Transcript for:
Military Insights and Community Preparedness

we're live all right welcome everybody we're hanging out here with trench grenade today if you don't know trench grenade you should so we're going to talk about that here in just a second but as everybody's piling in make sure you let me know if you can hear me and see me as well as trench himself and of course I do have to mention Midway USA is the biggest supporter of the channel so thanks to them I can do live streams like this and get guests on like trench grenade who can give us some insight information when it comes to some of the things we're going to talk about relateded to the military and preparedness because he is an active duty US Army drill sergeant which means he's got information that I don't have access to because I've never been in that role or capacity before so trench grenade how's it going today manam heyy what's up brother glad to have you glad you're you know available to come on and have this chat uh everybody's saying 5 by five so far looks like everyone can hear and see us and uh Gunslinger 67 says fa by fo so I think we're pretty much good to go um so why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself I mean I kind of just made a quick introduction but let everybody know you know what it is you do and maybe a little bit about your background so that way we can all um understand where this information's coming from you know right okay well what's up guys um I am trench um just a brief introduction you know uh I've been in the Infantry for 12 years now active duty the entire time um my first three years of my career I was in Germany uh in in the 173rd um I you know during that time I served in every position from Rifleman saw Gunner um assistant team leader Etc uh after that served three more years in a Mech unit in Fort Riley so I was a Bradley Commander right so a section leader or Bradley Commander um everyone should be familiar with the Bradley now you know what I mean with everything going on in Ukraine um so I did that for three years and then after that I went to Alaska served uh three to four years or something like that as a rifle leader both it's a security squad leader Assault Squad leader a weapon squad leader and we'll talk about some of that later and then a platoon sergeant and then after that I'm now currently serving as a drill sergeant okay I served a year as a basic combat training drill sergeant and then I served um now I've served after that a year as a drill sergeant leader so you know other than that you know just a normal dude um but I think tonight will be productive because I'll be able to share some of the my experiences both with tactics and you know some things that I've seen and hopefully everyone can take some of my experiences and apply it wherever or um or you know some of these guys might be able to just be like hey this guy's an idiot so yeah that's me well that's all right that happens to me all the time so at least we're on the same page with that um so that's awesome you have a lot of experience like I have never served so I don't have any of that background so I don't have any information regarding tactics or anything along those lines to give to everybody which people have asked me before for hey what what do you think we should do if x y or Z happens and I just tell them I'm not the right guy to be asking that question to because I I think if you were to answer that question without any level of experience it's probably going to do a disservice right which I'm sure the internet's full of that honestly so but um I do want to bring attention to your channel so we'll go ahead and just kind of pull that up here real quick just to get everybody established as to the fact that you're on YouTube and so this is trench grenad Channel make sure you guys go check it out if there's any mods in the chat right now if you could share this channel that'd be great I'll go ahead and post it as well just to make sure and on your playlist section one of the things that I really like is the Infantry tactics playlist and you do a lot of videos kind of all over the place like you do some stuff even related to like physical fitness you do a lot of gun stuff which is probably where I found your channel to begin with because I'm guilty of that as well but where the real value for people this community who want to be better prepared but don't have that background experience like you do uh at least in my opinion comes in is with your infantry tactics type videos and I just find those really interesting as somebody who has never participated in any of that kind of stuff you know so what was your idea or like purpose of sharing some of that information with people like myself um were you just trying to help Americans out in case something were ever happen or were you just kind of motivated to share some of that information just because of um feeling like it might be relevant at some point right so I started the channel um I think I started the channel a year and a half ago or something like that and at first I realized I was posting stuff on Instagram for like friends and family um just gun stuff you know what you know what I'm saying and then uh I I created the channel because I'm like hey if I'm gonna say this stuff I'm at least I can post it that way it's kind of saved for you know if anyone ever ask me a question uh the range I could be like hey man I have this 20 minute video explaining to you how to zero a rifle or why this this this might be good or bad or whatever so initially I just created the channel uh kind of as something to just document you know when I'm going to the range have you know video of this a certain range experience so I can remember zero holds or whatever and then the tactic stuff kind of happened because I'm like okay there are a ton of channels talking about whatever your everyday carry gun your body armor setup whatever whether those channels are saying the correct information or not all that is out there and that's up to the viewer to decide if it's true or false or useful information but what there's not a lot of is how to actually use that stuff right and that's when I started posting um basic battle drills right react to contact squad assault patrol base you know Ambush raid you know I have all those videos out there because people are like you know let's say you and a group of 10 buddies right are gonna go out and you're gonna lar in the woods for you know lack of a better term to try to get ready to be prepared well you really don't have a you don't know what you're doing unless you study either the ranger handbook or uh you know the rifle platoon Doctrine and you actually learn how to apply it right so that's kind of where all this started was hey let me just put what I'm teaching at work um as an infantry man right and as a drill sergeant let me put what I'm teaching at work that's all public information everything I teach on the channel can be accessed on the ranger handbook or any army Doctrine right so none of none of what I cover is classified it's all about how to apply it um because you can you can know all the tactics in the world but if you don't apply it you're still Gonna Get Smoked by some dude with an SKS right um so actually teaching people how to apply these tactics that's going to make them Leaps and Bounds ahead of anybody out there that has uh the best kit set up in the world but if they don't know what stop look listen smell uh seals you know uh is and they're just going to get smoked trying across the road right so yeah that's that's kind of where you know my mindset is and unfortunately uh when you make videos like that you you hurt some people's feelings because they they put their emotions in in the things that you're telling them but yeah yeah well and like I said for somebody like myself and I'm sure a large portion of the chat tonight as well as just the general audience doesn't have that background especially in the sense of at this point in time you're an instructor right so there's a lot of of knowledge and wisdom there that I just don't have access to of course I could read manuals and like you said a lot of this information's public but that doesn't mean I understand how it can be applied right it doesn't mean I understand what it's meant to be used for or anything along those lines and we're out here preparing for whatever could come and people we have you know the gear we've got the rifles we've got the the chest rigs the body armor all the stuff but how does that become effective without a plan or without some sort of concept in mind as to how to utilize it to the most effect it could be used for right so I I find that very beneficial very valuable uh as someone without that expertise and I appreciate that you put that out there now in case you guys don't know you know trench has a lot of very strong opinions and hot takes on certain pieces of gear and equipment and everything else and he will definitely ruffle your feathers don't get me wrong um but just personally from my point of view those tactics videos are really uh interesting and inspiring for someone like myself s just because of just how naive and how beginner I am when it comes to any of that type of knowledge so that's that's really what I appreciate about what you do because I don't I don't see a lot of that being put out there there are some good sources but it's nice to have somebody who's doing it right now actually telling us about it right I don't know I haven't seen any other I know I think there's a couple like grunt proof or something like that and a few other channels that are talking about you know uh not preparedness with battle drills and actual tactics I know Grantham has a few videos about survival in the mountains and stuff like that but there's not a lot of channels out here just saying like hey doctrinally this is how you cross the road doctrinally right you want to kill somebody in the middle of the night and survive in Minecraft to to talk about it um you know this is how you do a raid this is how you not die and this is how you do a Recon so I think it's important to have that knowledge out there and let's be honest um in chat you guys can answer right how many of you guys are actually going to go look up a manual I mean be honest a lot of guys are not going to go read a book or go uh look up a manual what they're going to do is they're going to pull up a YouTube video and while they're driving to work or while they're driving to the gym or while they're go driving to the range right they're driving to the range and uh you know their least favorite YouTuber trench grenade posts a video on some product and you know they're driving to the range and maybe they hear on the drive how to how to apply something how to do a zero differently how to set up kit differently or how to actually use it and uh to avoid a mistake that uh maybe that I've experienced or you've experienced right so I think uh where I view the gun tube or like training side of YouTube for tactics and everything is if magic preer posts a video about why he likes his Acro right on his carry gun and then eventually runs into an issue with that product um maybe someone else can avoid that or maybe they can uh you know save a lot of time and effort so and that's I think you're right there's there's a more digestible format in videos or even just audio of listening while driving or something like that where you can brush up on that knowledge or gain some of that expertise without having to spend the the Standalone time of reading through a manual or whatever else that might be right um so that's that's awesome and uh in case anybody is um new here especially from trench's Channel just because I have to clear the air on this every so often I do not dye my hair it just grows this way so now everyone knows and we don't have to worry about why trench is associating with some weird guy you know I never even thought about that is that is that something that gets brought up a lot people want to know about your hair yeah yeah pretty much regularly if not every single live stream somebody has to ask about it so I like to address it every so often uh because there's this inherent