Navy SEAL: Kicked Out of the Naval Academy — Then Earned His Way Into the SEAL Teams | Ep. 307

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[UNKNOWN]: The day I found out, I was getting kicked out of the Naval Academy.

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[UNKNOWN]: I remember standing in the courtyard, and I just remember like grabbing a shoulder and just crying on a shoulder.

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[UNKNOWN]: I had a lot of demerits while I was there.

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[UNKNOWN]: I was still focused on just going out in partying.

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[UNKNOWN]: I had a fake idea at the time.

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[UNKNOWN]: And when you come back into the academy, you got to show the Marine Guard, your ID card, obviously.

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[UNKNOWN]: And when I grabbed my ID, I grabbed my real ID, my fake ID, and I showed them both a little bit.

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[UNKNOWN]: and quick order, they're like, you're out.

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[UNKNOWN]: I had to take a year off.

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[UNKNOWN]: It was mandatory one year.

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[UNKNOWN]: I went to Community College initially, and then started working out, stopped drinking, PT scores with the roof, grades were through the roof.

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[UNKNOWN]: There's no way with what they've seen so far.

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[UNKNOWN]: They're not going to give me no shot.

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[UNKNOWN]: and went through the process and this and no thank you.

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[UNKNOWN]: So you enlist fairly smooth sailing and getting into bugs and start entering?

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[UNKNOWN]: Yes, to get into the bugs, but it was difficult to get into the Navy after I kicked out of the cabin.

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[UNKNOWN]: Once we got passed out and I said yes, you can do this, and it really did take a lot of work.

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[UNKNOWN]: Did you go to Team Four first?

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[UNKNOWN]: I did, yeah.

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[UNKNOWN]: Team Four prior to the War of South Commons, South America.

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[UNKNOWN]: So I ended up doing the Columbia Mission.

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[UNKNOWN]: I just always wanted to do that just because I think my hair did.

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[UNKNOWN]: You shot and killed an enemy fighter in Iraq, and essentially watched him die.

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[UNKNOWN]: Tell us about the emotional impact I had on me.

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[UNKNOWN]: Ladies and gentlemen, as always, it's both an honor and a pleasure to welcome my next guest to the podcast.

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[UNKNOWN]: He's a former Navy SEAL on both teams 4 and 10.

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[UNKNOWN]: Co-founder of the SEAL Future Foundation and founder and CEO of Invee Mind Health, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stage, Johnny Wilson.

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[UNKNOWN]: Thanks for coming, man.

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[UNKNOWN]: I appreciate it.

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[UNKNOWN]: I've been wanting to meet you and sit down with you ever since you're on Sean Show and obviously some things have happened since then that kind of life journey wise that I'd love to get into that I find both intriguing and inspirational, but I just appreciate you taking the time to come sit down with us.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I appreciate what you do, too, man.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, thank you.

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[UNKNOWN]: What's the last book that you've read?

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[UNKNOWN]: All right, that's a good question.

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[UNKNOWN]: I dear and greatly was one that recently, I read a while ago, but I've just read again.

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[UNKNOWN]: I think that one's great at the beginning of it has the main in the arena, so just amazing quote there talking about folks that actually try versus being the critic on the outside, always critiquing people, at least you're out there trying, even if you fail, so quote resonated with me because I started at the Naval Academy and got kicked out of the Naval Academy, but we had to memorize that main in the arena quote, so that's the last book I read.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think the whole premise of the book is just, you know, to get out there and you've got to take risks.

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[UNKNOWN]: Might take away was if you sit on the sides and don't go through life just by taking that leap of faith and you're gonna, we know where you're gonna end up.

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[UNKNOWN]: The only way you're gonna change that trajectory and you're gonna feel along the way, by the way, is by Darren greatly, so, yeah.

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[UNKNOWN]: That was a big takeaway.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, amen on that.

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[UNKNOWN]: you know what I was a swimmer so my dad was in the army and he was stationed in Holland so we were in the Netherlands and there's no football, there's no you know kind of contact sports out there so I picked up swimming and paid dividends when I decided to go in the teams he was in the army though and you probably remember back in the let's call it the 80s and 90s I don't think anybody knew what the seals were right

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[UNKNOWN]: I've been not many, not until Navy SEALs with Charlie Sheen.

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[UNKNOWN]: That's right.

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[UNKNOWN]: And then everything changed.

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[UNKNOWN]: But I had no idea what SEALs were.

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[UNKNOWN]: I just kind of looked out of that way.

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[UNKNOWN]: So I love swimming back then.

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[UNKNOWN]: I hate swimming now by the way.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

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[UNKNOWN]: I assume then you swam competitively in the Netherlands.

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[UNKNOWN]: yeah we did so we're a part of the military base team is absent was the base that we're off and we competed against other military bases like garlic hurricane ramps time and oh we were always top three uh and i was you know i was swimming when i was eight nine ten we were there for a few years

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[UNKNOWN]: And I was always like a top three swimmer as well, like breaststroke specifically.

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[UNKNOWN]: It was okay for you style, but it was fun, man.

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[UNKNOWN]: We compete against other military kids that were stationed over in Europe and that's where I first kind of got into that camaraderie and then competitiveness as well.

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[UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's amazing.

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[UNKNOWN]: I had a similar, I guess, story minus being overseas doing it, but I grew up swimming competitively from, you know, five, six years old here, too, but I am curious from a military brat's standpoint.

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[UNKNOWN]: I imagine you moved around a lot, and yeah, what does that kind of look like in terms of where you were born and all the way into high school, what was the trajectory there?

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[UNKNOWN]: You know, as a kid, I remember just being like the word that comes to mind is sad.

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[UNKNOWN]: Like you're giving up this friend group, you got to start over the fear associated with that.

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[UNKNOWN]: But as an adult, I don't think.

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[UNKNOWN]: there's a better experience that a kid could have than having to be forced to go out there in the song comfortable world and find new people and new friends and have to do that every few years, right?

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[UNKNOWN]: It's not ideal.

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[UNKNOWN]: There's times that I envy to other kids that, you know, when we got out of the military and we were, we moved to Connecticut because I was working at Goldman Sachs,

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[UNKNOWN]: all those kids grew up together.

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[UNKNOWN]: They were born there and my kids had just gotten kind of planted in their high school middle school and elementary school.

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[UNKNOWN]: But now I see my daughter who's in law school right now.

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[UNKNOWN]: I see my other kids that are in college right now and they also are mature enough now to realize how valuable that experience was.

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[UNKNOWN]: How much time would you spend on another

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[UNKNOWN]: We spent five years there.

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[UNKNOWN]: Were you born there?

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[UNKNOWN]: No, I was born in Texas for a hood.

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[UNKNOWN]: Oh, OK.

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[UNKNOWN]: So born and for a hood, my mom's from Panama.

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[UNKNOWN]: I think my folks met when he kind of did deployment down there.

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[UNKNOWN]: Got married, had me.

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[UNKNOWN]: Went back to Panama for a few years, which was cool.

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[UNKNOWN]: But I was too young to really remember much.

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[UNKNOWN]: And then we kind of hopped around.

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[UNKNOWN]: We went to

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[UNKNOWN]: I want to say that yeah, we went to Maine, which Bangor Maine, there's a recruiting station there, so my dad was a recruiter, Holland, so it's been a time there.

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[UNKNOWN]: And then I went to high school and collectual tendencies, so I forth camble.

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[UNKNOWN]: Oh, okay.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

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[UNKNOWN]: You were down with an MP, correct?

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[UNKNOWN]: Yep.

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[UNKNOWN]: From what I've read and kind of researched, it seems like it was a bit of a bleed over from work into personal life, as far as being pretty hard on you.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you know.

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[UNKNOWN]: I've thought a lot about this, as I've gotten older, I feel like we mature, maybe our testosterone is falling down.

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[UNKNOWN]: I understand the different generations.

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[UNKNOWN]: His father wasn't there, but he had a staff father.

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[UNKNOWN]: I can just imagine you were one another 20 years, and it was even sooner and harder.

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[UNKNOWN]: Um, we have a good relationship now, um, you know, it was intermittent with him because he wanted, I'm, I'm a teenager trying to find my own way.

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[UNKNOWN]: I'm the man of the house when he's not there.

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[UNKNOWN]: and he would go off on a deployment and come back and then try to interject himself.

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[UNKNOWN]: And by the way, that's what I did with my kids.

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[UNKNOWN]: It's almost verbatim.

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[UNKNOWN]: So there was some bleed over for sure, and there was also, and I'm curious, if it's true with you, but I felt like there's some bleed over when I was in the teams and I would come home and just be like short, direct, like, do this.

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[UNKNOWN]: It's like, I'm not talking to a guy on my team, but I'm talking to my kid like that.

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[UNKNOWN]: Like, I'm curious how it was for you.

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[UNKNOWN]: It was the exact same, I would say, unfortunately, a little different in both my kids were born when I was an instructor, or right as I was becoming an instructor, and then so that first couple of years they, you know, had, you know, it was a surf tour tour, what?

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[UNKNOWN]: Almost.

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[UNKNOWN]: But the exact same as far as, you know, it was really difficult or not, maybe difficult

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[UNKNOWN]: You know, me at work versus me at home, and I would say again, unfortunately, you know, I got out.

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[UNKNOWN]: when they were toddlers and moved here and started a business and that's super stressful, we're living in rural Texas and I still have that, there's a bunch of brown shirts running hell week, kind of mentality of if I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it like your asses on fire.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and it took a while for me to kind of work through both.

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[UNKNOWN]: figuring out how to do it, you know, in their both girls too, which is even worse, you know, it's like boys one thing to be kind of hard on them, but kind of similarly though, like as I've gotten older and even as they got older, I feel like I made adjustments and figured out how to do a better job and

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[UNKNOWN]: A lot of it was learned in the hard way, but you know, I have a phenomenal relationship with both of them.

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[UNKNOWN]: Now, they're both in school as well, and, you know, of course I could look back and say, I wish I had done this different or whatever, but I also wouldn't know what I know now.

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[UNKNOWN]: And so, who knows where our relationship would be had, had things been different, you know?

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, they're both pretty resilient too.

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[UNKNOWN]: So,

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[UNKNOWN]: It's impossible to know how it would have been if I had done things totally different.

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[UNKNOWN]: But to your question, yeah, it was just like that for me too, but now.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's same with me, and then I think, you know, so to answer your question, then yeah, there was simply an over and I understand why, right, because I lived it as well.

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[UNKNOWN]: In terms of, I mean, I know you understand kind of where he was coming from, especially generationally, and professionally, but were there any significant incidents as a child that significantly impacted you in terms of your relationship with him?

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you know, you know, again I mentioned where I alluded to, I might have stated it actually.

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[UNKNOWN]: his father wasn't in his life, so he had a stepfather, but I don't know if he had an example, you know, I don't know where he would have gotten an example of what a father's supposed to do, or be.

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[UNKNOWN]: I know he tried his best, I know he loved me in my sister immensely, no doubt it, like that was never a question, but again, I think about like his example was the army, right, so then he would bring in that kind of drill sergeant mentality,

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[UNKNOWN]: But, you know, he loved us, my family, I thought we had some challenges, my folks, so that kind of stood out to me, I heard some of the arguing and stuff going on like that.

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[UNKNOWN]: I mean, we had, I can laugh about it now and I hope you laughed about it too, but he had come back from a deployment and I had some Jordan's on, not too different than the ones you had on.

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[UNKNOWN]: And I put him in the garage, and that's just shows you kind of like the punk that I was.

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[UNKNOWN]: Or maybe there's a lot more to it than that, but he had put my Jordans on to go cut the fucking grass.

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[UNKNOWN]: And that pissed me off.

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[UNKNOWN]: So we kind of got into like this, you know, I'm a teenager.

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[UNKNOWN]: Well, dude, do you know what those are?

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[UNKNOWN]: This is like, I fucking paid for those.

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[UNKNOWN]: Like, what do you, any, it escalated and the cops got called.

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[UNKNOWN]: Really?

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[UNKNOWN]: He got arrested.

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[UNKNOWN]: Oh, wow.

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[UNKNOWN]: Then you think about like that?

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[UNKNOWN]: And you, dude, what was that?

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[UNKNOWN]: thinking but at the same time like I just didn't know anybody but I was a kid too like I looked back and I was like I could care less so you can take my most prized possession from me right now and go cut the fucking grass and I'll be like cool yeah I'll get another one or maybe I don't even need that thing so that really stuck with me and you know a fast forward and my son who's I shared with you he's 21 now

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[UNKNOWN]: We're in Coronado and he called the cops on me.

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[UNKNOWN]: Really?

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

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[UNKNOWN]: What's this argument?

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

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[UNKNOWN]: So there's so much.

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[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I look at it and it's like all we can do is just try to be a better example or learn from the mistakes and successes that are folks.

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[UNKNOWN]: I'm just trying to be incrementally better.

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[UNKNOWN]: And I think I did that.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

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[UNKNOWN]: But I also made a shit ton of mistakes too.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, I have zero excuse, you know, both of my parents were phenomenal, growing up, you know, like they set the example and pretty much every way I can imagine.

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[UNKNOWN]: And I didn't do as good of a job as they did for sure, you know.

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[UNKNOWN]: So I even having that as an example, I still managed to find a way to screw it up.

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[UNKNOWN]: But did you had get physical with you?

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[UNKNOWN]: Is that why the council got called and did you call them or did you remember?

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think I don't know who called them to be honest with you.

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[UNKNOWN]: And you know, it's interesting like I'm, and I don't know, yeah, I don't know if it was my mom or if I called them.

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[UNKNOWN]: I mean, there were times that he had gotten physical with me before, and you know, again, I'm not giving him any pass on that.

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[UNKNOWN]: But I do think like that was common place in the 80s right in the 90s, like, again, and I'm not trying to justify that in 2026.

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[UNKNOWN]: but looking back, that was just like normal.

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[UNKNOWN]: Like you messed up as a kid, you're gonna get the hand, you're gonna be a spanked, and that was a little bit different there, but you know there was times that you got physical.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

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[UNKNOWN]: As far as your son calling a police on you, was it just from arguing, or...

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[UNKNOWN]: It was arguing.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

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[UNKNOWN]: I don't know what you'd tell the police.

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[UNKNOWN]: I'm arguing with my dad, can you come save me at home?

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[UNKNOWN]: Well, that's what was going on in my head.

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[UNKNOWN]: I was like, call the police, you know?

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[UNKNOWN]: How when you get heated, and you're just like, and then they're there, and it's like literally arguing with this kid, and he's like, he's, I point out because he climbed into a tree.

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[UNKNOWN]: So he was in a tree in Coronada.

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[UNKNOWN]: We were living in the case at the time if you remember the Coronada case So we had one of those houses.

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[UNKNOWN]: We were renting it and right out front was just one fucking tree And there was my son up there I call the police on you.

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[UNKNOWN]: It's like great.

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's president get the hose out on there I'll get you out of there What was the catalyst for you?

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[UNKNOWN]: For actually joining the seal teams like at what point did you head your mindset on that so

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[UNKNOWN]: There's a couple of things to happen.

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[UNKNOWN]: My dad's kind of sins corrected me, but I have a version of he has a version of it, and then there was a book.

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[UNKNOWN]: So...

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[UNKNOWN]: Um, I thought I wanted to be special forces, so there's, you know, my birthday.

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[UNKNOWN]: I was just all in the green braids and special forces.

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[UNKNOWN]: I didn't even know Seals existed.

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[UNKNOWN]: So when I turned 16 at the time, my dad was at, we were at four camel Kentucky and from my birthday, he got me skydiving lessons.

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[UNKNOWN]: Back in the day, how they did it on four camels.

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[UNKNOWN]: You did six data lines, and then you do your first free fall, right?

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[UNKNOWN]: So, and, and you did it out of a black hawk, by the way.

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[UNKNOWN]: Really?

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's a wild man.

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[UNKNOWN]: And I got a funny story, remind me, I'll come back to it, but I got a funny story about my first skydive or my first jump out of four Campbell and then my first jump, my first skydive out of anapolis.

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[UNKNOWN]: So just remember to come back to that, it gives you a peek into how my brand thinks, but

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[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so he got me into that and I was doing things like that.

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[UNKNOWN]: Scott Ivy and I love shooting.

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[UNKNOWN]: I became a lifeguard just to be a better swimmer, get time on in the pool.

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[UNKNOWN]: I played full ball when we got to four Campbell or I'm sorry to Clarksville's where I lived.

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[UNKNOWN]: but I would run to work or ride bike just to get cardiobies, I thought that's what she needed to do.

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[UNKNOWN]: And then I came across a book in the library and it was like the man with green faces, it was like the old Vietnam book, and I was like this, it's really cool.

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[UNKNOWN]: And these guys are like green braise, but they're in the water and oh, by the way, I love swimming.

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[UNKNOWN]: What's this?

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[UNKNOWN]: So I started looking in researching that.

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[UNKNOWN]: And at that point, my dad had taken a deployment over to Saudi.

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[UNKNOWN]: So this is pre-war, you know, he's been over there for a bit.

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[UNKNOWN]: And I think I was probably a sophomore junior at the time.

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[UNKNOWN]: I think it was a sophomore, actually.

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[UNKNOWN]: And I get a letter, or a call from him.

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[UNKNOWN]: And then we also get a letter with some tickets.

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[UNKNOWN]: So the call is, I can't even come and visit me.

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[UNKNOWN]: My response being a teenager in a punk is like, I don't want to go to Saudi.

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[UNKNOWN]: I got a girlfriend.

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[UNKNOWN]: And we got tons of barn parties to do here in Clarksville, like no way.

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[UNKNOWN]: Long story short I went to Saudi and I acted like the child I was and wouldn't talk to him for the first couple of days is how I remember it

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[UNKNOWN]: And unlike the third day we're driving on the base and there's this chameling fence that it was blacked out and always closed, but as we were driving in, it was closing and I got a peek inside and that was kind of the special forces base.

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[UNKNOWN]: So there's a bunch of dudes with beards and jacked and I remember lifting and just like organized chaos, it just looked cool and it's like, yeah, what's that?

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[UNKNOWN]: And he since corrected me, I thought that was the seals, but he said it was a fifth group special forces.

17:06.738 --> 17:20.369
[UNKNOWN]: So I got to spend time with him over the summer and they took me under their kind of wing, show me, you know, answered a bunch of questions when I was in Saudi and from that point on, I was like, I'm all in, for me, it wasn't gonna be green brazo, I wanted the water component.

17:20.389 --> 17:21.029
[UNKNOWN]: So, yeah.

17:21.650 --> 17:27.975
[UNKNOWN]: And how did the transition into the academy take place because that's not an easy bill it took you up?

17:29.756 --> 17:32.178
[UNKNOWN]: I played football, predominantly black school.

17:32.698 --> 17:34.900
[UNKNOWN]: I had a lot of really good guys that went off to NFL.

17:35.100 --> 17:36.000
[UNKNOWN]: I was not one of them.

17:36.901 --> 17:37.762
[UNKNOWN]: Anybody we would know?

17:39.383 --> 17:41.004
[UNKNOWN]: Travis Stevens, I don't think so.

17:41.564 --> 17:44.947
[UNKNOWN]: Travis Stevens, he went in, but so that was our running back.

17:44.967 --> 17:49.330
[UNKNOWN]: So all the defense was just focused on the running back.

17:49.350 --> 17:55.474
[UNKNOWN]: And then you got me out here, like as a receiver, just like shining because I would be left open because everybody's trying to stop

17:58.436 --> 18:03.979
[UNKNOWN]: So it was to go play football and I got into the Naval Academy Prep School and ever played at the Academy, though.

18:05.459 --> 18:07.680
[UNKNOWN]: I got sidetracked if I'm being honest with you.

18:08.121 --> 18:16.905
[UNKNOWN]: It was like the late 90s, some in Newport, Rhode Island, where Naval Academy Prep School is, and I'm just partying.

18:17.145 --> 18:19.366
[UNKNOWN]: I had completely lost focus.

18:19.726 --> 18:22.107
[UNKNOWN]: My priority was no longer being a seal or any of that.

18:22.147 --> 18:23.588
[UNKNOWN]: It was like, let's go out and party.

18:24.506 --> 18:29.552
[UNKNOWN]: Was it just the environment that made you switch of being exposed to that stuff or was that thing sound?

18:29.572 --> 18:29.772
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

18:30.232 --> 18:30.733
[UNKNOWN]: I think so.

18:30.753 --> 18:31.073
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know.

18:31.113 --> 18:32.395
[UNKNOWN]: Just immaturety.

18:34.277 --> 18:37.199
[UNKNOWN]: Um, we were just out drinking downtown Thames Street.

18:37.259 --> 18:38.260
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, they didn't carge you.

18:38.280 --> 18:39.801
[UNKNOWN]: It was a blast.

18:40.942 --> 18:48.727
[UNKNOWN]: It was fun, but I would have never, if I, I know this for a fact, because I ended up getting into the academy, barely, and I'll come back to that.

18:48.827 --> 18:55.011
[UNKNOWN]: But I would have never got to build it at the academy, because I just wasn't disciplined enough, focused enough, mature enough, and let's keep going on and on.

18:56.068 --> 18:57.649
[UNKNOWN]: It came down to my last exam.

18:58.109 --> 19:04.111
[UNKNOWN]: So you have to have a 2.0, which it's on a 4.0 back then.

19:04.171 --> 19:09.674
[UNKNOWN]: So a 2.0, man, that's a bare minimum to get into from the Naval Academy of Preschool to get into the Naval Academy.

19:09.694 --> 19:11.014
[UNKNOWN]: That's surprising, it's that low.

19:12.275 --> 19:12.575
[UNKNOWN]: I know.

19:13.115 --> 19:16.436
[UNKNOWN]: I got a 2.05, came down to my last exam.

19:16.456 --> 19:24.740
[UNKNOWN]: So I got the nod to go to the academy, and then I fucked it up there by, again, not prioritizing, then fake ID,

19:26.120 --> 19:27.121
[UNKNOWN]: So how long were you there?

19:27.962 --> 19:32.005
[UNKNOWN]: So the academy prex schools a year, and then I was at the academy through 2011.

19:32.245 --> 19:35.728
[UNKNOWN]: So I showed up in 2000, oh sorry, 2001.

19:35.788 --> 19:37.309
[UNKNOWN]: So in September, 11th happened.

19:37.970 --> 19:38.890
[UNKNOWN]: So I was there for year and a half.

19:39.191 --> 19:40.272
[UNKNOWN]: OK. At the Naval Academy.

19:40.812 --> 19:42.894
[UNKNOWN]: I'm curious.

19:42.914 --> 19:45.276
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I've had a couple of guys on that have been through their way.

19:45.296 --> 19:46.837
[UNKNOWN]: I haven't spent much time talking about it.

19:46.877 --> 19:51.881
[UNKNOWN]: But expectation versus reality showing up there, what was going through your mind.

19:53.302 --> 19:54.223
[UNKNOWN]: You know what's interesting?

19:58.113 --> 20:00.894
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I think a lot of us have egos.

20:01.314 --> 20:07.877
[UNKNOWN]: I had an ego where I was like, I'm going to be a seal, I'm going to do this, and I'm the cool kid on the block, and I got humbled really fast.

20:08.597 --> 20:11.638
[UNKNOWN]: It was almost like, it's a little different than having a bud's instructor.

20:12.519 --> 20:15.520
[UNKNOWN]: It was the first time that I got beat down and broken.

20:16.739 --> 20:21.140
[UNKNOWN]: And it was by a kid that was a year older than me, or two years older than me.

20:21.160 --> 20:33.464
[UNKNOWN]: Because the instructors are actually naval academy students, and then they become your instructor for Pleave Summer, where they become the cadre, the upperclassmen, and they make sure you're doing what you're supposed to do, you're plebier, you're freshman year.

20:34.384 --> 20:41.591
[UNKNOWN]: And I was just sure against rules and, I mean, I can do it for a short stint, put me through like a boot camp type thing.

20:41.631 --> 20:44.935
[UNKNOWN]: I can suffer for two months, but to do it for a year, they broke me.

20:45.916 --> 20:47.377
[UNKNOWN]: I hated every, and they knew it too.

20:47.778 --> 20:49.499
[UNKNOWN]: They just wanted to beat that ego out of me.

20:50.200 --> 20:52.261
[UNKNOWN]: It took them damn near a year to do them, but they did it.

20:52.581 --> 21:07.208
[UNKNOWN]: And I mean, everything, like, I couldn't eat because I was a problem child, like you have to square your meals, take seven bites, and they would count six, and then it would make me recite three news articles and go through like, hey, what's the Navy him and the Marine Corps?

21:07.248 --> 21:09.489
[UNKNOWN]: And I would just have to, I had no time.

21:09.509 --> 21:10.809
[UNKNOWN]: I was just overwhelmed.

21:10.829 --> 21:10.889
[UNKNOWN]: So,

21:13.110 --> 21:15.871
[UNKNOWN]: I had a hard time there, a really hard time.

21:15.891 --> 21:19.632
[UNKNOWN]: It's one of the hardest points of my life because I couldn't get out of my own way.

21:20.312 --> 21:23.853
[UNKNOWN]: I just was so defensive and I just wanted to clash with them.

21:23.873 --> 21:24.714
[UNKNOWN]: I hated them.

21:24.734 --> 21:27.254
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, who do these people think they are?

21:27.274 --> 21:29.855
[UNKNOWN]: This is the first time they have authority and this is how they treat you.

21:31.155 --> 21:32.276
[UNKNOWN]: But they weren't wrong, man.

21:32.496 --> 21:34.957
[UNKNOWN]: They needed to get something out of me and they ended up doing it.

21:36.928 --> 21:40.730
[UNKNOWN]: There was a lot of, again, I think about Pleve Summary, there was highs and lows.

21:42.310 --> 21:44.151
[UNKNOWN]: I thought I was going to be an aerospace engineer.

21:44.551 --> 21:45.972
[UNKNOWN]: I started aerospace engineer.

21:45.992 --> 21:47.072
[UNKNOWN]: I'm Monday.

21:47.152 --> 21:48.333
[UNKNOWN]: I quit that same Friday.

21:48.353 --> 21:50.754
[UNKNOWN]: There was like, there's no fucking way I'm going to be an aerospace engineer.

21:51.454 --> 21:52.534
[UNKNOWN]: I switched over to history.

21:55.876 --> 22:00.457
[UNKNOWN]: So the expectation was like, I can go in here and do anything as like, yeah, we all have limitations.

22:00.477 --> 22:02.998
[UNKNOWN]: You're just, you don't have that engineer mindset.

22:03.519 --> 22:06.160
[UNKNOWN]: And you're smart, but not that smart.

22:07.080 --> 22:18.165
[UNKNOWN]: Um, I didn't enjoy kind of like you had to run through the halls so you'd run in the middle of the plebes would kind of have to high step and again I thought it was all just like what we'd do in here.

22:18.225 --> 22:19.226
[UNKNOWN]: There's a reason for it.

22:19.446 --> 22:27.390
[UNKNOWN]: I understand and I appreciate it now but as a 19 year old kid I just was against the system and I didn't want any part of it so that bothered me.

22:28.397 --> 22:30.280
[UNKNOWN]: But it culminated with her and dinner.

22:30.300 --> 22:31.162
[UNKNOWN]: You're familiar with her and didn't?

22:32.023 --> 22:34.868
[UNKNOWN]: So there's just big statue and I don't know how tall it is.

22:34.908 --> 22:37.372
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe 20 to 30 feet, maybe 20.

22:39.058 --> 22:40.379
[UNKNOWN]: It will look, no, it's probably higher than that.

22:41.339 --> 22:48.123
[UNKNOWN]: And when you finally get to stop all the nonsense, it's at the end of that first year, your plebier.

22:48.203 --> 22:51.705
[UNKNOWN]: Everybody circles up there and you have to make a human tower.

22:51.805 --> 22:53.006
[UNKNOWN]: And it's probably higher than that.

22:53.026 --> 22:53.806
[UNKNOWN]: I bet it's 30 feet.

22:55.047 --> 22:55.487
[UNKNOWN]: I'm curious.

22:55.527 --> 22:56.467
[UNKNOWN]: I'll look it up afterwards.

22:56.848 --> 22:59.229
[UNKNOWN]: But the upper classman, they put criss-go on this thing.

22:59.909 --> 23:03.111
[UNKNOWN]: And it's only like as wide at the base as this, and then it gets narrower.

23:03.131 --> 23:06.113
[UNKNOWN]: And you have to put your pleb hat on the top of it.

23:07.182 --> 23:11.485
[UNKNOWN]: And sometimes like classes have done in 30 minutes, I think the average is probably four hours.

23:11.505 --> 23:16.449
[UNKNOWN]: So you're out there just trying to team build and like you're covered in criss-go, everybody's like celebrating, because they know it's common.

23:16.829 --> 23:22.813
[UNKNOWN]: You're doing human stacks, people on shoulders, this whole thing's crumbling out, I don't know if they still do it, but it's super dangerous.

23:23.334 --> 23:24.094
[UNKNOWN]: It was fun as hell.

23:24.515 --> 23:29.498
[UNKNOWN]: But then I just remember when that cap went up there, we just lost our mind, I was like, cool, we did it, we made it.

23:30.779 --> 23:33.061
[UNKNOWN]: We're no longer having to run through the fucking halls.

23:34.622 --> 23:35.963
[UNKNOWN]: But that was a culmination of plebier.

23:37.009 --> 23:38.770
[UNKNOWN]: I can't imagine they still do it.

23:38.810 --> 23:40.090
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, just explaining.

23:40.110 --> 23:47.272
[UNKNOWN]: I'm like, how many people have ruined their careers because they broke their back falling off of that?

23:47.512 --> 23:49.653
[UNKNOWN]: I never eat anything with Chris Graf for that.

23:49.673 --> 23:51.794
[UNKNOWN]: That's fine for you.

23:51.814 --> 23:55.315
[UNKNOWN]: So your second year, you end up getting kicked out.

23:55.875 --> 23:57.896
[UNKNOWN]: Can you walk us through how that happened?

23:58.876 --> 23:59.216
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

24:00.577 --> 24:01.097
[UNKNOWN]: I am.

24:02.215 --> 24:15.029
[UNKNOWN]: had a lot of demerits while i was there so again i don't know what it is uh i think it's me and at that point in my life i'm real hard time like adhering to to to to the system

24:17.035 --> 24:22.197
[UNKNOWN]: but you get enough to merits and you have to walk the courts with your rifle and I was out there all the time.

24:22.237 --> 24:26.198
[UNKNOWN]: It'd be me in the same crew, um, just the goons squad.

24:26.218 --> 24:27.959
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's essentially the goons squad.

24:28.259 --> 24:29.039
[UNKNOWN]: We wake up early.

24:29.059 --> 24:33.760
[UNKNOWN]: We'd have our rifles and we just square our corners for an hour every morning.

24:35.881 --> 24:38.263
[UNKNOWN]: You know, who else did that was John McCain, John McCain.

24:38.323 --> 24:38.703
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, really.

24:38.743 --> 24:51.113
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he when he graduated he was like Second or third from the bottom of his class and he had he had the most of merits out of all his classmates But Second year kicked off

24:52.903 --> 24:57.287
[UNKNOWN]: And kind of status quo, I had to stay there for the summer to make up some classes because I failed them.

24:58.728 --> 25:01.330
[UNKNOWN]: If I was going to make it through the academy, it was going to be barely any again.

25:01.590 --> 25:05.693
[UNKNOWN]: There's no way they're going to give a bill to a guy that has 2.0 or 2.0 or 2.0 whatever it is.

25:07.314 --> 25:09.556
[UNKNOWN]: But I wasn't ready to kind of address that yet.

25:10.696 --> 25:14.759
[UNKNOWN]: And I was still focused on just going out and party and we had a

25:15.524 --> 25:30.373
[UNKNOWN]: When you go to the academy, they give you a sponsor family, so you show up, and they just want families in the local area of volunteer, and they're like, hey, you're just going to take one of the pleams or one of the cadets ormanship in, and then those are just on the weekends be able to come to your house.

25:30.473 --> 25:32.375
[UNKNOWN]: And you treat them like they're your family.

25:32.435 --> 25:38.378
[UNKNOWN]: So I would go there, and we would have parties over at my sponsor for my family's house.

25:38.398 --> 25:40.880
[UNKNOWN]: So she had Nancy, she's now passed.

25:41.340 --> 25:43.282
[UNKNOWN]: Nancy Jennell, she was a sweetheart of a woman.

25:44.578 --> 25:52.647
[UNKNOWN]: in Dictionnel and they lived in edge water on the water so we would go out there through crab pots on Friday out in the river because they lived on the river.

25:53.208 --> 26:01.457
[UNKNOWN]: We just have a bunch of beers and we just hang out and then we would concoct the way to have a big party either at her house or get into a barn.

26:02.778 --> 26:05.021
[UNKNOWN]: So there's this pattern that keeps seeing here and

26:06.428 --> 26:13.713
[UNKNOWN]: Long story short, I, right before the end of the first semester, big party, we all went to.

26:13.753 --> 26:19.016
[UNKNOWN]: I had a fake idea at the time and didn't even use that night, but I had it in my wallet.

26:20.577 --> 26:26.641
[UNKNOWN]: And when you come back into the academy, you got to show the Marine Guard your ID card obviously to get on base.

26:27.788 --> 26:33.791
[UNKNOWN]: And when I grabbed my D, I grabbed my real idea, my fake idea, and I showed them both of them, because I was so drunk.

26:34.832 --> 26:41.815
[UNKNOWN]: And that was the start of the end for me, like I, I mean, you go into, essentially, like a court-martial type thing.

26:41.835 --> 26:47.899
[UNKNOWN]: And it's honor fans, you get a hearing, and in quick order, they're like, you're out.

26:47.939 --> 26:48.259
[UNKNOWN]: You're out.

26:48.699 --> 26:50.820
[UNKNOWN]: So, I mean, what happens logistically with that?

26:50.860 --> 26:57.925
[UNKNOWN]: Because you had a bill, I mean, do you owe enlisted time to the Navy for the amount of time you spend in, like, how do they handle that?

26:58.325 --> 27:02.968
[UNKNOWN]: So, I don't know how they do it now, but back then, you don't sign anything until you're junior year.

27:03.268 --> 27:06.070
[UNKNOWN]: So, technically, I had all of that school for free.

27:06.250 --> 27:07.491
[UNKNOWN]: Now, it wasn't great credits.

27:07.511 --> 27:10.612
[UNKNOWN]: I went to Anna Rundell Community College afterwards for a little bit.

27:11.693 --> 27:17.657
[UNKNOWN]: And they couldn't even take half of them, because they were all d's and so I mean, it was just like kind of a lost year and a half, if you

27:19.471 --> 27:23.155
[UNKNOWN]: I've now matured and I absolutely love school, but we'll get to that later.

27:23.375 --> 27:25.657
[UNKNOWN]: I was just not a mature person at that point in my life.

27:26.578 --> 27:34.744
[UNKNOWN]: You know, the one other thing I'll call out to is right around the same time that I was all this was happening with me with my fake ID and oh, by the way, what did I do?

27:34.944 --> 27:38.446
[UNKNOWN]: I just, if you remember the old ID cars, there were horrors on and not vertical.

27:38.847 --> 27:41.949
[UNKNOWN]: They were green on the front on the back, it was white with black text.

27:42.209 --> 27:42.409
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

27:43.350 --> 27:45.851
[UNKNOWN]: So, again, I'm smart, but not that smart.

