09 Coach Rodo's Experience in the Military

In this episode of Winning Regardless, Coach Rodo offers a powerful, no-filter look at military service, busting myths and revealing how it can be a life-changing path for young people. This isn't your average veteran story—it's a raw and honest conversation about brotherhood, discipline, and finding your purpose.

Coach Rodo shares hilarious and emotional "sea stories" from his time in the Marine Corps, from a chest-hair-flicking barber to getting dragged away from the tide on the beach. But he also tackles the tough stuff, confronting the misconception that the military is only a hostile place for minorities and sharing how it forged accountability and success in his life. He even provides direct, actionable advice on choosing a military branch and reveals how a young employee of his earned a massive $75,000 signing bonus in the Air Force for cybersecurity. This is a must-watch for anyone considering their future, or for veterans who want to reconnect with the shared experience of service.

Key Discussion Points:

The Power of Brotherhood: Unfiltered stories of Coach Rodo’s Marine Corps buddies, including a $5 haircut from a surprisingly hairy barber.

A Frank Take on the "Bad" Side: Why the military is equally tough on everyone, regardless of race, and the lasting benefits that outweigh the challenges.

From High School Kid to Marine: A vivid account of the chaotic first night of boot camp and the mental breakdown-to-build-up process.

The $75,000 Bonus Story: How a young kid with no military aspirations got a massive signing bonus and a fast-tracked career in cybersecurity.

Choosing the Right Branch: Coach Rodo's personal rankings of the military branches and actionable advice for finding the right career path, with a playful warning about the Marine Corps.

Life Beyond Service: How the discipline, confidence, and travel opportunities of the military made Coach Rodo into the successful businessman he is today.

Transcript

Welcome everybody to another episode of Coach Rodo's podcast, Winning Regardless. Today, I wanted to talk about military experience and how great it is. And sometimes it's really not that great, but you find the good in most things that you try to do.

And what made me really talk about it was, you know, when the wife and I just, you know, first of all, I hope everybody had a great Labor Day weekend. You know, everybody enjoyed it or deserved it. And hopefully you enjoyed it and got to do what you wanted to do and catch up with people that you needed to catch up with, which is what made me talk about this subject of the military. My wife and I went down to Detroit and we got to hang out with my Marine Corps boys who we've been. ⁓

Let's see, we are joined the Marine Corps in 1989. We've all been friends since. so we had a little gathering this weekend. It was just nice to get together with them and just, you know, tell stories and, you know, hear, you know, stories of today that they're doing. And I mean, even though you talk about it and we're in a group text with like 20 of us, it's great to be with each other and hang out and

have different careers and talk about your career, but also you still go back to your time in the military together, talking about the things that you did, like, you know.

One of our buddies, used to cut our hair all the time. But the funny thing about him was he would always, he had a real hairy chest and he would always have his daggum skivvy shirt off, cutting your hair, playing with his chest hairs. we would talk about that and how there would be a line outside the barriers for a $5 haircut from him because he was the baddest one. And the thing about him is if you owed him a dollar, you gave him $4.

Excuse me, you better believe that in,

three or four days or three or four hours, he's gonna be like, hey, where that dollar at? know, I mean, just talking about stories like that that make you laugh or, you know, when you out on Libo and get, which is Liberty, when you get to get time off of, you know, whatever your duty is while you in, you know, getting drunk and at the E-Club and one of your guys being big enough to drag everybody up the beach just far enough so that when the tide comes in, we don't get drowned because we fell asleep on the beach. I mean, you know, those-

Those are some of the stories that we got to talk about and tell each other when we got together. in talking about our military experience, I ⁓ want people to know that in our culture, we're taught that the military is a bad place for us. ⁓ We're taught that it's not friendly.

towards, you know, minorities. And I want to contradict that because, you know, the military is bad to every f*cking body. Because you have one mission, so it didn't matter if you was white, black, red, green, yellow. Well, yeah, you was green. Everybody was green. So the white boys got just as much shit as the black boys, as the black dudes got. The Mexicans got just as much shit.

as everybody else. you know, when people tell you that the military isn't a good place for black kids, that might have been in the past because it was told to me by my uncles who served in Vietnam War, but...