concept that I'm vain enough to go through the process of dying a white streak in my hair on a daily basis uh and I that's just just not correct so but you know I like to mention it just because there's probably some new people here now um and I don't want it to degrade you know what it is you're presenting based on my um perceived identification we'll just call it right yeah so it is 2024 so maybe I guess you're right maybe someone might be thinking something I guess yeah even with a wife and kids like I I still can't convince some people that that's how I roll so um so one thing I want to talk to you about and hopefully in case everybody's unaware here I mean trench is active duty so if there's anything you're uncomfortable with answering or if you're not like really trying to get into that like just feel free to let me know because I don't want to push you into any territory that creates an issue for you um one of the things that I think a lot of people are concerned about especially with like the idea of trying to get America better prepared for what's coming or what could come or what could happen right and my personal hope is that we never actually need any of the stuff we're preparing for or or like need to be prepar cared for the things we're concerned with but it's still a possibility which is why we try to have that insurance policy in place but especially because this applies to the average person just as well as it does in the military or at least in my opinion you're dealing with a lot of new recruits right I'm sure you have a lot of people that come in they're maybe not physically or mentally prepared to deal with what they're about to experience and then you have to use your expertise to try to build them up into something that they currently aren't right and I think like even if you were to look on the Army's website right now about being a drill sergeant it's like taking a a civilian and turning them into a soldier right like that's a big part of what you do so with that in mind when you're dealing with those people trying to get them ready to you know be combat ready basically what are the what are some of the biggest challenges you have right now with like motivation because I think that your experience in that could probably be applied to let's say I'm trying to get a group together of like-minded guys who want to be ready for or who knows what right how do I get those people motivated based on some of your experience in that department so uh first and foremost obviously that's a pretty that's a I could say a number of things but the biggest thing that comes to mind is teamwork and I know that sounds super cliche um but chat everyone post out in the chat right now how many guys in your community or near you we'll say within an hour we be very generous within an hour of where you live how many guys uh do you know that you could call up whenever shf happens and that they are competent and they are they are committed to the team like they are actually committed to your little Community your little Rifleman platoon uh be honest post how many guys that you have whether it's one zero 25 whatever you got and be honest be honest with how many people you legitimately have uh because the biggest issue that I see is say young Timmy right young Joe he's 18 years old and he spent the majority of his life on the couch um and you know they've been consuming video games they're not in excellent shape you know they're just not uh they're not in that position yet and the biggest thing is preaching to them and getting them committed to this mindset of teamwork a member of a team belonging to a team um actually like having real investment in the in the greater good the team is the greater good the team like for I'm in Dragon Splatoon right I'm a drill sergeant leader in Dragon Splatoon so when we get our future drill sergeants our drill sergeant candidates they show up and they're going going to be drill sergeant in nine weeks as long as they pass the academy and the academy is like a version of basic training so they go through basic training again just as an NCO right but they're learning drill sergeant things but performing training tasks again but doing more and more and more that would be expected of them and the biggest thing that we get is once we get them with this mentality of okay my for you guys it'll be your community my community and my family uh is more important than just me and the team is more once you get that you got them and you take care of your people you got them like if it's not just about showing up to work doing PT going to the rifle range and doing like the day-to-day task it's getting their buying getting people to fully invest in hey this team is more important right um and obviously there's a lot of politics there people will be like oh you know you're working for the feds or you're working for this or that it's you don't even see that uh in the Infantry you don't see anything outside the Infantry I would say either the platoon or the company right so 200 guys or 50 guys that is what you see um but once you get that buy in like I have a sky shark tattoo tattooed to my leg because one of the motto or one of my platoon uh was the sky shark platoon and me being that crazy uh crazy young leader at the time I think I'd only been in for eight years at the time I was trying to earn my soldiers trust and confidence and their respect so getting the platoon logo tattooed to my my leg as a senior Staff Sergeant at the time that was a hey this dude cares about us he's committed to the team even though he's he's a little freaking crazy right fully bought in what yeah fully bought in so uh the biggest thing is getting getting that commitment right getting that commitment to the team and once you have that man everything else will fall drill and follow drill and ceremony freaking hand grenade qus rifle quals tactics everything else is was just building on that you can build on physical fitness all right and a version of a team is what we got going on right right here right now with my channel and your Channel having that commitment that community and being able to vocalize like hey magic I don't really agree with your thoughts on this but I want to hear how you formulated that opinion and let's work together to come to a better plan for our community and our team because I think so often right now what people think because it's so polarizing uh whether it be with politics upcoming election you hear Hey the sky is red and then everyone's like no it's not the sky is blue and then they don't even want okay why do you think that okay well you're you objectively I think you're wrong but let's discuss how we can get better right um so yeah hopefully that answers your question but for me it's once I make it ay welcome to First platoon right welcome to First platoon it's a group of 50 people 50 little trainees this is our platoon this is how we do things this is the right answer this is the wrong answer and I'm I'm not in yes I'm in charge of you but I'm also here with you I'm going to do everything I ask you or tell you to do I'm going to perform it better than you before you do it and once you have that mentality dude you're you're unstoppable and if that's the mentality that we could have here as a community like hey everything we do let's do it together and like be the freaking the the best at that task whatever that task may be if it's hey wake up in the middle of the night throw your plate carrier on throw your knots on and get security on the house with you and your family and be a member and committed to that goal there you go now now you're freaking cooking so yeah well and I see what you're kind of alluding to there with the the leadership mentality versus like the boss mentality of hey I'm going to get down here and do this with you not just tell you to do it um and I think that's huge especially if you're trying to develop some sort of a local group or you're trying to get guys in your community to come together you have to show that you're willing to put in the effort as well and I think that um that that's one of the harder Parts sometimes for people because of how busy life is and everything else right um I spent many years in management that was mostly what I did throughout my career was being a restaurant manager in all honesty like throughout different levels of that of eventually making my way up to corporate but regardless the entire process always proved that if I was to if I was willing to do the tasks that I was expecting others to do that made a huge difference in morale and delivery on being able to actually accomplish those goals you know I I would clean a floor drain and not before I would tell someone else they had to do it didn't matter how much I was getting paid or what my position was like I'm willing to do this right so I think that's huge and especially for people who struggle to get groups you really need to kind of take control of it right we're all kind of expecting other people to come in and introduce themselves right and say Hey you know my name's Bob and I'm here to train with you on the weekends right like that you can't wait for that so you have to take the initiative and be that leader and say um hey this Saturday if the three of us can go out to the to the grasslands and do some drills or whatever I think that'd be great and one of the reasons why I kind of always default to the Firearms aspect of that is because I I'm sure you feel similarly but getting out and training and doing that it's got a level of fun it's entertaining and it is still beneficial and it really like builds a lot of camaraderie that you don't get if you're like hey come over and help me you know bucket up some rice and beans like that's there there's not that same level of of Enchantment with that you know right as and like you said you cleaning a drain right or for me would be like me physically going out and handing out ammo at the at a qu range or whatever at a LIF fire range as a senior non-commission officer and me handing out ammo one of your subordinates is going to see that and if you're respected and you're a well-respected leader guess what they're going to do they're going to jump in and and do that task and you're going to go build to do the leadership and management things that you're supposed to be doing right but if you're not expected then they won't it's like the old thing if you see first sergeant which is a senior NCO right someone that's been in for 12 15 16 years they're carrying let's say they're carrying a broom and they're going to go start they're sweeping the floor you don't think that all the soldiers are going to jump up when they see first AR you know sweeping the floor and take it they're going to do it right away out of respect right that's just how it works and it it's got to be the same thing and I think to tie this in with the preparedness thing uh and why I'm so harsh on people with my opinions on my Channel sometimes it's like uh and I have this prop out here uh I think you saw it during uh during our pre- discussion I have this steel plate out here and the reason I have this steel plate okay uh from ar500 right I have this out here because if I see somebody in my comment section say something like I'm gonna run steel plates that's not a it's not a time to to be I guess soft on them or like to be uh to use patience that the time to be like okay like Hey brother if you value my opinion objectively speaking that's a bad bad choice but here's why uh but people don't want to be told they're wrong unfortunately um you know or be told something that hey trench is being he's being a jerk and he's he's telling me I'm wrong but what you don't see is all all the experience behind that all the life lessons like obviously I own these plates but these plates I bought what 13 years ago or something and I I had to I had to learn that maybe steel plates aren't the right answer so you know I think being honest and up front having that open dialogue is more important than just getting stuck in your ways right for the things that we're talking about so well I mean I started with steel plates because I didn't know any better or I didn't know what