 The more competent, capable, smart friends you have, the better off you're gonna be. Hey everyone, Dylan Schumacher, Citadel Defense, and we are back to talk about American Minute Man teams. And the concept today that I want to talk to you about is having a deep bench and the importance of having a deep bench. Couple years ago, my wife and I took a constitutional class with the Constitutional Live Team Seminar, whatever, I don't know. You go and watch some DVDs instead of the Constitution and I would recommend it, it was informative, it was helpful. And one of the things that I learned in that class that I did not know was when the American Revolution happened under the British, America had an incredibly deep bench. I had always heard like the founding fathers and I thought that was like three guys or something, Washington and Adams and Jefferson and Franklin and maybe Madison, Hamilton maybe, like in which by the way, the vast majority of these guys are in their 20s at the time. You know, like some young, some guys, just some guys, like five, but it turns out that that was not the case and that that bench goes a lot deeper than I knew just because my American Revolutionary History apparently was not up to par. Learning about that deep bench was just super interesting because you just learn all these other players and people that have massive influence on our state and our Constitution and how things run here. For example, you probably never heard of Noah Webster. You have heard, however, of Webster Dictionary and that of course is from Mr. Noah Webster who was a rabid revolutionary and patriot or maybe you've never heard of, oh now I'm gonna screw his name up, I think it's John J. James or John J. The very first Supreme Court, head Supreme Court justice, right? And he has this great quote about the Americans need to study the Constitution and know it well so that they may protect and preserve their rights. I butchered it, but it's a brilliant quote. You should look it up. Point is, is you have all of these people who did all of this work. I mean, it's deep bench. We're talking like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 guys who were all committed patriots who understood what it was gonna cost them in order to do this, right? We had a deep bench. It wasn't just Washington going out there and slaying the British, right? It wasn't just Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson writing important letters. Like there was a lot of very competent, capable leaders who believed in what they're doing. And your team, your Minuteman team ideally should reflect that, right? What we need as American Minuteman is a deep bench. And I don't think that that means that we all have to be these fantastic, unbelievable, daring leaders, right? We're not all gonna be Leonidas. We're not all gonna be George Washington. We're not all gonna be Stonewall Jackson. Like we can't all be these super competent, supreme leaders who are just capable and inspiring and that's not gonna happen. But what we can all be is competent, capable, and knowledgeable, right? We can be competent with the skills we have. We can be capable to complete the tasks that we know we need to get done. And we can be knowledgeable about our topic, about being American Minuteman. And we can know our gear and we can know our tactics and we can know our team really well. And what I would tell you to do is on your team, start building that deep bench. When you go on your practice patrols, trade off who leads, right? Trade off who's the medic. Trade off who's your machine gun guy. Probably shouldn't have said machine gun guy. Yay, you know what I mean? Like the binary trigger thing. I don't know, that might be illegal by the time this video comes out depending on what law they make up tomorrow. Don't do anything illegal. I'm not telling you to be illegal. Trade off who the SPR guy is. Like trade off these different roles so that everybody builds a good competency, right? Or trade off who your radio operator is and cross train each other as much as you can, right? If you got guys, some guy who's a radio nerd, well have him prepare a one to two page kind of little 15 minute teaching session to help everybody else learn to become a little bit more of a radio nerd, right? Or you got some guy who's super into ballistics and likes to shoot things far away. Have him write up a one to two page thing or a little 15 minute deal to help explain that a little bit better than everybody else, right? So major on your major skill sets, right? If someone gravitates towards something and likes doing something, great. Have them go do that and then have them come back to the team with what they know and what they can do and what we can all, again, cross train each other to do. And if you're watching this and it's just you and a buddy, great, that's fine, whatever. Start working together and start trying to hit these different knowledge areas that are important, right? Start trying to train these different skills together. And as you pull in more people, again, that can go around, right? If you got someone who's really good at welding or a mechanic, you know, open up a car hood and start looking at it, right? We need a deep bench. And I think what that means is American Minute Man, that we're all gonna try to be as competent as we can in all of these important topics that we can that apply directly to our amateur interests here. I hope that this video is helpful because I think that it lowers the bar in the sense that you don't need to try to think you're gonna be this great charismatic person, right? Julius Caesar is a one in a trillion kind of human being, right? And Alexander the Great is a one in a trillion kind of human being. These people don't come along very often that are just incredibly inspiring, charismatic and knowledgeable and daring and full of leadership and gusto and vision and direction. People like that just are uncommon in history. And chances are, if you're watching this, not to insult you, that's not you. And that's okay. We don't need you to be that. What we need you to be is competent, capable and knowledgeable, right? We need to start building that deep bench. If you look at like the Roman army, for example, right? The Roman army, by and large, crushes all of its opponents. With a few exceptions here and there, right? But how many Roman people do you really know, right? You remind me of some emperors. You probably know who you've heard of Julius Caesar. Maybe you've heard of Scipio Africanus, right? But you've heard of a few, but you don't know all the people that made the Roman army so capable and competent, right? Because they had a deep bench. They had a lot of competency throughout the ranks and just the rank and file people, right? And they had Centaurians and all these other officers who just did a good job, right? So that's what we need. We need deep benches of competent, capable people. And if you look at like the modern American military machine, that's one of the things they try to do. They try to have a very competent NCO class, right? They try to really rely on their NCOs, which all good professional militaries do and should do. That's how we win wars. And so I think that's something that we should absolutely imitate and say how can we be building that deep bench in our Minuteman teams? And if you build a deep bench with your three or four guys and I build a deep bench with my three or four guys and Frank builds a deep bench with his three or four guys, right? Eventually that's gonna start to have a large impact. So this is nothing new. It's just a new way to look at it, right? At the end of the day, we need to get out there. We need to train. We need to read our books. We need to continue to advance our skill sets so that we can all be capable for our immediate team, right? And for the larger American Minuteman collective. So I hope that's helpful. Build your deep bench. Start training your guys, start training yourself and make sure you're as knowledgeable and capable and competent. And as many of those American Minuteman topics that are applicable to what we are trying to accomplish as you can be. I hope that's helpful. Do brave deeds and endure. Brilliant quote, you should look it up. Point is, is you have all of these people who did all of this work. I mean it's a deep bench. We're talking like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 guys.