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This episode is sponsored by Newcom and as many of you know, I only bring sponsors onto

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this show whose products I truly swear by.

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We are an overworked and under slept population, especially those of us that wear uniform for

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state back into the role of mother or father, husband or wife.

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And you can find even more information on Newcom.com.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on

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the show veteran, former contractor and close protection expert, Justin Keating.

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Now in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from his journey into the military,

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his unique 9-11 story, his deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, the world of contracting,

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working for the CIA, close protection, jujitsu, writing and so much more.

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Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment,

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go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and

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leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for

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others to find.

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And this is a free library of almost 900 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so

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I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said, I introduce to you, Justin Keating.

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Enjoy.

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Well, Justin, I want to start by saying firstly, thank you to Isabel Ramirez from CrossFit

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Iron Legion for introducing us and secondly, I want to welcome you onto the Behind the

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Shield podcast today.

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Thank you.

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What a pleasure to be here.

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So where on planet earth are we finding you this afternoon?

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So I am in a little town called Pea Ridge, Arkansas.

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It's up in the northwest corner of the state.

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We call it Walmart country.

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The Walmart headquarters is here.

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Now is that I heard you talking about doing working with them, we'll get to that later.

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But I mean, that must have been quite jarring the role that you had during COVID.

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But we'll save that story for a minute.

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But is that where Walmart was founded then in Arkansas?

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Yes, it was.

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And what impact did the creation of that absolute, you know, monster of a corporation have on

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your little area in Arkansas?

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It is nothing moves around here without their say so.

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I will say that.

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But in a positive manner, they do a lot for their communities around here.

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They have really like built up a lot of just undeveloped areas that have now developed

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and they've brought in I mean, there's restaurants, we have big malls now.

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I mean, I want to say there's an estimated around like 500 people every three weeks or

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a month we're moving here to North West Arkansas.

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And the some of the Walton grandkids have built hands down the world's best mountain

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bike trails in basically everywhere.

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They call this the Aspen of mountain biking essentially.

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I mean, people from all over the world are coming here to ride.

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So I mean, they've done a lot for this community here.

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Now just playing devil's advocate, for example, Disney when they first went to Orlando, the

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philosophy that was everyone's kind of love of the films and now creating, you know, these

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parks where people can be immersed at their inception, I think was a beautiful thing and

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it drew a lot of people.

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So Orlando is what it is now because of that and ultimately other theme parks coming in.

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But there's now and I'm just specifically talking about Disney, there's a point where

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there was a lot of overreach and maybe it's morphed from the original concept.

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You know, if you have all these job creation people are coming towards, is there any downside

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of maybe, you know, of a part of Arkansas that was one way?

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Oh, for sure.

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I mean, just alone with the traffic, traffic has gone through the roof, you know, for a

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little small area.

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Housing prices have gone up.

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We have a housing shortage here actually and not a lot of public land for these guys or

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land to buy up to build on.

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So they're impeding into a lot of the farmers communities that used to be around here and

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stuff.

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And then to be expected with growth the way it is, I would say we do have a lot of people

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from other states that are a little more oppressive than conservative politics are moving here

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and they slowly kind of change the atmosphere a little bit, you know.

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And so I mean, there's a give and take, there's pros and cons of it all.

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I'd say my biggest complaint is the damn traffic.

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It's funny as I sit here now, there's a truck across the street from my house where my neighbors

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has a sticker on the back that says, don't New York my Florida.

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So I think that's, I think they agree with you on that.

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Yeah.

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All right.

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Well, I would have to start at the very beginning of your timeline.

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So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what

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your parents did, how many siblings?

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Yeah.

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So grew up in Kansas city, Missouri.

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I lived there most of my childhood, throughout the eighties.

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I have two half brothers.

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I never met my real biological father.

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My stepdad had adopted me when I was real young.

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So I had his last name and then I, that's where real quick.

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I changed it later on to go back to my birth name, which is the current name I have.

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I sense a childhood trauma story coming.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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So that's a, that's a long, that's a whole podcast for like a psych podcast, but, but

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no group in Kansas city.

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And then we briefly moved to St. Louis for a bit.

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And then the bag got transferred down here to Arkansas.

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We've been here since I want to say roughly 1991.

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So I'm pretty much from Arkansas at this point.

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Grew up here, just playing sports.

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Soccer is my big sport, grown up.

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And then kind of what's weird is I got jumped in seventh grade.

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I got beat up real bad and then bullied all through junior high and most of high school.

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And my mom wanted me to basically learn how to defend myself.

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So the only thing we had around here was a Taekwondo.

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So she put me in Taekwondo and about three years of that, after, you know, getting to

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my black belt level, I was like, okay, yeah, man, I'm good.

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I can, I can fight back, you know?

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And so, but never actually had to use it, but that's a story for another time.

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But now I graduated high school and then just kind of work some odd jobs here and there.

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But right after high school, I decided to join the US Army.

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I had always had this idea of military in my life.

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I mean, I even have a picture of me when I was probably about seven years old, literally

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holding a toy AK-47.

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So it's kind of like ingrained in my mind for my whole life.

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Like everything I did as a child compared me for the military.

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So 18 comes around.

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The only thing I really knew about that time was Green Berets and Navy Seals.

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That's the only thing I really knew about.

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And I was like, man, I don't know if I want to go to the Navy, sound all that cool.

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I was like, oh, let's go to the Army.

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So I get to Fort Benning, Georgia, and I get stuck at their, what they call the reception

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station, which is called the 30th AG.

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They're like admin processing place.

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And I literally was stuck there for almost two months.

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I didn't get picked up by a training company.

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And I'm like, man, you know what?

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This is the military.

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I'm like, screw this.

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I'm out.

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I want to go home.

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Send me home.

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I quit basically.

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And so they sent me home with like an uncharacterized discharge.

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And then about two years after, it just kind of fell off my record.

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But that when I quit on the military, it just kind of ate at me and ate at me internally.

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What the hell?

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Like, why did I do that?

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You know, like that was like my shot.

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And I was like, man, I may never get another shot to go back and fix that, you know, or

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serve.

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And then 9-11 happened.

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And I watched the second plane hit the tower and I literally got in my car.

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I drive straight to the recruiting office and I had full plans on going back into the

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Army and fixing that issue of quitting on them.

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But the only office that was open happened to be the Marine Corps office.

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And so I walk in and I see a friend of mine from high school.

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He's a recruiter there.

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And I was like, hey, man, what's up?

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And he goes, oh, nothing.

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Can you believe all this stuff?

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I know it's crazy.

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He goes, what are you doing here?

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I said, man, I was going to go in the Army.

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And he goes, oh, hell no.

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Come over here and talk to us.

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He got me signed up.

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Literally I swore in later on that afternoon and then about two and a half, I want to say

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three weeks later, I was in boot camp in San Diego.

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So I want to go back firstly to the bullying.

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I mean, obviously we're going to talk a long time about your career, but pulling out some

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of these and we will kind of visit other areas too.

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What was it in seventh grade that you were being picked on about?

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It wasn't anything in particular.

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Honestly, how it all started was over a girl.

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The girl that I had a crush on or had been my brief girlfriend for a bit broke up with

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me to be with this guy.

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And this guy was kind of a high school failure.

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He got kicked back in the system constantly.

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He was a ninth grader, but was supposed to be a sophomore in high school.

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And so he just really roughed around the edges, kind of a product of society almost.

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Parents were kind of criminals, been in and out of jail with their wives.

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It was kind of a real sad story.

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But he decided, yeah, I don't want competition or anything.

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And so he got me after I was walking out of the geometry class and what's wild is that

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my teacher at the time, this is Murphy, she was a former Marine herself, ended up pushing

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me down and getting the guy away from me.

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But he beat me up pretty bad.

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And then the bullying and the tormenting kind of just came from him just messing with me

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mentally, saying dumb things like, oh, I'm going to, I hope you burn alive.

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You know, just weird shit.

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And it just kind of got into my skin and I just never wanted to go back to school.

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And my mom was like, now we got to do something.

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You know, we've got to give him confidence.

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I had no confidence at the time, you know, and size wise, I was always smaller than the

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rest of my classmates.

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I kind of hit my growth spurt a little bit later.

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But yeah, it was just more of a mental torture.

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The guy put on me and just kind of, it just messed with me kind of weird psychological

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warfare on the way, which technically helped me prepare for combat.

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So I was like, when I was in combat, I was like, oh, this is nothing.

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Essentially speaking, at least.

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But not kind of busted, busted my chops all the time, you know, and I was like, man, I

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can't, what am I, am I going to go to school and live in fear the rest of my life or what

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am I going to do?

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But well, the reason I asked that is I was very small.

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I had my growth spurt when I was 18 and my son now is 16 and he's almost the same height

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as me.

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And I've told him, you know, be prepared.

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And then he shot up and I'm like, okay, well, nevermind then.

237
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He's much taller than I was, but I never really got picked on.

238
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I was a bit of a smart ass, but when I got to God, it was probably 18 ish.

239
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I was dating a girl and she had this super jealous ex boyfriend.

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When I go clubbing, he would come on over and try and start a fight and he'd literally

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always have, you know, three or four blokes with him as well.

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And I'd always be like, oh my God, no, I don't want to fight you.

243
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You're so tough.

244
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I'm so weak.

245
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And then he just walk away.

246
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And I was like, wow, that was fucking easy.

247
00:16:35,240 --> 00:16:40,580
But I did martial arts, but it was Taekwondo as you and I both know, you know, it looks

248
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great on film.

249
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It's great to watch, but in the reality of life, tip tap kicks to the face that we're,

250
00:16:48,040 --> 00:16:49,760
we're taught because we're doing the sports Taekwondo.

251
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You're not even taught to hit hard really, you know, is not that effective on the street.

252
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But I won a tournament, a local tournament and it made the paper and I was in the paper

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and I swear overnight, these guys went from in my face to just leaving me alone, even

254
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being nice.

255
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So I'm like, how pathetic is that?

256
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I am no, I'm not that tough.

257
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And it's purely this facade of, you know, whether you are weak, therefore a coward,

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you know, a bully can pick on you because they think you're not going to be able to

259
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fight back.

260
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Now you add some perceived resistance and all of a sudden they don't want to know about

261
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him.

262
00:17:22,600 --> 00:17:25,600
Yeah, there's a, what's that movie?

263
00:17:25,600 --> 00:17:30,240
Remember the movie, the substitute of Paul Barrett, you ever saw that the one where he's

264
00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:32,320
got a baseball bat in his hand on the front cover?

265
00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:33,320
Yeah, yeah.

266
00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:36,520
And he's at the school.

267
00:17:36,520 --> 00:17:43,280
There's a quote in that movie from the principal that says, power perceived is power achieved.

268
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And I've always let that quote stuck in my head.

269
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And that's what Taekwondo always like.

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I felt like it was, you know, it's like it achieved this.

271
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It was perceived as this powerful thing, which I don't get me wrong.

272
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It's great discipline for kids.

273
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You know, I think, I think it's helped a lot of people, but definitely not a fighting art

274
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by any means.

275
00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:09,440
You know, so yeah, I literally won national titles in Taekwondo at my weight, at my belt,

276
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you know, not, you know, of the entire continent, you know, anything like that.

277
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But then I had this journey.

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I think I went to, was it boxing next and got murdered and then started learning boxing.

279
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Then went to Muay Thai with my picking my leg up and just got swept and kicked and leg

280
00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:29,880
kicked and, you know, and then it was again, then Jiu-Jitsu and it's, it's this constant

281
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journey of humility.

282
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But yeah, as you said, you know, it absolutely has its place.

283
00:18:34,520 --> 00:18:38,040
But I think with any martial arts is what Bruce Lee was so good at is you've got to

284
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understand the limitations as well.

285
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Like where does this work and where, you know, where is this not going to work?

286
00:18:44,120 --> 00:18:45,120
For sure.

287
00:18:45,120 --> 00:18:48,440
And you know, it's funny, like when I got out of the Marine Corps, I've been, I've done,

288
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you know, Marine Corps martial arts and stuff of that nature.

289
00:18:51,520 --> 00:18:57,040
And then I like, I had a friend of mine get me into MMA, which we'll go into the backstory

290
00:18:57,040 --> 00:18:59,080
on that here a little bit.

291
00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:02,160
But when I got there, I was like, oh man, this is, this is awesome.

292
00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:06,240
I could ball these guys up because you know, I've done taekwondo, I'm like a Marine Corps,

293
00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:07,760
you know, like I can do this.

294
00:19:07,760 --> 00:19:13,440
And then I had some little 125 pound Brazilian black belt just ball me up in a pretzel and

295
00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:14,760
completely humiliate me.

296
00:19:14,760 --> 00:19:17,560
And I'm just like, okay, this is different.

297
00:19:17,560 --> 00:19:23,480
You know, this is, this is a much different world than just trying to kick someone and

298
00:19:23,480 --> 00:19:25,360
jump back as fast as possible.

299
00:19:25,360 --> 00:19:30,360
So yeah, I definitely opened up my eyes and I was like, okay, this is something I got

300
00:19:30,360 --> 00:19:32,680
to, I got to explore this a lot more.

301
00:19:32,680 --> 00:19:34,960
So I think this is more street applicable.

302
00:19:34,960 --> 00:19:35,960
So.

303
00:19:35,960 --> 00:19:36,960
Absolutely.

304
00:19:36,960 --> 00:19:41,600
Well, we said that we were going to talk about, you know, your mental health story as we progress

305
00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:43,680
through the military.

306
00:19:43,680 --> 00:19:48,880
One really important part of anyone's mental health journey when they're talking about

307
00:19:48,880 --> 00:19:51,800
as an adult is what happened before we put the uniform on.

308
00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:55,840
I don't think it gets the, I think the sleep deprivation, the organizational stress or

309
00:19:55,840 --> 00:20:00,760
betrayal and childhood trauma, the three things that are kind of left out of the, you know,

310
00:20:00,760 --> 00:20:05,640
whether it's post-traumatic stress disorder, whatever it is in first responders, in veterans,

311
00:20:05,640 --> 00:20:09,560
you know, and we're like, oh, well, you were in Ramadi, for example, that must be why you're

312
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struggling.

313
00:20:10,560 --> 00:20:13,400
Well, you had 18 years before you ever put the uniform on.

314
00:20:13,400 --> 00:20:17,400
So you kind of said it was for another podcast, but if you want, let's, let's visit that as

315
00:20:17,400 --> 00:20:20,600
you are growing up, you know, you, you had a father, you didn't know.

316
00:20:20,600 --> 00:20:23,040
So there's obviously an element of abandonment there.

317
00:20:23,040 --> 00:20:28,480
This other person has put in your life with this mature lens that you have now looking

318
00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:33,400
back, what were the compounding elements to some of the mental health struggles you had

319
00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:34,400
later in life?

320
00:20:34,400 --> 00:20:41,640
I mean, it was the narcissism I had to deal with with from this individual.

321
00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:45,880
You know, like I will say, like, I mean, he, he put a roof over our heads.

322
00:20:45,880 --> 00:20:48,520
He put food on our table, clothes on our backs.

323
00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:53,600
You know, I do appreciate some of the things that the man did for my mom and I, and then

324
00:20:53,600 --> 00:21:02,080
my brothers later on, but it's, it was the constant gaslighting that I had to deal with

325
00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:04,120
growing up.

326
00:21:04,120 --> 00:21:09,840
One minute screaming at me or telling me I'm a bad person, you know, and then the next

327
00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:13,200
minute like, Oh, let's, Hey, let's love and hug.

328
00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:18,320
And you know, it's just this whiplash back and forth, you know, for like, let's say a

329
00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:22,120
good 19, 20 years of that.

330
00:21:22,120 --> 00:21:26,200
Just constantly never seeing eye to eye, never getting along.

331
00:21:26,200 --> 00:21:32,120
You know, and then it lasted all of, I mean, God, it lasted all of, it's about a year ago

332
00:21:32,120 --> 00:21:34,720
or almost a year ago when my mom passed.

333
00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:39,840
Just, just the constant every now and then it was a little dick here and there, you know,

334
00:21:39,840 --> 00:21:40,840
I had to deal with.

335
00:21:40,840 --> 00:21:44,680
And then, then I get in the military, you know, and then they just completely rewire

336
00:21:44,680 --> 00:21:51,440
the brain to fit their mold, you know, and then, you know, I see my, I do my combat tours

337
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:55,680
and come out and I think it's all about the war stress.

338
00:21:55,680 --> 00:21:59,920
You know, when then I completely didn't even think like, Oh, maybe it's some of the stuff

339
00:21:59,920 --> 00:22:03,960
that's from childhood, you know, and, you know, I'm going to my mom and, you know, my

340
00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:06,480
mom loved her to death, but she grew up poor.

341
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:10,880
They grew up, you know, not knowing when their next meal is going to be, when their next,

342
00:22:10,880 --> 00:22:12,920
where their next home is, et cetera.

343
00:22:12,920 --> 00:22:18,400
So there was a lot of depression, childhood depression from her that I think, you know,

344
00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:21,920
carried over to me, generationally speaking.

345
00:22:21,920 --> 00:22:24,720
And, you know, and that happens a lot.

346
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:29,880
And you know, it's funny, I find a good friend of mine the other day, he's, he'd be a good

347
00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:34,480
guest to have on here, the combat coach, my buddy Casey.

348
00:22:34,480 --> 00:22:41,800
And he does a lot of psychological or psychology and then coaching for vets.

349
00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:46,880
But him and I were talking one day and we're talking about the subject about how the majority

350
00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:51,160
of us that joined the military, if you look at them, a lot of them have had mommy and

351
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:58,320
daddy issues prior, some sort of broken childhood or they were in trouble with the law or something,

352
00:22:58,320 --> 00:23:02,720
you know, it's always, there's that common denominator of all of us.

353
00:23:02,720 --> 00:23:06,440
We're lost children looking for a father, looking for a mother, et cetera.

354
00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:13,400
So, you know, I think dealing with a lot of that actually helped me be more prepared for

355
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:18,120
the military because I was like, when I'm being gaslighted by a drill instructor, I'm

356
00:23:18,120 --> 00:23:20,640
just like, Oh, this is, this is easy.

357
00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:22,720
I've been down this road before.

358
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:23,720
I know this game.

359
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:24,720
Yeah.

360
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:27,720
I was like, okay, I'll play your game.

361
00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:33,880
But yeah, no, I think if I, I try to, now I try to look at it as like, it's a positive,

362
00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:39,720
it's shaped kind of like who I don't want to be and who I actually want to be as a person.

363
00:23:39,720 --> 00:23:40,720
So,

364
00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:43,960
Well, you hit on an interesting topic that a lot of people don't identify, which is that

365
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:45,160
multi-generational trauma.

366
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:49,120
I'd love to see what your stepdad's upbringing was like, because it sounds like there was

367
00:23:49,120 --> 00:23:52,520
an element of basically bipolar, you know, highs and lows, right?

368
00:23:52,520 --> 00:24:00,840
Yeah, very, very similar, they grew up fairly wealthy.

369
00:24:00,840 --> 00:24:08,080
My Nana was very strict, very stern, very, not very loving and caring, not very nurturing.

370
00:24:08,080 --> 00:24:13,560
So I think that's where a lot of that stems from with him.

371
00:24:13,560 --> 00:24:18,760
And you know, his dad got her at the store, my poppy was at war too, that he had his own

372
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:22,080
trauma that he had dealt with and stuff.

373
00:24:22,080 --> 00:24:27,880
I mean, he was deployed from a four year straight in Europe, never, you know, wrote home, but

374
00:24:27,880 --> 00:24:30,120
never really got to go home.

375
00:24:30,120 --> 00:24:35,800
And so, you know, dealing with that kind of trauma, I'm sure wasn't the greatest either.

376
00:24:35,800 --> 00:24:40,040
So, and then like my Nana grew up in during the Great Depression.

377
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:43,720
And so she had that trauma in her, and so, you know, that carries over and over and over

378
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:45,720
and over and so on and so on.

379
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:49,880
So I think that's where a lot of his stems from, maybe insecurities as well.

380
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:55,040
So I think a lot of people's anxiety stems from, well, let me take that back.