the differences were and of course it's what I could afford at the time right so I felt I was in that camp of well I'd rather have some level of body armor and then deal with what I can build up towards the future and I think that's okay but as long as you're willing to progress or to learn or to understand the compromises that you're making rather than being emotionally invested to the point of refusing to change your mind right and I think that's really important because um regardless of what you're doing with preparedness or I'm sure you know one of the common things I hear from the military Community when it kind of bleeds over to the preparedness Community is that idea of like uh uh all your planning goes out the window the after the first shot of fired or something along those lines right um just in the sense of like you have to be willing to adapt right and if you're not willing to adapt then you you might put yourself in a bad situation you didn't have to be in right or at least that's my thought process or understanding of it yeah yeah uh when whenever you know bullets start flying stress level gets high and there's not time to sit here and be like hey magic I need you to take a knee and pull security face out pull security and conduct this basic react reacor contact drill we're getting shot at no you already know what's what to do uh you already know how to react you already know to get down buying cover get online with your teammates start surpressing the enemy talk the Guns Etc right and that's why I think it's so important that we just be honest be honest and upfront hey hey dude don't buy that sit Mark you know optic don't buy that um budget optic just stop you know save your money and buy something quality because the the thing you don't want to be on your mind when you know saf or prepar in or whatever you're uh you know getting ready for the thing you don't want to have on your mind is is this thing going to hold zero is this thing going to survive this uh H gr that goes off in your face when you're you know you can't see because you got sweat and blood pouring in your eyes and you you know you need this thing to work right now is it going to work or is it going to fall apart and your last thoughts are going to be I should have invested heavier so well and that's why um uh you know I think we're at a good point right now based on that Market that there are good options that are much more affordable than their competitors you know I know you you rock like Hollow Suns and and like the Romeo 5 and stuff or I've seen them on some of your rifles and those work very well for their price point but that doesn't mean that equates to every other item at that exact same tier right so you have to be picky about what you're choosing but you can still find affordability you just have to know what actually you know reaches that level of quality to where it's reasonable and that's at least that's been my experience and that's what I've been trying to help people with when they're newer to this entire concept because it's it's a lot to navigate and many many times guys that I talked to here in person that come out and shoot and stuff I've helped them fix some of their equipment choices or at least push them in the right direction based on the fact that you know what they show up with is is actually like not even physically working while we're just even shooting on the Range you know so um let's talk about that let's talk about the Romeo 5 because I think that's a good example the Sig Romeo 5 so I use my Sig so I have a I have like five freaking Sig Romeo 5S the reason why I have so many is I put them on guns to train with obviously the kit I the kit the two Optics I recommend are either EOTech or Trion ACOG right with an RMR on top those are my game time optic like you're not going to catch me uh if let's say the world ends tomorrow and the whole world is falling apart you're not going to see me with a Sig romeo5 on my gun uh that's that's a training optic for me so I know it will survive uh being thrown in the being thrown in the back of the Mustang pulled out thrown in the safe pulled out you know kind of used roughly but not used like really rough right I know the Sig uh Romeo 5 holds zero and I know it works good good enough for training but I I could not go into a real Combat scenario with Romeo 5 to be honest uh so to me I can use it as a a good training dot because I can put a bunch of them on a bunch of different builds say I have let's say I have 10 different guns that are all set up but I don't have 10 aogs because that is a ton of money that's like $10,000 right so I can have two aogs on like two aogs on my main rifle that I think I'm going to use and then I could have a bunch of Romeo fives on everything else and then when push comes to shove I can put my eote or ACOG on the thing I'm actually using so I think that is where a Romeo 5 just to use that as an example it works right it's a good budget option that you could you could hand that rifle to somebody and know they'll be okay but there not in the best of hands if that makes sense and I think it's it's important to be honest with ourselves based on what we're buying right uh you brought up hollison holos Sun makes really really good stuff for the price of what you get like they're they're 507 comp that dot for for handguns is a really good dot um their EPS carry dot that's a really good dot um but some of their 403 uh I think it's 403 rifle uh red dots are not good they are not good and people are the chat's going to freak out and they're going to say I have a a Hol on 403 I mean objectively speaking just the build quality and the materials they're using and some of their dots are not good right but you have to understand okay if I put a bunch of 403s holos and 403s on everything as a training dot but then when it's time for real Z's I put your real optic your aimo on on the one build you're going to use that way you don't shoot out your barrel of your go to war gun that makes sense as long as you're using it as a consumable product um but I think what guys need to do is be honest be super honest with yourself like um okay you know what am I using this for and is it gonna work and if the answer is maybe not worth it not worth it at all right well and that's you know that's why there's a lot of options out there and uh and at least one of my understandings after talking to some other people with a lot more experience than myself is that when some of these companies are developing things for especially like military operations they're trying to make sure that the equipment lasts like one combat engagement because that's that's a lot of times like as far as you can really be expected to go because stuff bad stuff happens when that's going on right uh but I also think that the average person assumes that we aren't necessarily going to be faced with that level of combat in the sense of um being just like a civilian however I guess maybe we don't know that so that kind of helps me move on to one of the points I wanted to make but really quick I did do a poll to see how many people everyone had when it came to being within an hour of their group and the unfortunately the highest number is zero to one right it's at 47% 48% two to four was the next at 34% 5 to8 was 10% and nine plus was 8% and and I and I understand why and it is difficult to find people um and I just want to just just kind of let everybody know like like I personally like I'm in the the five to eight in all honesty like I'm not trying to lie and explain like make it seem like just because I have this channel that like I've got this gigantic group of people who are ready to go at any point like no with within my immediate area right now there's there's about five to eight guys that I could call up that would would be here and have levels of capability and are willing to train and willing to learn and have you know specific skills like first aid or maybe they have skills when it comes to agriculture whatever it might be and um and that's that's just the truth you know and like sure do I have some affiliations that exists that might be within that realm yes but those aren't guys that I have on speed dial those aren't guys that I'm texting or or communicating with on a regular basis and it's because it's very difficult you know and I've lived in this area for well where I live right now I've been for about three years so this is a it's a long process and it takes a lot of vetting it takes a lot of time but it is something worth investing you know and so I don't want people to get discouraged because they assume they should have nine plus people which would be great but even someone like myself who does what I do I I don't have that yet and so you know I just want to be honest with everybody when it comes to that because your expectations should be that it takes a long time and that it's it's that it's difficult you know right so what do we do so we so now that we know the information we're if we're all being you know honest with ourselves let's say you have one buddy so what do we do okay okay well um what I try to do and I guess I'll shill for myself and my own Community we try to do the Discord thing now youself to be careful uh because it's still online uh but still glows what's up still glows sometimes you know right so you got to be careful right you got to watch out you know there's people lurking that um not you know whether it be the ATF or whoever they're out there lurking and they're watching right but you know uh what I try to do is you know set up the Discord and then what guys can do is they can get in there and find people in their area to uh train with right and it it works out it really does um and that and that's a good option so Discord is an option or something like Discord right uh just be careful I would caution everybody be very careful of what you share on a public uh Forum right so that's like the initial um another thing you can do is go door too right throw your your normal respectable clothes on go door to door hey my name is Trench or whatever your name is obviously and you know uh I just want to introduce myself you know maybe go six houses down each way in all directions six houses down hey you know my address is right here I just want to introduce myself and maybe you run into somebody you're like I think this dude might be similar to me and you know strike up a conversation and you know maybe uh have you know get together if you meet a family or somebody that you you know they seem normal enough and that's how you start to develop that now here's the thing with meeting your neighbors obviously you got to be cautious you don't want to be that weirdo that weird guy right uh but let's say you meet Joe Joe lives two houses down and he's always thought about buying a gun you know maybe he bought a budget PSA and it's kind of trash you were gonna have to invest in Joe and make Joe a asset not a liability so now you know you're GNA be hopefully you know sharing magic prepper videos of some some hey dude maybe check out this channel you know maybe or maybe check out this trench guy and he's got some tactics just let me know what you think and ease them in and that's kind of the hard part too is like let's say you have a buddy but they're just all they do is watch football and that's all they do they go to the gym they watch football and they've been thinking about buying a gun dude you have like at least nine weeks worth of constant training to get this person you know to be an asset not a liability so is it an uphill battle yes but if you know you're going to be in the area for at least another year that the area that you live you need to like start touching base before the election you need to really start going door too introduce yourself hey we're doing a chili cookout on this day if you meet somebody that seems normal you know or hey if you ever need anything let me know or if you know uh because like I'll just share my an experience that we had in my neighborhood uh Nighthawk and I there's a lot of break-ins people breaking into Vehicles right but what happened within a day like less than a day everyone shared the ring footage everyone