Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Military Justice Today podcast with your host Robert Capovilla and Mickey Williams, covering the full range of military law topics from all branches of the armed forces. Today's episode is made possible in part by the law firm of Capavilla and Williams. And now let's welcome the host of the show, Rob and Mickey.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: All right, everybody, here we go. Another episode of Military Justice Today. I'm Matt Steroziak. With me in the studio is Robert Capavilla from the law firm of Capavilla and Williams. Hello, Robert.
[00:00:37] Speaker C: Hello, Matthew. Nice to see you again.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Nice to see you, sir. And then we've got a special guest today that I'm super excited about. I know Rob is as well. We've got Stu Smith with us. He is a graduate of the US. Naval Academy, a former Navy Seal, he dedicates his life these days to helping candidates prepare for all kinds of different service positions FBI, SWAT, Seal, Ranger, Special Forces Training. Stu, it's great to have you with us. Welcome to the podcast, sir.
[00:01:08] Speaker D: Hey, thanks very much for having me on. I appreciate it.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it's great to have you. We're really excited. Rob and I have been talking for days about having you on the show. We're going to get into a lot of topics. We're going to get into some interesting things that you've been doing recently. We're going to talk about some of your books and the things that you've done.
But I spent some time on your website, which is Stusmithfitness.com, and I saw on there you had appeared on I believe it was a National Geographic show called Fight Science. And I just thought it was fascinating. And I feel like I've got to ask you about it.
I encourage everybody to check it out, take a look on your website. It's a cool video. They put you in some freezing water, and then they made you do some tactical things, which you certainly perform very well on. But can you tell us a little bit about that experience, what it was like? And maybe it was no big deal. For somebody that hasn't served like myself, it looked phenomenal and almost impossible. But can you talk to us a little bit about that experience, how it came about and what it was like?
[00:02:15] Speaker D: Sure. National Geographic had a series ten years ago. Actually, I did that, and it was called Fight Science. And you can still find it. You can probably find it on YouTube now. But they did several shows where they had put special operators in all these different elements. So they had the heat guy that got his body temperature up to crazy levels, and they had me in the cold. They had another one in the dark.
I think they had some MMA guys doing like, punches and things, and they would measure the force created by it. Really neat show, all science backed. I think the guys that ran my drill were physiologists out of stanford, and it was just a really smart show.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: You spent an hour in that ice cold water, right?
[00:03:10] Speaker D: Yeah, it was an hour long time in the bath, in the ice bath, and I was up to about chest high. And so the reason why they did that is they wanted me to stand up and show the contrast infrared between my body and my head.
Anyway, it was just a really neat show where they put me through this obstacle course, and then I had to shoot, had to make a decision between three people. Two people did not have a weapon. A third one did. So I had to figure out real quickly after going through this obstacle course, after sitting in a tub for an hour, and then pick out the one with the weapon. And it went really well. It was a lot of fun.
Nice old show that is still very popular today and definitely some of these tactical fitness circles.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: So last question on that, because I want to get into some of our other things. I know Rob does, too, but how hard was it? I mean, you've obviously been through some pretty incredible training in your life, but how hard was that particular thing for you?
[00:04:19] Speaker D: Well, when you're getting cold, the hardest part is the first five minutes.
After that, you really go numb, and you're just really trying to survive.
And you're doing little things like breath control and flexing your muscles. So you're trying to keep some motor control available because if you don't, you're just going to get out and just flop around, almost unable to control a whole lot that you're trying to do. But, no, it was challenging, I won't lie. I won't want you to say it was easy. But I will tell you this. All my Seal friends that saw me do it, they were first said, you better crush that thing. And second is like, yeah, what's the big deal? We always do.
[00:05:13] Speaker C: As a as a guy who spent my entire military career in the Jag Corps, I can tell you that I never spent any time in freezing cold water, and I had an opportunity. I remember watching that show back when they were back ten years ago, whatever. I remember watching the episodes on that show, and I enjoyed it. I always thought it was a cool idea.
