Category: Stories worth Telling

A Rangeriffic Thanksgiving

“I’m going to do you a favor, Ranger.”

The words of the Bravo Company 1SG in Mountain Phase of Ranger school hit me like a ton of bricks.  His “favor” was letting me re-do mountain phase to clear out the plethora of major minuses I had accrued in the three weeks prior.  Let’s face it, the moment I acquired my 4th major minus two days into the first field exercise, I knew I was going to recycle the phase.  I spent the next 15 days trying unsuccessfully to earn a major plus (my only hope to salvage my performance); it didn’t happen.

Somehow word of my demise had reached the boys coming to join us from Darby and my best friend Chad Shields flew off the bus with a smile calling out my name.  I was devastated when he recycled Darby, he was elated to find out about my failure.  I sat on his bunk for a few minutes laughing with him and vividly describing the pain that was to come:  the blueberry pancakes are awesome, the terrain is terrible, the RI’s are worse.  Chad shrugged it off, “eh, it could always be worse.”

We made it through most of the phase without incident, but as we stepped off to start our second field exercise, it began to rain…

It was November 2004 on the Appalachian trail and the rain did not quit.  We lived through Forrest Gump style “every kind of rain”.  At one point we came down from the mountain and were told to fall-in to formation.  I remember the rain was coming down violently and the Ranger Instructor (RI) was yelling some instructions that I couldn’t hear.  I leaned to my buddy and asked what we were being told.   “Change your socks.”  I laughed hard as I watched my boot fill with water and hail while i put on “fresh” socks.  Chad looked at me, “It could always be worse!”

The rain on it’s own wouldn’t have been that terrible, except that the temperature kept dropping.  It felt like it was just above freezing and soaking wet.  My body began to ache in places I didn’t even know I had.  My hands and feet went completely numb, and I could barely feel pressure.  It felt like my big toe was missing which actually made walking a bit tricky.  My hands swelled up and cracked open and the blood froze on my skin.  I had tons of frozen cuts and scratches.  We learned to work around the violent shivering as it was a sign that we weren’t hypothermic yet.  Chad smiled at me, “It could always be worse!”

Finally on the night before Thanksgiving, the rain stopped.

It was amazing.  I looked up at the clear night sky and let out a sigh of relief.  That would be very short lived though.  Once the rain clouds were gone, the cold really began to set in.  I could feel it crawling around my skin and penetrating my bones.  When I stretched out my arm, water would drip off my uniform onto my hands and it felt like little daggers, the only sensation coming from my hands was pain.  I looked around for my buddy.  Through his chattering moon-lit teeth, Chad forced a smile, “It could always be worse!”

I have never stared so expectantly at the horizon as I did that morning.  If my will would have had an effect, the sun would have risen hours earlier.  Instead I searched for the first ray of light that would bring at least some warmth as I reached the brink of giving up.

As the early morning light finally pierced the darkness and landed on me, I looked down to notice a sheen across my uniform that didn’t exist the day before.  I reached for my chest and the uniform began to crack.  That sheen was ice.  I stared down in disbelief and began to crack and sweep the ice off my body.  Then guys began to quit.

 

I smelled the new RI’s before I heard or saw them.

My nose picked up the scent of Pantene and Irish Spring coming from the base of the mountain.  It meant fresh instructors, and it also meant the “fuck-fuck” games were about to start.

The next hour is a blur.  Instructors were yelling, guys were quitting and dropping out; some had frostbite, some had frostnip, more yelling, it was pandemonium. We were ordered to start three warming fires and to change our uniforms and put on polypropylene and gortex. I was on a machine gun, so no warming fire for me.

As I began to undress I felt a wet drop on my face, then another, then another.  “You’ve got to be kidding me!  It’s way too fucking cold to be raining,” I yelled in the general direction of Chad’s position as I unbuckled my pants and dropped them to the ground.  I heard his distinct laugh and I looked up in a rage when I saw it.  I was right, it was too cold for rain…it was snowing.