I looked at what he had as a grownup. I looked at what the military did for him when he got out because serving your country, allowed him, even though they treated him like shit when they first came back from Vietnam, he was still able to go into the factory and also get a civil servant job as a postman. So he made good money on both ends, even though while he was in...

his military time wasn't the best for him. But you know, that was a different time. I can only go off of now and what I learned and the things that the military did for me. ⁓ One of the things the military did for me was it taught me I needed to be accountable. When I messed up, there were consequences in which...

outside in ⁓ real society, there are consequences for your actions, but these consequences were different. They started out with physical consequences, such as push-ups. You might get thrown in the locker room and get some hands put on you when you didn't do what you were supposed to do, and that was all part of boot camp, and that was our way of being hazed. ⁓

to conform and basically to learn the military way of how life is gonna be and how this is gonna work while you're here. And in order for you to be successful while you're here, you're going to need to do these things that we're telling you to do because there wasn't a choice once you joined in. again, as a kid coming out of high school, I needed it. I needed the structure that it...

gave me because ⁓ the very first night that we got there, ⁓ shit, you fly in, I mean at midnight, you land and you got...

these yellow footprints that you gotta stand on when you get off the plane, get off the bus. And you better be on them. They walk down and they make sure that you're on them. And then you go into this big ass barrack, like big ass center, they call it the receiving. And that's where they go through all of your paperwork, tell you what's gonna happen. And...

and give you your uniforms, or not your uniforms, but your candies, and ⁓ all the things you're gonna need for boot camp for that first 30 days. ⁓

You know, they line you up for your shots. You you're staying out of tension. You got a shotgun on each arm. So they give you a shot. know, I mean, imagine being a kid just getting off of the bus out of high school and you're coming into this and it was chaotic. I mean, you got guys screaming and yelling at you, but it was all part of the mental part of becoming a Marine or becoming...

a military service person because you had to understand that in order to be effective, they needed to break you down to build you back up. It was a weeding out process because you found out very early who could handle it and who couldn't. ⁓ You know, so we go through receiving and, you know, we get to our platoons for boot camp and you start to make friends, you know, you start to meet people from...

different parts of the states. You meet Native Americans that are from Idaho. You meet guys that are from Utah. You meet guys from Chicago. You meet guys from right there in California, from Washington. You meet guys from all over. through those trials of boot camp, you guys sort of develop a relationship, become friends. So. ⁓

You know, you go into other parts of training and eventually some of those friends will go a different place than you will. So that friendship that you had while you were in boot camp, have to, now you have to find other friends because now you're going to your duty station. ⁓ The military taught me how to make those friends, how to find the commonality because, you know, coming from I come from, you know, you...

our neighborhood, really wasn't that many white people. mean, we had some, we had a lot of, we had a few white friends that we kicked, wouldn't play with, went to high school with a lot of, had a lot of them in high school, but it wasn't, ⁓ other than seeing each other in school and things of that sort, we didn't like hang out at each other houses and, know. ⁓

play basketball in the neighborhood with each other, you know. They went to their house, they went to our, or they went to their house, we went to ours. And then when we got in school, we was friends. So the military made an adjustment real quick. You weren't, first of all, you really weren't allowed to have, you were allowed, but they kind of made sure that you didn't have the same race of a roommate.

You know, that was a way of breaking you down and teaching you that you green. And I remember I had a guy that was from Nebraska. His name was Sadowski from Russia, but he was he was from Nebraska. And, you know, he never interacted with black people. And it was funny because, you know, his first interaction, was standoffish with me. But as I got to know him, it was because he said I never interacted. So I didn't know how you.

received me. And I was kind of standoffish because I didn't know him. So, you know, the military changed my perception of people. And I think that our kids could benefit from those types of lessons that I learned. Learning to be accountable, learning to how to be broken down and how to be built back up. ⁓

you know, how to be disciplined, you know. The problem I think that we have with the military and our kids is because they watch TV and they hear stories from people who didn't have successful military careers, you know, because there's a lot of us who really did. mean...

