The Unbreakable Chain of Douglas Munro
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At the heart of every mission, there's an unshakable force that stands ready day and night. That's you, the one who rises before dawn to meet every challenge head on. At American Military University, we understand the demands of military life and the challenges you face. Our programs provide the flexibility you need to succeed.

both in service and in life. And when times get challenging, AMU is here for you with 24-7 mental health support. Always prepared. That's you. Learn more at amu.apus.edu. Hello, hello. Before we get on with our show, I want you to know that your Pushkin Plus subscription grants you early access to Medal of Honor episodes one week before they're released to the public.

That's one week of exclusive access. If you want to listen to more episodes a week before they're widely available, sign up for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts or by visiting pushkin.fm slash plus. Now, on to the episode. On a warm day in spring 1943, a woman stepped forward, raised her right hand and took an oath.

She was dressed in a neatly tailored uniform, sharp shoulders, an insignia pin on each lapel. Her dark hair was carefully curled, her mouth a slash of red lipstick. She was in her late 40s, slim with perfect posture. Her face was lined with grief. Just an hour before, she'd received the Medal of Honor on behalf of her only son. He had been a member of the Coast Guard, killed in battle at just 22 years old.

It was the middle of wartime, so there was no big medal ceremony. She had met with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in the Oval Office. From behind his desk, FDR had dropped the medal into her outstretched hand. And then she traveled three short blocks to the headquarters of the United States Coast Guard, where she stood and swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.

It was the same promise her son had made. He'd given his life to serve his country. Now his mother was entering the fight. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, and this is Medal of Honor, Stories of Courage. The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration in the United States, awarded for gallantry and bravery in combat at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty.

Each candidate must be approved all the way up the chain of command, from the supervisory officer in the field to the highest office in our nation. Not just approved by the Secretary of Defense. It has to be agreed to by the President. This show is about those heroes, what they did, what it meant, and what their stories tell us about the nature of courage and sacrifice.

Today we're telling the story of Douglas Monroe. Out of the 250,000 members of the United States Coast Guard who served in World War II, he was the only one awarded a Medal of Honor. In fact, he is still the only member of the Coast Guard to have gotten the medal because of one simple fact. In 1942, he saved an estimated 500 Marines from death on the island of Guadalcanal. And yes, yes, you heard that right.

The story of Doug's heroism is told to every man and woman who joins the United States Coast Guard. The Coast Guard's headquarters are named after him. A legend-class cutter ship is, too. He's the only non-Marine honored in the Wall of Heroes at the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

And every year for the past five decades, the Navy League has given out the Douglas A. Monroe Inspirational Leadership Award to the person whose leadership and selflessness reflects the essence of who Doug was. And there's a reason that his story resonates so deeply. It's about more than what he did that day in Guadalcanal.

Usually, the Medal of Honor celebrates a particular kind of leader, the lone man out on the front lines. In this episode, I want to think about a different kind of leadership, a quieter kind, one that isn't built on enforcing a hierarchy, but on the opposite, service to others, and a depth of connection that lasts for decades. The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR addressed Congress.

December 7th, 1941, a date which will live in infamy. The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan. Japan had launched attacks on Hong Kong, the Philippines, Guam, Wake Island, and Midway. It was war. As commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy,

I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. All this set the stage for the conflict Doug Monroe would find himself in. Right away, the military focused on the Pacific Ocean.

It was a race between the Japanese forces and the Allies to dominate strategic South Pacific islands, because whoever controlled those would control the supply and communications lines between the US and our allies in Australia. One of America's first targets was the Solomon Islands, a tiny chain a thousand miles east of Papua New Guinea. In particular, a small airfield on the biggest of those islands.

Japanese troops were already there, gaining a stronger foothold by the day. The Americans had to stop their progress.

In the early hours of August 7, 1942, a fleet of more than 50 U.S. Navy warships silently converged on the Solomon Islands. As the sun rose, Allied planes bombed the enemy. Then, Marines stormed ashore. Within a couple of days, the smaller islands were under Allied control, but not Guadalcanal. The Allies secured the airfield, but the enemy soldiers just regrouped, moving back further inland.

Japanese aircraft tangled with Navy flyers overhead, dropping bombs on battleships and transport boats. The U.S. was losing valuable planes and warships, so the naval aircraft carrier fleet decided to withdraw from the battle days before they were supposed to. With no air cover, the remaining ships were dangerously exposed, bombed constantly. So the rest of the battleships had no choice but to retreat to safety as well. Here's the thing.

