Welcome to the Vegan Report, my name is Ryan and today we are talking with Vegan Champion.
His name is Bill Muir, but you better know him as Sergeant Vegan.
Bill went vegan in 1992 and later joined the US Army as a paratrooper after the events
of 9-11.
Despite the challenges, he maintained his plant-based diet through rigorous training
in deployment, including service in Afghanistan with the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
He is also the author of many books, including The Children's Book, The Adventures of Sergeant
Piggy, Vegan Strong, The Ultimate Field Guide for a Kick-Ass Plant-Field Life, and a more
recent book called Dead Meat, The Future of Food is Killer.
So welcome Bill, welcome to the show, thank you so much for being here.
And thank you very much for having me.
Wonderful, so let me start with this icebreaker question.
You are a veteran and I should say, you know, thank you for your service.
In my mind, veganism is all about being independent-minded and going against the grain.
And I feel like the military is the opposite of that.
It's about conformity, unity.
How can you be a vegan and be part of the military?
Isn't that a living contradiction?
It certainly is.
You hit the nail right on the head.
It's as much of an oxymoron as military intelligence or a peaceful war or anything like that.
It is, in a lot of ways, a contradiction and it was, in a lot of ways, completely ridiculous.
But in a big picture of my life, weirdly it makes sense in that I feel like I've chosen
the not traditional, not easy road, but more interesting path almost every step of the
way.
And I would like to attribute some of that to my punk rock background in always trying
to break the norm, choose interesting over conformity, choose morals and ethics necessarily
over comfort.
And it makes sense just in looking at my life and kind of the directions that I've led.
But nothing about that was easy and you're right, the military is not a path for free
thinking individuals, especially somebody who would want an easy way.
Choosing the military as a vegan is ridiculous.
And I do mention that to people who read stuff that I've done and want to follow the same
path.
I tell them, I mean, this is not for the thin of skin or the weak of heart.
It's hard.
But it makes sense in a way too.
And I think that's what makes your story so interesting and so unique.
So take us back to the beginning.
What came first, veganism or the military?
Oh, I went vegetarian in my freshman year of college in 1991.
And then I ended up joining the military as a vegan in 2003 as a response to 9-11.
So between that, that was a pretty good chunk of time.
I went, I guess, if we're going to go on my vegetarian vegan journey to give you the
quick overview.
I found out about vegetarianism through punk rock.
I was at a punk show and somebody handed me a PETA flyer.
And I'm sure my reaction was at first, what is this hippie bullshit?
And I read it and I was like, uh, like, you know, meat is murder, same kind of crap.
And there wasn't an internet that I could have looked anything up on.
I just had this basic introduction to it in this very, probably poorly made flyer.
It was in black and white.
I was looking at this, a piece of paper.
I was like, what are, what, what is this?
What are these goofy ideas?
But it awakened something in my brain because I was already studying sociology in college
and starting to understand the inequality baked into our human systems.
And because I was in a place where I was ready for new ideas and a place that I wanted to
make my life better and a place that I was open toward compassion when it was suggested
that, hey, one of the easiest ways to change the world would be what I choose to consume.
It really struck me.
So I fought with the idea back and forth.
I'm sure I would have made fun of, of other vegetarians for that for a couple of months
if I had known anybody who was vegetarian, but I didn't.
And I went back and forth and I grapple with it.
And that would have probably been in September of 1991, but by February of 1992, when my
mom asked me what I was going to give up for Lent, it just random brain mode.
I came up with, hey, I'm going to go vegetarian.
And Lent is only 40 days and that is not a serious investment of time.
But I said, I'll stop eating meat.
People lost their goddamn minds.
It was like I had said, you know, I had leaked the nuclear code or something like that on
the internet.
Like there was a panic.
It was like, for my parents, is my, my son going to die?
For my friends, is my friend, are we going to have to visit me and some kind of war?
And the hospital, the protein deficient vegan ward, which of course does not exist.
But at that point, at that point, people thought that that was the thing.
Fast forward a little bit as you could probably guess, I did not die.
I felt fine.
And then that summer I got yet again, another PETA pamphlet at another punk show.
And this time was talking about the connection between dairy and the slaughter industry.
And it had an interesting, basically, basically an interesting thought that if you're eating
a cheese sandwich, you might as well make it a cheeseburger because the milk that you're
drinking leads to that cow eventually being killed and the calf and the turning into veal.
And your, those two systems, while at first drinking milk and using animal byproducts
doesn't seem as bad, it is interconnected.
And when I made that connection, I realized I was being faced with a binary choice.
Was I okay with animal cruelty or not?
If I was okay with animal cruelty, then I could keep being just a vegetarian and leave
it at that and nobody would carry the way.
People were going to be thinking I was doing way too much as it was, but I wasn't going
to be okay with it.
Or could I go vegan and just accept that I was never going to eat, you know, a burger
again.
I was never going to eat ice cream again.
I was going to have pizza with no cheese, which was going to amount to basically a big
piece of bread with a can of sauce dumped on it.
And that was going to be the rest of my life.
And I, I thought it over and pretty quickly I determined that if I want to live a life
that's authentic to what I believe in, it's going to mean some hard choices.
And it might mean some uncomfortable conversations, but that I would rather do that than knowing
my heart of hearts that I sucked.
So I went vegan and I don't know the exact date because I don't know other vegans and
they didn't have anyone to tell that I was vegan.
But I had made that choice and was living a vegan lifestyle by August of 1992, because
I know I mentioned it to somebody in passing and they didn't know what the word was my
first semester as a sophomore in college.
That raises an eternal issue, an eternal question in the animal rights world and veganism
community, which is do we go gradually in terms of convincing people to abandon animal
products or do we try to sell, you know, the whole thing, the whole veganism thing?