27:46.372 --> 27:47.813
[UNKNOWN]: So, how do you make a fake ID?

27:47.873 --> 27:50.395
[UNKNOWN]: You go to a photocop machine and you photocopy the back.

27:51.275 --> 28:16.374
[UNKNOWN]: and then you take a razor and you cut out numbers and you change the last number on your years that you can go on a drink and then you photocopy that again and you photocopy it enough so you can't see the outline of the the number that changed and then you cut that out you laminate both sides and then you take a glue stick that's how again I'm not that smart but it passed right like we we used exacto nines and it kind of flew and

28:17.389 --> 28:21.138
[UNKNOWN]: But at the same time, I think it was in Bethesda or somewhere in DC.

28:22.782 --> 28:30.544
[UNKNOWN]: an ID card machine got stolen and they thought it was me, it's 19 year old.

28:30.584 --> 28:34.564
[UNKNOWN]: So, from like, hey, you had a fake ID to do this show.

28:34.644 --> 28:38.665
[UNKNOWN]: And CIS and we had it all like, I mean, I'm like, what is going on?

28:38.705 --> 28:49.408
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's just a fake, all my friends at University of Tennessee, a fake ID is this where I got the idea, like, what is coming to find out that there's this machine missing and it's a huge issue and they think I'm on the culprit.

28:49.428 --> 28:50.088
[UNKNOWN]: I'm like, I'm not that

28:51.748 --> 28:59.113
[UNKNOWN]: So I was a scary point when I'm getting pulled into interrogation rooms and there's no longer just like an honor of Francis, say, K. Yeah, like you're looking at jail time.

28:59.133 --> 29:00.154
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

29:00.754 --> 29:07.779
[UNKNOWN]: So essentially there was not time owed and it was just pay your out and you went to a community college for a brief period.

29:08.440 --> 29:14.924
[UNKNOWN]: What was the path from that point until actually enlisting in the Navy and trying to become a seal on the enlisted side?

29:15.525 --> 29:15.665
[UNKNOWN]: So

29:17.906 --> 29:20.208
[UNKNOWN]: There was two paths I wanted to pursue.

29:20.248 --> 29:24.831
[UNKNOWN]: The primary pass was there was a guy named Climbrouce, he was a seal officer, okay.

29:25.312 --> 29:28.234
[UNKNOWN]: He got kicked out of the academy too for the exact same thing.

29:28.955 --> 29:31.276
[UNKNOWN]: So I reached out to this dude and I was like, how did you do it?

29:31.316 --> 29:32.257
[UNKNOWN]: How'd you get back in?

29:32.277 --> 29:33.398
[UNKNOWN]: He's like I went to a school.

29:33.418 --> 29:35.980
[UNKNOWN]: I got really good grades and it let me back in.

29:36.340 --> 29:38.282
[UNKNOWN]: So that was Cole won for me.

29:38.882 --> 29:40.423
[UNKNOWN]: And then Cole or two was a two and less.

29:41.304 --> 29:43.705
[UNKNOWN]: I had to take a year off, it was mandatory one year.

29:43.865 --> 29:47.227
[UNKNOWN]: I went to Community College initially and then Maryland and I got really good grades.

29:47.327 --> 29:49.248
[UNKNOWN]: Like it became a time to turn it on.

29:49.809 --> 29:52.890
[UNKNOWN]: There's a new, like, there's no way with what they've seen so far.

29:52.930 --> 29:54.051
[UNKNOWN]: They're not going to give me another shot.

29:54.851 --> 29:56.532
[UNKNOWN]: Started working out, stopped drinking.

29:58.133 --> 30:00.074
[UNKNOWN]: Really became like super fixated.

30:00.094 --> 30:01.995
[UNKNOWN]: And when that happens with me, like I go all in.

30:02.636 --> 30:06.438
[UNKNOWN]: So PT scores were through the roof, like grades were through the roof.

30:07.258 --> 30:12.442
[UNKNOWN]: And I went after a year, and I had the same time I had enlisted or did the depth thing as well.

30:13.903 --> 30:16.085
[UNKNOWN]: And went through the process, and they said, no, thank you.

30:17.706 --> 30:22.309
[UNKNOWN]: And I went co-a-two, and not even like a week later, it had set it up perfectly.

30:22.329 --> 30:23.851
[UNKNOWN]: If they say, no, here, I'm going here.

30:23.871 --> 30:24.992
[UNKNOWN]: And that's exactly what happened.

30:25.012 --> 30:26.433
[UNKNOWN]: So I went in full enlisted.

30:26.513 --> 30:27.193
[UNKNOWN]: I'm full enlisted.

30:27.834 --> 30:29.815
[UNKNOWN]: How did your dad handle you getting kicked out?

30:30.296 --> 30:31.677
[UNKNOWN]: Not well, yeah.

30:32.177 --> 30:33.958
[UNKNOWN]: And again, I'd probably be pissed too.

30:36.996 --> 30:46.418
[UNKNOWN]: And old version of me, like five, six years ago, would have been really disappointed and probably...

30:46.498 --> 30:48.558
[UNKNOWN]: I wouldn't have handled it the way I would have today, right?

30:48.958 --> 30:51.359
[UNKNOWN]: Today, I'd be just like, hey, we all make mistakes.

30:51.379 --> 30:52.339
[UNKNOWN]: Let's figure this out.

30:52.379 --> 30:57.500
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I know you'd beat yourself up more than anybody else, but back then I would have probably been a little harder on me.

30:57.580 --> 31:00.180
[UNKNOWN]: My dad was, he was pissed and we didn't talk for a while.

31:00.200 --> 31:02.481
[UNKNOWN]: And then we weren't talking much anybody to be honest with you.

31:02.521 --> 31:03.381
[UNKNOWN]: So it was kind of...

31:05.336 --> 31:11.360
[UNKNOWN]: Um, kind of status quo, but I knew he was upset and probably a year or so before we talked.

31:11.560 --> 31:28.911
[UNKNOWN]: Well, I, uh, my roommate, his name was Bubba Durham, so Frank Durham, he was my roommate at the Academy's from Texas, and his dad was Frank Durham senior, and the day I found out, I was getting kicked out of the Naval Academy.

31:28.931 --> 31:31.913
[UNKNOWN]: Bubba was there with me, and his dad was there with me, and I remember standing in

31:33.311 --> 31:41.675
[UNKNOWN]: In the courtyard of the Academy, there's all these famous photos of the courtyard, like five-story building, and you're just in the main steps of it in the front.

31:42.455 --> 31:49.659
[UNKNOWN]: And I would just remember grabbing a shoulder and just crying on a shoulder, like his dad's shoulder, like now what?

31:50.479 --> 31:56.222
[UNKNOWN]: And there was a period, you know, we kind of jumped into, like, in listing, but there was this period where I felt sorry for myself.

31:56.282 --> 31:57.603
[UNKNOWN]: I went out and I just partied.

31:58.812 --> 32:07.159
[UNKNOWN]: I went back to Tennessee, I was living in my foe, so I lived at Nancy's house, my sponsor mom, she was kind enough to let me, even though I kicked out of Academy, just lived with her in the basement.

32:07.179 --> 32:14.225
[UNKNOWN]: I got a job as a place called Easter Performance, which was back then, I had Orange County Chopper, as you remember that?

32:14.285 --> 32:14.485
[UNKNOWN]: No.

32:14.945 --> 32:24.233
[UNKNOWN]: So it was like the Maryland version of that, it was called Easter Performance, and I was like packaging up parts and sending that, and I was the goal was to get to be a little work on bikes.

32:25.283 --> 32:27.484
[UNKNOWN]: And then all a dawned on me is I, what are you doing, dude?

32:27.824 --> 32:28.985
[UNKNOWN]: Like this isn't your purpose.

32:29.405 --> 32:32.206
[UNKNOWN]: Like it's enough, like let's clean it up.

32:32.246 --> 32:33.887
[UNKNOWN]: And that's where you heard me talk about.

32:33.907 --> 32:35.928
[UNKNOWN]: Let's go back to Kini College in the Maryland.

32:35.948 --> 32:39.029
[UNKNOWN]: Let's, let's decide how we can get back to the to the team.

32:39.049 --> 32:40.730
[UNKNOWN]: So, uh, all right.

32:40.750 --> 32:46.132
[UNKNOWN]: So you enlist, um, fairly smooth say on getting into Buds and starting training.

32:47.557 --> 32:55.300
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, to get in the buds, but it was difficult to get into the navy after I kicked out of the academy.

32:55.520 --> 32:55.820
[UNKNOWN]: Really?

32:56.040 --> 33:01.962
[UNKNOWN]: Because they thought I was some like, hoodlum, and I'm thinking about, do you remember the guys that were in no judgment, but it was a reality.

33:01.982 --> 33:04.803
[UNKNOWN]: The guys that were getting in are era where there was...

33:05.643 --> 33:08.345
[UNKNOWN]: Guys, we're giving options like go to jail or go to the Navy.

33:08.726 --> 33:15.331
[UNKNOWN]: We had gang members in my class, like I got kicked out for a fake ID card and I'm having a hard time like getting in.

33:15.371 --> 33:17.272
[UNKNOWN]: I had to get Congressman to sign off on this.

33:17.313 --> 33:17.493
[UNKNOWN]: It was.

33:18.338 --> 33:20.260
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, I don't even think I can join the Navy.

33:20.280 --> 33:23.102
[UNKNOWN]: I have to go over the Marines.

33:24.783 --> 33:25.264
[UNKNOWN]: Exactly.

33:25.284 --> 33:26.084
[UNKNOWN]: We'll take anybody.

33:28.046 --> 33:33.911
[UNKNOWN]: But once we got passed out and they said, yes, you can do this and it really did take a lot of work.

33:34.091 --> 33:36.473
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not kidding you when I have to go sit down with Congressmen.

33:36.493 --> 33:37.434
[UNKNOWN]: I talked to Adam rules.

33:37.494 --> 33:41.357
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I went, I'd track down everybody that could be advocate for me and it finally worked.

33:42.298 --> 33:45.981
[UNKNOWN]: Once I got through Boot Camp, it was pretty smooth sailing.

33:46.001 --> 33:47.101
[UNKNOWN]: I had a billet back then.

33:48.230 --> 33:50.872
[UNKNOWN]: I was in OS, so Operation Specialist.

33:51.132 --> 33:52.493
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, damn neck.

33:52.573 --> 33:57.197
[UNKNOWN]: I was at IOS, so you were on the same base, yeah?

33:57.217 --> 33:57.437
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

33:57.817 --> 33:58.638
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

33:59.538 --> 34:08.405
[UNKNOWN]: To me, at the time, I didn't even realize that Dev Group was there until I showed up, because again, this is in the mid 90s, where it was just way less information.

34:08.445 --> 34:08.565
[UNKNOWN]: But,

34:09.891 --> 34:15.733
[UNKNOWN]: I remember the first time I saw an active duty guy in his dress blues at the little McDonald's there.

34:16.454 --> 34:32.080
[UNKNOWN]: And I saw his tried and the brocker that says, you know, NSW development group, they have spec war dev group on it and, oh, just a enamored, you know, and then seeing guys at the gym working out that were in crazy shape and doing like the obstacle course and the pool there.

34:33.375 --> 34:55.072
[UNKNOWN]: I will say, like, there's a, probably similar to you, a small crew of us that were, you know, prepping to go to Buds or whatever, but like, what an amazing kind of proof and a proving ground, but just environment to be and seeing the tip of the spear of the community they're working out and they were all super cool dudes to like, even though we were nobody's that,

34:55.712 --> 35:18.643
[UNKNOWN]: Most of us probably weren't going to, you know, even get there let alone make it, but we're, you know, super professional and humble and helpful and You know, they'd mess with you a little bit, but I don't know if you had that same experience, but yeah, I loved being able to Get ready to go to Buds at that base for sure, but yeah, I didn't realize We had a similar experience, we had a small group getting ready for

35:19.583 --> 35:26.106
[UNKNOWN]: You know, EUD, NS, or seals, and other spec ops, Swake Up, leave as well.

35:27.827 --> 35:29.248
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't appreciate what we had there.

35:29.268 --> 35:34.990
[UNKNOWN]: Like, because I didn't realize I just assumed other people had, I didn't even put two thoughts into it.

35:35.010 --> 35:41.373
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, but to your point, like we had access, we had people who look up to, we had other instructors coming out helping us.

35:41.553 --> 35:42.654
[UNKNOWN]: Like, it was awesome.

35:42.854 --> 35:46.476
[UNKNOWN]: And it really did, in my opinion, I thought,

35:47.432 --> 35:49.552
[UNKNOWN]: boot camp when we went through boot camp.

35:49.572 --> 35:51.033
[UNKNOWN]: I was in really good shape going into it.

35:51.413 --> 36:06.796
[UNKNOWN]: I think I came out of shape just the food and like the workouts were not what we were doing prior to, but then when I got to OSA school like working out in the mornings with that group and then just being around other guys that were hungry and like doing things on the weekend as well instead of just partying.

36:06.876 --> 36:07.096
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

36:07.516 --> 36:08.676
[UNKNOWN]: It was a cool opportunity.

36:08.736 --> 36:08.996
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

36:09.296 --> 36:09.836
[UNKNOWN]: Other health.

36:10.057 --> 36:11.077
[UNKNOWN]: What sort of year was that?

36:11.697 --> 36:12.697
[UNKNOWN]: That was 2003.

36:12.717 --> 36:12.937
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

36:12.997 --> 36:13.177
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.

36:18.840 --> 36:20.762
[UNKNOWN]: OSA school, make it the buds.

36:21.463 --> 36:23.025
[UNKNOWN]: You're going through two, five, two.

36:23.967 --> 36:28.072
[UNKNOWN]: Walk us through kind of that whole experience.

36:28.340 --> 36:32.864
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there's one other, I'm going to, one other part to this story that I think is worth calling out.

36:32.904 --> 36:35.887
[UNKNOWN]: And he said, dear friend of mine, he came my swim buddy.

36:36.048 --> 36:39.771
[UNKNOWN]: So I show up, and we're doing this workout with all these other guys.

36:40.131 --> 36:45.817
[UNKNOWN]: And there's one other dude that is kind of keeping up or doing a really good job, like I was like, that's a strong dude.

36:46.598 --> 36:50.281
[UNKNOWN]: His name is Zedak Morgan, he's become one of my best friends, right?

36:52.718 --> 37:13.130
[UNKNOWN]: and that's an integral part of the story because he was a week ahead of me showed up to us a school week ahead of me and we just hit it off like we just knew where we felt like we us two had a good opportunity making it the rest of the guys didn't feel like they had they were performing at the level that you would think we would need to be in the bud so we became best friends remember the shifting sands that little bar there okay so we're of age

37:16.923 --> 37:24.048
[UNKNOWN]: And back then, they had quarter beer nights, so we used to spend, you know, I say we're working out having a good time.

37:24.068 --> 37:33.154
[UNKNOWN]: We also had fun too, so we would go out to shifting sands and I just, I don't know why I felt compelled to share that, man, it was like quarter beer night, and we would put down like three bucks and be just wasting it.

37:34.895 --> 37:38.197
[UNKNOWN]: I was 18, so I mean, I remember seeing the place, but I couldn't get in.

37:38.297 --> 37:40.579
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I guess I was 21 at the time.

37:40.599 --> 37:42.980
[UNKNOWN]: I had gone past my fake idea, uh,

37:44.457 --> 37:54.565
[UNKNOWN]: Um, but we really hit it off and he showed up, like he went off to Buds, you know, showed up a week or two ahead of me and then I showed up and they had just classed up.

37:54.665 --> 37:56.746
[UNKNOWN]: So we were one of the first groups to get there.

37:57.507 --> 38:01.730
[UNKNOWN]: We ended up knowing each other so we roomed up together and then a lot of stories around that.

38:01.890 --> 38:02.450
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

38:03.031 --> 38:05.352
[UNKNOWN]: Um, did you make it through with 25 to the first time?

38:05.793 --> 38:07.174
[UNKNOWN]: We did, but there's

38:08.642 --> 38:12.163
[UNKNOWN]: There's a story there that, I mean, it almost ended before it started.

38:12.623 --> 38:20.586
[UNKNOWN]: So, same guy, Zeta, Morgan, another guy named John Parker, who got all the way through hell week with both broken legs.

38:21.026 --> 38:23.046
[UNKNOWN]: Like, really, instead of a guy, he lives in Texas.

38:23.066 --> 38:25.507
[UNKNOWN]: I haven't talked him in a long time, but I hope he's doing well.

38:25.567 --> 38:31.009
[UNKNOWN]: And he's just, I have a lot of respect for him to get through hell week with like, dragon, two broken legs around.

38:31.029 --> 38:33.210
[UNKNOWN]: It says a lot about him and there's other guys that quit for less.

38:34.390 --> 38:34.610
[UNKNOWN]: But,

38:35.760 --> 38:59.877
[UNKNOWN]: the important part of the story is we show up and we're about to class up now it's been a couple like maybe a month and a half maybe two months and we got a you know two hundred plus guys so we're really close it's our birthday weekend sades is May 18th minds May 16th we're literally starting a class up and and that weekend this is like we're only just going to have a beer just one beer

39:01.514 --> 39:02.395
[UNKNOWN]: Famous last week.

39:02.556 --> 39:03.517
[UNKNOWN]: You know where this is going.

39:04.419 --> 39:07.784
[UNKNOWN]: So John Parker had a truck and it could sit three up in the front.

39:08.625 --> 39:10.989
[UNKNOWN]: So we got three big boys, Zays from Montana.

39:11.009 --> 39:15.155
[UNKNOWN]: John's a good Texas guy and you know, Tennessee and you got these three big boys in the front.

39:16.192 --> 39:22.194
[UNKNOWN]: we go out to a podger's game and just like let's just watch the game kind of take it easy have one beard the podger's game will go home.

39:22.934 --> 39:26.715
[UNKNOWN]: Well that one beer is like, you know, Steve or else.

39:27.135 --> 39:29.275
[UNKNOWN]: It's the big gulp.

39:29.876 --> 39:34.497
[UNKNOWN]: So we have that beer and they're like, well, you know, a game kind of ended early.

39:34.537 --> 39:37.057
[UNKNOWN]: Why don't we just go the hours bar?

39:37.778 --> 39:38.618
[UNKNOWN]: So we go to the Irish bar

39:44.778 --> 39:56.593
[UNKNOWN]: It's time to get back because it's, you know, that's Sunday night, Monday is kicking off first thing in the morning and we, we hop in John's truck, he had a drink earlier in the night, literally a drink though.

39:57.354 --> 39:59.176
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not just saying that and he stopped drinking.

40:00.037 --> 40:07.559
[UNKNOWN]: Um, and he started driving us back and right when we start turning on the corner of the bridge, Zade and I start wrestling with each other, he's were drawing John Zelenes and knock it on.

40:07.579 --> 40:09.639
[UNKNOWN]: If he's focusing on us, he knock it off.

40:10.079 --> 40:14.880
[UNKNOWN]: And he doesn't see the flares and he doesn't see the cop with his hand in front of him.

40:15.500 --> 40:23.182
[UNKNOWN]: And then all of a sudden we slam on the break Zade and I hit the windshield and he's literally feet away from this cop and this cop rips him out of the, out of the, out of the truck.

40:24.062 --> 40:24.822
[UNKNOWN]: Cops show up.

40:25.043 --> 40:33.847
[UNKNOWN]: There's a suicide attempt happening so the Coronada Bay Bridge which set down we didn't see it because we're screwing off and they start doing a feel-spreaded test.

40:33.887 --> 40:34.487
[UNKNOWN]: He refuses.

40:34.507 --> 40:35.388
[UNKNOWN]: They rest him on the spot.

40:36.247 --> 41:01.338
[UNKNOWN]: They turn to us and they start interrogating us and, you know, Z, it has an undergrad from Montana State or one of the Montana's and, you know, I got a couple classes, took some criminal defense and I start spouting off some stuff that I essentially see on lawn order and the guys that you guys are done, puts us in handcuffs, throws us in the back and we're just sitting back there and it's probably two in the morning now and we're kicking off at five, right?

41:01.599 --> 41:04.440
[UNKNOWN]: So this is all happening right on the cusp of the Bay Bridge.

41:06.275 --> 41:15.718
[UNKNOWN]: And the cop perceives to take us down under their baby bridge to barrio, unconscious, and says, like, beat it, essentially, leaves us in the hood.

41:17.158 --> 41:19.799
[UNKNOWN]: And I was just, I needed water, and I need to use the restroom.

41:21.520 --> 41:24.461
[UNKNOWN]: And we went to a taco shop, and it was close, but there was people in there.

41:24.481 --> 41:25.841
[UNKNOWN]: I started banging on the door.

41:25.901 --> 41:28.162
[UNKNOWN]: And she's like yelling at us to get away.

41:28.182 --> 41:30.282
[UNKNOWN]: You probably thinks we're homeless or drunk.

41:30.302 --> 41:31.403
[UNKNOWN]: It doesn't matter the same.

41:32.592 --> 41:34.133
[UNKNOWN]: And then we start banging harder.

41:34.493 --> 41:37.836
[UNKNOWN]: And then I just start peeing on the side of the drive through.

41:37.876 --> 41:38.796
[UNKNOWN]: So she calls the cops.

41:38.837 --> 41:40.578
[UNKNOWN]: I hear him come in, Zayne and I sprint across.

41:40.618 --> 41:42.779
[UNKNOWN]: We hide in on the port side now.

41:42.859 --> 41:43.900
[UNKNOWN]: So we're all the ships are.

41:45.942 --> 41:47.483
[UNKNOWN]: And we sit there as like how we can back.

41:47.523 --> 41:49.024
[UNKNOWN]: This is pre-over obviously.

41:49.084 --> 41:50.485
[UNKNOWN]: No tax is going in a barrio.

41:50.505 --> 41:51.325
[UNKNOWN]: It's two in the morning.

41:51.345 --> 41:53.947
[UNKNOWN]: And we don't like, we didn't know what we're doing.

41:54.387 --> 41:55.288
[UNKNOWN]: They bridges close.

41:55.308 --> 41:56.229
[UNKNOWN]: We're going to have to go to IB.

41:57.588 --> 42:02.213
[UNKNOWN]: So we thought, well, quickest way to get there is to swim.

42:03.374 --> 42:05.076
[UNKNOWN]: A to B, straight line, let's just do it.

42:06.177 --> 42:14.086
[UNKNOWN]: So we proceeded to get start naked, and we have our flip phones back then, wallet, everything.

42:14.814 --> 42:41.843
[UNKNOWN]: we'll come back in the morning or after training for this and we put in a corner we start hopping bar wire fences we go down the rocks I slip and I just cut myself up like to pieces like really bad barnacles and stuff like that we start at 5 a.m. by the way this is the class up this is to not first phase but to class what's in dock yeah well in this is in dock tomorrow 5 a.m. it's like now 2.30

42:45.015 --> 42:51.280
[UNKNOWN]: Um, he basically coddles my naked body, and he's like, dude, what are we gonna do?

42:51.340 --> 42:57.925
[UNKNOWN]: And I'm just like, crying, bleeding out, and I was like, I just, we can't swim anymore.

42:57.945 --> 43:00.387
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, I know that he's like, new right away what I was thinking.

43:01.365 --> 43:04.408
[UNKNOWN]: Um, he said, yeah, the sharks will get us like he's from Montana from Tennessee.

43:04.428 --> 43:07.852
[UNKNOWN]: He had no idea there's no sharks in there But I just Is that guy?

43:07.872 --> 43:18.362
[UNKNOWN]: Well, let's go grab our stuff and we'll figure out where to go from there So we go back and it took us what felt like an attorney that you find our stuff is like we would have never found that stuff the next day Never we could barely find it after 10 minutes

43:19.603 --> 43:26.228
[UNKNOWN]: But we're putting our clothes back on and we have to hop over the barbar to get out of the compound.

43:26.248 --> 43:32.033
[UNKNOWN]: And I remember hopping over and there's this camera and I just remember like looking at me later on.

43:32.073 --> 43:36.416
[UNKNOWN]: I have to imagine there's like some security guard like probably calling his buddies over.

43:36.436 --> 43:37.597
[UNKNOWN]: They hit him and get over here.

43:37.657 --> 43:38.638
[UNKNOWN]: Look at these two guys.

43:38.718 --> 43:43.121
[UNKNOWN]: Like almost like running around naked on our pointed us out.

43:43.161 --> 43:44.082
[UNKNOWN]: But we hop off.

43:45.325 --> 43:49.606
[UNKNOWN]: And there's a car coming as soon as we help over the wire and we stop it and it's in a little Hugo car.

43:49.626 --> 43:54.928
[UNKNOWN]: Remember there was like check cars, there was tiny size of both of these chairs put together.

43:55.528 --> 43:57.228
[UNKNOWN]: And there's a bunch of workers in there.

43:57.248 --> 43:59.729
[UNKNOWN]: Like Mexicans that had hard hats and stuff like that.

43:59.749 --> 44:00.849
[UNKNOWN]: I'm like, hey, take us to the bridge.

44:00.869 --> 44:01.870
[UNKNOWN]: And they're like, okay, there's no room.

44:01.890 --> 44:02.890
[UNKNOWN]: It's like take us to the bridge.

44:03.470 --> 44:04.750
[UNKNOWN]: And we just forced ourselves in there.

44:04.770 --> 44:07.151
[UNKNOWN]: So now we're like, they had already had like four dudes in there.

44:07.171 --> 44:09.012
[UNKNOWN]: Now we got six, six guys in there.

44:09.392 --> 44:11.152
[UNKNOWN]: He's a big boy's age, like 240.

44:12.172 --> 44:13.313
[UNKNOWN]: And they drive us to the bridge.

44:14.413 --> 44:39.620
[UNKNOWN]: well as suicide attempts still happening they're still trying to negotiate this guy from doing it but the court on it be bridge as you're well aware has it was like there's barriers that they move on either day but there's barriers so our net our logic now our drunk logic is like let's just get on the left side of this this is all happening on the right and we'll just low crawl passes spot and then once we get past the world runner and and then we'll get to the coronado

44:40.830 --> 44:47.574
[UNKNOWN]: Well, even back in early 2000s, and probably prior to that, they've put cameras on those bridges.

44:47.834 --> 44:51.396
[UNKNOWN]: So again, I'm pretty sure some guys are like, oh my, look at these two idiots.

44:52.557 --> 44:55.879
[UNKNOWN]: And what I remember most is, it felt like Ducca hazards.

44:55.959 --> 45:02.323
[UNKNOWN]: We're kind of past that section now, and we kind of stand up and we start walking all of a sudden, it sounds like I hear something like a motor.

45:03.163 --> 45:07.526
[UNKNOWN]: It's getting louder, and then I see lights, and it's just, I promise you, this cop caught air.

45:07.566 --> 45:09.027
[UNKNOWN]: He, come over the top.

45:10.162 --> 45:14.946
[UNKNOWN]: Duxa has your skids, puts a shotgun, light on us, hands up.

45:15.107 --> 45:18.350
[UNKNOWN]: I go to jump off the bridge, thinking I'm over water.

45:19.150 --> 45:21.232
[UNKNOWN]: Even if I was over water, probably wouldn't be good.

45:21.733 --> 45:23.975
[UNKNOWN]: Zade grabs me, or not even over water yet.

45:23.995 --> 45:24.976
[UNKNOWN]: We're still over barrio.

45:25.156 --> 45:27.218
[UNKNOWN]: And like basically saves my life.

45:28.159 --> 45:34.965
[UNKNOWN]: And the cop has a light, put your hands up higher, higher, and then the light starts going down.

45:37.283 --> 45:43.149
[UNKNOWN]: And then it's like a silence, we can't quite see his face, and it says, are you fucking kidding me?

45:43.209 --> 45:45.031
[UNKNOWN]: How did you two get back here so quick?

45:45.732 --> 45:47.553
[UNKNOWN]: It was the cop that dropped us off earlier.

45:48.418 --> 46:13.435
[UNKNOWN]: And he proceeds like question us like what do you why are you trying to get across this bit bridge is like we'll sir were you know but students and we actually class up tomorrow we got in dock he's like oh you guys are fucked up in the back I'll drop you off and he dropped this off no kidding he dropped this all the way yeah I mean there's so many worse ways that he could have handled that oh my god I mean man there's a lot more to that story like

46:14.838 --> 46:22.310
[UNKNOWN]: got what but I mean John Parker wasn't there for muster so we're staying in there next morning muster drunk off our ass.

46:23.933 --> 46:27.419
[UNKNOWN]: You're still cut up right I mean I'm still cut up what do they do with that?

46:28.357 --> 46:31.559
[UNKNOWN]: So we're doing headcount and it's like, we're down a man.

46:32.239 --> 46:34.600
[UNKNOWN]: Like somebody knows where this guy is, where is he?

46:34.640 --> 46:39.122
[UNKNOWN]: And I'm like looking at Z80s, looking at me out of the corner of eyes, and it's like, do we say something to do we not?

46:39.983 --> 46:41.803
[UNKNOWN]: Fun is like, man, they're not going to stop.

46:42.824 --> 46:45.225
[UNKNOWN]: So I raise my hands, Aidries, his hand.

46:45.545 --> 46:46.666
[UNKNOWN]: They dismiss everybody else.

46:46.686 --> 46:50.588
[UNKNOWN]: They bring us into, what was the instructor room called?

46:52.109 --> 47:02.536
[UNKNOWN]: It's just where all the instructors were hanging out, their offices, and as soon as we walk in, one of the instructor leans in, he's like Smells like a whiskey factory.

47:02.896 --> 47:09.301
[UNKNOWN]: This is gonna be good boys, and he's like, and they started like what happened, and we told them he's like, you guys are done.

47:09.601 --> 47:14.084
[UNKNOWN]: Like, you guys are done Keep doing the class.

47:14.245 --> 47:16.926
[UNKNOWN]: You guys are gonna be you're gonna get your paperwork.

47:16.946 --> 47:17.487
[UNKNOWN]: So now we're in

47:18.423 --> 47:21.144
[UNKNOWN]: we're going through the evolutions known we're going to get kicked out.

47:22.665 --> 47:29.348
[UNKNOWN]: We also had far worse than that, by the way, in my opinion, was we had one of the officers in the class who was an English major.

47:29.408 --> 47:34.250
[UNKNOWN]: So one of the assignments we had to do was we had to write a 2,000 word essay.

47:34.390 --> 47:39.652
[UNKNOWN]: This is pre-chatchy, I mean, this is like writing essay on like,

47:40.775 --> 47:47.759
[UNKNOWN]: You know, our stupidity and everything and like what we would have done differently, which okay, like anybody can sit down and roll up your sleeves and bang that out.

47:48.259 --> 47:55.162
[UNKNOWN]: But then we had a number it, one, two, three, and it takes hours to write out one to 2000.

47:56.723 --> 47:57.724
[UNKNOWN]: And that was painful.

47:57.764 --> 47:58.844
[UNKNOWN]: Like your hands cramp it up.

47:59.104 --> 48:00.025
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, that was torture.

48:01.365 --> 48:09.329
[UNKNOWN]: And I remember it was due the next day, but the officer in the class, okay, was his name

48:13.066 --> 48:14.547
[UNKNOWN]: I remember his name, it'll come back to me.

48:17.209 --> 48:21.311
[UNKNOWN]: He took it and he red-lined it up, because I know you got to do this, change this.

48:21.371 --> 48:21.711
[UNKNOWN]: Here you go.

48:21.731 --> 48:22.131
[UNKNOWN]: Do it again.

48:22.151 --> 48:28.055
[UNKNOWN]: And Zay and I are just like, I don't think you appreciate how long it takes to write one to 2,000.

48:29.156 --> 48:34.039
[UNKNOWN]: So we had to do it all over again, write that again, and it stayed up all night doing that and then turned it in.

48:34.059 --> 48:35.319
[UNKNOWN]: That was miserable.

48:37.218 --> 48:38.039
[UNKNOWN]: And we just kept on.

48:38.059 --> 48:45.885
[UNKNOWN]: We would zed and I would get called in early every single day, Monday through Friday where we would get beat, we'd have to stay late, we would get beat again, all through first phase.

48:46.265 --> 48:48.687
[UNKNOWN]: Like we had extra us all through first phase.

48:48.867 --> 48:53.091
[UNKNOWN]: Always we were always putting Koonsquad and we just kicked out.

48:53.731 --> 49:00.717
[UNKNOWN]: No, I thought it was coming though, like every single day and then finally pull us in and they were like, hey, we're going to give you guys an opportunity to go through a week.

49:02.390 --> 49:08.692
[UNKNOWN]: And afterwards, they were like, one of the instructors, and I don't know if this is a good thing or bad thing, like, it doesn't matter they didn't kick us out.

49:08.712 --> 49:11.932
[UNKNOWN]: He was just like, hey, you're the type of guys we want, you're just not gonna stop.

49:13.033 --> 49:16.714
[UNKNOWN]: So we ended up, you know, think, ah, they didn't kick us out.

49:17.054 --> 49:25.936
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, again, my stupidity almost got in the way of like my dreams, but the good Lord was looking out for us and was able to get through two, five, two, the first go.

49:26.236 --> 49:26.496
[UNKNOWN]: Wow.

49:27.856 --> 49:29.777
[UNKNOWN]: I imagine Parker got booted, right?

49:30.111 --> 49:49.292
[UNKNOWN]: he got so they didn't have the droop blood and he had no alcohol in him so he was able to class up but he went through hell week with us two five two and broke both brothers legs finished hell week and then they checked him out and they're like he you're medically discharged so he got medically discharged out of the navy wow

49:50.013 --> 49:50.833
[UNKNOWN]: Man, it's brutal.

49:52.354 --> 49:55.875
[UNKNOWN]: All right, so you make it all the way through with two, five, two, and graduate.

49:56.075 --> 49:56.635
[UNKNOWN]: Yep.

49:57.615 --> 50:00.756
[UNKNOWN]: Did you go to Team Four first or Team Four?

50:00.776 --> 50:01.357
[UNKNOWN]: I did, yeah.

50:01.797 --> 50:09.299
[UNKNOWN]: And I really wanted to, because my mom's from Panama, as mentioned, and, you know, Team Four prior to the war, that was South of South Com, South America.

50:10.039 --> 50:11.800
[UNKNOWN]: And I've done some South America deployments.

50:11.940 --> 50:15.361
[UNKNOWN]: I've partnered up with one of the units too, and did some work with them.

50:16.481 --> 50:19.062
[UNKNOWN]: I just always wanted to do that, just because I think my heritage.

50:19.782 --> 50:23.345
[UNKNOWN]: But obviously, that wasn't the case when we showed up.

50:24.226 --> 50:27.089
[UNKNOWN]: Our team was deployed at the time.

50:27.649 --> 50:33.155
[UNKNOWN]: So Zade and I got a nod to go to teammate, which was the next in line, so they were going to replace team four.

50:33.955 --> 50:39.441
[UNKNOWN]: And they were underman, so they asked for a couple new guys to go over there and went over there.

50:40.783 --> 50:51.676
[UNKNOWN]: We did a great job, and performed at the low they wanted us to, and we thought they were going to pull us over to team eight, they asked, and our master chief said no.

50:52.958 --> 51:02.964
[UNKNOWN]: We did a partial work up with those guys and that was fun because I got some exposure of what like workups look like, but then when Team 4 came back, my master chief, his name was Barcloth, who was also in, you brought it around.

51:03.004 --> 51:08.828
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, Navy SEALs, he was in that movie, he said no, we're not taking our guys.