So there I stood, completely naked in the snow wringing out my polypro when I made eye contact with Chad.  He was now in full on laughter and it was infectious. I wanted to be angry, I really did, but as I stood there hopping from one bare foot to the next dreading the thought of putting on this sopping wet clothes, I couldn’t help but join Chad in laughing at how ridiculous this whole thing was.  “It can always be worse?” I asked him.  “Oh no dude, it’s all downhill from here,” he bellowed with a deep and honest laugh.

I’m Thankful for…

I was excited to finally start our movement, and within the first hour my body heat had dried the uniform; I was thankful to get moving.  The sun somehow beamed through the near foot of snow and actually felt warm against my face; I was thankful for the sun.  As soon as the mission was over, we loaded up in trucks and started heading back to the base to get ready for our next phase; I was thankful it was over.  On the ride back I sat next to Chad, and together we laughed with the others that made it; I am thankful for my friend, nay, my brother.

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-LJF

 

Click the image below to find out what we’re doing here at CONUS Battle Drills!

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My day with Nick and Jack

I keep glancing down at my GPS as I pull into the neighborhood where RangerUP headquarters is located; the area is shady as fuck. I send Nick a message that I am here and when I look up from my phone a guy was coming out of the building to have a cigarette.  I step boldly out of my Prius and introduce myself. He shook my hand, “I’m Jack, nice to meet you.”  As he said that it clicked.  I look more closely and in his eyes I had the faint resemblance of a certain character from Range15.  “Wait, Jack Mandaville?  Like from the movie?”  My voice goes up at least an octave, but in my defense, the guy looks nothing like his film persona:

I tell him about the shady neighborhood, and Jack laughs it off.  “Yeah man, like the first week we were here some dude was straight up murdered at the gas station…like muuuuuuuuurrrrdered.”  He points his hand like a gun and pops off caps into the ground as he hangs on the word murdered, the smoke from his Marlboro red adds a nice touch.

A bright red suburban with “Rgr Up 6” plates pulls into the parking lot and I can recognize the face I’ve seen on many a youtube video in the driver seat.  Nick pulls in and starts to do a Chinese fire drill switching out car seats with another car in the parking lot.  As a father, I know this drill well and can appreciate the urgency when he walks up and introduces himself. “Hey I’m Nick.  Let’s get inside before he sees me,” referencing his little boy that is already missing daddy.

Inside it looks exactly what you would expect the warehouse to look like when you’ve outsourced a large percentage of your work.  Mostly bare shelves and a metric fuckload of shipping materials and differently sized priority mail boxes sit on every horizontal surface.  Adorning the walls are beautiful liquid metal decorations of flags, punisher skulls, and different army units.  These really are gorgeous, and I found my eyes lingering on the 82nd Airborne patch as we make our way to a corner in the warehouse where the offices are.

Nick is already on his phone answering emails and checking twitter while he talks to me about the day ahead. I can’t stop thinking about how nice it would be to come to work in gym shorts and a t-shirt noticing his outfit.  On my right is a large white board that covers the wall.  Written on it are all kinds of video ideas, some have checkmarks, most have names next to them assigning some sort of responsibility.  “I’m sorry we’re really short-handed today,” Nick starts as he drifts off back into his phone then continues without looking up, “I had to send everyone to Georgia to unfuck that mess…gimme a sec.”  Something he read caught his attention and he retreats into his office.

I’m left behind with Jack and Thom, their resident editor who I would later learn is a genius when it comes to film.  Sitting on the table, shoved under some boxes, is a poster-board with stick figures drawn on it.  I pick it up and laugh, “Yeah, I’m not an artist, but it’s funny.  That’s a shirt I designed.  Want one?”  Just like that, Jack Mandaville was offering me for free an original design.  I muttered through some words as I’m still awestruck, but really, as a guy that knows the cost of inventory, I’m very sensitive about accepting gifts from small businesses.

 

“I wanted to be creative.  Pursue my passion, do something I loved, and make a difference.”