You started gradually as a vegetarian and then became vegan.
When I look at people trying to sell veganism, I feel like that the best thing to do is to
promote reducing animal products and not veganism itself, which is a big leap even today in
the 1990s.
It was a really big one, but even today it is a big one.
But at the same time, I look at my personal experience and I'm not the type of person
to do anything gradually, like it's yes or no, it's black or white.
And I went vegan pretty much overnight.
So what's your take on that issue?
I would have two points.
Point number one, I don't think the animals care what you're doing as long as you're
doing something less shitty for them.
Along with reducing your carbon footprint is going to be better for the environment,
like 100%.
My second thing would be with social media and a bazillion videos on how to be vegan
or how to be vegetarian on YouTube, Instagram, podcasts like this on Spotify.
This is no longer a road less traveled.
This is while we're a very small portion of the population, we're still at like 3% overall.
I think a bigger percentage of younger folks, a little bit less for older folks and whatnot.
There's so many different takes on this and you could just watch videos until you find
something that aligns with you because the important part is that you're doing it.
It's pretty much a little less important as if it takes you a couple months or you do
it overnight.
I generally think from a bodybuilding perspective or something like that, not to do with the
protein, but generally what works for people if I'm talking to someone and like, hey, how
do I get fit?
You don't start going to the gym five days a week, starting, you're trying to hit a new
PR every single day from day one.
There's like a gradual kind of work into it phase.
It's usually easier like you're talking about the reducer terrarium thing.
It's generally easier to reduce what you're eating because you're eating more of something
else instead of give up everything and all of a sudden you're having to read stuff day
in and day out and you're getting this idea of, oh, this is hard.
I can say, no, it's not hard.
It's easy, but I have been doing this for more than three decades and I'm in a different
boat at that point.
I'm on autopilot most of the time.
It's not the same as somebody who's just starting it and it's adding to this dress.
I would say the best way to go vegan is the way that works best for you.
As long as you do it, that's all that matters.
Okay, let's come back to your story.
So you're vegan, you go and listen to punk rock music, bands, you're even a musician,
I think.
And then 9-Eleven happened and you decide to enroll in the military.
And I feel like, and maybe I'm a bit prejudiced, but you're not the profile I'm thinking of
to go and enroll in the military.
What prompted that interest, more than that, that inspiration to serve your country?
I would say, and this is going to be ridiculous to hear, but I think it's true, that the same
thoughts that prompted me to go vegan when it wasn't popular was the thing that got me
to enlist in the military and become a medic.
That whole make the world a better place, even if it's uncomfortable, is what made me
go vegan.
And that also made me become a medic in serve in Afghanistan.
I think the two are exactly the same in that regard.
No, the military does not have many vegans.
I did not meet another vegan while I was in.
I met a vegetarian once and it was like some kind of amazing, like, whoa, you're also,
this is crazy.
That especially when I was attached to infantry and artillery, did I meet any other, people
didn't know what a vegan was at first, then they had to have it, you know, then I explained
it, and then they were just like, I can't understand the words that you're saying kind
of like thing, like they, they were like, all right, I mean, the takeaway though from
the guys and gals that I did serve with was, well, I mean, I guess you're good at your
job and the, in the army and the Marine Corps too, the biggest thing is, are you physically
fit?
If you're not fit, no matter how good you are at your job, your ship bag and nobody wants
to be near you, you're like, you know, you get promoted on your fitness, you get almost
everything about you.
It's something that does not exist in the civilian world, but, and even jobs that you
don't think you would need to be fit for your PT, your physical training score, your physical
fitness score are more important than almost anything else.
And I was more or less a PT stud at that point.
I had run marathons prior to the military.
So when I got to the military and they're like, Hey, we run all the time.
We rock March all the time.
I was like, bet that's totally fine.
That's what I would be doing in my free time anyway.
So that part of the military was a very easy transition.
It was almost like a dream job.
Someone's going to pay me to work out.
This is amazing.
But, but no, most people were, nobody was stoked to hear that I was a quote unquote hippie
vegan and, and I did get a lot of, you know, comments and other stuff.
But again, military is not a place for the thin of skin.
And as a medic, most people I knew were very happy to have me because I was there to be
basically the, the den mother slash like the person that's going to, you know, pull
them out of danger or give them an IV if they're sick or, you know, that them, their
well being was my job.
So while people kind of gave me some shit for it, I think I just had adjusted to that
and accepted that and, and wasn't surprised in the least that it was going to happen.
I mean, my eyes rolled most days a couple of times a day, like I'm hearing this crap
again, but no more than I would have heard in the nineties from some idiot.
And then, you know, sometimes we still hear today.
So overall that, that was that.
Reading about your story, I remembered Adam, Adam Knoth.
Adam Knoth.
Do you know about him?
So he's a Canadian firefighter and he was sent to, you know, far from any urban area
to fight, you know, fires.
And there, and he's vegan, by the way.
And there, there was no vegan option for him, like absolutely none.
And when he asked, you know, for something else than like tomatoes or salad or like proteins,
I think as a joke, they gave him a single black bean or something like that.
And after that episode, he actually sued the firefighting department.
And in Ontario, I think, and he lost his legal fight.
He, he was basing that legal fight on, you know, he said that veganism was like his
religion, that it was as deep and as personal of a conviction than religion.
And the legal court basically said no.
So my first question for you is relating to that is, did you face any kind of difficulties,
like struggles to feed yourself, being, you know, deployed in the middle of nowhere, in
the Middle East, you know, and also, do you feel the same way about your veganism as some
sort of religion or something as deep of a conviction?
You mentioned celebrating the plant.
So I guess you already have your religion.