381
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:58,600
I think a lot of narcissism stems from insecurity.

382
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:00,120
Absolutely.

383
00:25:00,120 --> 00:25:04,480
I just interviewed two Iwo Jima vets in Dallas last week.

384
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:10,360
And I kind of presented, like I was talking to them before we actually went up there and

385
00:25:10,360 --> 00:25:12,160
started recording.

386
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:17,800
And I was saying, you know, that we call them the greatest generation because that's what

387
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:18,800
they were.

388
00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:24,080
However, we also tell this fairy tale that they just came back and they were all fine.

389
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:26,320
They rolled their sleeves up and off they went.

390
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:32,600
And yet so many people, when I talk to them that are our age, you know, roughly our age,

391
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:34,080
granddad was not all right.

392
00:25:34,080 --> 00:25:35,080
Granddad was a drunk.

393
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:36,080
Granddad was abusive.

394
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:38,720
Granddad, you know, and I was saying everyone's, but there were a lot of people that struggled

395
00:25:38,720 --> 00:25:40,860
and they didn't have that outlet.

396
00:25:40,860 --> 00:25:47,120
And even these two men, you know, the inability to really revisit for one of them and didn't

397
00:25:47,120 --> 00:25:48,280
just didn't want to talk about it.

398
00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:52,960
And by no means pressure on him, but it was just it was still fricking locked down tight.

399
00:25:52,960 --> 00:25:57,960
Another one, Don, who was on Sean Ryan show as well, was very open about alcoholism for

400
00:25:57,960 --> 00:25:59,840
the first 11, 12 years.

401
00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:02,840
So we know we almost do that.

402
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:06,040
Well, it's almost too late now because we've only got a few of them left.

403
00:26:06,040 --> 00:26:10,840
But we did a big disservice because we were like, well, we're all struggling, but you

404
00:26:10,840 --> 00:26:11,960
guys are okay.

405
00:26:11,960 --> 00:26:12,960
Why are you okay?

406
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:15,000
Rather than going, are you okay?

407
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:19,040
You know, and I've had another amazing guy, Frank Wright, who was also on Iwo Jima, he

408
00:26:19,040 --> 00:26:24,880
was wounded and he wrote a book on PTSD and he's 98 now, 99.

409
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:26,640
I mean, that's the voice that we need.

410
00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:30,480
The voice of the greatest generation saying, you're fucking right.

411
00:26:30,480 --> 00:26:31,480
It messed us up.

412
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:33,680
Did you see what we had to do?

413
00:26:33,680 --> 00:26:37,800
Those are the voices that we need to hear, I think, to reframe that fairy tale.

414
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:38,800
For sure.

415
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:42,920
And I think it was just so taboo of a subject to talk about back then, because I think it

416
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:48,800
was more along the lines of, hey, don't feel sorry for yourself, just get back to work.

417
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:51,600
You know, I think that's essentially where that came from.

418
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:55,800
And then everybody thought, oh, well, they made it through war, they're fine, you know,

419
00:26:55,800 --> 00:27:02,760
like, well, no, they just suppressed it because that was the way they were raised.

420
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:06,880
They were raised not to be, not to feel sorry for themselves.

421
00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:10,480
They were raised to just get back to work.

422
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:11,480
Nobody cares.

423
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:12,480
Work hard.

424
00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:13,480
Work hard.

425
00:27:13,480 --> 00:27:14,480
Yeah, exactly.

426
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:18,760
Now, the other thing that you hit on was about so many of us have issues.

427
00:27:18,760 --> 00:27:19,760
And it's true.

428
00:27:19,760 --> 00:27:25,760
I think the ACEs score, which is acute childhood experiences, I think it stands for, all of

429
00:27:25,760 --> 00:27:29,700
us in uniform are off the charts, most, you know, overall in general.

430
00:27:29,700 --> 00:27:34,040
And it makes perfect sense because if you've had that and hopefully you've even been able

431
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:37,640
to process it, because to me, that then becomes a strength that becomes resilience.

432
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:42,160
If you've been through suffering and trauma and you've navigated it, if we haven't, obviously

433
00:27:42,160 --> 00:27:43,360
it can cause problems later.

434
00:27:43,360 --> 00:27:45,560
And if you have, well, even better.

435
00:27:45,560 --> 00:27:49,800
But it's funny when you look at the hiring standards, especially in my profession, where

436
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:51,680
you've got to be a fucking altar boy on paper.

437
00:27:51,680 --> 00:27:55,320
And it's like, well, wait a second, you know, you, you, you want me to run into burning

438
00:27:55,320 --> 00:28:00,100
buildings and cut dead children out of cars, but never have a speeding ticket or tried

439
00:28:00,100 --> 00:28:01,480
any illicit drugs whatsoever.

440
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:03,520
There's a bit of a disconnect here.

441
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:04,520
Maybe we need to revisit.

442
00:28:04,520 --> 00:28:10,400
Oh, it's like everybody I ever worked with in the government as a contractor or worked

443
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:14,040
around that were staff officers and stuff or federal employees.

444
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:20,080
It's like they all have some sort of like hidden layer that never came out until later

445
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:21,080
on.

446
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:25,440
You know, it's like they had that perfect resume, that perfect fairytale position that

447
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:27,680
they were looking for.

448
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:29,120
And then later on the truth comes out.

449
00:28:29,120 --> 00:28:32,440
I mean, you wouldn't believe how many sociopaths I've ever been around.

450
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:36,520
You know, they were probably, probably never diagnosed, but they're there, you know, but

451
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:37,520
they're great people.

452
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:38,520
You know, they're great at their job.

453
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:39,520
They do what they do.

454
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:47,120
But yeah, we all have this underlying issue that nobody really cares to get down to the

455
00:28:47,120 --> 00:28:51,400
root problem, root cause of why we have trouble, why we have all this stuff.

456
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:53,880
You know, a lot of it stems from our childhood.

457
00:28:53,880 --> 00:28:54,880
Absolutely.

458
00:28:54,880 --> 00:29:00,120
Well, you talked about going into the army, you know, being stuck in limbo, coming out

459
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:01,760
and then 9-11 happens.

460
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:04,520
Talk to me about that day through your eyes as a young man.

461
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:13,200
Yeah, so I was at home asleep and a friend of mine from high school, he was a young lieutenant

462
00:29:13,200 --> 00:29:16,400
in the army, but he was stationed over in Europe.

463
00:29:16,400 --> 00:29:20,520
And I got a phone call from him and he said, hey man, turn on the TV.

464
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:22,840
He goes, I think America is under attack.

465
00:29:22,840 --> 00:29:23,840
And I said, what?

466
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:27,520
I turned it on and it's all over the news everywhere.

467
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:30,960
And all I see was possible bombing World Trade Center.

468
00:29:30,960 --> 00:29:36,160
I was just like, oh man, that's something about the anniversary from the previous one

469
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:38,320
when they tried to bomb the basement.

470
00:29:38,320 --> 00:29:43,960
And then that's when I saw the second plane hit and literally watched it live on TV.

471
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:47,640
And I was just like, oh shit, this is different.

472
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:51,800
And I'd already known about terrorism from reading books and stuff about Vietnam and

473
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:53,600
things of that nature.

474
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:55,360
And so I was like, okay, this is different.

475
00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:56,360
This ain't no accident.

476
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:57,360
This is no bombing.

477
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:02,320
This is no special on previous incidents that have happened there.

478
00:30:02,320 --> 00:30:05,200
I'm like, oh shit, this is real.

479
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:07,400
And it just became clear to me in my mind.

480
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:12,120
It was like spoke to me loud, like, go, you gotta go.

481
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:13,120
This is your fight.

482
00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:14,120
This is your time.

483
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:15,120
Go.

484
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:22,160
And so that's what I was like, I just delined it straight to the recruiting office and saw

485
00:30:22,160 --> 00:30:23,160
the Marine Corps.

486
00:30:23,160 --> 00:30:24,160
Like, okay, here we go.

487
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:25,160
Let's do this.

488
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:30,920
You know, I was like, what better way to fix my problem of waiting than to go try to be

489
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:35,600
the hardest at the time where I thought it was the hardest bootcamp known to man, you

490
00:30:35,600 --> 00:30:38,560
know, the hardest training I could get.

491
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:40,840
So I think it was fate more than anything.

492
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:46,840
And I funny, I don't really believe in fate, but at times I think the weird spiritual world

493
00:30:46,840 --> 00:30:48,960
speaks to us and says, Hey, wake up.

494
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:49,960
This is your chance.

495
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:51,320
Come, come look at this.

496
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:52,320
Come try this.

497
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:53,320
So.

498
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:54,320
Absolutely.

499
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:55,320
Yeah.

500
00:30:55,320 --> 00:31:00,520
Well, watching the top empty, I was like, man, this is how this is happening to this.

501
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:01,520
Why?

502
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:02,520
Why?

503
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:03,520
How is this not prevented?

504
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:04,520
You know?

505
00:31:04,520 --> 00:31:07,640
And then, um, like, man, I need to fully understand this.

506
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:09,240
Let's go, let's go do the military.

507
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:10,240
Let's get in fight.

508
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:14,320
Um, that was my goal was just fight, fight, fight, fight.

509
00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:16,480
I'd scored real high on the as bad.

510
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:18,920
And they're like, you sure you don't want to go do something else?

511
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:20,920
I was like, nah, put me in it.

512
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:21,920
Let's go.

513
00:31:21,920 --> 00:31:22,920
Um, I just.

514
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:31,320
I just had this like internal drive, just telling me like, if you don't do this, you're

515
00:31:31,320 --> 00:31:34,880
probably going to end up killing yourself later on because you regret.

516
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:38,200
Um, and so I'm just like, man, I gotta go do this.

517
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:39,200
And what's that?

518
00:31:39,200 --> 00:31:40,200
A lot of pride in the country.

519
00:31:40,200 --> 00:31:41,200
I love that.

520
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:48,320
I love the United States, you know, and greatest nation on earth, you know, and, um, still

521
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:50,320
kind of feel that way in a way.

522
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:52,040
Uh, but it's just.

523
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:53,040
I don't know, man.

524
00:31:53,040 --> 00:31:55,680
I just felt very patriotic that day.

525
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,520
They're very like, I needed to go do this.

526
00:31:58,520 --> 00:31:59,520
I needed to go fight.

527
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:01,480
I needed to put my part in.

528
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:05,520
So kind of like, I like our, you know, the greatest generation we're talking about, you

529
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,080
know, they, they stepped up and they did their part.

530
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:09,080
Absolutely.

531
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:10,080
It was interesting.

532
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:11,320
You just made the comment.

533
00:32:11,320 --> 00:32:12,840
I still feel that way today.

534
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:17,440
And I think this is, I don't know if I'm alone in this conversation with this kind of perspective,

535
00:32:17,440 --> 00:32:24,560
but I feel like at least the last eight years we've been just kind of cringing because we're

536
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:29,080
going to have to choose from the lesser of two evils again, every four years, knowing

537
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:33,600
the incredible leaders that, you know, we've all served alongside.

538
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:37,520
It's it breaks my heart because this is a beautiful, incredible country.

539
00:32:37,520 --> 00:32:42,080
But I feel like the way that we're presented, some of these people that are going to represent

540
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:46,680
the entire nation domestically and internationally, that's really what we struggle with.

541
00:32:46,680 --> 00:32:48,600
I think we're, we're an amazing country.

542
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:53,280
And I think that most people love each other, you know, all colors, creeds, religions, you

543
00:32:53,280 --> 00:32:55,640
know, genders, sexes, et cetera.

544
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,840
But yeah, this is why it's January.

545
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:01,280
We're one month away from the fucking circus again.

546
00:33:01,280 --> 00:33:04,480
And it's like, no, no one I'm excited about.

547
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:07,760
I mean, Robert Kennedy, I'm curious to see where that goes.

548
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:11,680
But I mean, aside from that, we got, we got people we've already had that were shit.

549
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:14,760
Like 330 million people for fuck's sake.

550
00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:16,400
Can we get some good people, please?

551
00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:17,400
Yeah.

552
00:33:17,400 --> 00:33:22,440
And what's sad is like when you look at it, I don't think America is alone in that struggle.

553
00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:24,880
I mean, look what's going on in Ireland.

554
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:29,000
Look what's going on in the UK, too, you know, in other countries and Europe and stuff.

555
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:34,920
You know, they're dealing with the same kind of issue with the political elite, just, you

556
00:33:34,920 --> 00:33:38,720
know, going along with their party and their party only.

557
00:33:38,720 --> 00:33:41,320
And it's usually a one or two party system.

558
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:47,040
And it's sad because we do have extremely great leaders in this world.

559
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:50,040
And yet they don't want to.

560
00:33:50,040 --> 00:33:53,440
They don't want to step up because they know what kind of shit show it is to deal with

561
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:54,440
it.

562
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:57,560
You know, I love or hate them.

563
00:33:57,560 --> 00:34:01,840
But you know, Trump actually kind of made this quote about the and I'm like screwing

564
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:02,840
it up.

565
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:08,360
But he's like, you know, I didn't need to do this because I had a happy life.

566
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:11,640
You know, he's like, but I wanted to do this to help fix things.

567
00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:13,240
You know, and I think he tried his best.

568
00:34:13,240 --> 00:34:18,360
I think his problem was he's like surrounded himself with idiots.

569
00:34:18,360 --> 00:34:23,520
You know, and he didn't realize how deep that really is.

570
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:24,520
They're in D.C.

571
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:26,560
So but yeah, I kind of agree.

572
00:34:26,560 --> 00:34:27,560
Same thing.

573
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:29,320
You know, we're a great country.

574
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:35,360
But yeah, we're kind of stuck in this weird limbo of like, oh, we either vote for this

575
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:40,000
person or that person is the same shit over.

576
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:42,040
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

577
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:43,040
Exactly.

578
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:44,040
Different color tie.

579
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:45,040
I say that all the time.

580
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:46,040
Yeah.

581
00:34:46,040 --> 00:34:47,040
Yeah.

582
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:48,040
All right.

583
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:49,040
Well, back to real leadership.

584
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:50,040
Yeah.

585
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:54,040
Am I right in understanding it was Iraq that you first found yourself deployed to?

586
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:55,040
Yeah.

587
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:58,840
For combat wise, I only did two tours in Iraq.

588
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:03,640
I never know nowhere else with the military, at least.

589
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:05,880
Yeah, 2003.

590
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:09,160
You know, we had thought we were going to go to Afghanistan.

591
00:35:09,160 --> 00:35:11,800
But then they're like, hey, we're switching gears.

592
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:14,000
They called us home early for Christmas.

593
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:18,760
Then that was 2002 Christmas.

594
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:23,880
And they called us home early or called us back early from home and said, hey, we're

595
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:24,880
preparing for this.

596
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:31,200
This is a war like, OK, we're going to Afghanistan, you know, like southern Afghanistan, kind

597
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:32,200
of a desert.

598
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:35,840
And we're like, no, no, no, no, we're going somewhere else.

599
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:39,320
Well, it's a tactic, you know, like, and so like, hey, we're going to Iraq.

600
00:35:39,320 --> 00:35:40,320
And I was like, oh, shit.

601
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:42,320
OK, we're going to Iraq.

602
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:43,320
All right.

603
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:44,800
So we did our work up for Iraq.

604
00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:51,640
And next thing I know, I'm sitting in a bivouac site in northern Kuwait for about a month

605
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:52,920
or two.

606
00:35:52,920 --> 00:35:56,640
And then I just preparing to go into Iraq.

607
00:35:56,640 --> 00:36:00,280
And then they gave us March 17, 2003.

608
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:02,600
They gave us the green light.

609
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:06,080
We're literally sitting there with an IR buzzsaw.

610
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:10,640
For your fans who don't know what an IR buzzsaw is, it's basically a piece of 550 cord with

611
00:36:10,640 --> 00:36:15,360
infrared chem light, like a chem stick on it.

612
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:19,600
And you just swing it to show them where the breach point is so they can enter the breach

613
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:20,600
point into Iraq.

614
00:36:20,600 --> 00:36:23,800
So I'm literally sitting there spinning this thing.

615
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:26,840
I'm in full chemical gear with a mask on and everything.

616
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:33,360
And I'm like, this is a weird Charlie Sheen wasn't doing this shit.

617
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:34,360
Exactly.

618
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:39,080
I'm like, you know, it's like in that movie, he's there with Navy Seals and they have a

619
00:36:39,080 --> 00:36:42,960
quote in that where he's like, oh, man, boys were on the dark side of the moon.

620
00:36:42,960 --> 00:36:47,400
I was like, no, shit, I was on the dark side.

621
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:52,120
But yeah, going to Iraq 2003 is my unit.

622
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:57,960
You know, our first objective, we took down the kind of the Ramallah oilfield area.

623
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:03,520
The Iraqi public garden set them on fire, just very similar to like they did in the

624
00:37:03,520 --> 00:37:04,520
early 90s.

625
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:08,960
And I can tell you that heat coming off the things, we're a couple miles away, but you

626
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,000
can still feel the heat like you were standing right next to the damn thing.

627
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:17,560
It's unreal, just a surreal feeling being there.

628
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:20,560
And we didn't really have a whole lot of contact up to that point.

629
00:37:20,560 --> 00:37:29,200
And then it wasn't so about, I want to say two weeks in, we moved into this area and

630
00:37:29,200 --> 00:37:31,520
we got hit with artillery.

631
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:33,640
We're getting hit with tank fire.

632
00:37:33,640 --> 00:37:35,720
I mean, it was like straight combat.

633
00:37:35,720 --> 00:37:39,560
It was the real real time where we faced the enemy.

634
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:41,040
And that was the first time I ever got shot at.

635
00:37:41,040 --> 00:37:42,640
I heard it with right past my head.

636
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:46,440
And I just like anybody, you don't know what you're going to do until it happens.

637
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:49,920
And I froze up and it felt like an eternity for me.

638
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:54,360
And then my sergeant like kicked me real hard in the legs and he's like, fucking shoot.

639
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:57,080
And I was like, okay, here, we're getting it on now.

640
00:37:57,080 --> 00:38:03,080
So from that point on, it was just kind of back to the training mode of my mind.

641
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:10,360
We did about six months, I'm going to say in Iraq, just we moved all the way up north

642
00:38:10,360 --> 00:38:13,640
to Chakrit, which is Saddam's birth home.

643
00:38:13,640 --> 00:38:18,160
We took out to Chakrit and then we moved back towards the south in Dillaniya and just ran

644
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:20,400
some operations out of there.

645
00:38:20,400 --> 00:38:27,080
Then we deployed back home, did a workup, another workup, more training, more, more

646
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:31,520
schools and courses, and then got ready to deploy again.

647
00:38:31,520 --> 00:38:41,040
I want to say it was May 2004 when we got back over there for our second deployment.

648
00:38:41,040 --> 00:38:46,560
And we were out in the western area of Iraq out in the city triangle.

649
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:51,840
And we were actually running, they called it what we called at the time the rat lines.

650
00:38:51,840 --> 00:38:55,960
We were keeping insurgents trying to come over from the border in Syria and Jordan in

651
00:38:55,960 --> 00:38:57,560
that area.

652
00:38:57,560 --> 00:39:01,680
And so we would just go out and pick fights with them and get them to come out, come out

653
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:02,680
of hiding.

654
00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:03,680
They would eventually.

655
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:10,200
And then our gear was like, hey, guys are getting spun up to go to Fallujah.

656
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:13,200
Okay, what the hell Fallujah?

657
00:39:13,200 --> 00:39:14,800
You know, whatever, let's go.

658
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:16,800
Let's go get some more.

659
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:19,080
And so my unit goes to Fallujah.

660
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:25,360
I think we were there, I'll say four months in Fallujah in the area.

661
00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:31,800
And then we pushed into Ramadi and a couple other little shitholes and then deployed home.

662
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:39,480
And then by that time I left my unit, went out to become a mountain instructor, like

663
00:39:39,480 --> 00:39:45,280
a CQB instructor at the base, and then just did training after that.

