TERMINAL LIST'S Jack Carr: What it Means to be a Man
Episode One of the Manhood our with the SEAL creator of Kyle Reece
GORKA: This is The Manhood Hour, our very first episode, a new special hour that drops every Friday, on AMERICA First. We are delighted, what better guest, if we can’t get Dirty Harry, we’re going to invite the man who has created a media phenomena with his books, and now the blockbuster TV show: “The Terminal List.” Former SEAL, Jack Carr! Jack, welcome as our first guest, to The Manhood Hour.
CARR: Wow, I am honored. I mean, that intro was pretty powerful.
GORKA: Alright, we appreciate it. You’ve come out of hiding, you were in some OP somewhere, working on some script or some book and I bugged you, and I
bugged you for weeks, and said “Guy, you’ve gotta be the first guest!” And you graced us with your presence, we’re so excited. We have some questions, some crucial questions we’re gonna ask all of our guests on The Manhood Hour.
But first, I’ve got to do a little bit of mea culpa. You came on my show for a couple of
segments, right at the beginning, so exciting, with Terminal List becoming this
stratospheric success. Of course, it is totally toxic, the masculinity just oozes out of
every pore. We love it. We also love Chris Pratt’s portrayal. But, after you came on
my show, you had the audacity to go on my favorite podcast, Andrew Klavan’s show,
and I don’t know, I guess because he’s a storyteller who’s written scripts for people like Clint Eastwood, he got to a part of you that I hadn’t delved into in our precious chat. Let’s start there, let’s talk about you before we get to what is manhood, and what’s your take on it. And it’s about a photograph I saw of you online, sitting I guess in your home, with this massive bookcase full of books behind you. And I thought, “You know, I’ve worked with the Green Berets for over a decade, I’ve briefed the guys at Dam Neck, Little Creek, Coronado, so I know SEALs pretty well, as well as the Green
Berets. They never struck me as, you know, huge “bibliophiles.” But you have an
interesting story about who your mom was, and why you are such an avid reader that explain your capacity to tell stories about warriors.So, for those who missed Andrew Klavan’s show, tell us about your passion for the written word, Jack.
CARR: Well yeah, it really stems from my earliest days. My mom was, and still is to
this day, a librarian. So we grew up with books, and a love of reading, and I still have
most of those books that I grew up with. Some of them are in the shelves that are
behind me in that photo you referenced, but there are a lot more books than that, in
boxes all over the place, and I’m about to get them all organized and moved into an
actual library. We grew up with reading, and it was natural, just as natural as sitting down to dinner, or going for a hike, or whatever else. It wasn’t forced upon us, it was a natural part of our upbringing.
And I found out what I wanted to do very early on in life. I had this call to serve, and
a lot of that was just innate, but some of it came, I’m sure, from pictures of my
Grandfather, who was killed in World War II. I have pictures of him with his Corsair
fighter plane, so that’s the one that had the gold wings that would fold up. There was a show in the late-70s, early-80s called “Black Sheep Squadron,” with
Robert Conrad portraying Pappy Boyington. And it was kind of my connection, and my dad’s connection, to that generation.
So I knew I was headed into the military, but at the ripe old age of 7, I found out
what SEALs were. And my mom, of course, took me to the library, we researched
SEALs, found out about their history. And in the early 80s, there wasn’t much
written, you could read it in about an hour. And today, obviously, you can spend the rest of your life reading about special operations, but not back then.
And so I set on a path, but then by about fifth grade – that’s when “Hunt for Red
October” came out – and then, for sure by sixth grade, when I’m 11, I’m reading the
same books as my parents. And drawn to those because of the love of protagonists,
if you remember the main characters in books in the 80s and 90s, they had a
background – a background I wanted in real life one day – but typically it was the
Vietnam veteran, he was the Navy SEAL, he was an Army Special Forces guy, CIA paramilitary, Marine sniper.
So I’m reading books by Tom Clancy, Nelson DeMille, A.J. Quinnell, J.C. Pollak, Mark
Olden, all these authors who had that background for their protagonists. And so I’m
reading these in my very formative years and I knew that one day, after my time in the military, I would write thrillers just like that.
