What is an Assault Rifle?

Ok, so I recently saw someone else bitching about Assault Rifles, and I realized that lots of people need an education.  Regardless of where you stand on the debate, you need to know what you’re talking about.  So this is me doing my part.

It’s ok not to know something, it’s not ok to be willfully ignorant, profess yourself wise, and then make demands off the law based on your ignorance.

So lets start with proper terminology:

Clip:

Magazine:

Round:

Trigger:

Automatic

Semi-automatic

Let me take another second for those last two, because some people don’t seem to get that one.  Whoopi Goldberg told Rand Paul that no one should be allowed to own an automatic weapon.  Thing is, automatic weapons are already illegal.  She did mention, however that she owns a pistol.  I would have loved to ask Whoopi what kind of weapon she owns, because i’m sure she’d be surprised to find out that this:

shoots just as fast as this:

In the right hands…Here’s proof:


All semi-automatic means is that one round is fired each time you pull the trigger.  In an automatic weapon, you pull and hold the trigger and it keeps firing, like this:

Notice that belt of ammunition in his hand and how his finger isn’t moving off the trigger.  One squeeze, lots of pew.

Now, for the term “Assault” rifle.  The M4 Carbine seems to be a favorite for this description.

But did you know this weapon functions exactly the same way?

It has the same size magazine, same rate of fire, same ammunition.

The look of a weapon doesn’t make it more lethal.  Calling something an “assault” rifle, or saying “military grade” is just a scare tactic and it makes you look stupid to anyone who knows anything about guns.  Besides, I don’t own any “assault” weapons, I only own defense weapons.

The point is that having a rail system, collapsable stock, gangster grip, and painting a weapon black, doesn’t make it more dangerous.

It’s the user that makes a weapon dangerous

And honestly, in the hands of the right person, lots of things can be just as deadly

In the end, however, you’re going to have to convince me and my compatriots why we shouldn’t be allowed to defend ourselves.  This is Why I Always Carry.

 

Oh, and if you do get a law passed, you’re going to have to get the guns from us, and to that I say the words of King Leonidas when the Xerxes asked him to drop his weapons:

 

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!

American Badass: Harriet Tubman

The news about Harriet Tubman replacing Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill has brought one of my favorite Americans into the limelight.  Although I’m glad Americans are showing a fleeting interest in history, the white-washed version we got in school doesn’t necessarily highlight what a badass Mrs. Tubman actually was, so i’m going to attempt to send you back a hundred and sixty years to get a feel for what level of sacrifice she actually made…

Your heart is beating furiously in your chest as you suck in huge gulps of the cool and humid night air.  Your feet ache from the pounding of the branches as you run as fast as you can through the woods.  Scratches on your face and neck begin to sting as the sweat pools inside them.  You ran this way to draw the dogs away from your family.  Now you hear them in the distance, closing in on you.  The barking of the hounds makes you think of what they will do if they catch you, and the mere thought of it brings lucid memories and the scars on your back seem to burn once again like fresh wounds.  It pushes you to run harder into the darkness.

The light of the moon and the north star are all you have to guide you, but the tough wooden terrain is slowing you down, and the dogs are only getting closer.  You feel a sense of dread and nervousness, helplessness begins to overcome you and tears well in your eyes.  Fighting back the emotions makes running even more difficult; if they catch you this time, they will surely kill you.  You imagine your little child growing up without you and how someone will have to explain to her that you are never coming back; the thought gives you new determination.

As you hop over a log into a small break in the woods you glance up at the night sky and immediately spot the north star.  The beautiful star that means freedom, that means you will hold your baby one more time and sleep without worry that someone will come for you.  Just like that star, however, freedom feels unreachable, and now you can hear the men’s voices and the hounds.  It seems that no matter how hard you push, they keep closing in, and then you remember a special tip they had given you, “you’ll never beat the dogs, gotta beat the handler instead.”  You spring into action, running left, then right, then back, forward, in a circle, and back to your original position.  “That should make him think the dog has lost the scent,” you think to yourself and take off smiling to your rendezvous.