No, I'm not religious.
So to answer your questions, I'm going to go with the second one first.
I consider veganism to be more of a philosophy than a religion, but do I consider it as important
as people's religion is, you know, to me personally, do I consider my beliefs very important?
Yes.
So it definitely informs how I think, feel, and navigate the universe and informs choices
like who I'm going to, who's going to be my romantic partner.
I've broken up with plenty of very wonderful women because they weren't on board.
I think they think that they were going to be maybe, that I was going to be okay with
them eating like mostly vegetarian, but still eating animals and having it in their refrigerator.
And I'm not.
So I think for me, and for a lot of people that I know, and probably a lot of our listeners,
being vegan is very similar to a religion.
It's at least a belief system, and I'm bummed to hear that that Canadian lost his, his lost
in court because that just, that sucks in America at least.
And we have lots of problems, but we, even if you're a prisoner because you did some
heinous crimes, you're still afforded vegan options in jail.
They don't currently, obviously when I was in, they didn't really serve much to eat at
all.
We'll get in a second for vegans, but they had, they had vegetarian MREs.
We're still fighting to get the vegetarian MREs vegan because the vegan, the vegetarian
MREs came about in the nineties when before vegan was really a thing, but it was just vegetarian.
I've been arguing now for a couple of years, I was working with Mercy for Animals, and
I'm sure this is going to come up again and we'll fight it again and talk about it again.
But I think America and other Western countries and hopefully the whole world will afford
their servicemen and women, plant-based vegan MREs.
And as far as I'm concerned, while I don't care about gluten-free, they could leave out
all the gluten and just call it a fussy eater MRE if it makes everyone happy.
Because if you want to serve your country for whatever your reason, but most people
do it for out of patriotism or to try to do something bigger than themselves, and some
people do it because they want money for college because most, at least America, that's part
of the deal that you could get money for college, which I didn't need, but is a good selling
point for other people.
As far as the practicality of being vegan in the military, I was in a joint 21 years
ago, which makes me feel a little old, but in 2003, and then I got out for good, and
then I went back in in the reserves.
It was difficult, but not impossible both times.
Fancy training was the hardest, and not because anyone was forcing you to eat meat.
There wasn't anything like that.
I've heard some horror stories that the Marine Corps might not be that way.
I can't speak on that experience because I wasn't a Marine, though.
Those guys are amazing.
So many of the things they do, I love.
Shout out to the Marines out there.
Our basic training is basically like, hey, you have a limited amount of time to go through
a dining facility, to go through this cafeteria, get what you're going to eat, eat it real
quick, get out the door.
It's not that they tell you that you have to eat meat.
It's that the vegan options are so few and far between, not nutritious, not going to
fill you up, and not going to give you enough calories, that I was doing basic training
probably somewhere around.
I was training about 20 hours a day, and I was doing that on around 1200 calories a
day.
Now, today, I did go to the gym, and today is my low calorie day, and I'm just doing
two protein shakes.
I don't recommend this, but this is just something I'm doing now just to try to get a six pack.
But I'll probably get around 1200 calories, and I am far from working out 20 hours a day.
I worked out about two hours today.
I benched, I did some tricep exercises, and I'll probably work out tonight too.
It's just such a crazy thing.
It's like trying to get a car to drive really fast, really far, but you're not putting any
gas in there.
It's really hard to do.
Practicality, just imagine breakfast.
It's not like they're saying, hey, you have to eat this egg omelet, or we're throwing
you out, or there's any threat of it.
There's nothing in the hotline, but there is a cereal bar, you could call it, and they
have corn flakes, which is vegan.
So how much could you eat in corn flakes?
How many, and to also add to that, keep in mind that there is no soy milk, there is no
hemp milk, there is no rice milk, there is no oat milk, there is no...
I thought like walnut milk, pecan milk, there's none of that.
Nothing.
So you're deepening it dry until you come up with, hey, if I put really crappy fruit
cocktail on it, it'll soften it up so I could eat more of this stuff, so I have more in
my stomach.
Does that sound gross?
I've eaten worse, but it's not delicious.
At no point are you like, man, I'm stoked to go to Chow.
You might be hungry, but you're not going to be enjoying eating that.
And that was basically what meals were like throughout basic training.
And in basic training, the only thing people look forward to is getting mail and going
to eat.
And now you've cut out half of why anyone's excited to go to be there.
You're just training or I guess getting mail and you're eating barely enough to stay alive
to keep your eyes open.
It's not great.
After that, you get more flexibility and you can choose what you're doing, choose what
you're eating, and you can come up with creative ways to make it work.
And I came up with a bunch of them, and that's how I was able to make it work.
And for me, weirdly, basic training was the worst experience that I had in the military,
not because of the training, but because of the food.
And being in Afghanistan was not that bad because I figured out a way to hack the system.
But had I not thought of a way to hack the system, I'm sure it would have been pretty
bad.
I want to get back to how you hack the system.
But first, if you were part of my regimen, is that the word for your group of military
men?
Yes.
And I see you struggle this much in basic training, and still you hold on to your convictions.
That would draw my attention, and I would be interested in knowing more about why you're
vegan, why you're doing that, why is it so important for you.
Did that happen?
Did it draw attention?
I did talk to some people about it, but generally speaking, when you're not having a good time
doing something that doesn't attract people where they're people are like, man, that looks
like that sucks.
Let me talk to this person and hear more about something that sucks.
People were more interested in when I was vegan, when I was beating them running, and
then they would think, oh, Mura must have some kind of secret sauce.
What is it?
Oh, it's vegan.
I often used that as something I would throw at people when I was passing them as we were
running during a PT test.
