A Tale of Two Marines: Ian Long and Dan Manrique

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

We need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast.

You know, whenever a a tragedy occurs like the Borderline shooting, we kinda scramble to try to figure out what the motive was. Why did the killer do this? Why would somebody commit such a heinous crime? And this week, it ran a little bit deeper. It ran a lot deeper.

Why? Because because the killer was one of us. The killer was a US Marine. His name was Ian Long. And in the aftermath of the shooting, after 12 people were killed, including a police officer and many other innocents, the commandant of the Marine Corps came on, and he said that Ian Long was no longer a marine.

He gave up that title as soon as he decided to commit this crime. And I think that, you know, in the aftermath, we saw a lot of different responses. We saw some people who were applauding General Neller for distancing the Marine Corps from this horrible act. Then we saw others who were a little bit discouraged by it, who said that General Neller missed a teachable moment here, a moment where he could have highlighted the struggles that so many veterans are going through, where he could have highlighted the fact that our veterans need help. And my opinion is this, I think that, number one, I'm not General Neller.

I don't have the an entire military branch hanging on my every decision and in my every word. But I'm also I'm also not Ian Long, and I don't know what was going on in his head. What I do know is this, that is that if we're going to learn anything from this situation, if we're going to take lessons from it that could potentially prevent something like this from happening in the future, if we're going to keep ourselves from going down that dark path. We have to admit to something, And that is that Ian Long was a marine. He did earn the eagle globe and anchor.

He did serve alongside other marines. And for us to say that he wasn't one of us, that that is missing out on a bit of knowledge that we can all gain that could keep something like this from happening again. And that knowledge comes from the fact that Ian Long wasn't the only marine who died that night. The other marine was a man named Dan Manrique. And Dan followed a very different path from Ian Long.

Dan was somebody who committed his life to service, both in and out of the United States Marine Corps. As I said, both of them were marines. Both of them wore the EGA. Both of them served in combat. But we got two different human beings and two very different results.

So let's explore that difference, and let's start by talking a bit about Dan Manrique. Because unlike Ian Long, Dan Manrique died a hero that night. Now why was he a hero? Well, Dan Manrique committed himself in his civilian life to keeping up the fight. You see, he had a lot of the same issues that we all have in adjusting to civilian life.

He was dealing with his own post traumatic stress. He was dealing with those intense feelings of loneliness and depression. He was dealing with the demons. They were there for him. But rather than retreating within himself, Dan sought out other people.

He found a tribe. And with Team Red, White and Blue, he started participating in their events. He met other veterans going through the same issues. And within a year after that, he was the local chapter president. He was organizing his own events, you know, putting on bowling events and athletic events for other veterans, trying to help other veterans to make it in the civilian world.

And his service extended beyond that. He was actually trying to help create initiatives to help the homeless. He met with Mayor Garcetti from Los Angeles and tried to figure out things to help the homeless veterans within LA. And Dan Manrique, he lived his life trying to help other people. You know, one of the things that was said about Dan Manrique after he died was that had he been alive and had he known Ian Long, he would have tried to help Ian Long.

He would have reached out a helping hand, and we he would have done anything he could to bring Ian Long back to living his life. And the contrast here is that Ian Long himself was a loner. He was said to have come to that same bar that he committed this crime in and and drink beer by himself. He spent long hours in his room by himself, and he had a lot of issues long before he ever entered the United States Marine Corps. So here's the contrast I I really want to to highlight here.

And and what I've done is I brought this down to to four things I think that we can all do to really keep ourselves from ever going down this path. And if you know somebody who who's on the edge, who who's heading down that lonely path, that path of darkness, these are things that you could try to get them to do. First one is this. And I kind of covered this already with with what we talked about with Ian Long, and and that is don't try to fight alone. Right?

You gotta find good people, and you gotta try to surround yourself with them. Now, I know that's that's a lot easier said than done. Right? I know that there's a lot of you out there who might be by your very nature, loners. I'm a loner.

