A Marine at 20: My Son's Journey of Service, Sacrifice & Growth

Johnna's son Granger joined us today—his first podcast ever. He's 20 years old, wrestled for nine years (went to state all four years of high school), lost his finals match by one point, walked into the recruiter's office and signed the papers. Now he's an E4 corporal, an 0847 artillery sensor support Marine, and we're heading to his pinning ceremony in a week and a half.

What we discuss:

• The state finals decision—what Granger told himself about losing that match, the fence he was on senior year, and whether winning would've changed anything (spoiler: he says he probably still would have)
• The skull-dragging midnight scenario—what happened when they didn't make time setting up cami nets, the 50-yard crawl with full flack and Kevlar, and the hole-digging-until-you-find-water command his buddy got for saying "why"
• The third-class elimination proposal—what Granger and his buddy discussed at 29 Palms about bare minimums, the 26-minute three-mile problem, and why staff NCOs don't get held to the same standard
• The chow hall reality check—flies cooked into food, dry-ass chicken the size of your finger, plastic-bag eggs, and why some Marines are "super broke" because they won't eat there
• The respect-versus-rank struggle—what gets discussed about being bigger, having better PFT/CFT scores, knowing the job better than NCOs above you, and the forcing-versus-earning situation
• The future calculation—what Granger loves about what he's seen and done, the sweeping-stuff-under-the-rug problem at sergeant rank, and the one-person-can't-change-the-culture concern

This is about understanding what happens when you're 20 years old with zero military exposure except a recruiter (who's full of shit but doing their job), suddenly you're in management leading 19-year-olds, and nothing in the Marine Corps gets given to you. We're walking through the pain-versus-paperwork choice, the corporal-as-middle-management reality, and what families need to know about making the effort instead of expecting $500 flights home twice a year.