I would say, I can't fault you for being slow, you're not vegan, or whatever I could come
up with while I was running to yell at somebody.
Because I'm thinking of it randomly, the Sergeant Vegan concept started when I went back in the
military and I was in the reserve.
As a way to cope with the vegan thing and being back in the military, I was a Sergeant
and I embraced my role as being the slightly older veteran and realizing that to get people
ready for deployment, coddling them and being nice to them was not going to be the way to
go.
I went over the top creating this persona for myself that was kind of like, there were
this GI Joe character, for those who know what that is, in the 80s called Sergeant Slaughter
that was this really over the top, like a pro wrestling kind of persona.
I was a little bit like that.
Not to the point where I would have hurt anybody, not to the point where it was like a full
mental jacket, but just like instead of seeing veganism as a, I want to give you a cuddle
kind of thing, more of a, you're worthless and weak, drop and give me 20 kind of way.
Which somehow kind of worked for the situation.
I don't know if I recommend that to everyone, but it worked for that situation.
That's amazing.
Do you have any organization, vegan animal rights organization reached out to you to
advocacy work in the military?
Be the one to talk to military people because I don't know that culture.
I can speak to those people, like I can talk their language, but you can, you can reach
military, you know, men and women.
So did that happen?
Did you do any activism work in that area?
So Mercy for Animals did reach out to me and we were doing a campaign a couple of years
back to try to get a vegan MRE.
Unfortunately, they didn't, it didn't succeed to the point where they got me to talk to
Congress.
I did make a couple of videos about it.
I have talked, how much have I done with that?
I think I've talked to a lot of veterans, but not actual organizations at, besides that.
I would like to continue to do more.
I've been active supporting organizations, but I'm not, especially at the military.
I'm not really much of a joiner anymore.
So I've worked with Unchained, I've worked with Mercy for Animals, I've worked with
IDA, but I prefer my, you know, me being a, doing something with another organization
to me being a part of the organization.
Because I can endorse a lot of almost every organization, but I probably am not going
to be on board with everything that everyone does.
Like PETA, I love that they've been out there for years.
I'm probably, they probably make me roll my eyes as much as the next person who's like,
oh, they're not presenting this in the right way.
However, they have been forefront in getting animal rights to the masses.
I just was doing a campaign with them recently about, what is it?
Wounded Warrior Project was giving away a hunting expedition as part of a raffle prize.
And that came on the PETA's radar, and PETA contacted me and we were contacting them and
trying to get media attention to say like, hey, this sucks.
Like, would veterans have enough problems, let alone, you know, most of them, which are
battle related.
So doing that to an animal and torturing an animal on behalf of veterans kind of sucks.
I agree with them with some of the veterans that I know be cool with going hunting.
Well, duh, of course.
Like, you know, veterans are a diverse group, most of us aren't hippy vegans.
And I could see a lot of my friends being down to go hunting as a thing.
So I get it.
But it's important to have a voice out there saying like, no, we're not all cool with this.
And so for that, I'm stoked that PETA did that.
How did you hack the system to get better food because I still have, you know, you put
that image in my mind of those cereals in orange juice.
What was it again?
Oh, I did.
I did that too.
Corn flakes and fruit cocktail.
And I was also doing corn flakes in orange juice.
And I'm sure every now and again, I got crazy and I had frosted flakes in orange juice.
Is it something you can't eat anymore?
Like you see corn flakes and I'm, I have no interest in eating corn flakes, frosted flakes,
any of that.
I mean, that's not really, it's not the worst for you.
I think vegans often get food snobby, especially if you live in a first world country, you're
like, huh, I would never eat that, that or say something stupid, like that's poison.
Man, that's not poison.
Is that optimal?
No, I think we need to look at food like optimal.
And suboptimal optimal, optimal nutrition is in my opinion, tofu, broccoli, you know,
brown rice, that's optimal.
Then there's a whole bunch of suboptimal corn flakes.
Is it processed?
Yes.
Can you have a box of it for 10 years and then open the box and eat it and it will be fine.
Yeah, that's not great for you.
But is it poison?
I think we vegans can get, can be a skittish bunch.
And I think poison is kind of a silly thing to say.
So to answer your question, how did I hack this system?
Two things I did.
So the first thing I did, after I got to my unit, I realized that I was going to be subject
to and for, for during all of training, I've been doing little kind of goofy workarounds
like, like when I was in ranger training, as part of your kit that they make you carry
around when you're basically like, it's almost like the fraternity system where you're a pledge
where they give you a special uniform.
They make you carry this big two court canteen.
Well I drained the canteen and I would put vegan snacks in there.
And I was basically like, I was carrying my food around everywhere because I realized
within the first week of training.
No one asked, asked you to drink out of that canteen.
It's just something you're carrying.
And when I realized that I was like, now I basically have a satchel where if I'm going
to breakfast, I had vegan cream cheese from, I don't believe galaxy foods is around anymore.
But if anyone from galaxy is hearing this, I did eat your cream cheese.
If it was either that or tofu, that I would bring out cream cheese.
So I could have that on a bagel.
And man, that really felt like, that felt like I had won the lottery or just figured
out some kind of like, or just, you know, just figured out the cure to cancer, you know,
being able to go into that chow hall and then put vegan cream cheese on a bagel.
Amazing.
And so I was doing stuff like that during your training.
But when I finally got to my unit, I was like, okay, they're going to make me go back to
the dining hall and be, get all of my nutrition from the dining hall.
I had done that in basic training.
I had done that on all these trainings and that hadn't worked out well for me.
I realized that the route that I needed to go was to get my own apartment and not to
be reliant on the military for food.
If I could self cater, then I were talking basically a nine to five and with the military,
it's more like a five to nine job.
But if I could hack that, I'd be good to go.
