Overview of Shawn Ryan Episode #342 with Garand Thumb
In this episode, Shawn Ryan sits down with Mike Jones, better known as Garand Thumb, for a wide-ranging conversation about faith, military service, survival training, firearms, and modern warfare. The discussion moves from Jones’s personal journey—growing up Mormon, leaving the church mission early, and later becoming a committed Christian—to his unconventional path through the military, where he went from PJ training to SERE specialist and later TACP officer. The episode also explores practical preparedness, the realities of survival in extreme environments, and how drone warfare is reshaping combat in Ukraine.
Mike Jones’s Background and Faith Journey
From Mormon upbringing to Christianity
- Jones was raised Mormon and says the faith strongly influenced his early understanding of family, discipline, and scripture.
- He left his Mormon mission early after questioning the church’s history and decided that his primary identity was as a Christian, not as a member of a specific religion.
- He and Shawn spend significant time discussing faith, Bible study, and how Christianity plays a central role in Jones’s life today.
Family, discipline, and character
- Jones says his parents cared most about his character and relationship with Christ, even when he stepped away from Mormonism and later left medical school.
- Faith, family, and discipline come up repeatedly as the core values shaping his life and career.
Military Career and SERE / TACP Experience
From medicine to special warfare
- Jones originally studied biology and immunology and entered medical school through the Navy HPSP program.
- He left medicine after realizing he didn’t want to be a doctor and shifted into military service full time.
Failed PJ pipeline, then rerouted into SERE
- He originally tried to become a Pararescue (PJ) operator but washed out due to repeated shallow-water blackout issues in pool training.
- After that failure, the Air Force allowed him to reclass into SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape), where he excelled.
- He later moved from enlisted to officer (“Mustang”) and became a TACP officer.
What SERE actually taught
Jones gives a detailed look at SERE training:
- Survival skills across multiple environments
- Evasion and counter-tracking
- Resistance training for captivity and interrogation
- Water survival
- Extreme cold-weather, desert, jungle, coastal, and open-ocean survival
He describes SERE as one of the most demanding and practical career fields in the military because it combines real-world hardship with teaching others how to endure it.
Survival Lessons and Practical Preparedness
The core rule: water first
The most repeated survival lesson in the episode is simple:
- Water is the priority
- Food matters, but water is the first real bottleneck in a crisis
- He stresses storing water, learning to purify it, and knowing how to find it in your local environment
Survival in extreme environments
Jones shares stories from:
- Arctic training in Alaska, including negative temperatures and the need to avoid sweating
- Desert training, where dehydration rapidly shuts the body down
- Jungle survival, where insects, moisture, and terrain make life miserable
- Coastal and open-water training, which he says was among the most enjoyable because of access to food
Practical prepping advice
He recommends:
- Water storage and filtration
- Food storage
- Seeds and gardening supplies
- Hard-copy books and manuals
- Tools and skills that let you contribute to a community
His broader message: preparedness is not paranoia; it’s responsibility.
Firearms, Gear, and YouTube
How Garand Thumb started
- Jones says his YouTube channel began almost accidentally when he made a video showing people how to set up a plate carrier and pack gear correctly.
- That video took off, and the channel grew into one of the biggest firearms and military-focused channels online.
What makes the channel work
- Authentic hands-on experience
- Weapons testing
- Survival and fieldcraft content
- Humor and no-nonsense explanations
His approach to firearms
Jones talks about:
- Testing a huge variety of guns and military systems
- Why he values the M4 / AR platform
- Interesting outliers like the AN-94 and experimental next-generation weapons
- His everyday carry setup, including Glock variants and modern optics
Drone Warfare and the Ukraine Conflict
Drones have changed everything
A major portion of the interview focuses on Jones’s discussions with people connected to the war in Ukraine. His assessment is blunt:
- Drones are now dominating the battlefield
- Movement is extremely difficult because surveillance and attack drones make concealment much harder
- Cheap FPV drones are forcing militaries to rethink tactics
The next battlefield will be electronic
Jones believes:
- Electronic warfare will be the key counter to drone saturation
- Fiber-optic drones can bypass some jamming, but they are slower and less maneuverable
- Future conflicts will likely require a mix of EW, anti-drone weapons, and better fieldcraft
The one constant: fieldcraft
Despite all the new technology, he repeatedly returns to this idea:
- Fieldcraft still matters
- Camouflage, movement discipline, terrain reading, and basic soldiering remain essential
- Technology changes, but bad fieldcraft still gets you killed
Main Takeaways
- Faith, family, and country are the three biggest motivations people rely on in extreme situations.
- Water is the first priority in any survival scenario.
- Hard skills matter more than ever: gardening, carpentry, fire-making, tracking, and basic repair work.
- Prepared communities are more resilient than isolated individuals.
- Drone warfare is transforming combat, but it does not eliminate the need for traditional fieldcraft.
- Jones’s life is defined by adapting after setbacks: leaving Mormonism, leaving medicine, failing PJ training, and then turning those pivots into a meaningful career.
Notable Themes
- Personal resilience through failure
- Christianity and moral grounding
- Survival as a practical civic duty
- The importance of being physically and mentally prepared
- The growing need for both personal and community-level preparedness in uncertain times