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Braving the Tribal Heat with Survivor Tocantins Soldier Jerry Sims
by Troy Rogers
 Last week on Survivor Tocantins the tribal action began to heat up when Candace and Coach squared off in a clash of egos that led to Candace being voted off the Timbira tribe. This week the action began to heat up for a completely different reason as U.S. Army soldier Jerry Sims fell victim to the blazing 120 degree Brazilian sun despite being all the he could be in Brazil. Although Jerry braved many dangerous elements while on his courageous and heroic tour of duty in Afghanistan, with little food and water and his energy depleted after the many Tocantins challenges in this season's Survivor, the South Carolina Sergeant and Army specialist in Nuclear Operations became the weakest link in the chain of Timbira tribe members. Although the gameplay tables turned against Erinn, who was also close to going home, the Timbira tribe surprised everyone by sending Jerry home to replenish his system in order to keep their tribe strong.
The morning after the latest episode of Survivor Tocantins, we opened the office windows to let the sun beat down on us while we talked to Jerry to get a small idea of what he must have felt like and to find out what went wrong with his strategy since he found himself so quickly depleted of what it takes to become the last survivor standing.
THE DEADBOLT: You said this was harder than your tour of duty in Afghanistan. Were you referring to the stomach pains or something else?
 JERRY SIMS: Compared to Afghanistan? You see, over there they take care of you. They give me all of the supplies I need. They give me medical attention. They give me food. They give me water. They gave me everything I need to survive when I was overseas in a war zone. But in this war zone, this was a free war zone [laughs]. It was a volunteer type situation and they don’t give you NOTHING!
THE DEADBOLT: So the trade off is no bullets, no bombs?
JERRY: That’s exactly right. That’s a big trade off. I’d rather have no bullets and bombs any day of the week. But by far the experience I had in Brazil was harder because of the situation.
THE DEADBOLT: What was your tribe's biggest mistake during that water-corn challenge?
JERRY: The biggest mistake we made - Well, there were two mistakes. First mistake was picking the wrong person to call out the instructions. Her voice was just getting drowned out by the other voices. And the other mistake we made was trying to do a train, fill all of the buckets at once, and get them all back at once. That didn’t work out. We got our tails kicked on that one, big time.
THE DEADBOLT: Why did you mention Brendan as a good leader? From home we only got to see him hanging out with Taj on Exile Island?
 JERRY: You see, on the trek out me and him were carrying the heavy load and we were talking a lot on the way out. So, to me, he was leading the way. I mean, he was out front with the compass and the map and everyone else was following him. I was right behind him making sure he was doing it right. I wanted to take as few a steps as possible to get where I was going because I already knew I would do all of those things. So I didn’t want to jump out in front and take over so people would look at me like, ‘Hey, this guy is the leader. Let’s put his head on the block the first chance we get.’
THE DEADBOLT: I thought it was funny when Jeff asked about communication and you were shaking your head. How bad was the communication on the tribe?
JERRY: As far as communication around the camp area, everybody was [cool]. But once we got in a challenge, we fell apart [laughs]. We just fell completely apart. People started screaming and yelling and wanted to do their own thing, and there was no leadership. That’s one reason why we were getting whacked.
THE DEADBOLT: What surprised you the most about Brazil? Have you been there before?
JERRY: I had never been there and I didn’t realize it was the summer time in Brazil. We got there in the dead of summer and the temperature was 120 - 125 degrees some days.
THE DEADBOLT: That’s pretty hot, man.
JERRY: Oh, it was warm. And when your body can’t let any food go down, I mean, it really takes a toll on you.
THE DEADBOLT: The challenge with the blocks to make a stairway, what happened there?
JERRY: Oh, the block one. Once I went to help push the first block back, my energy level was zapped. That’s why I told the guys, I said, ‘Man, I’m finished. I can’t go back out there. I can’t go back out there and push another block.’ I mean, that was all I had to push that first block. We really didn’t have someone calling out what piece needs to go. What we did was we had Erinn calling everything out. But people weren’t listening to what she was saying and that’s why we got beat.
 THE DEADBOLT: You guys had a good lead, too.
JERRY: Yeah, we did. We had a big lead. We had a huge lead! But I guess those young energetic guys on the other team picked it up a notch [laughs].
THE DEADBOLT: Last week when I was talking to Candace, you could tell there was no love loss between her and Coach. Was there anybody that you didn’t get along with?
JERRY: No, I got along with everybody. I mean a few times there would be at night some of the - especially Debra, Debbie. Man, people are trying to go to sleep and that’s when she’s kicking into gear. She started talking and yada, yada, yada, and I’m like, ‘Man, enough is enough.’ And the way I am, I can sleep through a hurricane. So it really didn’t bother me a whole lot, but it got kind of annoying sometimes.
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