1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,820
This episode is brought to you by Thorne and I have some incredible news for any of you

2
00:00:03,820 --> 00:00:07,960
that are in the military, first responder or medical professions.

3
00:00:07,960 --> 00:00:15,860
In an effort to give back, Thorne is now offering you an ongoing 35% off each and every one

4
00:00:15,860 --> 00:00:19,780
of your purchases of their incredible nutritional solutions.

5
00:00:19,780 --> 00:00:27,280
Now Thorne is the official supplement of CrossFit, the UFC, the Mayo Clinic, the Human Performance

6
00:00:27,280 --> 00:00:31,480
Project and multiple special operations organizations.

7
00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:36,420
I myself have used them for several years and that is why I brought them on as a sponsor.

8
00:00:36,420 --> 00:00:42,080
Some of my favorite products they have are their Multivitamin Elite, their Whey Protein,

9
00:00:42,080 --> 00:00:45,840
the Super EPA and then most recently, Cynaquil.

10
00:00:45,840 --> 00:00:50,120
As a firefighter, a stuntman and a martial artist, I've had my share of brain trauma

11
00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:55,520
and sleep deprivation and Cynaquil is their latest brain health supplement.

12
00:00:55,520 --> 00:01:02,640
Now to qualify for the 35% off, go to thorn.com, T-H-O-R-N-E dot com.

13
00:01:02,640 --> 00:01:05,460
Click on sign in and then create a new account.

14
00:01:05,460 --> 00:01:09,800
You will see the opportunity to register as a first responder or member of military.

15
00:01:09,800 --> 00:01:14,680
When you click on that, it will take you through verification with GovX.

16
00:01:14,680 --> 00:01:18,980
You'll simply choose a profession, provide one piece of documentation and then you are

17
00:01:18,980 --> 00:01:20,920
verified for life.

18
00:01:20,920 --> 00:01:26,680
From that point onwards, you will continue to receive 35% off through Thorn.

19
00:01:26,680 --> 00:01:33,120
For those of you who don't qualify, there is still the 10% off using the code BTS10,

20
00:01:33,120 --> 00:01:36,240
Behind the Shield 10 for a one time purchase.

21
00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:42,040
To learn more about Thorn, go to episode 323 of the Behind the Shield podcast with Joel

22
00:01:42,040 --> 00:01:45,360
Titoro and Wes Barnett.

23
00:01:45,360 --> 00:01:49,820
This episode is sponsored by Newcom and as many of you know, I only bring sponsors onto

24
00:01:49,820 --> 00:01:53,840
this show whose products I truly swear by.

25
00:01:53,840 --> 00:01:59,280
We are an overworked and under slept population, especially those of us that wear uniform for

26
00:01:59,280 --> 00:02:00,480
a living.

27
00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:05,480
And trying to reclaim some of the lost rest and recovery is imperative.

28
00:02:05,480 --> 00:02:10,540
The application of this product is as simple as putting on headphones and a sleep mask.

29
00:02:10,540 --> 00:02:16,160
As you listen to music on each of the programs, there is neuroacoustic software beneath that

30
00:02:16,160 --> 00:02:21,940
is tapping into the actual frequencies of your brain, whether to up regulate your nervous

31
00:02:21,940 --> 00:02:24,640
system or down regulate.

32
00:02:24,640 --> 00:02:29,200
Now for most of us that come off shift, we are A, exhausted and B, do not want to bring

33
00:02:29,200 --> 00:02:33,480
what we've had to see and do back home to our loved ones.

34
00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:39,540
So one powerful application is using the program Powernap, a 20 minute session that will not

35
00:02:39,540 --> 00:02:45,440
only feel like you've had two hours of sleep, but also down regulate from a hypervigilant

36
00:02:45,440 --> 00:02:50,560
state back into the role of mother or father, husband or wife.

37
00:02:50,560 --> 00:02:54,760
Now there are so many other applications and benefits from the software.

38
00:02:54,760 --> 00:03:03,040
So I urge you to go and listen to episode 806 with CEO Jim Poole, then download Newcom

39
00:03:03,040 --> 00:03:10,400
N-U-C-A-L-M from your app store and sign up for the seven day free trial.

40
00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:14,720
Not only will you have an understanding of the origin story and the four decades this

41
00:03:14,720 --> 00:03:21,120
science has spanned, but also see for yourself the incredible health impact of this life

42
00:03:21,120 --> 00:03:23,120
changing software.