So I talked to the commanding officer and, you know, just asked him like, Hey, sir, what
would I have to do?
Well, maybe it's the first time.
Anyway, I asked him upy up, what would I have to do to get off post, to get my own apartment?
They're like, can't get it, you're an apartment.
But you could share an apartment with someone.
They generally, you have to get a waiver if you're E four, which is my rank.
If you're E five and above, it's easier process.
And then, then talking to them and then talking to other people, I realized that the way to
hack that would be to get a doctor's note saying that I had to have access to cooking
equipment to make my own food as a vegan because I could not get met in the chow hall.
And that basically a doctor was like the doctor's word was like the word of God.
And they would move heaven and earth to be to do whatever I needed to do just because
a doctor said it.
So I talked to the company, maybe I think it was the battalion surgeon that got him to
write me a note.
And I have it in my book.
If you're interested in looking at sometime, anybody you could just flip through it and
it has that of course my social security redacted specialist, Muir, this, that and the other
as a vegan diet, vegan defined by this and requires conditions to be able to get his
own food.
With that, I brought them that letter and they're like, Hey, let's make this happen.
I got, I was able to go off post and share an apartment with a friend of mine.
And then I was able to cook every day.
So I would go to the physical training like everyone else, go back home, make a big ass
breakfast and I was set.
And at that point, since I was living in Italy, I went the opposite direction in that I lost
15 pounds in basic training, 15 pounds that I didn't really have to lose.
But I gained probably 20 pounds, even running 10 to 15 miles a day because I was eating
a vegan pizza every day.
I would, when I wasn't making my own food, I would go out, we call it in the military
on the economy and I would get a kilo of soy gelato.
I would get at least every day I was eating a full size pizza, pasta.
If I had, if my current self could talk to myself then I would have told myself, Hey,
pump the brakes on all that eating and like, you know, think of calories and let's try
to get abs.
But instead I was like, you know what, you know, I was only eating 1200 calories then.
So to make up for it, I'm going to eat 3500 calories a day now, which was way too much,
like a ridiculous amount of food.
But I wasn't hungry.
And I believe one of the guys I serve with, I still remember this said, I said, Doc, I
believe you're the fattest vegan I've ever seen.
And I wasn't fat, but I definitely had a gut on me, even with the fact that I was, you
know, doing all that running, because, you know, calories and calories out, you can only
expend so many calories.
And I was way overdoing it at every moment.
So then for Afghanistan, because I knew I was going to be in a similar spot to training
where limited amount of food, there's no priority for resupply.
I'm a captive audience.
What do I do?
I realized that I wouldn't know where I was being deployed to ahead of time.
So I got these two gigantic boxes.
We're talking 75 pound boxes that would fit that much stuff.
And I filled it with everything I could find at the commissary at the post supermarket.
I put soy milk, I put clip bars, I put vegan ramen, I put, that's about it.
Everything but corn flakes, because I was done with that shit.
I filled it up.
I filled it.
I set myself 150 pounds of stuff and I was so proud of myself.
I was like, you have figured it out.
So I send that to myself, my future self.
Fast forward to when we got to Afghanistan.
They were giving us a safety brief and they were like, and by the way, Doc, one of your
boxes exploded.
So I guess the good news was, A, I got one of my boxes, but the bad news was one of my
boxes exploded.
And when I was told that news, I believe my mouth just dropped open.
I'm sure I had this really dumb look on my face.
And I made this hand gesture with like your palms opening up.
I went, exploded.
And for at least six months, anytime we got attacked, someone would ask if something exploded
in that stupid voice with that hand gesture, or was there an explosion or anything.
I mean, it was pretty funny to everyone, but not me, because I was like, oh man, what
am I going to do now?
So for a month, so that food probably lasted three weeks, maybe four, maybe a full month,
but not much longer than that.
So then I was like, all right, what am I going to do now?
So for a bit, I was what we call rat fuck, which is where you go into a supply of something
and rip through until you get what you want, similar to how a rat would go through a food
source.
So I would do that.
I would with rat fucking MRE.
So I would go through the bean burrito number 12.
The bean burrito was vegan at that point.
For some reason, they got rid of it.
It wasn't good, but it was the least food.
So I would go through and steal all the bean burrito number 12s.
And then they realized that they had all these boxes that were going through.
And to be fair to them, every box of MREs is about $500.
So I have essentially, maybe not 500 bucks.
So we're talking 10 bucks a piece.
All right, 100 bucks.
So I'm ruining essentially, like I was at every day $100 worth of stuff, because I opened
the box, pull out, then I go through a couple others and pull out bread, pull out this.
And they were like, man, you got to stop this.
So I got pulled officially.
I could not do that to the MREs.
So then I was doing that, not that, but I was taking the humanitarian meals because they
had a stockpile of humanitarian meals for the Afghanis.
And I was just eating them.
And then I was told I couldn't eat them anymore.
I wasn't doing anything to the boxes.
It would take one at a time.
So then after that, I was working with some local docs who were on base and they had their
own chow hall.
So I would trade with them.
I would go to my chow hall, get the American meal that I couldn't eat, and then give it
to them and they would give me their rice.
And I'm like, I'd like to say it's non, but it's non, it's like this foot bread that they
would eat.
And that was vegan.
And then I was, then they found out that I was fraternizing with the locals too much
and they were like, you can't do that.
So then, and the final hack, which worked for the rest of the time, because this, all
of this food stuff in Afghanistan, that was all the space of about two months.
I found out about a site called anysoldier.com.
When we had power in the generators, the special forces that we were attached to would run some
satellite stuff and we'd be able to do a little bit internet for just a short period
of time.
And I put something on a website that, hey, I'm a soldier on the border of Pakistan.