The Solomon Islands campaign was a logistical nightmare, thousands of miles away from Allied land. When the battleships retreated, they left so fast they took half the supplies for Guadalcanal with them. Food, medicine, equipment, the works. The remaining troops were essentially stranded. They were going to have to make do with what little they had for weeks.

The military planners had optimistically named the Solomon Islands invasion Operation Watchtower. But as the Marines started scavenging for gear and food, they renamed it Operation Shoestring. It would prove to be one of the trickiest, most disorganized, and most lethal battlegrounds of the entire war.

The allied forces on Guadalcanal came down with dengue fever and dysentery. There were clouds of malaria-bearing mosquitoes. And most crucially, they faced an enemy whose home country was much, much closer, which meant that the Japanese were constantly getting fresh troops. If the U.S. couldn't hold its operation together on a logistical level, there was no chance of victory.

And at Guadalcanal, responsibility for the most important logistical question of all, moving men into battle, fell to the Coast Guard, and one man in particular. The only member of the Coast Guard ever to win a Medal of Honor, Douglas Monroe. Doug Monroe was born in 1919 and grew up in the little town of South Clay Elum, Washington. He did all the usual all-American kid stuff.

Boy Scout, basketball, terrific dancer. A skinny kid with slick back hair and a big devilish grin. But he was maybe best known for one thing, his friendships. He always had super close pals, and that gift for connection extended to a deep sense of community. He was in the Bugle Corps, and he volunteered to play taps at the South Clay Elm Cemetery to honor local veterans. His oldest sister, Patricia, remembers it well.

And he used to go out up at the cemetery on Veterans Day, and he would go way out in the woods, and he would play the echo on the bugle to taps. And he said he used to enjoy doing that for the vets. This, to me, is a quintessential Doug story. He's doing something out of a sense of duty and obligation for a group of people, but they can't even see him. It's not about the recognition.

This was during the Great Depression, remember, and the little town of South Clay Ellum was hit hard. So Doug recruited one of his best buddies, Mike Cooley, to gather and split firewood and deliver it to people who couldn't afford it. Then he watched as the war began in Europe. He already had the instinct to serve his country. His mom, Edith, came from a military family. One of her brothers had fought in World War I and served for years as a lieutenant colonel in the Canadian Army.

But the idea of her son willingly enlisting came as a rather unwelcome surprise. When Doug mentioned it one night at dinner, she dropped her fork under her plate. He knew enough to change the subject. But Doug was undeterred. The only question to him was which arm of the military to join. So he had pals in various branches of the service who wanted him to come with them. And he checked it all out and he said he was going to join the Coast Guard because he said they saved lives.

Saving, not taking lives. That's what Doug believed in. And that's what the Coast Guard had been doing since 1915. It was and still is the smallest of the armed forces, a nimble force focused on marine safety, search and rescue, maritime law enforcement. If the Navy ruled the seas, the Coast Guard protected them. Doug joined up, and so did a young man named Ray Evans. Here's Ray.

They called me back in September and said, are you still interested? We've got seven openings. And I said, yes, I am. When I got to the federal building on September 18th, Doug Monroe was there. And that's how it started. That's how it started. Doug met Ray, the man who would be his best friend and the person who would be in the boat with him the day he saved those 500 Marines. We'll get to that after the break.

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So start protecting your identity today. Save up to 40% off your first year of LifeLock identity theft protection. Go to LifeLock.com slash metal to save 40% off. Terms apply. The most innovative companies are going further with T-Mobile for Business.

Tractor Supply trusts 5G solutions from T-Mobile. Together, we're connecting over 2,200 stores with 5G business internet, powering AI so team members can match shoppers with the products they need faster. Together with Delta, T-Mobile for Business is putting 5G into the hands of ground staff so they can better assist on-the-go travelers with real-time information.

By leveraging the nation's largest 5G network, Delta aims to improve operations across nearly every part of the journey, from check-in and boarding to departure, arrival, baggage handling, and beyond. Tractor Supply, Delta, and T-Mobile for Business are all passionate about connecting people and places while delivering exceptional customer experiences along the way. These partnerships are paving the way for unprecedented innovation,

Learn more about taking your business further by visiting T-Mobile.com slash now. This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. Hey, have you heard the news? Sauron has returned in season two of Lord of the Rings, the Rings of Power.