GORKA: It’s stunning, that story is really an encapsulation of the American way. You
found something you had a passion for, you identified your own mission at a very
young age, and you went after it, you became a SEAL, and now you are a world-
famous author. An incredible story.
So, let me dive straight in. I think the reaction to your TV show gives us a clue, but the first question I have for you on The Manhood Hour’s inaugural episode is: Jack Carr, is masculinity in trouble?
CARR: Hmm. Maybe in certain circles. But it’s only in trouble, if it is, because we’re
so comfortable and we’re in such a place of affluence, and maybe a little bit of
naivety as well, where it can be. For most of human history, it couldn’t be, because
you had to defend this gift of life that you’ve been given. You had to defend that
same gift that’s been given to your spouse, your children, your community, your
tribe, your country. And then you had to put, also, food on the table. And a lot of those same tools that were used to put food on the table were also the ones used to
defend that gift of life, to defend your tribe, your country, your family.
So, only now, for the slimmest slice of human history, have we been able to think we can dial 911 and someone will come to our aid, or go down to the grocery store, pick
something off the shelf and serve it to our family that evening, with no thought to
where it came from, how much work went into making that chicken appear on your dinner table.
So, for most of human history, you’ve had to be good at those things, the fighting and
the procurement of food. But today maybe you don’t have to be? Until you do!
GORKA: Until you do. You say comfort, perhaps, is one of the issues. Of all the issues out there – whether it’s ideology, whether it’s wokeism, whether it’s the influence of a liberal Hollywood, the breakdown of the classic family unit, marriage, or the decline of faith in America – of all these, do you see one that’s more important than the others, in terms of the damage it has wrought to the role model of the men that we showed at the opening of this show. like Clint Eastwood, and John Wayne? Is it faith, is it comfort, where do you think the locus…to put it in military terms, where’s the center-of-gravity for our enemy in this war on men?
CARR: There’s a few things there, but the family unit, obviously, is the most
powerful, most essential element of building any society. But the education system
is really the one that jumps to the forefront of my mind. Of course, we have a lot of
issues, and there’s also people who benefit from us having these issues, and having this division, namely Tech companies and the political elite on that side.
So we have this “L” ambush that most of society’s walking right into, because we
have to live, we have to have businesses, we use these Tech companies for the
business side of the house, and obviously we elect representatives to government.
But we’re walking right into this “L” ambush here. And those two elements, they
benefit from that division; politicians to galvanize bases, obviously, tech companies
first for profit, and secondly now, to impact behaviors and thoughts.
But really the education system is the one that jumps to the forefront because there
are so many issues with it, and then COVID, of course, has thrown gasoline on the
fire. And when it comes back to reading – we talked about reading, how important
that was to me – and when you look at some of these statistics, I was just looking at
some of them this morning. When it comes to reading, and where our country is!
Let’s say this: My fourth novel, “The Devil’s Hand,” I put myself in the enemy’s shoes.
And this started before COVID in 2019. I thought “What does the enemy learn by
watching us on the field of battle for these last 20 years?” And that’s how it started.
Then, COVID hit. And I thought, “Well, the enemy’s certainly taking notes on our
response to COVID. Then the summer of civil unrest unfolds. Well, the enemy’s not
just looking at this and going about their business; they’re drawing lessons and
figuring out how they can incorporate those into future battle plans. Then, a very
contentious political season is upon us, and a contentious election cycle. So the enemy’s learning from all those things.
We’re doing a pretty good job of destroying ourselves from the inside. And of course, that doesn’t make for a very dynamic novel, so I had to get creative on how to move the action forward. But that was my takeaway: We’re doing a pretty good job of destroying ourselves from the inside. And who benefits? Really, those politicians and those tech companies. And the rest of us are stuck here in this ambush trying to figure it out.
GORKA: It’s like Lincoln warned us: A house divided cannot stand.
In you’re blockbuster TV version of Terminal List there’s a seminal moment with Reese, the SEAL protagonist on a radio with those hunting him:
VOICE ON RADIO: This can’t go on forever, Reese.