My guys need maximum magazines and razors and beef jerky and I'm vegan and I'm just starving
and please send me stuff.
And people were like, I think there was still a lot of patriotism and fervor post 9-11, but
when people saw that someone was, someone had the audacity to stay vegan in a war zone,
it, people just were just blown away.
And the response was amazing.
I was getting, I was getting care packages every single time we got mail.
Anytime we got resupplied, I was getting boxes upon boxes and stuff.
And often it was stuff that was awesome.
And I ate pretty well and I started giving it to my guys and some of the locals too.
And that was great.
That's incredible.
And there's something, there is something absolutely beautiful to, to this story of really,
because it's not about food really, it's about your convictions and it's about defending
your right to, you know, to follow those convictions in service of your country.
So that's the real story, you know.
Of course, the food adventures are really entertaining, but when you, you know, think
about it and think about, oh, this is about his convictions.
He's, you know, persevering in the face of all that struggle because he cares about animals.
That's what really inspires me in that story.
Well, the, I don't think most people are going to have to, I guess I would like to take away
for people to be, sometimes as a vegan, you're going to have to go through a little bit of
discomfort now and, and then it's probably not the end of the world.
Nowadays, at least I live in California and I fly, I'm in different parts of the United
States, often to either do speaking gig or travel or go back and see my, my folks on
the East coast.
The most that someone's going to have to put up with to be vegan is you wanted a beyond
burger and they only have an impossible burger.
And while there's a lot of old man syndrome that all in my day, you know, stuff at the
end of the day, that's what I want.
I want there to be progress to the point where no one has to ever go through those experiences
again.
Like progress for this cause means that my, this kind of struggle should be redundant.
And when people ask me, you know, what, what would I like to see with the future of veganism?
I would personally like to see there be no need for a Sergeant vegan that so many people
are vegan that it's like a, you know, it's like a, it's like a given at that point that,
you know, kind of like any cause that I, that I think most of us agreeing like with human
rights and civil rights that once racism is finally eradicated that nobody needs to talk
about it because we're good.
Everybody's good.
And I would like to see that, that, you know, we get to the point where it's just a given
that everyone believes in.
We're not quite there yet, but hopefully one day we're not quite there yet.
And I think that we should be highlighting your story and also the struggles of other
vegans and show that it's not easy.
I think that's one of the top 10 things I hate hearing from vegan activists.
It's easy, go vegan.
It's so easy.
There are so many alternatives and all of that.
It's not, you don't know the culture of that, of the person you're talking to.
You don't know, you know, what's the, the, the fields they're working on.
You don't know their family situation.
You don't know what you're asking them to do.
And I think that we should not set false expectations from the get go.
We should be frank about it, that it will be hard.
There will be hard times from, you know, being vegan, but look at those amazing stories of
people, you know, going through those obstacles and persevering and doing the right thing.
I know that the next time being vegan will be hard for me.
I will be thinking about your story.
I'll be thinking, you know, Bill was in a whore zone and he still went vegan.
So what is my excuse?
And that will motivate me.
So what do you think of that?
I agree.
I do, I slightly would like to disagree with the vegan being difficult.
I in 2024, I don't think vegan is difficult.
Let me be clear.
I'm talking specifically about living in the United States, living in Canada, Japan.
I'm going to include you too, because I used to live in Japan, Europe as well.
If you're in an industrialized, you go to the supermarket and not have to go with a
bone arrow to shoot your food kind of situation, which is most of us, if you can listen to
this podcast, it includes you.
Vegan is easy.
Now, I agree with you that sometimes family situations, you know, that hole in the beginning
of, well, what am I going to make?
You know, how do I cook?
Yeah, I mean, life, life is not all being fed bonbons, but it's relatively easy.
That's kind of a short anecdotal story.
My band was playing the show in 2016, and there was like a hippie chick with a, I think
she had a t-shirt that had an oom on it.
And I was wearing a shirt that said vegan.
And she said, oh, vegan.
I would love to go vegan, but that's hard.
And I think I said to her, which was probably too much, but I really do believe this.
I said, the only way to make veganism easier at this point is if someone carried me in
their arms like a baby, and then when there was time to be fed, chewed up the food and
spit it into my mouth like a baby bird.
And that was probably not what she was expecting to hear because she gave me a really weird
look.
But I'm going to extend this to most places that being vegan is really, really easy.
Now, I agree that things ebb and flow.
There was a time where like a couple of years ago where there was a vegan option, and they
were trying to have a vegan option in every fast food place in America, and now there's
not as much.
Unlike Europe and Australia, where it's super stinking easy.
I get it.
Sometimes it's where the market's at.
And sometimes, while it's going to be super cheap to self cater, it might be a little
harder than stuff.
But we put this in a perspective.
I don't need anybody to go through being vegan like I did back in the day where I had to
search out the only whole food store in my town that sold tofu and go buy tofu because
that was the only thing that I could think of that might have protein in it.
We're nowhere near that anyway.
In most places in the world, especially if you're able to listen to this, I've traveled
to almost, I'm at 49 countries so far.
Everywhere that I've been, it wasn't that hard to be vegan.
Other than, I'm including Afghanistan, it might be tougher in some, but even China wasn't
that bad.
But it just takes a little bit of getting used to.
But I would compare it then, being vegan, just like anything you're changing in your
life.
I would say I agree with you on change is difficult.
For some people, change is more difficult than others.
Some people can change everything about their life like other people might change their
socks.
For others, change is like some kind of cellular thing where they're like, ugh, I was doing
this as part of my identity and now I don't.
It's not just eating veggie burgers and that's it.