664
00:39:45,280 --> 00:39:51,480
So that time for the time last six, seven months I was there and I think, and then deployed

665
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:54,240
home, came home, got out.

666
00:39:54,240 --> 00:39:57,440
I was actually going to reenlist and I wanted out of the infantry.

667
00:39:57,440 --> 00:40:02,440
I was going to go like the intel side because I had ran into these intel dudes in Fallujah.

668
00:40:02,440 --> 00:40:04,440
Oh shit, they're interrogating you.

669
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:05,440
This is cool.

670
00:40:05,440 --> 00:40:06,440
Let's go do that.

671
00:40:06,440 --> 00:40:13,520
Didn't get the chance to, so got out, came home and kind of just went back to working

672
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:17,400
odd jobs here and there.

673
00:40:17,400 --> 00:40:22,080
When you say Ramadi, it sounds like it was end of 04 or 05.

674
00:40:22,080 --> 00:40:23,480
It immediately makes me think of Joko.

675
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:28,680
I've had him, Leif, all the Echelon people on the show.

676
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:32,680
And they always give a huge amount of credit to, I think it was the Army and the Marines

677
00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:34,760
that they worked alongside during that time.

678
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:37,480
But it sounds like that was an extremely high up tempo.

679
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:39,480
Oh, extremely.

680
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:44,920
So were you interacting with possibly his groups when you were out there?

681
00:40:44,920 --> 00:40:48,160
I think we ran into a few of them.

682
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:50,040
I know we did some operations.

683
00:40:50,040 --> 00:40:54,240
I know we had a ranger element that was near us and they were doing some operations.

684
00:40:54,240 --> 00:40:58,240
We were doing a lot of stuff with force recon guys.

685
00:40:58,240 --> 00:40:59,240
They were coming out with us.

686
00:40:59,240 --> 00:41:04,680
We would infiltrate with them and then we set them in place and let them do their thing.

687
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:06,840
Then we'd pull out.

688
00:41:06,840 --> 00:41:11,080
But we saw a few of the seals, but we never really had a whole lot of interaction with

689
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:12,080
Joko's guys.

690
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:15,560
But we were in the same area at the same time.

691
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:16,560
So I want to put a question.

692
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:19,560
We'll talk about Iraq now because I know we're going to get into Afghanistan a little bit

693
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:20,560
later.

694
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:29,960
But the way that we, the citizens, are presented war through our media stations is very polarizing.

695
00:41:29,960 --> 00:41:34,600
Either kill them all, let God sort them out, stack bodies, or they're all baby killers.

696
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:38,600
And in the middle are the men and women that we send over, arguably almost children, that

697
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:41,360
we send over to fight for our country.

698
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:45,480
So firstly, regardless of the politics, and as you just made a little comment on, we're

699
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:49,520
attacked by someone who's hiding in Afghanistan and you're sent to Iraq, a completely different

700
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:51,280
country.

701
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:56,000
Regardless of the politics, was there a moment where you got to Iraq and you witnessed some

702
00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:00,120
of the atrocities and you realized there were some bad people that need to be taken care

703
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:01,680
of in that country?

704
00:42:01,680 --> 00:42:03,720
Oh, a thousand percent.

705
00:42:03,720 --> 00:42:05,720
I mean, that's all I looked at it as.

706
00:42:05,720 --> 00:42:11,000
I didn't really, I didn't give too shifts about the political side of it at the time.

707
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:12,000
I was there to do a job.

708
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:17,200
I was there to rid bad people and take them off this world.

709
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:20,480
And so, yeah, I mean, that was, there was a lot of things.

710
00:42:20,480 --> 00:42:26,360
What really changed my mind was in Fallujah, we had this guy, this villager brought his

711
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:33,560
little five-year-old girl up to us and basically like dumped her into my hands and she was

712
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:39,520
lifeless, dead from, she had picked up, she was playing with some toys of dirt on the

713
00:42:39,520 --> 00:42:45,400
ground, whatever, and the IED went off prematurely, killed her, just mangled her up.

714
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:52,080
And that really, to this day, I still see that little girl's face in my mind.

715
00:42:52,080 --> 00:42:57,120
But it motivates me to be a better human than the people who killed her.

716
00:42:57,120 --> 00:42:59,760
And so I just had this change.

717
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:03,360
I was like, okay, we're here for something good.

718
00:43:03,360 --> 00:43:06,960
We're here to take these people out.

719
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:08,760
I don't care what it's going to take.

720
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:14,120
I'm going to fight until I die, essentially, to find these people that killed this little

721
00:43:14,120 --> 00:43:15,120
girl.

722
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:20,200
And we actually eventually ended up finding that bomb maker that was in that little region

723
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:22,440
that we were working on.

724
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:28,600
And so it just, that's, I think that's when that gear shift in my head, like, oh shit,

725
00:43:28,600 --> 00:43:34,320
there's actually bad people over here doing some bad stuff to others, regardless of who

726
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,960
attacked us on 9-11.

727
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,320
We're doing the right thing, essentially.

728
00:43:41,320 --> 00:43:46,560
I think a lot of the truth to the wrong ground, they didn't look at it as a political issue

729
00:43:46,560 --> 00:43:48,240
or is it about oil?

730
00:43:48,240 --> 00:43:49,240
Is it about this?

731
00:43:49,240 --> 00:43:52,680
Or is it about Bush hating on Saddam or anything like that?

732
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:57,480
I don't think any of us thought that, I think we thought as this is our duty, we've got

733
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:00,880
to come out here and kill these bad guys and then hopefully go home.

734
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:01,880
Yeah.

735
00:44:01,880 --> 00:44:08,960
And this is why it's so important because when, for example, we talk about the withdrawal,

736
00:44:08,960 --> 00:44:09,960
there's that feeling of shame.

737
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:12,960
And I'm sure it's the same in Iraq.

738
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:17,040
When I say there's that feeling, there's one voice in a veteran's head that was like, what

739
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:18,080
was it all for?

740
00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:23,160
But then when you hear stories that you just told, these men and women have made a huge

741
00:44:23,160 --> 00:44:26,440
difference, whether it's, and I talk about this, the veterinary surgeons, the military

742
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:30,160
veterinary surgeons that help local animals or whether it was the physicians or building

743
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:32,260
schools or wells.

744
00:44:32,260 --> 00:44:36,240
So it's important that we hear the good and the bad, I think.

745
00:44:36,240 --> 00:44:37,320
Oh, for sure.

746
00:44:37,320 --> 00:44:41,920
And I don't think, I think all we hear about is the bad because that's what the media stems

747
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:47,040
in because they love bad news because it gives them ratings.

748
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:48,920
So all we hear is the political divide.

749
00:44:48,920 --> 00:44:49,920
All we hear is that stuff.

750
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:56,200
When they say in 2003, when they're like, oh, there was no weapons of mass destruction,

751
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:57,400
I'm like, that's bullshit.

752
00:44:57,400 --> 00:45:00,240
We found rockets with mustard gas.

753
00:45:00,240 --> 00:45:04,320
We found rockets with nerve gas in them at times.

754
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:10,680
Yeah, it wasn't to the effect of nuclear weapons or the way the media portrayed it as, but

755
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:17,160
yeah, we found stuff that was there, but it wasn't maybe in the quantity.

756
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:18,960
Did it warrant invading a country?

757
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,560
Maybe not, but there was other reasons why we went there.

758
00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:27,080
The people don't understand why we went there.

759
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:28,080
I see it now.

760
00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:33,440
I see it on both sides, but I try to look at it as like, I wasn't there to fulfill some

761
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:35,920
asshole political agenda.

762
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:42,400
I was there to rid this world of very evil human beings that I don't even consider human

763
00:45:42,400 --> 00:45:43,400
beings.

764
00:45:43,400 --> 00:45:49,080
I just consider them just evil spirits, evil demons, whatever you want to call them.

765
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:50,080
That was my job to do.

766
00:45:50,080 --> 00:45:52,840
I proudly did it and I'd do it again.

767
00:45:52,840 --> 00:45:58,120
When you're talking about there still being mustard gas and some of these other weapons,

768
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:04,640
it reminds me, I just interviewed a photographer from New York and she's an artist, but she's

769
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:13,960
done an amazing job of chronicling the homelessness and addiction in, I think it's Philly as well,

770
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:15,880
but in New York and LA.

771
00:46:15,880 --> 00:46:20,160
One of the things that she's been finding so often is tranc and you've got these poor

772
00:46:20,160 --> 00:46:24,480
addicts that are just literally rotting from the outside in.

773
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:29,120
Her point was when she's trying to get some of these pictures out there, the media are

774
00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:34,040
like, well, we can't show this, but they'll show graphic scenes from Gaza.

775
00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:36,960
It's funny because if you think about it, the message is, well, that's happening to

776
00:46:36,960 --> 00:46:37,960
other people.

777
00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,240
We don't want to see what's happening to our own people.

778
00:46:40,240 --> 00:46:42,920
It's the same with the mustard gas.

779
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:46,640
Nuclear bombs can't be brought to America, so all they found was mustard gas.

780
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:51,040
They were poisoning Chemical Elite and all these other shit bags, poisoning thousands

781
00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:52,040
of their own people.

782
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:56,200
I think that disconnect is probably the same thing.

783
00:46:56,200 --> 00:46:59,040
Just don't make it scary to our own people.

784
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:02,520
You can talk about human trafficking in Colombia, but don't talk about human trafficking in

785
00:47:02,520 --> 00:47:06,120
America and how it can actually be done through a cell phone to your own child.

786
00:47:06,120 --> 00:47:07,120
Oh yeah.

787
00:47:07,120 --> 00:47:08,120
Oh yeah.

788
00:47:08,120 --> 00:47:09,680
I work on some of those issues.

789
00:47:09,680 --> 00:47:15,840
We're the number one supplier and buyer of that crap when it comes to the human trafficking

790
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:16,840
side.

791
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:17,840
But yeah, the people don't want to see that.

792
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:18,840
They don't want to understand.

793
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:19,840
They don't want to, oh my gosh.

794
00:47:19,840 --> 00:47:24,040
We don't mind if it's happening to other people, but as long as it's not, we don't want to

795
00:47:24,040 --> 00:47:25,040
see it here at home.

796
00:47:25,040 --> 00:47:27,920
We want to have our little utopian bubble that we live in.

797
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:29,920
And we're already like that.

798
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:35,520
It can be a very beautiful place, but it's also a very dark, scary place at the same

799
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:36,520
time.

800
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:41,480
Well, I think that complacency allows that to fester, to grow.

801
00:47:41,480 --> 00:47:46,160
If we're aware of it and it's prominent, we're not doom and gloom like you said, but we're

802
00:47:46,160 --> 00:47:50,240
thinking about the safety of our kids in schools and if someone's preying upon them through

803
00:47:50,240 --> 00:47:52,760
social media and all these other things.

804
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:56,640
If we're acknowledging that and vigilant about it, I think it would be a lot less likely

805
00:47:56,640 --> 00:47:57,640
to happen.

806
00:47:57,640 --> 00:48:01,680
But if we shove it under the carpet and ignore it, we're creating a more and more dangerous

807
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:02,680
place for our children.

808
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:03,680
Oh, for sure.

809
00:48:03,680 --> 00:48:09,640
And it goes back to that same mentality of like that it's too taboo to talk about, just

810
00:48:09,640 --> 00:48:14,720
like with our grandfathers and grandmothers where they didn't talk about their problems,

811
00:48:14,720 --> 00:48:18,560
they just kind of swept it under the rug and moved on.

812
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:21,880
We live in that same mentality.

813
00:48:21,880 --> 00:48:22,880
Absolutely.

814
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:27,200
Well, on the positive side, like you said, we don't get a lot of good news stories either.

815
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:32,360
And I've heard so many beautiful stories either from what our own military have done or also

816
00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:36,360
all the indigenous people, because again, we taught everyone with the same brush.

817
00:48:36,360 --> 00:48:38,960
We're at war with Iraq, with Afghanistan, and we're not.

818
00:48:38,960 --> 00:48:42,640
There's shitbags in those countries that are terrorizing their own people and we're there

819
00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:44,800
trying to help.

820
00:48:44,800 --> 00:48:50,880
So through the time in Iraq, what about kindness and compassion moments that you remember?

821
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:52,320
Oh, man.

822
00:48:52,320 --> 00:48:55,240
I mean, we had, you know, it's crazy.

823
00:48:55,240 --> 00:48:57,480
So we were right outside of Fallujah.

824
00:48:57,480 --> 00:49:00,920
One of our supply trucks got hit with a border one day.

825
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:04,200
I think it was a rocket actually that hit it, but it blew up.

826
00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:08,440
So we had no food, no ammo for like almost a week.

827
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:11,960
We had enough to survive for the week, but we just didn't have a whole lot.

828
00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:16,080
Well, we were posted right next to this guy, cattle farm.

829
00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:22,160
And I think that the farmer saw what happened to us from his house.

830
00:49:22,160 --> 00:49:26,440
He literally brought over sheep to us to just give to us.

831
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:31,520
And he's like, here's here here and he tells our interpreter, this is for you guys getting

832
00:49:31,520 --> 00:49:34,800
rid of the terrorists in my city.

833
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:38,080
And I was just like, hey, these people, they're they're so inviting.

834
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:39,080
They're loving, caring.

835
00:49:39,080 --> 00:49:42,080
The guy would bring us tea every day.

836
00:49:42,080 --> 00:49:45,120
And then eventually we had to get him to stop because he was giving away our positions a

837
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:46,120
whole lot.

838
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:48,120
So where all the sheep are?

839
00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:52,840
Yeah, basically, you know, then we started realizing, oh, man, he keeps they keep hitting

840
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:55,760
that area, you know, so maybe we should move.

841
00:49:55,760 --> 00:50:00,560
But no, I just saw a lot of kindness, a lot of compassion from people in that area.

842
00:50:00,560 --> 00:50:07,840
You know, you know, one of my doc that was served with me, I mean, people don't realize

843
00:50:07,840 --> 00:50:11,520
how kind and compassionate medics are.

844
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:15,280
That dude saved my life multiple times in Iraq.

845
00:50:15,280 --> 00:50:19,800
Wouldn't be here today if it weren't for him pushing me down into ditches and whatnot

846
00:50:19,800 --> 00:50:22,560
when we're getting hit.

847
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:28,520
You know, but I see him once one second try to, you know, defend our position, kill him

848
00:50:28,520 --> 00:50:30,280
some more or trying to shoot somebody.

849
00:50:30,280 --> 00:50:31,640
And, you know, he just wanted the guy.

850
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:37,040
But then we get close enough to the guy and he slaps advantage on that dude.

851
00:50:37,040 --> 00:50:39,160
You know, and just like, where does that come from?

852
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:45,760
You know, you know, amongst all this chaos, there's still some good, good out there.

853
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:46,760
Absolutely.

854
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:49,960
One of the two Iwo Jima vets was that was a Navy corpsman.

855
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:54,040
Yeah, I saw that all over the world.

856
00:50:54,040 --> 00:50:57,320
You know, people think Afghanistan is such a war torn country.

857
00:50:57,320 --> 00:51:00,520
I mean, those are some of the greatest people I've ever met in my entire life.

858
00:51:00,520 --> 00:51:04,080
So, you know, a lot of them I call friends, some of them I call family, you know, so that

859
00:51:04,080 --> 00:51:05,560
close to me.

860
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:11,760
But yeah, I think we don't we don't see enough of that kindness and compassion in our media,

861
00:51:11,760 --> 00:51:16,040
in our world, you know, that's not displayed enough because it doesn't get doesn't get

862
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:23,240
ratings, it doesn't get the wow factor that, you know, chaos and trauma do.

863
00:51:23,240 --> 00:51:24,880
I think there's a paradigm shift.

864
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:25,880
I really hope so.

865
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:28,920
I'm a kind of incurable optimist, an angry optimist.

866
00:51:28,920 --> 00:51:32,120
Like if when people are unkind, I want to choke them to death.

867
00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:35,560
But you know, overall, I'm a kind of person.

868
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:40,560
But I just shared a beautiful video of a police officer.

869
00:51:40,560 --> 00:51:42,680
I don't know exactly where it was actually from.

870
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:46,640
But there was an army vet, young army vet, and he was sitting on a bridge.

871
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:48,440
The deputy pulled him up.

872
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:49,440
Yeah, I saw that.

873
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:50,440
Yeah.

874
00:51:50,440 --> 00:51:51,920
And it was, you know, it was humanity.

875
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:52,920
That was it.

876
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:54,240
And I saw that get shared a lot.

877
00:51:54,240 --> 00:51:56,960
So I think there is a yearning to see that.

878
00:51:56,960 --> 00:52:02,260
But it's that nastiness divisive thing that is the low hanging fruit, as they say.

879
00:52:02,260 --> 00:52:03,960
But it comes at a cost.

880
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:10,240
The more you pump out that horrible, you know, just just toxic content that you're literally

881
00:52:10,240 --> 00:52:16,000
tearing down the fabric of society, but you could literally post, you know, matter of

882
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:20,860
fact when things are bad and post that because that's the news, but then post these beautiful

883
00:52:20,860 --> 00:52:22,840
stories of humanity that I see everywhere.

884
00:52:22,840 --> 00:52:26,560
Because if you follow them, then that's what your feed starts to become.

885
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:30,120
And I think that these news agencies will probably have a lot of success because I know

886
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:31,720
they got to sell advertising space.

887
00:52:31,720 --> 00:52:35,800
But if you're going to do that, draw people in with something positive, not negative.

888
00:52:35,800 --> 00:52:36,800
Exactly.

889
00:52:36,800 --> 00:52:40,360
And you know, there's another prime example that I saw the other day on Instagram where

890
00:52:40,360 --> 00:52:47,520
a guy with cops were in a shootout with a criminal suspect on the highway.

891
00:52:47,520 --> 00:52:49,480
And one of them got hit.

892
00:52:49,480 --> 00:52:53,520
And this bystander ran over there, grabbed the police officer and dragged him behind

893
00:52:53,520 --> 00:52:55,120
a car.

894
00:52:55,120 --> 00:53:01,560
And lo and behold, that guy was a multiple time felon, you know, and on paper, he's supposed

895
00:53:01,560 --> 00:53:02,560
to hate the police.

896
00:53:02,560 --> 00:53:05,520
But yeah, he's like, wait a minute, this guy's dying.

897
00:53:05,520 --> 00:53:07,400
I got to get him back to cover.

898
00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:09,680
You know, and so he had no training, nothing like that.

899
00:53:09,680 --> 00:53:13,040
He just knew like, OK, I got to get this guy to safety.

900
00:53:13,040 --> 00:53:15,000
And he dragged the guy out of kind of his heart.

901
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:17,120
You know, I was like, we need to see more of that.

902
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:18,800
Yeah, I know exactly what you're meaning.

903
00:53:18,800 --> 00:53:22,320
And it was a super effective drag, too.

904
00:53:22,320 --> 00:53:23,680
I mean, he had to buy his best.

905
00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:28,120
And it's as good a drag that I've seen of any any evacuation, military or first responder.

906
00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:32,240
Yeah, I seriously I'm like, OK, this dude got some sort of training.

907
00:53:32,240 --> 00:53:35,080
I'm like, there's no way but then come to find out he had nothing.

908
00:53:35,080 --> 00:53:37,920
You know, he was he had been a clear criminal for a while.

909
00:53:37,920 --> 00:53:39,880
So absolutely.

910
00:53:39,880 --> 00:53:42,640
But that's the perfect example, though.

911
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:49,320
So you talked about transitioning out this first transition that you had when people

912
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:53,360
go into the military, especially I think I think it's more powerful if you've had a kind

913
00:53:53,360 --> 00:53:58,200
of disruptive early life and then you go into a place where you're challenged, the share

914
00:53:58,200 --> 00:54:01,840
suffering, you become part of a tribe, you've got purpose.

915
00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:07,040
It's so healing, but then, you know, for eight years, maybe even longer, you come out the

916
00:54:07,040 --> 00:54:12,920
other end and it can be really, really jarring for first responder or military.

917
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:16,240
What was that first time you said you went to a quote unquote normal job?

918
00:54:16,240 --> 00:54:17,880
What was your first transition like?

