This is Jocco Podcast number 27 with Echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink.

I knew a simple soldier boy who grinned at life in empty joy, slept soundly through the

lonesome dark and whistled early with the lark. In winter trenches, cowed and glum,

with crumps and lice and lack of rum, he put a bullet through his brain. No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye, who cheer when soldier lads march by.

Sneak home and pray you'll never know the hell where youth and laughter go.

That's a poem called Suicide in the Trenches by Sig Freed Sassoon. Good evening, Echo.

Good evening. Sig Freed Sassoon was decorated for extreme bravery in World War I.

On the western front, he was nicknamed Mad Jack for his nearly suicidal exploits against the enemy.

His brother was killed in action in the Glippily campaign. He was eventually sent to a hospital to try and recover mentally from what he'd been through.

While he was there, he wrote a little letter that was called Finished with the War, a soldier's declaration.

Where he came out and said, we gotta stop fighting the war like this. I'm speaking for the men that are on the front lines in the trenches being killed.

And even after that, he was promoted. He returned to the front again.

He was wounded this time by friendly fire. That's World War I.

And while Sig Freed Sassoon tells us to pray we will never know the hell where youth and laughter go, I do not agree with that.

I want to know when I want everyone to know and understand and to see the hell, the darkness that crushes youth and laughter.

And taking us on this voyage into darkness tonight is a man by the name of Bob Hoffman. And if you look him up, you'll see he's a very accomplished man.

He was obsessed with health and fitness and he became a businessman. He was the one of founders of the York Barbell Corporation.

If you ever lifted weights in your life, you've used York Barbells at some time. He's often called the father of modern weightlifting.

But interestingly, what you won't find much about him is his military service.

You don't see generally that he was awarded the distinguished service cross, the silver star, the purple heart, the French cross of war, the French military medal, the Italian War Cross, and the highest Belgian military award, the Order of Leopold.

You just don't hear that about him. But that was a piece of his life. And he did write about it. He wrote about it in a book which is called, I Remember the Last War.

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