REESE: Not forever, just ‘till I’m done.
VOICE ON RADIO: And when is that?
REESE: When the people who killed my family are in the f*cking ground.
GORKA: That is part of – it may be a fictional character, but it doesn’t matter – that is
part of being a man. That is justice, that you will see justice done, that injustice motivates you. And when something has to be done, you will do it. That’s just one, one, one aspect of it all. Jack, tell us, give us your definition, as somebody who’s breathed life into these characters. What else does it mean to be a man? What are the non-negotiables to being a true man in whatever age?
CARR: Well surely, strength is the first thing to come to mind. And as part of that
strength, it’s physical courage, but also moral courage. And those things are woven
together.
And it’s really about character. And if you see to that character, then your
reputation will take care of itself. So it’s really all about character. So what builds
that character? Typically, adversity, going through some sort of a crucible, a test.
And what does that all come back to? What forms the basis of that character, is that
example, that family unit. Those people that are around you in your earliest times, your most formative years, I’d say that’s what it is.
But physical courage and mental courage going hand-in-hand together, forming the
basis of your character. But you have to do things. You can’t just sit around and hope
these things happen to you. You have to go out there. And that’s why there were so
many crucibles, really from the beginning of time, all the way up to today. We look at
Marine Corps boot camp, or SEAL training, or the Army Special Forces Q-course, people looking to be tested. And that’s something that’s innate, it was naturally a part of most cultures, you had to pass some sort of a test before you could be part of the
tribe, you had to add value to that tribe to be a part of it, and that’s the same thing today.
People are drawn to it, even if we’re not told that it is part of the things that we
should do. For some reason, we’re drawn to these tests. And only because, as we
talked about earlier, we live in the time that we do, and in the society that we do,
that you can get away with not testing yourself, and just kinda floating through life. But you’re not really adding value. Not to those around you, not to the country, and you’re not moving the ball forward. So it comes down to that character, that
character is who you are. And you get to decide also, you get to decide how you’re
gonna impact those around you. You can be a positive influence, or you can be the
opposite of that. And today, with social media, it’s not just the people in your
physical circle, your circle can obviously be a lot bigger virtually, which also presents a problem when you’re looking at the other side.
And I often think back to, at the end of the Civil War, had we had social media and
had we been able to continue dividing ourselves virtually, 24 hours a day, would we be the country that we are today?
GORKA: That’s a very, very good question. For me, the greatest influence growing up
as a young boy, a young man, were, to a lesser extent, my grandfather – a real
patrician, a classic man amongst men – and then my father, who resisted
Communism, was betrayed, was tortured, and then escaped from a Communist prison cell. For you, who were the seminal characters in your youth who gave you
that sense of, “yeah, that’s what I want to be”?
CARR: Luckily, I got to dive into the pages of these books. And I had characters, both real in the non-fiction side of the house, and imagined in the fiction side of the
house. Both can be very powerful. One of our most powerful exports used to come
from Hollywood, all around the world. And people would look to these images, and
say “wow, I want to come to America, I want that opportunity.” That’s changed a bit, over the years, of course!
But for me personally, a lot of it comes down to my grandfather, and I didn’t know
him obviously, because he was killed in World War II. But I had the silk maps that
they used to give aviators back then, because if you had a paper map it would
disintegrate when you hit the water. So I had his silk maps, I had photos of him and
his squadron, I had his aviation wings… I had all of those things, and that was really
another connection I had to that generation.
And then, through books – “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” by Pappy Boyington, that was onyI read early on, and I got to meet him at an air show and shake his hand before he
passed away – but all those books, they really did make an impact. And not just the
books, but TV shows, and movies. The power of popular culture is a real thing. And
when you have people that you look up to, like some of the people that you had in
the intro to the show, or a generation of the 80s when we’re watching “First Blood,” or “Rambo,” or “Rambo III,” or “Commando,” or “Predator,” we’re looking up to these people. And it is having an impact. There’s a reason that Navy recruiting got such a boost after “Top Gun” came out in 1986.