51:08.888 --> 51:18.033
[UNKNOWN]: And then I started over with a two-troup at Team 4 and that was a great group and it was an accelerated workup cycle.

51:18.073 --> 51:19.714
[UNKNOWN]: So we were deployed nine months later.

51:20.014 --> 51:20.855
[UNKNOWN]: Wow, that's a quick.

51:22.282 --> 51:23.884
[UNKNOWN]: quick turnaround for sure.

51:25.104 --> 51:26.185
[UNKNOWN]: Where did you guys deploy to?

51:26.926 --> 51:31.329
[UNKNOWN]: So with Team 4 I did two deployments to back to back to Baghdad.

51:31.489 --> 51:42.056
[UNKNOWN]: So the first one we were part of the ERU guys so they're responsive unit and then I also ICTF and

51:43.177 --> 51:55.325
[UNKNOWN]: And we were going after specific target sets that were backed by Iran, so they were Iran-influence targets, so they had money behind them and we were just due DAs almost every night of the lake.

51:55.645 --> 51:58.607
[UNKNOWN]: And there's times when we were doing two days, there was awesome.

51:59.427 --> 52:03.010
[UNKNOWN]: As a new guy that's just coming in, that's what you came in to do, right?

52:03.090 --> 52:04.671
[UNKNOWN]: So it was fun.

52:05.811 --> 52:07.492
[UNKNOWN]: A lot of it was, we were taking

52:09.448 --> 52:17.075
[UNKNOWN]: Um, we also did a lot of helos, but we're taking a mix out for a good portion of it and then just the ID ID threat went up so high that we started doing a lot more helos.

52:17.503 --> 52:19.164
[UNKNOWN]: explain the evict thing for the list.

52:19.184 --> 52:19.544
[UNKNOWN]: Oh yeah.

52:20.524 --> 52:42.933
[UNKNOWN]: So when I first shut up, we were doing Humvees of Vix's vehicles, and I think about when we first showed up, like, we were not up armored, but war evolves fast, and like ID threats started from the bottom, and then the sides, and then the next thing you know, our armors are, our Humvees are completely, completely armored up, and then since, I mean, and then

52:46.754 --> 52:48.575
[UNKNOWN]: and rightfully so to protect the threats.

52:49.056 --> 52:51.417
[UNKNOWN]: But that first deployment was mostly humbese.

52:52.478 --> 52:54.319
[UNKNOWN]: And we would rule out pretty deep.

52:54.359 --> 52:59.343
[UNKNOWN]: We'd have upwards of probably 10 sometimes humbese.

53:00.564 --> 53:20.106
[UNKNOWN]: and we'd have, you know, two guys in the front, a couple of guys in the back, and occasionally we'd have guys, some, some ops, we'd have guys even in the back of the Humvee, and then obviously the turret gunner, but we're doing a lot of stuff in Sotter City, which is a pretty volatile, that's kind of the stronghold back then when we were in 2004, five,

53:21.194 --> 53:26.578
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, um, were you guys going after Desert Cards guys are like super high high level targets?

53:26.638 --> 53:35.204
[UNKNOWN]: We were, yeah, um, at that time, did you know that Iran was meddling in there and and a lot of the things you were doing had had to do with them?

53:35.705 --> 53:35.965
[UNKNOWN]: You know,

53:37.057 --> 53:44.162
[UNKNOWN]: I did once we got there, like once we got the brief, but I didn't realize like what was the politics of all how all this worked prior to that.

53:45.222 --> 53:49.285
[UNKNOWN]: Once we got there, you quickly realized, okay, I understand who's pulling the strings here.

53:49.305 --> 53:59.732
[UNKNOWN]: And we're going after these guys, but it's not really them, it's a ran, that's kind of funneling money direction, and those are the folks that we were going after.

54:00.515 --> 54:07.557
[UNKNOWN]: I'm curious, I mean, decades later now as we sit here and there's an active campaign taking place in Iran.

54:07.577 --> 54:24.062
[UNKNOWN]: Do you have a perspective on what we're doing now and why versus even when back then, like it was no secret, especially to the US government and intelligence, that Iran was taking an active role.

54:24.882 --> 54:30.304
[UNKNOWN]: in killing U.S. service members in Iraq and they did it hundreds of not thousands of of times.

54:31.584 --> 54:38.247
[UNKNOWN]: Is there any part of you that looks at why didn't we do anything then and why are we doing it now or what is your take on kind of what's happening?

54:38.267 --> 54:38.367
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

54:39.967 --> 54:41.788
[UNKNOWN]: You know, I think we did do something then.

54:42.825 --> 54:49.832
[UNKNOWN]: And then politics change, leadership change, and we create a vacuum or void, and we're not going to fill it.

54:49.892 --> 54:51.093
[UNKNOWN]: So they're going to fill back in.

54:51.113 --> 54:52.954
[UNKNOWN]: And I think that's what happened numerous times.

54:54.035 --> 55:03.684
[UNKNOWN]: We have friends and teammates that are no longer here fighting for a stronghold that we had already won five years, you know, six, seven years before, right?

55:04.485 --> 55:14.015
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, you know, I always frame it, you know, you mentioned a, you know, I run a business now and I always tell my team as I get as much information as possible, right?

55:14.035 --> 55:23.326
[UNKNOWN]: Like so and recognize that you don't have all the information, so come out swinging unless you're 100% confident that you have the information that you need to back your your stance.

55:23.786 --> 55:25.828
[UNKNOWN]: So I start with that with that said,

55:27.031 --> 55:34.523
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, there's this part of me that recognizes what a ran did back then and what they're most likely still doing, they're still playing, they're attacking.

55:34.844 --> 55:36.807
[UNKNOWN]: And then there's other part of me that is just

55:41.068 --> 55:58.504
[UNKNOWN]: questions like hey what what's our intentions right now like i need to understand what we're really doing over there is it oil is it is it because there is some nuclear capabilities over there because if i don't have clarity on what that is like i don't know if it makes sense for us to be there

55:59.468 --> 56:01.069
[UNKNOWN]: And, you know, there's another part of me.

56:01.089 --> 56:03.289
[UNKNOWN]: I go back and forth with this internal dialogue all the time.

56:03.329 --> 56:09.011
[UNKNOWN]: It's like, hey, if you let that fester, and that thing's going to get out of control, and we're going to have real big problems on our hands.

56:09.371 --> 56:14.513
[UNKNOWN]: I think we've tried to contain it as best as possible and started getting out of control.

56:14.653 --> 56:17.254
[UNKNOWN]: So, again, I go back and forth on this quite a bit.

56:17.274 --> 56:20.075
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not trying to be wishy-washy here, but I'm just showing you a peek and...

56:20.855 --> 56:22.216
[UNKNOWN]: into how I think about things.

56:22.476 --> 56:24.196
[UNKNOWN]: There's part of me is like not enough information.

56:24.216 --> 56:27.877
[UNKNOWN]: There's part of me is like, we've experienced the same adversary before.

56:27.897 --> 56:28.678
[UNKNOWN]: We know how they operate.

56:28.698 --> 56:30.138
[UNKNOWN]: We know what they're going to do if we do nothing.

56:30.778 --> 56:32.199
[UNKNOWN]: That's going to be a threat to Homeland.

56:32.319 --> 56:34.600
[UNKNOWN]: So we probably need to put a little more pressure on them.

56:34.660 --> 56:36.880
[UNKNOWN]: So I can't be 100% against what's going on right now.

56:37.141 --> 56:37.661
[UNKNOWN]: That makes sense.

56:38.121 --> 56:41.462
[UNKNOWN]: No, I mean, well, I mean, one that's a complex issue.

56:41.482 --> 56:42.362
[UNKNOWN]: And I agree.

56:42.382 --> 56:43.923
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, there's part of me that thinks like, we'll

56:46.024 --> 56:58.594
[UNKNOWN]: If our justification for doing what we're doing now is nuclear capability and international terrorism reach from them that spills over into other parts of the world.

57:00.015 --> 57:01.236
[UNKNOWN]: Why didn't we do anything?

57:01.276 --> 57:20.611
[UNKNOWN]: Why didn't we do what we're doing now when they were actively killing U.S. service members in Iraq Now to be fair strategically the amount of people that we had in country at the time Had we launched mass of air strikes and basically done what we're doing now back then

57:21.732 --> 57:42.185
[UNKNOWN]: would that have made all of our troops far more vulnerable because now they wouldn't be trying to hide, you know, funneling EFP's and money and, you know, little things cat and mouse here and there that they could have more justifiably launched whatever they wanted to into the country and it would have been way easier to hit any American base or fab.

57:42.945 --> 57:48.767
[UNKNOWN]: in the region way worse than what they're doing now and that's not probably the smartest tactic either.

57:48.807 --> 58:05.652
[UNKNOWN]: So there's not really an easy answer and I had a discussion the last last guy that was on the show about Afghanistan and looking at, you know, the 20 plus years that we spent there, you know, and kind of the the three, four month

58:06.532 --> 58:24.092
[UNKNOWN]: into afghanistan if we had just said okay you know we made our point we punch you back in the mouth everybody's on the run and hiding now we're gonna leave and if you do it again we're gonna come back and it's gonna be ten times worse like there's a contingent of veterans in the population that i think

58:25.213 --> 58:29.958
[UNKNOWN]: would say that that was the smarter play than what we did, which of course it's easy to armchair quarterback.

58:29.978 --> 58:36.444
[UNKNOWN]: However, we're kind of at that same point with Iran now where you could say, okay, we made our point.

58:36.504 --> 58:39.227
[UNKNOWN]: Let's pull back and if it keeps going on, we're going to make it worse.

58:40.489 --> 59:02.867
[UNKNOWN]: if we keep going does a ran turn into afghanistan where we end up sending boots on the ground and spending decades there and ultimately not really doing anything you know if you look at afghanistan the way it is now versus september 10th 2001 is it much different no I mean not in the grand scheme of things there's way more people did but you know the politics there that

59:04.313 --> 59:09.816
[UNKNOWN]: the religious fanaticism that's ingrained into both the society and the government.

59:09.856 --> 59:13.738
[UNKNOWN]: There is no different now, you know, so it's kind of like what was the point then?

59:13.778 --> 59:14.098
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

59:14.859 --> 59:22.463
[UNKNOWN]: So there's not an easy answer, you know, and I'm kind of with you and that, you know, I'm not completely opposed to it, but I also don't feel great about

59:23.363 --> 59:31.949
[UNKNOWN]: What's been communicated in terms of what winning looks like, what our goals and intentions are, those have changed, or justification has gone back and forth as to why or there.

59:32.810 --> 59:34.471
[UNKNOWN]: So I don't know what the right answer is.

59:35.532 --> 59:49.262
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I appreciate your point about Afghanistan and the opportunity for us to early on to do that strike, to punch him in the face, and then pull back and say, hey, that's your warning.

59:50.551 --> 59:58.233
[UNKNOWN]: I think we've had a couple of those opportunities now with a ran, and we can just keep going as to your point.

59:58.253 --> 01:00:05.795
[UNKNOWN]: Like, we can pull back down and say, hey, we touch your lesson, but any more than this, I don't know how you can pull out.

01:00:05.875 --> 01:00:07.455
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I don't know how you can pull back.

01:00:07.515 --> 01:00:12.236
[UNKNOWN]: We're getting dangerously close to that level, and now we have to potentially occupy boots on ground to your point.

01:00:12.336 --> 01:00:12.536
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:00:13.296 --> 01:00:19.758
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and to be fair, you and I don't have access to a lot of information that I think would help.

01:00:20.518 --> 01:00:25.502
[UNKNOWN]: shape a decision or at least an opinion on the, you know, and so there's the great point.

01:00:25.642 --> 01:00:36.730
[UNKNOWN]: We don't know what we don't know, you know, but in terms of the missions that you were doing on Iraq at that time, do any of the operations stand out as being particularly memorable of all the ones that you did?

01:00:37.979 --> 01:00:46.886
[UNKNOWN]: Sorry, yeah, you know, I imagine a lot of folks highlight some of the, it's just my personality.

01:00:46.986 --> 01:00:54.112
[UNKNOWN]: I like talking about where we fucked up or the funny stuff all year for it because there's, we did a lot of great stuff.

01:00:54.152 --> 01:00:55.413
[UNKNOWN]: There's a lot of cool operations.

01:00:55.473 --> 01:00:58.535
[UNKNOWN]: If we were blowing doors, every in gates, every single night, it was fun.

01:00:59.115 --> 01:01:00.136
[UNKNOWN]: It really was, man.

01:01:00.717 --> 01:01:03.739
[UNKNOWN]: We were, we're again creative, like I was on the Recky team.

01:01:03.819 --> 01:01:04.299
[UNKNOWN]: So we were,

01:01:05.217 --> 01:01:13.646
[UNKNOWN]: We were climbing the buildings and clearing from the top down, which there's no fucking cooler thing in the world than sneaking up on somebody while they're still in their bed, right, like, in a hand-to-idea.

01:01:15.788 --> 01:01:18.651
[UNKNOWN]: But early on, I remember my first couple of ops.

01:01:18.691 --> 01:01:23.056
[UNKNOWN]: So one was going into Saadar City, and I alluded to this, and the driver,

01:01:25.265 --> 01:01:33.828
[UNKNOWN]: Vic Commander was a vehicle commander at the time was at Herzog, so he had just come over from Dan Nak and he came over to team 4 to be a troop commander there.

01:01:34.709 --> 01:01:51.395
[UNKNOWN]: And I think the idea there is they were taking folks from Dan Nak and bringing them that add exposure experience or you know had been over at their command to try to help accelerate the teams and learn from their TTPs and some of their experiences, so here's our troop commander.

01:01:52.176 --> 01:01:54.066
[UNKNOWN]: He's riding shotgun.

01:01:54.106 --> 01:01:55.533
[UNKNOWN]: I'm driving in lead mobility.

01:01:56.685 --> 01:01:57.946
[UNKNOWN]: And we're going through solder city.

01:01:58.146 --> 01:02:01.808
[UNKNOWN]: And right when you come in a solder city, I mean, they start burning tires right away.

01:02:01.828 --> 01:02:03.849
[UNKNOWN]: They let the whole world know they start chattering.

01:02:04.229 --> 01:02:05.169
[UNKNOWN]: We're picking up on it.

01:02:05.229 --> 01:02:06.570
[UNKNOWN]: They hate the Americans are coming.

01:02:07.210 --> 01:02:08.671
[UNKNOWN]: So they went way to second.

01:02:08.691 --> 01:02:11.012
[UNKNOWN]: And we're in there and we go to hit target.

01:02:11.032 --> 01:02:12.753
[UNKNOWN]: And the salt force gets out.

01:02:12.793 --> 01:02:13.553
[UNKNOWN]: We blow doors.

01:02:13.574 --> 01:02:16.275
[UNKNOWN]: We go in there, capture kill.

01:02:17.495 --> 01:02:20.017
[UNKNOWN]: And more often than not, we would take dudes off.

01:02:20.697 --> 01:02:21.958
[UNKNOWN]: And then we start driving back.

01:02:22.478 --> 01:02:25.580
[UNKNOWN]: And I remember, on the way home, so mission success,

01:02:26.620 --> 01:02:30.044
[UNKNOWN]: We got the guy, and again, I'm in a Humvee and I'm driving.

01:02:30.084 --> 01:02:30.924
[UNKNOWN]: It's all up armored.

01:02:31.825 --> 01:02:38.289
[UNKNOWN]: And I remember looking to my left, and it was just solder city in most of Iraq was blocks.

01:02:38.709 --> 01:02:42.411
[UNKNOWN]: So I was just like, billions, just, you know, a block of billions connected to one another.

01:02:42.431 --> 01:02:44.893
[UNKNOWN]: And then a gap where street was another block.

01:02:44.933 --> 01:02:46.434
[UNKNOWN]: And then there was this one open area.

01:02:46.454 --> 01:02:49.836
[UNKNOWN]: And I remember driving past it and it's like, oh man, it's just the skyline.

01:02:49.856 --> 01:02:50.797
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, yeah, that's so cool.

01:02:50.817 --> 01:02:51.637
[UNKNOWN]: Look at all those lights.

01:02:52.197 --> 01:02:55.259
[UNKNOWN]: And I start slowing down because I don't remember what's going on.

01:02:55.339 --> 01:02:56.360
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I don't know what it was.

01:02:56.400 --> 01:02:58.401
[UNKNOWN]: I was just kind of fixated with nods on.

01:02:58.421 --> 01:02:59.282
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, this is really,

01:02:59.942 --> 01:03:00.582
[UNKNOWN]: really cool.

01:03:00.622 --> 01:03:04.064
[UNKNOWN]: And then out of the corner, I hear Addy's like, hey, dumbass.

01:03:04.945 --> 01:03:05.925
[UNKNOWN]: Keep fucking driving.

01:03:06.606 --> 01:03:07.526
[UNKNOWN]: They're shooting at us.

01:03:07.686 --> 01:03:10.488
[UNKNOWN]: And then it all comes, like, I didn't realize like, we're taking fires.

01:03:10.508 --> 01:03:12.028
[UNKNOWN]: Like, literally hit the side of the Humveen.

01:03:12.048 --> 01:03:13.809
[UNKNOWN]: I had slowed down like 10 miles an hour.

01:03:13.829 --> 01:03:15.710
[UNKNOWN]: Because I'm just like, this is so beautiful.

01:03:15.730 --> 01:03:16.831
[UNKNOWN]: But I look at all these lights.

01:03:16.891 --> 01:03:17.451
[UNKNOWN]: What is this?

01:03:17.892 --> 01:03:19.472
[UNKNOWN]: Is like, that's fucking gunfire, dude.

01:03:20.273 --> 01:03:22.834
[UNKNOWN]: I was one of my first missions, like, that we went on.

01:03:23.274 --> 01:03:24.095
[UNKNOWN]: And I just,

01:03:25.200 --> 01:03:26.521
[UNKNOWN]: And it just has a way about him.

01:03:26.561 --> 01:03:27.561
[UNKNOWN]: It sounds like you know where it is.

01:03:27.601 --> 01:03:28.502
[UNKNOWN]: Well, yeah.

01:03:28.602 --> 01:03:29.462
[UNKNOWN]: That's classic, man.

01:03:29.482 --> 01:03:34.545
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, just the way he said it, too, is like super calm, kind of got that surfer.

01:03:35.445 --> 01:03:35.765
[UNKNOWN]: Amen.

01:03:36.806 --> 01:03:37.646
[UNKNOWN]: Fucking drive.

01:03:37.806 --> 01:03:38.767
[UNKNOWN]: We're getting shot at.

01:03:38.867 --> 01:03:40.608
[UNKNOWN]: Just like calm, cool, collect the meanwhile.

01:03:40.628 --> 01:03:42.449
[UNKNOWN]: We're taking rounds on the side of the homebie.

01:03:44.150 --> 01:03:44.750
[UNKNOWN]: That was one of them.

01:03:44.770 --> 01:03:45.510
[UNKNOWN]: That was a fun one.

01:03:45.530 --> 01:03:46.911
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's cool.

01:03:47.832 --> 01:03:48.972
[UNKNOWN]: We started doing some stuff.

01:03:50.093 --> 01:03:54.395
[UNKNOWN]: This one was just, again, I'm just kind of highlighting some of the funny stories and I'll share a couple other ones as well.

01:03:55.603 --> 01:04:00.447
[UNKNOWN]: We're patrolling, and it's hard to get some helos, it clicks out, or hidden kind of farm line area.

01:04:00.467 --> 01:04:02.409
[UNKNOWN]: They started doing more targets out that way.

01:04:02.469 --> 01:04:03.850
[UNKNOWN]: So we would eight clicks out.

01:04:03.870 --> 01:04:06.552
[UNKNOWN]: So they went here, the rotors, land, we were sort of patrolling.

01:04:06.572 --> 01:04:09.935
[UNKNOWN]: And there was somebody in front of me, we were just in a patrol, excuse me.

01:04:11.336 --> 01:04:18.082
[UNKNOWN]: And we, you know, our taxes, like just every so often look behind you, make sure that it may as behind you.

01:04:18.162 --> 01:04:18.242
[UNKNOWN]: And

01:04:19.133 --> 01:04:22.335
[UNKNOWN]: Look behind me, we're still patrolling to target, we're probably still too quick.

01:04:22.355 --> 01:04:28.558
[UNKNOWN]: So like behind me, you just kind of see the rest of the the bulltune and I look forward and the lead guy's gone.

01:04:28.778 --> 01:04:34.401
[UNKNOWN]: So I was wrecky at the time and he was the point man, he's gone and I'm like, and I just stop.

01:04:34.501 --> 01:04:40.104
[UNKNOWN]: And everybody stops behind me, they're reading my body language and I'm like, oh my god, I literally just turned around.

01:04:40.844 --> 01:04:47.748
[UNKNOWN]: And then I look down and I see like just a green luminescence and I look under my nods and I'm like, what the fuck?

01:04:48.800 --> 01:04:54.523
[UNKNOWN]: And then I see a hand come out, a fallen into the fucking sewage from the town.

01:04:54.703 --> 01:05:00.285
[UNKNOWN]: It was so disgusting, like covered in shit, and he's like climbing his way out, it's like blue lagoon shit.

01:05:00.345 --> 01:05:02.626
[UNKNOWN]: They're coming out, look, brown lagoon shit.

01:05:03.066 --> 01:05:11.090
[UNKNOWN]: Coming out in the feces, like, you know, trough that had been built from like these communities because they had to open air, like kind of sewage systems.

01:05:11.770 --> 01:05:16.012
[UNKNOWN]: So we made him right on the outside of the striker because he's stung so bad.

01:05:16.032 --> 01:05:17.173
[UNKNOWN]: That's brutal.

01:05:19.720 --> 01:05:42.948
[UNKNOWN]: Did any of the operations you're on on that deployment go horribly wrong where you're like you guys got Kind of it handed to you and had to had to bag out Not horribly we had you know guys that got shot so you know again I don't consider that horrible these were evil still kind of go through mission nobody died

01:05:44.078 --> 01:05:48.001
[UNKNOWN]: on those deployments, at least part of our crew.

01:05:49.142 --> 01:05:54.065
[UNKNOWN]: Delta was there as well, and we had a huge lesson learned, and I'll come back to that here in a second.

01:05:56.226 --> 01:05:57.887
[UNKNOWN]: Now, we had guys shot.

01:05:57.927 --> 01:06:03.952
[UNKNOWN]: We had, I mean, if I'm being honest, the thing that stood out to me the most was, we were breaching everything.

01:06:04.992 --> 01:06:07.214
[UNKNOWN]: Back then, we weren't even checking doors.

01:06:07.254 --> 01:06:10.056
[UNKNOWN]: So I think we were just throwing slap charges and blowing doors.

01:06:12.312 --> 01:06:21.637
[UNKNOWN]: And I still have this image in my head, and I was just talking to a buddy that was there as well, Chris Farrex, he was there.

01:06:21.657 --> 01:06:26.139
[UNKNOWN]: We've talked about this before, but we blew the charge on the door behind the door.

01:06:27.677 --> 01:06:28.797
[UNKNOWN]: was a woman.

01:06:30.098 --> 01:06:52.385
[UNKNOWN]: So she was in the house and we remember she came out and her face just got so like took the explosion and her eye was just hanging out and it's just back then it was part of the job like, yeah, it is what it is like we cleared the building, got her out of the way, gave her some medical off on helos and took off just left her.

01:06:53.442 --> 01:07:20.237
[UNKNOWN]: like that but that one bothered me for and still I still think about it quite a bit right and I appreciate his collateral damage and you know she was in that building where we were going after a bad dude but I don't know why I just can't get that her face out of you can see it right now oh yeah out of my head so there no I think most of the missions like we'd have some again like driving over barbed wire like

01:07:20.722 --> 01:07:23.946
[UNKNOWN]: caught up in the homies and I were out there like two in the morning, cutting and barbed wire out.

01:07:24.547 --> 01:07:28.012
[UNKNOWN]: But nothing like Narlie were a firefight just like overwhelmed us.

01:07:28.052 --> 01:07:29.734
[UNKNOWN]: We were kind of sustained it pretty well.

01:07:31.316 --> 01:07:34.321
[UNKNOWN]: We probably ended up doing that deployment, that first deployment.

01:07:35.422 --> 01:07:36.904
[UNKNOWN]: I'd say north of 60 DAs.

01:07:38.005 --> 01:07:40.647
[UNKNOWN]: Um, so again, you talk about experience and exposure.

01:07:40.987 --> 01:07:54.197
[UNKNOWN]: We captured killed a lot of bad dudes, but again, I think we were right place right time in the sense that that tactic wasn't quite, um, known by the enemy.

01:07:55.383 --> 01:07:57.164
[UNKNOWN]: that changed really fast.

01:07:57.964 --> 01:08:17.173
[UNKNOWN]: So the why brought up Delta earlier is because we were still running this hostage rescue type active boom blow doors and we're we're clear in as fast as we can prior to our new TTPs and Delta was running that and there was a barricade shooter that knew our tactics and put himself into a corner.

01:08:18.383 --> 01:08:23.674
[UNKNOWN]: And as Delta started coming through the door, just started mowing these guys down.

01:08:23.694 --> 01:08:27.240
[UNKNOWN]: This was Delta Poutine or Delta Kag, Kag, I don't know.

01:08:27.652 --> 01:08:31.854
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and ended up losing, they knew what they were coming.

01:08:31.874 --> 01:08:37.996
[UNKNOWN]: They had actually set up the trap so they were throwing grenades off the top of the building, and they killed quite a few of the cag guys.

01:08:38.916 --> 01:08:47.880
[UNKNOWN]: And that's really, to my understanding, and again, I'm a new guy, but I remember hearing seeing this happen unfold, and we were in the talk watching this,

01:08:49.043 --> 01:08:53.705
[UNKNOWN]: That was the start of us just starting to be a little more thoughtful about why we do things the way we do things.

01:08:53.785 --> 01:08:57.566
[UNKNOWN]: Like, hey, why are we fucking running into a building where we're getting shot at?

01:08:57.606 --> 01:08:58.747
[UNKNOWN]: Why not do callouts?

01:08:58.827 --> 01:09:01.008
[UNKNOWN]: Why not learn from other units?

01:09:01.048 --> 01:09:01.788
[UNKNOWN]: What are other people doing?

01:09:01.808 --> 01:09:03.429
[UNKNOWN]: What are cops doing situations like this?

01:09:04.349 --> 01:09:07.650
[UNKNOWN]: And that's where we started, you know, introduce them to new TTPs.

01:09:07.690 --> 01:09:09.231
[UNKNOWN]: Like, hey, let's start pying the doors.

01:09:11.071 --> 01:09:21.234
[UNKNOWN]: Last stop on both of those deployments, so Clark Swedler, yeah, Clarky Mantris, different puttune but last stop him and then Mike Day.

01:09:22.254 --> 01:09:36.118
[UNKNOWN]: You probably know this story, so we were all on last stop and on the way home first deployment everybody's high five and Mike and the guys, you know, I wasn't on, I was on a different

01:09:38.287 --> 01:09:39.870
[UNKNOWN]: but we listen to the whole thing go down.

01:09:41.854 --> 01:09:43.317
[UNKNOWN]: These they were team four as well.

01:09:43.357 --> 01:09:46.063
[UNKNOWN]: I think they were one troop.

01:09:46.163 --> 01:09:47.005
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, they were one troop.

01:09:48.752 --> 01:09:53.833
[UNKNOWN]: And Clark goes in, makes entry, and gets shot, killed right out of the gate.

01:09:54.033 --> 01:10:00.555
[UNKNOWN]: And then Mike Day was, I believe, number two guy, and came in and got shot quite a bit.

01:10:00.575 --> 01:10:03.536
[UNKNOWN]: I think it's 30 plus times.

01:10:03.676 --> 01:10:06.196
[UNKNOWN]: So I think like the 27, okay, 27.

01:10:06.657 --> 01:10:09.137
[UNKNOWN]: Plates growing, and he falls in.

01:10:09.177 --> 01:10:10.798
[UNKNOWN]: And then the guy is kind of pulled back.

01:10:10.838 --> 01:10:12.518
[UNKNOWN]: He's gonna get through the threshold.

01:10:13.930 --> 01:10:21.018
[UNKNOWN]: And if you haven't heard the story, I would ask guys to go out there and look up that story.

01:10:21.138 --> 01:10:25.624
[UNKNOWN]: Mike Day has talked quite a bit about it and there's books and videos written on it.

01:10:25.824 --> 01:10:27.866
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he's been on the show for the past, yeah.

01:10:30.812 --> 01:10:37.779
[UNKNOWN]: So, you know, I came to know Mike pretty well afterwards and I know we all have our demons and I'll come back to that later.

01:10:38.880 --> 01:10:48.069
[UNKNOWN]: But, uh, came to, came to, in the middle of this room, people like there's enemy taken shots at the guys and Mike is shot up 27 times.

01:10:50.195 --> 01:11:07.951
[UNKNOWN]: comes to you that and take his pistol and he clears the fucking room and it comes up on comms and it's like come get me dumbasses and they put him on a birdie walks out because that's Mike and hops on the heel, medivacked out and you know Clark died that day, Mike lived but I think a part of him died that day as well.

01:11:08.531 --> 01:11:11.254
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:11:12.134 --> 01:11:12.335
[UNKNOWN]: So

01:11:15.119 --> 01:11:17.281
[UNKNOWN]: That was, that was the end of the first deployment.

01:11:18.462 --> 01:11:25.627
[UNKNOWN]: So as a new guy, I mean, we got exposed to so many, like everything that we got and taught.

01:11:25.647 --> 01:11:26.868
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, okay, I get it now.

01:11:27.669 --> 01:11:30.191
[UNKNOWN]: I understand why we do the things that we do.

01:11:30.251 --> 01:11:31.772
[UNKNOWN]: And we learned a lot.

01:11:31.852 --> 01:11:36.535
[UNKNOWN]: And we rejacked in nine months later, we were right back on a task force now.

01:11:37.756 --> 01:11:38.497
[UNKNOWN]: So this is 2007, eight.

01:11:40.687 --> 01:11:42.828
[UNKNOWN]: And we're now part of Task Force 17.

01:11:42.848 --> 01:11:44.569
[UNKNOWN]: So we're attached to J-Sock.

01:11:45.189 --> 01:11:48.290
[UNKNOWN]: And we just had more assets.

01:11:48.490 --> 01:11:49.650
[UNKNOWN]: It was really cool.

01:11:50.771 --> 01:11:53.552
[UNKNOWN]: Was the mission different in terms of when you first showed up?

01:11:53.592 --> 01:11:55.132
[UNKNOWN]: And they said, here's what you're going to be doing.

01:11:56.913 --> 01:12:00.635
[UNKNOWN]: Now, it was still similarities to what we, the targets said that we were going after.

01:12:03.483 --> 01:12:14.467
[UNKNOWN]: We had the deck of cards, so we went after those dudes as well, and it was fun, because we worked with other partner units, we had a CAD guy with us, which was really cool to learn from him.

01:12:15.007 --> 01:12:19.869
[UNKNOWN]: We worked with partner forces, so we worked with the British guys, they would take us out sometimes that he lives.

01:12:21.530 --> 01:12:28.152
[UNKNOWN]: It was, again, from a team guy or a young guy that comes into the teams to do this, it was like, couldn't ask for anything better.

01:12:28.753 --> 01:12:29.493
[UNKNOWN]: Similar type of,

01:12:31.375 --> 01:12:57.080
[UNKNOWN]: uh... operation tempo like we were doing you know almost every night uh... doing ops and then you know worked with more than the trouble is on that one uh... he was it just become an officer so he was he was attached to us i remember that because years later he comes into my house and we have a big plaque and it's like i was on that fuckable tear and so i don't see your name on theirs i was fucking there do you know who was

01:12:59.893 --> 01:13:23.974
[UNKNOWN]: but same same type of thing we didn't lose anybody on that on that one either think the Lord and yet you know we lost a lot of partner adjacent guys along the way like I remember taking a couple damn neck guys my gosh his name is gonna escape me I got asked to go to their portrait or see their bodies after they had just been killed

01:13:27.511 --> 01:13:29.131
[UNKNOWN]: I forgot their names, but it'll come back to me.

01:13:29.252 --> 01:13:32.292
[UNKNOWN]: It was a hearty and coke, but it's exactly who it was.

01:13:32.733 --> 01:13:33.993
[UNKNOWN]: How did you know this guy's about chance?

01:13:34.213 --> 01:13:42.936
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't, but if my memory serves correct, the op that happened on, there were some dog.

01:13:44.656 --> 01:13:51.021
[UNKNOWN]: elements of the operation that kind of woke themselves into dogs that we got in the worried aug foundation years later.

01:13:51.041 --> 01:13:51.322
[UNKNOWN]: Really?

01:13:51.442 --> 01:13:51.682
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:13:51.982 --> 01:13:57.847
[UNKNOWN]: And a lot of guys that I know really well, either knew them really well and some of them were even on it.

01:13:57.967 --> 01:13:59.088
[UNKNOWN]: But I didn't know them.

01:13:59.128 --> 01:13:59.468
[UNKNOWN]: I knew them.

01:14:00.919 --> 01:14:04.540
[UNKNOWN]: A couple of times we crossed paths, like we went over to Dam Mac and I met them actually.

01:14:05.860 --> 01:14:23.565
[UNKNOWN]: When we were doing a work up for that platoon and then we deployed same time, not same target set, obviously, but when they got killed, I was one of the guys that was there to receive the bodies in country over there, so that, I mean, to

01:14:25.146 --> 01:14:46.957
[UNKNOWN]: To hear, you know, two deployments fairly close together in Iraq with that amount of experience, exposure to other units, type of mission that you're doing in assets, like you said, I mean, right place right time as far as getting as much operational experiences as a guy could get in his first two platoon and as a team guy.

01:14:50.197 --> 01:15:07.689
[UNKNOWN]: as you came back from that, did you reflect on any part of either of those trips in a way that kind of made you rethink what you're doing, why you're doing it, what we're doing as a nation, like why you came in, did it solidify what you came in for to make you rethink it?

01:15:08.509 --> 01:15:14.253
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so there's a lot of evil as you're well aware.

01:15:20.478 --> 01:15:36.069
[UNKNOWN]: When we go to war and we're finding these folks, the folks that we were finding, like one of the guys that I killed, he had killed probably something like 30 Marines because this was like an IED cell leader, right?

01:15:36.990 --> 01:15:38.431
[UNKNOWN]: That's actually a funny story too.

01:15:38.551 --> 01:15:47.477
[UNKNOWN]: Like I don't know, I think I block out all the dark shit at this point of my life and I'll remember the funny story, but I'll tell the story about him here in a second.

01:15:49.038 --> 01:15:52.159
[UNKNOWN]: Um, I mean, that dude was just murdering Marines, right?

01:15:52.619 --> 01:15:58.541
[UNKNOWN]: And, and then there's, you take, you think about the ISIS guys and I never fought that, but I mean, I talked to a lot of team guys that have fought that.

01:15:59.322 --> 01:16:05.204
[UNKNOWN]: And the mutilation, the videos that we saw online, the things they were doing in women and children, like, that's pure evil.

01:16:05.344 --> 01:16:08.225
[UNKNOWN]: And that needs to, in my opinion, like, I've found my faith again.

01:16:08.245 --> 01:16:11.826
[UNKNOWN]: And that is the devil at work and needs to get fucking removed.

