The Island is a new survival-reality show that makes life on Survivor look like a cakewalk.
The man-vs.-nature series, which premieres at 9 p.m. Monday on NBC, strands 14 men for a month on an uninhabited Pacific island.
They're left without provisions (no food, no water, no tools, no shelter). They have only the clothes on their backs and cameras to film themselves (because there's no camera crew, either).
There will be no winner declared at the end - and no prize money handed out.
Why would Earnest Marshall of Dallas want to be on this show and put himself through all that?
"Sometimes I sit back and feel like I'm losing my mojo," the 27-year-old Iraq war veteran says. "I wouldn't say that I've gotten soft exactly, but I am losing some of the brave infantry side of me.
"I wanted to prove to myself - and also to show my kids, who know me only as a goofy dad who has fun with them - that I've still got it."
Did we mention that the native Chicagoan, a married father of two, makes his living today selling women's shoes at Nordstrom?
"It's a completely different life," he says. "I sometimes wonder, 'How did I go from being on the front line, fighting for my country, to selling women's designer shoes?'"
Marshall says life on The Island was one of the toughest endurance tests he has ever faced.
"The only tools we had were our bodies and our minds," he says. "I think the biggest hurdle we faced, as a group, was finding fresh water, because you have only a limited amount of time that you can survive without water."
Not even his Army training could prepare him for some of the challenges that awaited.
"Being in the military, I have some survival skills," Marshall says. "But when you put someone in an unknown location and strip them of everything, it's a whole different ballgame.
"In the military, we had technology, we had food, we had weapons, we had a line of communication, we had cases upon cases of water. In Iraq and Afghanistan, there was never one time that we were worried about having water."
Marshall lived to tell the tale, and although he didn't pocket any prize money, he left The Island feeling like a million bucks.
"I definitely felt like I was a winner," he says. "Getting to do this show was a privilege."
Marshall thinks viewers will appreciate the real survival stakes in The Island, compared with the games that castaways play on other reality shows.
"I've seen other survival shows and adventure shows, but I have never seen anything like what we went through," he says. "When people hear about this show, no prize, no winners, I think that will get their attention.
"And once they'll see what we go through on a daily basis, it's going to blow their socks off. I can't wait for people to see it."
There's one thing that Marshall is dreading, though. It's almost a certainty that his Iraq war buddies, once they learn about it on the show, will rib him about the nature of his job.
"It's going to be brutal," he says. "A lot of them do not know that I sell women's designer shoes. But they're going to see now."
By David Martindale, Special Contributor