Exhausted, you reach a trail cutting through the  woods and see “Moses”.  She is standing with a small group, putting them into a cart, a pistol in one hand, your baby in the other.  You let out a sigh of relief and hop out of the trees onto the trail.  Moses spins on a dime and you’re face to face with her, staring right into the barrel of her pistol.  There’s a moment as you stare into her eyes that you realize why she never loses a passenger.  There is no hesitation, remorse, or fear, she is focused, determined, and steely-eyed.  “Get in,” Harriet’s words signify the end of your enslavement as you take your baby in your arms.

Harriet was dubbed the “Moses” of the underground railroad and had a perfect record of never losing a soul in her many trips out of slave states.  She knew the terrain, moved like a ghost in the woods, mentally strong, and physically tough, always ready to defend herself and her passengers with deadly force if necessary.

“There was one of two things I had a right to:  Liberty or Death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.”

If I could sum up what the essence of being an American is, I would say “liberty or death.”  We churn out the toughest motherfuckers on the planet because we are willing to fight and die free men before we will live long lives as slaves.  Mrs. Tubman is, in my opinion, part of an elite few that through their example we can learn what freedom really is.

She didn’t only fight to free slaves in the underground railroad though, she was also a union soldier.  Oh yes!  She led a group of long range scouts in South Carolina, feeding key terrain characteristics and intelligence to union generals.  I want you to fully understand the badassery of that.  She was a black woman leading a small band of men through the heart of the deep south.  The fact that a non-white was leading troops, and even more so that she was a woman, is a testament to her great skill!

 

When the war was over, she joined yet another movement and fought for the right of women to vote.

Look, here is a woman that was born a slave, escaped several times, helped others escape, led men in battle fighting for her freedom, then fought peacefully for her right to vote.  She started at nothing and is a century later a household name.

Given the choice between a slave owning president who grew the federal government and the moses of the underground railroad…well, this here Cuban-American would be honored to carry around a reminder of American grit in my wallet!

Harriet Tubman $20 bill

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!

Why the headhunter won’t work with you

I can’t stress enough the importance of having a headhunter in order to get a job.  Unless you already know someone in the company you’re applying with, as much as they like to tell you otherwise, monster.com isn’t going to get you the job.  You have to get a headhunter, more on that here.

I spoke to a friend of mine, Eddie, that works as a headhunter for Lucas Group.  I’m not getting paid to say this, I just honestly believe they are the best firm out there. If you’re talking to someone else, I recommend you give Lucas Group a call, they’ll work with Officers and NCO’s alike, but there are some people they won’t work with.  So here’s an hour long conversation about a candidate they won’t work with given to you in 700 words…

“You must have the right attitude”

I’ve said this before, and I discuss it in great detail in the book, but you are starting a new career and you need to realize that.  Look, I don’t care if you were a Brigade Commander in the military, you don’t know anything about my business.  If you think that you’re better than my team because you wore a uniform, then you don’t belong on my team.

You need to come out of the military with some humility.  You can be proud of what you did, and you should be, but if that pride makes you look down on others that didn’t, then you’re going to have a tough time and i’m not going to hire you.  Tell me instead that you don’t have a problem starting at the bottom.  Say, “It’s an opportunity to learn about the business and I’m confident my skills will get me promoted quickly.”  Bam!  That’s what I want on my team!

 

The right combination of “shuns”

“You have to have the right combination of the 3 ‘shuns’: Location, compensation, occupation.  If you tell me ‘I want to be a program manager in west chicago and make $120k a year,’ I’m going to say ‘good luck.'”  

You need to have realistic expectations of what kind of job you can find when you get out.  There was a boot shop in Fort Bragg that had a sign that read, “we do 3 types of work: Good, fast, and cheap.  Pick any two.”  That saying is very similar to what you need to consider in your job hunt.