43
00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:28,360
And you can find even more information on Newcom.com.

44
00:03:28,360 --> 00:03:29,520
Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

45
00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:33,200
As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on

46
00:03:33,200 --> 00:03:41,040
the show 20 year veteran of Navy special operations and elite skydiver, Nick Cush.

47
00:03:41,040 --> 00:03:46,280
Now in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from Nick's journey into the military,

48
00:03:46,280 --> 00:03:54,200
his time at SWIC, the world of EOD, concussion, compassion on the battleground, his own powerful

49
00:03:54,200 --> 00:04:01,120
mental health story, his transition, the military industrial complex, post-traumatic growth

50
00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:03,180
and so much more.

51
00:04:03,180 --> 00:04:07,320
Now before we get to this incredibly powerful and important conversation, as I say every

52
00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:12,200
week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the

53
00:04:12,200 --> 00:04:16,080
show, leave feedback and leave a rating.

54
00:04:16,080 --> 00:04:21,600
Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for

55
00:04:21,600 --> 00:04:23,120
others to find.

56
00:04:23,120 --> 00:04:28,080
And this is a free library of almost 900 episodes now.

57
00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:33,680
So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so

58
00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:38,880
I can get them to every single person on planet earth who needs to hear them.

59
00:04:38,880 --> 00:04:44,000
So with that being said, I introduce to you Nick Cush.

60
00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:45,000
Enjoy.

61
00:04:45,000 --> 00:05:08,160
Nick, I want to start by saying firstly, thank you to Travis Denman for connecting us.

62
00:05:08,160 --> 00:05:11,720
We had a great, great conversation when he was on the show and second to welcome you

63
00:05:11,720 --> 00:05:13,800
onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.

64
00:05:13,800 --> 00:05:15,760
Well, thanks James, I appreciate it.

65
00:05:15,760 --> 00:05:17,720
Yeah, definitely shout out to Travis and his brother Jericho.

66
00:05:17,720 --> 00:05:23,240
Jericho is a good friend of mine and Travis is doing a lot of good stuff out west.

67
00:05:23,240 --> 00:05:25,960
So I like seeing all of his updates with him flying.

68
00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:26,960
It's great.

69
00:05:26,960 --> 00:05:27,960
Absolutely.

70
00:05:27,960 --> 00:05:31,880
So firstly, where on planet earth are we finding you today?

71
00:05:31,880 --> 00:05:32,880
So I'm not too far from you.

72
00:05:32,880 --> 00:05:35,640
I'm about an hour and a half or so east of you.

73
00:05:35,640 --> 00:05:40,920
So I'm just outside Daytona Beach, Florida, just north of Orlando in a kind of a college

74
00:05:40,920 --> 00:05:42,920
town, Deland, Florida.

75
00:05:42,920 --> 00:05:45,200
There's a reason why you're there.

76
00:05:45,200 --> 00:05:49,680
So for people in Florida that are in your profession, it's the kind of Mecca in our

77
00:05:49,680 --> 00:05:51,180
area of the US.

78
00:05:51,180 --> 00:05:54,340
So talk to me about why you're in Deland right now.

79
00:05:54,340 --> 00:05:56,000
So we chose Deland.

80
00:05:56,000 --> 00:06:02,240
I retired in 2016 and Deland has always been, at least for the past, I don't know, probably

81
00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:05,880
nine or 10 years before I retired in 2016.

82
00:06:05,880 --> 00:06:13,160
It was this Mecca of skydiving manufacturing, where they manufacture equipment and sort

83
00:06:13,160 --> 00:06:17,480
of, you know, it's arguably kind of like some of the birthplace of the stuff in the states

84
00:06:17,480 --> 00:06:21,560
and a lot of innovation took place in Florida, some of it in Miami.

85
00:06:21,560 --> 00:06:26,480
And then the manufacturer sort of settled here in Deland with the weather, with obviously

86
00:06:26,480 --> 00:06:30,280
all the aviation just outside Embry-Riddle, Daytona Beach.

87
00:06:30,280 --> 00:06:35,120
And so they get a lot of, you know, aviation professions and aviation education from the

88
00:06:35,120 --> 00:06:38,360
engineering department at Embry-Riddle and Daytona Beach.

89
00:06:38,360 --> 00:06:43,680
So that's this little hub of a place, but it's also home to a lot of like really, like

90
00:06:43,680 --> 00:06:46,000
a really good private university here.