919
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:18,880
Yeah.

920
00:54:18,880 --> 00:54:21,880
So when I got out, I didn't really have a plan.

921
00:54:21,880 --> 00:54:27,360
You know, 26 at the time, I didn't really know what I was going to do.

922
00:54:27,360 --> 00:54:28,360
I got out.

923
00:54:28,360 --> 00:54:33,440
I started doing some balancing at night clubs on the weekends and nights.

924
00:54:33,440 --> 00:54:35,600
And then I need more than that.

925
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:39,440
So I started working at the mall, local mall that we had here.

926
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:46,000
And I was actually a soccer and boy and Abercrombie clean shave, you know, a lot different than

927
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:47,000
now.

928
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:48,840
But you have to start the shelves with the shirt off.

929
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:50,800
Are they allowed to leave the shirt on back there?

930
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:51,800
Yeah.

931
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:55,600
You know, it's funny because they made the guy in the store at the floor associate.

932
00:54:55,600 --> 00:55:00,200
If they were guys, if they were fit, they had no shirts on sometimes.

933
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:02,120
And I thought, I was like, this is the dumbest thing ever.

934
00:55:02,120 --> 00:55:05,680
I was like, just put a shirt on.

935
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:11,360
But now you've worked in a stock room and then maybe I need a real job.

936
00:55:11,360 --> 00:55:19,840
And so I applied at a trucking company here, JB Hunt, and you know, they're big, big multinational

937
00:55:19,840 --> 00:55:20,840
company transportation.

938
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:25,200
And so I was like, yeah, let's see what they have.

939
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:30,320
So I got a corporate security job with them working night doing theft investigation of

940
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:33,840
like my value truck.

941
00:55:33,840 --> 00:55:36,560
And I was like, man, this is boring as shit.

942
00:55:36,560 --> 00:55:41,960
Like, man, you know, I went from running a gun at gun lines, you know, and mortar teams

943
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:47,640
and all this stuff and doing offer fire missions and shooting and whatnot.

944
00:55:47,640 --> 00:55:49,960
And I was just like, I'm just typing on the computer.

945
00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:50,960
I'm like, this is boring.

946
00:55:50,960 --> 00:55:51,960
You know, I'm like, I can't do it.

947
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:54,960
So it's been about 10 months in that.

948
00:55:54,960 --> 00:55:57,800
Nine, 10 months and just set up.

949
00:55:57,800 --> 00:56:05,960
And I essentially got myself fired in a way, kind of before I was fired, I quit, you know,

950
00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:07,320
that kind of thing.

951
00:56:07,320 --> 00:56:11,080
And I was like, man, I want to go back into the military.

952
00:56:11,080 --> 00:56:16,040
And so at that point, I had wanted to fulfill a dream that wasn't really my dream.

953
00:56:16,040 --> 00:56:21,680
It was a dream for my native foreman buddy that passed away in a training exercise.

954
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:27,360
You know, he was two weeks from going to bed before he got killed in a vehicle accident

955
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:32,600
when they were doing one last training off with our unit in the Marine.

956
00:56:32,600 --> 00:56:38,240
And so maybe I'll go fulfill this dream that he always had, you know, will be a field and

957
00:56:38,240 --> 00:56:42,840
literally on my way to the recruiting office that day.

958
00:56:42,840 --> 00:56:48,840
And I forgot that I'd put an application in with Blackwater right after I got out January

959
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:59,000
26th, and this is roughly like mid late 07, 2007.

960
00:56:59,000 --> 00:57:03,640
And so she calls me and says, hey, recruiter called me from Blackwater.

961
00:57:03,640 --> 00:57:06,040
Hey, we got a spot open for you.

962
00:57:06,040 --> 00:57:08,880
You know, George, if you want to come to training.

963
00:57:08,880 --> 00:57:11,600
I was like, yes, let me go take care of some.

964
00:57:11,600 --> 00:57:14,960
I got to go finish that tie up some loose ends.

965
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:23,480
I went into the third told them, hey, I go and got a chance to go overseas as contractor.

966
00:57:23,480 --> 00:57:24,760
And they're like, OK, don't have fun.

967
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:29,320
You know, so two weeks later, I was out and training and on the East Coast.

968
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:32,080
But with that, let me backtrack just slightly.

969
00:57:32,080 --> 00:57:39,640
So right after I got out, just like all that, you know, struggling to find my tribe, find

970
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:45,600
my sense of purpose, didn't really have one, essentially kind of lost it getting out.

971
00:57:45,600 --> 00:57:50,960
A lot of built up anger, a lot of tension, a lot of that stem from my childhood.

972
00:57:50,960 --> 00:57:53,200
Didn't realize it at the time.

973
00:57:53,200 --> 00:57:58,760
But late March of 2006, I was like, yeah, fuck it, man, I'm out.

974
00:57:58,760 --> 00:58:03,880
I'm done with this life, you know, for all this shitload of pills that I had from VA

975
00:58:03,880 --> 00:58:09,760
and just kind of laid there in my bathroom waiting on it to take its effect.

976
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:15,360
And a good friend of mine that I bounced with, I guess I wasn't answering my phone and he

977
00:58:15,360 --> 00:58:21,400
came and busted down my door, got inside the house and shoved the stator down my throat,

978
00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:25,840
made me start throwing up, kept flooding me with water and whatnot.

979
00:58:25,840 --> 00:58:33,680
Basically got me to throw all this crap up and, you know, kind of saved me from my suicide

980
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:40,440
attempt, you know, and it's, yeah, I'm a little more open about it now than I have been.

981
00:58:40,440 --> 00:58:45,600
Really kept that quiet for a long time, but didn't really want it to come up on psyche

982
00:58:45,600 --> 00:58:47,920
voucher, you know, work and whatnot.

983
00:58:47,920 --> 00:58:50,920
But like at this point, I'm like, I don't give a fuck anymore.

984
00:58:50,920 --> 00:58:55,800
You know, I can't feel like I'm stronger talking about it than I am fighting it.

985
00:58:55,800 --> 00:58:56,800
100%.

986
00:58:56,800 --> 00:59:04,920
So yeah, so he was in the MMA and some no-gi jujitsu and about two months later, you know,

987
00:59:04,920 --> 00:59:08,440
two months over, he's like, hey man, why don't you come join me at my garage gym that we

988
00:59:08,440 --> 00:59:09,440
go to?

989
00:59:09,440 --> 00:59:11,760
I was like, okay, so we'll go see what this is about.

990
00:59:11,760 --> 00:59:14,000
And that's where I got balled up by that Brazilian dude.

991
00:59:14,000 --> 00:59:17,760
And I was like, oh man, I gotta look into this.

992
00:59:17,760 --> 00:59:19,160
Let's do this, you know?

993
00:59:19,160 --> 00:59:26,960
And so I basically replaced a bad habit with a very healthy habit.

994
00:59:26,960 --> 00:59:33,120
And I found that sort of tribe almost that drive like, oh, I can let this anger out

995
00:59:33,120 --> 00:59:34,120
on the mat.

996
00:59:34,120 --> 00:59:38,120
So I can let this anger out in the cage when I'm biting somebody.

997
00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:41,960
And so it kind of turned my life around.

998
00:59:41,960 --> 00:59:46,200
When I tell people jujitsu and like combat sports saved my life, I literally mean it.

999
00:59:46,200 --> 00:59:48,960
It saved my life.

1000
00:59:48,960 --> 00:59:50,720
And my story is not unique.

1001
00:59:50,720 --> 00:59:56,240
I mean, there's thousands of guys that have done that same thing with combat sports.

1002
00:59:56,240 --> 01:00:04,640
And so I kind of owe that point in my life to what I'm doing now and like how I can survive

1003
01:00:04,640 --> 01:00:05,640
now.

1004
01:00:05,640 --> 01:00:06,640
Like I owe it to that moment.

1005
01:00:06,640 --> 01:00:11,440
When I think back, I'm like, okay, I wasn't very strong during that moment.

1006
01:00:11,440 --> 01:00:13,880
I'm kind of weak, but I had a friend of mine who was strong.

1007
01:00:13,880 --> 01:00:19,600
Now I need to pay that forward and start helping other people get out of that situation.

1008
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:20,600
Absolutely.

1009
01:00:20,600 --> 01:00:23,080
Well, I want to jump in for a second.

1010
01:00:23,080 --> 01:00:24,080
Two things.

1011
01:00:24,080 --> 01:00:28,640
Firstly, I mean, underlining what you just said there.

1012
01:00:28,640 --> 01:00:33,680
If you think about the body system, I think the Israeli military, the way they operate

1013
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:39,280
is they literally partner you up with someone and your mission isn't so much to survive

1014
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:41,960
or it's just literally to protect your partner and vice versa.

1015
01:00:41,960 --> 01:00:44,000
And I love that philosophy.

1016
01:00:44,000 --> 01:00:46,360
And this is the thing with the mental health conversation.

1017
01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:50,160
It's not about having a nonprofit or a phone number.

1018
01:00:50,160 --> 01:00:54,560
To me, it's ultimately having that group, that little tribe that you've got with two,

1019
01:00:54,560 --> 01:00:58,040
three, four, five people and making sure that you're just checking on those.

1020
01:00:58,040 --> 01:01:03,920
So the fact that your friend recognized that and acted is phenomenal.

1021
01:01:03,920 --> 01:01:07,480
The other thing I want to ask you though, because again, talking about elements that

1022
01:01:07,480 --> 01:01:15,120
are not in front and center of this conversation, a lot of the old school discussions on mental

1023
01:01:15,120 --> 01:01:17,440
health were suicide is cowardly.

1024
01:01:17,440 --> 01:01:18,760
He's been a pussy.

1025
01:01:18,760 --> 01:01:19,760
It's selfish.

1026
01:01:19,760 --> 01:01:21,320
How could you?

1027
01:01:21,320 --> 01:01:26,120
And then you listen to hundreds of people that were there, yourself included.

1028
01:01:26,120 --> 01:01:32,240
And ultimately there's a miswiring of the brain because every one of us is put on this

1029
01:01:32,240 --> 01:01:38,760
earth to thrive, to reproduce and stay alive and protect our kids and pass on our lineage.

1030
01:01:38,760 --> 01:01:43,680
And so through the compounding elements of childhood trauma, organizational stress, sleep

1031
01:01:43,680 --> 01:01:49,240
deprivation, combat trauma, all these things, TBIs, some people get to the point where the

1032
01:01:49,240 --> 01:01:54,280
brain is miswired, no different than a femur being broken.

1033
01:01:54,280 --> 01:01:58,440
And so the one thing that I've heard people say over and over and over again, of course

1034
01:01:58,440 --> 01:02:01,680
there's like, I want the suffering to end, but there's another thing and it'd be interesting

1035
01:02:01,680 --> 01:02:03,680
to get your take.

1036
01:02:03,680 --> 01:02:06,800
Almost all of them said, I felt like a burden.

1037
01:02:06,800 --> 01:02:11,320
So there was guilt and shame, which is behind why some of these parents, for example, leave

1038
01:02:11,320 --> 01:02:14,540
very young kids behind because it doesn't make any sense to a healthy brain.

1039
01:02:14,540 --> 01:02:20,840
But to them, their entire reality was I'm a burden to family X or friend group Y.

1040
01:02:20,840 --> 01:02:25,840
So with that being said, was there any element of that when you were prior to taking the

1041
01:02:25,840 --> 01:02:26,840
pills?

1042
01:02:26,840 --> 01:02:27,840
Oh yeah, a hundred percent.

1043
01:02:27,840 --> 01:02:34,880
And I had been addicted to those pills since like late 03, the Naval Hospital stuff would

1044
01:02:34,880 --> 01:02:40,640
give them to us to sleep, whether it was Ambien or whatever it may be.

1045
01:02:40,640 --> 01:02:45,800
So yeah, I definitely felt like I wasn't an asset.

1046
01:02:45,800 --> 01:02:53,240
I wasn't bringing something to the table like I was when I was in.

1047
01:02:53,240 --> 01:02:59,360
I knew the guy above me, I knew his job and I knew the person below me, I knew their job

1048
01:02:59,360 --> 01:03:01,040
and vice versa.

1049
01:03:01,040 --> 01:03:06,480
And so I didn't feel that when I got out.

1050
01:03:06,480 --> 01:03:13,200
I felt like the typical, oh, everybody owes me something because of my service.

1051
01:03:13,200 --> 01:03:19,480
They owe me thank yous and I'm just like, nobody owes me shit.

1052
01:03:19,480 --> 01:03:20,480
I volunteered to go.

1053
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:24,120
I wasn't pushed to go.

1054
01:03:24,120 --> 01:03:31,120
But yeah, I didn't feel like I was contributing to my community, my society.

1055
01:03:31,120 --> 01:03:34,920
Okay, I'm out.

1056
01:03:34,920 --> 01:03:35,920
Why am I going to be a burden?

1057
01:03:35,920 --> 01:03:40,200
Why am I going to be sad, mopey, dopey, dipshit to my family?

1058
01:03:40,200 --> 01:03:46,160
And all they wanted to do was help, but I didn't want their help because it was help

1059
01:03:46,160 --> 01:03:51,360
that I needed a long time ago, but I never had it prior to that.

1060
01:03:51,360 --> 01:03:59,120
And so now that I'm very thankful I had that friend of mine that did step in.

1061
01:03:59,120 --> 01:04:04,080
He recognized that he had no military background, nothing of that nature, but he had the combat

1062
01:04:04,080 --> 01:04:05,480
sports background.

1063
01:04:05,480 --> 01:04:07,720
And he realized like, okay, this is different.

1064
01:04:07,720 --> 01:04:15,720
This is a tribe, this guy, I need to bring him in, like make him feel a part of it.

1065
01:04:15,720 --> 01:04:16,720
That's amazing.

1066
01:04:16,720 --> 01:04:20,040
Even when you think about the context of when that was to have that kind of insight when

1067
01:04:20,040 --> 01:04:22,960
we really weren't talking about it yet is phenomenal.

1068
01:04:22,960 --> 01:04:23,960
Yeah.

1069
01:04:23,960 --> 01:04:24,960
Yeah.

1070
01:04:24,960 --> 01:04:29,880
And I asked him one time, years later, I said, man, what were you thinking when you busted

1071
01:04:29,880 --> 01:04:31,960
in my door to come find me?

1072
01:04:31,960 --> 01:04:34,160
And he's like, dude, I knew you were messed up.

1073
01:04:34,160 --> 01:04:37,240
He goes, I just didn't know the level.

1074
01:04:37,240 --> 01:04:40,840
And he goes, man, someone helped me a long time ago with some stuff that I struggled

1075
01:04:40,840 --> 01:04:41,840
with when I was a kid.

1076
01:04:41,840 --> 01:04:43,440
He goes, I wanted to help you.

1077
01:04:43,440 --> 01:04:45,920
He's like a seed in your eyes.

1078
01:04:45,920 --> 01:04:50,360
I saw it every time he got in a fight at the bar at night, trying to throw somebody out

1079
01:04:50,360 --> 01:04:51,360
of the club.

1080
01:04:51,360 --> 01:04:56,960
He always says, you had this like glaze over your face most of the time where you just

1081
01:04:56,960 --> 01:04:59,320
didn't, you didn't feel like you fit in.

1082
01:04:59,320 --> 01:05:02,880
I was like, dude, you're damn right I didn't fit in.

1083
01:05:02,880 --> 01:05:05,880
I didn't feel it.

1084
01:05:05,880 --> 01:05:08,400
I love it because he's out doing great things to himself now.

1085
01:05:08,400 --> 01:05:09,400
He's a police officer.

1086
01:05:09,400 --> 01:05:12,040
He's been a police officer for a long time now after college.

1087
01:05:12,040 --> 01:05:15,280
And so he's serving back in his community.

1088
01:05:15,280 --> 01:05:19,000
And so, yeah, I just didn't feel like an asset.

1089
01:05:19,000 --> 01:05:25,720
I didn't feel like the burden, just like a lot of my friends have taken their lives.

1090
01:05:25,720 --> 01:05:28,560
They all felt like they're burdens upon their children or whatever.

1091
01:05:28,560 --> 01:05:34,320
And so they just decided their family would be better off without them when in all reality

1092
01:05:34,320 --> 01:05:37,240
we're actually, they're better with us being here.

1093
01:05:37,240 --> 01:05:42,560
Yeah, I think that needs to be on the posters and needs to be in the discussion.

1094
01:05:42,560 --> 01:05:47,240
The red flag to me is if you start believing that you're a burden to your family, that's

1095
01:05:47,240 --> 01:05:48,840
when you need to pick up.

1096
01:05:48,840 --> 01:05:53,880
And if we say, think about your kids, think about your wife to someone who's in crisis,

1097
01:05:53,880 --> 01:05:57,960
we're doing it thinking it's the right reason, but actually we're inadvertently pushing them

1098
01:05:57,960 --> 01:05:59,520
towards it because they are.

1099
01:05:59,520 --> 01:06:00,520
I'm a burden.

1100
01:06:00,520 --> 01:06:01,520
Okay, I love my wife.

1101
01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:02,520
I love my kids.

1102
01:06:02,520 --> 01:06:06,400
All right, well, let me remove myself so they can live happily ever after because that distorted

1103
01:06:06,400 --> 01:06:07,920
reality again.

1104
01:06:07,920 --> 01:06:12,960
So I think by trying to get that out there, anyone who's listening, if you start believing

1105
01:06:12,960 --> 01:06:17,520
that understand that there's some mis-wiring going on and that is, if you haven't already,

1106
01:06:17,520 --> 01:06:19,440
that is a time to really pick up the phone.

1107
01:06:19,440 --> 01:06:25,200
Whoever's closest to you that will be that shoulder to start moving towards getting some

1108
01:06:25,200 --> 01:06:26,200
help.

1109
01:06:26,200 --> 01:06:27,200
Yeah.

1110
01:06:27,200 --> 01:06:32,600
And I tell people all the time, I don't care where you get help from, I'll even put posts

1111
01:06:32,600 --> 01:06:37,600
out every now and then on social media like on Instagram or whatever, I'm like, Hey, I

1112
01:06:37,600 --> 01:06:38,600
don't care who you are.

1113
01:06:38,600 --> 01:06:44,840
I may not know you, but if you're, if you're struggling with something hit me up, you know,

1114
01:06:44,840 --> 01:06:47,240
I don't care if you're a stranger.

1115
01:06:47,240 --> 01:06:50,400
I don't care if you weren't military, if you were just a police officer, if you're just

1116
01:06:50,400 --> 01:06:54,840
a regular everyday person who had some trauma in their life, like, dude, come talk to me.

1117
01:06:54,840 --> 01:06:58,360
You know, maybe, maybe we can just sit there and listen and talk to each other and see

1118
01:06:58,360 --> 01:07:00,120
what we can do.

1119
01:07:00,120 --> 01:07:02,800
There's not enough of that.

1120
01:07:02,800 --> 01:07:07,280
You know, I think we're starting to see a little shift with a lot of veterans are changing.

1121
01:07:07,280 --> 01:07:12,200
A lot of the GWOT veterans are starting to change that mentality, but we still got a

1122
01:07:12,200 --> 01:07:15,520
long ways to go.

1123
01:07:15,520 --> 01:07:22,000
You know, and I just, yeah, I took it all with a grain of salt and then like, okay,

1124
01:07:22,000 --> 01:07:23,800
let's just keep pushing.

1125
01:07:23,800 --> 01:07:26,560
You know, like that, that was just a chapter of my life.

1126
01:07:26,560 --> 01:07:27,560
We need to keep pushing.

1127
01:07:27,560 --> 01:07:28,560
Let's go.

1128
01:07:28,560 --> 01:07:30,280
Absolutely.

1129
01:07:30,280 --> 01:07:36,120
Well, you talked about transitioning into contracting then when you look back now, what

1130
01:07:36,120 --> 01:07:41,600
are the commonalities and the differences between, you know, regular Marines and now

1131
01:07:41,600 --> 01:07:45,120
working in Blackwater as a contractor?

1132
01:07:45,120 --> 01:07:50,000
I would say the camaraderie is the same.