If you didn't see season one, you need to check it out. It's epic. And season two looks to build on that. If last season was all about the heroes, then this season is all about the villains. And I mean, who doesn't want to see the greatest villain of all time in action? So like I mentioned, Sauron is back. He's forging the rings of power. You get to see how powerful they really are. Nobody in Middle-earth is safe.

Okay, so I know a bunch of you have been counting down until this comes out, but really, this is a show anybody will love. If you love action, fantasy, or drama, you'll love Rings of Power. It's got it all, seriously. So don't miss any of the elf, wizard, or Harfoot fun. Season 2 of Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power, premieres on August 29th, only on Prime Video.

Just before his 20th birthday, Doug Monroe joined the Coast Guard and met Ray Evans. He and Ray were inseparable. They were so close that everyone referred to them as the Gold Dust Twins. In those days, the soap was called the Gold Dust Twins, you know, they had the twins on the label, and that's what they called us. They many times couldn't tell us apart. I mean, we didn't look alike, but they would mix us up. The U.S., meanwhile, was inching ever closer to war.

In 1941, the Navy, preparing for the conflict, tapped a Coast Guard to train on their best weapon for amphibious warfare: Higgins boats. Higgins boats had just been developed as a new way to get troops and needed supplies onto beaches quickly and nimbly. "You all know by now the nature of amphibious war, a combined land and sea operation against the enemy."

Landing craft furnished that vital link between sea and shore, between the transports and the enemy beach. You could run them right up on the sand. They're those boats you see in D-Day footage. They could hold 36 fully armed men, with a ramp at the front to let the troops off quickly and two machine guns at the rear. The problem was that the Navy crews couldn't handle maneuvering the little Higgins boats into the surf. It just wasn't what they did.

Coast Guardsmen, however, were the most expert small boat handlers in government service. So, in an amphibious attack, the Coast Guard wasn't just part of the battle. Without them, there wouldn't have been a battle at all. It wasn't the most glamorous role, of course. It's all logistics, no glory. But glory wasn't what the Coast Guard was about. Connection was.

Doug raised his hand to be part of the Higgins boat training. He always wanted to be more useful. Ray volunteered as well. And according to Ray, Doug wasn't just great at it. He was legendary. They called those specialized sailors coxswains. Coxswain is spelled like it ought to be pronounced Coxwayne. But actually, it's an old English word. Like a lot of old English words, it's pronounced in a totally nutty way.

Like Worcestershire sauce. Look it up. Is that how you thought Worcestershire is spelled? Anyway, coxswain has an old English definition. It means literally boat servant. And that makes sense. A coxswain is the person who steers the boat and is responsible for taking care of everyone on the boat. It's a mix of two things, a leader and a servant. These days, if you're in the business world, you've probably heard it called servant leadership.

But if you were in the Coast Guard world, it didn't come with all the business branding. It was just something that you did. I mean, here's Admiral Linda Fagan, Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. I define leadership as showing up as confidence leavened with humility and creating the environment where others can succeed and eliminating any barriers to their success.

Linda Fagan is just a badass, the first woman to lead the Coast Guard. But she's not talking about barking orders and basking in the glory. She's talking about creating an environment where leaders serve others and create positive change. That's the Coast Guard in a nutshell, protecting people. And in doing so, making connections that become part of a lasting, long-reaching chain of good works.

It's a creed that came naturally to Doug, and he was about to have to put it to test at Guadalcanal. It was six weeks into the invasion of Guadalcanal. Supplies were short, and men were surviving on rice and dried fish the Japanese troops had left behind. There were torrential rains, swarms of black flies and mosquitoes, leeches and scorpions, crocodiles. Doug Monroe's friend Ray Evans remembers exactly how bad it was.

You ended up with malaria. And there was a lot of dysentery and dengue fever. It's jungle, you know. It was a mean place. It was a mean place. The Goldust twins both had malaria, but it didn't seem to slow them down. They built themselves a little house out of scrap materials and packing boxes, one of the only houses on the base with actual screens in the windows.

Doug was in charge of Guadalcanal's contingent of Higgins boats and was the go-to person whenever anyone had questions about them. The Marines loved him, how skilled he was, how seriously he took the responsibility of protecting them. Everyone trusted him as a leader, despite the fact that he was only 22. But it was clear that things on Guadalcanal couldn't keep going the way they were going. The Allies worried that the Japanese forces might eventually get strong enough to run them off the island.

