In 2008, while I was in Special Forces and Emily was in the CIA, we started GORUCK out of her house in war-torn West Africa. The goal was pretty simple: build a rucksack with life or death quality standards that would thrive in Baghdad and NYC, not to mention Côte d’Ivoire — and show people of all walks of life how to operate smartly and safely in some of the harshest environments in the world (using said rucksack). How to travel, how to train, how to get the most out of a life where adventure calls and tomorrow is never promised.

We didn’t have a business plan and we weren’t willing to compromise on basically anything, so this little project called GORUCK cost us almost everything we had. But sometimes you have to put all your chips on the table and say come what may. What we found (with no time to spare) was a like-minded community of people who proudly proclaim that the easy life is not for us.

When you’ve survived the things that we have, and your inspiration in life becomes normal people doing extraordinary things, what you realize is that you don’t owe less — you owe more. Service is a way of life and that’s our northern star and we’re grateful to the community for the support. We would not exist without you — nor would we want to. So thank you.

— Jason & Emily McCarthy