1133
01:07:50,000 --> 01:07:54,560
The working in a small unit was similar.

1134
01:07:54,560 --> 01:08:00,280
It wasn't direct line combat and more protection, the defensive position versus offensive positions,

1135
01:08:00,280 --> 01:08:03,600
but that camaraderie was there.

1136
01:08:03,600 --> 01:08:05,080
That tribe was there.

1137
01:08:05,080 --> 01:08:08,920
That sense of, oh, I'm bringing something to the table there.

1138
01:08:08,920 --> 01:08:14,640
Like I brought all that military experience, being able to, you know, speak on radio properly,

1139
01:08:14,640 --> 01:08:22,320
being able to have proper discipline and etiquette around, you know, high profile people.

1140
01:08:22,320 --> 01:08:26,800
You know, I didn't realize the discipline I had learned from boot camp actually was

1141
01:08:26,800 --> 01:08:32,720
helping me out how to deal with politicians and diplomats, you know, when I just had to

1142
01:08:32,720 --> 01:08:35,480
bite my tongue, you know, and just stay disciplined, you know.

1143
01:08:35,480 --> 01:08:38,480
And so much different worlds.

1144
01:08:38,480 --> 01:08:43,360
There are definitely two different worlds, but at the same time, they're the same concept.

1145
01:08:43,360 --> 01:08:50,680
You know, we, it gave, I'm thankful as bad as 9-11 was, I'm thankful for that because

1146
01:08:50,680 --> 01:09:02,400
it's far a whole different job section for veterans, even veterans previous to 9-11 that

1147
01:09:02,400 --> 01:09:05,720
were already in, that had gotten out or whatever.

1148
01:09:05,720 --> 01:09:10,840
They got out and they were able to come back and still do find a sense of purpose.

1149
01:09:10,840 --> 01:09:16,240
Guys from other wars, from the Gulf War, even, they had even worked with guys from Vietnam,

1150
01:09:16,240 --> 01:09:17,240
veterans.

1151
01:09:17,240 --> 01:09:19,720
They came back as contractors.

1152
01:09:19,720 --> 01:09:22,480
Now they found that sense of purpose.

1153
01:09:22,480 --> 01:09:26,600
And so I think it helped a lot of guys get over a lot of war stress.

1154
01:09:26,600 --> 01:09:31,280
I know it helped me get over a lot of war stress because it kind of subsided eventually

1155
01:09:31,280 --> 01:09:36,840
to the fact of, it didn't affect me in a negative manner because I'm like, oh dude, I'm learning

1156
01:09:36,840 --> 01:09:41,600
a skill, but I'm also contributing to my tribe.

1157
01:09:41,600 --> 01:09:43,080
This is, this is my group.

1158
01:09:43,080 --> 01:09:48,720
This is the people I want to be around the rest of my life, you know.

1159
01:09:48,720 --> 01:09:53,200
You know, I found similarities with them, good and bad.

1160
01:09:53,200 --> 01:09:58,160
And then I found major differences like I'm no longer having to sleep in a dirt hole.

1161
01:09:58,160 --> 01:10:03,080
You know, I got a nice cushy room that I'm sleeping in, you know, I can, I don't have

1162
01:10:03,080 --> 01:10:04,480
to sit there and freeze outside.

1163
01:10:04,480 --> 01:10:05,480
I put gloves on.

1164
01:10:05,480 --> 01:10:11,760
I have the money to do it, you know, instead of just kind of wasting, not wasting away,

1165
01:10:11,760 --> 01:10:16,760
but like, you know, living paycheck to paycheck, essentially when you're in the military, you

1166
01:10:16,760 --> 01:10:19,760
know what I mean, because you don't get paid very much.

1167
01:10:19,760 --> 01:10:25,760
You know, it's a huge, huge bump for me because I get out, you know, barely making $19,000

1168
01:10:25,760 --> 01:10:27,120
a year.

1169
01:10:27,120 --> 01:10:33,040
If that, uh, go into making $14 an hour as a security guy.

1170
01:10:33,040 --> 01:10:34,680
And I'm like, oh, okay, this isn't bad.

1171
01:10:34,680 --> 01:10:39,120
And then leaving that and now making six figures in less than six months.

1172
01:10:39,120 --> 01:10:41,320
I'm like, dude, I'm doing something good.

1173
01:10:41,320 --> 01:10:43,600
You know, here we go.

1174
01:10:43,600 --> 01:10:47,240
But now I love to do, uh, it had the same camaraderie.

1175
01:10:47,240 --> 01:10:53,440
I got to talking about same similarities, but, uh, definitely drastically different, uh,

1176
01:10:53,440 --> 01:10:55,160
no more frontline fighting.

1177
01:10:55,160 --> 01:10:56,360
You know, that's, that's the big difference.

1178
01:10:56,360 --> 01:10:58,680
A lot of people don't realize about contractors.

1179
01:10:58,680 --> 01:11:02,560
We're not out there on the front line.

1180
01:11:02,560 --> 01:11:08,120
Like the infantry guys are and stuff like some military, uh, we're more defensive positions

1181
01:11:08,120 --> 01:11:09,120
than anything.

1182
01:11:09,120 --> 01:11:13,720
And we have a lot, I think we have a lot more strict, uh, SOPs and rules that we have to

1183
01:11:13,720 --> 01:11:19,400
go abide by versus, uh, you know, military does.

1184
01:11:19,400 --> 01:11:27,000
I just had two guys on the show that, um, protected kind of logistical truck deliveries.

1185
01:11:27,000 --> 01:11:31,400
And then they ended up being even the, the mail that was delivered to our, of our, uh,

1186
01:11:31,400 --> 01:11:34,120
military and they were absolutely in the thick of it.

1187
01:11:34,120 --> 01:11:37,600
They were con so they were initially in and they ended up coming out and then going in,

1188
01:11:37,600 --> 01:11:41,600
in this role as contractors, but I mean, they, they lost so many people and what they were

1189
01:11:41,600 --> 01:11:47,000
talking about was, you know, the, um, uh, quick reaction forces, you know, their, their

1190
01:11:47,000 --> 01:11:50,240
priority is still the military groups.

1191
01:11:50,240 --> 01:11:53,840
So they would get hit by IEDs and then just be kind of out on their own.

1192
01:11:53,840 --> 01:11:57,480
So it was kind of interesting hearing some of these contracts and stories, you know,

1193
01:11:57,480 --> 01:12:01,480
on one side, like you hear, there's, there's, there's money to be made and someone who's

1194
01:12:01,480 --> 01:12:06,200
transitioned out can now do pretty much the same role, but actually under better conditions

1195
01:12:06,200 --> 01:12:11,340
with good pay, but then you hear other elements of contracting where, you know, some of these

1196
01:12:11,340 --> 01:12:15,200
men and women are kind of left to their own devices in a very hostile environment.

1197
01:12:15,200 --> 01:12:16,680
Oh, for sure.

1198
01:12:16,680 --> 01:12:18,000
And that, and that happened a lot.

1199
01:12:18,000 --> 01:12:24,240
We saw that a lot in, you know, my, what, close to 15 years of contracting, you know,

1200
01:12:24,240 --> 01:12:25,920
I could see all that.

1201
01:12:25,920 --> 01:12:29,560
Um, there were, there was other companies out there that did just kind of leave their

1202
01:12:29,560 --> 01:12:34,440
people hanging, you know, didn't really care about them, you know, and we, we didn't notice

1203
01:12:34,440 --> 01:12:40,360
it until I think back and I noticed it in 2004 in Iraq, but I didn't really give much

1204
01:12:40,360 --> 01:12:44,840
attention to it because that wasn't my focus, but there was a few companies that were just

1205
01:12:44,840 --> 01:12:49,440
kind of like cowboy companies, like here today, gone tomorrow guys, you know, they're just

1206
01:12:49,440 --> 01:12:53,720
jumped on some sort of like logistics contract or whatever.

1207
01:12:53,720 --> 01:12:58,800
And then their dudes got right in the thick of, you know, the Sunni triangle or whatever

1208
01:12:58,800 --> 01:13:03,400
they read or Southern Afghanistan and they got hit and they, they had no help.

1209
01:13:03,400 --> 01:13:06,160
They had to get out of there themselves.

1210
01:13:06,160 --> 01:13:12,120
You know, so there, there was that element and I think the media took a lot of that element

1211
01:13:12,120 --> 01:13:18,880
and like highlighted it even more and made us all out to be like, Oh, we're bad people.

1212
01:13:18,880 --> 01:13:21,600
We're just over here killing innocent people for money.

1213
01:13:21,600 --> 01:13:23,640
And it's the total opposite.

1214
01:13:23,640 --> 01:13:27,040
We need mercenaries, you know, like people think we are.

1215
01:13:27,040 --> 01:13:28,040
Absolutely.

1216
01:13:28,040 --> 01:13:31,680
Well, so you had that contracting side.

1217
01:13:31,680 --> 01:13:36,360
You mentioned about thinking that the, the intelligence side was cool earlier in your

1218
01:13:36,360 --> 01:13:37,360
career.

1219
01:13:37,360 --> 01:13:39,840
How did you find yourself transitioning into the CIA?

1220
01:13:39,840 --> 01:13:40,840
Yeah.

1221
01:13:40,840 --> 01:13:49,640
So we've taken the ambassador over to one of their facilities in Afghanistan and I ended

1222
01:13:49,640 --> 01:13:55,880
up seeing a guy that I knew from, from my hometown here.

1223
01:13:55,880 --> 01:13:57,640
And I was like, man, this guy looks familiar.

1224
01:13:57,640 --> 01:13:59,600
Like, I know, I know this guy from somewhere.

1225
01:13:59,600 --> 01:14:02,880
And I went up to him and I was like, Hey man, are you from, you know, Arkansas?

1226
01:14:02,880 --> 01:14:03,880
And he's like, yeah.

1227
01:14:03,880 --> 01:14:05,720
I go, where'd you go to high school?

1228
01:14:05,720 --> 01:14:10,240
And he told me, and I was like, Oh, dude, I think we went to high school together briefly.

1229
01:14:10,240 --> 01:14:13,120
And he was like a year or two older than me.

1230
01:14:13,120 --> 01:14:14,120
But I remember this dude.

1231
01:14:14,120 --> 01:14:17,640
And so we started chatting and we ended up knowing a lot of the same people.

1232
01:14:17,640 --> 01:14:19,440
And I was like, Holy shit, I know this guy.

1233
01:14:19,440 --> 01:14:20,440
This is awesome.

1234
01:14:20,440 --> 01:14:24,440
You know, it's kind of weird seeing someone from your same town you're from, you know,

1235
01:14:24,440 --> 01:14:28,560
in this, the middle of a, nowhere's real Afghanistan.

1236
01:14:28,560 --> 01:14:31,520
And so like, what do you do here?

1237
01:14:31,520 --> 01:14:35,440
And there he explained kind of briefly what he did, you know, which funny is he actually

1238
01:14:35,440 --> 01:14:41,480
gave me his whole backstory, his cover story versus, you know, what he was really doing.

1239
01:14:41,480 --> 01:14:44,480
But I kind of figured out what he was doing.

1240
01:14:44,480 --> 01:14:48,560
I'd been there, been around that field long enough to realize, you know, okay, he's bullshitting

1241
01:14:48,560 --> 01:14:51,400
me for a good reason.

1242
01:14:51,400 --> 01:14:54,840
And I was like, man, you know, you know, years ago, I tried to get into the infield field,

1243
01:14:54,840 --> 01:14:55,840
I never could.

1244
01:14:55,840 --> 01:15:01,560
And he goes, Hey, man, I know all the guys on this security programs over here.

1245
01:15:01,560 --> 01:15:05,680
He goes, shoot me a resume, you know, he's like, I shot my resume to him.

1246
01:15:05,680 --> 01:15:13,160
And this kind of later 2009 ish, like the fall of 2009.

1247
01:15:13,160 --> 01:15:17,600
And I came home on emergency leave to go to a family funeral.

1248
01:15:17,600 --> 01:15:24,360
And then when I tried to get back overseas on my saying, ambassador's detail, I got a

1249
01:15:24,360 --> 01:15:30,320
random number call and I was like, okay, said unknown, okay, answer it, see who it is.

1250
01:15:30,320 --> 01:15:33,160
I answer it and they tell me who they are.

1251
01:15:33,160 --> 01:15:37,720
They were part of the same company I was in at the time, but it was a different, different

1252
01:15:37,720 --> 01:15:40,320
side of the house.

1253
01:15:40,320 --> 01:15:45,520
And so they said, Hey, you're, you're interim players came through, you know, we got a slot

1254
01:15:45,520 --> 01:15:47,800
for you to come train with the vetting process.

1255
01:15:47,800 --> 01:15:48,800
Do you want to come?

1256
01:15:48,800 --> 01:15:51,040
And I was like, yeah, sure.

1257
01:15:51,040 --> 01:15:56,120
So called my detail leaders overseas and I said, Hey guys, I'm resigning from this position.

1258
01:15:56,120 --> 01:15:59,840
I'm going on the other side of the house.

1259
01:15:59,840 --> 01:16:02,520
And so get through my training.

1260
01:16:02,520 --> 01:16:06,280
And then next thing I know, I think I'm going to be posted in Iraq or wherever.

1261
01:16:06,280 --> 01:16:09,080
And they send me right back to Afghanistan.

1262
01:16:09,080 --> 01:16:15,160
And then I've seen that buddy of mine and I was like, dude, man, I want to thank you,

1263
01:16:15,160 --> 01:16:16,320
you know, for getting me over here.

1264
01:16:16,320 --> 01:16:17,320
I appreciate it.

1265
01:16:17,320 --> 01:16:19,760
You know, kind of put in a good word.

1266
01:16:19,760 --> 01:16:21,640
And he's like, yeah, man, no worries.

1267
01:16:21,640 --> 01:16:22,920
You know, it was awesome.

1268
01:16:22,920 --> 01:16:29,840
And so, yeah, I kind of just, I kind of fell into it, kind of knew somebody that was right

1269
01:16:29,840 --> 01:16:33,200
place, right time, essentially.

1270
01:16:33,200 --> 01:16:37,880
Now obviously you can't divulge much, but in general, what did your role shift to under

1271
01:16:37,880 --> 01:16:38,880
that umbrella?

1272
01:16:38,880 --> 01:16:43,520
Kind of same thing, protective roles, protective security.

1273
01:16:43,520 --> 01:16:48,360
And within those roles, you have different various things that we do or tasked out to

1274
01:16:48,360 --> 01:16:53,960
do, but overall protective security.

1275
01:16:53,960 --> 01:16:57,920
So you've spent, as you said, you've gone from combat to starting to push more and more

1276
01:16:57,920 --> 01:17:01,440
towards close protection.

1277
01:17:01,440 --> 01:17:05,840
What made you decide to transition out and then ultimately get into that under your own

1278
01:17:05,840 --> 01:17:06,840
banner?

1279
01:17:06,840 --> 01:17:07,840
Yeah.

1280
01:17:07,840 --> 01:17:12,840
So I had briefly done a little bit of that right after I got out.

1281
01:17:12,840 --> 01:17:19,080
I had gotten in with a little private family here locally that I had, they asked me to

1282
01:17:19,080 --> 01:17:25,240
come be essentially like a house sitter nanny during the day for one of their children that

1283
01:17:25,240 --> 01:17:28,040
had some threats against them.

1284
01:17:28,040 --> 01:17:31,320
And so I was essentially doing unarmed security for these people, but I didn't realize it

1285
01:17:31,320 --> 01:17:33,160
at the time.

1286
01:17:33,160 --> 01:17:36,200
And then got into the protective security and the agency.

1287
01:17:36,200 --> 01:17:43,320
And then November 2019, I counted up every single deployment that I had done in that

1288
01:17:43,320 --> 01:17:48,480
21 years plus, and that's plus with my military career.

1289
01:17:48,480 --> 01:17:53,000
And it was 43 overseas deployments in war zone.

1290
01:17:53,000 --> 01:17:58,080
And granted our deployments were 60, 70 days at a time, but I was just like, that's still

1291
01:17:58,080 --> 01:17:59,080
deployment.

1292
01:17:59,080 --> 01:18:00,080
I'm like, dude, I'm done.

1293
01:18:00,080 --> 01:18:01,080
I can't do this anymore.

1294
01:18:01,080 --> 01:18:06,000
I'm pushing into my forties, like getting close to it.

1295
01:18:06,000 --> 01:18:07,560
I'm like, dude, I can't do this.

1296
01:18:07,560 --> 01:18:11,720
I want a family, you know, I want to settle down some day.

1297
01:18:11,720 --> 01:18:17,720
It's not conducive to, you know, home life, a good home life, at least some guys can pull

1298
01:18:17,720 --> 01:18:18,720
it off.

1299
01:18:18,720 --> 01:18:21,200
I think the majority can't, you know.

1300
01:18:21,200 --> 01:18:27,760
And so I got out and then COVID came and everything shut down.

1301
01:18:27,760 --> 01:18:29,480
No more guys going overseas, nothing.

1302
01:18:29,480 --> 01:18:31,880
I was like, okay, maybe I made the right decision.

1303
01:18:31,880 --> 01:18:33,800
So I needed a job.

1304
01:18:33,800 --> 01:18:39,480
So I started working for Walmart corporate and I knew they had a close protection team

1305
01:18:39,480 --> 01:18:42,440
for their VIPs and their CEO and stuff.

1306
01:18:42,440 --> 01:18:45,960
And I was like, okay, that's the, I'm going to push into that because that's my background.

1307
01:18:45,960 --> 01:18:46,960
I know that.

1308
01:18:46,960 --> 01:18:49,840
But at the time they didn't have anything really open.

1309
01:18:49,840 --> 01:18:56,240
So I was doing, I was patrolling empty parking lots, wearing a mall comp uniform in a car

1310
01:18:56,240 --> 01:19:02,280
that said Walmart security draped all across it, you know, and I was like, oh, this sucks.

1311
01:19:02,280 --> 01:19:03,280
You know, it was horrible.

1312
01:19:03,280 --> 01:19:08,520
I was going to say, cause I heard you talking about that on the GSPG podcast and I wanted

1313
01:19:08,520 --> 01:19:13,360
to ask you when we sat down, we talked about jarring, loss of purpose, sensor tribe.

1314
01:19:13,360 --> 01:19:18,120
Now you're patrolling an empty car park in a Walmart car.

1315
01:19:18,120 --> 01:19:22,360
Did you have another jarring moment having just left a high up tempo that you were working

1316
01:19:22,360 --> 01:19:23,360
in before?

1317
01:19:23,360 --> 01:19:28,240
Yeah, a hundred percent, you know, and it was, I was around guys and some of them had

1318
01:19:28,240 --> 01:19:33,800
military backgrounds, some of them had law enforcement, but they'd been out, they had

1319
01:19:33,800 --> 01:19:39,160
been conditioned to a different style of work at that point, more so than I had.

1320
01:19:39,160 --> 01:19:42,200
And so, yeah, super jarring.

1321
01:19:42,200 --> 01:19:45,880
I was like, no, my God, my life, this sucks.

1322
01:19:45,880 --> 01:19:46,880
I know it's a job.

1323
01:19:46,880 --> 01:19:47,880
I got to do it.

1324
01:19:47,880 --> 01:19:50,400
You know, so I fucked it up and did it, you know, paid the bills.

1325
01:19:50,400 --> 01:19:52,960
I was like, man, this is horrible.

1326
01:19:52,960 --> 01:19:55,000
What am I going to do?

1327
01:19:55,000 --> 01:20:00,080
You know, I kept trying to get over to their executive protection team because I knew they

1328
01:20:00,080 --> 01:20:07,720
had an open slot, but unfortunately they weren't hiring anybody for that slot because of COVID.

1329
01:20:07,720 --> 01:20:13,480
And I was like, okay, man, so about five months in, like, what am I going to do?

1330
01:20:13,480 --> 01:20:17,960
So a friend reached out to me and he's like, hey, I have a client or a possible client

1331
01:20:17,960 --> 01:20:20,320
that needs protection work.