 

The conversation moves a bit as Jack tells me he used to be in the oil industry and write for the duffelblog on the side. I ask why he left, “I wanted to be creative.  Pursue my passion, do something I loved, and make a difference.”  His words were so damn passionate, they hit me like a bat to the teeth.  Not only can I identify with that statement, but the way he delivered it makes me want to stand on my desk and call him O Captain My Captain.

I ask a couple follow ups and before I know it, I move chairs and am looking over his shoulder at the computer. He jumps from one shirt to the next, showing me the designs, artwork, and most importantly, the stories behind each and every shirt.  “We’re more than a T-Shirt company.  Our product descriptions aren’t shit like 50% cotton 50% polyester extra larg-nah, read this shit!”  He points to the screen and starts to read a couple sentences from an American Sparta shirt.  He is booming with pride and testosterone, then he clicks and we’re staring at war rabbit.  I laugh, he chuckles and says, “then there’s this.  People eat this shit up man.”  By the way readers, I love war rabbit.

Nick comes back out, as he would throughout the day, told us the plan, told us he was ready to film, glanced at his phone, and went back into his office.  “Just give me a minute,” his voice carried across the offices as Jack’s phone rang.

It’s amazing to see what happens to a man when he’s in love.  Jack is a hard and hilarious motherfucker with a USMC tattoo prominently on his forearm. I watch his face transform in real time just by glancing at the caller ID.  “Hey baby!” His voice comes out soft and sweet.  He is excited and tempered at the same time as he rises from behind his desk and steps outside.

“That’s his girlfriend if you can’t tell,” Nick said as he came back out. I talk to him about the interview that I want to do. As I tell him what questions I want to ask he looks intently at the ground thinking about what he would say.  When I was done, he nods, “I’m ready to do this now.  Want to do it now?”  I tell him I’m ready and we step into a back room where we interrupt Thom working in the dark by flipping the light on.  Nick explains what we were doing as he sends another email on his phone and Thom immediately got to work setting everything up.  Nick promises he will be right back and shoots out towards his office.  I could tell things weren’t going well, but he wanted me to feel welcomed and he was going to find a way to be in more than one place at once.

Nick comes back in, asks if we’re ready and takes a seat in front of the camera.  He puts down his phone, shakes his head furiously, smacks his face, and his eyes meet mine and in an instant I see the key to his success.  In this moment, at this time, there is nothing else going on in Nick’s life but this interview.  There is no doubt he is wholly focused 100% on me, and let’s face it, I’m a fucking nobody.  Knowing that he is giving this much attention to something that in the grand scheme of his business isn’t going to make a great bit of difference is evidence of the focus, character, and effort he puts into a market that he revolutionized.

 

 “I had to get better.  I didn’t have a choice.  I had to be a better businessman, better entrepreneur, a better dad.”

 

I look down at my phone where I had my notes, ask my first question and immediately I’m sucked into his story.  “I learned I was getting another promotion in my corporate role…” He starts to recount the story of when he decided to quit his cushy job and work on RangerUP full time.  It cost him his marriage, he had to downgrade his house, ended up with tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, and had less than $1500 to his name.  “I had to get better.  I didn’t have a choice.  I had to be a better businessman, better entrepreneur, a better dad.”

There is no question that Nick got better.  He filled a market niche that no one else had up until that point and defined the market.  He created a business that not only grew in the new market, but has managed to stay on top while the competition increased in number and quality.  He even invented a marketing strategy that few have been able to replicate, and although it hasn’t made it into your MBA books yet, believe that it will one day.

Note: The interview is getting its own post with video in a few days, so make sure to like/follow/subscribe whatever, so you don’t miss it

Our interview ends and we bullshit for a few more minutes as Nick goes back to his phone.  Thom and I are left behind to discuss video file transfers as Jack comes back in the room.  He’s pacing a bit and throwing out ideas for the next movie.  “Should I wear a Hitler mustache?  Is that too much,” he asks us. We join in tossing out ideas on how to make his character over the top.  He stops pacing for a moment, “Actually no, because then i’d have to wear the mustache to dinner and shit.”