Location

“I can’t tell you how many times i’ve heard, ‘I need to stay in Dallas, my girlfriend is from there.’ Then I have to take my recruiter hat off and put on my life coach hat…”

Location is the 3rd question of the big 4 questions, go read more about that here.  Although there are occasionally good reasons to limit yourself geographically like a special needs child or a sick family member, generally you should consider a wider net.

Compensation

“I had a guy tell me, ‘well with BAH, Flight Pay, and Jump Pay i’m making about $130k a year, so I expect to make something commensurate to that.’ With a history degree? There’s no way.”

You need to be realistic about what you’re going to make.  That’s one of the reasons why finances are the 1st of the big 4 questions. You are going to take a pay cut, just wrap your mind around that.  Plan to live off your base pay and understand what that means to your budget.  This way, if you get a job higher than your base pay, you’ll have extra spending money.  Don’t worry, I have the utmost confidence that if you want it, you’ll be able to get promoted quickly above and beyond your peers. More on finances here and here.

Occupation

“I have guys tell me that they only want to do program manager jobs.  Dude, you don’t even know what’s out there and what you’re qualified for.”

The 4th big question is to understand what you want to do, and i’ve explicitly said “lead people” is an acceptable answer.  It is important for you to want to do something that you find interesting, but you should keep your mind open to possibilities that you might not have considered.

“If the alarm goes off in the morning and your feet don’t immediately hit the floor, you have a job not a career and there’s very little compensation or location that is going to make up for you being miserable 40, 50, or 60 hours a week.”

So basically if you’ve read the book or follow the blog, chances are you’re going to get a headhunter to work with you because you’re not going to make those mistakes right?  I’ll close with one final quote:

“The biggest obstacle in these guys’ career is themselves.”

-LJF




Finding Purpose with a DD214

It’s hard to describe the struggle of finding meaning and purpose to a civilian; this is something only a veteran will understand and appreciate.

Purpose in the military

I remember quite clearly the day I drove onto Fort Bragg, fresh out of Ranger School and ready to lead men into combat.  I arrived at the 504th HQ and immediately took on the monicker of the Devils in Baggy Pants, a name earned in WWII given to the brigade by a german soldier.  I wore a US Flag on one shoulder, and the All American unit patch on the other.  From my first day, I represented much more than just myself.  I belonged to an elite group of men with a rich history.

 

It was more than being a part of a group with history though, it was also the gravity of what I was doing.  I was fighting for my country, ready and willing to sacrifice everything for the greater good.  The spartans came home with their shields or on them, I was similarly coming home with my flag or under it.  Every formation, every training exercise, every action I took in uniform was about sharpening myself and my men so we could make the other poor bastard die for his country.

Then I got my DD214…

Both Chad and I have told you many times, and i’ve written about it in the book, to make sure to answer why you’re getting out (1, 2).  It’s because both of us understand how difficult it is to find a purpose greater than yourself when you’re not in anymore.  To a civilian, that might not seem like such a big deal, but to a veteran, nothing is more important.

You didn’t joint the military because you cared about yourself, you did it because you cared about something greater than yourself.  You were a cog, and for many that served with you, you were an integral part of their lives.  Now what?

I don’t live to earn money.  Money is a necessity to survive, but having it doesn’t really motivate me.  I would go through a lot more pain and suffering to earn a cloth tab than to earn a dollar.

I also don’t live to work for my employer.  I know, that’s like a taboo thing to say, but I’m not willing to die for my company, but I was and am still very willing to die for my former employer:  The United States of America.   There are very few things I wouldn’t do to protect the red, white and blue, there’s no way to replicate that in the civilian world.

So?  Now what?

First, if you have a good “why” maybe that is your purpose.  Maybe you need to get involved in helping veterans or doing something for your community.  Maybe you need to run for office, or maybe you need to volunteer at church.

What you’re missing is the selfless-sacrifice that formed the keystone of everything else you did.

For me, I volunteer at church, give tons to charity, run this blog, support vets, and I live for my family.  My motivation to kick ass at work and earn money is so that I can continue to fund the efforts that make up my new purpose…a purpose that is bigger than me.

What’s yours?

 

 

-LJF