uh you know hey we're going to turn lights on we're going to have these uh these lights on Amazon that can like light the freaking everyone's house you know and then we can see if anyone breaks in we can see easier um you know and here's here's like our plan you know no one should be out you know super late at night in anyone's yard period like that's it's common sense right but then then it's easy to identify and I'm not saying run outside and blast somebody with Buckshot but it's easy to identify when something's going down when it's 2: in the morning and you got people you know wearing masks open trying to open car doors like if they get blasted with Buckshot that's a them problem but at least everyone in your neighborhood hey the norm what is the norm for our community okay the norm is if anyone's doing a cookout it's going to be obvious if someone's doing a barbecue party or something and it's going to be obvious right um if it's Fourth of July or New Year's we're going to drive really slow through the through the community you know out of respect but but you know if it's late at night and this is our expectation as a team as a community that comes back to that team thing that hey if you see somebody breaking in and you got your white light on your shotgun or your rifle and you you turn that white light on and they're they're armed and they're breaking in you do whatever you need to do within the limits of the law to protect you and your your family you know um so just having that General mindset that mentality of like hey this is the expectation across the board and that's how you start to build community and that's how you start to actually make yourself better um so yeah that's just some thoughts that uh we've tried to do right no I think I think it's a a very valid point um obviously a big recurring Topic in the preparedness Community is that people don't know their neighbors anymore um I've tried my best to integrate with my neighbors where I live though we're pretty spread out because I'm in more of a rural environment uh but like just yesterday my neighbor dropped off two giant bags of apples because they have a ton of apples right now and they just said hey do you want some and like so just having that connection is is really great in the sense of building trust building the relationship makes feel better too yeah exactly you know and then being part of the community is like hey you know my neighbors bringing me food like apples that they grew themselves just because they have so many and they thought hey we should call you know Matt up and see do you want any apples right so here I am and thinking to myself man I really ended up in a good place but at the same time if I haven't ever reached out or been introduced to any of these people then none of that would be happening right um so I think that's really important and um you know I do I do know that this is something that is on a lot of people's minds that I wanted to ask you about and it might help just I I don't know what it will help actually so we'll have to see what you say but obviously people are concerned about the trajectory of America right now when it comes to not just our our own politics but the geopolitical situations going on and we have war in Eastern Europe we have war in the Middle East we have all types of things kind of falling apart right now and one of the big concerns I hear about is because you know people care about this country not just themselves in the sense of being prepared they want to know that we're prepared as a country to be able to deal with some of these threats and I just wanted to know when it comes like the media and some of the issues that they bring up about the military and all this stuff regarding like recruitment numbers and all these things that that make people feel like maybe things aren't you know where we would like them to be um do you think that a lot of that is is exaggerated do you feel like from inside that we're a lot more prepared than maybe the average American believes or is being told by the media at this point um just because you know the world is very chaotic right now and I think a lot of people are kind of still hoping and relying on the fact that we have these these good people in the services that are that are putting their lives on the line to make sure that we maintain you know the country uh in our sovereignty so I just didn't know if you could comment on that or or give us some insight as to your feelings on that I have to be very careful with how I answer this but I'm going to be I'm gonna be honest and I should I should note my opinions are my opinions on this channel this is uh trench speaking not senior NCO uh Sor first class trench speaking okay so this is uh my personal opinion but I can only tell you what I see I've been in for 12 years I've seen es and flows in the Army I've seen people I've seen presidents come and go that's all I'm going to really say on that but what I can say is do not believe the I'll just say I do not believe the media when they tell you that we have a lethality problem we do not have a lethality problem um the Army the Infantry in particular right now we and we are training hard okay obviously I'm a little bit removed right now because I'm fulfilling my duties as a drill sergeant right um so I'm I'm still you know training the future of the army right now uh with my battle buddies but do not believe what you see when it comes to uh the Army having a lethality problem the we the uh op Tempo we call it op Tempo operations Tempo is extremely extremely high right now dudes are getting ready uh it's a peace time this is what I can say it is a peacetime Army that is getting ready for war and we are ready we are ready um and every month that goes by every year that goes by that we have longer to prepare that we have longer to watch our enemies uh abroad fight in certain places on the world right now that they're actively fighting um we get to learn lessons and we as a peacetime Army we get to learn those lessons here not in a trench somewhere um so what I would say to the to the average guy watching this right now is there are there is a lot of guys out there with bad tattoos like my tribal tattoos right um there's a lot of guys with really bad tattoos and receding Airlines and all they do is they go to PT lift weights run they go to the range they have a debrief on what happened or what went wrong in training they do they go on monthlong rotations 45 days uh three months here and all we do is walk around at night fall in holes and learn how not to fall in holes learn how not to get spotted by drones Etc um so that way we could be lethal and ready to kill to be honest okay to fight and win the nation's Wars right that's that's as much as I can really comment yeah it's just like this if you if magic prepper let's say you're filming content you're editing content uploading so every day for your channel you're in a in a knife fight right you're in a knife fight with keeping content rolling keeping ideas flowing now imagine if you were had somebody and I don't know your situation but imagine now you have an editor you have a cameraman and you have like a social media person you have three different people now you're no longer in this knife fight every day you're able to step back from the knife fight and learn how to get better at the day-to-day Knife Fight right now the Marines and the Army we the Infantry in particular we're in a position where we can watch the knife fight happening and get really really good at being better than people that are in the knif fight if that makes sense yeah so and that's you know obviously good to hear and it's just something I wanted to get your opinion on just because of your obvious involvement but uh it's something I also think is applicable to anyone who is trying to be prepared as well when I look at things like what's happening in Eastern Europe and what's happening in the Middle East and some of the different you know we'll just say aftermath of some of these events um there's a lot to be learned there even from the standpoint of someone who wants to be ready you know and that's how I try to evaluate a lot of those different happenings when it comes to the way the average you know Ukrainian civilian is trying to get by while all their infrastructure being destroyed or how people you know in Gaza who already had nothing are trying to survive with even less like it doesn't matter if you want to look at it from some standpoint of bias what you should be looking at is what can I learn from what those people are going through right now and how can I apply it to my my own personal strategy and planning based on what could happen here at some point not that it's likely per se but just something that we can apply to our own preparedness efforts you know right um I I would just say a piece of advice for everybody right from my from my position if you look at what's going on in Ukraine and in Israel you see civilians going going through throughout their day-to-day life still going to work but they might have a rifle or they might have body armor but what it comes down to is like what we talked about in the very beginning realizing knowing where where you stand where you fall in the team okay my team is the the United States and if it's whatever your team is if your team is just your neighborhood and your family my team is this I'm going to be a good dude to everybody in my team I'm gonna be I'm gonna smile I'm gonna be that very respectable very I'm gonna be the best human I can be I'm GNA be awesome to people I'm gonna hold doors open but comma however comma when the Rules of Engagement are presented and it's time to act it's not time to do a Google search of should I shoot this guy it's no no no I'm I need to shoot this guy to defend my community or defend my family that's when that's what I think guys need to realize is not the time to get right the time to get your and I'll grab some kit right now the time to get your gear ready is now is is right now get everything ready make sure it fits make sure you're you're you have like a weapons Rack or a gear rack where you can just grab your gear throw that you know know how to throw that gear on make sure everything is fit your water plan everything is good for like the basic level of fighting gear and be the best freaking human you can you know watch Magic's videos on how to get you know level one sustainment and uh food and water and get level five sustainment ammunition and get uh your batteries and everything ready get enough you know if you need booze right if you need to stock up on booze and something if you're a drinker or whatever you need to do right but the basics the basic levels of preparedness should happen right now before this election before anything gets worse and then when it comes time to hey the let's say the world's burning down California is burning down and now it's spreading it's spreading throughout the country towards your wherever you live right you're still going to be living your day-to-day life and then when that day comes when hey 48 hour notice here they come whatever is happening whatever the threat is they're coming now you now you you're still a good human you can still live with your actions but you have prepared and trained and you know that you that you can go to bed that night whether it's in a in a trench or in a building or whatever wherever you're living that night you can live with your actions so the time to get right and like okay where is my moral compass who am I as a person the time to do that is now is is is now and be and be honest with yourself you know whatever you go out and buy uh for preparedness whether it be cow you know you're eating mountainous meals or the jet boil or whatever uh you're you're wearing steel plates the time to to get right with that decision is now because um later later in life when you get smacked by that fpv drone because you were too heavy because you carried too much Ste too many steel plates on your body that that's not the time to get right if that makes sense so yeah okay um and that's good and especially just kind of like some of that urgency of trying to make sure