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This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
1:13
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:15
Let's get into it.
1:15
Decoration day.
1:17
Sleep comrades sleep and rest on this field of grounded arms where foes no more
1:24
molest nor centuries shot alarms.
1:27
You have slept on the ground before and started to your feet at the cannon's
1:32
sudden roar or the drums redoubling beat.
1:34
But in this camp of death, no sound your slumber breaks.
1:38
Here is no fevered breath, no wound that bleeds and aches.
1:43
All is repose and peace.
1:46
Untrampled lies the sod.
1:47
The shouts of battle cease.
1:50
It is the truce of God.
1:52
Rest comrades rest and sleep.
1:55
The thoughts of men shall be as signals to keep your rest from danger free.
2:00
Your silent tents of green we deck with flagrant flowers.
2:05
Yours has the suffering been the memory shall be ours.
2:10
Guys, that is the poem Decoration Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
2:16
So this was a poem that he wrote to commemorate the time back in the day after the Civil War
2:22
whenever they basically called a Decoration Day.
2:25
So for the fallen soldiers of the Civil War, they would basically decorate their grave sites.
2:30
They would decorate them with flowers or flags or things like that.
2:32
And it is Decoration Day that actually eventually gave way to what we know as today as Memorial Day.
2:39
And so today I'm going to do a little tribute for Memorial Day.
2:43
So we're going to do a few different things.
2:45
We're going to talk about a few things and then we'll get you guys out of here
2:48
because this is just a special episode, but for me, Memorial Day is a very important day.
2:53
And this is, you know, nobody in my immediate family has served in the military.
2:59
But I have lost friends overseas.
3:01
I have some very, very close buddies that have lost brothers overseas.
3:05
And so it's a very poignant day for the country.
3:09
It's a very emotional day for a lot of people.
3:12
And here's the thing is, you know, we have Memorial Day, we have Veterans Day.
3:15
And you know, unfortunately, I feel like most people are only thinking
3:19
about our men and women in uniform on those days, right?
3:22
And occasionally when they're shown on television,
3:24
holding the flag at a football game or something like that.
3:26
But as I've mentioned a lot before, I have a tremendous amount of respect
3:31
for the men and women that serve, and especially for those that have died.
3:34
So for me, I have never served in the military.
3:38
That is, for me, probably one of my greatest regrets in life.
3:43
Obviously, I'm very happy with the life I have now.
3:45
I'm happy that I have this ministry.
3:46
I'm happy that I have my wife of 10 years and all the things that have come with that.
3:50
But there is a huge part of me that I wish is that if I could somehow have all of those things
3:55
and still have served in the military, that I would have, I would choose that.
3:58
And so, but it's not something that I've done.
4:00
And so for me, I have a tremendous amount of respect.
4:04
And I try to do all that I can to support the families of the military
4:09
and the military men and women themselves.
4:11
And so Memorial Day is one of those somber days where we also get to celebrate the people
4:17
that have passed on.
4:17
So these are the people that have passed away in combat, in training, and in any way
4:22
to basically give service to us here as citizens of the United States,
4:26
whether that's here domestically or abroad.
4:29
And so Memorial Day is a very fun day for a lot of people.
4:32
Yes, it's a three-day weekend, but obviously it is about way more than hamburgers and hot dogs.
4:37
It is about this tremendous sacrifice that we all basically get the benefits of.
4:41
Now, this weekend has been kind of unique in terms of Memorial Day because I kind of do
4:46
my own thing that I do every year to celebrate.
4:49
And I'll talk more about that in a second.
4:50
But I was invited to an incredible, incredible event that I wanted to tell you about
4:54
where I was yesterday.
4:56
So this was up in Tulsa.
4:57
And this was the National Gala for Folds of Honor.
5:00
And so if you're not familiar with Folds of Honor, I'll put the website in the show notes
5:03
so you can check it out yourself.
5:04
But the longest short of it is, this was basically a ministry, but it's a charity that
5:08
was started back in 2008 with the idea that the family members of men or women that have
5:15
been killed or severely disabled in war fighting for our country, that this ministry and this
5:21
charity would actually pay for them to go to school.
5:25
Basically, make sure that they would not leave college with any student loan debt.
5:29
And this has been a charity that has grown tremendously.
5:34
It has given out thousands and thousands and thousands of scholarships.
5:38
And I think last year, I'm trying to remember what they said in the notes,
5:41
but it was like, you know, I think it was like $120 million.