01:16:12.746 --> 01:16:13.487
[UNKNOWN]: Um, so,

01:16:14.787 --> 01:16:18.210
[UNKNOWN]: At that point of my life, I reflected back and I was proud of what we did.

01:16:18.230 --> 01:16:22.154
[UNKNOWN]: I think I had an impact on what I started to understand.

01:16:22.514 --> 01:16:24.916
[UNKNOWN]: I still do think it has an impact.

01:16:27.185 --> 01:16:30.989
[UNKNOWN]: And then as I matured, you know, my penis kind of changed a bit.

01:16:32.090 --> 01:16:35.794
[UNKNOWN]: As I've gotten older, I felt I feel like part of us were used.

01:16:35.914 --> 01:16:40.379
[UNKNOWN]: If not all of us, I feel like there's a bigger game at play here and we're just pawns in the game.

01:16:41.020 --> 01:16:47.126
[UNKNOWN]: If I'm being really honest with you, I think about, I say back then, like, yeah, we had, we took some guys off the...

01:16:48.167 --> 01:16:52.871
[UNKNOWN]: That's just a snakehead that got cut off and another snake's head just rose in its place.

01:16:53.051 --> 01:16:54.633
[UNKNOWN]: Like what real impact did we have?

01:16:55.133 --> 01:17:02.460
[UNKNOWN]: And where really hit home was in, you know, where we're, this is probably 2010 now.

01:17:02.800 --> 01:17:05.902
[UNKNOWN]: We had already given up part of some of the areas that we had fought for a rack.

01:17:05.943 --> 01:17:13.869
[UNKNOWN]: And now, you know, three years later, those guys are going back into part of Baghdad in a rack that we had already fought for a one.

01:17:14.965 --> 01:17:15.906
[UNKNOWN]: It's a different enemy now.

01:17:15.946 --> 01:17:20.368
[UNKNOWN]: It's ISIS, but we're fighting for the same stronghold that we had.

01:17:21.569 --> 01:17:29.694
[UNKNOWN]: And we lost a guy, right, on a mission, and a friend of mine, I wasn't there, but a good friend of mine, Mike Barker was there.

01:17:31.736 --> 01:17:34.217
[UNKNOWN]: And that's when I was like, what the fuck are we doing?

01:17:35.158 --> 01:17:38.440
[UNKNOWN]: Like, what are we, I don't, I'm now, again,

01:17:40.302 --> 01:17:41.503
[UNKNOWN]: I've got a little more mature.

01:17:41.523 --> 01:17:42.863
[UNKNOWN]: I'm thinking about things differently.

01:17:42.883 --> 01:17:45.544
[UNKNOWN]: He's like, what did we end up doing there?

01:17:45.985 --> 01:17:51.287
[UNKNOWN]: And you and I were just talking about it with Afghanistan when it was all said and done, it looks the same, though.

01:17:51.787 --> 01:17:54.329
[UNKNOWN]: And I feel the same damn way about Iraq right now, too.

01:17:54.369 --> 01:18:00.051
[UNKNOWN]: Like, all those guys, thousands of people that gave their lives, what was the real agenda?

01:18:00.391 --> 01:18:01.972
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think it was going out there.

01:18:01.992 --> 01:18:03.373
[UNKNOWN]: It wasn't WMDs, right?

01:18:03.413 --> 01:18:06.114
[UNKNOWN]: Like, what was the real agenda?

01:18:06.194 --> 01:18:21.701
[UNKNOWN]: Well, yeah, and the other thing, the justification prior to going in, you know, Colin Powell addressing the U.N. or maybe it was NATO, I don't remember which, but, you know, that it was links to Al Qaeda and 9-11 and W.M.D.

01:18:21.741 --> 01:18:31.365
[UNKNOWN]: and, you know, there's a handful of people on the planet that really know, you know, what intelligence they had, and, you know, because they could only share so much, which wasn't a lot.

01:18:33.546 --> 01:18:46.713
[UNKNOWN]: And I think the tough part for me, you know, in one of the statements you said, is that, you know, it's pure evil that you feel good about removing from the planet, and especially when it comes to the

01:18:48.104 --> 01:18:58.430
[UNKNOWN]: Treatment of women and children in the mutilation and in some of the barbaric things that, a lot of the guys that we were targeting were doing at the time.

01:18:59.511 --> 01:19:07.776
[UNKNOWN]: It's very easy and it's a feels both justified and righteous to remove that evil from the planet.

01:19:09.096 --> 01:19:14.940
[UNKNOWN]: The tough part for me, at least, is the mudding of the water with that,

01:19:16.856 --> 01:19:31.260
[UNKNOWN]: you know, if pick a country decided that you know, hey, this whole Judeo Christian democracy-based government thing in the United States isn't really working for us, you know, you're meddling in our affairs.

01:19:31.320 --> 01:19:39.183
[UNKNOWN]: We're going to come to the United States and shit can your government and replace it with a communist dictatorship or whatever.

01:19:39.403 --> 01:19:39.603
[UNKNOWN]: Sure.

01:19:41.610 --> 01:19:48.058
[UNKNOWN]: we both know that we would be mass gunmen running around the street trying to kill as many of those people as possible.

01:19:48.977 --> 01:19:58.300
[UNKNOWN]: You know, so there's a big contingent of the people that we were fighting, that the reason that they were fighting us is because we were there, and that's the only reason.

01:19:58.480 --> 01:20:15.225
[UNKNOWN]: Now, that's not the only people we were fighting, and that's where I think it gets muddy is that there's some legitimate evil people that are willing to mutilate women and children and use them as shields and not conduct themselves, even when fighting us in a manner with which I think is right.

01:20:17.686 --> 01:20:23.210
[UNKNOWN]: a little bit of a chicken or the egg and that, you know, how much of that would have been taken place had we not even been there.

01:20:23.310 --> 01:20:24.191
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know, you know.

01:20:25.672 --> 01:20:34.538
[UNKNOWN]: For me, at least at the end of the day, it's, you know, I'm still proud of everything that we accomplished in terms of the tasks that we were given.

01:20:36.098 --> 01:20:41.800
[UNKNOWN]: You know, the people that decided to send us there, why they decided to send us there and what they asked us to do.

01:20:41.820 --> 01:20:46.121
[UNKNOWN]: To me, I feel like there's a big part of the blood is kind of on their hands.

01:20:46.141 --> 01:20:55.923
[UNKNOWN]: And they're the ones that have to live with that decision because our job is to trust that our elected officials are going to use us in a way that justifies us being used.

01:20:56.383 --> 01:21:00.284
[UNKNOWN]: And it's our job to go over there and do what's asked of us, you know.

01:21:01.204 --> 01:21:10.910
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think it needs to be anymore reduced down further than that, but it doesn't make it easy to look back and think about all of those things.

01:21:11.370 --> 01:21:13.551
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's a really good way to think about it.

01:21:13.731 --> 01:21:17.153
[UNKNOWN]: I really appreciate you reframing it that way, because don't get me wrong.

01:21:17.173 --> 01:21:21.275
[UNKNOWN]: I'm proud of my team, the guys, we're going to be life.

01:21:21.375 --> 01:21:22.536
[UNKNOWN]: We are life-long friends.

01:21:22.576 --> 01:21:25.778
[UNKNOWN]: We're still chatting with each other all the time, each other.

01:21:27.233 --> 01:21:37.432
[UNKNOWN]: We did what we were put out there to do and that's all like how can you not be proud about that right now the challenge to your point is like Which isn't on our hands and I appreciate that reframe is like

01:21:38.610 --> 01:21:46.436
[UNKNOWN]: We were told we were going to do something for a certain reason and I don't, I think we're all smart enough now to realize there's more to that and that's not on us, that's on you guys.

01:21:46.756 --> 01:22:02.888
[UNKNOWN]: For sure, because there's a lot of, and the military is, you could look at it very good at, we're very bad at compartmentalizing information and intelligence, you know, and it's, you know, the whole need to know type of thing and most of the guys in our position.

01:22:04.009 --> 01:22:10.511
[UNKNOWN]: have a very tactical level of intelligence, you know, not the operational or strategic, maybe I'm screwing that up.

01:22:11.312 --> 01:22:19.055
[UNKNOWN]: But the most, you know, blinders on in the weeds, laser focused specific to the exact thing that we're doing.

01:22:19.075 --> 01:22:22.016
[UNKNOWN]: Like, that's really the only intelligence that we have access to.

01:22:22.076 --> 01:22:22.416
[UNKNOWN]: And so,

01:22:23.597 --> 01:22:35.952
[UNKNOWN]: There's really a pretty small group of people who decided that the United States needs to go into Iraq and do the things that we do and put us in positions where in many ways it's kill or be killed.

01:22:36.092 --> 01:22:38.315
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's like if I'm volunteering to serve my country.

01:22:39.055 --> 01:22:44.576
[UNKNOWN]: And you send me to do this thing like it's it's your job to Sift through the weather not it.

01:22:44.756 --> 01:22:51.158
[UNKNOWN]: It's justified or if it makes sense or if it's worth Sending people like us to go do the things that we're trying to do.

01:22:51.198 --> 01:22:54.158
[UNKNOWN]: It's that that's not our job by by design, right?

01:22:54.258 --> 01:22:54.518
[UNKNOWN]: Is it?

01:22:55.538 --> 01:22:59.459
[UNKNOWN]: I think you know for a military fighting force to be effective.

01:22:59.479 --> 01:23:00.960
[UNKNOWN]: There has to be a certain level.

01:23:00.980 --> 01:23:02.900
[UNKNOWN]: I mean not blind allegiance, but

01:23:03.680 --> 01:23:11.583
[UNKNOWN]: a pretty significant level of your trusting that the higher-ups are making the right decisions and asking of you what is just.

01:23:11.823 --> 01:23:17.926
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I trust that my leadership was doing that, right?

01:23:17.946 --> 01:23:19.927
[UNKNOWN]: They were with the information they had.

01:23:20.167 --> 01:23:24.989
[UNKNOWN]: They were leading the troops, given us that information, and we got a line behind the mission set.

01:23:25.009 --> 01:23:32.452
[UNKNOWN]: So in that regards, with what was given to us, we did exactly what we said we're going to do and how can you not be proud of that, like I am.

01:23:33.312 --> 01:23:50.119
[UNKNOWN]: And then especially that part about two is just like there was, there was pure evil and I saw it and you saw it and to take that even if it's one, whatever, I don't even consider them humans, but like whatever that was off the face of the earth, like that was just and that was caused.

01:23:51.619 --> 01:23:56.761
[UNKNOWN]: You shot and killed an enemy fighter in Iraq and essentially watched him die.

01:23:57.041 --> 01:23:59.742
[UNKNOWN]: Tell us about the emotional impact that had on you.

01:24:00.423 --> 01:24:00.943
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so

01:24:03.381 --> 01:24:04.841
[UNKNOWN]: That was interesting, right?

01:24:04.861 --> 01:24:07.862
[UNKNOWN]: Like, so we were Recky, I was Recky team lead.

01:24:08.022 --> 01:24:10.823
[UNKNOWN]: This was, I think, that was a second deployment on a rooftop.

01:24:11.523 --> 01:24:13.924
[UNKNOWN]: And the guy burst out.

01:24:14.024 --> 01:24:21.947
[UNKNOWN]: So, it's, it, we're up top holding overwatch, but we're, I'm on the same building as, there's a chicken couple on, there's a door right there.

01:24:21.987 --> 01:24:25.528
[UNKNOWN]: So I just holding on that, and it was me in a team made of mine as well.

01:24:26.728 --> 01:24:27.268
[UNKNOWN]: Brett Mueller.

01:24:27.929 --> 01:24:34.072
[UNKNOWN]: And we also had Rangers, so we had since we were a task force, we had a Ranger attachment with us as well.

01:24:34.092 --> 01:24:35.392
[UNKNOWN]: I can't remember what bad it was.

01:24:36.073 --> 01:24:37.173
[UNKNOWN]: I liked him there, good guys.

01:24:37.413 --> 01:24:42.235
[UNKNOWN]: Although they told on us because we had a Christmas party, but that's a different fucking deal with that later.

01:24:44.376 --> 01:24:46.357
[UNKNOWN]: But a dude bust open the door.

01:24:46.417 --> 01:24:47.198
[UNKNOWN]: Breach goes off.

01:24:47.238 --> 01:24:48.538
[UNKNOWN]: The dude just takes out of the top

01:24:53.205 --> 01:25:21.305
[UNKNOWN]: And you can literally hear fucking people laughing in the streets like, I know shit said freeze not an Arabic straight up in English like cop freeze and he didn't freeze obviously probably know what I was saying but we shot him and I walked over he he had fallen over the next building so I just kind of we had eyes up above and they said he's down to weapons so we came over and peaked and and then I hopped over and he was still alive and I remember

01:25:22.477 --> 01:25:41.176
[UNKNOWN]: just coming over and I was looking at him and he was dying out so I come up on comms and as I was about to go up on comms I just heard like this I don't know what it was man again it's hard to describe but I felt an energy and I felt like that last breath too and

01:25:42.994 --> 01:25:43.895
[UNKNOWN]: call it a spirit.

01:25:44.236 --> 01:25:46.359
[UNKNOWN]: You know, I'm a religious person now.

01:25:47.460 --> 01:25:49.863
[UNKNOWN]: I think I was his soul leaving his body, right?

01:25:50.584 --> 01:25:51.345
[UNKNOWN]: And I felt that.

01:25:52.166 --> 01:25:52.407
[UNKNOWN]: And...

01:25:54.190 --> 01:26:17.262
[UNKNOWN]: it had a lasting impact on me because at that point I grew up Catholic and I joined the teams and I lost my faith and that's the point where my faith was it came back to me I was like I don't know what that was and I became curious about it I became fixated on it and that's what I believe now having now come back to my faith but I felt his soul leave his body was that something where

01:26:19.872 --> 01:26:26.719
[UNKNOWN]: I guess looking back on it that it was still justified and taken his life given what was going on or did you feel like.

01:26:27.100 --> 01:26:28.701
[UNKNOWN]: 100% yeah, he was a bad dude.

01:26:29.122 --> 01:26:30.283
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he deserved to die.

01:26:30.463 --> 01:26:30.664
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:26:31.044 --> 01:26:34.267
[UNKNOWN]: That's like I said, I mean those those two deployments are, uh, uh,

01:26:35.192 --> 01:26:43.360
[UNKNOWN]: You know, a bodice good as it can get from an experience for a first to deployment cycle and a team guys career.

01:26:44.341 --> 01:26:47.083
[UNKNOWN]: You come back from that second deployment.

01:26:47.143 --> 01:26:50.386
[UNKNOWN]: I'm curious, you went to team 10 after that, right?

01:26:50.707 --> 01:26:50.867
[UNKNOWN]: Or...

01:26:51.347 --> 01:26:53.669
[UNKNOWN]: So there's of course a story.

01:26:53.689 --> 01:26:54.410
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there's more.

01:26:54.430 --> 01:26:55.631
[UNKNOWN]: There's always more to the story.

01:26:57.497 --> 01:27:23.010
[UNKNOWN]: well there's there's a couple of things right so i ended up uh... send down with alice my wife we have five kids and lost friends throughout these deployments we we opted to have a thing is time for us to get out so we ended up going to a training command on the west coast don't ask me why i was just i thought it'd be cool to go out to the west coast and it was it was fun i learned had a paddleboard surf and uh... as a buzz instructor i was uh... what did i do there

01:27:25.947 --> 01:27:29.370
[UNKNOWN]: So I did air ops, so I was a skydive guru type to you.

01:27:29.530 --> 01:27:32.313
[UNKNOWN]: So I was doing for the troops, we would do that.

01:27:32.373 --> 01:27:39.099
[UNKNOWN]: I love skydive and at the time, still do haven't done it in a while, but I would get back into it if I didn't have a million other things going on.

01:27:39.139 --> 01:27:42.241
[UNKNOWN]: But so that's what I ended up doing and then I went to Goldman.

01:27:42.802 --> 01:27:46.085
[UNKNOWN]: But there's there's a funny story right when we got back.

01:27:46.105 --> 01:27:51.089
[UNKNOWN]: So you remember like the Somali pirates who were kicking off in the go nine.

01:27:51.229 --> 01:27:52.090
[UNKNOWN]: All right, so we're back.

01:27:54.534 --> 01:28:03.134
[UNKNOWN]: and me and that but he's a now he's come to know my family my wife's family and my father and law was the president of mursk

01:28:04.456 --> 01:28:06.236
[UNKNOWN]: So the North America division, right?

01:28:06.256 --> 01:28:12.238
[UNKNOWN]: So he was, he was pretty senior up there as names Mr. Trello and Mr. C does an outing every year with a bunch of other CEOs, like the CEO Verizon Wireless.

01:28:12.258 --> 01:28:26.341
[UNKNOWN]: And like so pretty big, big, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge, huge,

01:28:27.535 --> 01:28:43.388
[UNKNOWN]: We just get back from deployment, and these guys are like, see what happened on my father-in-law ship, like the merch, like we, in forever, everybody that doesn't remember, like, Somali Pirates took it over, got Captain Phillips, I mean, Tom Hanks plays it in a movie, you get the seal snipers, they kill him, right?

01:28:44.409 --> 01:28:47.892
[UNKNOWN]: Not Tom Hanks, not Captain Phillips, but the Somali Pirates.

01:28:50.440 --> 01:28:51.440
[UNKNOWN]: And so that just happened.

01:28:51.460 --> 01:28:54.441
[UNKNOWN]: We come back from deployment, literally not even a week back from deployment.

01:28:54.461 --> 01:28:56.722
[UNKNOWN]: And my father was like, hey, we're having our out in this year.

01:28:57.502 --> 01:28:58.983
[UNKNOWN]: All my friends would love to meet you guys.

01:28:59.863 --> 01:29:01.143
[UNKNOWN]: We just got back from deployment.

01:29:01.503 --> 01:29:02.344
[UNKNOWN]: I'm still drinking.

01:29:03.104 --> 01:29:03.904
[UNKNOWN]: We're still drinking.

01:29:06.245 --> 01:29:06.905
[UNKNOWN]: So we go down there.

01:29:07.751 --> 01:29:11.654
[UNKNOWN]: go down to North Carolina at the time, we were stationed in Virginia Beach, we go down to North Carolina and meet them.

01:29:12.335 --> 01:29:19.201
[UNKNOWN]: And he tells us to be at their, they rent it like prior to an Airbnb, a rental on the beach, massive huge beach house in Hatterus.

01:29:20.221 --> 01:29:24.725
[UNKNOWN]: And of course, we on the way down there, we pick up some beers because we don't wanna come in empty handed.

01:29:24.945 --> 01:29:26.647
[UNKNOWN]: So we get there and there's nobody there.

01:29:27.603 --> 01:29:29.885
[UNKNOWN]: Like all right, well, there's sufficient poles.

01:29:30.405 --> 01:29:32.326
[UNKNOWN]: We love both love to fish, so let's fish.

01:29:32.346 --> 01:29:33.547
[UNKNOWN]: And if we're gonna fish, we got a drink.

01:29:33.567 --> 01:29:37.830
[UNKNOWN]: So we drink all of the beers that we had brought because those guys were out golfing all day.

01:29:38.758 --> 01:29:40.779
[UNKNOWN]: To the point where they were like, we're starving now.

01:29:40.839 --> 01:29:42.179
[UNKNOWN]: So we go get some oyster shooters.

01:29:42.800 --> 01:29:45.201
[UNKNOWN]: So that we get tons of oysters and some oyster shooters.

01:29:45.241 --> 01:29:50.723
[UNKNOWN]: And then we come back, I got to call, I look and I'm getting a miss calls from my wife and my father was like, where are you?

01:29:50.943 --> 01:29:53.464
[UNKNOWN]: Like literally we've been there all day, but we went out to go get food.

01:29:53.484 --> 01:30:00.267
[UNKNOWN]: So we come back and parked in the driveway of this beach mansion is this RV.

01:30:01.897 --> 01:30:08.522
[UNKNOWN]: and we start walking up and the guy's like, hey, you the two seals are like, yeah, it's getting here and we hop in there and he's like, I used to be a ranger.

01:30:08.542 --> 01:30:09.662
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, oh, awesome.

01:30:09.682 --> 01:30:10.483
[UNKNOWN]: Nice to meet you, sirs.

01:30:10.623 --> 01:30:12.865
[UNKNOWN]: Like, this is my name, you know, nice to meet you guys.

01:30:12.905 --> 01:30:14.226
[UNKNOWN]: This is what I do, it's like so cool.

01:30:14.246 --> 01:30:16.027
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, hey, I'm really excited you guys came out here.

01:30:17.472 --> 01:30:19.994
[UNKNOWN]: so much so that I have this family heirloom.

01:30:20.414 --> 01:30:27.961
[UNKNOWN]: It's been to my family forever, this is like any procedure tell us like this, you know, it's from the south and this is like some moonshine, but it's like a high value.

01:30:28.021 --> 01:30:31.003
[UNKNOWN]: It's family pass it down, I'll just have a sip, guys.

01:30:31.504 --> 01:30:33.425
[UNKNOWN]: So I take a sip and I'm like, it tastes like ass.

01:30:33.805 --> 01:30:35.227
[UNKNOWN]: So this is amazing, sir.

01:30:35.247 --> 01:30:35.987
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you so much.

01:30:36.007 --> 01:30:44.334
[UNKNOWN]: And you just goes on and on about like, my great, great granddad, it was moon, you know, and he tells us a story it's like the hatter store, or the hat feels McCoy store.

01:30:44.394 --> 01:30:44.955
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, man.

01:30:45.595 --> 01:31:03.789
[UNKNOWN]: Interesting and he hands it to Zayed and Zayed's drunk, and there's like that much left in this like you know where this is going You're seeing just a like knocking back and the guy's face is just like And speechless and at that very moment the door open my father-in-law comes in where you guys been?

01:31:03.829 --> 01:31:04.770
[UNKNOWN]: I was like well, we've been in here.

01:31:05.370 --> 01:31:14.237
[UNKNOWN]: He pulls us out that guy was devastated like he was just a ghost from that point on Never said anything to us like didn't know how to handle that Zayed just threw it all back

01:31:15.381 --> 01:31:22.525
[UNKNOWN]: We go inside and all these guys have been drinking all day, playing golf, we've been drinking all day efficient and that's a recipe for disaster.

01:31:22.605 --> 01:31:30.470
[UNKNOWN]: Just got back from employment and we're telling these stories and they're eating it up and the night keeps progressing.

01:31:30.690 --> 01:31:35.253
[UNKNOWN]: They take the pistol away from Zayed and they separate it because that was the right thing to do.

01:31:36.274 --> 01:31:37.374
[UNKNOWN]: Separate the bullets from that.

01:31:37.755 --> 01:31:43.318
[UNKNOWN]: And this guy comes up to me and it's the CEO of Rise and Wireless.

01:31:44.710 --> 01:31:47.911
[UNKNOWN]: He goes, that's a big boy, I was like, yeah, but he's got a weak jaw.

01:31:48.192 --> 01:31:52.033
[UNKNOWN]: If you hit him right here, he'll go down like a sack of potatoes.

01:31:53.014 --> 01:31:59.297
[UNKNOWN]: And sure, shit, that little skinny guy walked over there and was like, Dink, and Zane, the monster there is.

01:31:59.397 --> 01:32:01.698
[UNKNOWN]: It's picks him up, slams him, gets on top of him.

01:32:02.018 --> 01:32:03.338
[UNKNOWN]: I run over to tackle him.

01:32:03.699 --> 01:32:08.501
[UNKNOWN]: Somebody beat me to it and is like, like, trying to pull Zane off, I turn that guy around.

01:32:08.521 --> 01:32:10.262
[UNKNOWN]: I can't remember he's a CEO of something.

01:32:15.175 --> 01:32:16.096
[UNKNOWN]: We're hammered, right?

01:32:16.116 --> 01:32:19.860
[UNKNOWN]: So my father-in-law is horrified, horrified.

01:32:20.180 --> 01:32:23.323
[UNKNOWN]: He locks us in the movie room, and we pass out.

01:32:24.845 --> 01:32:37.398
[UNKNOWN]: So we're laying there, wake up the next morning, and I hear just something going off like a repeat, and my eyes start coming to you and I look and it's C-Biskin, it's just not like a DVD, just like repeat in the first scene of like fuck.

01:32:38.274 --> 01:32:41.140
[UNKNOWN]: And I started looking around, I'm like, oh my god, I'm a stadium seating.

01:32:42.242 --> 01:32:43.364
[UNKNOWN]: We're in like this movie theater.

01:32:43.384 --> 01:32:44.406
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, where am I?

01:32:44.827 --> 01:32:46.510
[UNKNOWN]: And then I see like oysters.

01:32:48.523 --> 01:32:51.305
[UNKNOWN]: thrown up oysters everywhere.

01:32:52.286 --> 01:32:56.710
[UNKNOWN]: And I sit up and I look over and I see a body and I walk over and I say, I'm like, dude, what happened to this?

01:32:56.790 --> 01:32:57.290
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know.

01:32:58.051 --> 01:33:00.733
[UNKNOWN]: And we go to open the door and it's locked.

01:33:01.213 --> 01:33:03.235
[UNKNOWN]: Go to open it because there's two ways to get into this.

01:33:03.255 --> 01:33:04.216
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, this house was huge.

01:33:04.556 --> 01:33:05.517
[UNKNOWN]: The other door is locked too.

01:33:05.557 --> 01:33:06.318
[UNKNOWN]: So I knock.

01:33:07.058 --> 01:33:09.200
[UNKNOWN]: And a guy opens the door and he's missing a tooth.

01:33:09.240 --> 01:33:10.741
[UNKNOWN]: And I was like, I was fucking weird.

01:33:11.041 --> 01:33:12.503
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I had no idea I did that.

01:33:12.523 --> 01:33:14.484
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, how that fucking dude loses

01:33:16.846 --> 01:33:19.188
[UNKNOWN]: Goap stairs to the third floor and it was like, all right, it came time.

01:33:19.628 --> 01:33:22.850
[UNKNOWN]: Everybody's up there eating breakfast, and it is just deathly silent.

01:33:23.671 --> 01:33:24.732
[UNKNOWN]: We have no idea what we did.

01:33:24.752 --> 01:33:25.692
[UNKNOWN]: We blacked out.

01:33:26.713 --> 01:33:30.035
[UNKNOWN]: And my father-in-law is up there and I was like, hey boys, good to see you guys.

01:33:30.196 --> 01:33:31.376
[UNKNOWN]: Great night last night, hi.

01:33:31.516 --> 01:33:32.477
[UNKNOWN]: Nobody says anything.

01:33:33.238 --> 01:33:36.280
[UNKNOWN]: My father-in-law walk into the kitchen, grab a bottle of water, and he's saying,

01:33:37.353 --> 01:33:38.914
[UNKNOWN]: Do you guys know what you fucking did last night?

01:33:38.934 --> 01:33:41.215
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, no fucking clue.

01:33:41.996 --> 01:33:48.359
[UNKNOWN]: He's like, oh my God, you guys, any proceeds of talism, my face just goes white flush and I'm like, oh my God.

01:33:49.060 --> 01:33:52.062
[UNKNOWN]: And he's like, you guys go to fucking rug doctor.

01:33:52.722 --> 01:33:57.385
[UNKNOWN]: Go get a vacuum and go follow the trail of oysters that you fucking threw up in this house.

01:33:57.445 --> 01:34:01.847
[UNKNOWN]: And so we spent the next hour when they went off golf and like sucking up these oysters.

01:34:03.689 --> 01:34:06.551
[UNKNOWN]: It was disgusting man, so gross.

01:34:06.611 --> 01:34:08.833
[UNKNOWN]: I was on the verge of throwing up just here in that noise.

01:34:09.914 --> 01:34:17.820
[UNKNOWN]: A lot happened like the wife of that guy who's toothed, I knocked out one of the sue us, like because that's, you know, she's the CEO.

01:34:17.840 --> 01:34:25.506
[UNKNOWN]: She's not accustomed to hanging out with idiots like us, so that thing goodness got taken care of, I built a shadow box.

01:34:26.544 --> 01:34:28.985
[UNKNOWN]: And I put like all of the guy's names with their photos.

01:34:29.005 --> 01:34:30.866
[UNKNOWN]: And there's some, I'll show it to you afterwards.

01:34:30.886 --> 01:34:33.888
[UNKNOWN]: There's some photos of like all of us there.

01:34:33.908 --> 01:34:37.150
[UNKNOWN]: And then it progresses into like a guy on top of another.

01:34:37.190 --> 01:34:39.051
[UNKNOWN]: And this is like me with an arm back.

01:34:39.491 --> 01:34:41.452
[UNKNOWN]: And at the bottom, it has all of their names.

01:34:41.472 --> 01:34:44.114
[UNKNOWN]: It says, you know, guest of the 20, they call it the duck open.

01:34:44.134 --> 01:34:48.316
[UNKNOWN]: 20, 2009 duck open, entertainment in the has means eight on there.

01:34:48.336 --> 01:34:51.318
[UNKNOWN]: It's like blue, felt background with all these photos.

01:34:51.358 --> 01:34:53.779
[UNKNOWN]: And at the bottom, I put like coins and then a tooth.

01:34:55.560 --> 01:34:57.342
[UNKNOWN]: So they appreciated that.

01:34:58.362 --> 01:35:00.264
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't get an invite back to that thing.

01:35:00.544 --> 01:35:00.985
[UNKNOWN]: Strangely.

01:35:01.732 --> 01:35:07.135
[UNKNOWN]: Until two years ago, I think my father-in-law, because I stopped drinking after a few years back.

01:35:07.215 --> 01:35:10.717
[UNKNOWN]: And he said, I got the thing, you can come after one, I said, I think I'll pass.

01:35:10.877 --> 01:35:11.898
[UNKNOWN]: I appreciate the offer though.

01:35:12.358 --> 01:35:13.919
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, it wasn't the same guys.

01:35:14.219 --> 01:35:15.099
[UNKNOWN]: It was the same guys.

01:35:15.420 --> 01:35:16.120
[UNKNOWN]: That's brutal.

01:35:18.001 --> 01:35:21.403
[UNKNOWN]: That'll teach you to invite team guys for entertainment.

01:35:21.423 --> 01:35:23.104
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, especially after the right effort.

01:35:23.164 --> 01:35:24.845
[UNKNOWN]: So, that's hilarious.

01:35:28.747 --> 01:35:38.032
[UNKNOWN]: So, after your party entertainment excursion, now you end up at Team 10, or I'm sorry, you end up at AirObs, and so I do that.

01:35:38.233 --> 01:35:43.596
[UNKNOWN]: And then the goal is, the goal is to find my next career, right?

01:35:43.616 --> 01:35:45.537
[UNKNOWN]: Like, again, and we lost a lot of buddies.

01:35:45.817 --> 01:35:47.758
[UNKNOWN]: I got five kids, our priorities shifted.

01:35:47.798 --> 01:35:49.059
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, hey, yeah, it's time to get out.

01:35:50.079 --> 01:35:50.960
[UNKNOWN]: We didn't know how to get out.

01:35:51.810 --> 01:35:53.311
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think any of us know how to get out, right?

01:35:53.411 --> 01:35:56.154
[UNKNOWN]: This is 2,000, what is this?

01:35:56.194 --> 01:35:57.435
[UNKNOWN]: 2,010, right?

01:35:57.635 --> 01:35:58.736
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, 2,010ish.

01:36:00.638 --> 01:36:07.344
[UNKNOWN]: And I had a friend that was at Goldman Sachs, Joe Feminier, wasn't really a friend, but a quaintance.

01:36:07.404 --> 01:36:10.626
[UNKNOWN]: And I told him I wanted to consider pursuing that.

01:36:10.787 --> 01:36:14.049
[UNKNOWN]: Now, I'm born in Texas, raised in Tennessee, kind of, you know, my background.

01:36:15.887 --> 01:36:26.816
[UNKNOWN]: I am not a New York city guy like I'll go out there and visit I like a good slice of pizza But I mean to work there was a different animal the idea was again I didn't know how to transition.

01:36:26.856 --> 01:36:38.366
[UNKNOWN]: I thought you know Joe so me sold me on this idea of like the high risk that we take as team guys and the high risk you take as a trader and there's some similarities there and it'll be a good fit So I go out to Goldman Sachs.

01:36:38.406 --> 01:36:39.266
[UNKNOWN]: I put a suit on and

01:36:40.408 --> 01:36:42.071
[UNKNOWN]: And I interviewed and I get the job.

01:36:42.291 --> 01:36:44.075
[UNKNOWN]: Did you had a degree at the time?

01:36:44.135 --> 01:36:45.257
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I ended up getting a degree.

01:36:45.277 --> 01:36:46.740
[UNKNOWN]: What was it in?

01:36:47.802 --> 01:36:48.864
[UNKNOWN]: So it was...

01:36:50.706 --> 01:36:57.308
[UNKNOWN]: It was finance and business undergrad, and then I ended up getting in a master's degree at an MBA.

01:36:57.668 --> 01:36:59.709
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, okay, we're from Oxford.

01:37:00.109 --> 01:37:00.389
[UNKNOWN]: Wow.

01:37:00.489 --> 01:37:01.849
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, across the pond.

01:37:01.969 --> 01:37:03.030
[UNKNOWN]: How did you pull that?

01:37:03.070 --> 01:37:04.650
[UNKNOWN]: I'll share that in here on the side.

01:37:05.350 --> 01:37:06.451
[UNKNOWN]: So we'll do any trick.

01:37:07.731 --> 01:37:13.493
[UNKNOWN]: But so go to Goldman interview and I'm on a team that is just a great Cooper guy.

01:37:13.513 --> 01:37:14.713
[UNKNOWN]: There's a lot of former athletes.

01:37:14.753 --> 01:37:16.374
[UNKNOWN]: So it's kind of culturally good fit.

01:37:17.794 --> 01:37:19.075
[UNKNOWN]: But to be honest with you, man,

01:37:23.459 --> 01:37:26.806
[UNKNOWN]: I was dead inside like it's not who I am.

01:37:27.087 --> 01:37:28.810
[UNKNOWN]: I missed the tribe.

01:37:29.592 --> 01:37:31.556
[UNKNOWN]: I this wasn't my purpose like

01:37:32.780 --> 01:37:40.165
[UNKNOWN]: I thought I could make like make a lot of money for my family and that's what people do when they get out and you know that could be my purpose but it's just not how you and I are wired.

01:37:40.565 --> 01:37:42.006
[UNKNOWN]: Did you bring your family with you there?

01:37:42.187 --> 01:37:49.752
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah so we ended up initially living in Princeton, New Jersey because that's where my father and all lived and that's an hour and a half can you by train.

01:37:50.072 --> 01:37:57.937
[UNKNOWN]: So I wake up at 345, hop on the train in Princeton, Junction, go to I think it was New Work, New Work to World Trade Center,

01:37:58.878 --> 01:38:05.837
[UNKNOWN]: The cool thing is that we come out and put that tower and if you've been a World Trade Center, but there's a tower like the Horseman, the Green Brewer, you guys.

01:38:06.820 --> 01:38:10.743
[UNKNOWN]: That was cool, just kind of like an homage to what we used to do.

01:38:10.763 --> 01:38:16.847
[UNKNOWN]: And then I'd go into Tuna or West Street in 4th floor, was the trading floor, go to my desk, 6am.

01:38:18.408 --> 01:38:20.870
[UNKNOWN]: And we would prep for the trading day.

