After last week’s awesomeness that was the GORUCK GRT Reunion in NOLA, Lee dragged me over to be interviewed by Nick (videographer) and I didn’t really want to be interviewed but I guess I didn’t not want to that badly because…I went and did it? Dumb. I watched the video once and cringed during the whole thing and now I can’t bring myself to watch it again because it’s awkward. I don’t even remember my answer that’s how bad it was. Anyway, I made it into an official GORUCK video and they published one of my blog posts so basically I’ve reached PEAK GORUCK and now I can retire™. I’m so over you, carrying-heavy-shit-for-long-distances-for-seemingly-no-reason-other-than-to-suffer-and-maybe-get-a-cool-FB-profile-pic-if-your-shadow-isn’t-drunk.

So aside from that, why were we there in New Orleans? I vaguely remember wondering what keeps me coming back to these events and you can’t put your finger on just one thing. Why would you people fly across the country to do dumb things with some people you know and a lot of others that you don’t know? Usually the reason is because “you’re dumb and you make bad decisions” but occasionally the answer is that you’ll connect with some people. Typically it’s a surface-level connection like “oh she’s a friend of a friend on FB” so you end up being FB friends. Sometimes you’re stuck under a log together if you’re of similar height but if you’re uh…my height then you’re just carrying extra stuff like team weights or the wonderful flag by yourself. Other times you connect because “he’s a casualty, pick his ass up and go.” Litrly connected.

Take Jimmie Speck…seriously, take him as your friend. I’ll throw in some patches to sweeten the deal. You might remember him last week’s post about buddy carrying my fat ass (“Bee wtf why are you so heavy?”) because I was…overly tired. We became FB friends after he joined my 1,001 Manmaker Challenge in February 2014 and I soon realized that any person dumb enough to do 1,001 Manmakers in his spare time, voluntarily, is totally dumb enough to be my friend. Fast forward 18 months and a couple of Bee-inspired Challenges we finally got to meet at Task Force Dagger Custom Chlight (challenge-level light) in Charleston, South Carolina through another friend of ours (Keith “TREK 007” Borg) and next thing you know, we’re in a group chat with Andrew “Redneck Riviera” Handley and they’re being extremely nice to me in the chat currently titled “#beeisaclassybitch”. Seriously, they’re good people.

There’s Keith not regretting this event at all.

So in our chat we got around to talking about why we do these events:

“I show up every event looking to learn something about myself. Maybe I just find out I am bigger asshole than I thought [Bee’s note: he is]. If you think everybody is going to pull their weight…wrong event. You fuck up…you hurt…that builds bonds, that forges teams [and] you come out stronger on the other side.” – Jimmie Speck

He’s not wrong. It’s almost as if every event is your first event. Here are a few other quotes and observations by people regarding their first event (all by my memory and I’m drinking so…):

“I’m going to do every exercise with perfect form.” – Jenks Currie

“It can’t get any worse than this.” – random GRTs at night

*brings 5 pounds of food…eats none of it* – rookie GRTs

*brings 3 shirts and extra pants…carries it around for no reason* – rookie GRTs

“Bee I knew we were going to be friends because we were the only Asians there.” – Eric Wang

Here’s my first battle buddy Chase Sepulvado. We carried shit for what seems like forever but it was only like 2 miles. He also offered me some food at a break and I was so tired I couldn’t eat.

So Jimmie doesn’t know I quoted him and he’ll probably beat me up next time I see him when he drives to Shreveport to do the Bomber Bash Custom Light in Louisiana and not Task Force Dagger super awesome event in Charleston, SC on 9/11 weekend.

So if GORUCK just disbanded tomorrow, we’d still have our friendships because apparently, people matter. We wouldn’t have GORUCK as the avenue to continue to meet up and do stupid shit but we’d figure out something. So yeah, The People.

Beer is a close second, though.