[00:05:36] Speaker D: Oh, great idea. Yeah.
[00:05:37] Speaker C: Stu, let's go ahead and shift gears and talk a little bit about some of the topics we've got today. So what I want to cover is I want to go over some general advice first that you would give maybe a high school kid joining the army and what he can do, and we'll talk a little bit about kind of that next phase of being a soldier. You graduate, I bullock, you've got Ranger school in 60 days. And then I want to finish with how can US. Veterans stay in shape? And I know we didn't talk about this preshow, but I'd love to hear before we wrap up a little bit about mental toughness, because obviously you're a prior Seal. You've been around some folks that have accomplished some amazing things, and I'm always fascinated at what separates those men and women who can do these exceptional things from the folks like us. Because I can tell you this, these days, at 30, soon to be 38, my fitness routine is really centered around building my cheat day. So I would love to find out what are some traits of some of these highly disciplined folks. So without further ado, stu, here's our first scenario, brother.
We got a high school kid growing up in today's generation. He has spent the last few years he's not an athlete. He spent it in his mom and dad's basement playing some first person shooter games. He's in decent shape, but he's never run 2 miles. He's never done more than ten push ups or she right.
And they want to join the United States Army. They want to take that step. So starting from scratch, when you don't have that physical fitness background and you want to serve your country, what are some of the first things that you would say to this potential recruit, this potential soldier?
[00:07:23] Speaker D: Well, first of all, I would say thanks for considering serving your country.
I will tell you this, I train a lot of young men and women here locally. I'm out of Maryland, just outside of the Naval Academy. So I train kids at the Naval Academy. I train local kids who are trying to prepare to serve in a variety of tactical jobs, from military, special ops, police, firefighters, SWAT team guys.
And they always give me hope for the future. So that is where I start first with anybody that needs my help.
But I would typically take any beginner and start them on a Calisthenics and Cardio Foundation training program. In fact, I have a program on that website that you mentioned, and it's called Calisthenics and Cardio. You don't need any equipment, maybe some dumbbells to supplement some things, but it is a basic form to build your fitness to a level to where now you can add weights to it and be safe about it. You can add more distance to your running and be safe about it. You can put on a backpack and start rucking, but you need time. And for somebody in that position, I would say, look, be patient, because it's probably going to take you about a year to really thoroughly prepare yourself and not wind up getting injured when you're going through boot camp or basic training or failing to meet the standards when you're there. And I think a lot of people, young people especially, make a mistake of their first action when they want to serve is to go talk to a recruiter. I tell them, don't even talk to a recruiter until you're ready to serve.
[00:09:28] Speaker C: I see.
[00:09:33] Speaker D: There's nothing in the military that's going to prepare them to be physically ready, like the recruiter's job. They just don't have enough time to help them get into better shape. And the boot camps are great for getting people in better shape, but you have to have a level of a foundation that is acceptable to be able to grow without getting injured.
[00:09:57] Speaker C: No, I agree. I remember coming into the army, and I did some ROTC time, not a ton. And I remember getting through Officer basic course, and then it was time to go to aerosol school. And the twelve mile ruck. I had not rucked more than 2 miles in my life. And I remember just the I gave myself about eight weeks to train. I remember just the wear and tear on your body when you're not used to carrying that kind of weight for that kind of distance under those kinds of restraints. And I suffered an injury and I had to recycle. I was dropped from the aerosol course. My first time was successful. My second time, because you learn. But I think your advice is sage.
In short, you're saying, hey, listen, have that physical fitness foundation, because don't just show up to basic training. And I agree, because that's going to lead to injury every single time, just like it did for me when I took climbing the rope and doing the tough one for granted.
All right.
[00:11:01] Speaker D: Yeah, you really do.
There's nowhere in the pipeline of training where it prepares a young person for that job. And what you have to do is rely on that person's athletic history to be that foundation. And if you don't have that athletic history, you need to create it yourself. And you don't have to be an athlete to be in shape. You just need to be persistent and build that foundation with a nice, steady progression.