He’s hops over to a rack of costumes and starts pulling out items for a video that they are making today.  I look up to a large flatscreen in front of me that has Thom’s screen displayed.  On it I can read the script and immediately start laughing.  I look over at Jack, “Did you write this?”  “Yeah,” he answers pulling out a fake beard from the box at his feet.  He gets all the costumes ready and disappears.

About 30 minutes later Nick shows back up chomping on a burrito as Jack rounds the corner and tosses a burrito in my direction.  We eat quickly then Nick starts getting into his hipster outfit for the video.  He stands in front of a green screen facing the camera, Jack is sitting on the ground holding the script and reads the first line to Nick.  One take, nailed it, and we all laugh hard.  A quick costume change and Nick is ready to go again.  “If either of them are elected, you can stay in your own darn country,” Jack reads out and Nick repeats.  His Canadian accent is terrible and quickly morphs into Scottish at every turn.  I’m laughing so hard tears are rolling down my cheeks, Thom is laughing hard too, but Jack is just sitting there repeating the same line again and again in a perfect Canadian accent for Nick to emulate. Eventually they get a good take (see the video here), I ask for a photo with the two of them and say goodbye.

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On my way out we chat briefly about collaborating on a future video, I thank them again, and leave.  I get in my car, text my wife to let her know i’m heading home and take one last look at the RangerUP marquee above the door to the building.   This will go down as one of the coolest things I’ve ever done, even if it was just Thursday for Nick and Jack.

-LJF

 

 

 

Click the image below to find out what we’re doing here at CONUS Battle Drills!

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I don’t need Memorial Day

Memorial day, the day politicians find time in their schedule for a photo op in Arlington, civilians raise American flags and BBQ, and veterans cringe when thanked for their service; I can do without it.

I know it’s a very controversial thing to say, but I’m done with all of the pandering to the military.  I’m sick of politicians pretending to give a shit during election years then having my brothers die waiting for care in the VA.  I’m sick of being thanked for my service, then watching my brothers unable to get a job because civilians think we’re unstable.  On memorial day weekend in particular, I shun the thought of someone who doesn’t care on 364 days a year, asking me if I lost anyone with a pitiful look on their face.

If Memorial Day is for veterans, I don’t need it.  I remember every day.  Every single day, something, sometimes as simple as my kids giving me a hug, will remind me of other beautiful children who won’t get to hug their daddy today; so I hold mine a second longer.

I’ve reached my fill of seeing veterans used as a tool for personal gain and profit, and seeing what has happened with the Wounded Warrior Project, it appears not even within the community are we immune to it.

Think I’m just disgruntled and full of crap?  Watch as Facebook sends out some new filter for people to change their profile pics to. Then go to any company or politician’s website Monday.  I guarantee it’ll be filled with American flags and something like “xxx salutes our veterans” on the top.  Now ask that person or company what a Gold Star Family is, or what Section 60 is, or better yet, ask them to tell you about someone in Section 60, then talk to me about how much they actually care.

The sacrifice my brothers made and their family continues to make is not an opportunity for you to get elected or have a sale.  Arlington is not a place for a “photo op”.

Some of You do Care

As Chad told me when I was preparing this post, “A nation that recognizes it’s fallen soldiers one day a year is better than a nation that doesn’t recognize them at all.”

I know some of you are genuine.  Many of you don’t know how to show your support beyond a “thank you for your service” or the latest Facebook profile filter; you’re doing your best.  So here are some tips: Go find a veteran run charity that does some good, or help a gold star family.  Don’t let politicians get away with pandering their “veteran support” to win your vote.  Finally, don’t buy into the stereotype that all veterans have PTSD and are broken, we’re not.  Oh, and anytime you see someone in hollywood turn up the collar on their uniform like this, just stop watching that show:

So if you’re going to thank a soldier, or change your profile, mean it.