everything's organized and good to go um one thing that I and obviously just so everybody knows in the chat if there's anything that you're curious about or wanting to explore when it comes to having trench here on the channel and being able to ask some questions feel free to put that in the chat just make sure you put like a cue in front of it just so I see it um or you can tag me and that way we can take a look at it and of course I'll I'll take a look and see you know if it's relevant or if it's something that we can actually discuss but um I do have something else that I wanted to ask because I I know you get out on the Range quite a bit and I believe you were on the pistol competition team as well at one point right right so I um so I'll just give a very brief synopsis I got really really lucky um I think it was I'm just going to give a rough time it's either 2018 or 2019 I got really lucky to be invited to try out for a team to represent 425 now um what is it 211 211 up in Alaska the Airborne infantry unit in Alaska so I got really lucky to be able to be a coach a coach for a shooting team is like an alternate shooter they're they're not an actual like yeah they're they're a person that loads mags and whenever one else is getting ready right well uh after that the next year I was on the team so I got I was in a really lucky position to be able to win a lot of shooting competitions both rifle uh and handgun and some shotgun and uh you know shoot USPSA and I was just surrounded by really really really really good Shooters like really good freaking Shooters right um so because of that time in my life I was like I would say before that time I was just I was training on my own and obviously I was going to courses at the Army provided um you know every year and you know doing training every year but I was like I was very amateur once I was surrounded by these top level shooters that like whenever I would bring a bad you know a bad piece of Kit or a bad a bad weapon or whatever or do a dumb modification to my rifle or handgun they would be like stop don't and they were very honest you know um that team that I was lucky enough to be able to train with they were very honest of like hey dude that's stupid but because we had this very Alpha very uh like this is our team and this this environment of like uh what's the word uh uh draw a bling but very competitive a very competitive team but everyone was trying to get better I was able to grow right so that's kind of like my shooting competition background but because of that time that time under tension in my life um has helped develop me leavs and bound farther than I would have ever been as a shooter right so that's why I'm so harsh sometimes with people because I'm like like hey I can save you time just do it just do this try it if it works it doesn't or you know what I mean um but yeah that's why that's kind of like my competitive shooting background and I I think I post some USPSA stuff here and there as well and army shooting stuff on the channel but so with all that um additional uh shooting especially in a competition setting that's going to be a really high round count and a lot of different pieces of equipment I'm sure going through your hands what what pieces of equipment failed you the most out in the field like is there anything particular that sticks out is like these not you don't necessarily have to like not this brand or anything like that but like what maybe parts or what things have you noticed tend to break the most frequently that people could be a little bit um made more aware of I guess you know let's talk yeah let's talk about it okay so I have a PMAG mag magazine here and what you guys can't see is a ton of mags just that I use as area over here to load Max um but let's talk about magazines magazines are an expendable thing right they're an Expendable thing and they break uh what is what's they're a consumable item right magazines are a consumable item um generally speaking a magazine will last a long time but excuse me if you're in an Arctic environment uh below freezing right excuse me and you're using a tan pag is is a good example a tan pag for whatever reason the feed lips break because the coating on them is different so what we found out uh just you know in Alaska for example a lot of us had tan Pags because they were the cool looking Pags right that's what guys or that's what they get issued were tan Pags but The Arms Room would issue out black pmax we had no idea right we just uh we had no idea why you know Alaska gets black pmags they break the tan P1 the tan pmags break because of the coating or whatever the feed lims would Shear right off you insert the mag it would [ __ ] uh freaking fall out literally you pull why is it not fully seating you you pull that mag out and that feed lip would just fall right off in your hand so magazines uh magazines have to be inspected and need to be the right ones so make sure you guys are getting good magazines um other things that fail I mean I see I see bad kit set up all the time uh so kit set up uh and you know maybe we can go down a tangent on that but making sure you really do Buy on cry ones whatever brand it is make sure you vet whatever kit you buy and make sure it's really good um Optics I'm I've been hitting Optics up a lot lately because guys will buy and I'm going to pick on the brand uh well not really the brand but just the model A Strike Eagle one to six the from Vortex right a strike eagle from a Strike Eagle lpvo is like the worst opt it's one of the worst optic choices because they are not durable they do not hold zero the glass quality is trash um and I know a lot of guys are going to get upset I guess post and Chad if you have a strike equal one to six but I see guys show up for training and they just have bad bad Optics and I think guys should invest invest in a good freaking optic right a good optic and yes if the the best Optics like I've had a an ACOG break right um I have I've I don't think I've ever seen an actual ACOG break other than my personal ACOG that I bought um in my in my life I've seen the mounts break but that that's just an example of if the best quality stuff can break then the the lower end stuff stuff will break like it will 100% Break um so yeah I see I see all kinds of stuff fail all the time uh I see people show up with poor bad slings that are not set up properly your sling should be set up for when you're wearing your body armor or your chest rig that way you can use it in the kneeling uh kneeling unsupported firing position what that means is uh your sling should be set up so that way when you take a knee you know when you don't have cover and you're in in in the open you have to take a knee to take a more precise shot you can tighten your sling that way it adds stability to the front of the weapon that way it's a perfect shot um in that scenario so just I see stuff all the time where dudes are just they're just buying stuff because you know they're they're staying up too late they're drinking too much which whatever I'm guilty of it right uh staying up late drinking and you're on whatever website you know and you just buy another gun or buy another thing that you don't really need but that thing isn't good quality um so yeah so would you just out of curiosity especially because of a lot of the uh comments that I receive and and obviously there's some good you know reasons behind it but like would you prefer iron sights over a bad optic yes 100% yes I mean there's all kinds of good iron s sites I think was it scaler works or D like all kinds of companies even a carry handle a freaking carry handle works better than a trash optic so definitely um now I would would cave out that I would recommend you start with red dot first I do I I'm not even though in the Army we do backup iron sides and then Optics right uh that's kind of like our train up or how we echel on our training uh but for you watching this video no go out and buy a freaking aim point and run that thing the rest of your life and you'll be good right um you'll be happy that you did it but yeah if you're if you are sitting at home right now and you're like okay I'm about to buy this I'm about to buy this really trash optic that's like 200 bucks or I can buy this like really good optic for 550 dude just wait till you have the money for the 550 one that's a good company and run some run some good iron size until you get that money okay and I mean I think there's some reasonability there just in the sense of we know irons aren't going to fail and they generally still work pretty well so I could see that logic there um I did get a question in uh let's see and this is uh you know like I said everything's up to you in your comfort level of answering these questions uh this is from Phillip who says what kind of shdf threat is most probable in your opinion so like what what is it that you think would be the most reasonable thing to be preparing for what like as an American citizen well there's two and you know they're kind of tied well there's three I we I'll I'll tackle all three the one that's got me concerned is the the new the latest covid right right whatever the next Co is that's not you know not a big deal I think that's going to be a serious problem because um they the certain people can utilize the media to make things seem like a bigger threat than they are and get everyone to do you know uh so lock like any sort of government lockdown uh control is is a fear right but I I don't know how and I say that because I don't know how people will respond I think the average American will say we're not locking down we're not doing that again so I think that could cause serious issues if you look at the United Kingdom right now there's serious issues with rioting in the United Kingdom over something um due to people using free speech and they don't have free speech in the United Kingdom so I just think anything in line with like a lockdown is a serious thing and not because people will actually lock down I think there's just going to be so much unrest civil unrest due to that um let's see another thing is China China is a serious problem um I think they're an immediate threat today but in in 10 years from now I I don't know how we go another decade without being in a fullscale war with China China is a serious problem we need we really do need a a leader somebody to get us in a better position with China uh they they're a serious problem if you don't see the writing on the wall uh you need to pay more attention uh and uh I forgot the last one so maybe I'll remember in a second oh the upcoming election this election regardless of who you're you know I can't I'm not going to vote or not gonna say who I'm Who I'm voting for but you guys will have to use some deductive reasoning on that uh but regardless of who wins this country is gonna be in a bad spot I think um so that's got me really concerned and that's why I keep bringing up the election because it's got me I don't see I don't see a offramp right I don't see an off-ramp in rhetoric um because the rhetoric just keeps getting ramped up we got assassination attempts going on and it's just dude people are just they're ramped up right now they're really fired up and I I don't know how we get out of this uh unscathed so you know that's just my two cents so uh so I think the the so what or so what do we do well we got 613 people watching this by the way if you're watching this hit the like button magic prepper will appreciate it right um and go over to my channel and sub it as well boom okay but if you're uh if you're watching this right now start being kinder to your brother and I know that sounds like super super woke but you got to be nicer to your brother give give people a chance like make eye contact when you're going to Costco or wherever you're freaking shopping at right I don't know where wherever people shop make eye contact say hi I mean just be nicer give people the opportunity if you disagree with them try to have that conversation because you might change their mind or they might change your mind right you might change your opinion on on something um I think we got to get back to the basics of just being good people