91
00:06:46,000 --> 00:06:48,220
So it's kind of like, it's got a college town feel to it.

92
00:06:48,220 --> 00:06:53,280
So that's why we settled because when I retired, it was, I'm going to work in the skydiving

93
00:06:53,280 --> 00:06:58,240
industry and may as well go right to the epicenter of it, where a lot of professional athletes

94
00:06:58,240 --> 00:07:04,040
or professionals just go to say Nashville, they go to where everything is happening and

95
00:07:04,040 --> 00:07:06,640
then something will ideally start to develop.

96
00:07:06,640 --> 00:07:08,480
And that's what I did.

97
00:07:08,480 --> 00:07:11,240
My son runs track and he actually had a race at Embry-Riddle.

98
00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:15,560
I think it was April of last year and he does JROTC as well.

99
00:07:15,560 --> 00:07:20,000
So when we got there, he was drooling over the O course that they have there, but you

100
00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:23,080
could tell there was definitely a military element to it as well.

101
00:07:23,080 --> 00:07:27,560
So what kind of groups are trying to pull candidates from that school?

102
00:07:27,560 --> 00:07:33,480
Well, they're, they're really focused on people that have, they are.

103
00:07:33,480 --> 00:07:38,160
The industry is focused on, I think what we like to see where I work is like the engineers

104
00:07:38,160 --> 00:07:44,560
in the aviation world, any aeronautical aviation, pilots or non-pilots.

105
00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:45,560
It really doesn't matter.

106
00:07:45,560 --> 00:07:50,640
If anybody's got a passion for aviation and aeronautical engineering, there, there's a

107
00:07:50,640 --> 00:07:52,600
place that the engineers are going to find.

108
00:07:52,600 --> 00:07:55,240
Now, granted, it's still circled around skydiving.

109
00:07:55,240 --> 00:07:59,600
So it's considerably a little bit different, but it still has, it still has its connections

110
00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:00,600
for sure.

111
00:08:00,600 --> 00:08:06,280
Now I'm jumping way ahead now, but before we start your journey and putting human beings

112
00:08:06,280 --> 00:08:13,040
into combat, as we sit here now in 2023, obviously you have a pretty solid aviation background

113
00:08:13,040 --> 00:08:17,840
when it comes to flinging yourself from some sort of plane or helicopter.

114
00:08:17,840 --> 00:08:20,720
Where do you see warfare going?

115
00:08:20,720 --> 00:08:24,560
As we're seeing more and more drones and you're, you're close to Emery Riddle.

116
00:08:24,560 --> 00:08:29,460
What would you think that the, the combat landscape would look like in say 15, 20 years

117
00:08:29,460 --> 00:08:30,460
from now?

118
00:08:30,460 --> 00:08:31,460
Oh, wow.

119
00:08:31,460 --> 00:08:32,460
Yeah.

120
00:08:32,460 --> 00:08:35,120
No, that's a, that's a, that's a great, that's a great topic.

121
00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:38,880
I think that anybody could probably discuss for hours is yeah, there's definitely a lot

122
00:08:38,880 --> 00:08:44,480
of drone stuff and we're just, we're seeing it nowadays, even recently with the U S shooting

123
00:08:44,480 --> 00:08:51,600
down drones that are flying out of Iran or anything in that region.

124
00:08:51,600 --> 00:08:57,900
For combat, I foresee always, and I'm obviously biased, but I always foresee some type of special

125
00:08:57,900 --> 00:09:02,560
operations or asymmetrical warfare is going to be a key thing for us.

126
00:09:02,560 --> 00:09:06,520
You know, a good friend of mine who's just on the Sean Ryan podcast back in September,

127
00:09:06,520 --> 00:09:11,520
Eric Prince, who was so fortunate to be able to spend some time with him last year was

128
00:09:11,520 --> 00:09:16,520
talking about how the key to that stuff is really kind of going back to our special operations

129
00:09:16,520 --> 00:09:22,520
roots and what we used to call while I was, when I was doing it was called foreign internal

130
00:09:22,520 --> 00:09:23,520
defense.

131
00:09:23,520 --> 00:09:24,520
It was called the FID missions.

132
00:09:24,520 --> 00:09:28,520
So it wouldn't be just a regular two week J set where we were doing some type of exercise

133
00:09:28,520 --> 00:09:29,520
with a host nation.