So the commanding officers decided it was time to take decisive action. On September 27, 1942, the Marines launched an attack on enemy-held territory along the Matanico River at a spot called Point Cruz. The next thing I know, a commander is telling us that, Doug and I, that they were going to send this battalion, I guess it was a battalion of Marines, to land at Point Cruz.

The Marines loaded onto the Coast Guard's little Higgins boats and they headed out. Things went sideways from the start. The troop transports couldn't land where they were supposed to. Unfortunately, we were supposed to land at the head of the cove and we found the coral would not allow us to do that, so we had to make an abrupt right turn and land on the beach.

The fleet of boats led by Doug dropped the Marines and headed back to base. The men who landed were supposed to meet up with two other of the groups of Marines, the 5th and the Raiders, but those two groups couldn't make it to the meeting point. They had been decimated and driven back by Japanese troops. Because here's the thing, the Allies had thought there were only roughly 400 enemy soldiers on the whole island. They were closer to 4,000.

The Marines had been dropped into a situation that was way worse than they imagined. The Japanese had anticipated their arrival and prepared battalions of infantry and machine guns on the ridge overlooking their landing site. William Shanahan, one of the Marines who was there that day, remembers it clearly. The Japanese had moved in behind us, between us and the beach, so we were effectively trapped there.

Shots were coming from every corner. Motor shells exploded all around them, blasting men through the air. Their leader, Major Rogers, was killed instantly. And then a seemingly endless number of Japanese soldiers was coming over the hill. Even worse, the Marines didn't have any way to call for help. Here's another Marine who was there that day, Mack McLeod. We didn't bring a radio with us.

And we didn't know that the 5th Marines couldn't get across and that the Raiders couldn't get across. So, in effect, we were laying there before God, man, and everybody without any help. But the Marines are nothing if not resourceful, right? They took off their white undershirts and spelled out HELP on the ground. And a dive bomber flying overhead saw it. Doug and Ray had just gotten back to the base when they saw their commander running towards them.

He was waving a piece of paper and yelling something they couldn't hear over the throttle of the engines. Doug turned to Ray with a sardonic smile and said, whatever he's yelling about, it ain't good. The commander wanted to know, would they be willing to go back and rescue the Marines? It wasn't an order. It was a question. Word came down that they had to be evacuated. And so back we go.

As usual, Doug led the boats, a group of about 10 landing craft. He knew exactly what kind of nightmare he was going into. And the beach at that time was just the most chaotic place you would ever imagine with all the shells falling in, machine gun fire, water fire. And nobody in his right mind would start a boat to come in voluntarily to get us. But they did. They came in.

As the landing craft approached the beach, enemy mortar fire caused giant eruptions of seawater that towered over the Higgins boats. One hit, another. Doug and Ray were in the same boat, and they braced themselves as the water crashed down on them. Machine gun fire strafed the hull. One of the other boats pulled next to Doug and Ray, and someone yelled that they should return to base. Doug pointed his finger at the beach and yelled back, We're not leaving them there. We're going in.

The group of boats pulled as close to the shore as they could get. Within minutes, nearly 500 Marines poured out of the jungle and dove into the water. They were exhausted, dragging the dead and the wounded. And they were still under attack from Japanese machine guns along one side of the beach.

So Doug positioned his craft in between the incoming enemy fire and the Marines. He pointed the boat's machine gun to shore and began firing at the enemy and giving the Marines cover as they swam to the waiting boats. Doug said, we had two air-cooled Lewis machine guns between us.

So we elected to stay on one boat with the two guns and act as kind of a covering fire while we sent the rest of the boats in to load these people. Here's William Shanahan again. Our people would have been sitting ducks going out to the boats. And so when he engaged them, it gave us the leeway to get the rest of our people off the beach.

The boats were finally loaded with the rescued Marines. They started back to base. Doug and Ray were the last to leave. But as they turned around, they realized one of the boats had gotten stuck on a coral reef. Those Marines were back in the water, trying to rock it loose, back in the line of fire again.

Doug steered his boat over to help. They had to move quickly. The enemy was repositioning their guns, getting them in their sights. Finally, the boat was free. But then... I saw this line of water spouts coming across the water, and I yelled at Doug to get down. He couldn't hear me over the engine noise. A stream of bullets ran across the surface of the ocean, straight towards their boat. And it hit him. It was one burst of fire.