If it was, you were a hunter and that was part of how you identified yourself as a hunter
and that your hobby was hunting and buying that gear and watching stuff and now you don't
do that and there's this moral quandary with you.
I get that.
For some people, it's going to be more difficult than others.
But I think for the majority of people, it's not that hard.
But change is hard.
I'll grant you that.
Yes.
I think the hardest part is the change, that transition.
Let me get to a second contradiction I see in your story.
I started the conversation with the first one.
The G versus being free spirit.
What about the violence part?
For me, veganism rhymes with no violence and maybe I mix that a bit with my Buddhism.
For me, the military is in contradiction with that, with that vow of not perpetrating any
violence.
I guess first question is, do you also see that contradiction?
How do you explain that as a vegan, you are still attracted by the military?
And also from being a medic and being exposed to the violence of war, did that feed in any
way your veganism or your reflection on the violence we perpetrate on animals?
So many ways to answer that.
I'm going to start with this.
I got kicked out of ranger training very much toward the end.
I was very grumpy about that as you would guess.
Well, it kind of came maybe as a blessing in disguise in that if I had made it through
and if I hadn't been kicked out in some bogus bullshit, I would have made it through.
As a medic, I would have had to go to special operations medic training course, which would
have been great except at one point they were doing something that they called the goat
lab, which was they had a live goat and then they would shoot it or stab it and then have
you treat the goat for their injuries.
And then they would continue with that, I think they did that with pigs too and other
animals.
So you got hands-on experience.
I understand now that's 21 years since that time, since I did Afghanistan and since now
I've been in RN for 10 years.
I get what they were aiming at, but I think you could get similar training just working
in hospitals and similar training doing simulations and you don't need to have animals that you
do that horrible shit to.
I know 100% at that point that there was no way I was going to participate.
I would have sat out that I would have said I'm not going to do it.
But I reflected on my military training and I reflected on my military career after I
got out the first time and I understood that where I was at that point where I would have
had to go through that course was very different in my brain when I got back from Afghanistan.
I was still very much in sensitive vegan hippie mode when I was doing that training,
but after a year in Afghanistan and a lot of the unpleasantness that you could imagine
you see during war, I was very desensitized.
As a lot of vets are, and I think that's part of what you get in PTSD, you get a refocusing,
a reshaping of your brain to be able to handle situations that when you put yourself in a
different situation then makes you stand out and makes you kind of different than other
people.
The reason why I mention this is I'm sure that as evil as the, I still believe that
the goat lab was, well the first time I wouldn't have done it, the second time I don't know
how what my choice would have been, but I know I wouldn't have been affected mentally
by seeing animals or people or anybody suffer.
After that experience it really was the only thing that still affected me was children.
I could see adults from both sides, but preferably not our side, but I could see adults suffering
and dying and it really wouldn't bother me, but when I saw a little child with a gunshot
or burns or blown up, it really fucked me up bad.
But I probably would have been desensitized to the point where they could have done awful
things in the name of training and while I probably would have still made the ethical
choice to not do it, if I had done it, it wouldn't have bothered me.
So I wasn't a vastly different mindset and a vastly different spot and that's not necessarily
good.
It's just what happens when you expose someone to those kind of conditions.
As far as being a vegan and being in the military as a medic, it made perfect sense.
It was just part of, again, the same positive, the PMA, positive mental attitude, let's make
the world a better place.
Is it a contradictory?
Yes, but I think there's two different worlds that exist.
There's a perfect world and then there's the world as it is.
The world that I strive for, the perfect world, well, let's see.
Animals aren't killed for food because that's stupid and we don't need to destroy the planet
or kill animals for food.
I would think in my perfect world there's also no war and I would also add no crime
and no guns.
However, in the world that does exist, there is war, there is crime.
I see myself as 85% living in the world as it actually is and 15% of my head is like,
what could we do to make the world a better place?
I'm not opposed to the military as an organization and I believe it as a necessity given all
the threats that we have in the world today.
I feel the same way toward the police and other organizations that we need, a safety
net, we need people out there that are willing to risk their lives in difficult situations.
But in a perfect world, an ideal world, I would prefer there to be the need for none
of that.
But the world that we exist in now is a tough and scary place and unfortunately we still
need all that.
And I absolutely share this pragmatic sense that this is pragmaticism.
There are many accounts of slaughterhouse workers having PTSD from killing or from being
exposed to all the killing of animals.
And I think, well, I remember the first time I read that, I was a bit in disbelief, I think,
because for me that PTSD and that violence is associated with the military.
It's normal, it's natural, I understand that.
But those slaughterhouse workers, at first I felt a bit doubtful, but then when I read
more about the topic, I understood why they suffered that way.
And I guess it's, again, that was my old species and killing an animal versus killing a human.
But how do you think about those accounts?
Does it sound true?
Have you ever heard or spoken with people who had suffered from PTSD from working in
slaughterhouses?
I just want to have your take on that phenomenon.
Not directly, but I could see how that would happen.
If you're an animal lover, and most of us are, I would say 99% of people are in their
hearts animal lovers.
They're mostly vegan, they get being kind to animals, they just don't make the jump
to, oh, that means all animals.
Because most of the people I know, even the hardened hunters, have a dog that they treat
like a child.
And just in those goofy videos of would you break the glass in a hot cart to get a dog
out, they would do the same.
They would go through great lengths like they would a child.
So yeah, I can understand that a lot of people who are doing that job, who are the money
because in this economy and the way the world works, you need money, I could see how it
would be awful for them and I could see how that would grind you down and the having to
see animal supper all day would for most people and make sure like a serial killer would be
awful for you.
So yeah, I could agree with that.
I would say try to get a different job, dude, but at the same point, I also acknowledge
not everyone's going to be in that spot.
