Your Battle Buddy Saves You Call Before You Fall

What did we learn in the military? Two is one and one is none. So if you're not battle-buddied up, you're nothing. You got nobody to call, nobody to lean on. And when you hit that state of mind, those distortions start hitting. Start getting deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. It's a distortion. Do not forget that. Tell everybody you know, if they ever think to themselves, the world will be better without me, they're distorted. It's not true. It's a lie. It's a lie. And your squad leader needs to tell you it's a lie when it happens. And your squad leader needs to tell you, hey, maybe you took the Spartan Pledge. Battle drill. Go. That's what happens. No hesitation. Just do it. The Spartan Pledge was written... In two sentences, just two, you don't have to memorize it perfectly. We got to get the gist of it. Now let me explain it to you. Right after that photograph was taken, I was talking to my brother from Iraq. Subject to suicide came up. This was before 22 anything. This was back when the number was 18, with only eight states reporting, by the way. And I said, hey, brother, you ever thought about suicide? And he goes, every day. Every day. Every day? I mean, this boy was thick as thieves. I mean, we did stuff. I knew everything about him. I knew if he moved this way, it meant that. I knew if he moved this way, it meant this. Every single thing I knew about him. But I didn't know he wants to kill himself every day. How could I not know that? So we've made an agreement with each other. Before you do that, call me. Do not leave me on this planet wondering what the hell happened. You're a grown man. You can do what you want with your life. You can even take it. I can't stop you. But before that happens, call me. Just let me know what's going on. Amazing thing about that is when you make that call and let somebody know what's going on, Suicide dissipates, goes away, because you've broken the tunnel vision. That's why when people give me flack about the Spartan Pledge, they say, why doesn't it say, I will never take my life? These people are distorted. Because when you're in that state of mind, you can't say never. You can't even think about taking a shower that day, let alone never. So it's a battle drill. The Spartan Pledge is a battle drill. It's what to do when you don't know what to do. And like every other battle drill, there has to be training. Well, the training starts with you and one other warfighter, you take it together. That way, when the shit does hit the fan, you already know what to do. Go to the battle drill. What do you do when you don't know what to do? Get your battle buddy on the phone. It's that simple. That doesn't mean send him a text, leave him a voicemail. That means talk. That's what that means. Second part of the Spartan Pledge, my mission is to find a mission to help my warfighter family because we know this. Every warfighter with a mission is a deadly warfighter. But every warfighter without a mission is a dead warfighter because why aren't you fighting for something?