The power of popular culture is a real thing, and I saw it on this last book tour,
because my first book came out in 2018. That means if someone was 16, 17, 18, 19
when they read it, they could now have been in the military for a few years. And
people came through that line to shake my hand and thank me, and say that they
joined the military because they read one of my novels. And I didn’t quite know how to take that, but once again, the power of popular culture. It’s real.
GORKA: I have to ask you, were you the odd man out? Were you the ugly duckling in
your SEAL squadron, that you were so into books and so literary? Or did you find
other people who shared that passion, I’m just curious?
CARR: Well, you know, when you’re in the team room, you’re not surrounded b your personal books. So people that came over to my house, or my apartment at the
time, they’d see books everywhere, and that’s just been a natural part of my life. But
I’m also not just reading these thrillers, I’m also studying warfare from a very early
age. Anything non-fiction on specifically terrorism, counter-insurgencies,
insurgencies, I’m reading all those things because I know my path.
And I know that I’m going into the military, and I know that the wars of the future
are going to be focused on terrorist groups. Growing up in the 80s and remembering
Time magazine and Newsweek, and the newspaper headlines, with the Beirut
barracks bombings in ’83, TWA 847, Pan-Am over Lockerbie, all of these different
things were very impactful. And I would study them, and I would study terrorism, I
would study these different terrorist groups, that has never stopped. And that also
helped form the basis for these novels, because I’m reading the thrillers, I’m
studying the non-fiction side of the house, now I have this real-world experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, that all comes to a head when I start writing.
But to be a leader in the military, it was also my duty to study these things, to study
the culture of where we’re going as well, so I can make the best decisions under fire
for my guys that I possibly can. Reading is a part of that, understanding the enemy is
a part of that, understanding them so you can anticipate how they’re going to adapt
to what you’re doing, because warfare as we know, it’s a game of adaptation.
And you’re capitalizing on momentum, you’re looking for gaps in the enemy’s
defenses, and that’s your duty as an officer, or anybody in the military, to have
studied that enemy and to make the best decisions you possibly can for the guys that you’re leading into combat.
GORKA: For those that are listening to this podcast and not watching us on Rumble,
he’s sitting in front of the crossed-hatchet symbol, and he’s got a very nice double-
barreled hammer gun on the wall. Let’s have a little shout-out for one of the stars of
The Terminal List: It is the combat hatchets that are used by the star, Chris Pratt,
they are from Winkler Knives. This is not a paid promotion, I’m just very, very
impressed with that website – Oh he’s got one in his hand right now, look at that!
Nicely done, a bit of product placement: Winkler Knives, it is a throwback to a less
subtle age, but it is just as an effective weapon. I’m a big, big Second Amendment gun guy, we’ll talk about that next.
Make sure that you are subscribed to all our social media accounts. We are
everywhere, except the fascistic YouTube, so we are on Truth Social, on Twitter, on
Instagram, Facebook, you name it. More than 4 million followers in total, and of
course, all of our video content is at Rumble.com/SebGorka.
So I broached the issue of being a warrior, of weaponry, Jack. Talk to us the bare
minimum – not everybody is gonna be a SEAL, not everybody is gonna be a, you
know, Delta Tier-One operator – but if you’re a man, there are certain things you
have to do, to know, you have to be prepared to use violence if necessary.
Jack, where does fitness or just self-discipline – the old, you know, SEAL standard or
the Jordan Peterson “Tidy up your room and make your bed before you bitch and
moan about somebody else.” So what are the minimum requirements of being taken
seriously as a man?
CARR: Well, that is a very good question. And today, obviously, we come down towhat we talked about earlier. But, and that’s only because you can get away with it,
without being in-shape, these days. Once again, we saw at the beginning of COVID
just how fragile society is. And that’s why travel is so important, I think, because you
get to go around the world, and you get to really experience how fragile society is,
can be, and really appreciate what we have in this country. One, on the stability side
of the house, although we did get a little wakeup call during COVID on that. But also
as far as options and opportunities that we have here, that are available nowhere else in the world. And that’s why people want to come here.