5:44
If I got that wrong, I apologize.
5:46
But it was just an absolute astounding number in terms of the scholarships that they've given.
5:51
But one thing is since 2008, they've given away a steady increase every single year,
5:55
more scholarship recipients, but also more total in terms of scholarships.
6:00
And there are a lot of people that are on board with this.
6:02
But one of my good buddies was actually receiving a award there that evening.
6:07
And it was a star stud at a fair.
6:10
It was very, very interesting to have some of those people in the room.
6:13
So Richard Carnes, you might know him more as Al Borland was there kind of hanging out.
6:17
You know, Larry, the capable guy actually was there.
6:20
And he hopped on stage for about 20 minutes and did a little set, which was awesome.
6:24
Kevin Sorbo, who's been in some faith based movies here recently, God is not dead.
6:28
He was Hercules back in the day, still does a lot of movies directing and acting.
6:32
He actually sat next to me at our table.
6:34
And so for about a couple hours, I got to talk to him about his life and about,
6:38
you know, how he moved out of California because of the politics and the taxes and all that stuff.
6:42
And we just we had a very good time chatting with one another.
6:45
But the general gist of it was I said, all these people are in this room because they support this
6:49
tremendous cause. It was an unbelievably patriotic and emotional evening.
6:55
Because they basically sandwiched the evening with stories at the beginning and stories at the
6:59
end of people that have been direct recipients of the scholarship.
7:02
And if you think about it, people that are direct recipients of the scholarship have lost somebody.
7:07
And so there were four stories at the beginning and four stories at the end.
7:11
And they basically told us about who they lost.
7:15
And they're sitting there holding a folded up flag, right?
7:17
Like the one that is presented to you at a military funeral.
7:21
And they're giving us their story and man, it was just even even sitting here right now,
7:25
it's just like, it's getting me a little bit choked up because it's just like
7:28
the level of sacrifice that these people have experienced.
7:31
And it was all walks of life.
7:33
It was, you know, adult teenage or adult women who lost their dad when they were like three
7:39
years old. And so they did basically didn't have a daddy their whole lives.
7:42
And then you had spouses that lost somebody. You had little kids who basically their dad deployed
7:49
when they were four months old and then died overseas.
7:51
And so they never actually got to meet their father.
7:54
But you know, they're kind of living in his shadow and trying to uphold his memory.
7:58
But it was just an incredible experience to be in a room with about 700 people where everybody
8:04
was on the same page that we were all there to raise money and to raise awareness for these kids
8:10
that had and these adults that have had massive amounts of pain brought on to them.
8:15
And it wasn't they're doing.
8:17
And now they're having to live in the ashes of a little bit of that wrecked life.
8:21
And the cool thing about that is some people would would use that loss as an excuse to ruin
8:27
their life as well, right? Oh, I lost my dad at an important time in my life.
8:30
I think I'm just going to rebel and ruin my life too.
8:32
But but these were eight stories of people that were overcomers.
8:36
These were people that are so unbelievably resilient.
8:39
And so that that was a crazy start to my Memorial Day weekend.
8:44
Really? I mean, well, it wasn't the start.
8:46
It was on Sunday, but you get the idea.
8:47
But just being around those people and seeing the joy on their faces
8:51
and seeing the joy on the faces of people that are raising money and raising awareness for this cause.
8:56
I mean, just it was an incredible, incredible evening.
8:59
But then we fast forward to this morning and I did what I do every year and have done for the last,
9:04
I don't know, five or six years. And that is the Murph Challenge.
9:07
And so for any of you that are not aware of the Murph Challenge,
9:11
it is because of Lieutenant Michael Murphy.
9:14
So Michael Murphy, I'm not going to get into his whole big bio here.
9:17
I actually am going to put in the show notes here.
9:20
There's a video of George W. Bush doing his Medal of Honor ceremony.
9:23
It was posthumous, obviously.
9:26
So if you don't know the story, you'll know here in a second.
9:27
But he was on Operation Red Wings, which was an operation that basically gave way
9:32
to the book or the movie that you're familiar with or should be familiar with Lone Survivor.
9:36
And so Michael Murphy was one of four guys that were way, way behind enemy lines
9:42
and trying to take out a high value target.
9:44
It absolutely went to crap.
9:45
And these four guys basically spent the rest of their time there,
9:50
which was a short period except for Marcus Lutrell,
9:53
basically defending one another and defending themselves, trying to escape.