like yeah uh what what the guys don't see that are watching you and I talked for 30 minutes and I I guarantee you everything we talked about before this show that was just basic two dudes having a conversation that's all we're doing right now is just two dudes having a conversation but being able to have that discourse with with your brother uh with your brothers and sisters in this country dude if someone likes if someone likes a whatever product you don't have to hate them because they like it have that discussion they will learn they will learn the error of their ways eventually right say Kamala Harris wins and we have a full communist country right everything is communism and you're you're you know it goes towards this uh socialist scenario here in the United States people will learn the error of their ways when they can't get gas you know what I'm saying so um but yeah I'm going off on a tangent but uh it's kind of what you do you know um so and I also did have a another question earlier from Mike lus and they were looking for affordable chest rig recommendations um and just off the top of my head I know there's a lot of Mill Surplus out there that can actually do a decent job of at least getting people started um what are what are what's your recommendation what do you like all right like I said I had I have a bunch of like props because I figured some gear stuff so before the whole uh Russia thing got started this is a a Smur rig right I Can Only Hold this thing up for so long SM yeah here let me uh let me I'll change the screen a little bit so you have a little more room there you go all right I'm going to be a little delayed so I won't be able to see the uh but here hopefully they can see it but here here's a Smur rig um and this is a good example something like this Alice gear is going to be super cheap and super affordable this has uh 24 hours you could make it last for 48 hours but really a 24 hour sustainment uh kind of scenario going on and you know a little bit of meds and stuff going on on here but something like a Smur rig you know you should be able to get you know some Alice gear or something like that for pretty cheap and that's going to be like a belt kit right that's going to be your not the most preferred but you should be able to get something out there that's pretty cheap like that um but again you know the whole buy once cry once thing uh let's see if I can find one here's another example uh so here's just one example that I've I use this thing for oh man maybe six years at least probably longer I always under uh underplay it but uh a Haley strategic dc3rx or something like this a Haley rig will do a good general purpose option for something that you need right but now you're getting in the 200 or so dollar Mark um but honestly I run the uh what is it the uh quad rig from T-Rex arms I got a bunch of them laying laying around here uh but I run the freaking T-Rex arms quad rig I think it's called quad rig someone will correct me uh in the in the chat but this is what I I I live in this thing right because I do uh I'm at the I'm in the field or in a field environment at least three to four days I would say a minimum of three days but three to four days a week so I I live in my gear um and through throughout that time what I've learned is the quad rig because it's set up in a way where you can wear a assault pack um or a backpack in assault pack is super comfortable because you know just the way that it's designed um so what I would caution whoever ask that uh question be very careful of going for the cheap option when it comes to gear because you're going to pay you're going to pay the price if you're doing a ruck march or anything with that cheap gear you're going to pay the freaking price so be very careful um if you're going for the cheap option right um so yeah that that's just my two cents on that yeah I threw up an image of the Smur gear just so everybody could see it just because it is the more affordable option of the things you just discussed and um I think that's cool especially because at least like from my understanding is that murf is really where it's at when it comes to saving money but still getting quality and U and that's what that Smur gear basically is right it's basically like Russian Mill serp right right y okay so and that's uh I know a lot of people have been talking about the Taps rig lately as well um as being like a hate the Taps you hate it okay the Taps is not good guys it's not good it's Army it's standard issue Army uh the tap system is not good okay uh you can get you can do a lot better and I'm gonna hate on T-Rex arms a little bit even though I love their stuff the Trap rig is just a tap system that they modified that thing is not good right and it's not not an attack on them that uh just the tap the design of a tap system is not good in my opinion um s and I I did wear have worn a tap a Taps for like two or three years when I was a little uh Joey right uh when I came in the Army it was the flick all right it was like the UCP or ACU pattern flick and then I after that was the tap system and the reason why guys wore the tap system because you can click it into your uh you can click it into your body armor and unclick it right so when you get to like a a mortar firing point or you're gonna eat chia you can uncp your um your magazines from your body your fighting load carrier from your body and still wear your body armor that's what it's designed for and it can be a standalone uh Standalone you know rig um but the tap system I do not like the tap system I do not recommend it fair I mean if you don't like it you don't like it you know um and I don't have enough experience with that stuff to tell anybody what is or isn't good but just in case um anybody's curious this is the Taps rig right here so that's what he's referring to it's something that you can see being sold uh through a bunch of different Mill Ser sources and stuff like that um affordable but according to trench he doesn't like it and he's definitely going to have a lot more experience with it than than than I would so I mean you should be able to get a t system dude if you really look out there you should be able to get a freaking tap system for like 30 bucks like there's tons of guys that are probably uh getting rid of their tab system that they didn't need to turn in so if you if you do some digging you should be able to find a tab system out there I I personally hate them just my two cents fair enough um let's see here I know there's a few more questions that I've been trying to get back in here uh J Barilla says as a 16-year fully disabled combat vet 18b who lives currently in the New England area I believe or the Northeast the largest problem I find in training youth today is laziness know it alls and lack of teamwork and Lone Wolf mentality um and I think that's probably experienced by a lot of us out there it's it's uh it's hard to motivate anybody to do anything above the bare minimum you know yeah I mean we already kind of hit on it pretty heavy but a lot of guys in here they don't have any not to pick on them but they don't have any buddies nearby that they can rely on that's a problem if you're a lone wolf you're G to die because what's going to happen in any sort of grid down shtf scenario there's going to be gangs that are rolling around right and those gangs are gonna have sks's and Mosin or cheap ARS right but the the benefit that they're going to have as I freaking die over here the benefit that they're gonna have is going to be they got 20 freaking dudes with rifles gun so um yeah the Lone Wolf mentality I don't care how good your Knight's Armament is like you better get some freaking buddies seriously no it's power numbers yeah you need like dude you need at least nine to be to be good okay like you need a squad wor the people because here's the thing that people don't think about you have to sleep at some point and when you're asleep the enemy is still moving especially if they got a group of 20 so they're gonna have roving parties and they're gonna freaking slit your throat dude they're GNA burn your house down so you have to have you have to have a community you have to have a squad or you're you're dead dude seriously well and that's I think something that people need to work on and it's it's like I said easy but it is something that's important um I did let's see I had a question here that might be just kind of a uh like a dig of sorts but I thought you'd find it interesting somebody asked what's the deal with hands and pockets for the drills so assume they're talking about some of your videos where you're doing drills and you got your hands in the pockets uh I don't know yeah you can't you can't I know the Army puts uh pockets on your uniform but you can't use you can't use them okay even if your hands are cold um but no the hands and pockets thing kind of goes out the window once you get out in a auster environment in a tactical environment but for Garrison he's saying you can't have your freaking hands in your pockets in a Garrison environment that's what he's talking about okay good to know yeah I didn't know what that was related to I thought maybe it was some of your shooting drills where you're just rocking hands in the pockets somehow you know yeah making fun of drill sence because you can't you can't walk and talk on the phone you can't eat and walk you can't you have to have hear on outside just a bunch of army army stuff see and and that like that just show how little of uh background knowledge I have on any of that so there we go uh let's see here so oh and Eagle Claw says that equals Air Force gloves now um hands and Pockets anyway yeah now I do know one thing that I was hoping to kind of touch base on here and we're already kind of past the hour mark So I know we're not trying to get too crazy today but um what so since you come from you have this military background and one thing I hear a lot about in the preparedness Community as a whole is this mentality of not being mentally prepared for things to get really bad right people are people who have a a comfortable life who have you know Uber Eats and they have Netflix and they're just hanging out in their house that's air conditioned just aren't properly prepared mentally for dealing with the situations that come up during a bad scenario I don't know if it's we're not necessarily talking combat but just an overall emergency crisis right so so at least in your experience what is it you think people are lacking the most in regarding their expectations of that like what because it's hard to mentally prepare yourself if you don't know what to expect so what what would you say I guess would be a reasonable thing to expect in regards to that and and how to kind of like mentally harden yourself for it right and I'm glad you asked this question because and H by the way we can go as long as as long as the audience wants to hang and as long as you want to hang like I'm it's a Saturday night and I'm off work right um so that's a that's a good question because this is and everyone watching this they're having a good time hopefully because we have information they're receiving information and they feel like they're engaging uh with each other right what's gonna happen what's going to happen is in a in a realistic scenario unless you are like at the place where the rubber meets the road like let's say the riot is at your front door literally the the rioting is at your front door and you just happen to be unlucky uh or the Wildfire or whatever I guess it wouldn't be a wildfire but whatever thing is causing this country to collapse or uh unless it's literally in your face like physically in your face what's going to happen is you're gonna lose power and then you're not GNA have internet access or you're not gonna have cell phone access right in some form or fashion you're just not going to have access to uh to the world you're going to be back to the Stone Age you're gonna still have your house but your house is either going to be really cold or really hot right um so that's going to be and then people are going to get people are going to run out of food and they're going to be desperate they're going