134
00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:34,280
We would actually embed and the green berets historically were notorious.

135
00:09:34,280 --> 00:09:43,520
This is their specialty, especially post Vietnam era and was to live, sleep, eat, train with

136
00:09:43,520 --> 00:09:48,440
their host nation and actually build up the force in that, in that capacity.

137
00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:52,320
So I believe that moving forward, where there will always be a place for the special operations

138
00:09:52,320 --> 00:09:57,520
forces to do that, I believe that that will be their closest thing to boots on the ground.

139
00:09:57,520 --> 00:10:03,600
Our big conventional platform is just, it's, it's morphed and it's different than it was

140
00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:06,920
in 2001 Afghanistan than it is today.

141
00:10:06,920 --> 00:10:12,800
And then the types of, you know, with the Chinese elements and the middle Eastern innovation

142
00:10:12,800 --> 00:10:15,240
and technology that we're up against for sure.

143
00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:18,800
Well, you have a very unique perspective pre and post 9 11.

144
00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:23,040
I want to get to your journey into that, but before we even get there, tell me where you

145
00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:26,760
were born and tell me a little about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how

146
00:10:26,760 --> 00:10:27,760
many siblings?

147
00:10:27,760 --> 00:10:30,160
So I was born in Southern California.

148
00:10:30,160 --> 00:10:36,000
I was born in Pomona, LA County, and then grew up for the first eight or 10 years in

149
00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:37,000
a little town.

150
00:10:37,000 --> 00:10:41,760
What was a little town called Laverne just outside like San Dimas used to go to, you

151
00:10:41,760 --> 00:10:45,200
know, raging waters as a kid, you know, it was like this very Southern California American

152
00:10:45,200 --> 00:10:46,200
kid lifestyle.

153
00:10:46,200 --> 00:10:53,800
My dad worked as a, as a financial controller for Toyota dealerships for big dealerships

154
00:10:53,800 --> 00:10:54,800
in the area.

155
00:10:54,800 --> 00:10:56,120
I always really good with numbers.

156
00:10:56,120 --> 00:10:57,120
He still is.

157
00:10:57,120 --> 00:10:58,120
Yeah.

158
00:10:58,120 --> 00:11:00,760
But now I get to make fun of them a little bit because I've kind of adopted some of that

159
00:11:00,760 --> 00:11:03,680
stuff with when it comes to math.

160
00:11:03,680 --> 00:11:04,680
I have two brothers.

161
00:11:04,680 --> 00:11:07,600
We're all eight years apart and I'm the middle child.

162
00:11:07,600 --> 00:11:10,600
So for those of the people that know me, that makes a lot of sense.

163
00:11:10,600 --> 00:11:14,880
So my older brother, he lives now up in, up in the Bay area.

164
00:11:14,880 --> 00:11:19,480
My younger brother lives in Corpus Christi, Texas.

165
00:11:19,480 --> 00:11:21,840
My mom, she lives in Colorado.

166
00:11:21,840 --> 00:11:26,240
So my parents, you know, when we were growing up, we were, you know, we were, we were pretty

167
00:11:26,240 --> 00:11:27,240
outgoing.

168
00:11:27,240 --> 00:11:29,240
We did a lot of, you know, my brother played baseball.

169
00:11:29,240 --> 00:11:33,200
I followed that played sports, but we were all, we were kind of far apart.

170
00:11:33,200 --> 00:11:35,320
So we weren't, you know, eight years apart.

171
00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:40,200
We almost sort of became babysitters for each other as opposed to really close.

172
00:11:40,200 --> 00:11:44,000
As we got older, we obviously got closer.

173
00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:48,720
And so it was, yeah, it was, it was a, it was kind of a rough childhood.

174
00:11:48,720 --> 00:11:51,800
You know, my parents didn't get along for a whole lot of it.

175
00:11:51,800 --> 00:11:53,800
They eventually got divorced.

176
00:11:53,800 --> 00:12:00,520
And then I lived with my mom till I was about 15 and, you know, a 15 year old from Southern

177
00:12:00,520 --> 00:12:04,960
California growing up in the school system, public school system there was, was kind of

178
00:12:04,960 --> 00:12:08,680
rough, but being an eighties kid, I grew up really surfing.

179
00:12:08,680 --> 00:12:12,360
I found a passion for the water and I loved surfing.