And you get to think back about history, and you get to think about all the sacrifices
that were made so that we can have these options and opportunities here. All the
people who sacrificed their lives, so that we could be here today, making our own
decisions. Not being told what to do, not being born into a caste system, but really
forming our own opinions on things and making our own decisions, living with the
effects of those decisions, learning from them if we have failures along the way. But
we really get to build what we want to build in this country. So travel, being so
important.
But how fragile society is, sometimes it takes an event. And we had it for a split-second at the beginning of COVID, and I think people worried, “Huh, wait a second, if
I do call 911, maybe someone’s not gonna be here to come save the day?” Not that
they would be there anyway, because they’re gonna arrive late, and write reports on
things, but maybe I should learn that. I’ve been meaning to learn how to use a firearm, as a husband maybe that’s something that I should do, OK. And then things started to get a little bit more lax, food started to come back into grocery stores, and people got back in their normal routines. But for a split-second there, people started to think about self-reliance.
And what are we going to do if there wasn’t food in the grocery store, or if
there was no one on the other end of that call if they called 911? Like, “Hey, do I have
fire extinguishers in the house? Do my kids know how to use them? Does the
babysitter know how to use them? Maybe we should build a fire outside with the
kids and go show them, show my 11-year-old how to use a fire extinguisher, in case
I’m not home.” That sort of thing. “How much food do we have in the house? How
much water do we have?” Not crazy prepper-type stuff, this is just normal things that you would have had to do for most of human history: Be prepared. Do I know how to use a tourniquet? What do we have in the house as far as medicines go, as far as first-aid kits go, as far as trauma kits go? Do I know how to use any of this sort of thing? So those questions people asked in the beginning of COVID, but I think that’s kinda, we got back into the comfort zone again. But some day, there will be something that happens, an event natural or otherwise, that will necessitate us being a little more self-reliant.
And it’s our responsibility as citizens of this country, and as we’re talking about manhood on this podcast, as men to be as prepared as possible. And it all depends
on your comfort level, where you live, in the city, in the country, that sort of a thing:
What family members you have around, what your community is like. So it’s gonna be different for everybody, but the baseline is being prepared.
GORKA: Yes, it’s just basically common sense. But also, you’re so right to put it
into the context of the last two, two-and-a-half years. As an immigrant to this
country, somebody who chose to come here, to become an American citizen, and
still sees it as the greatest nation on God’s earth, I am very saddened by the general lack of courage I’ve witnessed amongst my fellow Americans. One restaurant owner in California, one gym owner in New Jersey said “No, no, no, you’re not shutting down my business, I get to feed my kids, my employees get to feed their kids,” that should’ve been Americans in general.
Because that’s how America was built, rugged individualism, the pioneer spirit. And
that’s what you’re going to find if you read “The Terminal List,” all of the books in
the series, and you’ve got to stream the show right now. You’ve got to follow this man, @JackCarrUSA on Twitter.
Alright, last couple of questions for you, Jack. First things first: Life advice. I don’t
know if you’ve written f a life advice book, but if a young man comes to you, where do you start? I’ll tell you what I tell to men and women who come to me for career advice. I’m not a SEAL, I’m not a snake-eater, I served in the British Army Reserves, in a Military Intelligence unit, but my thing has been national security for about 30 years now.
And the advice I give my audience is “I don’t care if you want to be a neurosurgeon, I don’t care if you want to be an artist, or do what I did for years, which is CT, counter-
terrorism, for the DOD. Here’s my one piece of advice for you: Put the stinking
phone down, and read a book. Every day. And preferably a book by a dead guy,
who’s been dead for, let’s go at least to Shakespeare, a guy who’s been dead for at least 400 years. Or, ideally, a book that was written a few thousand years ago by a Greek dude in a toga. If you spend time with real books every day, you’re gonna be a success. I’m sure you agree, because you are a bibliophile. What else would you say are just these life-hacks that everybody needs to know, Jack?
CARR: Well, you’re right about that: Stop tweeting and start reading. That is my
thing that I pass along to as many people as I possibly can. Obviously social media
does have benefits, but it is also a time-suck and pulls you away from doing those
things that are important, that are going to make you a better person and a better
citizen, a better spouse, a better father. Jumping on Twitter and scrolling through
Twitter and Instagram, probably not gonna do that. But it’s also important who you follow on those platforms.