to be desperate for information people are going to be so desperate for information they're going to be going to their neighbors that they don't know right they're going to be going to their neighbors that they don't know and they're going to be asking oh what's going on why don't we have power why are there no emergency C uh uh Services happening two days two days after that the whole world is the whole country is ruined because people don't have food and preparedness they don't have they don't have these things that we're talking about they don't have a sustainment PL in their house um so two days after two days you're going to start you're going to see people going door too asking for food hey my family can't eat my baby can't eat we we don't have medicine uh we have you know we have a diabetic uh family member they don't have insulin we don't have whatever uh we need you know to stay alive that's going to last about a day and after that things are going to get wild people are going to start coming for what's yours and that's when and in this scenario when you don't have that group of people we'll say you don't have that group of four uh four to nine guys you know or teammates that's when things are going to get like real that's when you're going to have to start making some decisions we'll just put it like that um and that's when it comes down to having a community having these conversations ahead of time hey if we all lose power and the world everything goes crazy put your politics aside you in your neighborhood whoever lives near you the th those individuals those families or those whoever it is you need to have a plan you need to have a general understanding hey in this on this block or this you know on this street we're going to block off the entrance we're going to block off things as much as possible we're going to have a entry control point you know we're going to park our cars in a way where no one uh can enter the neighborhood we're going to set up a wall as much as we can someone's going to guard it day and night or will it be a roving guard where you know where whoever you know has night vision they'll be on the night shift whoever doesn't will be on the day shift and you need to have these things planned out now because if you don't have them planned out now what's going to happen is that group that is hungry that group that is cold that group that doesn't have medicine that group that doesn't have tobacco or booze whatever their thing is that they need they're going to come for it and you and your loved ones are going to have to make decisions to defend yourself that is going to be you know it's going to be serious so now the time the time to get right is now because if uh tomorrow the the tomorrow the power turns off or right now as we're talking the power turns off you're GNA be so desperate you're gonna be so desperate for the internet to turn on so you get a little bit of news of what's going on in the country or a little bit of news of what's going on in the world what are we being attacked what's going on and that little that eagerness to find out what's going on is going to cost you your life because you're going to go you're going to go to Walmart and guess what guess who else is going to be at Walmart the whole freaking City is going to be at Walmart and there's fight yep there's going to be a gunfight so um and I don't know if like this is public knowledge or not so whatever works for you here but regarding the the actual like the mentality of getting through that type of situation in the military especially as an instructor how do you guys work on like mentally preparing new recruits for what they might deal with during like combat is that something that's built into the training is or is it just kind of part of it that's there but it's not necessarily focused on as being like the the main ingredient like how does that work I guess putting them in high stress scenarios high stress scenarios in an Oster environment whether that be simple things like an obstacle course you go to an obstacle course where it's high uh you know really high obstacles that test their uh their fears and make them overcome their fears over and over and over again and make them do it in front of their peers make them do it uh you know do it in front of them and put them in scenarios like that in live fire exercises and survival scenarios where they have to go out and survive uh you know in the woods uh or whatever terrain with minimal equipment do uh Ruck marches with minimal water a forested hydration March uh where they don't have the water that they would normally have having these uh having these high stress training things to prepare their mind because what what we see a lot is oh is this a drill is this serious is this the real deal or is this just a training exercise what's going to happen to the guy the average dude watching this is when they've never rehearsed they've never been they've never been uh or you you um Tred to utilize their gear and actually gone out and tried to and put themselves in high stress uh situations the first time that they see a heavy bleed on somebody hemorrhaging you know their legs blown off and they're hemorrhaging they're just going know get pale in the face and pass out like I'm not saying I mean I might in all honesty not going to lie to myself like a good example I always use is when I was in uh when I was a Bradley Commander I um we were doing a routine training exercise which is called Gunnery uh Gunnery is just a series of ranges tables right progressively harder and harder and during the course of this um a a soldier was working on his Bradley or doing something in his Bradley and the hatch to his turret was open but it did not have the safety pin in so when the vehicle started to move the hatch fell and it crushed his wrist right um and what I saw was a bunch of leaders Panic they got really blue in the face you know pale face and they panicked everyone was running around like crazy because they' never seen any sort of real world casualty before a lot of them and everyone just panicked right so you know how you get around that two things you rehearse okay you rehearse okay if we have a casualty right now what are we going to do go and okay you rehearse the plan rehearse the plan rehearse the plan rehearse the plan and then you have to do high stress training high stress get you uncomfortable get uh comfortable being uncomfortable right uh because once you get uh get comfortable being uncomfortable now hey is this just a training exercise or is this real because you're so used to the stress inoculation you have to have stress inoculation if you don't practice being stressed and being uh I guess just in a bad scenario then when the scenario happens you're screwed yeah no I mean it makes a lot of sense and that's why a lot of companies are starting to offer these higher stress training seminars I know I I work with Refuge medical and they do their their night responder classes and things like that where they spray you with a hose and make you roll around the mud and then make you apply first aid to somebody it's just to increase that stress level in order to be able to respond more appropriately if it actually happens and so I definitely could see where that comes from um I do know somebody brought in I think it was uh Uriel martinz I'm hopefully I'm saying that name correctly uh but I can't find the question exactly right now but I remember that it was something along the lines of how would someone easily identify or or or make some sort of level of threat assessment you know during an emergency a lot of the things that people talk about is you know it's not going to be as easy as saying oh the guys wearing you know the blue helmet right or the oh the guy wearing the the armband how would someone assess whether or not something coming towards them is a threat or is there something that you might need to do in the sense of like a full long form video in order to cover that like I'm I'm not sure if that's something we could even discuss at this point you know and that's a good idea it comes down to two things they're intent and their capability and we'll let's break that down so their intentions what are they what are are they obviously portraying as their intention right and obviously you can hide your intention and you can clack off a suicide vest if you hide your intention well enough right or you know you can conduct a mass shooting if you're a dirt bag if you hide your intention well enough and then your capability capability comes down to um what are they wearing and what are they armed with right if you're armed with a knife but you're 100 meters away from me and you're sprinting at me with a knife and I have my Daniel Defense Mark 18 with my this is a freaking Chip Shot right you know there's not a lot of deescalation to happen there you're running at me you made the poor decision I see your intention is to stab me because you're sprinting at me you're not trying to help me make a PB&J sandwich with this knife right um You Know You're sprinting at me and you know you mean to do me harm you have a knife okay I don't need to kill him yet but I do need to be ready he's still running at me maybe at 50 m clack him right um so yeah it comes down to intense what is their intent and what is their capability if people are coming into your neighborhood and they're not armed right or people are around you they're not armed but they're causing a they're they're they're speaking threateningly in some form or fashion where they're uh they're threatening you or threatening those around you okay this individual or this group their intention is to harm me or to to do something to me okay now just because they have that intention do they have the capability well I have my Glock 19 that they don't know about and either append or 4:00 carry okay they do they pose a threat yes but do they have the capability now if there's three or four or five of them and I'm by myself yes three four or five people have the capability to hurt me or kill me now I have to act you see what I'm getting that so it comes down to their intentions and their capability if you can say okay this group of people has the intent to hurt me okay as a group and I'm by myself they have the capability now I need to do something either remove myself from the scenario or Draw my hand gun right you know present my handgun to make sure they understand that if they do anything else it's over right um so that that that's how you have to either escalate or deescalate in your mind if dudes with blue helmets are coming into your neighborhood and they're armed okay what is their intention if they see if you hear Five Doors Down them ripping people out of their house and you know you know handcuffing them or putting them zip tieing them putting them in the back of a truck okay they have the capability to harm me they have the intention to imprison me I need to now initiate this Ambush on them right so those are those are things and hopefully you're not initiating that Ambush by yourself or you're gonna die um but you see I'm getting that is comes down comes down to the intention and the capability so which sounds like it's really important to have the uh the ability the skills and the equipment required to do decent surveillance and some level of reconnaissance in the sense of being able to see past your front door right so like you said being aware of the fact that something's happening six stores down or being able to use a rangefinder or binoculars or something like anything with magnification that can provide you with some of those details from further away AKA are they armed and okay so now I know their capability but I don't know their intent yet but that still gives me that data to work with to try to compile that decision basically right yeah 100% dude and things I I don't know if you've ever seen that have you ever seen a car accident every and everyone's just so shocked at the car accident they can't believe it's real you know what I mean they can't believe it's oh my God this is horrible you know I saw this accident it's horrible you know who you know who doesn't react like that you know