[00:11:31] Speaker C: If memory serves me right, Stu, I believe that before I started my military journey, the first workouts that I did to prepare myself were a workout from your website, where it was a push up sit up routine where it was ten push ups, ten sit ups, nine push ups, nine sit ups, eight push ups, eight sit ups, all the way down to one. And I'm certain I got that off your website. And I did that routinely about four months before I joined the army. And then once I got to two ID, and I was really trying to take my physical fitness to the next level, I did that workout routinely, man, and I'm telling you, it worked. I started blowing the top off that old Army PT test.
[00:12:17] Speaker D: Yeah. And then you add pull ups to it. It's going to help you even more with everything that you need with obstacle courses and rope climbs and other events, too, and other tests that require pull ups, obviously.
[00:12:30] Speaker C: Yeah. No, that was a great workout.
[00:12:33] Speaker D: Yeah. I call that the pyramid, right?
The PT pyramid. And it is a classic. I've been doing that one since the did one this week still. So they still work?
[00:12:47] Speaker C: It definitely works. All right, so let's transition now. Let's say we've got a young again. We'll do soldier, because that's what I'm most familiar with. You've got a young soldier just finishes ibolic his infantry school, and his commander comes to him and says, hey, Lieutenant, you've got 90 days until we're sending you to Ranger school. And two of the folks in my firm, Mickey and Dan, were both Army Rangers. I'm pretty familiar with it. That's a course that I was not physically fit enough to pass if I even had tried.
There's a funny story out there about my time at pre Ranger that didn't go so well. But what's your advice to that soldier who now wants to really get to that next level, that special operator level, that level that very few of us actually get to?
[00:13:40] Speaker D: Great question.
Let me back up one thing because I failed to mention that the prior example of the young kid trying to get into the training, that is phase one of Tactical Fitness. You are working specifically to address a fitness test and future training events. So phase one of Tactical Fitness really requires you to start focusing on the specifics of your future testing. The phase two of Tactical Fitness is where I would put this level of athlete. And the goal here is to not only get to the training by passing the fitness test, that more advanced fitness tests required to get into Ranger School, which is pull ups, push up, sit ups, and a five mile times run, right?
And then you have the next part of your training needs to focus on getting through Ranger School. And that means a lot of rucking. Maybe practice your land NAV. You're still going to be doing a lot of calisthenics. You're still going to be doing some running. But primarily your goal with phase two of Tactical Fitness is to get through the training. So phase one is to get to the training. Phase two is to get through the training. And then phase three, which we'll talk about, which really this guy is, he's also an active duty operator. So not only does he have to maintain his fitness to do his job, he has to maintain his fitness to pass the regular army fitness test. But now he also is trying to advance his active duty career and go a little bit harder. And so you're kind of dipping back into phase one of Tactical Fitness, trying to get accepted into Ranger School. So first thing to do is you got to train specifically for that test. And that's a hard one. A five mile timed run is not something fun to do.
[00:15:50] Speaker C: No.
[00:15:52] Speaker D: Unless you ran cross country. Right, unless you ran cross country.
And rucking is also hard and you're going to be doing it every single day when you're at Ranger school. So your level of load bearing skills will require you to do some weight training.
And now the new Army Fitness test requires you to do deadlifts and power movements and things like that that will actually enhance your ability for load bearing. So I think it's a great addition to a fitness test.
It's going to be a combination go ahead.
It's just going to be a combination of weights, calisthenics, running, and rucking. And if your workouts look anything other than that, you're really not preparing for Ranger pool.
[00:16:43] Speaker C: Let me ask you a question.