I consider myself very lucky in that I've been able to make choices.
Not everyone has a life where they can make choices.
I would say most people should be able to have a life where they can make choices, but
it's not always like that in the real world.
In the ideal world, it's like that for everyone when no one no one has to do that and then
they have to then they don't have anyone to kill the animals and then then there's no
more slaughterhouses.
But I could I could get behind that.
It's really a sad situation because you know, they're they're suffering wounds and because
the mutilation rates in slaughterhouses is enormous, you know, you're surrounded by knives
and they're also wounded mentally with PTSD.
But at the same time, the job is not as appreciated as, you know, like a military job or it's
not the same thing, but they suffer the same.
And even their salary is does not justify that kind of level of hardship from from work.
So yes, I try to remind myself of of those people too.
So Bill, you're also an author.
You have written three books, Vegan Strong, The Adventures of Sergeant Piggy and the newest
one, Dead Meat.
And I first want to talk about Dead Meat, so where I think you you bring us a bit, you
know, you show us that dark side and that darkness we've been talking about.
And for someone like me who likes horror movies, actually loves horror movies and horror books,
this is a treat.
I haven't read the book yet, but I will definitely offer myself this book as a holiday gift.
I wish I had read the book for Halloween, but hey, not too late.
So Bill, what's that new book about?
And where did you find your this vocation of being a writer?
Thank you very much for that question.
So Dead Meat was a product of having lots of free time to myself during our COVID apocalypse.
And for those that can park in back four years ago to the COVID lockdowns, remember, it was
pretty dark and bleak.
And most of us had kind of a rough time through it.
Now a lot of people, other than people like myself who worked in hospitals, had saw COVID
as almost a boring vacation with some kind of weird side thing where you were having
to stand in line to get into a grocery store.
And you had to sport, you know, cleaner on your, your, your mail or something like that.
But for me, I spent that time when I was at work in COVID words dealing with sick and
dying patients.
So it really got to me and it probably activated my already existing PTSD a bit.
So being in a dark time and kind of already having that bleakness and then kind of reliving
some of my military trauma.
I was like, okay, well, let me channel that into a spot.
And I had already written vegan strong book on how to be vegan, but written like an army
field manual.
And I had, after that, done the adventures of Sergeant Piggy, which was a super cute
book full of light for, for kids.
I was like, let me just make, let me, let me put a mirror up to the animal egg and really
show it for what it is and that's dead meat.
It's bleak.
It's meant to be hard to, hard to read.
It's, well, let me, let me, let me backtrack.
It's meant to be a fun, thrilling, violent ride, but also very, very bleak and dystopian.
If you put yourself in the shoes where the hooves of an animal being raised to be killed,
it's an awful thought.
And if you were in a society like that, how would you deal with it?
And that's dead meat.
It, it's meant to go off the rails and it's meant to be kind of hard to read in some spots
and not necessarily offer a lot of light and, and hugs.
But I think, you know, at least Americans like the whole concept of Halloween and kind
of, you know, remembering that you're mortal and kind of like laughing at death.
And that's also one of the positives about dead meat, but it is pretty dark.
And most vets I know have, enjoy some dark humor and, and have made our peace with that.
I mean, because you have to be able to get through the military.
And let me add this.
I think I will also purchase Vick and Strong and the Adventures of Sergeant Piggy.
But also, you know, if you, if you're not going to read them, at least gift them to your public library.
Make you know, yes, make the list of vegan books they have longer, you know, make that
available to people.
I think it's very important to, to, you know, the number of people who have told me I went
vegan because of this book, because of usually it's always Peter Singer and I'm all aberration.
But I hear other titles.
Don't underestimate the power of books and well written books.
So you know, get the Adventures of Sergeant Piggy, get vegan strong, make them available
for other people in your public library.
It's important.
I love that and I appreciate it.
Thank you very much for the shout out.
And yeah, I, I really think that the, it's when it comes to veganism, there's not one
person that has the key to the truth.
So whatever speaks to you, whatever voice, you know, whatever you need the person to
look like or be like that's telling this truth, that's great because not unlike other movements
where it, where there's one person, some kind of one figure has the, all the truth.
This is a universal thing that you don't need to kill animals to eat stuff that you don't
need to eat to destroy a planet that doesn't want to be destroyed.
And it could be someone that has that, that puts that in the terms that work for you.
And if not, find someone else because there's, there's a lot of us that are saying exactly
the same thing in different ways.
Saying it differently, you know, maybe we have a shinier cover, you know, but it's,
it's all the same.
So as long as you get that message and whatever works for you, whatever secret sauce you needed
in and they get it.
Wonderful.
Bill, if there was a vegan pantheon, you would be up there 100%.
You're one of the vegan heroes.
Did you want to add something before we end this conversation?
Just that you already mentioned my books, please check me out on social media that's
sergeantvegan.com or sgtvegan.com.
And I'm sgt underscore vegan on Instagram, sgt space vegan on Facebook.
And feel free to comment on this, what you liked about it.
And you, when you see, see this on, on Instagram, what you liked, what you didn't like, you
know, and ask vegan questions if you have them from me or, or him or really anyone else.
Because none of this knowledge needs to be gate kept.
It's all, it all should be free and in domain.
I agree.
And links will be provided in the show notes.
So go visit the description and yes, you'll get the links.
So Bill, I hope you liked this conversation.
I loved it.
I really enjoyed it.
Thank you so much for having stopped by and having answered my questions.
And again, thank you for your service.
Thank you for having me.
I appreciate it.
Thank you everyone for listening.
I kindly invite you to share this podcast with the vegans you know.
Let's encourage more people to take action.
Again, thank you so much for caring and I will see you next Tuesday for a new episode.