01:38:21.230 --> 01:38:25.053
[UNKNOWN]: And I was just, again, it's not who I am.

01:38:25.193 --> 01:38:26.694
[UNKNOWN]: I can't sit behind a screen.

01:38:27.094 --> 01:38:27.895
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't know any better.

01:38:27.915 --> 01:38:30.897
[UNKNOWN]: I'm more of sales if anything.

01:38:30.977 --> 01:38:33.159
[UNKNOWN]: But you know, I had myself sitting behind it

01:38:35.960 --> 01:38:37.981
[UNKNOWN]: trying to learn a new trade and it was hard.

01:38:39.041 --> 01:38:39.662
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't like it.

01:38:40.802 --> 01:38:45.264
[UNKNOWN]: There's some good folks on the desk, but overall wasn't culturally fit with who I am and who we are.

01:38:45.825 --> 01:38:46.585
[UNKNOWN]: Nothing against that.

01:38:46.625 --> 01:38:49.406
[UNKNOWN]: We can mold ourselves, but I just didn't want you to be honest with you.

01:38:49.466 --> 01:38:50.767
[UNKNOWN]: So, um...

01:38:52.832 --> 01:39:14.891
[UNKNOWN]: There was, I was already thinking about leaving and coming back into the teams and then Nick Chek was on a mission and December six, I wanna say, or early December, I can't remember the exact date, but I'm sitting there at my desk and the phone goes off is like, hey, Nick just passed away, then I see it on the, gets picked up on Fox.

01:39:16.192 --> 01:39:20.221
[UNKNOWN]: And I just turned to my boss, Maddie Mawgrave, he was a Harvard hockey guy, as like, hey, I'm done.

01:39:21.263 --> 01:39:22.606
[UNKNOWN]: And I just walked out.

01:39:24.365 --> 01:39:28.187
[UNKNOWN]: I probably should have brought my wife into that conversation before that.

01:39:28.788 --> 01:39:32.911
[UNKNOWN]: I probably should have talked to some folks because the idea was like, oh, I'll just go back into the teams.

01:39:34.231 --> 01:39:41.356
[UNKNOWN]: And luckily, I had some friends, T-Roy button, Troy button, over at Team 10 at the time.

01:39:42.317 --> 01:39:45.759
[UNKNOWN]: And the troops, Chief there, B-Ratt was a good dude.

01:39:46.219 --> 01:39:48.821
[UNKNOWN]: And he was a former Blue Squadron guy, and he was like, fuck, I will take him.

01:39:49.101 --> 01:39:50.022
[UNKNOWN]: He's got some experience.

01:39:50.802 --> 01:40:06.472
[UNKNOWN]: Somehow we finagle their way into getting back in man, but I don't know how they pulled that off, but next thing you know, that's where I did the South Com deployment and I did Afghanistan as well, but South Com in Africa.

01:40:08.793 --> 01:40:15.057
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, the ping pong effective that I can only imagine was a rough on the family.

01:40:15.077 --> 01:40:16.878
[UNKNOWN]: Did you have all five kids at that point?

01:40:17.240 --> 01:40:30.943
[UNKNOWN]: we did and it's a really good call out man because I just went over a lot of pain and suffering and uncertainty and like brinks of divorce and like hey we've why would you do that to us like we got away and now you're going back in like

01:40:32.712 --> 01:40:34.193
[UNKNOWN]: There's a lot of 10 pack there, man.

01:40:34.253 --> 01:40:36.975
[UNKNOWN]: There's a lot of tension in the relationship.

01:40:37.055 --> 01:40:40.778
[UNKNOWN]: Obviously, I'd include my wife in that conversation.

01:40:40.798 --> 01:40:44.100
[UNKNOWN]: It put a huge strain on our relationship, man.

01:40:44.921 --> 01:40:47.323
[UNKNOWN]: To the point where, uh, it almost ended it.

01:40:47.603 --> 01:40:48.163
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, 100%.

01:40:48.183 --> 01:40:48.624
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:40:49.024 --> 01:40:59.951
[UNKNOWN]: And multiple times at that point, from, that, that was a start of us almost like being done.

01:41:02.027 --> 01:41:28.185
[UNKNOWN]: you know we're in a great spot today like and there's a lot of reasons to that and we'll probably get to it I mean but it and we're I'm kind of hopping around here for us we got to a spot 18 years in our marriage where we looked at each other and it's like this is the first time we've been in a in a relationship ever like we've never been in a relationship with you you haven't been with me and it took a lot of tools and support to get us there and

01:41:29.710 --> 01:41:52.340
[UNKNOWN]: back then we were married at that point probably 11 years and it was just like what the fuck did you just do to this family like we're stable you're making a lot of money and you couldn't figure this out like we're safe like we're gonna give them a life that none of like cheating haven't I didn't have and you selfishly like because you can't work your way through this like went back into the teams and she was right dude.

01:41:53.006 --> 01:42:00.968
[UNKNOWN]: But I'm curious, you're sitting, working for Goldman Sachs, making money, you hear about Nick Chek being killed in action.

01:42:01.848 --> 01:42:07.650
[UNKNOWN]: You quit on the trade room, floor, walk out without consulting her, and so this is total news to her.

01:42:07.670 --> 01:42:08.390
[UNKNOWN]: You walk in the door.

01:42:08.430 --> 01:42:12.191
[UNKNOWN]: You tell her that, what does she say to you when you tell her that?

01:42:12.547 --> 01:42:16.109
[UNKNOWN]: I started crying, yeah, I didn't say much at that point.

01:42:16.129 --> 01:42:28.515
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, trying to process, I can, did you forget about all the conversations, all the funerals we went to, like Arlington, all the friends that we were like, I felt what she was processing.

01:42:29.435 --> 01:42:30.035
[UNKNOWN]: I knew what I did.

01:42:31.456 --> 01:42:32.797
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't intentionally do that.

01:42:32.997 --> 01:42:35.138
[UNKNOWN]: It was more of an emotional reaction.

01:42:35.739 --> 01:42:39.361
[UNKNOWN]: And there was some selfishness because I was struggling there.

01:42:39.381 --> 01:42:41.062
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't like the work.

01:42:41.662 --> 01:42:42.583
[UNKNOWN]: That's not who I am.

01:42:45.004 --> 01:42:48.546
[UNKNOWN]: I felt that I just didn't fit in corporate America.

01:42:48.586 --> 01:42:51.388
[UNKNOWN]: This isn't like I'm just not meant to be.

01:42:52.408 --> 01:42:54.510
[UNKNOWN]: I'm just meant to be in the military.

01:42:54.650 --> 01:42:56.030
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know what else I can do out there.

01:42:56.170 --> 01:42:56.811
[UNKNOWN]: People don't get me.

01:42:58.817 --> 01:43:15.307
[UNKNOWN]: and the reality is there's a lot we can do right from that experience once the dust kind of settled and we went back in and she got behind it we started this fuel future foundation and that was I co-founded that with a guy named Brian Martelli who was a Wall Street

01:43:17.985 --> 01:43:27.327
[UNKNOWN]: From my perspective, I went through that transition and felt every bit of the challenges associated with the veteran, leaving the military, trying to find their next purpose or job.

01:43:28.147 --> 01:43:29.227
[UNKNOWN]: So that was my perspective.

01:43:29.527 --> 01:43:32.568
[UNKNOWN]: Mark Telly's perspective was like, you guys are studs.

01:43:32.628 --> 01:43:35.648
[UNKNOWN]: Look what you bring, you can work on her adversity.

01:43:35.668 --> 01:43:36.948
[UNKNOWN]: You guys are great teammates.

01:43:37.749 --> 01:43:45.050
[UNKNOWN]: So together, the idea initially for SFF was like, let's help these guys get jobs with organizations that have similar cultures to us.

01:43:46.010 --> 01:43:57.241
[UNKNOWN]: And man, the first, you know, not to go down the, the seal future foundation, it was called the seal future fund initially, but all the hedge funds would call us up and say, hey, what do you guys, you guys, you guys, you know, man, we're just a foundation.

01:43:57.341 --> 01:43:59.243
[UNKNOWN]: You guys aren't a hedge fund?

01:43:59.263 --> 01:44:03.026
[UNKNOWN]: It was like, no, so we had to change the name because we were, yeah, what do you guys invest in?

01:44:03.046 --> 01:44:03.447
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:44:03.467 --> 01:44:05.028
[UNKNOWN]: What do you guys think about Apple?

01:44:05.148 --> 01:44:08.511
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, no, no, it's not what we do, man, we're just trying to get seals jobs.

01:44:09.332 --> 01:44:13.575
[UNKNOWN]: But I'm so proud of that chapter and happy to kind of elaborate more on that when the time's right.

01:44:13.735 --> 01:44:13.955
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:44:14.556 --> 01:44:15.897
[UNKNOWN]: How old were you at that time?

01:44:16.737 --> 01:44:19.819
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, so that was 30.

01:44:19.839 --> 01:44:21.781
[UNKNOWN]: I was probably 31, 32.

01:44:21.801 --> 01:44:26.764
[UNKNOWN]: And what was the range of ages in your children?

01:44:27.605 --> 01:44:34.450
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, my oldest was She was, uh, give me a second.

01:44:34.510 --> 01:44:35.571
[UNKNOWN]: She was probably 13.

01:44:38.972 --> 01:44:39.312
[UNKNOWN]: Is that right?

01:44:39.332 --> 01:44:42.913
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and then the youngest was like almost a like it was a baby, right?

01:44:43.033 --> 01:44:45.454
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so probably two or two years old.

01:44:45.834 --> 01:44:46.794
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:44:47.775 --> 01:44:53.256
[UNKNOWN]: Man, that's a can't even imagine having to go home and kick that hornet's nest over.

01:44:53.296 --> 01:44:59.378
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it was again, you know, I look back and I don't have regrets.

01:44:59.818 --> 01:45:04.540
[UNKNOWN]: I don't like all the mistakes that I made, the decisions that I think God.

01:45:05.850 --> 01:45:07.490
[UNKNOWN]: puts this down that path for a reason.

01:45:07.730 --> 01:45:10.651
[UNKNOWN]: And I don't who am I to think that I should understand in the moment.

01:45:10.731 --> 01:45:12.811
[UNKNOWN]: But looking back, it starts to make sense to me.

01:45:12.871 --> 01:45:14.331
[UNKNOWN]: Like I had to go through that adversity.

01:45:14.772 --> 01:45:19.672
[UNKNOWN]: I had to come back in, regardless of I did or if I did, and that was the plan, right?

01:45:20.112 --> 01:45:24.933
[UNKNOWN]: And it's contributed to who we are today, who I am today, the father, the husband, the founder.

01:45:25.653 --> 01:45:33.615
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, the veteran, whatever it is, I just can't imagine, like you said, what I've made as a parent, if I would

01:45:35.235 --> 01:45:49.227
[UNKNOWN]: Who knows, but like this is the hand I was dealt and we're trying to very best with that and that's kind of been my take on on it So, but it was a fucking ordinance, and that's like kick for sure Yeah, I said I can't even imagine how long were you in that job for?

01:45:50.088 --> 01:45:53.111
[UNKNOWN]: All in it and it had been just like a year and some change.

01:45:53.411 --> 01:45:57.715
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I wasn't a long time Did you have your MBA from Oxford going into that?

01:45:57.993 --> 01:45:59.134
[UNKNOWN]: No, so that's a great point.

01:45:59.834 --> 01:46:01.315
[UNKNOWN]: Right place, right time.

01:46:01.375 --> 01:46:08.360
[UNKNOWN]: So right at that moment, Lloyd Blank Fine was the CEO of Goldman.

01:46:08.700 --> 01:46:12.843
[UNKNOWN]: Jamie Diamond was the CEO of JP Morgan still is.

01:46:13.524 --> 01:46:20.408
[UNKNOWN]: They really recognized, OK, we're getting some real talent where we normally do from these Ivy League, these MBAs.

01:46:20.448 --> 01:46:22.730
[UNKNOWN]: We know we're to pull talent, but what about these veterans?

01:46:22.770 --> 01:46:24.231
[UNKNOWN]: So they created veteran programs.

01:46:24.271 --> 01:46:26.693
[UNKNOWN]: So I was part of the first veteran program at Goldman.

01:46:27.693 --> 01:46:30.895
[UNKNOWN]: And I think, to be honest with you, is the seal background.

01:46:32.516 --> 01:46:45.923
[UNKNOWN]: I did have the check the box with the degree, Oxford came later, but the other part was, I think, honestly, it was just some of the other experiences like things I was doing, like the seal future foundation.

01:46:46.243 --> 01:46:48.964
[UNKNOWN]: They saw that and they appreciated that.

01:46:48.984 --> 01:46:53.327
[UNKNOWN]: It took some a problem said, and I worked through it and created something with the friend of ours.

01:46:54.928 --> 01:47:00.595
[UNKNOWN]: being in such a almost polar opposite profession compared to what you've been used to.

01:47:01.956 --> 01:47:06.061
[UNKNOWN]: What was your takeaway from your time in kind of corporate finance America?

01:47:07.151 --> 01:47:11.014
[UNKNOWN]: So I came back to it later, and I'll share that story here as well.

01:47:11.354 --> 01:47:22.403
[UNKNOWN]: I went to a company called Capital Group, and if anybody has a retirement account, you probably have American funds in your retirement account, and you have some funds in there for sure.

01:47:22.423 --> 01:47:23.543
[UNKNOWN]: I have to believe.

01:47:24.044 --> 01:47:26.846
[UNKNOWN]: But that company was started in 1931 by a veteran.

01:47:27.186 --> 01:47:29.028
[UNKNOWN]: So you go to Capital Group, and it's massive.

01:47:29.128 --> 01:47:30.289
[UNKNOWN]: Three trillion AUM.

01:47:31.309 --> 01:47:34.071
[UNKNOWN]: You go to Capital Group, and there is no corner offices.

01:47:34.852 --> 01:47:35.112
[UNKNOWN]: Right.

01:47:35.272 --> 01:47:37.113
[UNKNOWN]: A lot of Wall Street firms have corner office.

01:47:37.133 --> 01:47:37.873
[UNKNOWN]: Here's the big dog.

01:47:37.913 --> 01:47:41.955
[UNKNOWN]: You get the corner office because you got to see down fifth and, you know, what I brought away whatever it is.

01:47:43.235 --> 01:47:44.096
[UNKNOWN]: No corner offices.

01:47:44.136 --> 01:47:45.176
[UNKNOWN]: That's where everybody meets up.

01:47:45.196 --> 01:47:46.557
[UNKNOWN]: That's the cafeteria, et cetera.

01:47:47.097 --> 01:47:51.759
[UNKNOWN]: Everybody goes by initials because our our founder over the founder of Capbook Group at the time.

01:47:51.879 --> 01:47:53.680
[UNKNOWN]: He got tired of everybody in 1931.

01:47:53.720 --> 01:47:54.360
[UNKNOWN]: Call them service.

01:47:54.400 --> 01:47:55.020
[UNKNOWN]: I please stop.

01:47:55.120 --> 01:47:55.580
[UNKNOWN]: Please stop.

01:47:55.600 --> 01:47:56.461
[UNKNOWN]: He's a humble veteran.

01:47:57.181 --> 01:47:58.662
[UNKNOWN]: So he made everybody go by initials.

01:47:59.002 --> 01:48:01.123
[UNKNOWN]: So my initials at Capbook Group are J TDW.

01:48:02.443 --> 01:48:23.241
[UNKNOWN]: and everybody goes by initials it's crazy so I share that with you because when you find the right organization or company I think we thrive we succeed we go like we can take what we've learned and they give us the platform to kind of lean in and teach others so capital group was a great experience for me not to say Goldman wasn't it really gave me

01:48:24.233 --> 01:48:26.634
[UNKNOWN]: You know, it taught me what I didn't want to do.

01:48:27.515 --> 01:48:29.996
[UNKNOWN]: It taught me a lot about investment banking.

01:48:30.016 --> 01:48:33.678
[UNKNOWN]: It taught me if showed me what was on the street, the different rules.

01:48:34.818 --> 01:48:37.239
[UNKNOWN]: And that's kind of the premise for seal future foundation.

01:48:37.259 --> 01:48:43.082
[UNKNOWN]: It was simply like, hey, how do we identify the good companies or the type of rules that our guys would thrive in, right?

01:48:43.102 --> 01:48:44.203
[UNKNOWN]: Let's get personalities.

01:48:44.223 --> 01:48:45.884
[UNKNOWN]: Like, you have a different personality than I do.

01:48:46.684 --> 01:48:47.745
[UNKNOWN]: We're thinking of thrive.

01:48:47.765 --> 01:48:50.306
[UNKNOWN]: And that's where we start working through that at seal future foundation.

01:48:50.561 --> 01:48:52.282
[UNKNOWN]: And so a capital group came years later.

01:48:52.462 --> 01:48:53.162
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, years later.

01:48:53.742 --> 01:49:00.744
[UNKNOWN]: All right, so you go back in the Navy, sling shot your family back down to Virginia Beach.

01:49:00.784 --> 01:49:01.884
[UNKNOWN]: You go to Team 10, though.

01:49:02.965 --> 01:49:06.206
[UNKNOWN]: The South America stuff was largely for an internal defense, I assume.

01:49:06.226 --> 01:49:07.826
[UNKNOWN]: Yep, mostly training.

01:49:08.286 --> 01:49:09.186
[UNKNOWN]: It was training.

01:49:09.306 --> 01:49:12.227
[UNKNOWN]: Your Afghanistan deployment was that a dynamic kind.

01:49:12.247 --> 01:49:13.528
[UNKNOWN]: So that was an augment, actually.

01:49:13.808 --> 01:49:17.289
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, I went to one of the stations out of Kabul.

01:49:18.369 --> 01:49:28.017
[UNKNOWN]: And I was with Silver Squadron, and that was a fun deployment because that's where we were, you know, there was a couple of things.

01:49:28.057 --> 01:49:32.381
[UNKNOWN]: But yes, we were doing DAs, we're going after specific target sets.

01:49:33.522 --> 01:49:36.424
[UNKNOWN]: One of the coolest missions that we did though is like it was new to me.

01:49:36.444 --> 01:49:39.346
[UNKNOWN]: It was where we would, you know, essentially get dressed up.

01:49:41.158 --> 01:49:59.315
[UNKNOWN]: with beer, so obviously with everything and garb, and we would sit in like a local vehicle, like kind of blend in and just wait for the person we were going after with MP7s and just sit in the back and we'd have obviously our drivers, where the translators and we would

01:49:59.982 --> 01:50:17.138
[UNKNOWN]: there's a different way I've never done that before was different way doing business so we'd sit there and then next thing you know that the the the van door would open and we would just literally like hop in or or dot I don't think you want the other alternative hop in and one of the biggest guys that we took off target was a German citizen.

01:50:18.239 --> 01:50:27.103
[UNKNOWN]: So he was Al Qaeda, he was a German citizen, and the intelligence we got from that uncovered a bunch of stuff that was actually unfolded in Germany.

01:50:27.963 --> 01:50:40.969
[UNKNOWN]: So we were able to prevent some pretty significant acts that we're about to take place because we pulled this guy off target, and we were about to leave, by the way, because we were there for like sitting in the van, when no AC, we're all garbbed up.

01:50:41.769 --> 01:50:44.452
[UNKNOWN]: And it's like, hey, we're about to pull in all the sudden.

01:50:45.693 --> 01:50:47.534
[UNKNOWN]: I won't say his name, because he's still active.

01:50:48.415 --> 01:50:53.180
[UNKNOWN]: He just didn't say word, just opened the door, grabbed the dude and just pulled him in.

01:50:53.200 --> 01:50:54.721
[UNKNOWN]: I was just like, I was half asleep.

01:50:54.801 --> 01:50:57.243
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I was passed out in the back as I would have just happened.

01:50:58.465 --> 01:50:59.606
[UNKNOWN]: That's an early man.

01:50:59.786 --> 01:51:02.929
[UNKNOWN]: For the listener, can you explain A, what an augment is?

01:51:03.870 --> 01:51:06.272
[UNKNOWN]: And B, why they do them if you can.

01:51:06.573 --> 01:51:07.213
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, sure.

01:51:08.194 --> 01:51:09.494
[UNKNOWN]: I'll explain from my perspective.

01:51:09.534 --> 01:51:17.717
[UNKNOWN]: So when you join the teams, they give you an opportunity to augment some of the other units like damn neck.

01:51:18.637 --> 01:51:22.019
[UNKNOWN]: So and what that means is you go on a deployment with them.

01:51:22.359 --> 01:51:25.260
[UNKNOWN]: So you get to support them in a support capacity.

01:51:26.160 --> 01:51:33.006
[UNKNOWN]: potentially go on missions with them and that's usually what happens and there's a couple of reasons why to get to your exposure to see if you want to do that too.

01:51:33.026 --> 01:51:40.852
[UNKNOWN]: It gets them exposure to you to see how you think about things, how you're operating, not that it potentially could give you

01:51:42.673 --> 01:51:45.834
[UNKNOWN]: You know, some kudos if you're going to go to green team and try out for damn knack.

01:51:46.235 --> 01:51:56.779
[UNKNOWN]: I think that's part of it as well But it was just for me was a fun experience to go over there and I was torn on if I wanted to go that route or if I wanted to get out again, then

01:51:57.660 --> 01:52:05.946
[UNKNOWN]: inevitably I think I have this entrepreneur spirit in me and like I have big ideas and I think we I don't think I know we ended up choosing that path.

01:52:06.967 --> 01:52:12.931
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah I can certainly appreciate that I know it's a tough tough decision to make especially at that point in the career.

01:52:14.332 --> 01:52:27.771
[UNKNOWN]: Coming from a regular seal team and jumping right into a squadron with DevGrew, what was your first impression of the difference between Vanilla seals and DevGrew?

01:52:28.069 --> 01:52:37.855
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, the consistency of professionalism like this, everybody was completely locked into to their role, their job.

01:52:38.576 --> 01:52:49.203
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, there was no off-period like we're as, at least my experience we're as like my first couple of moments and it was healthy, we would be playing rock band, right?

01:52:49.243 --> 01:52:51.104
[UNKNOWN]: Like wherever that came was, where we had the drum sets.

01:52:51.704 --> 01:52:58.986
[UNKNOWN]: These guys were constantly tweaking gear, constantly testing out new ways to take down buildings.

01:52:59.066 --> 01:53:16.271
[UNKNOWN]: Testing out new gear, making new gear, it was just constant, whereas again like being part of like team 4 and team 10, I think we did a great job with the group that we had, but that level, I just think that level of professionalism was just so much higher consistently.

01:53:16.631 --> 01:53:18.696
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that makes good sense.

01:53:20.099 --> 01:53:22.484
[UNKNOWN]: Are there any other operations from that deployment you can share?

01:53:25.145 --> 01:53:26.045
[UNKNOWN]: Uh, not really.

01:53:26.286 --> 01:53:26.646
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:53:26.686 --> 01:53:27.006
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:53:27.046 --> 01:53:31.908
[UNKNOWN]: Well, there was there's one well, it's not an operation, but all right.

01:53:31.928 --> 01:53:35.650
[UNKNOWN]: So there was a new D guy there that was attached to them and, um, good dude.

01:53:36.670 --> 01:53:40.332
[UNKNOWN]: And, you know, I've written some dirt bikes in my time, right?

01:53:41.152 --> 01:53:44.133
[UNKNOWN]: But not a lot, but he asked me, say, hey, I mean, you ride dirt bikes?

01:53:44.153 --> 01:53:45.234
[UNKNOWN]: I'm like, yeah, I ride dirt bikes.

01:53:45.614 --> 01:53:48.655
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not realizing this guy's like a fucking professional, right?

01:53:48.735 --> 01:53:50.336
[UNKNOWN]: So we're gonna new guy.

01:53:50.516 --> 01:53:50.636
[UNKNOWN]: It's,

01:53:51.051 --> 01:53:55.793
[UNKNOWN]: Can you say his name, is his last name start with an ass?

01:53:56.253 --> 01:53:56.793
[UNKNOWN]: No, okay.

01:53:56.993 --> 01:53:58.653
[UNKNOWN]: Now, do you know someone else?

01:53:58.693 --> 01:54:06.176
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, I know a guy at West Coast guy that was like a professional motorcross level guy, but not the same guy probably.

01:54:06.216 --> 01:54:13.278
[UNKNOWN]: No, and I was over my skis because when I was riding motorcyclist dude, I was on a 50cc, maybe like 110.

01:54:13.358 --> 01:54:15.219
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, that 450 like C.C.

01:54:15.259 --> 01:54:16.259
[UNKNOWN]: Honda is or whatever they were.

01:54:19.688 --> 01:54:24.030
[UNKNOWN]: But I mean, for the most part, I had a Harley, that's how I kind of knew how to ride it.

01:54:24.290 --> 01:54:25.470
[UNKNOWN]: No, I didn't know.

01:54:25.931 --> 01:54:32.373
[UNKNOWN]: So we're out there riding at night, and we brought an odd just in case we have our lights so if we're at lights and we're driving around and I was like, this is fucking awesome.

01:54:33.574 --> 01:54:38.976
[UNKNOWN]: And then we start going up this switchbacks to get to the guard post, because we're on this station.

01:54:39.737 --> 01:54:44.959
[UNKNOWN]: And we had the locals, the unit that we were, that was supporting us, they had their guards up there.

01:54:44.979 --> 01:54:47.480
[UNKNOWN]: So we just kind of driving around, having fun.

01:54:48.911 --> 01:54:52.554
[UNKNOWN]: And he's hauling ass, and I'm just trying to keep up.

01:54:52.874 --> 01:55:01.182
[UNKNOWN]: And on one of the switchbacks, the back tire goes out, and that bike just goes off the side of the mountain, and I go off the side of the mountain with it.

01:55:01.942 --> 01:55:05.545
[UNKNOWN]: And I'm just doing, and I feel my foot, I'm like, ah, I felt like I broke it.

01:55:06.086 --> 01:55:08.688
[UNKNOWN]: In fact, that I was confident I broke it.

01:55:08.748 --> 01:55:10.950
[UNKNOWN]: But kind of gather myself up, he's like, what the fuck, man?

01:55:10.970 --> 01:55:14.233
[UNKNOWN]: And I was like, I'm doing it, I'm just like, sorry, I was just trying to keep up.

01:55:15.491 --> 01:55:19.433
[UNKNOWN]: Um, and we weren't supposed to work that night and then we got recalled.

01:55:20.893 --> 01:55:35.779
[UNKNOWN]: So now I got a broken foot and I'm trying to like, again, like mean these stories of like just cut in myself up like I'm completely cut out my foot's broken, um, and we get back and we had a master chief that was that was running it there and the last thing I'm going to do is like, hey, master chief.

01:55:36.779 --> 01:55:42.504
[UNKNOWN]: over at Dan Mac where I was potentially trying to go to and say, hey man, I broke my foot, fucking around on a motorcycle.

01:55:42.905 --> 01:55:47.689
[UNKNOWN]: So I went to the corner and I was like, hey, give me what you got, inject what you have, wrap my foot up like we're going on an off like I can't.

01:55:47.929 --> 01:55:54.155
[UNKNOWN]: There's no way I can tell a master chief that I'm fucking around and like I would never get the Dan Mac.

01:55:55.115 --> 01:55:55.816
[UNKNOWN]: So that's what they did.

01:55:55.836 --> 01:55:58.258
[UNKNOWN]: And I put my foot in like wrapped it up bandaged.

01:55:58.338 --> 01:56:02.182
[UNKNOWN]: They numbed in, I took a bunch of pain kills and then I went out on that off that night.

01:56:04.987 --> 01:56:06.388
[UNKNOWN]: It's still hurt like a motherfucker.

01:56:06.528 --> 01:56:08.669
[UNKNOWN]: I did not break in it, but it was bruised bad.

01:56:08.709 --> 01:56:15.972
[UNKNOWN]: My foot was like this big had to get the different size boot, but that was one of the stores again, like what?

01:56:16.752 --> 01:56:18.213
[UNKNOWN]: What pain killers did they give you?

01:56:19.213 --> 01:56:21.434
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know man, but I remember being on it.

01:56:21.955 --> 01:56:24.616
[UNKNOWN]: He seems dicey, getting beaten on that.

01:56:24.756 --> 01:56:26.437
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, being on that, being on that.

01:56:27.832 --> 01:56:50.644
[UNKNOWN]: in that vehicle was oh we're driving a high luxe and at one point I thought I was floating I was like so if that tells you anything it was it was the good stuff I mean it was a morphine but it was at one point I was just sitting there just like floating through well man I mean so I'm surprised that they did that honestly that they let you go out do you want that stuff yeah that's a good point dangerous but yeah

01:56:52.666 --> 01:56:53.406
[UNKNOWN]: And that's wild.

01:56:53.747 --> 01:56:56.310
[UNKNOWN]: All right, so you do the Augmented Afghanistan.

01:56:56.330 --> 01:57:03.457
[UNKNOWN]: But basically, you come back in to scratch the edge of kind of what you were missing on Wall Street.

01:57:03.698 --> 01:57:04.098
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:57:05.960 --> 01:57:10.565
[UNKNOWN]: I do have a note about a bridge incident in while you were living in New York.

01:57:10.625 --> 01:57:13.048
[UNKNOWN]: That was impactful, does that ring a bell?

01:57:14.364 --> 01:57:19.390
[UNKNOWN]: Bridginson at the only, well, I've had a few, but the main one was a Cornado bridge.

01:57:19.570 --> 01:57:19.910
[UNKNOWN]: So.

01:57:20.111 --> 01:57:20.371
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.

01:57:20.391 --> 01:57:30.302
[UNKNOWN]: Well, I thought it was there was there an instance about the bridge in New York City that resonated with you in a negative way.

01:57:32.505 --> 01:57:32.765
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:57:33.426 --> 01:57:33.766
[UNKNOWN]: Okay.

01:57:33.846 --> 01:57:34.227
[UNKNOWN]: I know it.

01:57:34.247 --> 01:57:34.587
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

01:57:34.627 --> 01:57:34.928
[UNKNOWN]: So.

01:57:36.127 --> 01:57:37.530
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, if you don't want to talk about it.

01:57:37.550 --> 01:57:38.853
[UNKNOWN]: No, I'm happy to talk about it, man.

01:57:39.614 --> 01:57:41.639
[UNKNOWN]: Because it's kind of let me down this path again.

01:57:42.541 --> 01:57:43.763
[UNKNOWN]: So I know what you're asking.

01:57:46.403 --> 01:57:51.206
[UNKNOWN]: And for me, I would have to either take the train in the city or drive in the city.

01:57:51.226 --> 01:57:55.768
[UNKNOWN]: And I would go over these bridges, like just to get to work to our West Street.

01:57:55.788 --> 01:57:58.490
[UNKNOWN]: You'd have to cross in, to get into New York.

01:57:59.931 --> 01:58:04.593
[UNKNOWN]: And again, I said it earlier, there was a lot of people just congratulated me, there was like, man, you did it.

01:58:04.613 --> 01:58:11.717
[UNKNOWN]: You were in ABC, you got, you know, you're working at Goldman Sachs, like, this is amazing, dude, you're part of the 1%.

01:58:13.295 --> 01:58:15.736
[UNKNOWN]: And I kind of bought into that, my ego like bought into that.

01:58:16.076 --> 01:58:23.059
[UNKNOWN]: And I shared, I appreciate it everybody saying that, but deep down inside, I said, I was dead, right?

01:58:23.759 --> 01:58:24.940
[UNKNOWN]: And how did I know that?

01:58:25.120 --> 01:58:27.061
[UNKNOWN]: Because I started having dark thoughts.

01:58:27.821 --> 01:58:29.642
[UNKNOWN]: Like a couple things happened.

01:58:29.822 --> 01:58:37.905
[UNKNOWN]: One, the bridge incident that you referred to is it didn't happen once, but the first time it happened, driving over the bridge and I just saw it like,

01:58:39.212 --> 01:58:41.754
[UNKNOWN]: how easy would it be for me to send this, right?

01:58:41.794 --> 01:58:44.256
[UNKNOWN]: Like that's the thought that's never crossed my mind.

01:58:44.916 --> 01:58:46.237
[UNKNOWN]: That's the first time it happened.

01:58:47.238 --> 01:58:50.841
[UNKNOWN]: And then it just became the pattern like, you know, that's not healthy.

01:58:51.041 --> 01:58:54.364
[UNKNOWN]: How easy would it be like, I don't wanna do this anymore, like just send it.

01:58:56.033 --> 01:59:03.235
[UNKNOWN]: where it all culminated for me was I was in Target in New York City somewhere, getting something and I'm just walking through the aisles.

01:59:04.115 --> 01:59:05.915
[UNKNOWN]: Now again, I'm successful.

01:59:05.935 --> 01:59:07.135
[UNKNOWN]: I'm the one percent.

01:59:07.196 --> 01:59:07.956
[UNKNOWN]: I'm making money.

01:59:08.016 --> 01:59:13.997
[UNKNOWN]: I got a beautiful home in New Jersey at the time and I never came from money.

01:59:14.017 --> 01:59:16.398
[UNKNOWN]: My dad was, you know, enlisted in the army.

01:59:16.418 --> 01:59:17.078
[UNKNOWN]: He was an MP.

01:59:17.098 --> 01:59:17.878
[UNKNOWN]: We never had money.

01:59:17.918 --> 01:59:18.158
[UNKNOWN]: So, I

01:59:21.105 --> 01:59:33.187
[UNKNOWN]: Everybody is telling me I'm knocking out of the park and yet I'm having these thoughts, and I'm in target, and I walk into an aisle, the lightbulb aisle.

01:59:35.143 --> 01:59:38.804
[UNKNOWN]: And it just started like flash to start going off.

01:59:38.844 --> 01:59:43.845
[UNKNOWN]: It almost felt like, you know, you see the wartime movies and you're just like, when somebody's having PTSD, you're like, what the fuck?

01:59:44.205 --> 01:59:45.166
[UNKNOWN]: It doesn't make sense to me.

01:59:45.266 --> 01:59:46.346
[UNKNOWN]: That's exactly what happened to me.

01:59:47.226 --> 01:59:51.787
[UNKNOWN]: I walked right through there and there was people around and I just said, breathe, breathe.

01:59:51.827 --> 01:59:54.308
[UNKNOWN]: And I put myself into a corner, literally into a corner.

01:59:55.028 --> 02:00:07.778
[UNKNOWN]: He said, I didn't know what the fuck was going on, and I had a coach at the time because I was trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me, and she proceeded to congratulate me and said, hey, you had an anxiety attack.

02:00:08.678 --> 02:00:11.260
[UNKNOWN]: And that was, started become the new normal for me.

02:00:11.861 --> 02:00:13.662
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I became depressed.

02:00:14.102 --> 02:00:15.163
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't want to do this anymore.

02:00:15.183 --> 02:00:18.105
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't know if there was an out, and part of the reason why I left is,

02:00:18.946 --> 02:00:27.888
[UNKNOWN]: because I was having those thoughts and I thought like I got to remove this or something, you know, potentially could happen here, so that's part of why maybe the decision to go back in.

02:00:28.509 --> 02:00:34.230
[UNKNOWN]: Did coming back in a swage that part of your kind of mentality, did that go away?

02:00:34.350 --> 02:00:34.630
[UNKNOWN]: It did.

02:00:34.810 --> 02:00:35.010
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:00:35.491 --> 02:00:40.412
[UNKNOWN]: And you know, if you think about it, it's because we run fast, you're around the boys, like,

02:00:41.629 --> 02:00:46.771
[UNKNOWN]: I think it went away temporarily as how I should answer that question.