When I was at Fort Benning, now Fort Moore, I had the honor of representing a lot of Army Rangers. And the Ranger CrossFit Gym, or I don't even know it was called Audi Murphy, I guess it really wasn't a CrossFit gym, but the functional fitness gym was right next to the SJ's office. And when I was getting myself in top notch shape, I would go and I would train there, and I would see these top end, high functioning soldiers every day train. And before I joined the army, my thought was a lot of them were focused more on that cardio aspect of it, the running. But a lot of those guys, too, were absolutely powerful. I mean, these guys were deadlifting 500 plus, and they did a lot of heavy lifting. Is that to prepare their bodies for the amount of ruck marching? What was the purpose really behind that? I was always kind of curious.
[00:17:41] Speaker D: Well, phase one and phase two of Tactical fitness tends to focus primarily on an endurance muscle stamina element of fitness, right. To get past a fitness test, to get through a specific training, which is going to be a lot of running, a lot of rucking. There's not much load bearing, or I shouldn't say there's not much weightlifting in those programs. Now, it's nice to have a foundation of strength that keeps you a little bit more durable when you're going through those selection programs that require a lot of rucking.
But once you're in phase three of tactical fitness and you're an active duty operator and let's say this is the Spec Op level operator, yes. And a foundation of strength means durability to that operator. And the times are changed. You're no longer having to do crazy times runs for long distances and for seals, long swims. You're still swimming and you're still diving, but you're not doing buds level workouts, which is kind of a glorified triathlon, if you will, of run, swim and ruck.
What you're doing now is trying to build a body that is probably going to be older, longer than it is younger in these professions if you stay in for a full career. That's well said. Now you now have to create a body that's just going to be a little bit more durable, but still have some of that endurance and muscle stamina that you need to be able to just work long hours and high stress jobs.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Hey Stu, it's Matt again.
I think it's fascinating, the topic that you're talking about. And I saw quite a bit of that actually, on your website, where you talk about transforming your body and as you went through these different phases and these different positions and goals that you had in your career. It often translated into you being a different kind of I'm going to call it an athlete, because in my mind, that's kind of the way it is. But can you talk about that a little bit?
You've already mentioned some of the things, but I think at one point you talk about how you went from kind of a rugby player's body to more of a leaner Special Ops candidate.
Is that common? And do people realize that? Do service members realize that they need to go through that change? And I suspect that's somewhere where you can really provide perspective and training and service for them as well, right?
[00:20:27] Speaker D: Oh, absolutely. In fact, all it takes is an assessment. And what I mean by that is you have a list of all these exercises that I have on one of my articles that just called Assessment Tools for Special Ops Selection. And it's everything from calisthenics, weight training, weight training events, speed and agility events, distance running, rucking, swimming events. And what that's going to tell you when you actually test yourself? Is that okay? Well, I'm a strength athlete, so my running times are a little slow. My swimming needs work.
I can ruck fine because I have a strength foundation, but I am a little bit weaker on the higher calisthenics events, but I'm stronger on the strength and power events that athletic history typically yields those typical weaknesses.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:21:28] Speaker D: Whereas an endurance athlete will have just the opposite problems. They're going to have strength problems, load bearing problems.
If you're a swimming athlete, you're probably going to have stress fractures whenever you start running because you're just not used to working in gravity at all.
So there's a lot of things that come with your athletic history.
It doesn't matter which athletic history you have. There's going to be a weakness and if you're not assessing, you're just guessing and your weakness will be exposed immediately regardless of the training that you're about to do.
[00:22:07] Speaker B: Understood.
When you talk about that assessment, it sounds like it's a critical piece. Is that something that you're doing yourself? Is that something that the military is providing to you? Is that something an outside expert such as yourself would help somebody with? I mean, it sounds like an absolutely critical piece for somebody to be doing at different periods in their career. How does it happen in the best scenario?
[00:22:34] Speaker D: Well, in my training program that I use, and I call it seasonal Tactical Fitness Periodization, which is really just a fancy word for fitness budget. And you spread out that budget throughout the year with working different elements of fitness. So you can't ignore a weakness. It's going to have an endurance athlete lifting. It's going to have the strength athlete running and swimming and doing more cardiovascular activities. So it kind of answers all that question for you. But every quarter, every transition from one season to the next, we actually do an assessment. In fact, if you break down a year of 52 weeks, you have actually 412 week training cycles. But that 13th week is our assessment week.
