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The podcast episode explores the topic of superstition, both in general and within the military. The host, Cadet Kahlil Mayweather, discusses his own belief in not splitting a pole as a superstition. He then interviews Cadet Private Bopelo Damopo from Botswana, who shares cultural superstitions from his country. Damopo explains that superstitions in Botswana are rooted in beliefs about ancestors and natural powers. He mentions everyday superstitions, such as the belief that good or bad things will happen based on the movement of eyelids. He also talks about more spiritual superstitions involving traditional medicine and scents. Damopo then shares how superstition played a role in his acceptance into West Point, as some believed it was more than just luck. He concludes by suggesting that superstitions can have an impact on military planning and operations, citing examples from his friends and relatives in competitive jobs. Hi, thank you for listening to my podcast. My name is Cadet Kahlil Mayweather. Have you ever heard of a superstition? The definition of a superstition is an extremely cringey belief in reverence for supernatural beings. Long story short, a superstition falls along the lines of Friday the 13th, not opening an umbrella and doors and such. Personally, one superstition I believe in is not spinning the pole. So say you have a metal pole and you're walking with a group of people. My mom always says it's bad luck to split the pole. Like if one person goes on the left and everyone else goes on the right of the pole. So that's one superstition that has been, you know, present in my life, I'd say. But I always wondered if there were any military superstitions. In my research, I found that with the old digital ACU pattern before our current ACU pattern, a digital skull key could be found on some of the ACU patterns. And this was associated with essentially becoming a bullet magnet. However, I wondered if superstition had or does play any role in military operations, not only here in the United States, but abroad as well. Because not all, not a large majority of Americans, I'd say, are, according to my data, not a large number of Americans are superstitious, so to speak. So to highlight the prominence of superstition, especially in the military, I interviewed a fellow classmate from a foreign country. Joining me is Cadet Private Bopelo Damopo. Damopo is from Botswana, so he has a unique insight that he can offer. So Damopo, are you superstitious? Yes, I'm very superstitious. Superstition is a big thing when I come from Botswana. Got any examples? And might he have like their origin, maybe? Superstition comes from the belief in like ancestors and natural powers. Like originally, like people from a country before the introduction of Christianity, they used to believe in ancestors. They still do, but it's not as proliferant and common as it used to be. It's still there, and I still believe in ancestors, but some people don't. Okay, so it's not really like here in America, like you know, like step on a crack, break a ram's back, stuff like that. It's more, it has more roots, you'd say, right? Yes, some of the superstition has a lot of spirituality to it. Okay. Others, it's more like the everyday stuff. If you like, your upper eyelid like tweaks, like it tweaks, like it moves on itself. It's believed that something good will happen that day. So you are likely to like try to go out and like mingle with people so that... Like capitalize on it or something? And if you're like lower eyelid, like tweaks, it's believed that something bad might happen. So you have to be more cautious that day. Okay. So those are like the everyday superstitious beliefs. Okay. But the more spiritual ones are like traditional beliefs that are from certain heavens and that the traditional doctors make that you can like rub on yourself or like put on your pocket and they smell. Like, and that smell that you have will make the, whatever you're going to do, like, or if you're going for a job interview, the people will like, like you or just like find you likeable in some sense. Okay. Are there any superstitions that are, you'd say, like specific to the Black Savannah Armed Forces, would you say? Yes, there are. Like, when I went to the, to the military, like when I joined the military, the, most of the soldiers that I would work with, they will tell me that, how is it possible that out of like 60 people who were like shortlisted, I'm the only one who was able to come to West Point. They believe that it's really impossible for that to like happen. It's like, it's a slight chance that I had an edge over those people. So it has to be something like spiritual. I have to have gone to a doctor, a traditional doctor, and done something so that my luck increases. I have an edge over those other people because if we can look at it, I was pretty much on the same level as the other people because they only selected people that they knew that had a chance to go to West Point. Even though I was like the best academically, I wasn't really like the best in such a high margin, and I wasn't like the best in physical stuff, like doing the fitness stuff. I was like in the middle, which is not good. Yeah. And that made them think that I had done something with the traditional medicine and stuff like that so that the interviewers can like me and my plans go as I planned them to go. Okay. Okay. So with that being said, do you feel like it was more superstition or luck in that aspect of doing the West Point stuff? So as I stated at first that I do believe in superstitions and stuff like that, I believe that it was like a combination of both because I believe that I did put a lot of effort into trying to get to West Point, but there wasn't really anything that... It was like exceptional. Exceptional, really exceptional. That was profound because I found out that I wasn't like the best physically. Even though I was the best academically, I wasn't really the best by that much of a margin. Yeah. It was like an apparent gap. It was an apparent gap, yes. So there had to be like something that I had done also like spiritually to influence the decision of people who decided to send me to West Point so that my application can be accepted. Because it's like one out of 60 people who got the chance to come here and one out of more other people who originally applied for the post but didn't get shortlisted. So it's like I had a 0.0 something percentage to get to West Point, but I did it. I don't think it's all about like doing the right stuff. Like I did the right stuff or I had a better performance than other things. So it had to be some superstitious beliefs or like spirituality involved in that application process. Okay. So the next question would be like, you know, like just now you talked about kind of how in sort of a way like superstition played a role in like a military decision so to speak, like a military decision sitting here. But do you think that superstition can play a role in like the planning phase or like the operational phase of any like future, not future, just any military like, what's the word, any military like action, like, you know, like a training exercise or maybe even a real wartime exercise? Do you think superstition can play a role in like the planning or operational, you know, role of the military? I've seen like superstition, like superstitious beliefs at work a lot of times. Like most of my friends, like my cousins, they have like jobs and they're very competitive jobs. Like coming back home is like a difficult thing to get and also difficult to maintain and go through the ranks of the corporate world. But they easily do that because of the, they go to traditional doctors and they get traditional medicines and everything that is done over there. So I believe superstition plays a big role in that, like superstitious beliefs. And that same concept can work in the military as to like ensure that plans go as intended. Even though there has to be like some professionalism, like you still have to have competence, you have to still apply the same military logic, the same planning that you do. You still need that like edge, you still need that spiritual edge in everything that you do. So that's why like superstitious beliefs work and traditional medicine and spirituality works. Okay. Well, thank you for coming on the podcast and I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Bye.