02:00:46.791 --> 02:00:49.392
[UNKNOWN]: We're so good at compartmentalizing as you know.

02:00:50.113 --> 02:01:09.441
[UNKNOWN]: We've stuff stuff down that we think will never come up and it's gonna come up to like the guys that are still in or anybody that's listening to it and if you're this resonates with you, like totally, I think you understand what we're saying here for the guys where it doesn't resonate, yeah, I hope it never happens to you, but what we've seen supported thousands of veterans,

02:01:10.654 --> 02:01:25.500
[UNKNOWN]: At some point, some strange thing, like you walk through the target light, Bob, while we'll trigger something, or you just have enough fleeting thought about taking your life, like, and then you start thinking about a face of somebody that you've blown up before, like little things start coming up, and we need to address those things.

02:01:26.355 --> 02:01:36.179
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, and it seems like it's always really unexpected, and it kind of comes out of nowhere into your point.

02:01:36.199 --> 02:01:42.142
[UNKNOWN]: It's triggered by something that seems totally innocuous, or probably is totally innocuous.

02:01:42.162 --> 02:01:43.563
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, there's something about it that,

02:01:44.503 --> 02:01:57.827
[UNKNOWN]: that puts you immediately into that completely contrasted state of mind, coming back in and getting rid of that at least temporarily, how long were you back in for?

02:01:58.308 --> 02:02:01.509
[UNKNOWN]: And then what was the decision making process to get out again?

02:02:02.509 --> 02:02:09.711
[UNKNOWN]: So somewhere in two hats now, I'm running the Seal Future Foundation,

02:02:12.731 --> 02:02:23.204
[UNKNOWN]: Is there any conflict of interest there or probably hopefully there's a 10-year window that's passed now and I can't be held liable for that So

02:02:27.874 --> 02:02:34.537
[UNKNOWN]: Um, you know, Brian Martelli ran it initially and that was the co-founder and I took it over after I left team 10.

02:02:34.557 --> 02:02:37.498
[UNKNOWN]: It's a kind of wrap up my career.

02:02:37.518 --> 02:02:45.060
[UNKNOWN]: I did four more years and that first deployment was, you know, the troop was sent to Afghanistan.

02:02:45.160 --> 02:02:47.821
[UNKNOWN]: Some of the folks were sent one of the troops was sent down to South America.

02:02:47.862 --> 02:02:48.542
[UNKNOWN]: That's where I went.

02:02:48.682 --> 02:02:51.903
[UNKNOWN]: So I ended up doing the Columbia mission.

02:02:52.003 --> 02:02:53.824
[UNKNOWN]: So Fid, as you call that earlier,

02:02:54.845 --> 02:02:56.107
[UNKNOWN]: We went to a car to Hania.

02:02:56.908 --> 02:02:57.990
[UNKNOWN]: It was cool to work with us.

02:02:58.651 --> 02:03:00.213
[UNKNOWN]: You know, it was cool for a new environment.

02:03:00.234 --> 02:03:01.896
[UNKNOWN]: I've never experienced that before.

02:03:03.225 --> 02:03:07.168
[UNKNOWN]: And we also did a couple groups got sent to Belize and some other spots, I went to Chile.

02:03:07.368 --> 02:03:13.212
[UNKNOWN]: And Chile was a beautiful, if you've never been, I highly recommend some point-taking girls in your family, there's beautiful country.

02:03:13.312 --> 02:03:18.636
[UNKNOWN]: Reminds me of SoCal, like temperament-wise, temperature, it's clean.

02:03:19.116 --> 02:03:22.819
[UNKNOWN]: Part of that is because a lot of Germans left after World War II and brought wealth.

02:03:23.579 --> 02:03:26.661
[UNKNOWN]: That's my belief, and you can see it there, it's like, wait, you're Chilean.

02:03:26.942 --> 02:03:28.383
[UNKNOWN]: You got blonde hair and blue eyes, man.

02:03:29.343 --> 02:03:39.771
[UNKNOWN]: But regardless the point is it's a beautiful country, and so a well-maintained country There's no trash on the streets like it is it's a well-hit country And we went down there and we're worked with the comforts.

02:03:39.911 --> 02:03:43.854
[UNKNOWN]: So the Chilean Navy Seals and it was a blast man.

02:03:44.054 --> 02:03:44.794
[UNKNOWN]: It was just fun.

02:03:44.834 --> 02:03:45.715
[UNKNOWN]: Those guys love us.

02:03:45.755 --> 02:03:52.039
[UNKNOWN]: We love them I still there's a drink down there a Peruvian drink so Peru and Chile both have a drink called piscos hour

02:03:53.060 --> 02:03:58.464
[UNKNOWN]: And my friend, the commanding officer down there, because I was leading, I was a true pleat on that one.

02:03:59.425 --> 02:04:05.389
[UNKNOWN]: We became good friends every year for Christmas, I get a bottle of Pisco Sour in the mail from this guy.

02:04:06.149 --> 02:04:10.672
[UNKNOWN]: And I think he ended up becoming like a captain or a admiral before he ended up getting out.

02:04:10.693 --> 02:04:13.414
[UNKNOWN]: So it's been cool to watch him progress through his career.

02:04:13.635 --> 02:04:14.855
[UNKNOWN]: That's awesome.

02:04:15.156 --> 02:04:18.518
[UNKNOWN]: American Seals versus Chilean Seals, how do you stack them up?

02:04:19.148 --> 02:04:20.989
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, there's no comparison.

02:04:21.890 --> 02:04:22.770
[UNKNOWN]: They were that much better.

02:04:23.731 --> 02:04:24.711
[UNKNOWN]: Those guys are studs.

02:04:26.252 --> 02:04:27.313
[UNKNOWN]: They get out drink as hell.

02:04:27.353 --> 02:04:28.494
[UNKNOWN]: That's one thing they did.

02:04:28.554 --> 02:04:29.254
[UNKNOWN]: They baited us.

02:04:29.294 --> 02:04:35.838
[UNKNOWN]: So the first reception dinner is we went out to a nice hotel and the restaurant where we're looking the ocean.

02:04:37.383 --> 02:04:53.352
[UNKNOWN]: and they started this is our country's drink you have to drink it so we start putting back these very like there's a lemon taste to it's very sweet and we start throwing these back and it's a dangerous dangerous alcohol because it sneaks up on you and the whole platoon was just

02:04:54.212 --> 02:05:07.370
[UNKNOWN]: wasted like net worth hanging over reasons so sugary the next day and then we also they were they were purposefully drinking light and then the next day we had our big monster mash pt and we're all thrown up and it was a shit show

02:05:08.013 --> 02:05:17.022
[UNKNOWN]: I will say I've had similar experiences in Southeast Asia, but with some Filipino seals for sure.

02:05:17.763 --> 02:05:18.904
[UNKNOWN]: Was that Filipino seals?

02:05:19.765 --> 02:05:27.832
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I will say that from a caliber of guy, individual, I was very impressed with sure.

02:05:29.614 --> 02:05:33.276
[UNKNOWN]: what hamstrings them more than anything is resources.

02:05:33.476 --> 02:05:40.701
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it was that number one there, I would say, the ingenuity that they showed.

02:05:41.960 --> 02:06:03.733
[UNKNOWN]: being able to live off the land and repurpose things we threw away was, I would say, prison level of ingenious engineering and design-wise, I mean, like, we ran ranges where, you know, those, those, those, like, really heavy-duty plastic silhouettes, yeah, and rigor

02:06:08.035 --> 02:06:12.178
[UNKNOWN]: those plastic silhouettes and rigor state that that we threw away.

02:06:13.239 --> 02:06:27.028
[UNKNOWN]: The next morning we show up and these guys had cut those silhouettes into fin shape and put several layers all together and then took the rigor state and rolled it over on itself the way you would make

02:06:35.874 --> 02:06:51.970
[UNKNOWN]: you know a foot basket and and punched it through there like made fins out of it because they didn't have fins yeah they had one mask for their entire cartoon one diving mask with no strap you know and they would take bamboo shoot

02:06:54.572 --> 02:07:08.957
[UNKNOWN]: like rods or like long reads and use tape or twine and would you would like sharpen paper clips and then whip it around the end of it and spearfish and like so we're doing this like jungle survival training course which was amazing.

02:07:09.657 --> 02:07:12.118
[UNKNOWN]: For us it's like man we are roughening it.

02:07:12.138 --> 02:07:12.858
[UNKNOWN]: This is brutal.

02:07:13.399 --> 02:07:17.100
[UNKNOWN]: That's how they lived you know like there they would go months without being paid

02:07:17.660 --> 02:07:23.902
[UNKNOWN]: They're living off the land half the time, no equipment, no training resources, no ammunition.

02:07:23.922 --> 02:07:37.386
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, they're dealing with nothing, but, you know, I could do it's holden as mask because there's no strap using this, you know, overnight, fashioned spear gun and diving into it.

02:07:38.161 --> 02:08:01.897
[UNKNOWN]: a little stream in the jungle and getting frogs and eels and it's like made soup some of the best soup I've ever had in my life and you like, you know, I was just like dude, I don't know how you guys, you know, the like bamboo shoots soup with eel and frog meat and garlic and lemon and I was just like, how are you guys, it was astounding, you know, but again, it was like that's just that's what they had to work with, which was basically

02:08:07.915 --> 02:08:28.465
[UNKNOWN]: not super advanced, but again, not because they weren't capable of it, it was overwhelmingly just because they had almost zero resources, but in any rate, the decision-making process I'm curious after spending four years in, I already run in the foundation.

02:08:29.166 --> 02:08:35.749
[UNKNOWN]: What was the decision-making process and this time I hope the conversation with the wife in terms of what the next stage was?

02:08:37.626 --> 02:08:44.494
[UNKNOWN]: Um, so I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way, but it probably will.

02:08:47.718 --> 02:08:49.780
[UNKNOWN]: I just felt like I was being held back.

02:08:50.621 --> 02:08:55.047
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I was never gonna, I just have all these ambitions, right?

02:08:56.350 --> 02:09:04.893
[UNKNOWN]: I shot myself in the foot of the Naval Academy, like, I really wanted to leave a mark on this world.

02:09:04.933 --> 02:09:06.313
[UNKNOWN]: I like to solve problems.

02:09:06.453 --> 02:09:12.856
[UNKNOWN]: And as much as I loved what we did in the teams, I knew where that would end up, right?

02:09:12.956 --> 02:09:14.696
[UNKNOWN]: And there's nothing wrong with that, by the way.

02:09:15.096 --> 02:09:23.379
[UNKNOWN]: But for me, I just, I see problems, you know, for example, the SEAL Future Foundation, like there's no transition platform back then.

02:09:23.399 --> 02:09:25.040
[UNKNOWN]: I talked to the SEAL Foundation, I was like,

02:09:26.000 --> 02:09:39.668
[UNKNOWN]: You know, back then, Joe Feminier, actually, the guy that was at Goldman was like, hey, that's not our problem set, and he was a pre 9-11 guy, so I don't think he understood the challenges and get it, like you didn't go through it, but I did, and this is a real challenge.

02:09:39.708 --> 02:09:46.152
[UNKNOWN]: So we ended up starting our own thing, and today that organization is pretty massive, and it helps a lot of skills transition to find the next purpose.

02:09:46.553 --> 02:09:51.396
[UNKNOWN]: The next problem set was, you know, suicide, we started losing Gaza's suicide, and for me, that's where it was

02:09:52.437 --> 02:09:55.942
[UNKNOWN]: I was running the SEAL Future Foundation at the time and build more than took his life in.

02:09:57.699 --> 02:10:01.021
[UNKNOWN]: Um, we used wearables so like a woop strap.

02:10:01.201 --> 02:10:05.804
[UNKNOWN]: We partner with woop and we put it on 50, 180 seals and you look at sleep.

02:10:06.025 --> 02:10:07.045
[UNKNOWN]: No surprise here, man.

02:10:07.125 --> 02:10:07.826
[UNKNOWN]: You look at sleep.

02:10:07.986 --> 02:10:10.668
[UNKNOWN]: You look at heart rate variability and you can tell when guys aren't doing well.

02:10:10.968 --> 02:10:12.589
[UNKNOWN]: And we're notorious for line and one another.

02:10:12.649 --> 02:10:14.670
[UNKNOWN]: Even though you and I are best friends, you're like Johnny.

02:10:15.391 --> 02:10:15.991
[UNKNOWN]: Dude, what's up?

02:10:16.011 --> 02:10:16.692
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I'm good.

02:10:16.712 --> 02:10:17.132
[UNKNOWN]: I'm good.

02:10:17.672 --> 02:10:21.615
[UNKNOWN]: Now I got the data and with that data, we were able to kind of force a conversation.

02:10:21.635 --> 02:10:24.437
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, hey, man, my, what's what's going on, dude?

02:10:24.497 --> 02:10:25.738
[UNKNOWN]: Like, just let's cut to it.

02:10:26.733 --> 02:10:30.278
[UNKNOWN]: And when I saw it work there, I was like, hey, this isn't a problem just for seals.

02:10:30.318 --> 02:10:32.160
[UNKNOWN]: This isn't a problem for just special forces.

02:10:32.180 --> 02:10:35.825
[UNKNOWN]: This is, this is every fucking community struggles with this.

02:10:35.945 --> 02:10:41.251
[UNKNOWN]: The shame around it, the fear of retribution, if you're in a work environment, and you're struggling with mental health, like,

02:10:41.792 --> 02:10:50.140
[UNKNOWN]: The suicide thing, yeah, that's maybe unique to some degree, but then we saw COVID happen like you and I talked about before the park and then you got these kids in the middle of COVID taking their lives.

02:10:50.521 --> 02:10:54.625
[UNKNOWN]: So there isn't a community or a personal in this world that isn't going to be impacted by mental health.

02:10:55.145 --> 02:10:59.149
[UNKNOWN]: And for me, I just became so focused on how do we create a better solution for that?

02:10:59.169 --> 02:11:00.691
[UNKNOWN]: Because the one that we currently had in 2017,

02:11:02.312 --> 02:11:10.838
[UNKNOWN]: was SSRIs, anti-depressants, it was talk therapist that just didn't know how to communicate with us and guys were killing themselves.

02:11:10.858 --> 02:11:17.043
[UNKNOWN]: So once all that happened I knew is like this feels like a culmination of all my own struggles.

02:11:17.783 --> 02:11:35.885
[UNKNOWN]: You know, the suicide radiation that I had that we haven't touched on deep in, the challenges that I've experienced, the failures that I've experienced as success is like everything felt like a culmination to like go on on that and that's where I double down was like I think it's time in my wife agreed and we pulled the trigger.

02:11:36.578 --> 02:11:46.104
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's amazing and inspiring work that you are doing and have done and I'm super appreciative for the foundation and the amount of people that they've helped.

02:11:46.865 --> 02:11:49.967
[UNKNOWN]: You touched on your own suicidal ideation.

02:11:50.667 --> 02:11:54.170
[UNKNOWN]: When did that first start and kind of walk us through what happened?

02:11:54.730 --> 02:11:58.452
[UNKNOWN]: Well, you know, again, it was fleeting thoughts.

02:11:58.733 --> 02:11:59.093
[UNKNOWN]: It was...

02:12:00.780 --> 02:12:06.244
[UNKNOWN]: It was the bridge, you know, back in New York, hey, wouldn't it be easier?

02:12:06.344 --> 02:12:09.045
[UNKNOWN]: There was more examples of that, not just the bridge incident.

02:12:10.046 --> 02:12:12.908
[UNKNOWN]: And I don't know if we all go through that out.

02:12:12.928 --> 02:12:17.611
[UNKNOWN]: You know, I talked to a lot of guys and like, yeah, it's kind of normal and I don't know if it is, man.

02:12:18.151 --> 02:12:23.855
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe it is, maybe everybody on this planet has a part where they're at their lowest and they just think wouldn't it be easier?

02:12:24.195 --> 02:12:25.736
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know, but it was happening a lot for me.

02:12:26.677 --> 02:12:37.103
[UNKNOWN]: I don't even think I fit out there, my family would be better without me, and it was just not addressing a lot of things that I should have been.

02:12:37.143 --> 02:12:41.066
[UNKNOWN]: Like the priority should have been my wife, wasn't addressing that.

02:12:41.106 --> 02:12:41.946
[UNKNOWN]: I was avoiding that.

02:12:42.187 --> 02:12:49.971
[UNKNOWN]: My children, I was absent because I justified this, you know, future foundation has been, like I kind of take care of the boys.

02:12:50.011 --> 02:12:51.492
[UNKNOWN]: These guys are committed suicide.

02:12:51.532 --> 02:12:54.754
[UNKNOWN]: Like it was a distraction, right?

02:12:58.863 --> 02:13:03.484
[UNKNOWN]: and I focused all my time and energy on that and everything around me internally was imploded.

02:13:03.504 --> 02:13:05.905
[UNKNOWN]: And so once what you just said is like, hey man, how are you doing?

02:13:06.045 --> 02:13:06.705
[UNKNOWN]: Well, I'm great.

02:13:07.685 --> 02:13:08.825
[UNKNOWN]: Like, Mario?

02:13:09.045 --> 02:13:10.146
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you know what I mean?

02:13:10.166 --> 02:13:17.247
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I mean, so that's where first started happening was when I was at Goldman and I left the teams.

02:13:17.287 --> 02:13:19.068
[UNKNOWN]: Come back in, I blocked it out.

02:13:19.508 --> 02:13:25.269
[UNKNOWN]: When I got out again, there's a friend will Chesney.

02:13:25.469 --> 02:13:26.429
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know, you know, will, yeah,

02:13:30.271 --> 02:13:53.767
[UNKNOWN]: He basically proceeded to tell me he did psychedelic assisted therapy and I was like that dude fucking lost his mind right like and that the backstory is there is like we all saw him or you know I always saw him leave the teams or get pushed out of the teams for his drinking and you know he's confided in the world now but in me that and others that you know he was suicidal because he just worked his ass off to be

02:13:54.768 --> 02:13:58.290
[UNKNOWN]: You know, at damn neck and in the Navy and he gets booted out for booze.

02:13:58.771 --> 02:14:00.412
[UNKNOWN]: That's a tough thing to do.

02:14:00.492 --> 02:14:04.514
[UNKNOWN]: And so when I saw him last, it was, we were in Virginia Beach.

02:14:04.554 --> 02:14:05.575
[UNKNOWN]: And I was with another buddy.

02:14:05.935 --> 02:14:09.618
[UNKNOWN]: And we went to, uh, uh, as a, as a cone of coffee.

02:14:10.218 --> 02:14:12.139
[UNKNOWN]: Is that the, yeah, there was a cone of coffee.

02:14:12.159 --> 02:14:13.480
[UNKNOWN]: Right, thanks so.

02:14:13.668 --> 02:14:29.113
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, one of those Hawaiian coffee joints in Virginia Beach, and I walked away thinking, that might be the last time I see Will, like, didn't look healthy, obese, and then you fast forward and I see him and he's like, glowing, there's no redness in his face from you know, over drinking, he's got long hair.

02:14:29.133 --> 02:14:33.934
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know if you remember that here, or we're head like Kendall, fucking hair thing going on.

02:14:33.974 --> 02:14:35.094
[UNKNOWN]: Beautiful, wavy large.

02:14:35.114 --> 02:14:36.115
[UNKNOWN]: Got so beautiful, man.

02:14:36.135 --> 02:14:36.875
[UNKNOWN]: There's this glowing.

02:14:37.135 --> 02:14:37.255
[UNKNOWN]: And

02:14:38.576 --> 02:14:42.940
[UNKNOWN]: He tells me about the psychedelics, and I walked away again, I was just like, what the hell.

02:14:43.040 --> 02:14:47.643
[UNKNOWN]: But he planted a seed in my head, and I was struggling personally as I just shared.

02:14:48.244 --> 02:14:55.909
[UNKNOWN]: And I was also running the foundation at the time, so I thought, for me, could this be a solid, it just did to will.

02:14:56.470 --> 02:14:57.230
[UNKNOWN]: It's an N01.

02:14:57.270 --> 02:15:00.353
[UNKNOWN]: There's only one person I know that's done this, but he looks amazing.

02:15:01.233 --> 02:15:04.376
[UNKNOWN]: Maybe I should go explore this and kind of figure out what this is.

02:15:04.396 --> 02:15:05.637
[UNKNOWN]: So I started researching it.

02:15:07.438 --> 02:15:18.040
[UNKNOWN]: I flew over to England to sit down with the guy named Robin Carrard Harris and Robin Carrard Harris is a lead researcher in the space.

02:15:19.163 --> 02:15:21.284
[UNKNOWN]: and shared a little bit about our community.

02:15:21.585 --> 02:15:22.945
[UNKNOWN]: Asked him if he thought this could work.

02:15:23.045 --> 02:15:24.146
[UNKNOWN]: He showed me some daddies.

02:15:24.166 --> 02:15:29.249
[UNKNOWN]: I get absolutely could work or some of the work that they're working on with other veterans in the UK.

02:15:30.350 --> 02:15:38.314
[UNKNOWN]: And I got introduced to Martin Polanco and then Marcus Capone, an Amber who had just started vets at the time.

02:15:38.374 --> 02:15:44.158
[UNKNOWN]: And I don't know, I was one of the first guys to go through there and it really helped.

02:15:44.458 --> 02:15:45.719
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:15:45.919 --> 02:15:48.900
[UNKNOWN]: I've had a number of guys on the show that have gone through that process.

02:15:49.641 --> 02:16:05.248
[UNKNOWN]: What I find interesting is that while there's a similarity between everybody's journey, there's always enough differences to where it's very obvious that each person's path is their own and there are a lot of things that are specific to their experience.

02:16:06.787 --> 02:16:17.490
[UNKNOWN]: from having seen a lot of guys go through and kind of just understanding that I think most people listening have probably heard the the soup to nuts version of the experience.

02:16:17.530 --> 02:16:24.352
[UNKNOWN]: Can you kind of in our readers digest version kind of highlight yours and any differences that stood out or surprised you?

02:16:24.752 --> 02:16:24.992
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:16:25.972 --> 02:16:31.234
[UNKNOWN]: So, you know, I truly believe I was in health.

02:16:33.347 --> 02:16:39.595
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I started off with this like, and it was a little worrisome because everybody said this could be a hard experience, right?

02:16:39.856 --> 02:16:40.657
[UNKNOWN]: This is I beggining.

02:16:40.797 --> 02:16:41.338
[UNKNOWN]: I beggining.

02:16:42.339 --> 02:16:42.519
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:16:45.937 --> 02:16:46.697
[UNKNOWN]: It wasn't that at all.

02:16:47.098 --> 02:16:51.200
[UNKNOWN]: They talk about this like movie projector thing and kind of go through life and I was doing that.

02:16:51.220 --> 02:16:52.880
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, oh, what's my third birthday?

02:16:52.940 --> 02:16:54.381
[UNKNOWN]: Look, my parents did love each other.

02:16:56.322 --> 02:16:57.263
[UNKNOWN]: You know, it wasn't as bad.

02:16:57.303 --> 02:16:59.043
[UNKNOWN]: I understand what my dad behavior the way he did.

02:16:59.063 --> 02:17:01.585
[UNKNOWN]: I understand what my mom, you know, I got different perspective.

02:17:01.625 --> 02:17:02.945
[UNKNOWN]: I was enjoying it and then it went dark.

02:17:03.846 --> 02:17:05.927
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, well, that was like fucking five minutes, man.

02:17:07.345 --> 02:17:08.246
[UNKNOWN]: This is interesting.

02:17:08.266 --> 02:17:17.050
[UNKNOWN]: I thought they said this was going to be all night and for the rest of the night I thought all my demons like I saw I saw the depths of hell.

02:17:17.611 --> 02:17:20.432
[UNKNOWN]: I saw I saw demon.

02:17:20.732 --> 02:17:21.613
[UNKNOWN]: I could see their feet.

02:17:21.713 --> 02:17:22.493
[UNKNOWN]: I was purging.

02:17:22.513 --> 02:17:26.516
[UNKNOWN]: I threw up so many times like I lost so much weight.

02:17:26.656 --> 02:17:28.957
[UNKNOWN]: I was in the best shape of my life coming out of that I have to get into.

02:17:29.837 --> 02:17:31.338
[UNKNOWN]: But I mean, my ribs hurt.

02:17:31.618 --> 02:17:32.499
[UNKNOWN]: It hurt so bad.

02:17:34.051 --> 02:17:45.824
[UNKNOWN]: And for me, it was the first time I really addressed all of the shit I compartmentalized, the stuff in war, but more importantly the stuff that I never addressed that was the root cause everything in my childhood.

02:17:46.768 --> 02:17:48.529
[UNKNOWN]: It just forced me to deal with it all.

02:17:49.630 --> 02:17:55.793
[UNKNOWN]: And that first psychedelic experience was brutal, but it was the most profound thing that ever happened to me.

02:17:56.453 --> 02:17:57.874
[UNKNOWN]: Because it gave me a different perspective.

02:17:57.894 --> 02:18:00.655
[UNKNOWN]: It allowed me to move past some of the things that had been holding back.

02:18:00.696 --> 02:18:09.260
[UNKNOWN]: And it allowed me to realize why I am so eager to be the best at everything I do or always shoot for the stars, right?

02:18:09.300 --> 02:18:10.501
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I'm trying to prove something.

02:18:11.335 --> 02:18:18.501
[UNKNOWN]: to somebody like my dad who wasn't there for me as much as I would need him to be, but I know he was out there trying his best and trying to put food on the table.

02:18:19.041 --> 02:18:23.885
[UNKNOWN]: So what did I do I go out and I do the I go out for the hardest thing and I just try to succeed at it, right?

02:18:23.925 --> 02:18:25.366
[UNKNOWN]: And that's not healthy either, right?

02:18:26.687 --> 02:18:29.490
[UNKNOWN]: So readers die jazz virgin version.

02:18:30.829 --> 02:18:31.689
[UNKNOWN]: I fought through hell.

02:18:31.850 --> 02:18:34.351
[UNKNOWN]: I got all of the darkness out of me at that very moment.

02:18:34.431 --> 02:18:38.272
[UNKNOWN]: Like I purge what I perceived to be darkness out of my soul.

02:18:39.493 --> 02:18:45.216
[UNKNOWN]: And I was out of commission for another like other guys were coming out and I was in it for another 12 hours.

02:18:48.257 --> 02:18:57.181
[UNKNOWN]: I was so beat up from that experience that I faked because I was terrified of what could happen on 5MEO DMT, because I were doing the combination.

02:18:57.862 --> 02:18:58.242
[UNKNOWN]: I did it.

02:18:59.342 --> 02:19:00.664
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't get what I needed out of it.

02:19:00.765 --> 02:19:03.149
[UNKNOWN]: And when they asked if I did, I was like, yeah, I'm good.

02:19:03.169 --> 02:19:03.870
[UNKNOWN]: I got what I needed.

02:19:04.090 --> 02:19:06.755
[UNKNOWN]: But it's just because I didn't want to commit at that point.

02:19:06.795 --> 02:19:09.720
[UNKNOWN]: I was just so terrified of what I had just experienced.

02:19:09.981 --> 02:19:10.201
[UNKNOWN]: Wow.

02:19:11.682 --> 02:19:28.047
[UNKNOWN]: As far as the, you know, when you're in kind of the, the full throes of ivygane and it goes dark and you start seeing the depths of hell and demonic figures, is it vivid where it feels and seems real?

02:19:28.127 --> 02:19:28.827
[UNKNOWN]: Is it hazy?

02:19:30.027 --> 02:19:38.750
[UNKNOWN]: Can you make out the particular, like I guess the definition of all the things that are taking place, like is it a super vivid?

02:19:38.970 --> 02:19:57.907
[UNKNOWN]: yeah i've done it i just recently did i began again i think i share that i share that with you on the second time you don't know if you don't admit this is my third and they're all different and that's what i just shared i'm pretty sure somebody else is sat in the share and said the same thing everybody's experiences different well there's it's true to that

02:19:58.908 --> 02:20:07.432
[UNKNOWN]: I can still see those demonic figures, their feet, clear as day, like chickens, like I can see claws.

02:20:07.732 --> 02:20:11.414
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I have that ingrained in my nose so crystal clear.

02:20:11.614 --> 02:20:13.335
[UNKNOWN]: I can see fires and just

02:20:14.722 --> 02:20:22.468
[UNKNOWN]: And I remember Marcus, he was there for me, like, given me a basket, and I was just, like, clenching his heart as I could, just trying to, like, get all of it out of me.

02:20:22.488 --> 02:20:23.869
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, that's what I kept thinking.

02:20:23.889 --> 02:20:25.390
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, just get this out of you, man.

02:20:25.410 --> 02:20:31.635
[UNKNOWN]: Like, get it out, all of it, all of this hatred, this anger, this resentment, the fear, the shame.

02:20:31.675 --> 02:20:33.556
[UNKNOWN]: Like, that's what it felt like to me.

02:20:33.576 --> 02:20:39.601
[UNKNOWN]: And as I was doing that, I would look down, and he had an eye mask on by the way, but you can still see through that fucking thing.

02:20:39.621 --> 02:20:40.342
[UNKNOWN]: So I'm seeing, like,

02:20:41.523 --> 02:20:43.405
[UNKNOWN]: Marcus's feet are like demon feet.

02:20:43.425 --> 02:20:52.494
[UNKNOWN]: I'm seeing like the helpers and I'm just like get away from me like you can actually see them in your eyes are playing tricks or it's completely subconscious or like figment of your.

02:20:52.514 --> 02:20:53.855
[UNKNOWN]: You know, I don't know the answer to that.

02:20:54.596 --> 02:20:55.377
[UNKNOWN]: I don't because

02:20:56.828 --> 02:20:59.871
[UNKNOWN]: When you do I begin, you can have a mask on and see your hand.

02:21:01.432 --> 02:21:12.202
[UNKNOWN]: So, you know, people talk about, and I don't, you know, again, and I don't want to get too deep into it, but they talk about a third eye, and like subconscious, I don't know the answer to that to be honest with you.

02:21:12.262 --> 02:21:21.731
[UNKNOWN]: But for me, regardless if it was their feet or somebody else's feet, like it was vividly clear to me, the second time I did it was just all black.

02:21:23.113 --> 02:21:27.362
[UNKNOWN]: But at the same time, I could feel what was taking place.

02:21:28.364 --> 02:21:30.128
[UNKNOWN]: I could, although it was all black, I could,

02:21:31.138 --> 02:21:34.339
[UNKNOWN]: I can also think about what was taking place.

02:21:34.379 --> 02:21:37.441
[UNKNOWN]: So like, I don't want to say C because I didn't see anything.

02:21:37.781 --> 02:21:38.181
[UNKNOWN]: Imagine.

02:21:38.541 --> 02:21:39.882
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, imagine, that's the right word.

02:21:40.362 --> 02:21:42.603
[UNKNOWN]: I could imagine what was going on with clarity.

02:21:43.623 --> 02:21:45.684
[UNKNOWN]: And it wasn't me imagining it.

02:21:45.704 --> 02:21:46.644
[UNKNOWN]: It was being presented.

02:21:46.664 --> 02:21:47.545
[UNKNOWN]: Although it was black.

02:21:47.565 --> 02:21:48.565
[UNKNOWN]: There's a black screen.

02:21:48.645 --> 02:21:50.386
[UNKNOWN]: Like again, I'm not seeing it.

02:21:50.666 --> 02:21:53.767
[UNKNOWN]: But I could imagine what was being presented to me if that makes sense.

02:21:54.227 --> 02:21:55.128
[UNKNOWN]: Well, for sure it does.

02:21:55.188 --> 02:21:58.349
[UNKNOWN]: And then the third time was it vastly different still, over.

02:21:59.013 --> 02:22:07.978
[UNKNOWN]: So I just did it again, um, 45 days ago, and I lay down, the medicine kicked in right away.

02:22:07.998 --> 02:22:09.739
[UNKNOWN]: I was the first one, one of the first ones to go down.

02:22:10.520 --> 02:22:15.182
[UNKNOWN]: There's a group of us down in Mexico, and I begged the medicine as I lay down.

02:22:15.202 --> 02:22:15.903
[UNKNOWN]: I put that mask on.

02:22:15.923 --> 02:22:18.124
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, please, like, I'm getting old, man.

02:22:18.304 --> 02:22:18.844
[UNKNOWN]: Give me a break.

02:22:19.105 --> 02:22:20.265
[UNKNOWN]: Please don't beat me up.

02:22:20.625 --> 02:22:22.487
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know if I could, I don't know if this body could take it.

02:22:23.647 --> 02:22:27.312
[UNKNOWN]: Um, and brother it was the most gentle experience ever.

02:22:27.653 --> 02:22:32.980
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, it was just like, I'm getting a little like choked up thinking about it because it was just what I needed, man.

02:22:33.040 --> 02:22:34.882
[UNKNOWN]: It was just like, dude, you're on a great job.

02:22:34.902 --> 02:22:36.624
[UNKNOWN]: You don't need to keep coming back to medicine.

02:22:36.664 --> 02:22:38.727
[UNKNOWN]: Like, look at all the good things you're doing.

02:22:39.468 --> 02:22:46.813
[UNKNOWN]: Like you're figuring it out, you're a better father, you're a better husband, you're a better friend, you're still serving the communities that you care about.

02:22:46.833 --> 02:22:48.174
[UNKNOWN]: Like, take it easy on yourself.

02:22:48.194 --> 02:22:49.595
[UNKNOWN]: Stop being yourself up so much.

02:22:50.315 --> 02:22:55.659
[UNKNOWN]: And it's just like, it felt like a warm blanket, like a grandmother wrapping your is just like breathe.

02:22:56.219 --> 02:23:01.623
[UNKNOWN]: And I came out of that, and like I imagine like you and others, like we think about so much.

02:23:01.643 --> 02:23:03.344
[UNKNOWN]: We're doing so much with juggling so much.

02:23:03.925 --> 02:23:05.886
[UNKNOWN]: I came out of that experience and it was just quiet.

02:23:06.506 --> 02:23:08.868
[UNKNOWN]: And I got to sit on that beach and it was just so peaceful.

02:23:10.307 --> 02:23:13.129
[UNKNOWN]: It was just so quiet, and I haven't had that in years.

02:23:13.769 --> 02:23:15.270
[UNKNOWN]: So I'm grateful.

02:23:15.730 --> 02:23:17.711
[UNKNOWN]: Again, I don't know how the medicine's work.

02:23:17.951 --> 02:23:19.192
[UNKNOWN]: It's been a great tool for me.

02:23:19.212 --> 02:23:21.673
[UNKNOWN]: I do think about this next chapter.

02:23:21.793 --> 02:23:29.978
[UNKNOWN]: How do I integrate from that experience and create new behaviors and patterns so that I don't have to, and there's no judgment here.

02:23:29.998 --> 02:23:31.379
[UNKNOWN]: This is my own personal view.

02:23:31.439 --> 02:23:33.820
[UNKNOWN]: It's like, I don't want to have to keep going back to medicine.

02:23:34.981 --> 02:23:36.141
[UNKNOWN]: So that's what I'm working on now.

02:23:36.201 --> 02:23:38.503
[UNKNOWN]: It's like the journaling in the morning, the breath work,

02:23:39.203 --> 02:23:43.085
[UNKNOWN]: I don't drink anymore, and again, no judgment to those that drink by any means.