9:56
But the reason why Michael Murphy sticks out for a lot of people is because of the heroic deed
10:01
that he did trying to save the lives of the people that he was fighting with.
10:05
So where they were up in the mountains of Afghanistan,
10:09
they could not get even a satellite call out to call for a QRF or a quick reaction force
10:14
or just some sort of reinforcement or to drop bombs or something like that.
10:17
They needed some assistance.
10:19
And so where they were, they weren't able to get that information out.
10:23
And so as the story goes and as is what happened, Michael Murphy actually walked out to a clearing.
10:30
Now they are being shot at by dozens, if not hundreds of fighters of Muslim fundamentalist fighters,
10:37
right, terrorists.
10:38
And he walks out, he exposes himself basically to enemy fire.
10:44
And he goes to the top of what amounts to a hill, which has no trees,
10:48
which is above a certain line.
10:49
So he could get the satellite call out and he makes a satellite call and he connects with
10:55
the base and they're able to kind of figure out what they need to do,
10:58
figure out where exactly they are on the mountain.
11:00
And the entire time Michael Murphy is being shot at and he's being shot, right?
11:05
But if you find the audio, I'll try to find the audio as well.
11:09
Maybe put that in the show notes as well of his call.
11:11
He's calm.
11:12
He's very calm, giving them the information that they need.
11:16
He's not frantic.
11:17
He's not screaming.
11:18
And he says, thank you at the end of the phone call.
11:20
So, I mean, this is just me kind of just conjecture at this point.
11:25
I almost feel like Michael Murphy knew he was going to die right then.
11:28
He knew it, but it didn't matter.
11:31
He was at peace with that.
11:32
And for a lot of seals, if you know any, they're at peace with dying,
11:35
especially if that means they can save their brothers.
11:38
If they can die instead of their brothers, they'll do that all day.
11:42
They'll do that every time.
11:43
And so Michael Murphy became an instant legend for a lot of people for a lot of different reasons.
11:49
And again, he has a grand story and that doesn't necessarily put him above
11:53
any other person that is sacrificed and paid the ultimate price in order for us to have our
11:58
freedoms.
11:58
But it is kind of unique.
11:59
His story is a little bit unique.
12:01
But now let's get back to what the Murph challenges.
12:03
And so Michael Murphy was obviously called Murph by a lot of people.
12:06
But one thing he did is he was a workout freak.
12:08
He was a Navy SEAL.
12:09
And there was a workout that he did that they basically named after him after he had passed away.
12:14
And the workout was a one mile run, 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 air squats,
12:22
and then another mile run.
12:24
And the kicker is, is you do that entire thing with either a weighted vest on or body armor.
12:29
So typically between 20 and 25 pounds worth of extra weight on top of your frame.
12:34
Okay.
12:34
And so this started years and years ago, but the CrossFit community really, really picked
12:39
this up to where they were going to do the Murph challenge on Memorial Day every year
12:44
as a memorialization of Michael Murphy, but also the other people that have died serving our country.
12:50
And so that is something that I've done again, it's been five or six years running.
12:53
And there are a lot of different ways to do it.
12:55
So there are people that do it without the weighted vest.
12:57
There are people that do it with I've done it with the weighted vest every time.
13:00
There's a partitioning and non partitioning.
13:02
So non partitioning is basically where you do everything straight through.
13:05
So you've got to do the 100 pullups before you move on to the pushups.
13:09
And then you got to do 200 pushups before you move on to the air squats and so on and so forth.
13:13
A lot of people partition, so they'll break it up into chunks.
13:15
Maybe they'll do, you know, five pullups, 10 pushups, 20 air squats.
13:19
And you know, just something like that or 15 air squats.
13:22
They basically find their way to the end of that workout.
13:25
And so that is something that I did and a goal that I set for this year.
13:31
Since I do it every year, I finally had a buddy, a shout out to Chris Dursa,
13:33
be down in Lawton, Oklahoma, Cash, Oklahoma.
13:36
He basically was like, huh, well, you do the Murph every year, but you want to set stretch goals.
13:40
So what's your stretch goal for the Murph?
13:42
And so, you know, his voice was in the back of my head whenever I was doing my goals for 2019.
13:46
And I said, okay, well, I'm going to do the Murph this year, but I'm not going to do any Murph-specific
13:52
training leading up to the Murph.
13:54
And I'm also going to try and beat my personal record time.
13:59
So my personal record time was some, it was like 45 minutes was my personal record time.