[00:23:30] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:23:33] Speaker D: So that now gives you a 52 week cycle. 413 week cycles gives you a 52 week cycle. That assessment week is going to kind of tell you one or two things that you need to maybe focus a little more on your endurance depending on your strengths and weaknesses, or you need to focus a little bit more on your strength and speed and agility, depending on your endurance strength. So at the end of those years, when you go through these years, your first year, maybe even your second or third year of doing this intermixed throughout your profession, you're going to see that your weaknesses are no longer weaknesses and that you've maintained your strengths. And really the tactical athlete doesn't have to be great at any one of these elements of fitness. They just need to be good at all of them. Whereas when they were athletes back in the day, for instance, a rugby player or a football player had to be strong, powerful, have speed and agility. Right. A little bit of running too, obviously. But anything over 100 yards was considered long distance running.
Right?
[00:24:49] Speaker C: I didn't mean to cut you off there, my friend, but a light bulb went off of my head. I mean, that is spot on. I was a high school baseball player and I was strong, right? I lifted a lot. We were in the weight room all the time, but I never had to run more than really from home to first, home to second base, whatever. And so when I joined the army, the running for me, even the basic 2 miles at that time was incredibly difficult. I would struggle with shin, splint, pain you wouldn't believe. I'd wrap those suckers up. And then, believe it or not, I got on one of your running programs that was I forget the exact details now, but it was basically an interval kind of run. It was a program that helped me tremendously to the point where when I left the military, I was running my 2 miles in just about a 13 minutes pace. But my question for you brother, is when I went to Two ID, I had the distinct honor of doing the Manchu Mile, which was a 26 miles I think it was a 26 miles ruck march through the mountains of Korea outside of Two ID world. And I trained for that it was tough and it was the last one they did. And I still have the plaque. It's one of the things I'm very proud of.
I trained for that with a guy who went on to graduate Army Ranger School, and we were training nonstop for that. And I remember my body felt I felt the aches and pains and what I'm kind of fascinated to know, and even now, as a 37 year old who still lifts and runs, what about recovery? What are some tips you have about you've got a day or two off between events or you've got a day or two off between runs or swims or workouts. How should the athlete recover?
[00:26:35] Speaker D: Great question.
My recommendation is what I tend to do is what I call the mobility day, right? And my mobility day is just another word for recovery day skills and technique day, you can call it whatever you want, but you need to put this into your week, sometimes once or twice, depending on how hard you're going.
And what I do is it's really easy. It's five minutes of some form of non impact cardio. So I'm still working my heart and lungs, but I'm not worried about any impact from running or like rucking type pains. So biking, elliptical, rowing, swimming, they're all great. So you do for five minutes and then you follow that five minutes with five minutes of stretching, foam rolling, or some kind of vibrating massage tool, all these little things that are out there to just help make you feel a little bit better. You do that for five minutes and then you repeat that cycle for the rest of the hour, right? So you got an hour's worth of workouts, of 30 minutes of it is non impact cardio, 30 minutes of stretching and mobility. And let me tell you, that is life changing, especially for the aging athlete. If you're getting into your upper thirty s and into your 40s, it will change everything about how you're training. And what I mean by that is you're just going to feel better. There's going to be some time after that where you actually feel no pain, which is remarkable for many of us who have served and played contact sports all their life and done crazy load bearing activities.
And then what we do is after that and the way I sold this to my young guys to do it because they thought it was just for me, the old guy in the room, right?
But the way I sold it to them was I was noticing they have a really hard time with treading water and swimming, and it is purely a mobility issue. Their hips, knees and ankles and shoulders are too tight to kick properly or to getting a good streamlined body position. So now we apply that mobility type training to get them better at swimming and treading and other water skills that they're going to need to do. And that has also been life changing for them. Going from one week they're failing a treading, five minute tread with no hands, and now they're doing ten minutes with no hands. No problem.