Doug was shot in the back of the neck, at the base of his skull. He crumpled to the deck. Ray took the wheel and raced the boat back to base. He drove it up on the beach, and then he knelt down and cradled his best friend's head in his lap. Doug opened his eyes. He said, did they get off? And that's about all he said. Then he died. I don't think he ever heard me answer. That's the kind of guy he was. He wanted to complete things.

Doug wanted to finish the mission he had volunteered to lead. He made certain the men were ferried home to safety. He was serving those men in his boat, the men on the beach. Even when he couldn't stand at the wheel, he was still acting on their behalf, the definition of a servant leader. Without him and the leadership that he exhibited in bringing those boats in and assembling them to begin with and bringing them in, it saved a hell of a lot of lives, including my own.

These powerful stories of those who helped protect our country are brought to you by LifeLock, the pioneer and leader in identity theft protection.

Now you may think, I'm smart, I'm careful with my data, I don't need to worry. But the truth is, a lot of your personal information is in the control of others, like your doctor's office, your bank, your insurance provider. All it takes is one breach of any organization that has your info and you could become a victim of identity theft.

LifeLock is a leader in identity theft protection and empowers you to take control of your identity, alerting you to more uses of your personal information and fixing identity theft if it happens. Guaranteed. Or your money back. LifeLock offers extensive, proactive protection, and all plans include the LifeLock Million Dollar Protection Package.

So start protecting your identity today. Save up to 40% off your first year of LifeLock identity theft protection. Go to LifeLock.com slash metal to save 40% off. Terms apply. The most innovative companies are going further with T-Mobile for Business.

Tractor Supply trusts 5G solutions from T-Mobile. Together, we're connecting over 2,200 stores with 5G business internet, powering AI so team members can match shoppers with the products they need faster. Together with Delta, T-Mobile for Business is putting 5G into the hands of ground staff so they can better assist on-the-go travelers with real-time information.

By leveraging the nation's largest 5G network, Delta aims to improve operations across nearly every part of the journey, from check-in and boarding to departure, arrival, baggage handling, and beyond. Tractor Supply, Delta, and T-Mobile for Business are all passionate about connecting people and places while delivering exceptional customer experiences along the way. These partnerships are paving the way for unprecedented innovation.

Learn more about taking your business further by visiting T-Mobile.com slash now. This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. Hey, have you heard the news? Sauron has returned in season two of Lord of the Rings, the Rings of Power.

If you didn't see season one, you need to check it out. It's epic. And season two looks to build on that. If last season was all about the heroes, then this season is all about the villains. And I mean, who doesn't want to see the greatest villain of all time in action? So like I mentioned, Sauron is back. He's forging the rings of power. You get to see how powerful they really are. Nobody in Middle-earth is safe.

Okay, so I know a bunch of you have been counting down until this comes out, but really, this is a show anybody will love. If you love action, fantasy, or drama, you'll love Rings of Power. It's got it all, seriously. So don't miss any of the elf, wizard, or Harfoot fun. Season 2 of Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power, premieres on August 29th, only on Prime Video. Doug Monroe saved an estimated 500 Marines the day he died.

He was two weeks shy of his 23rd birthday. Three weeks later, on the afternoon of October 19th, Edith Monroe looked out her living room window and saw three uniformed officers, two Navy and one Coast Guard, approaching her front door. They knocked. She pretended not to hear it. Doug's father, James, entered the room. They knocked again. Edith begged James not to open the door. She knew what this visit meant.

Edith waited until the officers had left before she broke down in tears. She wanted to channel her grief into something positive, to honor her son's service. In November of that year, she learned that the Coast Guard would start accepting women in their ranks. They called them spars. Edith immediately asked to join. She was 47, a grieving Gold Star mother. The Coast Guard brass were skeptical, to say the least.

But Doug got his persistence from his mom, I guess. She wore them down. Within weeks, Edith was traveling across the country to officer candidate training at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut. She was one of the first women to show up, and the oldest by a couple of decades. The training included knot-tying, military drills, seamanship, and small boat operations. Edith's first letter to Doug's sister, Patricia, read, "'Pat, this would kill you, and it might kill me.'"