180
00:12:12,360 --> 00:12:16,320
And I ended up moving in with my dad right when I turned 16.

181
00:12:16,320 --> 00:12:20,520
And so I barely made it through high school because I was always going to the beach and

182
00:12:20,520 --> 00:12:25,160
surfing and I just, I found a place in my heart for the water.

183
00:12:25,160 --> 00:12:29,440
And it was sort of like, I think when I reflect back on it was an escape from everything that

184
00:12:29,440 --> 00:12:35,040
I, I didn't have at home and you have a really good relationship with my dad and, and, and

185
00:12:35,040 --> 00:12:37,920
I still do today.

186
00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:43,120
But the spending time in the water was the best place for me, even when I connected with

187
00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:47,760
some friends, it was really good because we had that camaraderie and started to kind of

188
00:12:47,760 --> 00:12:52,120
form that bond, especially when we would try to really, you know, we'd go camping just

189
00:12:52,120 --> 00:12:57,600
and make these big surf expeditions and sort of like make some kid mistakes and, you know,

190
00:12:57,600 --> 00:12:59,680
kind of get, you know, getting some trouble and things like that.

191
00:12:59,680 --> 00:13:06,060
But it kind of kept, it built that, that what I call now that early, early brotherhood camaraderie

192
00:13:06,060 --> 00:13:12,120
that I, that I became, it became part of my, my bloodline for sure.

193
00:13:12,120 --> 00:13:16,280
When it comes to the mental health conversation in the military and the first or second professions,

194
00:13:16,280 --> 00:13:20,520
a lot of times we're looking at when we were wearing the uniform, you know, when you're

195
00:13:20,520 --> 00:13:25,680
in, you know, Fallujah or when, you know, the grand fell fire in London or whatever it is,

196
00:13:25,680 --> 00:13:30,040
and there's very little conversation about what happened before we put the uniform on.

197
00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:34,460
And after almost a thousand conversations now, there's so many of us that were driven

198
00:13:34,460 --> 00:13:38,840
to service that did have some things that were, you know, you could, you could categorize

199
00:13:38,840 --> 00:13:40,560
traumatic when we were younger.

200
00:13:40,560 --> 00:13:45,360
So you, you touched on, you know, the, the family dynamic, were there any other, excuse

201
00:13:45,360 --> 00:13:51,320
me, any other elements when you look back now that contributed, do you think to any

202
00:13:51,320 --> 00:13:56,760
kind of highs and lows that you had later in life or even your, your drive to serve?

203
00:13:56,760 --> 00:14:03,160
Well, the high, I mean, obviously I really wish, you know, I wish that I was just telling

204
00:14:03,160 --> 00:14:04,400
my wife this the other day.

205
00:14:04,400 --> 00:14:11,800
I wish that the family, the, the family bond that we have, the four of us have, I wish

206
00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:14,560
that I would have had that when I was a kid.

207
00:14:14,560 --> 00:14:16,800
And I'm just, I, I don't live in resentment of that.

208
00:14:16,800 --> 00:14:18,920
I am proud of what we have.

209
00:14:18,920 --> 00:14:23,040
I'm just, I am glad that we're able to, you know, between my wife and I, we're able to

210
00:14:23,040 --> 00:14:26,600
create an environment that was better than what we had when we were kids.

211
00:14:26,600 --> 00:14:29,720
Cause that's what we're supposed to do is leave the world a little bit better than we

212
00:14:29,720 --> 00:14:30,720
found it.

213
00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:35,480
And the idea that we're able to do this has been, you know, throughout everything that

214
00:14:35,480 --> 00:14:39,240
I put that poor woman through, through, you know, the, all the military time and all the

215
00:14:39,240 --> 00:14:43,320
deployments and then transitioning out of the military and dealing with my going in

216
00:14:43,320 --> 00:14:46,840
every which direction that I could to be able to cope with everything.

217
00:14:46,840 --> 00:14:52,040
The fact that we're still here and we have this together is, is remarkable.

218
00:14:52,040 --> 00:14:57,840
The putting the uniform on, you know, that was in 19, I got a phone call in March of

219
00:14:57,840 --> 00:14:58,840
1996.

220
00:14:58,840 --> 00:15:04,480
It was like I graduated high school in June of 95, tried junior college, didn't take because

221
00:15:04,480 --> 00:15:07,600
I was, I was so busy surfing and I just, I skipped out.