That's a really good one.
[00:29:27] Speaker C: It is fascinating how workout programs change. I know now at my age, I spend more time warming up my muscles and stretching them and cooling them down than I actually do in the actual physical fitness activity that I'm doing. I don't run like I used to. A ten minute mile for me these days on our five K's and ten K's is about what I run because I still love to do it, but I've got hip pain and feet pain. You know the story.
And I think I sometimes wish that I would have incorporated younger those kind of recovery days like you're talking about, because with those guys in their early 20s, mid 20s, late 20s, what they don't know is that kind of stuff is going to catch up to you. And I wasn't a high end.
I was never an operator, not even close. But the Army Jag Corps is unique, that you get to do some cool things like Air Assault School, Manchu Mile.
You're with Infantry Divisions, and I carried a lot of weight on my back, and I feel it now. And I sometimes wish I would have incorporated that more when I was a younger man. Maybe it would have saved me some pain. But what I'm interested in finishing up with here, Stu, is I'm a guy who's very fascinated with performance at work in the weight room, figuring out the efficient ways to the most efficient ways to accomplish a task. I've always been fascinated by the men and women in uniform who accomplish great things, because I think there's lessons that can be learned there about discipline, mental toughness, dedication, passion that can translate into all areas of life. I literally wake up some mornings and thank God for my time in the army and the discipline that I did learn. So my question, man, is, you've been around some high performing soldiers and sailors. You yourself were a Navy Seal. My law partner, Mickey Williams was an army ranger. And I look at him sometimes, and it's like the man just has the ability to turn off all pain sensors in his body and his mind and just complete a task. Right.
What is it, guys like you, Seals and things like that, what can you share with our listeners about mental toughness or discipline? What are some things you've learned over the years that you can impart to the folks who are listening to the show, who may want to either take their business life or their military careers to the next level?
[00:31:56] Speaker D: All right, I have a real easy answer for you, but before I get to it, I want to say you're absolutely right. Younger people need to focus on mobility and flexibility. More because it is going to help them with injury prevention and just performance as well. But as we age, you can turn that around and I'm telling you, if you just google Stu Smith Mobility Day. Or how about this one, don't skip mobility day. That's even a better one, right? Put that in. Google Stu Smith, don't skip mobility Day and read that article because it will change your life if you just do it once a week. Promise you.
[00:32:38] Speaker C: Sage advice?
[00:32:39] Speaker D: Yes. To answer your question, I will tell you this. I think attitude is everything. And what I mean by that is I think attitude is more important than your skill, your fitness level, your talent, what you did in the past, what you're going to do in the future. Because your attitude is about now. It puts you in the present, and it's really all about how you perceive what is happening to you now. But with a positive attitude, it can allow for a clear hope of the future, a better tomorrow, and the ability to learn from past mistakes versus thinking that they're failure. So it really does come down to having just a positive attitude with everything you do. Because I've seen guys at field training and they say, yeah, that was hard, but it's going to get better tomorrow. Right? And that is just such a good attitude to have and mindset.
In fact, I was talking to a guy who was getting ready to go through Hell week a few weeks ago and he made it through and he just had a good mindset about it. He goes, yes, this is what I got to do to get through the gate. Right. So he just knew it was one of those things he had to endure.
[00:34:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting, I think that most elite performers, whether they're athletes or they're special operators or whatever they might be, they all possess that same mental fortitude, that same positive attitude that you're talking about because the reality is you're going to face challenges. And we didn't talk too much about it on today's podcast. We'd love to have you back, but in reading some of your background and your bio, you had some challenges. I think the one thing that I thought was interesting is your first semester at the Academy, it doesn't sound like it went all that great. And you talk about how you came home and your mom kind of gave you a kick in the pants, which I think is some of the most valuable things that our parents can do for us. But you're going to have setbacks, right? I mean, that's going to happen to everybody and it's how you face that.