02:23:43.525 --> 02:24:00.492
[UNKNOWN]: For me, it's just been great to wake up and never have a fog about me, to wake up like early in the morning, to get a workout and to not have, you know, I've seen it and it's happened where you make poor decisions, like a lot of us have, you know what I'm talking about.

02:24:00.512 --> 02:24:05.874
[UNKNOWN]: You have one beard, ten beard, you make a fucking poor decision, and that can alter the course of your life.

02:24:09.115 --> 02:24:26.427
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's great to hear, and the part that you mentioned about it being a tool, I think that's a key component to whether it's this modality or any treatment that somebody is seeking and is that there I think can be a fine line between a tool and a crutch.

02:24:26.727 --> 02:24:32.070
[UNKNOWN]: That's right, you know, and I think that like that single distinction is probably the most important

02:24:33.371 --> 02:24:45.737
[UNKNOWN]: mentality to take towards any type of treatment whether it's this or I mean there's there's a number of different ones But because otherwise you're essentially just replacing drinking with something else, yes, right?

02:24:47.078 --> 02:24:58.184
[UNKNOWN]: I am curious the Did they and or do they do a kind of Almost the same way like a dream interpretation specialist would do

02:24:59.245 --> 02:25:05.029
[UNKNOWN]: Where they walk through the things that you saw and try to interpret them or is it totally on you to kind of figure that out?

02:25:05.289 --> 02:25:06.330
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no.

02:25:06.951 --> 02:25:10.514
[UNKNOWN]: Well, the first time I did it, I did it in an Airbnb.

02:25:10.874 --> 02:25:12.115
[UNKNOWN]: I flew in on a Friday.

02:25:12.135 --> 02:25:14.177
[UNKNOWN]: I flew back to New York City on a Monday.

02:25:15.037 --> 02:25:17.760
[UNKNOWN]: Ladies and gentlemen, that's not the fucking way to do this, right?

02:25:17.800 --> 02:25:18.020
[UNKNOWN]: Like,

02:25:18.897 --> 02:25:20.018
[UNKNOWN]: been some best practice.

02:25:20.038 --> 02:25:22.079
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, we learned a lot since then.

02:25:22.179 --> 02:25:26.261
[UNKNOWN]: So, you know, I share with you, my wife has a foundation called The Hope Project.

02:25:26.301 --> 02:25:34.105
[UNKNOWN]: So if we rewind to that first one, I see Will Chesney, I go off to Europe to UK, I talked to Robin Carrard Harris, I do my first experience.

02:25:34.485 --> 02:25:35.046
[UNKNOWN]: I'll be it.

02:25:35.666 --> 02:25:36.146
[UNKNOWN]: I'll be it.

02:25:36.226 --> 02:25:40.449
[UNKNOWN]: It was like a Friday to a Monday, and I'm back into the noise, I'm back into the chaos.

02:25:41.229 --> 02:25:47.275
[UNKNOWN]: Like, you can't pretend what happened, what took place here didn't have a profound effect on me, right?

02:25:47.295 --> 02:25:49.637
[UNKNOWN]: Like, there's no way anybody's, I stopped drinking.

02:25:49.657 --> 02:25:53.481
[UNKNOWN]: This is just 2017, 2018.

02:25:53.641 --> 02:25:54.862
[UNKNOWN]: I thought about things differently.

02:25:54.882 --> 02:25:56.423
[UNKNOWN]: I stopped arguing as much.

02:25:56.463 --> 02:25:58.445
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't have to prove my freaking point all the time.

02:25:59.446 --> 02:26:06.493
[UNKNOWN]: And I share that with you because since then, my wife, and again, I'm

02:26:08.422 --> 02:26:15.126
[UNKNOWN]: I've done a lot of things to try to improve my overall well-being like my anger issues.

02:26:15.567 --> 02:26:29.636
[UNKNOWN]: So when I come home from a psychedelic assistant therapy after trying all these other different interventions, like this is the one I'm fixed, she's like bullshit, I've seen this song a dance before right, but it did, it did last a lot longer than other interventions.

02:26:30.711 --> 02:26:35.093
[UNKNOWN]: What we didn't know then that we do now is that you got to prep the battlefield when you come home.

02:26:35.334 --> 02:26:41.957
[UNKNOWN]: That spouse needs to get coached up on what's about to happen because we're coming back different.

02:26:42.297 --> 02:26:47.440
[UNKNOWN]: You can't go back to the chaos that we created and assume that you're going to be able to kind of just work through that.

02:26:47.560 --> 02:26:51.803
[UNKNOWN]: So today, foundations like hers and others, they prep.

02:26:52.543 --> 02:26:56.605
[UNKNOWN]: to answer your question, so I got a coach and I'll come back to that and talk through this.

02:26:56.966 --> 02:27:05.670
[UNKNOWN]: They prep, you do group sessions, you do one-on-one sessions, you do medical before you go down, then it makes sure your heart's good, you do the intervention, the interventions, the small part of this whole thing.

02:27:06.291 --> 02:27:13.375
[UNKNOWN]: I think it's, again, it gives you an opportunity, a window, and the science is it changes your neuroplacicity, allows you to create new pathways,

02:27:13.795 --> 02:27:25.319
[UNKNOWN]: those new pathways are creating new behaviors, patterns, the old pathways are addictions to porn, to alcohol, drugs, et cetera, whatever, it scrubs all that, gives you an opportunity.

02:27:25.339 --> 02:27:33.682
[UNKNOWN]: But if you haven't built the system on the back end to work with the coach, to prep your family, to know the things that you have intentions on, like, I want to do better around this.

02:27:33.882 --> 02:27:35.103
[UNKNOWN]: I want to start doing this.

02:27:35.743 --> 02:27:38.004
[UNKNOWN]: Then it's almost always the time in my opinion, dude.

02:27:38.785 --> 02:27:49.220
[UNKNOWN]: So her foundation is a great job, the whole project really help in spouses and they also do if the spouse chooses or wants that she is, they do psychedelic interventions as well.

02:27:49.301 --> 02:27:54.028
[UNKNOWN]: In that model I just described, so the spouse will go down there, they do eight retreats a year so they don't like that.

02:27:54.288 --> 02:27:55.029
[UNKNOWN]: Wow, that's amazing.

02:27:56.110 --> 02:28:00.613
[UNKNOWN]: It seems like a ton of good lessons learned and implemented.

02:28:01.694 --> 02:28:08.099
[UNKNOWN]: The thing that I was asking about the kind of almost interpretation of it is that you mention the demonic feet being multiple times.

02:28:08.119 --> 02:28:22.030
[UNKNOWN]: I was just curious if that's a symbolization of something for you where in particular the feet thing, if somebody kind of walks through what you saw and tries to help you interpret what it is, what it means and what to do with it.

02:28:22.399 --> 02:28:35.535
[UNKNOWN]: It's a great question, and so I already didn't address it, but my response and why I was painting that picture was you get a coach and sometimes therapists and they kind of work through that back then I didn't, right?

02:28:36.723 --> 02:28:43.649
[UNKNOWN]: I journal everything now, so I'll write down something pops up and there's things that have popped up for my time in the teams, my childhood.

02:28:44.189 --> 02:28:47.672
[UNKNOWN]: I have a journal, my bag, and I'll literally pull it out, pull off on the side running right around.

02:28:47.692 --> 02:28:50.334
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know what it means at that very moment.

02:28:50.354 --> 02:28:53.276
[UNKNOWN]: Sometimes I do sometimes I don't, but it's just a thought, and I journal around it.

02:28:54.137 --> 02:29:04.203
[UNKNOWN]: When I just did this last psychedelic experience, again, we've come a long way, we've got coaches, and on the back end of that, I'm writing out everything that happened or that I can remember, and then I work through that with my coach.

02:29:04.243 --> 02:29:07.324
[UNKNOWN]: Like, hey, this is bizarre, but this is what happened.

02:29:08.245 --> 02:29:09.165
[UNKNOWN]: And they help you think through that.

02:29:09.305 --> 02:29:15.949
[UNKNOWN]: They don't tell you what happened or what the meaning is, but they help you get to your own perception of what that could mean to you.

02:29:16.578 --> 02:29:21.801
[UNKNOWN]: Was there anything that you saw and or experienced that was kind of like a light switch moment or a lightning bulb flashing of coming to a real realization that you had before?

02:29:21.821 --> 02:29:21.921
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:29:21.941 --> 02:29:32.587
[UNKNOWN]: I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I was, I

02:29:33.990 --> 02:29:52.614
[UNKNOWN]: It's being shown something and I could figure it out and I would die and I would get shown it again and I just I just couldn't figure it out and I would die and this I promised you I felt like it was going on for eternity and I was just trying to control this situation.

02:29:52.774 --> 02:29:54.934
[UNKNOWN]: I got to figure this out and I got a fucking figure this out.

02:29:54.954 --> 02:29:55.694
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know what's going on.

02:29:55.714 --> 02:29:56.415
[UNKNOWN]: I keep dying.

02:29:56.455 --> 02:29:57.455
[UNKNOWN]: I got to get out of this loop.

02:29:58.803 --> 02:29:59.723
[UNKNOWN]: It was scary.

02:30:00.203 --> 02:30:01.744
[UNKNOWN]: I started to believe that this was real.

02:30:02.504 --> 02:30:04.304
[UNKNOWN]: This is real, I'm not gonna get out of this.

02:30:04.364 --> 02:30:05.725
[UNKNOWN]: I got to fight my way through this.

02:30:06.765 --> 02:30:07.885
[UNKNOWN]: And that was the realization.

02:30:08.905 --> 02:30:14.887
[UNKNOWN]: The second I thought that I got to fight my way through this, your whole life, your way through everything, surrender.

02:30:15.647 --> 02:30:17.167
[UNKNOWN]: I surrendered and it stopped like that.

02:30:17.968 --> 02:30:23.329
[UNKNOWN]: And that was so profound to me and it sounded, maybe it sounded stupid to some folks, but for me, it didn't.

02:30:23.369 --> 02:30:27.310
[UNKNOWN]: It's one of the most profound things that's happened to me is like, dude, stop fighting all the time.

02:30:28.402 --> 02:30:29.383
[UNKNOWN]: just surrender.

02:30:29.503 --> 02:30:30.703
[UNKNOWN]: You don't always have to be right.

02:30:30.723 --> 02:30:32.745
[UNKNOWN]: You don't always have to prove a point.

02:30:33.205 --> 02:30:34.446
[UNKNOWN]: You don't have to solve this.

02:30:34.506 --> 02:30:39.629
[UNKNOWN]: Just like given, you know, to me it's faith to God, to Jesus.

02:30:41.213 --> 02:30:42.595
[UNKNOWN]: and you're not in control anyway, dude.

02:30:43.295 --> 02:30:50.123
[UNKNOWN]: And it's been so like, it felt like the yoke has been placed on who it's supposed to be on, and it's not me.

02:30:50.143 --> 02:30:50.383
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:30:51.925 --> 02:31:01.996
[UNKNOWN]: You mentioned, you've come back to faith, starting all the way back into the deployment where you took that guy's life and so I felt like you experienced it, soul leaving.

02:31:02.857 --> 02:31:06.700
[UNKNOWN]: You mentioned you saw demons in the depths of the field.

02:31:06.780 --> 02:31:12.224
[UNKNOWN]: Did you experience meeting God, meeting Jesus, and the kind of opposite of that?

02:31:12.504 --> 02:31:15.287
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, so thank you for asking this question.

02:31:15.707 --> 02:31:18.630
[UNKNOWN]: A couple of things.

02:31:19.510 --> 02:31:25.015
[UNKNOWN]: One, although I experienced what I experienced on the battlefield and saw that solely that body.

02:31:26.097 --> 02:31:28.459
[UNKNOWN]: I wasn't truly back into faith.

02:31:28.499 --> 02:31:29.680
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I was exploring it.

02:31:29.700 --> 02:31:32.902
[UNKNOWN]: I was trying to understand what took place and it was intermittent at best, right?

02:31:32.942 --> 02:31:34.683
[UNKNOWN]: I periodically come back to it.

02:31:36.364 --> 02:31:40.327
[UNKNOWN]: And then I grew up Catholic in that strict man.

02:31:40.367 --> 02:31:44.890
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, a little panomaniin boy with a tie at seven years old when it church.

02:31:44.990 --> 02:31:47.652
[UNKNOWN]: Every Sunday and it's just like, man, this is exhausting.

02:31:47.672 --> 02:31:50.194
[UNKNOWN]: And my kids would revolt against that.

02:31:50.214 --> 02:31:51.295
[UNKNOWN]: They're little bougie kids.

02:31:52.453 --> 02:31:56.837
[UNKNOWN]: But regardless, I made the decision as the leader of the family not to go to church, right?

02:31:56.857 --> 02:32:03.342
[UNKNOWN]: That was my decision, my wife supported that and we didn't give that, although our kids most of them have been baptized through the Catholic faith.

02:32:03.382 --> 02:32:07.666
[UNKNOWN]: Like, it just felt too structured and there's a lot of darkness there as well.

02:32:10.488 --> 02:32:15.212
[UNKNOWN]: So now we're like, since that incident on the battlefield, it's probably been 10 years now.

02:32:16.216 --> 02:32:22.640
[UNKNOWN]: And I'm still like flirting within a read books around and I watch stories, I'm trying to educate myself on the Bible.

02:32:23.400 --> 02:32:31.625
[UNKNOWN]: So I'm still being drawn and there's this massive void in my life and I'm trying to fill it with all these other things, creating businesses, working out, doing old termarathons.

02:32:32.226 --> 02:32:36.988
[UNKNOWN]: You know, raising money by doing stupid stuff, like running 200 miles with buddies of ours.

02:32:38.369 --> 02:32:39.510
[UNKNOWN]: Nothing fills the void man.

02:32:41.734 --> 02:32:55.402
[UNKNOWN]: Until my son, who's now our youngest, he's 15, about a year ago, this time of last year, he's like, for the 20th time, we live in Parker, Colorado, as a dad, can we go to church?

02:32:56.103 --> 02:33:01.586
[UNKNOWN]: And I would always say, no, and on the 20th time, he's like, hey, dad, can we, this Sunday, please go to church?

02:33:02.467 --> 02:33:04.928
[UNKNOWN]: I'm following this, I go, all right, let's go.

02:33:04.948 --> 02:33:05.228
[UNKNOWN]: Amen.

02:33:06.709 --> 02:33:07.570
[UNKNOWN]: To a Catholic man.

02:33:07.952 --> 02:33:12.476
[UNKNOWN]: Nope, it's just a Christian church and there's not no just about it.

02:33:13.437 --> 02:33:15.499
[UNKNOWN]: I walked in there and I started crying.

02:33:16.540 --> 02:33:22.064
[UNKNOWN]: It felt like I came home and it is, the church is called Journey and the pastor or one of the priest.

02:33:22.084 --> 02:33:26.488
[UNKNOWN]: There's a name Scotty and it was just, it was normal.

02:33:26.508 --> 02:33:28.170
[UNKNOWN]: It's like we didn't have to get dressed up.

02:33:28.610 --> 02:33:31.373
[UNKNOWN]: We talked about the verses, he normalized it for us.

02:33:32.450 --> 02:33:39.416
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, the music started playing and never been in a church without, with like, music, there was a fucking rock band there and, do it, it felt great.

02:33:39.436 --> 02:33:46.301
[UNKNOWN]: Like we're singing, Christian song, I listen to Christian songs now, man, and I walked into that church and I just started crying.

02:33:47.422 --> 02:33:50.545
[UNKNOWN]: And that's what I knew was like, okay, what's the difference?

02:33:50.745 --> 02:33:50.925
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:33:51.345 --> 02:33:52.046
[UNKNOWN]: That was the void.

02:33:54.227 --> 02:33:56.848
[UNKNOWN]: So that's been, you know, we're having now.

02:33:56.868 --> 02:33:57.748
[UNKNOWN]: We go to that church.

02:33:58.729 --> 02:33:59.529
[UNKNOWN]: I'm really grief.

02:33:59.569 --> 02:34:00.950
[UNKNOWN]: I spent time with Scotty.

02:34:01.250 --> 02:34:03.251
[UNKNOWN]: He's become a mentor and a coach to me.

02:34:06.052 --> 02:34:07.672
[UNKNOWN]: And then I, you know, I still have my,

02:34:10.308 --> 02:34:14.029
[UNKNOWN]: Although overall, I've elevated myself.

02:34:14.809 --> 02:34:17.250
[UNKNOWN]: We still have our peaks and values or abs and flows.

02:34:18.310 --> 02:34:27.893
[UNKNOWN]: And I think of how hard we've been running at in V at the company that we started, how much we're juggling there, I kind of beat myself down.

02:34:28.013 --> 02:34:31.034
[UNKNOWN]: So as mentioned, I chose to go do I began 45 days or so ago.

02:34:34.095 --> 02:34:43.119
[UNKNOWN]: And did I, again, as I shared with you a beautiful experience, did five MEO and I asked the boys to come there and kind of hold space for me as well.

02:34:43.139 --> 02:34:44.180
[UNKNOWN]: I just want a protection.

02:34:45.480 --> 02:34:54.304
[UNKNOWN]: And Mike, I promise you, I was at the foot of the cross when Jesus was crucified when I did five MEO.

02:34:54.724 --> 02:34:55.285
[UNKNOWN]: I felt it.

02:34:55.465 --> 02:34:55.725
[UNKNOWN]: I felt

02:34:57.578 --> 02:35:20.764
[UNKNOWN]: I felt everybody mocking him, I felt the confusion, I felt all the emotions, and I couldn't see his face, I could only see his feet, I don't think I was meant to see his face, but I was there man, I can see the wood right now, clear his day, and I listened to him,

02:35:28.783 --> 02:35:34.928
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, to me, I'm just trying my very best and on this plan that God's put out before me.

02:35:34.948 --> 02:35:49.139
[UNKNOWN]: I truly believe that to my soul, like I make mistakes, and I just know despite all the things that I've done wrong, a big reason why I walked away from faith was I didn't think I could be saved.

02:35:50.280 --> 02:35:53.803
[UNKNOWN]: And in that very moment, I knew right away, it's like if you believe in him,

02:35:55.750 --> 02:36:00.854
[UNKNOWN]: It doesn't matter who you are, what you've done, like we can repent, and you can be saved.

02:36:01.414 --> 02:36:02.455
[UNKNOWN]: That's what I felt at that moment.

02:36:03.195 --> 02:36:05.737
[UNKNOWN]: Man, it's a super powerful experience.

02:36:06.498 --> 02:36:08.719
[UNKNOWN]: It was, I really appreciate you sharing that.

02:36:08.879 --> 02:36:09.900
[UNKNOWN]: Thanks for letting me share it, man.

02:36:09.980 --> 02:36:10.580
[UNKNOWN]: It's amazing.

02:36:17.025 --> 02:36:25.293
[UNKNOWN]: from a procedural standpoint, the sweat lodge, the IBA gain, the 5MEO DMT, seems to be kind of the standard process.

02:36:26.654 --> 02:36:33.540
[UNKNOWN]: Do you think or does your group or any of the groups that you've been a part of or experience this with, I guess?

02:36:34.541 --> 02:36:40.307
[UNKNOWN]: Do they ever only do five MEO DMT or only do I beg any or only do something else?

02:36:40.367 --> 02:36:47.094
[UNKNOWN]: I mean like is there Customize to each person like what it makes sense to just go five MEO DMT.

02:36:47.154 --> 02:36:48.295
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, why no?

02:36:51.819 --> 02:36:55.323
[UNKNOWN]: I would I would just advise people like

02:36:56.490 --> 02:36:58.210
[UNKNOWN]: just be careful with these medicines, right?

02:36:58.230 --> 02:37:01.571
[UNKNOWN]: Like try to go to providers, and I know everybody's trying their very best.

02:37:02.231 --> 02:37:03.392
[UNKNOWN]: And this isn't me judging.

02:37:04.192 --> 02:37:07.093
[UNKNOWN]: Because I know it's from best of intent.

02:37:07.153 --> 02:37:14.934
[UNKNOWN]: There's a lot of veterans out there that are doing these one-offs, get a medicine like, and they just want to help because they felt something like I just described, and I get it.

02:37:15.414 --> 02:37:17.235
[UNKNOWN]: I want the world to feel that, right?

02:37:18.272 --> 02:37:27.040
[UNKNOWN]: But there is a few organizations out there specific time again that are doing it well, specific to suicide in my opinion that are doing it well.

02:37:27.921 --> 02:37:30.323
[UNKNOWN]: And I would just tell people to do their due diligence.

02:37:30.403 --> 02:37:34.888
[UNKNOWN]: Just don't hop into a group because somebody invited you to come out over to the mountains this weekend.

02:37:34.928 --> 02:37:37.670
[UNKNOWN]: Or, you know, there's a lodge down the street, whatever it is.

02:37:37.710 --> 02:37:39.332
[UNKNOWN]: Like, really understand,

02:37:40.598 --> 02:37:53.262
[UNKNOWN]: Do these groups have like the right systems in place like you mentioned, fry again, you need doctors there, you need to get your heart tested, you need to do a drug test like because there could be an adverse effect, we can't play around with these things.

02:37:54.123 --> 02:37:59.725
[UNKNOWN]: Same thing with like Silisob and the groups that are out there, I think they've been at it for a long time, so they know that the combination.

02:38:00.885 --> 02:38:05.927
[UNKNOWN]: Hey, consider doing this medicine with that and this is our protocol and oh, by the way, you get coaching.

02:38:06.527 --> 02:38:22.360
[UNKNOWN]: highly recommend if there's a group that doesn't have coaching prep work if you're not doing assignments leading up to thinking about your tensions and then you don't have integration on the back end i think that you know i would consider to look at other groups so i'm uh... and i'm not trying to bash anybody i know we're all trying our best here but

02:38:23.701 --> 02:38:36.820
[UNKNOWN]: Again, I've done it in a hotel before, right, and I've gotten some benefit from doing the one-offs too, if I'm being honest with you, but at this point of my life, I think what's been the most profound, it's been going there with other warriors like me.

02:38:38.442 --> 02:38:54.785
[UNKNOWN]: Doing it in a system that I feel very protected in and there's the right people there to support me something go south And that includes other veterans holding space for us The right medical system needs to be in place because we are we're not fucking spring chickens anymore, right?

02:38:54.825 --> 02:38:57.765
[UNKNOWN]: Like so you saw how both of us got up.

02:38:57.865 --> 02:38:58.666
[UNKNOWN]: I know that's right.

02:38:58.806 --> 02:39:00.446
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah You guys should have seen that.

02:39:00.466 --> 02:39:06.167
[UNKNOWN]: It was like a four minute clip of Stand up but anyways, that's just my opinion

02:39:07.527 --> 02:39:12.228
[UNKNOWN]: There are groups out there that do, you know, the one-off thing and I think there's benefit to that as well.

02:39:12.828 --> 02:39:14.888
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not saying this is the right way, this is the wrong way.

02:39:14.988 --> 02:39:17.429
[UNKNOWN]: I really would say, just take your time and do your due diligence.

02:39:17.789 --> 02:39:25.851
[UNKNOWN]: But I mean, it is my kind of assumption that the full sweat lodge, I regain cleanse, and then...

02:39:25.971 --> 02:39:27.051
[UNKNOWN]: I think it's a great model.

02:39:27.291 --> 02:39:31.372
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, like doing all three of them is kind of the best way to approach and generally speaking.

02:39:31.492 --> 02:39:31.892
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:39:32.312 --> 02:39:33.052
[UNKNOWN]: And we've seen that.

02:39:34.834 --> 02:39:38.086
[UNKNOWN]: I think the feminine spirit is very different than the male spirit.

02:39:38.127 --> 02:39:40.716
[UNKNOWN]: No surprise, I really have to agree with that, unless...

02:39:41.207 --> 02:39:42.247
[UNKNOWN]: unless you're in the sports.

02:39:42.507 --> 02:39:44.328
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I was just seeing this.

02:39:44.628 --> 02:39:45.308
[UNKNOWN]: God, Lee.

02:39:46.209 --> 02:39:47.589
[UNKNOWN]: Well, there's two NBA guys now.

02:39:47.629 --> 02:39:49.690
[UNKNOWN]: Dr. Yeah, about to get the same thing.

02:39:49.810 --> 02:39:51.530
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, they probably just won't get drafted.

02:39:51.890 --> 02:39:52.390
[UNKNOWN]: No, they won't.

02:39:52.631 --> 02:39:55.491
[UNKNOWN]: They're seeing egg nor that, and it's going to, I don't think they can.

02:39:55.511 --> 02:39:58.032
[UNKNOWN]: I think it's going to have, they're going to have the force facing something.

02:39:58.432 --> 02:39:58.712
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:39:59.093 --> 02:39:59.333
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:39:59.893 --> 02:40:05.374
[UNKNOWN]: So when you think about Ibogaine, Ibogaine, they call it the grandfather of the medicine, and he's pretty harsh.

02:40:06.155 --> 02:40:09.696
[UNKNOWN]: I wasca've never done I wasca, but they call that the feminine and spirit of the grandmother.

02:40:10.356 --> 02:40:18.059
[UNKNOWN]: And then, as we think about our community and the first responder community, it's not just our community, but my wife's foundation, and I keep alluded to her, because I know they're model.

02:40:19.880 --> 02:40:23.441
[UNKNOWN]: They use psilocybin, just straight up psilocybin.

02:40:23.461 --> 02:40:27.503
[UNKNOWN]: They do sweat lodges as well, so people go down to Mexico or Costa Rica.

02:40:27.723 --> 02:40:30.224
[UNKNOWN]: Her group is the first one to do research.

02:40:33.199 --> 02:40:37.384
[UNKNOWN]: in Oregon, so legally in Oregon, Colorado just passed a bill, so now there's licenses.

02:40:38.105 --> 02:40:52.741
[UNKNOWN]: So but her model is like prep coaching, you do the sweat lodge, you got other women there and then to answer your question earlier, yeah, that individual medicine just psilocybin has a profound effect on those women, so you don't need

02:40:53.522 --> 02:41:04.472
[UNKNOWN]: You don't need to go for the nuclear option to I begin like really understand like okay does this make sense for me and I think there's enough material out there on the internet where you can find some or in great organizations as well.

02:41:04.612 --> 02:41:04.852
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:41:05.793 --> 02:41:14.361
[UNKNOWN]: Does do psilocybin and 5MEO DMT have maternal or paternal associations with hemors?

02:41:14.381 --> 02:41:16.043
[UNKNOWN]: Is that just I've again in Iowa?

02:41:16.623 --> 02:41:23.950
[UNKNOWN]: I've never heard one of those medicines get labeled with one of the other to be honest.

02:41:23.970 --> 02:41:30.276
[UNKNOWN]: I've only heard it with Iowa's skin, but if I think about it, because I've done psilocybin as well.

02:41:31.542 --> 02:41:40.026
[UNKNOWN]: I don't, you know, I think there's a reason why they say the grandfather is I began and again, I haven't done I wascus, so I can't attest to that.

02:41:40.566 --> 02:41:41.607
[UNKNOWN]: It's very different.

02:41:41.647 --> 02:41:45.929
[UNKNOWN]: That makes sense to me when somebody's like, that's the grandfather's like, yeah, I began his grandfather.

02:41:45.949 --> 02:41:51.712
[UNKNOWN]: When somebody describes psilocybin, it's, I don't think there's a maternal, paternal label I could fit with that.

02:41:51.852 --> 02:41:53.412
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I'm not five in the DMT.

02:41:56.434 --> 02:42:15.361
[UNKNOWN]: It leads into the, I guess the part of the discussion that talks to the logistical hurdles, which is a big part of what you're kind of currently doing, which is, you know, Uncle Sam giving you $4 million to research I've again, but in Mexico, A, why does it have to be that way?

02:42:15.401 --> 02:42:20.183
[UNKNOWN]: And how does that even work getting funded to do research and tests outside the country?

02:42:20.903 --> 02:42:32.368
[UNKNOWN]: So, I know you're familiar with DARPA, but for those that aren't, the government has this group that basically puts out a bid and like, hey, I want to solve for this.

02:42:32.548 --> 02:42:33.429
[UNKNOWN]: It could be drones.

02:42:33.489 --> 02:42:38.451
[UNKNOWN]: It could be, you know, back then it could have been medical like, hey, give us some innovation or technology.

02:42:38.871 --> 02:42:41.413
[UNKNOWN]: Putting your application if you get awarded, we'll give you some money.

02:42:42.073 --> 02:42:43.313
[UNKNOWN]: So that's defense.

02:42:43.414 --> 02:42:45.895
[UNKNOWN]: That's department of defense or department of war, that's DARPA.

02:42:47.115 --> 02:42:56.261
[UNKNOWN]: They realized like there's so much going on in the health part of DARPA that they needed to create their own version of DARPA and they call it ARPA, so it's called ARPA H. ARPA Health.

02:42:57.322 --> 02:43:09.910
[UNKNOWN]: And we were awarded $4 million and we put a proposal together because I'll explain in V here in a second, but essentially what we do is we, what we wanted to solve for initially was suicide prevention.

02:43:16.555 --> 02:43:20.420
[UNKNOWN]: and we gave people an understanding of what their mental will be and could be.

02:43:20.520 --> 02:43:25.467
[UNKNOWN]: Like, we knew some of them was off back then, we didn't know what it was, but we knew enough where we needed to reach out.

02:43:25.867 --> 02:43:30.273
[UNKNOWN]: So, we were proactive versus the system still today's reactive.

02:43:31.135 --> 02:43:32.476
[UNKNOWN]: When I saw it work with...

02:43:34.007 --> 02:43:38.530
[UNKNOWN]: With the team guys, I thought, okay, can we do this on a bigger scale?

02:43:38.550 --> 02:43:39.190
[UNKNOWN]: And I alluded to that.

02:43:39.210 --> 02:43:45.614
[UNKNOWN]: It's not a system just for seals or veterans, or special, it could be a system for everybody, but let's start with the veteran population.

02:43:45.734 --> 02:43:48.055
[UNKNOWN]: So that's why I went back to school.

02:43:48.075 --> 02:43:48.815
[UNKNOWN]: I went to Oxford.

02:43:49.636 --> 02:43:52.337
[UNKNOWN]: Oxford has a really cool, incubator MBA program.

02:43:52.717 --> 02:43:56.940
[UNKNOWN]: So they pick a couple ideas, and then your classmates, there's a ton of classmates.

02:43:56.960 --> 02:43:58.461
[UNKNOWN]: They pick the ideas they want to get behind.

02:43:59.281 --> 02:44:06.882
[UNKNOWN]: So, I pitched this idea of what I call envy-mind health, which stands for invisible visible, and it's essentially what I just described at the foundation.

02:44:06.902 --> 02:44:14.984
[UNKNOWN]: And we took wearables, we pulled that information, we're going to give you an app, you understand your mind scores, what we call it, mind score number, really isn't important.

02:44:15.004 --> 02:44:20.465
[UNKNOWN]: It's the trend lines off that, and then we did self-aid, buddy-aid, coordinate, no surprise.

02:44:20.485 --> 02:44:23.446
[UNKNOWN]: We're not into it or like a super intelligent here.

02:44:23.466 --> 02:44:24.766
[UNKNOWN]: We're just going to take the model that works.

02:44:25.546 --> 02:44:40.979
[UNKNOWN]: So you get a score in your app and it pulls a biometrics, there's some questions you can answer in the morning as well, like PHQ9 or these depression skills, just a couple of questions, like what's your libido today, you know, ask three or four questions, and then it gives you that score.

02:44:41.019 --> 02:44:45.822
[UNKNOWN]: We worked on with doctors from Walter Reed and around the country to help us create the algorithm for that score.

02:44:46.523 --> 02:44:48.985
[UNKNOWN]: Our whole system is built off of the changes to that score.

02:44:49.005 --> 02:44:52.148
[UNKNOWN]: So if it changes by a small amount in sleep, deep sleep,

02:44:52.748 --> 02:44:58.476
[UNKNOWN]: It sends you a deep sleep video on like humor formats from one of our humor formats, guys from NSW or Cag.

02:44:59.177 --> 02:45:06.968
[UNKNOWN]: So it tries to help you with personalized solutions and instead of guessing when it comes to mental health, we can see the parts of the equation that are broken.

02:45:08.543 --> 02:45:14.048
[UNKNOWN]: If it deviates that score deviates even further, and you're not addressing the situation, it might alert a body, right?

02:45:14.168 --> 02:45:17.030
[UNKNOWN]: So you pick your swim body, again, not creative here.

02:45:18.011 --> 02:45:21.054
[UNKNOWN]: You and I are best friends, and it was like, hey, can you support me on this app?

02:45:21.094 --> 02:45:24.076
[UNKNOWN]: And I'll say yes, and hey, we support, now we support each other.

02:45:24.156 --> 02:45:30.101
[UNKNOWN]: So now if it's a big, it's not going to give you all the information, like he hasn't slept in 10 days and his HRVs, it's going to say.

02:45:30.121 --> 02:45:31.082
[UNKNOWN]: For a lot of hip-hop violations.

02:45:31.142 --> 02:45:31.823
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah.

02:45:31.863 --> 02:45:34.645
[UNKNOWN]: Can't do any of that, because it'll be a hip-hop issue.

02:45:35.005 --> 02:45:36.307
[UNKNOWN]: We are hip-hop compliant, by the way.

02:45:37.107 --> 02:45:41.330
[UNKNOWN]: Um, and it just says, hey, check out on Mike today, uh, his, his mind score.

02:45:41.350 --> 02:45:45.372
[UNKNOWN]: There's, you know, his, has decreased by a significant amount.

02:45:45.592 --> 02:45:48.294
[UNKNOWN]: So we're not giving up any of your medical information.

02:45:50.210 --> 02:45:51.551
[UNKNOWN]: So that's the next line of defense.

02:45:51.691 --> 02:45:53.193
[UNKNOWN]: And you can have multiple swim buddies.

02:45:53.213 --> 02:45:56.135
[UNKNOWN]: It could be a spouse, it could be a child, you could put your families on there.

02:45:56.216 --> 02:45:58.598
[UNKNOWN]: We're about to roll out the teams feature now.

02:45:58.698 --> 02:46:00.760
[UNKNOWN]: So it could be old platoon's, right?

02:46:01.120 --> 02:46:03.002
[UNKNOWN]: And we're testing it out with my old platoon.

02:46:03.282 --> 02:46:04.303
[UNKNOWN]: All the guys will be in there.

02:46:04.743 --> 02:46:06.905
[UNKNOWN]: There is an encrypted chat feature in there.

02:46:07.006 --> 02:46:11.630
[UNKNOWN]: So nobody wants to say shit around this stuff in open source.

02:46:11.710 --> 02:46:13.552
[UNKNOWN]: Now you can go in our app.

02:46:13.572 --> 02:46:14.573
[UNKNOWN]: We're not selling your data.

02:46:15.133 --> 02:46:16.234
[UNKNOWN]: That's not what this is about.

02:46:17.635 --> 02:46:19.577
[UNKNOWN]: Everything's protected and we'd de-identify.

02:46:19.597 --> 02:46:21.599
[UNKNOWN]: So if you guys are having a conversation, we can't see it.

02:46:21.999 --> 02:46:24.341
[UNKNOWN]: It's even protected from moss because that's not the point of this app.

02:46:24.361 --> 02:46:30.727
[UNKNOWN]: This point is to try to prevent suicide and improve mental health and catch people and be proactive before they get to a shitty spot.