Regardless of where you stand on Reagan, when I heard his voice crack, I knew he meant it too:


-LJF

Getting out of the military is hard!  Don’t make it harder on yourself by not being prepared!  Buy CONUS Battle Drills:  A Guide for Combat Veterans to Corporate Life, Parenthood, and Caging the Beast Inside!

“The Drive”

My name is Chad.

Louis Fernandez asked if I would be willing to write some on his blog.

After deciding that I would, we both agreed an introductory segment would be the most appropriate place for me to start.

I will not spend much time talking about myself, as I assume most readers will have little concern about such things.

However, some information about myself, as well as my connections with the author of CONUS Battle Drills, maybe good for context.

I am a civilian now. Before that, I served in the United States Military for nine years.  First, as an Infantry Officer and then as a Special Forces Detachment Commander in the Army.

I am now a self-employed farmer and a stay-at-home dad.

I first met Louis in the summer of 2000.  We were both newly enrolled ROTC cadets at the University of Florida.

I had no intention of going into the military but took the course as a suggestion and recommendation from a fellow high school graduate and friend of mine.  That’s not very much important.  What is important, little did I know at the time, is that through this decision to take ROTC classes, I would be exposed to some of the most brilliant and patriotic Americans I have ever encountered.   Some of which have become my best friends.  The climax of both would be Louis Fernandez.

I have countless stories of how my life-long friendship with Louis began, developed, and endured.  I am not sure that this is the forum to tell all of those stories. Should you find me on a porch swing or around a camp fire with a beer then maybe you will be afforded the opportunity to hear such great tales.  I will simply say, for now, that Louis and I have certainly spent some formative years together and he has had a huge impact on my own life.

I do, however, want to take a brief moment to share one particular personal story (there are SO many) with all of you that I think will help paint the picture of Louis’s character (for you readers who are interested).

Louis and I graduated from the University of Florida and were commissioned as 2LTs in May of 2004.  Shortly after that we were required to report to Fort Benning, GA for the Infantry Officer Basic Course (IOBC).

To make a long story short, we loaded up our minimal personal belongings into his KIA Sephia, the day before we were suppose to report, and made the 278 mile drive from Gainesville, FL to Fort Benning, GA.

Immediately upon checking into our barracks I realized that I had forgotten not some but ALL of my military uniforms back in a closet at my previous home in Gainesville.  Our course was to commence with a formation early the next morning.

There was not enough time for me to buy or pull together replacement uniforms.  For me, there was no other option but to retrieve my forgotten uniforms.  I was both stressed and anxious to say the least.  Rather than just lend me his car (which would have been most generous in-of-itself), Louis decided to travel all the way back to Gainesville with me.
We got back into his car and we drove all way back to Florida (and then back again to Fort Benning).  All through the night we drove.

What would have been a 4.5 hour trip turned into a 14 hour trip.

 

I was exhausted and frustrated at my own stupidity.  Yet, he did not let me endure the hardship of my mistake alone.

He could have easy stayed at Fort Benning that afternoon and evening; and got the good nights rest, he deserved, before starting his first day of his new career.

His willingness to endure what I have since coined “The Drive” is a memory that I will never lose or an act of kindness that I will ever forget.

So, with the windows down at 70 mph, smoking cheap cigars, and talking about everything from money, religion, politics, and women, to stay awake, the two of us made “The Drive” together.

I chose this story, from so many, to share because it speaks volumes about who Louis is as a person.  He is fiercely loyal to his friends, family, comrades, and countrymen.  He goes above and beyond to make sure that no one is left “going it alone.”  These same attributes were so blatantly obvious to me in his book CONUS Battle Drills.  Sure, he might be abrasive when he tells you that you are an idiot (though he is probably right) but never to the extent where he is actually passing any judgment.  He has made his own mistakes.  He is not perfect.  But you can bet that he is looking out for you.  He wants to provide EVERYONE with the opportunity to learn from his own experiences and to make sure you are successful.

I can tell you, without any doubt, that Louis wants you to be ready on the day you sign in, to the extent that he will get in the car and drive you the extra mile to get you there.

-CWS