Yeah, it fucked me up and it did something to me, but it also created something in me, created something out of me because where I am in life, I cannot contribute it to any, I cannot go without adding the Marine Corps to my contribution to where I am in life. The Marine Corps played a big part because there's a thing when you get in the Marine Corps, the one thing that you don't want is a dishonorable discharge, you know?

You don't want Article 11s, which is like taking your money away. You get 11 days barracks duty, which is like, it's a shit detail. Whenever they need working parties, you might be going to build Quonson huts, or you're going to clean and everything is clean. You're going to look up cigarette butts in the goddamn sand. And the sand, as long as the eye can see. When you got Article 11s, they gave you, not only did they take your money, but for 15 days,

you had the worst jobs you could have. So it was teaching you punishment based on not following the rules that were given to you that were clearly provided to you. in real society, there's a different consequence. They took money away to show you that.

in society that, you know, they take your money away, but they take your job too. And then depending on what you do, you can, you know, end up incarcerated. Again, where I was at is you didn't want, also you didn't want to get dishonorable discharge because pretty much it's over for you when you get out because that meant that you didn't have the discipline to do what it

what you were told first of all, or what it took to be a productive member of the military. So society would see it the same way. Society would say, if you couldn't do it in the military, then what makes you think you're going to do it out here? And most of the times you don't get those chances because the military is supposed to discipline you so that you can, when you go and you do become a productive member of society, even though that's not the case for some.

It's not the case for all, it's the case for most of us. ⁓ Another thing that the military did is it, as a kid, not going places. ⁓ Man, I got to do a lot of travel and we got to.

You know, we got to see Japan. I got to see Australia. I got to see, you know, some places that I didn't want to see. You know, but ⁓ I mean, I got to go to North Carolina. I mean, really, as a kid, 18-year-old kid who'd never been out of Michigan, you know, I mean, seriously, that was a big deal, you know, going to train down in Florida, going to train in Texas, you know, having all of these big dreams as a kid and...

When you get to the military, even though you don't ask for them, some of them become real. You know, mean, ⁓ it was fun playing with the TENS unit, which is like you have war games. It was an army against the Marine Corps, and we'd have these like, like with paint guns, you shoot the paintball, but with these TENS units, with this like laser tag. ⁓

So we would always love it when we go down. mean, you you get such a sense of accomplishment and confidence when you go down there and whoop the Army's ass, you know, and, you know, you come back and say, yeah, that's why I joined the Marine Corps because I wanted to be the best. But that's with every branch of service. You know, my buddy that was on, that was in the Air Force, you know, he thought the same thing about the Air Force, you know, and you look at the things that the Air Force did for him. He came up

hearing the same stories of going into the military and never dreamed of being an air traffic controller.

things that the military can teach you to do. We think when we go into the military, because again, it's what our kids see on TV, they only see the war part, but they don't see that you can actually go in and start a career there. You can actually go in and go to school for free. You can go in, learn to battle, but also learn how to fix motors on big trucks. You can also go in and...

learn how to battle, also learn how to fuel trains, which makes $100,000 a year, because fueling planes is not an easy job. You also can go in and learn how to disarm an enemy, but also how to wire a building with electricity. There is so many things that you can learn in the military, and they'll pay for it.

because it'll become what you do. It'll become your MOS. It'll become your job if you qualify for it when you take that ASVAPT. I had a kid that worked for me here. His name is Tyjohn O'Brien, great kid. Knew him since he was seven years old. Gets out of high school. He's going to college. And I just said, know, because I knew him since he was a kid and great kid.

come work for me. he, know, young kid, 19, came work for me. At 26, he sat me down and said, I've been thinking about the Air Force. And I told him I thought that the Air Force would be great for him. Well, not only did this motherf*#er take the ASVAB, but he scored so high on it, without even knowing that he was going to, he scored so high on it that when he went in, he got like a $70,000 bonus.