02:46:31.728 --> 02:46:36.412
[UNKNOWN]: Since we weren't given access to data, like we're talking about psychedelics here,

02:46:37.547 --> 02:46:42.372
[UNKNOWN]: We can see the physiological changes that were happening to you from a psychedelic intervention.

02:46:42.512 --> 02:46:52.622
[UNKNOWN]: So if you said it's a mushroom and it's this type of mushroom in this amount of mushroom, then we can tell you like, hey, when you do this, it improves your heart rate variability on average by this month.

02:46:52.782 --> 02:46:54.804
[UNKNOWN]: It improves your deep and REM sleep by this much.

02:46:55.264 --> 02:46:59.609
[UNKNOWN]: And now with all this data, we can help you understand what works best for you.

02:46:59.789 --> 02:47:00.710
[UNKNOWN]: And what works for you?

02:47:01.210 --> 02:47:03.010
[UNKNOWN]: doesn't work for me, I promise you.

02:47:03.050 --> 02:47:04.131
[UNKNOWN]: That's what the data shows.

02:47:04.451 --> 02:47:09.132
[UNKNOWN]: The idea here is to just help you understand if you give us the information what works best.

02:47:09.212 --> 02:47:12.733
[UNKNOWN]: Hey Mike, your score is decreased by this amount.

02:47:12.773 --> 02:47:16.374
[UNKNOWN]: 67% of the time when you just go out and get sun for five minutes, that's the best solution.

02:47:16.854 --> 02:47:24.436
[UNKNOWN]: If you need a big lift because you're way down in baseline right now, when you did I begin, that was the best solution for you and it improved your HRV by 10%.

02:47:25.910 --> 02:47:27.271
[UNKNOWN]: That's essentially what we're doing.

02:47:27.371 --> 02:47:34.756
[UNKNOWN]: So we took that model, we put an application together for ARPA for the government, and we said, hey, we're trying to solve for this veteran community.

02:47:35.417 --> 02:47:42.802
[UNKNOWN]: And we believe that there's some cool things out there that are innovative, that we should be looking at, like psychedelics.

02:47:43.203 --> 02:47:44.884
[UNKNOWN]: So we put a proposal together.

02:47:44.964 --> 02:47:47.286
[UNKNOWN]: We partnered with Baylor University down the street here.

02:47:48.466 --> 02:47:51.849
[UNKNOWN]: And we're doing two psychedelics studies, 50 combat veterans in each.

02:47:52.129 --> 02:47:52.810
[UNKNOWN]: One is I begin.

02:47:53.870 --> 02:47:57.672
[UNKNOWN]: And to your point, we have to do it in Mexico and King Coon with the company called Beyond.

02:47:58.612 --> 02:48:05.774
[UNKNOWN]: And the founder of that guy is a great dude, his name's Tom, and we're going to do 50 combat veterans down there.

02:48:05.794 --> 02:48:11.016
[UNKNOWN]: We're going to throw or rings, not straps or rings, because we partner with or on this on every person.

02:48:11.677 --> 02:48:14.598
[UNKNOWN]: They're going to get a baseline prior to going down there.

02:48:14.698 --> 02:48:17.719
[UNKNOWN]: So what's their baseline with their heart, their sleep, their skin temperature?

02:48:19.039 --> 02:48:21.560
[UNKNOWN]: And then they go do intervention while they do intervention.

02:48:21.580 --> 02:48:30.624
[UNKNOWN]: They're also going to have EGs because we want to see kind of the brain like what the brain is doing Alongside of the physiological and we're also going to do the basic questionnaires.

02:48:30.664 --> 02:48:47.051
[UNKNOWN]: We exact the gold standard Which I think is crazy that today like your mental health gold standard is you got to fill out a questionnaire once a month So we get to see how you're doing once a month Well, if that's the gold standard we want to show you that our technology can help you understand your health and mental health better than just filling out a fucking form

02:48:48.032 --> 02:48:51.876
[UNKNOWN]: Um, but back to that person goes do I begin in the afterwards.

02:48:51.896 --> 02:48:53.017
[UNKNOWN]: We look at EGN.

02:48:53.157 --> 02:48:55.779
[UNKNOWN]: We look at the questionnaires and we look at physiological data.

02:48:56.400 --> 02:48:59.463
[UNKNOWN]: So we're trying to understand, is this a good solution for combat veterans?

02:49:00.283 --> 02:49:06.829
[UNKNOWN]: The other one's mushrooms, so psilocybin, it's going to be for AUD, so, uh, you know, um, alcoholics.

02:49:07.670 --> 02:49:08.791
[UNKNOWN]: combat veterans as well.

02:49:09.351 --> 02:49:14.255
[UNKNOWN]: The third one is TMS, so Magnet and Stimulation, and that's going to be a group of 50 as well.

02:49:14.775 --> 02:49:20.919
[UNKNOWN]: And then the last group is another group of 50, and they're going to have our swim buddy concept, and not have a swim buddy.

02:49:21.520 --> 02:49:27.223
[UNKNOWN]: So does having a swim buddy help you kind of navigate your mental health challenges versus being isolated?

02:49:27.243 --> 02:49:29.085
[UNKNOWN]: And I think everybody knows the answer to that.

02:49:29.105 --> 02:49:32.147
[UNKNOWN]: We're just going to do that in a study with the government.

02:49:33.306 --> 02:49:35.288
[UNKNOWN]: and that's incredible program.

02:49:35.788 --> 02:49:39.371
[UNKNOWN]: I mean I love everything that you just summarized with it.

02:49:39.551 --> 02:49:41.172
[UNKNOWN]: I am curious the

02:49:43.218 --> 02:50:00.163
[UNKNOWN]: the hurdle of, and I know there was a bill recently signed to fast track it, but do you foresee in the near future, being able to have, at least from a treatment standpoint, I have against suicide, and anything else, be able to be administered here in the United States?

02:50:00.743 --> 02:50:06.425
[UNKNOWN]: Because to me, I mean, how's that any different than any other controlled substance in a hospital that's again?

02:50:07.405 --> 02:50:11.887
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know what the difference would be, or why there's such a hurdle

02:50:12.487 --> 02:50:15.328
[UNKNOWN]: Well, I don't know, right?

02:50:15.408 --> 02:50:19.990
[UNKNOWN]: There's a lot of chatter right now, rightfully so, is like, there's only a finite amount of eye-began.

02:50:20.010 --> 02:50:25.473
[UNKNOWN]: It comes from a country in Africa, comes from the Iboca plan and the Weedy tribe.

02:50:26.173 --> 02:50:30.975
[UNKNOWN]: And there's a charter group that manages who has licenses to eye-began.

02:50:32.470 --> 02:50:34.751
[UNKNOWN]: So you sign to Bill and say, hey, we're going to fast track this.

02:50:34.771 --> 02:50:42.614
[UNKNOWN]: So like, well, you should probably talk to the folks that actually have I began because if they're not a part of the conversation, they may not be a distributor, like distribute to you.

02:50:42.634 --> 02:50:45.756
[UNKNOWN]: I imagine they'll work through that, but that's just one thing to call out.

02:50:46.596 --> 02:50:53.279
[UNKNOWN]: The big thing that from a business model perspective, right, like I think about systems says, I know you do as well you brought it up before, it's like,

02:50:54.738 --> 02:51:05.360
[UNKNOWN]: 2017, when this was all initially happening, there were some big companies that put a lot of money behind psychedelics, and they, like, a lot of private equity groups got behind this.

02:51:05.980 --> 02:51:18.103
[UNKNOWN]: And they started sending up storefronts, so, like, hey, in preparation for this happen, this is 2017, by the way, almost 10 years ago, people thought, like, hey, we're going to have psychedelics in the country in a few years, so let's prep

02:51:19.295 --> 02:51:38.980
[UNKNOWN]: And we're going to set up I think the company was called field trip and we're going to set up these sexy beautiful like retreat centers in the US So like a clinic essentially you go in there because the real problem is when you do a psychedelic intervention It's not a one and down you don't take it and you can't just like go lay on the couch for like you need medical support So what's the cost of that person there?

02:51:39.000 --> 02:51:40.060
[UNKNOWN]: Does it need to be a PA?

02:51:40.080 --> 02:51:46.481
[UNKNOWN]: Does it need to be a doctor like you're paying them for eight hours of time to sit with one person like I shared my my first

02:51:49.442 --> 02:51:50.882
[UNKNOWN]: Like what's the cost associated with that?

02:51:51.322 --> 02:51:54.003
[UNKNOWN]: So then how much are these drugs to offset that cost?

02:51:54.783 --> 02:51:56.064
[UNKNOWN]: Like who's paying for that, right?

02:51:56.084 --> 02:51:59.044
[UNKNOWN]: You start running into like a business model perspective.

02:51:59.064 --> 02:52:00.504
[UNKNOWN]: Like how do you set up that business model?

02:52:00.524 --> 02:52:03.745
[UNKNOWN]: Are we just going to have a bunch of people laid out here on the couch?

02:52:03.805 --> 02:52:04.545
[UNKNOWN]: It's probably a group.

02:52:05.145 --> 02:52:11.587
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I have to believe the group setting is the path that they're going to go down, but still there's still some operational limitations around that.

02:52:11.647 --> 02:52:16.228
[UNKNOWN]: So they're still working through all that from what the administration just did.

02:52:17.128 --> 02:52:28.573
[UNKNOWN]: I just fast-tracked it, again, I think that's tremendous that they're going to push us through, but I don't know if the logistical system has put in place yet to really address this in the United States.

02:52:29.663 --> 02:52:32.865
[UNKNOWN]: You mentioned I've again is only grown in one specific place.

02:52:33.045 --> 02:52:33.965
[UNKNOWN]: Forgive my ignorance.

02:52:34.065 --> 02:52:40.228
[UNKNOWN]: Is it not possible to grow imported and grow it somewhere else in a bigger capacity?

02:52:40.548 --> 02:52:42.429
[UNKNOWN]: It is, but we're also trying to respect.

02:52:42.449 --> 02:52:45.051
[UNKNOWN]: So now you're dealing with native tribes, right?

02:52:45.211 --> 02:52:48.773
[UNKNOWN]: So now as a country, we want to respect where these medicines came from.

02:52:49.673 --> 02:52:54.015
[UNKNOWN]: It's almost like the same thing that goes on with peyote and Native American cultures.

02:52:54.035 --> 02:52:57.878
[UNKNOWN]: Like, could we just harvest that and do it ourselves absolutely, right?

02:52:58.338 --> 02:53:01.900
[UNKNOWN]: But then you start running into, like, hey, this is our medicine that we've been using.

02:53:02.020 --> 02:53:05.882
[UNKNOWN]: So I think the governments doing this delicate dance of, hey, we want to respect this.

02:53:05.902 --> 02:53:06.902
[UNKNOWN]: We want to work with you.

02:53:07.283 --> 02:53:11.865
[UNKNOWN]: Could they just trump at the home, say, we're just going to create an eye-begining factory.

02:53:11.925 --> 02:53:12.545
[UNKNOWN]: Thanks so much.

02:53:12.906 --> 02:53:13.106
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:53:13.626 --> 02:53:15.627
[UNKNOWN]: That's a real probability as well.

02:53:15.747 --> 02:53:16.788
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know how it makes sense.

02:53:18.089 --> 02:53:25.217
[UNKNOWN]: You mentioned addiction a few different times, and it being one of the big benefits of the ivygame treatment.

02:53:25.317 --> 02:53:32.305
[UNKNOWN]: One thing that's always confused me a little bit is that, you know, and this isn't specific to just veteran communities.

02:53:32.785 --> 02:53:43.808
[UNKNOWN]: You know, all Western society, but alcohol, hard drugs, prescription drugs, the addiction cycle that a lot of people suffer from.

02:53:43.828 --> 02:53:51.670
[UNKNOWN]: I, again, is notorious for being almost magical and how it can eliminate addiction immediately.

02:53:52.490 --> 02:53:57.174
[UNKNOWN]: The one thing that I don't understand, though, that is it to show up, you can't be on it.

02:53:57.714 --> 02:53:58.254
[UNKNOWN]: Anything, right?

02:53:58.315 --> 02:54:10.683
[UNKNOWN]: So there's part of me that thinks like, well, if you're addicted to alcohol or heroin or opioids or whatever, if you can spend two weeks not taking it prior to showing up, couldn't you just not take it anyway?

02:54:10.823 --> 02:54:11.144
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:54:11.224 --> 02:54:16.988
[UNKNOWN]: For what happens if somebody shows up and they have something in their system, do they say you can't do it?

02:54:18.055 --> 02:54:25.700
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so my comment there is, you and I could do that, like, but we're cut from a different cloth, right?

02:54:25.860 --> 02:54:40.150
[UNKNOWN]: And I'm not trying to dismiss, there's a lot of other people that even if they got through two weeks of doing that, like they couldn't fight their urges past that, like they could potentially fall back to the addiction.

02:54:40.170 --> 02:54:44.933
[UNKNOWN]: Whereas you and I would be like, we fucking muscle it our way through it, sweater it through, like we'll be stubborn as hell,

02:54:46.088 --> 02:54:52.690
[UNKNOWN]: Alright, we're through and I never wanted to do that again and we potentially have a higher in my opinion, a higher probability of not doing it again.

02:54:53.010 --> 02:54:54.770
[UNKNOWN]: My personal view, I could be wrong there.

02:54:56.691 --> 02:55:06.313
[UNKNOWN]: So a lot of these clinics I mentioned, Tom Fiegel at Beyond, and I notes, I'm sorry, Tom Fiegel at, yeah, Beyond, and then the other one is Ambio.

02:55:07.877 --> 02:55:12.818
[UNKNOWN]: They have folks that are currently addicted to a substance.

02:55:13.019 --> 02:55:17.900
[UNKNOWN]: They have a facility where they check into your point, and they have to get through like a 10 day, two week period.

02:55:18.120 --> 02:55:20.161
[UNKNOWN]: Potentially could be a month, right?

02:55:20.221 --> 02:55:30.724
[UNKNOWN]: So because I begin specifically not all sake delix, could have a really adverse effect on that person, if they're on some type of strong opioid or some sort.

02:55:31.124 --> 02:55:34.845
[UNKNOWN]: So they need to get them off of those things, and then they can go through the experience.

02:55:37.806 --> 02:55:44.191
[UNKNOWN]: great documentaries that just shows your brain because they have all these EEGs and it just shows the neural pathways.

02:55:44.211 --> 02:55:51.437
[UNKNOWN]: And normally, as mentioned, neural pathways are communicated in a certain way, like this neural pathway do another, that's an addiction, right?

02:55:51.477 --> 02:55:52.878
[UNKNOWN]: That's your addiction.

02:55:52.898 --> 02:55:56.361
[UNKNOWN]: And then, but it doesn't, it doesn't fully function.

02:55:56.662 --> 02:56:05.229
[UNKNOWN]: It's just kind of, we have a routine as we have our patterns and this sort of looks like, and if you were to look at a scan of it, you would see a couple lines connected into different parts of your brain.

02:56:05.889 --> 02:56:08.351
[UNKNOWN]: And if this is the whole brain, it would just be on the outside.

02:56:08.691 --> 02:56:15.416
[UNKNOWN]: So when you do second LX specifically, I begin the whole, all of those neurotranslators light up and they all start connected to one another.

02:56:16.057 --> 02:56:19.119
[UNKNOWN]: And again, that's the window where you can say, hey, enough enough.

02:56:19.379 --> 02:56:22.342
[UNKNOWN]: You have a small window to be like, I'm down with this.

02:56:22.882 --> 02:56:23.503
[UNKNOWN]: that makes sense.

02:56:23.923 --> 02:56:26.625
[UNKNOWN]: I appreciate you clearing that up.

02:56:27.386 --> 02:56:35.613
[UNKNOWN]: Did you approach the VA to try to navigate your way through the difficulties and struggles that you have and did?

02:56:35.874 --> 02:56:39.837
[UNKNOWN]: And is that why one of your own paths is because of running in the roadblocks there?

02:56:39.877 --> 02:56:40.658
[UNKNOWN]: That's exactly it.

02:56:41.158 --> 02:56:41.739
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I don't know.

02:56:41.919 --> 02:56:43.040
[UNKNOWN]: Did you have an experience with it?

02:56:44.122 --> 02:56:47.643
[UNKNOWN]: probably is same as you I mean totally different circumstances.

02:56:47.663 --> 02:57:04.047
[UNKNOWN]: I mean I've had a few injuries yeah since I've been out that was laughable you know getting them treated this is back this is I don't know 12 13 years ago 14 years ago I rolled an ATV and I broke my collarbone and tore my left bicep tendon and

02:57:06.247 --> 02:57:26.585
[UNKNOWN]: It took six weeks to get into the outpatient clinic that just makes the appointment for the Dallas VA, which is procedurally how it has to happen, is that if it's not a life-threatening emergency, like even trying to go to the ER, this isn't life-threatening, it's not covered, making a appointment.

02:57:27.385 --> 02:57:28.546
[UNKNOWN]: That you're outpatient clinic.

02:57:28.566 --> 02:57:30.066
[UNKNOWN]: Okay six weeks to get in there.

02:57:30.106 --> 02:57:30.606
[UNKNOWN]: I go in there.

02:57:30.666 --> 02:57:31.367
[UNKNOWN]: Yep, you're messed up.

02:57:31.387 --> 02:57:35.648
[UNKNOWN]: We need to make an appointment at the specials two and a half months later I go to Dallas.

02:57:35.708 --> 02:57:45.992
[UNKNOWN]: I'm getting MRI and it's like yeah, your collarbone was broken Your left vice up was torn and now it's all scarred over and jacked up and it would be pointless to do surgery now

02:57:46.372 --> 02:57:47.073
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

02:57:47.153 --> 02:58:05.469
[UNKNOWN]: And then about eight years ago, I tore my left tricep tendon, luckily by then, there was, I think it was called the choice act or something like that, where in those types of instances, if you can't get everything within 30 days, they allow you to go to a civilian doctor and so I ended up having it.

02:58:05.929 --> 02:58:11.955
[UNKNOWN]: It was still five weeks after it happened, you know, which is way longer than you should wait for a full tricep tendon tear, but

02:58:13.075 --> 02:58:21.220
[UNKNOWN]: a really, really good ortho or surgeon in Dallas repaired it and it's been fine ever since, but it took five weeks to get in.

02:58:21.820 --> 02:58:34.867
[UNKNOWN]: And then they tried to make me reimbursed the beer like kept trying to bill me for it, but it didn't end it up going away and I it was you know taking care of or whatever, but it was a hassle, you know.

02:58:35.672 --> 02:58:46.436
[UNKNOWN]: So similar story, um, was that goal men, there was, uh, we had to move to Connecticut and, um, there was, uh, the new Haven B.A.

02:58:47.276 --> 02:58:49.817
[UNKNOWN]: So it took forever to get the point that I take off.

02:58:49.877 --> 02:58:51.478
[UNKNOWN]: I'm, I'm a good military guy.

02:58:51.498 --> 02:58:56.740
[UNKNOWN]: I take off way early and there's no fucking park in from, like, feel like miles.

02:58:57.943 --> 02:59:00.766
[UNKNOWN]: Finally, I just park like a mile and a half way because I'm running out of time.

02:59:00.806 --> 02:59:15.099
[UNKNOWN]: And I, I, I, I haven't been in like I'm running in and I get there and the lady that received me was just so rude and dismissive like, and I'm already embarrassed that I'm there to get mental health health, something's wrong.

02:59:15.900 --> 02:59:17.141
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I don't know what it is.

02:59:17.181 --> 02:59:22.226
[UNKNOWN]: That it just, it's, it's, I get why people flip like why, you know, that's a trigger.

02:59:22.246 --> 02:59:22.386
[UNKNOWN]: Like,

02:59:23.107 --> 02:59:28.156
[UNKNOWN]: I'm here, like, fucking ashamed of myself that I can't figure this out on my own and this is how you get received.

02:59:30.419 --> 02:59:35.688
[UNKNOWN]: So that was my first instance and then I got a, I got, I got to talk to by a therapist.

02:59:35.708 --> 02:59:36.830
[UNKNOWN]: It was just an asshole, like,

02:59:37.675 --> 02:59:40.636
[UNKNOWN]: didn't know what the hell in my opinion how to communicate with me.

02:59:40.756 --> 02:59:47.337
[UNKNOWN]: And oh, by the way, it's probably part of part of it was made to like ego and like, I, maybe I didn't want help.

02:59:47.357 --> 02:59:47.737
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know.

02:59:47.757 --> 02:59:48.477
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know what it was.

02:59:48.557 --> 02:59:50.637
[UNKNOWN]: I'm just acknowledging like my experience.

02:59:50.657 --> 02:59:51.858
[UNKNOWN]: It felt like that guy fell short.

02:59:52.858 --> 03:00:02.960
[UNKNOWN]: Um, let me also say this though, because since then, now with envy, mine health and like we work with VA, I've met some amazing, amazing providers there.

03:00:03.895 --> 03:00:07.118
[UNKNOWN]: The providers are tremendous and they really do care, right?

03:00:07.178 --> 03:00:17.107
[UNKNOWN]: Like, people have off days and maybe that's what that woman had that first day in the new avian clinic, but at the end of the day, like you have really good people trying their fucking hardest in a system that's broken.

03:00:17.348 --> 03:00:18.669
[UNKNOWN]: That's the problem as a system.

03:00:18.689 --> 03:00:19.309
[UNKNOWN]: It's our cake.

03:00:21.310 --> 03:00:23.851
[UNKNOWN]: It's pre 9-11, and it's probably previewing it now.

03:00:23.871 --> 03:00:28.452
[UNKNOWN]: It's probably been the same system that they had since forward to, and I appreciate what we're trying to fix that.

03:00:28.732 --> 03:00:44.135
[UNKNOWN]: Like, we shot Sean Ryan introduced us to Doug Collins, so the Secretary of the VA, so I'm excited to communicate what we built with him, because our problem is really focused on one avenue, and I think the current system is like, hey, dial 988.

03:00:44.155 --> 03:00:44.275
[UNKNOWN]: Like,

03:00:46.195 --> 03:00:53.412
[UNKNOWN]: I'm terrified to down 98 because I got really awesome guns in my gun safe and the thing that goes to my head right wrong or indifferent is like

03:00:54.807 --> 03:00:57.148
[UNKNOWN]: Are they going to come in and take my fucking guns, right?

03:00:57.168 --> 03:00:59.209
[UNKNOWN]: Like, and how many other veterans think like that as well?

03:01:00.070 --> 03:01:03.812
[UNKNOWN]: So we'd de-identify, you want to talk to a provider fucking great, talk to a provider.

03:01:03.832 --> 03:01:05.773
[UNKNOWN]: Nobody, it's going to be anonymous, right?

03:01:05.873 --> 03:01:15.258
[UNKNOWN]: So I think having lived this in the guys that we have on the team and all the veterans that have put their soul into what we're building here, it's all from lived experiences.

03:01:16.519 --> 03:01:19.601
[UNKNOWN]: So we'll see what he says at the end of the day, we're going to provide a solution.

03:01:19.621 --> 03:01:22.382
[UNKNOWN]: And if they're like, hey, this is in the right solution, then great.

03:01:22.402 --> 03:01:22.823
[UNKNOWN]: We'll keep,

03:01:23.503 --> 03:01:28.466
[UNKNOWN]: serving the community, the veteran first responder community, anybody that wants to be on our platform through the app store.

03:01:29.006 --> 03:01:31.127
[UNKNOWN]: I could care less.

03:01:32.188 --> 03:01:35.930
[UNKNOWN]: Is there any conflict between envy and the foundation?

03:01:36.730 --> 03:01:38.251
[UNKNOWN]: So I completely cut ties.

03:01:38.291 --> 03:01:38.891
[UNKNOWN]: It's great question.

03:01:38.911 --> 03:01:41.032
[UNKNOWN]: I completely cut ties with the seal future foundation.

03:01:41.212 --> 03:01:42.113
[UNKNOWN]: It causes that because of that.

03:01:42.193 --> 03:01:42.953
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that makes sense.

03:01:46.056 --> 03:01:48.276
[UNKNOWN]: in terms of kind of where you go from here.

03:01:48.417 --> 03:01:50.997
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, obviously you've made enormous strides.

03:01:52.497 --> 03:02:03.219
[UNKNOWN]: You know, from the very first time you tried it in a hotel room until now, it's a pretty dialed in system kind of what's next and what are the goals of envy and where do you go from here?

03:02:03.379 --> 03:02:06.660
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so let me be clear here.

03:02:06.780 --> 03:02:08.260
[UNKNOWN]: How much champion of psychedelics?

03:02:08.720 --> 03:02:10.881
[UNKNOWN]: Like I think it's a great tool is mentioned.

03:02:11.814 --> 03:02:13.215
[UNKNOWN]: I also think face great tool.

03:02:13.735 --> 03:02:17.016
[UNKNOWN]: I also think, you know, getting outside is a great tool.

03:02:17.096 --> 03:02:20.438
[UNKNOWN]: I also think, like, you know, going on a hike.

03:02:20.538 --> 03:02:22.399
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, the list goes on and on, working out.

03:02:23.998 --> 03:02:27.361
[UNKNOWN]: My point is, is that our platform doesn't care what the solution is.

03:02:27.421 --> 03:02:32.605
[UNKNOWN]: Like, we use your physiological data to show you what solution works best for you.

03:02:33.365 --> 03:02:35.167
[UNKNOWN]: So at the end of the day, we're agnostic.

03:02:35.947 --> 03:02:41.691
[UNKNOWN]: So for us, what do I see as going from here is like, if you're a veteran or first responder, you know, anybody.

03:02:42.432 --> 03:02:43.912
[UNKNOWN]: Get on the app, it's free, right?

03:02:44.153 --> 03:02:45.633
[UNKNOWN]: Download it, it's in V-Mind Health.

03:02:45.673 --> 03:02:51.495
[UNKNOWN]: You can do it in the App Store, the App Lab Store, or the Android, we don't care what platform you have.

03:02:51.955 --> 03:02:52.955
[UNKNOWN]: We're not selling your data.

03:02:53.135 --> 03:02:54.716
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I'm gonna be crystal clear about that.

03:02:54.756 --> 03:02:55.756
[UNKNOWN]: That's not what this is about.

03:02:56.356 --> 03:02:57.796
[UNKNOWN]: We'd de-identify your data.

03:02:57.957 --> 03:03:00.217
[UNKNOWN]: Like, we need to learn from the data, but we'd de-identify.

03:03:00.237 --> 03:03:02.638
[UNKNOWN]: So we don't know what's Johnny Wilson's data.

03:03:03.578 --> 03:03:09.422
[UNKNOWN]: We're out there trying to create communities and if you don't like what we built Please, please tell me that.

03:03:09.742 --> 03:03:12.083
[UNKNOWN]: Don't be a dick about it, but tell me it sucks, right?

03:03:12.103 --> 03:03:19.267
[UNKNOWN]: And this is what you would do because we're building this for us And that's what I would ask so where I see you going from here.

03:03:19.288 --> 03:03:27.392
[UNKNOWN]: It's serving not just the veteran community We got that awesome opportunity with the government to kind of use the data to show Do psychedelics worker not?

03:03:27.853 --> 03:03:31.415
[UNKNOWN]: I think the answer is just some pretty confident will be but let's let the data show that

03:03:32.936 --> 03:03:45.227
[UNKNOWN]: And we plan on doing more, hopefully with the VA's mentioned, and we just want to help people better understand their mental health and potentially in some situations prevents suicide as well.

03:03:46.841 --> 03:04:01.391
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, it's phenomenal work again, I can't thank enough for both putting yourself through that and kind of learning the hard way in some ways it sounds like and building the program and platform that you have.

03:04:03.512 --> 03:04:10.737
[UNKNOWN]: You've said that legacy-wise, it's not measured in military accomplishments, but in families kept hold.

03:04:11.517 --> 03:04:12.778
[UNKNOWN]: You just can care to expand on that.

03:04:15.100 --> 03:04:20.692
[UNKNOWN]: Um, listen, if somebody is almost lost, what I perceive to be, and I know now to be everything.

03:04:22.375 --> 03:04:26.203
[UNKNOWN]: None of this really matters in my opinion, like if we can support each other.

03:04:28.027 --> 03:04:51.202
[UNKNOWN]: And help each other understand that this is the most important thing and even if you don't agree with that in the moment Like just realize from the old guys steering at each other on this podcast like we've got lived experiences and not that old We're not we're not that old Hey keep the film rolling as we get out of the chairs and then I'll sit here and tell us that

03:04:53.203 --> 03:04:57.689
[UNKNOWN]: Um, man, that's to me I now realize that I wish I would have known it sooner or dude.

03:04:57.869 --> 03:05:09.042
[UNKNOWN]: I wish I would have known how like the moments that I fucking lost because I wasn't paying attention because I thought I had to go in earlier or I had to take that extra trip or I had to augment or whatever.

03:05:09.784 --> 03:05:22.853
[UNKNOWN]: And again, I won't change anything, but I do know that I missed a lot of moments that I wish I wouldn't have birthdays, Christmas's first, you know, recitals, plays, sport and events like, man, I'm not gonna miss another moment.

03:05:22.893 --> 03:05:25.655
[UNKNOWN]: I work my ass off to be there as much as possible for them now.

03:05:26.036 --> 03:05:35.322
[UNKNOWN]: And I just feel so blessed, so blessed, that I could have some awesome conversations with my kids that they're turning to me through life's challenges.

03:05:35.402 --> 03:05:36.944
[UNKNOWN]: They like see me as a resource.

03:05:40.443 --> 03:05:46.165
[UNKNOWN]: Can we support each other on each other's adventures or the path that they're on and support of each other?

03:05:46.185 --> 03:05:48.626
[UNKNOWN]: The answer is yes, guys and gals, right?

03:05:49.486 --> 03:05:53.167
[UNKNOWN]: And one thing we talked about earlier is like, that's what it should always be.

03:05:53.187 --> 03:05:55.128
[UNKNOWN]: It should always be like, I'm your biggest cheerleader.

03:05:56.905 --> 03:06:04.971
[UNKNOWN]: not to go down this path, but you know, I see it quite a bit, we're our worst enemies at time.

03:06:05.011 --> 03:06:13.036
[UNKNOWN]: So if you don't hear anything else from this podcast, but this, like simply support each other, not attack each other.

03:06:13.056 --> 03:06:16.879
[UNKNOWN]: Like that's the only thing I want you to hear because when we do that, we're fucking unstoppable.

03:06:16.899 --> 03:06:17.919
[UNKNOWN]: We saw it on the battlefield.

03:06:17.979 --> 03:06:20.321
[UNKNOWN]: For whatever reason, we get in our own way on the afterwards.

03:06:20.361 --> 03:06:22.062
[UNKNOWN]: And we talk about each other.

03:06:22.102 --> 03:06:22.943
[UNKNOWN]: We want other people to

03:06:26.889 --> 03:06:33.114
[UNKNOWN]: Amen on that, what do you tell the guy sitting in his truck in the garage right now with those suicidal thoughts?

03:06:35.336 --> 03:06:36.897
[UNKNOWN]: I've had that situation before, man.

03:06:37.678 --> 03:06:38.819
[UNKNOWN]: And I was just like, hey.

03:06:39.748 --> 03:06:42.109
[UNKNOWN]: Please, please trust me.

03:06:42.989 --> 03:06:43.649
[UNKNOWN]: We will get through this.

03:06:44.569 --> 03:06:45.649
[UNKNOWN]: I promise you we will.

03:06:46.230 --> 03:06:47.450
[UNKNOWN]: I promise you we will.

03:06:47.910 --> 03:06:56.552
[UNKNOWN]: And I've hopped on a plane when I was at SFF, more times than I can count, to pick dudes up and take him to get a treatment, psychedelic, or off to a clinic, it doesn't matter to me.

03:06:56.572 --> 03:07:02.793
[UNKNOWN]: Addiction Center, we've done that all the time, but we've worked our way through it and those guys that I'm talking to you about that we've picked up.

03:07:02.813 --> 03:07:04.194
[UNKNOWN]: And it wasn't just me, it was the team.

03:07:04.694 --> 03:07:06.074
[UNKNOWN]: Those guys were thriving right now.

03:07:06.514 --> 03:07:08.095
[UNKNOWN]: So in the moment you might be in this despair,

03:07:10.295 --> 03:07:14.936
[UNKNOWN]: It's going to be better from that here, rather sister, I promise you it won't be.

03:07:15.797 --> 03:07:19.137
[UNKNOWN]: It's going to leave a ripple effect on generations.

03:07:19.157 --> 03:07:22.198
[UNKNOWN]: I was really close to making a similar decision and that is selfish.

03:07:22.678 --> 03:07:25.959
[UNKNOWN]: Think about the impact it's going to have on others, like we talk about being teammates.

03:07:26.019 --> 03:07:27.059
[UNKNOWN]: Think about it from that lens.

03:07:27.079 --> 03:07:33.341
[UNKNOWN]: Don't let your teammate down and then we'll step in and support you and I know you would as well in so many others' ways, but we'll get through it.

03:07:33.601 --> 03:07:34.661
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, I love it.

03:07:35.922 --> 03:07:37.422
[UNKNOWN]: What have I asked you that I should have?

03:07:41.299 --> 03:07:43.220
[UNKNOWN]: Um, I don't know, man.

03:07:43.240 --> 03:07:44.020
[UNKNOWN]: I think that was great.

03:07:44.040 --> 03:07:45.381
[UNKNOWN]: I, yeah, I really appreciate it.

03:07:45.401 --> 03:07:46.301
[UNKNOWN]: I got five dogs.

03:07:46.601 --> 03:07:46.762
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

03:07:46.942 --> 03:07:47.222
[UNKNOWN]: All right.

03:07:47.262 --> 03:07:48.222
[UNKNOWN]: I love what you do there.

03:07:48.242 --> 03:07:48.722
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

03:07:48.902 --> 03:07:50.643
[UNKNOWN]: I have some of these five dogs real quick.

03:07:51.444 --> 03:07:53.605
[UNKNOWN]: You know, out of all the therapies I got, man.

03:07:54.305 --> 03:08:04.349
[UNKNOWN]: Um, my dogs bring tears to my eyes because they're just you know what I love about dogs is that, uh, you know, I don't get too far in the weeds, uh, into the

03:08:06.853 --> 03:08:33.299
[UNKNOWN]: their non-verbal capacity, their communication through body language is such that, you know, they can see through the, I'm good, like you cannot bullshed them, you know, like they know unequivocally kind of what's going on, you know, and their ability to to perceive that, I think, is just magic, man, I love it, which is part of why I do what I do, you know, it's kind of

03:08:38.381 --> 03:08:40.863
[UNKNOWN]: Man, it's been amazing to sit down and talk with you.

03:08:41.023 --> 03:08:55.354
[UNKNOWN]: I can't thank enough for coming in both sharing your story and, you know, for building both the foundation the way that you did and envy and getting it to where it's just helping tons of people that the truly need it and man you're making a huge difference by appreciate it.

03:08:55.534 --> 03:08:56.074
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you, brother.

03:08:56.455 --> 03:08:56.595
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

03:08:56.615 --> 03:08:56.855
[UNKNOWN]: As well.

03:08:57.435 --> 03:08:59.517
[UNKNOWN]: For the listener's last year, I hope you enjoyed it.

03:08:59.637 --> 03:09:03.860
[UNKNOWN]: If you didn't, you can joke yourself and until next time, this is my drive.