222
00:15:07,600 --> 00:15:09,840
I barely made it through high school because I was surfing so much.

223
00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:13,400
And then I couldn't stick with junior college.

224
00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:16,600
It was just working, you know, at a restaurant.

225
00:15:16,600 --> 00:15:22,380
And then I got a phone call in March of 1996 from a Navy recruiter saying, Hey, you popped

226
00:15:22,380 --> 00:15:23,380
up on a radar.

227
00:15:23,380 --> 00:15:24,480
It looks like you need a job.

228
00:15:24,480 --> 00:15:28,240
And so we started some conversations and then it looked like for me, it was a way for me

229
00:15:28,240 --> 00:15:32,440
to still to have a job, start a new lifestyle, be part of something that was bigger than

230
00:15:32,440 --> 00:15:35,280
myself and keep me close to the water.

231
00:15:35,280 --> 00:15:36,480
And so I could keep surfing.

232
00:15:36,480 --> 00:15:38,800
But the Navy sounded like that was the way to go.

233
00:15:38,800 --> 00:15:42,960
And then as that progressed, getting into a lot of the programs that the Navy have for

234
00:15:42,960 --> 00:15:47,600
special operations, that was that kind of had my aim all over it.

235
00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:52,560
So, and was SWCC the first element that you found yourself in?

236
00:15:52,560 --> 00:15:57,160
It was, it was, you know, I went to boot camp in October of 1996.

237
00:15:57,160 --> 00:16:02,120
And then went to a small little trade school that everybody that you kind of pick out of

238
00:16:02,120 --> 00:16:05,720
the gate for about three months at Virginia Beach.

239
00:16:05,720 --> 00:16:10,680
And then I was assigned up to Washington, DC, when the Bureau of Naval Personnel was

240
00:16:10,680 --> 00:16:13,960
actually based just across the street from the Pentagon.

241
00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:16,760
It's now outside of Newington, Tennessee.

242
00:16:16,760 --> 00:16:20,320
It's always there just as an E1, E2, kind of an admin waiting to go to a ship.

243
00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:23,160
I was supposed to go to a brand new ship that was being built.

244
00:16:23,160 --> 00:16:25,280
Down the hall, made some friends.

245
00:16:25,280 --> 00:16:30,040
We were all, you know, athletes who were trying to be, you know, in shape and runners.

246
00:16:30,040 --> 00:16:32,840
We were, you know, 20 years old, 19, 20 years old.

247
00:16:32,840 --> 00:16:37,920
And those guys were all here going to BUDS, dive school, SWCC, EOD or whatever it was.

248
00:16:37,920 --> 00:16:41,720
And so I wanted to drive boats because I wanted, that's, that was what I wanted to do.

249
00:16:41,720 --> 00:16:45,360
And this is, you know, this is early, this is mid 1997.

250
00:16:45,360 --> 00:16:47,200
And so that was where the SWCC stuff started.

251
00:16:47,200 --> 00:16:51,640
And then I put a package in and then went to Sears School, January of 98, and then went

252
00:16:51,640 --> 00:16:54,120
to SWCC right after that.

253
00:16:54,120 --> 00:16:57,680
So for a lot of people listening, you know, we're not super familiar with these roles.

254
00:16:57,680 --> 00:17:01,120
Obviously you'd have to go too in depth, but give us an overview on what the SWCC role

255
00:17:01,120 --> 00:17:02,120
would be.

256
00:17:02,120 --> 00:17:08,160
Well, so the SWCC was, it's not a new program, but it was a newer program that they really

257
00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:09,320
stood up and focused on.

258
00:17:09,320 --> 00:17:13,080
So SWCC stands for Special Warfare Combatant Crewmember or crewman.

259
00:17:13,080 --> 00:17:19,240
And so the history of the SWCC guys or boat guys was, comes from the, the brown water

260
00:17:19,240 --> 00:17:26,000
Navy guys driving patrol boats in the river, in the rivers of Vietnam, Cambodia, that during

261
00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:27,880
that timeframe in the sixties and seventies.

262
00:17:27,880 --> 00:17:31,840
And the history even goes back even further into World War II, but that was kind of where

263
00:17:31,840 --> 00:17:37,440
we sort of laid our claim to was, was the brown water Navy guys.

264
00:17:37,440 --> 00:17:42,640
And so SWCC in the modern time or in the late nineties really stood up as driving boats,

265
00:17:42,640 --> 00:17:49,080
driving either 82 foot boats, 36 foot boats, 24 foot boats for the primary maritime insertion

266
00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:52,040
platform for the SEAL teams.