GORKA: Yes!
CARR: Following people that are always negative. Instead ask the question I think:
“What is this person or this entity, what action do they want me to take, based on
what they’re doing right here?” And if anything is too negative, I just get rid of it
right away. Same thing with people, in life, as well. If they’re not adding value to your
life, to your family’s life, they have got to go. We only have so much time on this
planet, you don’t know if it’s five minutes, five years, fifty years, you have no idea,
but you know it’s limited. And that’s why it’s so much time, energy, and effort into,
whether it’s a Tweet, whether it’s an Instagram post, or any sentence in my novels, a
blog post, whatever it may be. I know someone has trusted me with their time, and
they’re never getting that time back, and it’s something I take very seriously.
But as far as advice goes, putting that investment into that, into this country. If we all did that, some sort of service, we would be a much more powerful country,
because now we’ve invested in this thing that is giving us so much. And what is it
giving us? Freedom. Freedom to make our own choices. If you’re investing in
that, now, now you’re part of it. Today, you don’t have to invest in it. You can be just
a recipient of, and your behaviors can be directed by people who do have the power;
namely, those tech companies and those politicians that we discussed, essentially
making you a puppet on your one ride on this planet. So I think realizing that is of extreme importance.
And the other thing that I tell my kids, I say “Never miss an opportunity to make
somebody’s day.” And I think if you go through life with that at least somewhere in
your head, then you’re not just working on yourself, but you’re having a positive impact on those around you.
GORKA: I love that last one. I’ve never heard it put so succinctly, but service is, of
course, key to our civilization, to the Christian message. But making somebody’s day
– not in Dirty Harry’s way, I think – but to make somebody’s day every day is a great message. I’m also curious about what…
CARR: Situation dependent!
GORKA: *laughs* Situation dependent, absolutely. I’m also intrigued, I didn’t expect
you to say what you said about travel. So my son was a D-1 athlete, didn’t get into
the school he wanted to go to, and we didn’t know this, he basically said “I’m not
going to any other college, I want to go to that college.” And so he took a year off, and
he traveled the world, he worked in Africa, he worked in Australia, he worked on a Marine reserve in Belize. And he had never traveled without us. And then he got into the school that he wanted to get into, and a year later his coach said to me, D-1 coach, said: “You know, I wish every one on our team would take a year off like your son did.” So that travel component, you recommend that for any young man?
CARR: Absolutely. We actually have a family member that is doing that as well.
Paying his own way, working odd jobs here and there, learning so much. I mean, he’s
in Peru, he’s in Europe, he’s in Africa, doing these amazing things, living in little huts
on the side of a hill in Kenya. He’s learning so much, experiencing so much, and, same thing, then he’ll continue college after that.
And life does get in the way at some point, from those kind of things. You have
responsibilities that probably will pile up as you get older. So the earlier you realize
the value of travel, and that you don’t have to be so crazy well-off to do it, you can do
it, and you can work your way through it as you go along. I know multiple people
who have done that, with essentially zero, and they’ve gone and they’ve done these
odd jobs here and there as they traveled around the world. And 10 years from now,
20 years from now, 30 years from now, the benefit of having done that, I mean you
can’t put a price tag on that. So travel is of vital importance. And you don’t have to just think that it’s something only the elite can do. You can do it too.
GORKA: Love it. Great message. We’re talking to Jack Carr, the author of “The
Terminal List.” Follow him at @JackCarrUSA, also go to his website
OfficialJackCarr.com. Read the books, I’m into the first. I love the show, so I got the
book. I’m listening to the book now. He knows how to do characters, he knows how
to do dialogue. Why? Because he reads! That’s what he did. He knows how to tell a good story, like so few conservatives and patriots out there.
Alright, last question or two, and then he has to get back to being the mega-success
he is, and hanging out with, you know, people you may have heard of, like Chris
Pratt. Actually, I have to send you a copy of my book, so I’m gonna get a mailing address and I’ll send you a copy of my book, “War for America’s Soul.”