1332
01:20:20,320 --> 01:20:25,760
I don't know how to do the executive side of it, you know, what kind of questions did

1333
01:20:25,760 --> 01:20:26,760
I ask?

1334
01:20:26,760 --> 01:20:33,080
So I kind of briefed this friend of mine through it, what to do, how to build the program.

1335
01:20:33,080 --> 01:20:36,760
And about a week or so into it, he calls me, he's like, hey, dude, can you just come run

1336
01:20:36,760 --> 01:20:37,760
it?

1337
01:20:37,760 --> 01:20:42,360
And I was like, okay, yeah, sure, but this is the pay that I want.

1338
01:20:42,360 --> 01:20:45,800
And so the client was like, yeah, let's bring them on.

1339
01:20:45,800 --> 01:20:48,040
He liked the background, so he met the client.

1340
01:20:48,040 --> 01:20:54,120
And kind of just started doing the protection work for a very ultra high-net-worth family.

1341
01:20:54,120 --> 01:20:58,440
And then as a solo protector, literally by myself.

1342
01:20:58,440 --> 01:21:04,760
And so started that and then the client wanted me to come on directly as an embedded employee

1343
01:21:04,760 --> 01:21:05,760
for him.

1344
01:21:05,760 --> 01:21:12,920
And so we worked out some legal issues and just went to work directly for them instead

1345
01:21:12,920 --> 01:21:17,360
of being third party contracted out.

1346
01:21:17,360 --> 01:21:22,200
And through that, I kind of developed my own company, eating a little risk and doing some

1347
01:21:22,200 --> 01:21:28,600
consulting work on the side for other clients outside of the protection side of things.

1348
01:21:28,600 --> 01:21:35,120
And just kind of built this, trying to build a legacy through that, you know, and I found

1349
01:21:35,120 --> 01:21:37,080
my purpose again.

1350
01:21:37,080 --> 01:21:39,440
You know, I found like, okay, this is what I'm great at.

1351
01:21:39,440 --> 01:21:41,680
I'm great at the low-profile protection.

1352
01:21:41,680 --> 01:21:43,680
I can provide this for the family.

1353
01:21:43,680 --> 01:21:49,360
I can give them a sense of normalcy again, so they can go back to living a normal life.

1354
01:21:49,360 --> 01:21:52,440
And that's essentially what I've done for them.

1355
01:21:52,440 --> 01:21:54,720
Well, a couple of things jump out.

1356
01:21:54,720 --> 01:21:59,480
Firstly, you talked about being assigned to someone because their kid was getting threats.

1357
01:21:59,480 --> 01:22:04,200
And immediately I thought if you'd had a close protection guard when you were in seventh

1358
01:22:04,200 --> 01:22:07,520
grade, you would have kicked the shit out of that older kid.

1359
01:22:07,520 --> 01:22:10,160
And that young you would never have entered the military.

1360
01:22:10,160 --> 01:22:11,160
So probably so.

1361
01:22:11,160 --> 01:22:12,160
Yeah, probably.

1362
01:22:12,160 --> 01:22:13,160
Yeah, probably not.

1363
01:22:13,160 --> 01:22:14,160
I mean, I don't know.

1364
01:22:14,160 --> 01:22:17,920
I may have because I, you know, growing up, I'd always wanted military.

1365
01:22:17,920 --> 01:22:23,080
I was always out digging black holes, building forts, doing all kinds of playing war, having

1366
01:22:23,080 --> 01:22:25,200
BB gun wars with my friends in neighborhoods.

1367
01:22:25,200 --> 01:22:30,400
So yeah, I probably would have eventually gone there, but you never know.

1368
01:22:30,400 --> 01:22:35,920
Well, another thing I heard in the other podcast that they were talking about was there was

1369
01:22:35,920 --> 01:22:41,000
an organization where they were teaching nannies close protection skills.

1370
01:22:41,000 --> 01:22:46,360
And I was like, that is phenomenal because I mean, ultimately all of us, you know, be

1371
01:22:46,360 --> 01:22:48,160
your own bodyguard kind of philosophy.

1372
01:22:48,160 --> 01:22:54,400
But you know, when I get you to kind of unpack what that actually looks like as far as the

1373
01:22:54,400 --> 01:22:56,720
role of someone in close protection.

1374
01:22:56,720 --> 01:23:03,480
But yeah, when there are teachers, nannies, you know, all these kind of groups, I'm looking

1375
01:23:03,480 --> 01:23:04,800
at it from a medical point of view.

1376
01:23:04,800 --> 01:23:05,800
They should know CPR.

1377
01:23:05,800 --> 01:23:07,120
They should know actions for choking.

1378
01:23:07,120 --> 01:23:08,120
They should know all that.

1379
01:23:08,120 --> 01:23:13,120
And then also, you know, that that kind of threat recognition, you know, some of the

1380
01:23:13,120 --> 01:23:17,200
de-escalation techniques, you know, making sure that they're not introducing children

1381
01:23:17,200 --> 01:23:19,680
into a higher risk environment in the first place.

1382
01:23:19,680 --> 01:23:20,680
So talk to me about that.

1383
01:23:20,680 --> 01:23:22,480
I thought that was a fascinating concept.

1384
01:23:22,480 --> 01:23:23,720
Oh, yeah.

1385
01:23:23,720 --> 01:23:26,400
So those are the friends I call them friends.

1386
01:23:26,400 --> 01:23:30,320
I don't really know them partially, but I know them through LinkedIn and other, you

1387
01:23:30,320 --> 01:23:36,480
know, in our community, the protection industry for as big as it is, it's super small.

1388
01:23:36,480 --> 01:23:45,480
But yeah, so they so a friend of mine, the Grove family, Chris and Danita Grove, they

1389
01:23:45,480 --> 01:23:51,200
run this company called Nanny Guards and they literally train everyday nannies how to be

1390
01:23:51,200 --> 01:23:54,680
bodyguards, essentially, on top of the regular nanny duty.

1391
01:23:54,680 --> 01:24:01,000
I think it's an amazing concept, especially for ultra high network people that they serve.

1392
01:24:01,000 --> 01:24:07,360
And, you know, I never went through any of their courses, but thinking back, I'm like,

1393
01:24:07,360 --> 01:24:13,360
wow, I was doing that essentially for that small, that small private family initially.

1394
01:24:13,360 --> 01:24:18,160
And now I do it every day for the family that I work for currently.

1395
01:24:18,160 --> 01:24:20,080
And so they have, you know, young children.

1396
01:24:20,080 --> 01:24:24,840
And so you have this.

1397
01:24:24,840 --> 01:24:30,840
It's a very hard job as a solo protector, especially if you're just a nanny or even

1398
01:24:30,840 --> 01:24:37,360
if you got like a one or two man team, it's a tough job to deal with that because kids

1399
01:24:37,360 --> 01:24:39,480
have different threats than the parents do.

1400
01:24:39,480 --> 01:24:44,280
Parents have different threats than say the house has threats or whatever it may be.

1401
01:24:44,280 --> 01:24:52,400
So you got to take someone very mature, I think, and someone that I don't think you

1402
01:24:52,400 --> 01:24:56,320
could take like there's guys that are great at being a machine gunner, but there's not

1403
01:24:56,320 --> 01:24:57,320
very good.

1404
01:24:57,320 --> 01:25:01,800
There's not guys that are great at that person may not be great at leading or doing a soft

1405
01:25:01,800 --> 01:25:05,040
a soft skill job, essentially.

1406
01:25:05,040 --> 01:25:10,920
You know, they have their special, I think in the protection world, you have guys that

1407
01:25:10,920 --> 01:25:14,200
literally can just stand holes in walls and do what they're told to do.

1408
01:25:14,200 --> 01:25:17,160
And then there's guys that can jump between both worlds.

1409
01:25:17,160 --> 01:25:25,160
They can be can melt into a group and be one of their assistants or a friend, essentially

1410
01:25:25,160 --> 01:25:29,640
look like a friend, but yet you're there to serve a security role.

1411
01:25:29,640 --> 01:25:37,400
And so I learned through doing close protection overseas, I kind of took that mentality.

1412
01:25:37,400 --> 01:25:41,680
Yes, it's a different threat.

1413
01:25:41,680 --> 01:25:45,760
But I took that same mentality of customer service, like I'm here to do a job for these

1414
01:25:45,760 --> 01:25:46,760
people.

1415
01:25:46,760 --> 01:25:51,200
I'm here to make them feel safe so they can do their job and be feel like a normal, productive

1416
01:25:51,200 --> 01:25:54,520
member of society instead of living in fear and threat.

1417
01:25:54,520 --> 01:26:01,400
But I also looked back and like, maybe I, I didn't have that when I was in seventh grade,

1418
01:26:01,400 --> 01:26:06,160
you know, or junior high, like I didn't have that someone there by my side protecting me

1419
01:26:06,160 --> 01:26:07,760
and telling me everything is going to be okay.

1420
01:26:07,760 --> 01:26:11,480
We'll take care of the threats, you go live your life.

1421
01:26:11,480 --> 01:26:17,320
You know, I look back and I'm like, okay, maybe I can do that for other people now.

1422
01:26:17,320 --> 01:26:18,320
And I truly enjoy it.

1423
01:26:18,320 --> 01:26:19,320
I love it.

1424
01:26:19,320 --> 01:26:21,520
Well, I want to pose a question to you.

1425
01:26:21,520 --> 01:26:26,720
I'm sure you've probably been asked, you know, talk to the parents out there and how we can

1426
01:26:26,720 --> 01:26:29,600
be, you know, take some of your principles and apply it.

1427
01:26:29,600 --> 01:26:33,040
But the first responding professions, a lot of them that listen, you've obviously got

1428
01:26:33,040 --> 01:26:38,120
law enforcement, you know, they are trained for in a good department for de-escalation,

1429
01:26:38,120 --> 01:26:41,200
for you know, dealing with a threat if need be.

1430
01:26:41,200 --> 01:26:47,000
But you've got firefighters and paramedics and EMTs where we respond to the exact same

1431
01:26:47,000 --> 01:26:50,980
place as law enforcement with no body armor, with no side arm.

1432
01:26:50,980 --> 01:26:56,020
And so our words and then sometimes our narcotics are our only weapons really.

1433
01:26:56,020 --> 01:27:01,440
So speaking to that subset of the first responders, what would be some of the principles that

1434
01:27:01,440 --> 01:27:07,040
you would take from all your years experience when it comes to identifying threat, de-escalation,

1435
01:27:07,040 --> 01:27:11,780
et cetera, that you could apply as a firefighter or a paramedic to the men and women that we

1436
01:27:11,780 --> 01:27:14,160
interact with?

1437
01:27:14,160 --> 01:27:22,720
I would say look at that, maybe not necessarily look at that person as a threat, especially

1438
01:27:22,720 --> 01:27:29,640
for first responders side of it, more so not so much the security guys.

1439
01:27:29,640 --> 01:27:34,600
You guys are trained to look at people with medical threats.

1440
01:27:34,600 --> 01:27:39,200
If someone's agitated, maybe they were honestly, they don't have a medical problem, they're

1441
01:27:39,200 --> 01:27:41,440
just having a bad day.

1442
01:27:41,440 --> 01:27:46,960
I've had threats like that, working close protection where I just know this person is

1443
01:27:46,960 --> 01:27:53,960
having a bad day and they just happen to run into me or the people that I'm with, I'm

1444
01:27:53,960 --> 01:27:56,040
going to take their aggression out on them.

1445
01:27:56,040 --> 01:28:03,720
So I think that comes with time of learning people's behavior patterns, learning how not

1446
01:28:03,720 --> 01:28:08,280
everything is a dire situation.

1447
01:28:08,280 --> 01:28:15,880
Sometimes you can just de-escalate things with a simple handshake, simple misdirection.

1448
01:28:15,880 --> 01:28:20,800
We do it with children all the time when they're upset, we misdirect them so they don't feel

1449
01:28:20,800 --> 01:28:21,800
their pain anymore.

1450
01:28:21,800 --> 01:28:25,520
I do it with my kids all the time, every time my kids get hurt or they feel like they got

1451
01:28:25,520 --> 01:28:30,200
hurt, I do this whole thing where I'm like, you run through the forest, watch out for

1452
01:28:30,200 --> 01:28:34,960
the tree and they're back to normal.

1453
01:28:34,960 --> 01:28:41,840
I think misdirection is a big tool to use, kind of spear in this, bringing them this

1454
01:28:41,840 --> 01:28:48,920
way, letting the people go away and let them live their life, continue on with their business

1455
01:28:48,920 --> 01:28:55,320
instead of allowing them to get into that bubble and become an actual real threat.

1456
01:28:55,320 --> 01:29:02,160
I think misdirection is the biggest caveat or the biggest, not caveat, but the biggest

1457
01:29:02,160 --> 01:29:07,000
tool you could use to de-escalate a situation.

1458
01:29:07,000 --> 01:29:10,920
It's funny when you talk about someone having a bad day, I literally took my dog to the

1459
01:29:10,920 --> 01:29:14,880
beach, my favorite beach up on the East Coast here.

1460
01:29:14,880 --> 01:29:19,840
I go usually off season early, like today was Sunday, so early Sunday morning, early

1461
01:29:19,840 --> 01:29:23,200
Sunday morning and the beach is all but deserted.

1462
01:29:23,200 --> 01:29:26,640
When we're around other people or someone's got a dog on the beach as well, I'll keep

1463
01:29:26,640 --> 01:29:31,200
her on the leash and as soon as we're clear, meaning literally like quarter of a mile either

1464
01:29:31,200 --> 01:29:33,920
way, I'll take her off leash and throw the ball and she's phenomenal.

1465
01:29:33,920 --> 01:29:36,960
She's not going to hurt anyone, but she's a German shepherd and I know that scares some

1466
01:29:36,960 --> 01:29:39,280
people.

1467
01:29:39,280 --> 01:29:43,760
No one's anywhere near me and all of a sudden from the dunes or all the houses are, I see

1468
01:29:43,760 --> 01:29:49,640
this woman full Karen mode just fucking speed striding towards me and I'm like, this is

1469
01:29:49,640 --> 01:29:51,120
kind of weird.

1470
01:29:51,120 --> 01:29:56,280
Anyway, I just carry on and I look over my shoulder after and she's got her cell phone

1471
01:29:56,280 --> 01:29:58,440
and she's recording me.

1472
01:29:58,440 --> 01:30:01,800
And again, it's like that was, you know, you said you woke up and chose violence where

1473
01:30:01,800 --> 01:30:06,680
you woke up and chose misery basically like this an empty beach, one dude running his

1474
01:30:06,680 --> 01:30:12,640
dog and you felt compelled to speed towards them to get it on your camera.

1475
01:30:12,640 --> 01:30:16,520
And you know, that we ended up going to the end and then it's funny when I came back,

1476
01:30:16,520 --> 01:30:19,960
I was passing her again, I put her on the leash because I'm obviously this woman doesn't

1477
01:30:19,960 --> 01:30:21,400
like the dog being off the leash.

1478
01:30:21,400 --> 01:30:24,760
So I put her on the leash and then smiled and said, how are you doing today?

1479
01:30:24,760 --> 01:30:28,400
And she just glared at me and I was like, oh good, have a good day.

1480
01:30:28,400 --> 01:30:30,400
And then walked off, killed her with kindness.

1481
01:30:30,400 --> 01:30:35,600
But again, secluded beach, someone interjected them into my life.

1482
01:30:35,600 --> 01:30:40,720
Now that was a 60 year old pissed off, you know, white woman, but that could have been

1483
01:30:40,720 --> 01:30:44,040
someone with a completely different background that could have been a threat.

1484
01:30:44,040 --> 01:30:47,200
So just to go, like you said, whether it's the New York paramedic that got stabbed a

1485
01:30:47,200 --> 01:30:53,240
few months ago, I just saw a London or British paramedic get pushed out of an ambulance and

1486
01:30:53,240 --> 01:30:55,040
really mess up her arm.

1487
01:30:55,040 --> 01:31:00,320
So we do have to be aware of that and if it's an eight year old kid that's having a bad

1488
01:31:00,320 --> 01:31:02,440
day, it's not probably going to be a huge threat.

1489
01:31:02,440 --> 01:31:08,300
But if it's someone who's messed out and they're 200 pounds, that could be a very credible

1490
01:31:08,300 --> 01:31:09,300
threat for us.

1491
01:31:09,300 --> 01:31:10,300
Yeah.

1492
01:31:10,300 --> 01:31:16,920
And the area I work in or for a good while had a big homeless population right around

1493
01:31:16,920 --> 01:31:18,760
our corporate office.

1494
01:31:18,760 --> 01:31:23,080
And so I was constantly out there dealing with homeless people trying to get into the

1495
01:31:23,080 --> 01:31:27,680
building or just trying to find some shade, you know, during the summer or whatever.

1496
01:31:27,680 --> 01:31:30,880
And I honestly had to be the one to go down and tell them, hey, I'm sorry, you can't be

1497
01:31:30,880 --> 01:31:31,880
here.

1498
01:31:31,880 --> 01:31:32,880
We're running a business.

1499
01:31:32,880 --> 01:31:37,880
But I learned a lot about humans, about how they interact with people.

1500
01:31:37,880 --> 01:31:44,480
Not everybody's a threat, but we do have to look at them sort of, if you're in a security

1501
01:31:44,480 --> 01:31:49,680
role, you've got to do look at them as a threat to a certain extent.

1502
01:31:49,680 --> 01:31:54,440
You got to be prepared for that if they do decide, oh, I'm going to fight this first

1503
01:31:54,440 --> 01:31:59,040
or I'm going to escalate this even higher.

1504
01:31:59,040 --> 01:32:02,720
But I try to de-escalate that fire.

1505
01:32:02,720 --> 01:32:04,760
And a lot of times I give people options.

1506
01:32:04,760 --> 01:32:10,640
For example, I had a guy come up, he's trying to get near the client I was with.

1507
01:32:10,640 --> 01:32:14,960
And this is not the current client I work for, but this is a different time.

1508
01:32:14,960 --> 01:32:21,760
He came up to us and was trying to say, oh, hey, I know that guy, I know that guy.

1509
01:32:21,760 --> 01:32:25,120
And I was like, okay, we don't know you.

1510
01:32:25,120 --> 01:32:28,640
I was like, how much you come talk to me over here?

1511
01:32:28,640 --> 01:32:32,360
And so he's like, well, I want to, how do I talk to him?

1512
01:32:32,360 --> 01:32:34,360
Like I know him from high school or whatever.

1513
01:32:34,360 --> 01:32:36,000
And they were around the same age.

1514
01:32:36,000 --> 01:32:37,480
So I mean, it's possible.

1515
01:32:37,480 --> 01:32:39,760
Maybe they did know each other.

1516
01:32:39,760 --> 01:32:42,080
My client just didn't remember who the guy was.

1517
01:32:42,080 --> 01:32:44,120
And I was like, well, here's my business card, man.

1518
01:32:44,120 --> 01:32:48,280
You owe me, talk to me, maybe we can set something up.

1519
01:32:48,280 --> 01:32:49,840
We'll go from there.

1520
01:32:49,840 --> 01:32:54,360
Obviously the guy never reached out or anything.

1521
01:32:54,360 --> 01:32:59,240
But I de-escalate by misdirection.

1522
01:32:59,240 --> 01:33:03,360
Again, and so thankfully the guy did it.

1523
01:33:03,360 --> 01:33:09,960
But come to find out that guy was a known felon, a known fugitive, didn't know it.

1524
01:33:09,960 --> 01:33:13,600
He was a crazy person, drug abuse and whatnot.

1525
01:33:13,600 --> 01:33:15,280
Didn't even know my client.

1526
01:33:15,280 --> 01:33:16,320
I had no idea who he was.

1527
01:33:16,320 --> 01:33:24,440
But I looked at him like he was a serious threat, but I also kind of like, okay, this guy's

1528
01:33:24,440 --> 01:33:26,800
obviously got some mental screws loose.

1529
01:33:26,800 --> 01:33:30,000
Let's kind of take it a different direction.