267
00:17:52,040 --> 00:17:55,320
So we would be paired up with a SEAL team, a respective SEAL team, and work with the

268
00:17:55,320 --> 00:17:58,880
SEAL platoon and be their maritime insertion asset.

269
00:17:58,880 --> 00:18:04,640
And so that to me was a way in to being on the water, training to be a combatant, training

270
00:18:04,640 --> 00:18:09,160
to be, you know, a commando, at least a maritime type, because that was, that was where that

271
00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:10,160
was my bread and butter.

272
00:18:10,160 --> 00:18:16,080
And so at that age, I, that was perfect for me because I was able to take it all in and

273
00:18:16,080 --> 00:18:21,120
work with a lot of guys that have been around and get around for a long time and really

274
00:18:21,120 --> 00:18:25,280
get some really good mentorship, good and bad mentorship, because all mentorship, you

275
00:18:25,280 --> 00:18:29,680
know, can go both ways for sure, but it's all good for me.

276
00:18:29,680 --> 00:18:35,680
That it was a great time to be raised in my early twenties in that community for sure.

277
00:18:35,680 --> 00:18:38,000
What's the relationship between SWCC and the riverines?

278
00:18:38,000 --> 00:18:42,880
I had two of the guys that are the founders of the US side of BeaverFit and they were

279
00:18:42,880 --> 00:18:43,880
riverines.

280
00:18:43,880 --> 00:18:48,160
So it was a short time they stood that back up and then I think they disassembled it again.

281
00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:49,200
Oh, okay.

282
00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:55,120
So well, the, so the, there was a, you know, when I, when I first started in the late nineties,

283
00:18:55,120 --> 00:18:58,280
there were the two boat units on the respective East and West coast out of Virginia Beach

284
00:18:58,280 --> 00:18:59,660
and out of Coronado.

285
00:18:59,660 --> 00:19:02,440
And then there was one in Panama.

286
00:19:02,440 --> 00:19:06,240
So that would have been the old SBU 26 and those old riverine guys.

287
00:19:06,240 --> 00:19:11,080
And so I wouldn't call it that there was like animosity or tension, but it was sort of like,

288
00:19:11,080 --> 00:19:17,600
if you were a riverine guy, like it was, you were closer to your roots of the old PBR guys,

289
00:19:17,600 --> 00:19:20,240
the old patrol boat, riverine guys from Vietnam.

290
00:19:20,240 --> 00:19:25,320
And so it was a little bit more like, you're a little bit closer to real world action.

291
00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:29,480
If you're a riverine guy, that was sort of like the, what it felt like.

292
00:19:29,480 --> 00:19:33,040
But whenever I met or hung out with any of the riverine guys, there was no like, you

293
00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:36,700
know, beef between, you know, coastal and riverine guys.

294
00:19:36,700 --> 00:19:41,360
But the river, if you wanted to be a riverine guy, you had to live because they later moved

295
00:19:41,360 --> 00:19:42,360
to Mississippi.

296
00:19:42,360 --> 00:19:44,640
Nobody really wanted to live in Mississippi.

297
00:19:44,640 --> 00:19:47,020
So you're like, you river and guys can have it.

298
00:19:47,020 --> 00:19:54,120
But the river and guys did definitely continue that, that pioneer portion of the, of the

299
00:19:54,120 --> 00:19:58,120
history of the, the brown water Navy guys for sure.

300
00:19:58,120 --> 00:19:59,120
And what about deployments?

301
00:19:59,120 --> 00:20:01,640
I'm assuming we're still pre 9-11 at this point.

302
00:20:01,640 --> 00:20:04,600
Where did you find yourself going under that role?

303
00:20:04,600 --> 00:20:10,640
So in 1999, I did my first deployment with, with one of the West coast SEAL teams with,

304
00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:14,200
I believe it was SEAL team five out to Guam.

305
00:20:14,200 --> 00:20:18,120
And so in Guam there was, you know, there's a, you know, little island in the, you know,

306
00:20:18,120 --> 00:20:23,520
in the Marianas Island, in the Marianas, just off the Marianas trench, the Marianas Island

307
00:20:23,520 --> 00:20:24,520
group.