⁓ That's $75,000 in your pocket for joining the United States Air Force. So not only did he go in, but he was good at cybersecurity because that's what he did for me. You know, he didn't start out being good at cybersecurity. We helped get him the training. He did it so well for us, decided to give it a shot in the Air Force. three years, which when...

the when the when when when Homeland Security came to my office to ask me about this young man getting his security clearance, which is one of the which I have, which is a high, classification you have to have in the government and getting it as a as a three year guy in the Air Force is incredible. And and so not only are we talking about that, but then the guy hits the Homeland Security guy hits me with, yeah.

And he's a staff sergeant. I said, a who? A staff sergeant. Well, you know, you don't get to be staff sergeant until like your fifth, sixth year in the Air Force. This motherf*#ker did it in three. Again, when he gets out, if he chooses to, he can start his own business doing cybersecurity, making a shit ton of money. Never gave the Air Force a thought. Never gave the military a thought.

when he graduated high school, never gave it a thought when he came to work for a veteran owned small business. But as he started working for a veteran owned small business and seeing the benefits of it from me, seeing the friendships that I've acquired, seeing the level of respect that us service people get, ⁓ he said, I think that's what I want to do. And that's what he did. And he is excelling in it.

You know, and I, again, he came to me and he asked my advice and I told him the military is a great place if you need to find something to get you started.

you may end up being a lifer. That's what happened with my buddy that was at Air Force, you know, who was on, like he said, I didn't have aspirations of being a career guy. You know, I didn't choose the Air Force for my career. The Air Force chose me by making it, ⁓ you know, fun and making it, you know, exciting and being able to be in different places in the world and being able to learn new things, you know.

The military can help kids, especially our kids who don't really know if they want to do the college thing or don't know if they're cut out for college. You can go into the military and you can learn whatever you want to be, if it's your trade, while you're in there. You go into school every day while you're working on your while you're working your MOS, because that's your job.

while you're in. And then the thing about it is you can transfer to other places. You can transfer just like you would a job. You can transfer after so and so, after two or three years of working at this base and your time is coming up and they ask you to rent a list and they throw some money at you. You can go to another place that you perhaps wanted to go. thing I want our young...

people to understand is that the military has infinite possibilities for us. that doesn't, you know, any kid who doesn't know what they want to do and have five years to spare, four years to spare, but you want to make money at the same time, but you also want to learn the skill, you also want to learn discipline, you also want to learn the...

do what the military did for me, was made me feel good about who I was. And it really, really emphasized the love that I had for myself because of the accomplishment. I always was accomplished in sports. But when I got into the military,

I learned that I was way more accomplished in so many other things. Like, I didn't know I was as good of a shooter as I was. I didn't know that I was as good at navigating. I learned when we, you know, when you have to go out into the field, which is when you're going to camp, what y'all call camping, you know, I didn't know that, you know, when they drop us off anywhere, I was good enough to have picked up and learned how to navigate to get my...

my platoon back or my squad back to, you know, home base. didn't. And it was fun. I didn't know that even though I hate it now camping, but I didn't know bivvacking could be what it was. I didn't know building snow castles to keep warm igloos, but there's no castles to keep warm and you do stay warm in them because some you see on TV, you never I mean, it's just as a kid from the neighborhood.

and kids that are from the neighborhood who are lost, but they qualify to get into the military. I would suggest that you, you know, try it, but understand that if you do, it does come with stipulations. You do have to do your time. You're not gonna like every minute of it. I'm not saying that I did, but I can't think. It's been so long that I can't think of the bad times I had at the Marine Corps, but I can think of...

every damn good time. And it was a lot of them. And that tells you that it's all about what you take from it. Because it's going to give you some stuff. And it's going to take some stuff. But it's all about also what you give it and what you take from it.

