You have to lead
from the front at all levels.We we you know, we've talked a
lot about leadership with some of theother people we've interviewed this week, and
you know, have to have trustin your leadership. And I think,
(32:28):
you know, it's one of thebetter parts of the National Guard is you
get to take the uniform off,you get to go home, you get
to do with your family more oftenthan you know, maybe our active duty
counterparts. But I think you reallyhave to have that trust in the National
Guard because you know, you've beenat home with your family all week,
and you know you're making all thismoney on the side, you know,
with your you know, you maybeyour career. You have to really have
(32:51):
that trust to say, yeah,I have to walk away from this for
you know, a couple of weeks, a couple of months, a year
for deployment. Uh. And ifyou don't have that trust leadership, I
feel like that's what can hurt retentionand keeping people in because if I don't
like my leader as well, yeah, I would go out into the field
when I could probably just stay homeat the House. Yeah, no,
(33:12):
I agree, And you know,I think Alabama I don't think Alabama's doing
some really good things. And I'mnot trying to take away from our recruiting
and Retention Battalion on the Army Guardside, because they they are doing a
really phenomenal job. They are leadingthe country right now. So I would
(33:34):
hope that, you know, tenyears from now, for the young soldiers
that may still be in the formationsthat you know, that they would say
that, you know, when GeneralPritchett left, you know, we were
the best equipped, the best trained, and the best taking care of that
(33:57):
we've ever had, so, youknow, and that kind of gets into
really outlining my priority. So nodifferent from what you'll hear the Army say.
You know, I think there's somethingto the people first thing. So
if you're not taking care of yourpeople, both the soldiers, the airmen,
their families, and also are civilianworkers that's the state and our federal
(34:21):
workers. And it all starts withthat. So if you can't get that
right, then it doesn't matter howgood your equipment is, because you're not
going to have soldiers and airman tofly your f thirty fives or to drive
your your humbies or you know,whatever the equipment is. So it all
starts there, and then, youknow, I think if you take care
(34:44):
of your people again, that putsyou in a position to get the best
formations in the best equipment, andthen you have the funding to train them
and then you know, and soit all starts there and it all builds
up. But that's where it allstarts, is your people. So I
hope that ten years from now thatyou know, our service members would say,
(35:06):
well, he took care of us, and he took care of our
families and the civilians that worked inour formations as well, because we oftentimes
forget about, you know, wehave uniforms on, but there's a lot
of civilians that work in this buildingand our other facilities that help us do
what we do, and so theyall fit into that as part of the
(35:29):
total picture. We just want tosay a big thank you to everyone who
took the time to come talk withus on our podcast, and also to
staff Sergeant Thomas Berlow for doing allof the music for this episode. And
I would also like to give ashout out to our boss, mister Macmuseio.
Without him, none of this wouldhave been possible. You know,
I've been doing this job for abouta year, and when I first met
(35:50):
Mac, I was a little afraid, just because I thought he might have
been one of those little snevelly guyedhe had big glasses, all right,
guys. But it turns out he'snot. So that's great. It is
a plus. It is a plus. But until this next time, thank
you for listening to a g RAlabama Guard Radio. H m hm
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