14:04
And so when I say no Murph-specific training, what you see a lot of people do whenever they're
14:08
preparing for the Murph workout, they're doing a ton of work with that way to invest, okay?
14:12
They're, they're upping the amount of running that they're doing.
14:15
They're upping the amount of pullups that they're doing, like everything that they're doing,
14:18
they're doing to an insanely high degree, right?
14:21
And so they usually typically, you will do this three or four weeks out to really get their bodies
14:25
ready to perform well during that workout.
14:28
So let's go ahead and fast forward to this morning.
14:31
We had a late night last night driving back from Tulsa from that gala.
14:34
And I was like, man, I want to go ahead and get this in early so I can have the rest of the day
14:38
to do some other things.
14:39
But I woke up this morning and I did not feel real well, right?
14:42
So, you know, had stomach wasn't feeling great from, from the night before because we ate,
14:46
you know, the gala dinner was a little bit later than normal.
14:49
And then we weighed a little bit of food on the ride home as well,
14:51
because we were both a little bit still hungry.
14:53
So I woke up this morning, not really feeling well.
14:55
And I was tired, right?
14:57
I mean, it was one of those things when my alarm went off.
14:59
It was just like, oh, I mean, I just kind of snapped too.
15:02
But it was like, oh my gosh, I was like super, super out cold.
15:05
And so I was like, this is not a good start.
15:07
This is not a good start to the day.
15:09
But long story short, you know, I get out there, I get warmed up, I get everything squared away.
15:13
I do have a flag, American flag on the wall of my gym.
15:16
So basically I played the national anthem real quick, paid my respects to the flag.
15:20
And then I got going.
15:22
And so the thing is, is I did it with the weighted vests and I partitioned it.
15:27
But the thing that was interesting this year is I got off to a mega fast start.
15:31
I mean, the run felt really good.
15:32
And again, I don't do distance running.
15:33
If anything, I do sprints and then basically I do jujitsu as my other cardio.
15:37
And then I get back and I start doing the lift portion.
15:41
And so the interesting thing about that is I tried something very different this year.
15:45
I was doing 7 14 21.
15:47
So seven pull ups, 14 push ups and 21 air squats.
15:51
And then like the last set, you know, after the math kind of goes down,
15:54
like the 15 set is basically two, four and six.
15:57
And so that was something new that I was going to try because, you know, for a lot of people,
16:00
five pull ups is maybe too few, 10 maybe is a little bit much when you start getting
16:03
into the seventh eighth sets and that kind of thing.
16:06
But I get through that and it's going really, really well time wise.
16:10
And then I get to that last mile.
16:11
And at one point in the mile, I did have to stop felt like I was kind of overheating a little bit.
16:16
So I just kind of squatted down real quick, took some slow deep breaths, tried to lower my heart rate,
16:20
and then kept going.
16:21
But by the time I got back after that last mile, I saw that I had actually set my personal record
16:27
for the Murf workout and I beat my personal record by about 10 minutes.
16:30
So my final time was 35 minutes and three seconds.
16:34
And so, which, you know, wait, that's great, right?
16:37
Oh, we kind of got a personal record.
16:39
But again, the thing that was overwhelming to me, the whole time you're doing this workout,
16:42
because it's a tough workout, no matter how you slice it, no matter what kind of shape you're in,
16:45
it's tough.
16:46
The whole time I was just trying to remember about the men and women that died and then
16:53
also their families.
16:54
I was trying to remind myself of that because, you know, I'm huffing and puffing and, you know,
16:58
I'm trying not to, you know, rip my blisters off my hands and, you know, things are starting to get
17:01
sore and you're like, you know, you're just wanting it to be over because it's miserable.
17:06
Working out for people is really miserable, especially when you're doing stuff like this.
17:10
That's really high intensity.
17:11
But this is temporary for me, right?
17:16
I mean, it was 35 minutes of torture and then I was done, right?
17:20
My wife brings me a Gatorade and some ice water and, you know, basically I open up the door,
17:26
get a breeze going in the garage, right?
17:29
But then I just kept thinking about the families where the horror of their lives hasn't stopped
17:35
because their dad is still gone.
17:39
Mom is still gone.
17:41
Their spouse is still gone.
17:44
So, and I'm not coming down on anybody because I'm guilty of this as well.
17:50
We put so much emphasis on Memorial Day to the Murph workout, right?
17:54
And how much dieting we did beforehand, so we'd be ready to go and how we hydrated,
17:58
like starting two days before and how we upped our training and all that.