You know, I believe that, you know, kids, you go in and learn how to be disciplined. If you don't have any self-discipline, they can teach you, you know, learn how to listen to somebody else, how to take direction, learn how to respect authority, men authority. That's our problem. We always think that authority is taking away our freedom in some way of being.

an individual when it's not. Sometimes authority is what we need to keep us from f*cking up. You know, because usually authority is given to a person who has already been where you're headed and they're trying to keep you from getting there, but we don't see it as that. We see it as...

somebody taking away our freedom of thought and our freedom of being a person when that's not the case. Because if you join the military, you're to have to learn to deal with authority because everything is a ranking system. And that makes it easier. however, man enough or young man enough to accept that authority, to accept the criticism, to accept the punishment, but also to accept the accolades and the

the praise that is very, very minimal that you get. Because the praise that I got was the feeling in myself of accomplishment in the Marine Corps. It was the few and the proud. And I truly believe that, and I still do today believe that. We're only the few and the proud. There's only a few of us. And it's a tough thing to go through and a tough thing to do. However...

If you're strong enough mentally, strong enough physically, it becomes an easy thing to do. The hardest part, again, is accepting authority. If you were a kid who had issues in school with, you know, your principals and your teachers in the military, be good. Because the thing that you'd have to understand that if you took a job, you can't have an issue with your boss or you ain't f*cking getting paid. You can't have an issue with your boss's secretary or you ain't gonna have a job.

You know, the military will calm you down as a young child or a young man going into it looking for what they think they need to survive and become productive in society. It is not what it used to be. They give you good bonuses for going in.

There's an ASVAB test that you, now listen, if you hear it, don't go running out and signing up and this, that, and the third. There's an ASVAB test you have to take to see what branch, let's say you go to the Army, well, to qualify in certain positions, you have to have a certain score. Air Force, you have to have a certain score overall to even get to look at the jobs.

Find those things out. Find out what scores you might need to be able to perhaps do whatever you had in your... I want to do electrician. ⁓ Find out what score you need to have when you signing up for the military to ⁓ attain that MOS. Now, I'm gonna tell you, don't go into the Marine Corps, because the only thing that we're taught to do is kill a motherf*#ker. That's it.

We got motor T, we got mechanics and things of that sort, but for the most part, your first MOS is going to be infantry. Kill it, motherf*#kers. Now, I always say Air Force is one for me, Navy is two. The ⁓ other ones, they fall right after that. So then it would be the Army and the Marine Corps, Coast Guard.

you know, National Guard, you know, if you like the water, Coast Guard is great. If you, you know, again, if you're a black kid that wanted to see the ocean, if you're a minority kid, if you're just a kid, period, you know, wanna, it doesn't matter what, again, it doesn't matter what f*cking race you are. If you're just a kid, period, that wants to see some things but don't know how to do it.

The military is a great way to help you get to see those things. You can join the Coast Guard, go right down there in Florida and be patrolling along them damn oceans and the water in Miami. See all the people, the women in the bikinis and you in your uniform and go down there to Tampa. ⁓

bases down there, all along the Gulf Coast, Louisiana. The Coast Guard offers great for people who want to see the water and do be amphibious. That's a service that I never thought about going in because most of us don't swim, but I could swim. Had I thought about it, I probably would have went just to be on the beach because I love the beach.

But that's not the route I chose. So in closing, I just want everyone to know, especially my young people out there, if you have a dilemma as far as what your choice is in life, and you have four or five years to spare, Air Force is two. ⁓

Why not, you know, explore the military and get paid at the same time you're exploring yourself? Why not, you know, ⁓ see what it has to offer, see what it can give you, see what it can turn you into? I mean, hell, it took a person like me and turned me into a businessman. Never would have thought it in my life, but hell, that's where I'm at now. I'm pretty daggum happy. ⁓ In closing, I would like to tell everyone, you know... ⁓

Thank you for giving me your time and listening. Again, Irrad and Marine Corps, ⁓ military, great place to be, great place to work, great place to learn, great place to grow. Thank you for taking the time to listen to Coach Rodo's podcast, winning regardless. And you can find us anywhere you listen to your podcast. Have a good day.