But I've had to fight to really change that because even though I there's a lot of times where I I'd rather just be in my my room or my office just just hanging out by myself, I know that I need those social connections in order to to bring my mind back to the present, in order to to connect with people and to connect with people on a human level. And it's hard. It's probably one of the hardest things you'll ever do in your life is is trying to find good people and connect with them. But it's something you've got to commit yourself to for life. And, you know, there there's organizations out there like Team Red, White and Blue, that do put on events for veterans.

And these types of organizations can be a great gateway for you to finding a really good social circle filled with people who are trying to make their lives better, filled with other veterans who are going through some of the same things that you might be going through. So definitely check them out. You know, go to a meeting, to an event, find other people, like I said, who who are gonna help you to become a better version of yourself. It's so important. Equally important is is getting rid of anybody who's not helping you to become a better version of yourself.

Anybody who's toxic, anybody who's bringing you down and that might be scary because you might think that those negative people are your lifeline. You might think that those negative people are are the thing that that's helping you to hold the line. But if they're not helping you, if they're they're if they're leading you toward doing things that, you know, aren't close to your standard as to how you wanna live your life, you need to get rid of them. You need to find people who are going to bring you up. And like I said, I know that's easier said than done.

But it all starts by trying to find good people, trying to find a good circle, trying to find people who are going to bring you up. Once you're surrounded by those types of people, doesn't become that hard to get rid of the toxic ones in your life. You know, the next thing is is this and that is that you've got to find a purpose. And when people talk about finding a purpose, a lot of times they think of it as like this long quest where you're going off to find your purpose and you're coming up to a top of mountain and then you're going to sit in the lotus position and meditate for a while and all this stuff. But it's really simpler than that.

You got to find something that is around you and your immediate surroundings right now that you can do that'll give you a purpose. Now, if we look at Dan Manrique, he found his purpose and that purpose was helping other veterans. And he found that purpose by joining that group Team RWB. Right? And and when he joined that group, he quickly found things that he could do to add value.

And I think that when you approach one of these organizations, you approach a group of people, if you approach a club or or anything like that, you figure out a way that you could add value, whether that be by organizing events, whether that be by by helping other veterans within the group, whether that be by just offering up a little bit of advice to somebody who's down, that can definitely help you to find a purpose. Right? It doesn't have to be anything huge. It doesn't have to be anything earth shattering. It's just the simple act of reaching a helping hand out to others, and really, you know, finding purpose in the service of other people.

And Dan Manrique was a great example of that. The final thing is this. Take care of your body. Exercise, get outside, you know, move. When you feel better, life becomes so much better.

When you feel better, you put yourself in a much better mood. You release so many amazing, awesome, friendly chemicals that that can help to put you in a better mental state. But if you don't take care of yourself, if you allow yourself to depreciate, then you start to find that those dark feelings, they take on a little bit easier. They put yourself into a bit more of a depressive state. And, again, when you look at the life of Dan Manrique, you know, he he committed himself to exercising and to helping other veterans to exercise through his work at Team RWB.

You know? And again, guys, like I said, I'm not the be all end all of any of this stuff. I I didn't know either of these guys. I didn't know Ian Long. I didn't know Dan Manrique.

But the contrast is there. Right? Dan Manrique died a hero. Ian Long died a lonely villain. And I don't think that any of you are even remotely in danger of committing a crime that Ian Long did.

Right? There might be some of you out there who are. I don't know. But knowing veterans like I do, I know that most of them wouldn't ever want to to hurt innocent people. And I know that there are a lot of you, a lot of you out there who are struggling with demons that are as bad or worse than what Ian Long was struggling with.

And yet you fight on. You keep going. And for that, I love you. I love you like my brothers. And I consider it a privilege to get on each week onto this podcast to try to deliver some tools, some tactics, some strategy to help you along in your life.

And I just want you to keep fighting. And I want you to keep pushing. And I want you to keep making yourself into the best version of yourself that you can be. Why? Because the fight right now isn't a fight in uniform.

It's not a fight in war. The war is to live the best life that you possibly can in this life that you have. The war is in pushing yourself to keep living, And the war is in helping other veterans to live their best lives. So with that, guys, I wanna thank you for listening. If you have any thoughts or anything like that, feel free to contact me and let me know what you think.

And we'll be back at you later this week with some more of the Warrior Soul podcast.