Why don't you just talk just for a minute, we'll spend another couple of minutes on it. But what would you say to somebody who's experiencing a setback, things haven't gone quite the way they thought they were going to go. What advice would you give to those folks?
[00:35:19] Speaker D: Well, my advice would be, say, just because you failed doesn't mean you're a failure. I think we all are going to fail. We are human, we're going to fail, we're going to make mistakes, we're going to screw things up. But learning from those mistakes is critical to moving on. And you can turn that around real quick and learn from not only your mistakes, but learn from other people's mistakes. That's usually the way I like to do it nowadays, but it's definitely just something that allows you to keep know, have a little positive mindset about know, forget about know. Like Ted Lasso says, be a what just if you forget about what just happened, you got a short memory. And let's focus on now making that positive change, learn from that mistake and move on.
Some of those things are pretty cliche, but they definitely work. And it does require hard work. It requires a lot of patience, especially with long term goals. But I think attitude is what puts you in the right mindset to be able to move through those things.
[00:36:36] Speaker C: It's funny because I relate to your first semester very well, and my first semester of law school was a struggle for me, and my dad gave me a kick in my pants when I needed it. I was very close to leaving law, very, very close. My dad, thank goodness, talked me out of, you know, one thing to this point that I've learned as I've gotten a little bit older, when I was younger and going through law school than the Jag Corps, the army, all these different things, failure seemed so devastating at the time. I remember when I failed aerosol school before I went back and graduated, you feel like such a failure. You feel like you're not tough, that you don't have what it takes, and it gets you down. And as I've gotten a little older, what I recognize know, failure really is and you use the word right cliche, right. Failure really is the greatest teacher. And I think now failure is almost essential for success. You don't know what you're capable of unless you risk enough to fail.
And that's something that the military, the United States Army taught me.
And I'm sure you have similar lessons from your time in uniform. And I can't thank you enough for coming on the show, for the service you've given to our country. And I'd like to think stu in some way, that my mission, which is to continue to serve and help our soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen through their most difficult legal troubles, is not all that different than your mission, which is to help them achieve their goals and physical fitness. And you continue to serve even after your time in uniform is done. And I just want you to know I greatly admire that.
[00:38:18] Speaker D: Oh, absolutely. I agree with you 100%.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Well, Stuart, it was great to have you on the show today.
Unfortunately, we bounced you all over the place. We got on one topic and then we changed it up on you.
I guess that's a good thing because the scope of what you do is so broad. But for those folks who want kind of a more comprehensive and structured and organized approach to these things we talked about would certainly encourage them to check out your website. And I believe that's stusmithfitness.com, is that correct?
[00:38:52] Speaker D: That is correct. There's some articles on there. There's a little search feature on there as well. You can search for what you're looking for. I write probably three to four articles a week, and I've been doing that for almost 20 years. So do the math on that. I have a couple of thousand articles out there and you can seriously find out something I've written about by just going to Google typing in a know, fitness related topic and put my name in it. And I probably have written something about it. If I haven't, email me. And that's right.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: That's right. We'll keep you sharp. But that was great. I do encourage everybody to check that out. We very much appreciate you being on the show today. Thank you again for your service to our country. And of course, you're welcome back anytime. I know you've got plenty of outlets and you're in high demand, but you're welcome to come back anytime, talk about current issues in your line of work. We would love to have you back, but thank you again. It's been great to have you on the and thank you so much. You're welcome, sir. Thank you. And so with that, we'll close out another episode of Military Justice Today. I'm Matt Stroziak here with Rob Capavilla and Stu Smith. We'll catch you all next time. Take care and be safe.
[00:40:13] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Military Justice Today podcast with your hosts Robert Capovilla and Mickey Williams. This show was made possible in part by the law firm of Capovilla and Williams. For more information or to listen to more episodes, visit militaryjusticetoday.com.