18:01
And all that's perfect and all that's great.
18:03
But guys, all we did was exercise.
18:05
All we did was workout.
18:07
And it's fun, especially if you do it with a crowd and you do it with other people,
18:12
and I've done that before.
18:13
It really is great fun.
18:15
And I would encourage every single one of you to do it every single year.
18:19
But at the end of the day, we just worked out.
18:22
We just have to remember why we did it.
18:27
And it's not just for Michael Murphy.
18:28
It's for all of them.
18:30
This country has lost hundreds and hundreds of thousands of soldiers in our defense.
18:37
So, when you do the Murph workout, that would be my encouragement to you.
18:43
So, the thing about this, and this is going to be a shorter podcast than normal, but
18:49
this all kind of comes back to the importance of living a life that is worth the sacrifice.
18:58
Because they gave up everything so that we could do whatever it is that we're doing.
19:02
For me to, you know, yell into this microphone, for you to listen to it, for all of us to
19:06
go watch movies and go out to eat and sit on our own our butts and watch TV and do all those
19:10
different things, we don't have to worry when we put our heads down on our pillows.
19:14
Because we are defended.
19:15
Right?
19:17
And for most of you guys listening to this podcast, you're Christians.
19:20
You're Christ followers.
19:22
You know God's got this in the bag.
19:23
You know how the story ends.
19:25
But still, it makes you feel a little bit better knowing that you're safe.
19:30
And the thing about it is when you think about Memorial Day and you think about
19:35
the debt that we owe to these people, we can't actually repay them this debt.
19:39
You know, if you're like me or maybe like you when you see a military family come in for dinner,
19:46
you know, you ask your server, "Hey, can you bring me their check and don't bring any
19:50
attention to me? I just want to take care of their dinner."
19:52
Maybe you see a guy in line behind you on the coffee and he's in his fatigues or whatever.
19:57
And you're just like, "Hey, let me take care of your coffee. Thank you for your service."
19:59
You run into a guy in an airport and you know, he's got his duffel bag and he looks like he's
20:03
ready to go off either to boot camp or to war and you just tell him you appreciate everything he's
20:08
doing. And that's all good. And you should do all of those things and you should teach your
20:11
kids to do those things as well. But we are not repaying the debt by doing those things.
20:16
Again, you should do them, but we're not repaying the debt.
20:20
In my opinion and in a lot of people's opinions, the way that we repay the debt that is owed to
20:26
the fallen and to their families that are still here after they've gone is to live a life that is
20:32
worth their sacrifice. Live a life that measures up to the standards that those people set for
20:42
themselves. Because if you're not developing yourself, if you're literally not pushing the
20:49
boundaries of who you think you are and for our purposes and how we say it, if you're not cultivating
20:55
manly resilience and you're not forging spiritual, mental and physical toughness every day,
21:00
you're not living up to the sacrifice. And so this isn't some coaching session for most of
21:07
you guys out there. I'm sure for some of you, it's going in one ear and out the other, but for those
21:10
of you that are still listening, again, there's nothing more important that we can do than to live
21:16
a life that is worth the sacrifice and worthy of the sacrifice of the fallen. And so I hope I've
21:23
been able to do a little bit to encourage you all with that. So a couple links that I have in the
21:28
show notes for you. I've got the folds of honor website there so you guys can go and check that
21:31
out. We have the Medal of Honor presentation that I told you about for Lieutenant Michael Murphy.
21:36
And then also I would have just put the audio in this podcast. But last year on Memorial Day,
21:40
Jocko Willink read something called Remember Me. It's about 10 minute long video, but it's powerful.
21:46
I mean, most of you guys out there listen to Jocko, but I would certainly certainly urge you all to
21:50
listen to that. But how we're going to end the podcast today is we are going to play taps.
21:56
And then there's going to be a moment of silence that I would encourage all of you not to skip over
22:00
or fast forward through. But taps is obviously the song that was played at most military funerals.
22:06
If you've ever been to a military funeral, it is absolutely astonishingly emotional
22:12
when the bugler actually plays that song because the song's only about a minute, minute and a half
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depending upon how slow or fast they do it. But it's just a very, very moving song. And so
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I want to leave that with you. And I want you to remember those that have fallen for those of you
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that have loved ones that you've lost. Just know that my heart hurts for you. And I would just
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urge you to stay strong and stay resilient. And then again, there will be about a minute of silence
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after that so that y'all can focus on those that we have lost.
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[Music]
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[Music]
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[Music]