Well, I had a pretty rough childhood. Not because of my parents. I was just a pretty shitty kid. And I think my parents would probably agree with that if I was to ask them. They may couch it a little differently, but I was a difficult child. I was fiercely independent. I was probably smarter than my own good, and I got in trouble a lot.
In fact, I was expelled from every school that I ever went to. I was expelled from elementary school, which is pretty hard to do, by the way. Junior high. I was expelled from high school. I ended up finishing school at a military academy in Missouri.
All that to say that I was very rebellious, and I did not handle groups well, and I wanted to give myself a challenge. I wanted to find a place where I could fit in. I originally wanted to be an astronaut. And, in order to be an astronautâIâll short-circuit the storyâmost astronauts were pilots. Pilots come from the military. Okay, so I have to be an aviator.
Well, what do I want to fly? I want to fly F-18s. So thatâs Navy or Marine Corps. And the Navy has shitty uniforms. Sorry, guys. Marinesâthatâs it. And this is, you know, 10, 11 years old. Thatâs my path.
I didnât have the personal discipline to stay in college. I tried it for a little while after high school and just said, âFuck it. Iâm just going to enlist.â
Interviewer: I was gonna say, this isnât one of those scenarios where the parents brought the Marine Corps recruiter to the home.
No. In fact, it was the other way around. And again, I had a rough go of it. I got in trouble with the law. I was on unofficial probation. So I got in trouble, and I had to sort of keep my nose clean for a little while.
So I went to the recruiter, and the recruiter says, âI canât take you. Youâve got this thing.â
And Iâm like, âOkay, cool. Well, what do we have to do to get this thing?â
âYou have to go in front of a judge.â
And so I did. I got it cleared up. But I was a recruiterâs wet dream because I marched right in and said, âI want to be, you know, 0311 infantry.â
Thatâs one of those things where the recruiterâs like, âI donât know. Iâll try to pull a few strings and see what we can do.â Meanwhile, thatâs the hardest thing they have to get people to do.
I did really well in the ASVAB. And heâs like, âThereâs a lot of other jobs.â
So I enlisted. I wanted to be a recon Marine. I knew it. If I wasnât going to fly, that was the only other option.
It is, to this day, I think, one of the better decisions Iâve ever made in my life. And it has served me well, not just in character development and personal growth and interpersonal⊠I think itâs good for the soul. People who have done what weâve done and worn the uniformâthe service, the sacrifice that comes with itâthere is nothing else that you get anywhere in our life. Sure.
- Brad Colbert on the The Team House Podcast
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