State Troopers soldiers EMS right people that have seen just horrible things happen you know in front of their face all the time and they're the the level of disbelief isn't in their brain it's like holy cow uh yeah or no it's more like of course that accident just happened because people get in accidents all the time i' I've seen people hurt all the time now what do I need to do you know what I mean what is my role so people just need to it's hard it's hard to say that because like uh today I was in uh today I was at Sam's Club right and I hate going to stores like that I hate it because it's just um you don't have your your you have to be head on a swivel you don't need to be like in condition red but you need to be in like Amber you need to be head on a swivel kind of looking around looking at people's hands looking at people's you know their itions and their capabilities you know there a lot going on in a place like a Sam's Club or something like that or any any scenario like that so you can't just be you know I don't have my phone you can't just be down here like looking at your phone uh so it's just uh the level of disbelief when if you see something happening you have to act you don't you're because the obvious human reaction say you see somebody running with an AR and they start clacking people right your your first reaction is going to be like this isn't real as most people's first reaction this isn't real your first reaction should be not only is this real I need to move and draw and fire you know what I mean move draw a fire and you know get your spouse on the ground get them behind cover and hopefully your spouse has the same handgun that you have and is drawing their handgun you know and also moving to cover to begin engaging that threat you know with their Glock 19 or whatever they got going on it should just be a something you have to rehearse right you know the level of dis belief is hard for people to overcome right even now as I say this I'm trying to imagine myself you know and you know at the store someone comes in you're your first reaction is gonna be like come on this isn't happening it's happening so yeah and and I think that's uh that desensitization of people who have been involved with those types of things like you said car accidents and the EMTs who show up on the scene are going to be very used to seeing these gruesome injuries so now they're desensitized and they can just move forward with their job or their task the average person who doesn't involve themselves with any of those activities is going to lose lose their mind the second they see a gruesome injury or they see like you said an active shooter type scenario or something along those lines just because of the disbelief um and that's that's something I think a lot of people are going to struggle with if we find ourselves in a crisis people who have lived the refugee Lifestyle the people who have lived in war zones and have been moved to somewhere else afterward they have the concept of living under the constant threat of bombs being dropped or buildings exploding or whatever it might be most of us here in the United States could never fathom what that would be like and those people are going to have a much better I guess idea of how to move forward and move through some type of scenario like that because of that previous experience but a lot of us here in this country are going to literally just go lock our front door and then hope it goes away you know right um so I know it's been kind of going on and on here we're at an hour and 26 minutes right now so honestly I would like to see if there's anything you kind of want to close out with or any advice you have for anybody in the chat or anything else you'd like to to throw out there just because um you know I like having someone with your background and expertise on just to kind of pick your brain about things that I have no experience with and maybe you can leave us with some gems before we uh call it a call it a chat I I don't know of any I would just say the biggest thing that I'm working on as a person um and of course guys of course if you want to come over to the channel and subscribe or if you're from my audience make sure you subscribe to Magic that way you can uh support him but the biggest uh advice I would leave you guys with is be a good person like the way I view this whole preparedness thing and training and being a better Marksman being a better uh you know a better you know a tactician being a better leader uh you know making sure my gears all that all that preparedness stuffff I know it's going to happen because I'm taking steps you know uh very consciously to continue to prepare you know should we get another case of water you know just in case should we get a few more cans of food a bag of rice here should we get another case of ammo you know a couple thousand rounds here and there uh because I shoot a lot you know should we you know making these steps are going to happen but what what can happen very easily is you get so overwhelmed and so you know Target focused on the end of the world world is you don't live your life and I think it's important that we live our life we do the little things like I'm tell you right now after this I'm going to enjoy some time with Nighthawk right if you guys don't know who Nighthawk is you know go sub to the channel and you'll see my girlfriend Nighthawk you know spend some time play some video games you know uh doing the basic things in life that make me happy and make my family happy and make my community happy you know and actually remembering to live because you gota if you're always preparing for the end of the world you're not living your life you're just uh you're preparing for this you know horrible scenario you still have to live you still have to you know you still have to get in good shape at the gym and do all the little things then just remember to be a good human um you know still be prepared still doing the things that you're going to do you know if you're watching this we all we know you're going to make the right decisions and you're going to continue preparing but remember to like take that minute okay have that conversation with that person you know listen to that person talk hear those person's opinions because if you just are in such a hurry to uh get to the Finish Line to okay I gotta stock up 10,000 more rounds because the end of the world is coming okay that's fine like still do the preparedness stuff but don't get so Target focused that you forget to live your life yeah I think it's great advice and I think it's something that you know I have to remind myself of sometimes and I'm sure everybody else does too we feel that urgency but what is it you're missing out on while you're preparing or while you're investing in preparedness that maybe would have been more beneficial for those who are around you right and that's making sure your family's taking care of making sure your family's happy is part of being prepared they they deserve to have a good quality of life in the process you know yeah just be be a good dude right just be a good human and listen listen more than you speak is a huge thing right uh enjoy the little things um enjoy the little you know the engagement sometimes the engagement just that I have with my audience and that you know whether my people know it or not that go to my channel hopefully everyone watch this goes to my channel too and engages but um the little the comments the positive comments right hey I tried this optic it didn't work or did work here's my experience just hearing people's thoughts rather than you're a you're this horrible person or people attacking each other in comments which you're never gonna you're never gonna fully cure because of course it's a little bit Anonymous right anyone can post any comment and that's whatever but if you have positive engagement even if you don't agree with the person that you're engaging with hey you know having that positive discourse is what it is what will ultimately decide if our country uh and you know our community succeeds if we can't communicate then we can't be successful right if we can't be good to each other then we can't be successful um and that that's like the biggest thing that I'm working on is just you know and also finding out who to invest time in if that makes sense like there's going to be people that they're just not worth your time you try to be a good person and they're just you know they're disrespectful I mean you name it right you don't see eye to eye they're just blatantly uh they're on a path to destruction you can't get you can't get through to them there's liability right there a liability there's going to be times in your life where you just cut people off period right they're not moving forward as a person they're a detriment they're a liability if it's for a preparedness plan if you're trying to prepare for the end of the world and they're like legitimately like they're buying the worst gear they're not trained they're not physically fit um they're not they don't have good healthy relationship with their spouse uh with their you know if they have kids if they're not just a good person there are going to be times that you're going to have to just cut that person off period like hey hey dude I you know I'm not playing ball with you anymore you know peace in the Middle East goodbye and that's healthy that's that's important because that person will grow from it obviously right now if magic was like Hey trench I don't like you could buy I would be like oh well magic is a a jerk anyway right that would be my first reaction but over time I'm gonna have to have some reflection and be like magic doesn't like me because I'm X Y and Z right and then that will grow as a person and hopefully um you know be better off for it I I hope that uh I hope that's coming through the way I want it to yeah yeah 100% And honestly uh I think with everybody especially who's here tonight and whoever's coming in on replay crew because they're awesome they're always checking in which I appreciate um hopefully this chat gave you some things to consider and I wanted to ask some of these questions of somebody who actually has that experience and that background to get that point of view because it's like you know the the minority of the country has served so most of us have not and so we don't have any of that training or any of that mindset that gets instilled in you while you're in the service and it just helps us kind of clarify some of our thoughts you know so um I appreciate you coming on I really do ma'am and uh hopefully we can do this again sometime but uh if there's anything out you know anything that we missed in the sense of questions you guys would have had or something like that leave them in the comments Below on the replay and that way I can go back in and if we do this again here in the future I can check some of those questions and try to bring them up uh at a later date but uh yeah I mean if that's good with you man I think we're good to end it here um if you guys make sure you go to trench grenades Channel check it out uh like I said hot takes and strong opinions on certain firearms and Equipment you're going to get upset sometimes because even I have you know at times but it is part of the deal I appreciate when somebody just wants to throw it out there and let you know what they think and that's what you do trench so thanks for coming on man I appreciate it yeah this was fun man uh I look forward to doing it doing it again and you know um I guess I'll see everybody down in the comment section for all the uh discourse that happens over there or to anybody that comes over to my channel uh make sure you guys like this video If you enjoyed it it helps it also helps if you like the replay I guess that's what we're calling it the actual video video not the not the live but if you actually go over and comment comment on Magic's uh video when he posts this it should be right after that'll help his channel as well um but yeah that's all I got cool all right thanks everybody for being here much appreciated the usual live stream will be Monday night and I look forward to seeing you then cheers