1530
01:33:30,000 --> 01:33:34,160
And I've always felt like misdirection is the best thing, you know, or killing with kindness,

1531
01:33:34,160 --> 01:33:35,760
you know, just smile.

1532
01:33:35,760 --> 01:33:41,160
Oh yeah, man, you know, and so a lot of times it brings people out of their rage for a second

1533
01:33:41,160 --> 01:33:44,960
because they think that you're going to react to them the same way that they're reacting

1534
01:33:44,960 --> 01:33:45,960
to you.

1535
01:33:45,960 --> 01:33:49,920
But then when you don't react to them, it's either one, going to piss them off and make

1536
01:33:49,920 --> 01:33:54,200
them more reactive or two, they're going to just let it go.

1537
01:33:54,200 --> 01:33:58,120
Like that lady there, she kind of looked at you like all weird and then walked away.

1538
01:33:58,120 --> 01:34:09,520
So yeah, I think just going into the situation with what General Mattis says, you know, kill

1539
01:34:09,520 --> 01:34:15,200
people with kindness, but have a plan to actually kill them if you need to.

1540
01:34:15,200 --> 01:34:17,040
Well that being said, we talked about that.

1541
01:34:17,040 --> 01:34:21,560
Well, you know, the couple of videos of kindness, one from a civilian, but the other one from

1542
01:34:21,560 --> 01:34:26,840
this law enforcement officer that was phenomenal and was everything, everything that I think

1543
01:34:26,840 --> 01:34:30,640
the uniform is about, you know, aside from obviously, God forbid we have to go hands

1544
01:34:30,640 --> 01:34:32,520
on or they have to go hands on.

1545
01:34:32,520 --> 01:34:36,500
Yeah, I know I've heard you talking about interacting with, you know, doing some training

1546
01:34:36,500 --> 01:34:41,000
with law enforcement with this perspective, not only of combat overseas, but also the

1547
01:34:41,000 --> 01:34:43,440
protection side.

1548
01:34:43,440 --> 01:34:48,200
Are there any kind of common errors that you see on some, and I'm saying some because we

1549
01:34:48,200 --> 01:34:52,960
have so many great police officers out there, but some of these videos, sadly, make the

1550
01:34:52,960 --> 01:34:55,320
news go viral.

1551
01:34:55,320 --> 01:35:00,540
That maybe we should be doing a better job of teaching in law enforcement academies when

1552
01:35:00,540 --> 01:35:04,120
it comes to the lessons you've learned over the last 20 years.

1553
01:35:04,120 --> 01:35:07,360
Yeah, I think it's a lack of training.

1554
01:35:07,360 --> 01:35:08,960
I think that's the biggest thing.

1555
01:35:08,960 --> 01:35:13,200
They do their baseline, get them past, shove them out the door.

1556
01:35:13,200 --> 01:35:18,120
They leave while they're on their respective departments to train them up to advanced levels.

1557
01:35:18,120 --> 01:35:25,040
I think if we started from the baseline, like teaching de-escalation big time, more so in

1558
01:35:25,040 --> 01:35:33,080
their academies versus having to teach it on the street, I think it'd be a better off.

1559
01:35:33,080 --> 01:35:43,720
I also believe if all these academies had the longer session of non-combatants training,

1560
01:35:43,720 --> 01:35:49,480
so like jujitsu specifically, learning how to deal with people in a safe manner.

1561
01:35:49,480 --> 01:35:55,520
Yeah, it looks violent, but it's a lot safer than maybe tasing somebody or having to pull

1562
01:35:55,520 --> 01:35:57,080
a gun and shoot someone.

1563
01:35:57,080 --> 01:36:02,720
In granted, those guys, man, they got a tough job.

1564
01:36:02,720 --> 01:36:06,160
I have thoughts of those dudes that work their streets every day, especially in the very

1565
01:36:06,160 --> 01:36:09,840
violent neighborhoods that we have in this country.

1566
01:36:09,840 --> 01:36:15,880
I think teaching that stuff from a baseline perspective in the academy, I think they need

1567
01:36:15,880 --> 01:36:18,360
to change their whole mentality on it.

1568
01:36:18,360 --> 01:36:23,640
They focus so much on the principles, the hard skills of being a police officer and

1569
01:36:23,640 --> 01:36:30,600
don't teach the soft skills of interacting with human beings, interacting within the

1570
01:36:30,600 --> 01:36:31,600
society.

1571
01:36:31,600 --> 01:36:36,480
Sadly, a lot of these cities have gotten rid of their crime suppression units and they

1572
01:36:36,480 --> 01:36:42,400
say crime suppression units aren't exactly cops going out and knocking down doors and

1573
01:36:42,400 --> 01:36:47,560
arresting bad guys, but they're out there in the community talking to locals and making

1574
01:36:47,560 --> 01:36:53,880
friends with them and helping them to learn how to police their own people within their

1575
01:36:53,880 --> 01:36:56,160
neighborhood.

1576
01:36:56,160 --> 01:37:00,280
We have a city here locally that they got rid of their crime suppression unit because

1577
01:37:00,280 --> 01:37:08,400
they felt it didn't fit their liberal ideological take that they were taking or the political

1578
01:37:08,400 --> 01:37:11,880
stance they were taking at the time.

1579
01:37:11,880 --> 01:37:15,080
Then when they see crime, went straight up in those neighborhoods.

1580
01:37:15,080 --> 01:37:17,360
There's a give and take with that.

1581
01:37:17,360 --> 01:37:21,680
I think they learned that kind of stuff from the basics.

1582
01:37:21,680 --> 01:37:27,400
They hammered in them and then they hammer a very good non-lethal combatant training

1583
01:37:27,400 --> 01:37:30,640
program like Jujitsu.

1584
01:37:30,640 --> 01:37:35,000
Even Krav Maga has a lot of training, non-lethal stuff in it.

1585
01:37:35,000 --> 01:37:40,920
I think if they did a good mix of that within the academies, guys would be a lot better

1586
01:37:40,920 --> 01:37:43,920
prepared because we see a lot of that.

1587
01:37:43,920 --> 01:37:45,560
We see guys all the time.

1588
01:37:45,560 --> 01:37:52,280
If you follow that BJJCops on Instagram, there's tons, thousands of videos of those guys getting

1589
01:37:52,280 --> 01:37:59,360
manhandled by the criminal where all they could have done is a simple judo talk and

1590
01:37:59,360 --> 01:38:04,720
brought the guy down safely and then being able to restrain that person properly.

1591
01:38:04,720 --> 01:38:05,720
Yeah.

1592
01:38:05,720 --> 01:38:07,120
I mean, that's the problem.

1593
01:38:07,120 --> 01:38:08,520
There's so many.

1594
01:38:08,520 --> 01:38:12,520
It's sad because our community is not laughing at them.

1595
01:38:12,520 --> 01:38:14,920
They're just like, look, this is like fat firefighters.

1596
01:38:14,920 --> 01:38:16,200
This is an issue.

1597
01:38:16,200 --> 01:38:19,280
They are not going to survive their entire career.

1598
01:38:19,280 --> 01:38:24,200
Their family are going to be widowed or widower and then the people that they're supposed

1599
01:38:24,200 --> 01:38:25,800
to protect, they might die.

1600
01:38:25,800 --> 01:38:30,040
That might be the Ovalde or the Parkland or some of these things where there has been

1601
01:38:30,040 --> 01:38:34,240
an epic failure and children fucking died because of it.

1602
01:38:34,240 --> 01:38:35,800
It's an important conversation.

1603
01:38:35,800 --> 01:38:40,880
I think a lot of it goes into the physical health of officers as well.

1604
01:38:40,880 --> 01:38:48,600
Unfortunately, we see a lot of officers that are very, I'll just bluntly say it, overweight.

1605
01:38:48,600 --> 01:38:50,440
They don't fit the uniform properly.

1606
01:38:50,440 --> 01:38:55,960
It's like having a doctor who is 400 pounds obese and trying to tell you about how to

1607
01:38:55,960 --> 01:38:56,960
live a healthy lifestyle.

1608
01:38:56,960 --> 01:38:59,000
It just doesn't work like that.

1609
01:38:59,000 --> 01:39:05,160
I think that most departments could demand more of a physical training fitness or fitness

1610
01:39:05,160 --> 01:39:07,560
program out of their officers.

1611
01:39:07,560 --> 01:39:11,200
I think they should start instilling that early on in the academy.

1612
01:39:11,200 --> 01:39:14,680
States need to start changing the way they look at stuff.

1613
01:39:14,680 --> 01:39:17,800
Cities need to start changing the way they look at things.

1614
01:39:17,800 --> 01:39:25,640
They're treating their officers more like a well-oiled machine versus, oh, they're just

1615
01:39:25,640 --> 01:39:26,640
serving their role.

1616
01:39:26,640 --> 01:39:27,640
They're a number.

1617
01:39:27,640 --> 01:39:28,640
Absolutely.

1618
01:39:28,640 --> 01:39:34,880
Well, the other thing that I've noticed and I've lived it, I worked for Anaheim in California

1619
01:39:34,880 --> 01:39:38,980
for a few years and their bar was set so high.

1620
01:39:38,980 --> 01:39:43,680
They would lose 25% of every new hire class by the end of the probationary year.

1621
01:39:43,680 --> 01:39:47,360
It was just like, I'm sure you'll be successful in another department.

1622
01:39:47,360 --> 01:39:48,520
You're just not right for us.

1623
01:39:48,520 --> 01:39:49,520
I fucking love that.

1624
01:39:49,520 --> 01:39:52,280
It was a line of a thousand people.

1625
01:39:52,280 --> 01:39:53,280
What's happened is the opposite.

1626
01:39:53,280 --> 01:39:58,160
A lot of these cities, I think, are deluded into the fact that if you lower standards,

1627
01:39:58,160 --> 01:39:59,840
then you're going to fill seats.

1628
01:39:59,840 --> 01:40:01,480
It's completely converse.

1629
01:40:01,480 --> 01:40:06,780
You will fill seats with very large asses, but if you really want good first responders,

1630
01:40:06,780 --> 01:40:09,860
you put the fucking bar back where it's supposed to be.

1631
01:40:09,860 --> 01:40:16,120
You also, though, include high levels of training and a work week that fosters recovery so that

1632
01:40:16,120 --> 01:40:19,880
these men and women don't get murdered by their job, which is what happens in the fire

1633
01:40:19,880 --> 01:40:20,880
service.

1634
01:40:20,880 --> 01:40:25,160
They work so much that they get fat and get sick because they don't sleep.

1635
01:40:25,160 --> 01:40:26,400
They never fucking sleep.

1636
01:40:26,400 --> 01:40:30,320
There's some of us that stay in shape, but that's despite the work week, not because

1637
01:40:30,320 --> 01:40:31,320
of it.

1638
01:40:31,320 --> 01:40:35,740
You put those back and you actually fund, not defund, you'll have phenomenal police

1639
01:40:35,740 --> 01:40:39,780
officers, phenomenal firefighters, but you can't lower the standard and expect things

1640
01:40:39,780 --> 01:40:40,780
to get better.

1641
01:40:40,780 --> 01:40:42,880
It's completely backward thinking.

1642
01:40:42,880 --> 01:40:44,720
Oh, got it.

1643
01:40:44,720 --> 01:40:48,040
I mean, complacency kills.

1644
01:40:48,040 --> 01:40:49,040
It goes back to that.

1645
01:40:49,040 --> 01:40:50,040
That's all it is.

1646
01:40:50,040 --> 01:40:51,040
It's complacency.

1647
01:40:51,040 --> 01:40:57,360
It's one person that gets into an admin position and then they get lazy and then that cycles

1648
01:40:57,360 --> 01:41:02,280
down the train and just keeps going and going and going and going and going.

1649
01:41:02,280 --> 01:41:06,880
Thankfully, there are departments out there like you were saying about Anaheim and some

1650
01:41:06,880 --> 01:41:10,000
of these other areas that they do hold their people to higher standards.

1651
01:41:10,000 --> 01:41:11,000
That's great.

1652
01:41:11,000 --> 01:41:12,000
They need to.

1653
01:41:12,000 --> 01:41:20,000
When you got a behemoth of a city like LA area and all the little sub-sites lying out

1654
01:41:20,000 --> 01:41:24,520
of community, God, you better have the best of the best.

1655
01:41:24,520 --> 01:41:26,520
We demand it by our military.

1656
01:41:26,520 --> 01:41:32,600
Why don't we demand it by our local police, our national police, our federal police, or

1657
01:41:32,600 --> 01:41:33,600
whoever?

1658
01:41:33,600 --> 01:41:36,600
Look at the guys that go to the FBI.

1659
01:41:36,600 --> 01:41:39,600
The FBI is hard to get into.

1660
01:41:39,600 --> 01:41:41,120
It's hard to get in there.

1661
01:41:41,120 --> 01:41:45,760
You got to be that poster child on paper, but then look how much harder it is to get

1662
01:41:45,760 --> 01:41:48,600
on their HRT team.

1663
01:41:48,600 --> 01:41:52,560
Those guys have to be free, motherfucking crop.

1664
01:41:52,560 --> 01:41:57,840
We should demand that of all of our officers, of all of our firefighters, of all of our

1665
01:41:57,840 --> 01:41:59,600
paramedics, everybody.

1666
01:41:59,600 --> 01:42:04,000
You should have this program in there.

1667
01:42:04,000 --> 01:42:06,000
People that go, oh, well, we don't have time.

1668
01:42:06,000 --> 01:42:07,640
We don't have time to do this bullshit.

1669
01:42:07,640 --> 01:42:10,480
There's time in the day.

1670
01:42:10,480 --> 01:42:15,840
I'm raising two kids and a full-time job and I still manage to eat and work out and go

1671
01:42:15,840 --> 01:42:17,600
to Jiu-Jitsu five days a week.

1672
01:42:17,600 --> 01:42:19,600
Don't tell me there's no time.

1673
01:42:19,600 --> 01:42:20,600
Absolutely.

1674
01:42:20,600 --> 01:42:26,320
Well, speaking of which, our paths cross because I think you did a seminar here in our gym.

1675
01:42:26,320 --> 01:42:27,320
Is that right?

1676
01:42:27,320 --> 01:42:29,320
Yeah, we were down there traveling.

1677
01:42:29,320 --> 01:42:32,640
My fiance is from Ocala area.

1678
01:42:32,640 --> 01:42:36,600
Shout out to Iron Legion.

1679
01:42:36,600 --> 01:42:41,720
They asked me to come in and help teach, do a guest coach for the kids and then try to

1680
01:42:41,720 --> 01:42:44,840
teach a little similar to the adult class.

1681
01:42:44,840 --> 01:42:47,640
Yeah, I was down there now.

1682
01:42:47,640 --> 01:42:53,440
They want me to come down every so often whenever we're in town and help teach.

1683
01:42:53,440 --> 01:42:54,440
Brilliant.

1684
01:42:54,440 --> 01:42:56,840
Well, next time, let me know.

1685
01:42:56,840 --> 01:42:59,160
I'm a blue belt finally.

1686
01:42:59,160 --> 01:43:02,640
I've had a blue belt around my waist for a while, but I walked into a new school I go

1687
01:43:02,640 --> 01:43:06,320
to, which is not Iron Legion just because of the hours.

1688
01:43:06,320 --> 01:43:08,080
But now I feel like I'm a blue belt.

1689
01:43:08,080 --> 01:43:10,480
So I've been doing it for a while.

1690
01:43:10,480 --> 01:43:11,480
Absolutely love it.

1691
01:43:11,480 --> 01:43:14,040
But yeah, I'd love to come and take when your class has been you're in town.

1692
01:43:14,040 --> 01:43:15,040
Yeah, for sure, man.

1693
01:43:15,040 --> 01:43:21,840
I love spreading Jiu-Jitsu because I know how much it's helped me in life and going

1694
01:43:21,840 --> 01:43:23,720
back to fighting the tribe.

1695
01:43:23,720 --> 01:43:30,800
Like outside the military, this is the most scribe like place I've found that where I

1696
01:43:30,800 --> 01:43:31,800
fit in the most.

1697
01:43:31,800 --> 01:43:36,080
I've done all the other sports, nothing to get frostbite or anything, but I just never

1698
01:43:36,080 --> 01:43:39,720
fit into those kind of gyms, those kind of lifestyles.

1699
01:43:39,720 --> 01:43:46,920
Jiu-Jitsu was more my world because it's that controlled violence that I trained in for

1700
01:43:46,920 --> 01:43:50,920
so long in a different capacity.

1701
01:43:50,920 --> 01:43:52,960
But now it's something beautiful thing.

1702
01:43:52,960 --> 01:43:59,040
And I tell people all the time, like Jiu-Jitsu is like the weirdest place, but also like

1703
01:43:59,040 --> 01:44:01,200
the greatest place you could ever be.

1704
01:44:01,200 --> 01:44:06,240
In one moment, there could be like a billionaire rolling on the map with a dude that's damn

1705
01:44:06,240 --> 01:44:07,240
you're homeless.

1706
01:44:07,240 --> 01:44:11,320
And they have polar opposite political beliefs, but yet they're the best of friends when they're

1707
01:44:11,320 --> 01:44:13,240
on those maps rolling.

1708
01:44:13,240 --> 01:44:17,200
And all the stress you have from outside the world, in the world doesn't matter when you're

1709
01:44:17,200 --> 01:44:22,120
there and some dude's trying to choke you or break your arm.

1710
01:44:22,120 --> 01:44:27,200
It's like the biggest stress relief also on top of all that.

1711
01:44:27,200 --> 01:44:33,600
It's a great workout and I love spreading that knowledge as much as I can.

1712
01:44:33,600 --> 01:44:34,600
Absolutely.

1713
01:44:34,600 --> 01:44:39,840
I've had days where I've seen, and don't get me wrong, I've had days where I've been low,

1714
01:44:39,840 --> 01:44:44,560
but I've had days where I've just seen one of my friends and because we see them two,

1715
01:44:44,560 --> 01:44:48,280
three times a week in my case, you know what they normally look like.

1716
01:44:48,280 --> 01:44:51,680
So you go in one day and they're not themselves.

1717
01:44:51,680 --> 01:44:52,680
And so I'm like, you know what?

1718
01:44:52,680 --> 01:44:54,240
I'm not even going to roll today.

1719
01:44:54,240 --> 01:44:55,960
You want to just go outside and talk?

1720
01:44:55,960 --> 01:44:56,960
And that's what we do.

1721
01:44:56,960 --> 01:44:58,480
We're in the whole hour.

1722
01:44:58,480 --> 01:45:01,840
And it turns out they've got some pretty significant shit going on in their life.

1723
01:45:01,840 --> 01:45:08,480
So again, with that tribe back to your bouncer friend, you also get to see if we're all fucking

1724
01:45:08,480 --> 01:45:12,460
hiding in our house because there's a pandemic and the government decides the best thing

1725
01:45:12,460 --> 01:45:17,080
is to do everything that fucks you up mentally and physically.

1726
01:45:17,080 --> 01:45:19,200
How the hell are we supposed to check on each other?

1727
01:45:19,200 --> 01:45:24,320
So refinding that tribe, whether it's a chess club or a knitting club or Jiu Jitsu or Spartan

1728
01:45:24,320 --> 01:45:30,400
races, whatever it is, the more you're involved with other human beings, the more they might

1729
01:45:30,400 --> 01:45:32,960
see when you're struggling and then vice versa.

1730
01:45:32,960 --> 01:45:37,120
Yeah, we're not meant to be isolated people.

1731
01:45:37,120 --> 01:45:39,320
It's just not how our genetics works.

1732
01:45:39,320 --> 01:45:43,480
We're made to be in our little tribes, in our little communities.

1733
01:45:43,480 --> 01:45:47,760
We're made to be, you know, amongst people.

1734
01:45:47,760 --> 01:45:48,760
Yeah.

1735
01:45:48,760 --> 01:45:52,960
And then we have individuals that are kind of better at being alone.

1736
01:45:52,960 --> 01:45:59,160
But in reality, they still need people, you know, even those people that are extremely

1737
01:45:59,160 --> 01:46:00,160
introverted.