And then, in May 1943, the same day Doug was awarded his Medal of Honor, she took the Coast Guard oath of office, the same one her son had taken just four years earlier. She was a lieutenant, junior grade. The Coast Guard was happy to have her as a kind of spokeswoman, but Edith insisted on a bigger contribution. Are we surprised? She was the one who raised Doug Monroe.

So they made her the commanding officer of the Seattle Barracks. Affectionately nicknamed the Old Lady, she established new regulations to make it easier for women recruits. She was one of the Coast Guard's first gender policy advisors. She was way ahead of her time.

Like her son, Edith was always game to do more. In November of 1943, she was quoted in the LA Times saying, if legislation is acted upon which will let spars serve overseas, I want to be one of the first to go across. We women can fight. We're proving that every day here on the home front. By the time the war was over, she'd won a commendation medal. And then, of course, there's Ray, Doug's gold dust twin.

Ray was awarded the Navy Cross for his actions at Guadalcanal. He stayed on in the Coast Guard, eventually retiring as a commander. He died in 2013 at the age of 92. He missed Doug until the end. Never have had as good a friend since then, you know, one that close.

You never think about dying. Even in that situation with a war going on and bullets flying around, you don't really think about it. You just do the job, and I guess you anticipate that you're going to be okay. And then one day, one of you isn't okay, and it's pretty tough. Ray would tell you what any member of the military would tell you. Doug might technically have volunteered for that rescue mission, but he didn't see it as a choice. He and Ray were coxswains. They're to lead and to serve.

They put themselves in harm's way because that was the promise they had made to the men in those boats and to themselves. We were asked to take them over there. We were asked to bring them back off of there. And that's what we did. That's what the Coast Guard does. This is the thing about servant leadership. It's not about leading by fear or even by example. It's about protecting the people you're leading and protecting the connection between them. The way a coxswain coordinates the action of a boat.

That's who Doug was, pointing his ship home, even when he could no longer stand at its wheel. The long chain of Doug's connections started even before his time in the Coast Guard. Remember Mike Cooley, the friend who gave away firewood with Doug during the Depression? He served his country in the Army, and years later returned to South Clay Elam. He visited Doug's grave and was surprised and saddened to see that the American flag flying over it was tattered.

So he honored his friend by buying a new flag and raising it at the gravesite in the morning, lowering it in the evening, walking six miles round trip to the cemetery twice a day, every day, for 40 years. He did it until well into his 80s, inspired by what Doug stood for, his sacrifice, his caring. That to me is the essence of servant leadership. I think maybe Mike put it best.

You know what I'm saying? When you do a favor for somebody, you do something good, you feel good inside. So that makes me feel good inside, see?

Original music by Eric Phillips.

If you want to learn more about our Medal of Honor recipients, follow us on Instagram and Twitter. We'll be sharing photos and videos of the heroes featured on this show. We'd also love to hear from you. DM us with a story about a courageous veteran in your life. If you don't know a veteran, we would love to hear a story of how courage was contagious in your own life. You can find us at Pushkin Bonds. I'm your host, Malcolm Gladwell.

I'm Malcolm Gladwell, and I'd like to take a moment to talk about an amazing new podcast I'm hosting called Medal of Honor. It's a moving podcast series celebrating the untold stories of those who protect our country. And it's brought to you by LifeLock, the leader in identity theft protection. Your personal info is in a lot of places that can accidentally expose you to identity theft.

and not everyone who handles your personal info is as careful as you. LifeLock makes it easy to take control of your identity and will work to fix identity theft if it happens. Join the millions of Americans who trust LifeLock. Visit LifeLock.com slash metal today to save up to 40% off your first year.

This is Malcolm Gladwell from Revisionist History. Hey there, you've got to check out season two of Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power. It's going to be epic.

To catch you up, Sauron has returned and nobody in Middle-earth is safe. Season two is all about the greatest villain of all time. And if you're like, I'm not into that stuff, think again. If you love action, fantasy, or drama, you'll love Rings of Power. Season two of The Lord of the Rings, The Rings of Power, premieres on August 29th, only on Prime Video.

At the heart of every mission, there's an unshakable force that stands ready, day and night. That's you, the one who rises before dawn to meet every challenge head on. At American Military University, we understand the demands of military life and the challenges you face. Our programs provide the flexibility to succeed, both in service and in life. And when times get challenging, AMU is here for you with 24-7 mental health support. Always prepared. That's you. Learn more at amu.apus.edu.