Last question, this is from my wife, because behind every great man is a greater woman. Are you optimistic, Jack Carr, or are you pessimistic for the future of manhood in America, and in our civilization? Can it be brought back from the brink.
CARR: This is something I actually think about a lot. Publicly, I try to remain as
optimistic as possible. I’m a fairly optimistic type person in general, looking for the good as much as I possibly can. But with everything going on, sometimes that’s
difficult, because there are so many inputs these days that we didn’t have before.
These different inputs are not necessarily the most positive, and we have to be positive these days, if you’re a business owner, you have to have a storefront. And a lot of times, that storefront really is electronic, it’s virtual. That’s your storefront to the world.
So I try to remain optimistic, and what does give me hope is what I talked about a
little bit earlier, going back to the end of the Civil War: How divided we were, and
then what happened to bring us back together. So I try to think about that if I ever get discouraged about how we’ve been in these situations before. The answer is in the pages of history, I wish we could just go back to them. And by “we,” I specifically mean some of those people who we elect to represent us in D.C. and the bureaucrats that they put into different positions, that stay there for so long. I wish that people would spend more time in the pages of history, because the answers are there, we could take those lessons and apply them going forward as wisdom. Not just in 4- or 8-year election cycles, but 10, 20, 30, generationally. And that’s certainly what we owe the next generation.
We’re not making these decisions. These votes that we cast aren’t really for us,
they’re for our children and our grandchildren, and that’s a responsibility for our
generation, is to hand them over the same freedoms that we enjoyed. And right now, that’s tough. But the answers are in the pages of history.
GORKA: And last question: To those who read your books, watch your TV show, and
who want to become you, or join the brotherhood, want to be a James Reece lethal
weapon to stand up for liberty, to fight for the most vulnerable in our civilization,
and who see the military seemingly going woke: What is your message to them, Jack?
CARR: Well, that once again you have to remain positive. There’s only a few places
you can go if you want to serve your nation in uniform, regardless, if it’s having
some issues right now. Maybe (in the future) some of those senior leaders will be held accountable.
This is one of those things I try to remain hopeful for. Because we did hav accountability in the military up until about 1947, and then it started to trickle off
for whatever reason, over the years, until we got to what we have today where people will continue to just fail upward.
But, if you want to look downrange, and serve your country, and have these skills,
there’s only certain things and places that you can go to do it. The military is one,
but you have to prep yourself for that as early as possible, and that is being in-shape,
like we talked about earlier. Testing yourself every chance that you get, learning
how to fight, getting in the boxing ring, getting into jujitsu, both those things right
there, those combinations, some of the toughest times I ever had were in the ring or
on the mat.
And I thought, those times in Hell Week, when I had that log over my head, and I’m
on the verge of hypothermia running up and down the beach in Coronado,
California, I thought back to being on the mat and having fresh opponents come in
for about an hour, and you’re just throwing these people all over the place, they’re
throwing you all over the place, and it is a battle. And I thought back to that many
times. What I also thought back to were those people who stormed the beaches at
Normandy, at Iwo Jima, those people who did that so that I could be on that beach in Coronado, California, testing myself in this crucible that is BUDS.
And it doesn’t have to be the crucible of BUDS, it can be anything in life. It can be any
dream in life. But thinking back to what other people sacrificed, and the things that
they had to go through to give you that opportunity, I think that really puts it in
relative terms, and then allows you to focus on the task at hand. Really as a thank-
you to those generations, and then also it’s what you owe yourself on your one ride on this planet.
GORKA: Yes. Living on the shoulders of giants. We have real men that are
protecting us today. Jack has been one of them, we are very grateful to you, the
service you have provided this nation with all your buddies from BUDS. For me, it
was judo and rugby! But whatever it takes guys. Now get back to writing those books
and those scripts! This was the first episode of The Manhood Hour!
Tune into AMERICA First daily across the nation 3-6pmET. The Manhood Hour drops every Friday 5pmET. Podcast at here on Spotify.
Excellent questions and thought provoking responses!
Great episodes will watch again