1738
01:46:00,160 --> 01:46:06,440
One of my good friends, fellow Brown Belt, I did Jiu Jitsu with, very introverted, but

1739
01:46:06,440 --> 01:46:08,880
on the mat, super extroverted.

1740
01:46:08,880 --> 01:46:11,160
I mean, just outgoing, crazy.

1741
01:46:11,160 --> 01:46:12,680
I was just talking about that with him today.

1742
01:46:12,680 --> 01:46:13,680
I was like, dude, you ain't no introvert.

1743
01:46:13,680 --> 01:46:16,080
I was like, you're an extrovert when you're on the mat.

1744
01:46:16,080 --> 01:46:19,520
He goes, oh yeah, but when I go home, I don't want to talk to anybody.

1745
01:46:19,520 --> 01:46:22,040
I don't have social groups or anything I'm bored of.

1746
01:46:22,040 --> 01:46:26,880
You know, he's like, I have this tribe and that tribe and that's it.

1747
01:46:26,880 --> 01:46:32,040
I had a guy on the show a while ago who wrote a book called The Introvert's Edge, and he

1748
01:46:32,040 --> 01:46:36,200
defined what it is to be an introvert and extrovert.

1749
01:46:36,200 --> 01:46:40,160
And what he said is it's where you get your energy.

1750
01:46:40,160 --> 01:46:44,560
And so you, and I guess I'm an introvert, so I can go, you know, I just interviewed

1751
01:46:44,560 --> 01:46:48,040
those veterans on there, you know, not with thousands of people, but with an audience

1752
01:46:48,040 --> 01:46:51,800
and on stage with these two very, very important men.

1753
01:46:51,800 --> 01:46:56,640
And it was brilliant, you know, but where I then recharged is when I went back in the

1754
01:46:56,640 --> 01:46:59,840
hotel room and, you know, spent some time on my own, talked to my family.

1755
01:46:59,840 --> 01:47:01,100
That's my recharge.

1756
01:47:01,100 --> 01:47:06,320
So if you get your energy from these large groups, if you kind of feel the need to be

1757
01:47:06,320 --> 01:47:10,080
in a social setting all the time, then you're probably truly an extrovert.

1758
01:47:10,080 --> 01:47:14,800
But if you either A, shy away or are okay with social gatherings, and I'm the guy that

1759
01:47:14,800 --> 01:47:18,640
you just turn around one day and one moment and I'm gone, like I'll hit that limit.

1760
01:47:18,640 --> 01:47:22,320
And I'm like, all right, this was awesome by that's also being an introvert, which I

1761
01:47:22,320 --> 01:47:23,320
didn't realize.

1762
01:47:23,320 --> 01:47:25,800
I'm the same way too.

1763
01:47:25,800 --> 01:47:31,920
Like I can go out in like a social setting, you know, bars and whatever, but I get to

1764
01:47:31,920 --> 01:47:33,920
a point where I'm just like, yep, I'm gone.

1765
01:47:33,920 --> 01:47:34,920
Let's go.

1766
01:47:34,920 --> 01:47:35,920
Time to leave.

1767
01:47:35,920 --> 01:47:36,920
I can't do this.

1768
01:47:36,920 --> 01:47:37,920
It's overstimulation.

1769
01:47:37,920 --> 01:47:38,920
Yeah.

1770
01:47:38,920 --> 01:47:44,000
Especially fucking hell, like bars and restaurants these days with televisions everywhere.

1771
01:47:44,000 --> 01:47:48,080
And then the live band comes and they turn their speakers up to 11, like back to the

1772
01:47:48,080 --> 01:47:49,080
future.

1773
01:47:49,080 --> 01:47:51,360
And I'm just like, all right, I got to, I got to get the fuck out.

1774
01:47:51,360 --> 01:47:53,160
And it's not even hypervigilance.

1775
01:47:53,160 --> 01:47:54,160
Yeah.

1776
01:47:54,160 --> 01:47:57,520
My hypervigilance, my threat awareness mind just goes through the roof.

1777
01:47:57,520 --> 01:48:02,160
And I'm just like, okay, I can, that guy could possibly be a threat.

1778
01:48:02,160 --> 01:48:04,840
That person's supposed to be a threat, you know, and it's just like, all right, I got

1779
01:48:04,840 --> 01:48:06,840
to get out of here and recharge.

1780
01:48:06,840 --> 01:48:07,840
Absolutely.

1781
01:48:07,840 --> 01:48:11,680
Well, I know that you've written one book, the Shaprod Chronicles.

1782
01:48:11,680 --> 01:48:12,720
So talk to me about that.

1783
01:48:12,720 --> 01:48:16,560
And then in the podcast, I think you did, I listened to was about a year ago.

1784
01:48:16,560 --> 01:48:20,000
And now you talked about maybe writing one for the average person as well.

1785
01:48:20,000 --> 01:48:23,360
So talk to me about the one that's already out there and if you're writing another one.

1786
01:48:23,360 --> 01:48:24,360
Yeah.

1787
01:48:24,360 --> 01:48:26,960
So I wrote the Shaprod Chronicles.

1788
01:48:26,960 --> 01:48:31,000
It's basically a chronicle of all of my poetry that I wrote.

1789
01:48:31,000 --> 01:48:34,640
I got into poetry just violently.

1790
01:48:34,640 --> 01:48:39,480
I would journal a lot when I was in the military and then realized I was writing poems at the

1791
01:48:39,480 --> 01:48:40,480
time.

1792
01:48:40,480 --> 01:48:42,720
I just thought I was just writing my thoughts down.

1793
01:48:42,720 --> 01:48:45,360
But apparently they flowed into a lot of poetry.

1794
01:48:45,360 --> 01:48:52,960
So I started breaking them up about a couple of years ago and started posting them on Instagram.

1795
01:48:52,960 --> 01:48:56,000
And people were like, oh, man, you should put these into a book and push them out.

1796
01:48:56,000 --> 01:49:02,040
And then I had a bunch of friends that were, I found a community within on Instagram that

1797
01:49:02,040 --> 01:49:05,160
were all veterans, that were all war poets of sorts.

1798
01:49:05,160 --> 01:49:06,160
And they had been putting out books.

1799
01:49:06,160 --> 01:49:09,080
I was like, maybe I can do one too, you know?

1800
01:49:09,080 --> 01:49:16,360
So the Shraprod Chronicles, the reason why I call it Shrappod is because shrapnel can

1801
01:49:16,360 --> 01:49:17,360
be wounds.

1802
01:49:17,360 --> 01:49:20,280
It can be mental or physical wounds that we carry with ourselves.

1803
01:49:20,280 --> 01:49:24,560
And then the pod being like a small unit or a tribe.

1804
01:49:24,560 --> 01:49:28,200
And so I kind of just put the two together and thought, oh, that sounds cool.

1805
01:49:28,200 --> 01:49:30,480
You know, at least it sounds cool to me, maybe.

1806
01:49:30,480 --> 01:49:32,280
I don't know about that.

1807
01:49:32,280 --> 01:49:36,640
Well, anybody else think it is what it is.

1808
01:49:36,640 --> 01:49:39,360
But yeah, so I was like, okay, let's put out my poetry book.

1809
01:49:39,360 --> 01:49:45,160
I finally got around to it about six months ago and started putting it together and then

1810
01:49:45,160 --> 01:49:50,280
did self-publish in August, launched it on Amazon.

1811
01:49:50,280 --> 01:49:53,600
And then recently did a follow-up book to that.

1812
01:49:53,600 --> 01:49:59,600
It's a lot less dark, depressive kind of raw emotions.

1813
01:49:59,600 --> 01:50:04,080
And now it's just kind of a lighter side to my poetry, you know, when I transitioned from

1814
01:50:04,080 --> 01:50:09,160
like going really dark, depressive stuff that, you know, stuff that stemmed from childhood

1815
01:50:09,160 --> 01:50:14,680
all the way into the war and whatnot and then relationships, you know, all interacting that

1816
01:50:14,680 --> 01:50:15,680
too.

1817
01:50:15,680 --> 01:50:21,080
But then now the, I call it mountains of peace is the second volume that's been out for a

1818
01:50:21,080 --> 01:50:23,920
little bit now.

1819
01:50:23,920 --> 01:50:27,160
And it shows that lighter side.

1820
01:50:27,160 --> 01:50:28,320
It's a quick book.

1821
01:50:28,320 --> 01:50:29,320
It's nothing crazy.

1822
01:50:29,320 --> 01:50:30,320
It's not long.

1823
01:50:30,320 --> 01:50:34,640
I think it's actually even shorter than the first one.

1824
01:50:34,640 --> 01:50:40,920
But yeah, so I launched those and, you know, they've been doing decent.

1825
01:50:40,920 --> 01:50:44,560
But then I just tried it.

1826
01:50:44,560 --> 01:50:46,440
I was like, oh man, you know, I love writing.

1827
01:50:46,440 --> 01:50:47,720
I love being creative.

1828
01:50:47,720 --> 01:50:53,200
So let's take some of my security practices and kind of put them into a book.

1829
01:50:53,200 --> 01:51:00,640
And so I looked through the markets and I realized there's books on cyber, there's books

1830
01:51:00,640 --> 01:51:06,640
on home security, there's books on, you know, executive protection for corporate world and

1831
01:51:06,640 --> 01:51:07,640
stuff of that nature.

1832
01:51:07,640 --> 01:51:10,560
But there's not a ton of it.

1833
01:51:10,560 --> 01:51:15,800
And I go, but there's also not a ton of books for guys that are on the solo side of one

1834
01:51:15,800 --> 01:51:21,800
man team protecting, you know, one principal, two, three, however many.

1835
01:51:21,800 --> 01:51:24,000
So I was like, man, this is my world.

1836
01:51:24,000 --> 01:51:25,000
This is my niche.

1837
01:51:25,000 --> 01:51:31,840
So I started taking all the articles that I've written for LinkedIn and EP Wired, which

1838
01:51:31,840 --> 01:51:39,080
is a security online security magazine and started taking all those and then just started

1839
01:51:39,080 --> 01:51:43,080
putting them into chapters and realizing, okay, this is flowing pretty good, you know.

1840
01:51:43,080 --> 01:51:48,880
So let's just take all the tips and tactics that I use every day with protecting ultra

1841
01:51:48,880 --> 01:51:54,800
high network people, put it into this book form as kind of a guide.

1842
01:51:54,800 --> 01:51:56,480
This is what I experienced.

1843
01:51:56,480 --> 01:52:02,040
Maybe this will help others do, who are already in the security industry, transition into

1844
01:52:02,040 --> 01:52:04,840
being a solo protector.

1845
01:52:04,840 --> 01:52:09,520
Or maybe they just adapt that to their regular EP team, you know, with the big corporate

1846
01:52:09,520 --> 01:52:11,320
team they have.

1847
01:52:11,320 --> 01:52:14,320
And so launched that in September.

1848
01:52:14,320 --> 01:52:16,600
It's called the Protector Series.

1849
01:52:16,600 --> 01:52:25,360
The first one is called a Guide to Solo Protection and Private Family Security.

1850
01:52:25,360 --> 01:52:32,360
And what's funny is a lot of people hit me up on social media and they're like, oh man,

1851
01:52:32,360 --> 01:52:36,000
I'm going to buy your book, you know, I want to learn how to protect my family better.

1852
01:52:36,000 --> 01:52:41,400
And I had to tell them like, well, the book's really not for the everyday person.

1853
01:52:41,400 --> 01:52:43,800
It's more for guys that are already in the industry.

1854
01:52:43,800 --> 01:52:49,720
But I'm finding out that the first book is being very relatable to people that are just

1855
01:52:49,720 --> 01:52:50,720
every day.

1856
01:52:50,720 --> 01:52:55,080
They're using some of these principles to protect their own families and whatnot.

1857
01:52:55,080 --> 01:53:00,400
And so I'm like, oh, well, heck, maybe it's hitting both industries or both sides of it.

1858
01:53:00,400 --> 01:53:04,040
You know, and then I'm doing a three book series essentially.

1859
01:53:04,040 --> 01:53:11,320
So the second book is more for the average everyday person to learn tips and tactics of

1860
01:53:11,320 --> 01:53:17,240
what we use in the security world from the high threat to the low threat area on how

1861
01:53:17,240 --> 01:53:23,480
to protect themselves, their families, how to hone in on their situational awareness

1862
01:53:23,480 --> 01:53:28,560
training and listen to their intuition and things of that nature.

1863
01:53:28,560 --> 01:53:34,000
And then the third book is going to be kind of a caveat or like kind of like bring it

1864
01:53:34,000 --> 01:53:41,280
all together, but also add in like the social media awareness, the cyber side of things.

1865
01:53:41,280 --> 01:53:47,680
Learning how to see threats online for parents who don't know that their child is being attacked

1866
01:53:47,680 --> 01:53:53,880
by a predator online or, you know, it's going to be a whole mix of things more for family,

1867
01:53:53,880 --> 01:53:56,520
but it's going to kind of bring the two books together essentially.

1868
01:53:56,520 --> 01:53:57,520
Brilliant.

1869
01:53:57,520 --> 01:53:58,520
Now that sounds amazing.

1870
01:53:58,520 --> 01:54:01,840
And I'm working on that second draft right now.

1871
01:54:01,840 --> 01:54:03,760
So I get writers block every damn day.

1872
01:54:03,760 --> 01:54:05,080
Join the club.

1873
01:54:05,080 --> 01:54:09,440
I was actually starting a cursor this morning.

1874
01:54:09,440 --> 01:54:12,320
You said about the group that were doing poetry.

1875
01:54:12,320 --> 01:54:14,160
Was that dead reckoning collective?

1876
01:54:14,160 --> 01:54:15,160
Yes, it is.

1877
01:54:15,160 --> 01:54:16,960
I had the lads on the show.

1878
01:54:16,960 --> 01:54:18,240
Yeah, they're great dudes.

1879
01:54:18,240 --> 01:54:20,000
I was on there.

1880
01:54:20,000 --> 01:54:21,800
We did live ID with them.

1881
01:54:21,800 --> 01:54:27,040
The main guy about a year or two ago.

1882
01:54:27,040 --> 01:54:28,040
Great dude, man.

1883
01:54:28,040 --> 01:54:31,920
I love all those guys and you know, I chat with all them every now and then.

1884
01:54:31,920 --> 01:54:32,920
So.

1885
01:54:32,920 --> 01:54:33,920
Brilliant.

1886
01:54:33,920 --> 01:54:34,920
Beautiful.

1887
01:54:34,920 --> 01:54:35,920
All right.

1888
01:54:35,920 --> 01:54:39,080
Well, then for people listening, where are the best places to find you on social media

1889
01:54:39,080 --> 01:54:42,160
and also where can they find the books?

1890
01:54:42,160 --> 01:54:46,120
So me on social media, you can I have a couple of different ones.

1891
01:54:46,120 --> 01:54:48,840
I use the strap pod.

1892
01:54:48,840 --> 01:54:54,080
That's where my poetry and stuff of that nature is that that's on Instagram.

1893
01:54:54,080 --> 01:54:59,280
My other Instagram is the real Irish lad.

1894
01:54:59,280 --> 01:55:01,280
That's my personal page.

1895
01:55:01,280 --> 01:55:08,320
I'm more I'm more active on Instagram than I am anywhere else.

1896
01:55:08,320 --> 01:55:10,160
Facebook is more personal.

1897
01:55:10,160 --> 01:55:11,720
I don't really give that out to people.

1898
01:55:11,720 --> 01:55:17,520
It's just for me to keep after family and see what's going on with friends here and

1899
01:55:17,520 --> 01:55:18,520
there.

1900
01:55:18,520 --> 01:55:20,520
I'm not super active on it.

1901
01:55:20,520 --> 01:55:22,760
LinkedIn, I'm really active on LinkedIn.

1902
01:55:22,760 --> 01:55:26,880
They can just look up my name, Justin Keating.

1903
01:55:26,880 --> 01:55:31,720
They post a lot of what I call EP tips of the day.

1904
01:55:31,720 --> 01:55:36,760
And it's just like little helpful tips for security practices and things of that nature,

1905
01:55:36,760 --> 01:55:41,360
which a lot of that's in my first book so they can get it there if they want to.

1906
01:55:41,360 --> 01:55:48,840
But the book, you can get them on Amazon or Barnes and Noble, the Protector Series, a

1907
01:55:48,840 --> 01:55:56,120
guide to solo protection and the private family security and the strap pod books are on Instagram

1908
01:55:56,120 --> 01:55:57,920
or on Amazon as well.

1909
01:55:57,920 --> 01:56:00,680
I think you can get them on Barnes and Noble as well.

1910
01:56:00,680 --> 01:56:02,880
There's a few other little online places.

1911
01:56:02,880 --> 01:56:07,040
But yeah, Amazon is the biggest place to get it.

1912
01:56:07,040 --> 01:56:08,040
Beautiful.

1913
01:56:08,040 --> 01:56:09,400
Well, Justin, I want to say thank you.

1914
01:56:09,400 --> 01:56:11,680
It's been such an incredible conversation.

1915
01:56:11,680 --> 01:56:18,280
You got such a storied lifeline, but you said you didn't speak about the, for example, the

1916
01:56:18,280 --> 01:56:21,160
suicide attempt to somewhat recently.

1917
01:56:21,160 --> 01:56:22,960
These are the conversations that we need to hear.

1918
01:56:22,960 --> 01:56:29,080
These, and I'm going to use air quotes, alphas of the world, military swap, fire, whatever,

1919
01:56:29,080 --> 01:56:36,920
UFC fighter, when those men and women are vulnerable, it totally debunks the myth that

1920
01:56:36,920 --> 01:56:41,640
we are this two dimensional robot that has no feelings and can keep going.

1921
01:56:41,640 --> 01:56:47,720
As we talked about with the greatest generation that you hit on this, there's so much courage

1922
01:56:47,720 --> 01:56:49,040
in vulnerability.

1923
01:56:49,040 --> 01:56:54,640
It's far more brave to tell everyone about your struggles than it is to bury it down

1924
01:56:54,640 --> 01:56:57,120
and pretend that you're RoboCop.

1925
01:56:57,120 --> 01:57:02,840
So I want to thank you not only for leading us through your career journey, but also for

1926
01:57:02,840 --> 01:57:04,640
your courageous vulnerability today.

1927
01:57:04,640 --> 01:57:06,160
Well, I appreciate it.

1928
01:57:06,160 --> 01:57:13,440
I love sharing my story with people in hopes of maybe to help somebody else out there.

1929
01:57:13,440 --> 01:57:18,080
When I write my poetry, I've had people reach out to me that had no combat experience, no

1930
01:57:18,080 --> 01:57:19,080
military or anything.

1931
01:57:19,080 --> 01:57:21,760
And they're like, oh my God, dude, that's what I'm feeling every day.

1932
01:57:21,760 --> 01:57:22,760
That's how I feel.

1933
01:57:22,760 --> 01:57:23,760
Those are the words.

1934
01:57:23,760 --> 01:57:26,520
And so I'm like, well, my job is done.

1935
01:57:26,520 --> 01:57:27,520
I helped somebody.

1936
01:57:27,520 --> 01:57:31,440
So yeah, I mean, I just I love enjoying.

1937
01:57:31,440 --> 01:57:37,480
I love to talk to people about it and just kind of pay it forward.

1938
01:57:37,480 --> 01:57:39,680
Hopefully my story changes someone's life.

1939
01:57:39,680 --> 01:57:44,640
And not that that's my goal, you know, but and I don't want the recognition for it.

1940
01:57:44,640 --> 01:57:47,880
I just want others to feel good about themselves.

1941
01:57:47,880 --> 01:57:51,560
And if they find a struggle and they're like, oh, well, this guy can get over it.

1942
01:57:51,560 --> 01:57:53,560
Maybe I can get over it, too.

1943
01:57:53,560 --> 01:58:00,200
So, yeah, so I think, yeah, I think you're a lot tougher man if you can admit your vulnerabilities

1944
01:58:00,200 --> 01:58:06,000
and your your your shortcoming versus sucking them all away and acting like a hard ass the

1945
01:58:06,000 --> 01:58:24,400
whole time.