308
00:20:24,520 --> 00:20:28,880
And it was more, you know, 1999 deploying and it's deploying and training, deploying

309
00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:30,960
and training, then doing a little bit with host nation.

310
00:20:30,960 --> 00:20:35,560
We did some stuff with the Singaporeans, some stuff with the Solomon islands.

311
00:20:35,560 --> 00:20:38,360
And we basically, we're always doing training, training, training.

312
00:20:38,360 --> 00:20:42,360
There was a big exercise called Cobra gold that I think that they still really big exercise

313
00:20:42,360 --> 00:20:47,840
that they work with, you know, the Koreans, South Korea, you know, and the whole, the

314
00:20:47,840 --> 00:20:50,760
whole PACOM, the whole Pacific command region.

315
00:20:50,760 --> 00:20:54,480
It was really, it was really cool just because we're now we're closely embedded with our

316
00:20:54,480 --> 00:20:56,640
respective SEAL platoon.

317
00:20:56,640 --> 00:20:58,400
We're just always doing different stuff.

318
00:20:58,400 --> 00:21:03,700
We're doing, you know, visit board search and seizure training, you know, training on

319
00:21:03,700 --> 00:21:08,680
Gulf oil platforms, doing over the beach inserts, live fire shooting.

320
00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:13,120
And it's just, it's like being, doing a workup prior deployment, but now we're on deployment

321
00:21:13,120 --> 00:21:15,560
and we're just always kind of training and doing stuff.

322
00:21:15,560 --> 00:21:18,880
And that was a really, once again, a really good experience.

323
00:21:18,880 --> 00:21:23,560
And, you know, I came back from that deployment, not knowing if I was going to continue on,

324
00:21:23,560 --> 00:21:27,280
got positioned into a really good detachment, some really good leadership, and then went

325
00:21:27,280 --> 00:21:33,680
back on deployment the following year in 2000 to the, to Bahrain.

326
00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:35,680
So it was like to the central Arabian Gulf.

327
00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:39,160
And then our deployments were actually doing, this was like one of the big pieces that we

328
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:41,120
were actually doing real world operations.

329
00:21:41,120 --> 00:21:45,320
It was, what we were doing is we would go up to Kuwait and work out of the Northern

330
00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:46,480
Arabian Gulf.

331
00:21:46,480 --> 00:21:53,720
And as tankers were smuggling oil out of Iraq, out of the KAA, out of the, out of a river,

332
00:21:53,720 --> 00:21:58,440
out of Iraq, we would do boardings and then seize the ship and then turn the ship over

333
00:21:58,440 --> 00:22:06,000
to the central, the central fleet there to the actual, you know, big Navy.

334
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:09,160
And then they would take control of the ships and then basically seize the tankers and the

335
00:22:09,160 --> 00:22:12,400
oil because they were smuggling through running ships dark at night.

336
00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:16,560
And so we would go up alongside, Dill Platoon would board and then we would basically, they

337
00:22:16,560 --> 00:22:19,720
would secure the ship and then we would take them off and then turn the ship over.

338
00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:24,800
So that was really kind of like a pretty cool piece of history for me that where there wasn't

339
00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:29,320
a whole lot of kinetic or types of boarding operations like that going on.

340
00:22:29,320 --> 00:22:32,720
And so there was a small footprint of us that got to be able to, we were part of it prior

341
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:33,720
to 9-11.

342
00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:34,720
Amazing.

343
00:22:34,720 --> 00:22:38,800
Well, well, speaking of 9-11, you're already in the Middle East somewhat.

344
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:43,440
Talk to me about what that day looked like for you, what your 9-11 experience was, but

345
00:22:43,440 --> 00:22:49,560
also I'd love to hear the kind of contrast between how training was viewed prior to that

346
00:22:49,560 --> 00:22:53,720
initiating, and then what changed for you in the role that you held.

347
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:59,360
Yeah, it was, I'd come back from that deployment in December of 2000 and just a few months

348
00:22:59,360 --> 00:23:03,920
later I transferred down to Puerto Rico.

349
00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:07,920
So I actually was stationed in Puerto Rico for just under three years.

350
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:11,120
And so a lot of the missions that we were doing out of Puerto Rico were your foreign

351
00:23:11,120 --> 00:23:12,120
internal defense.

352
00:23:12,120 --> 00:23:17,740
We would deploy to, we would just take trips to say Trinidad and Tobago or Peru or Bolivia

353
00:23:17,740 --> 00:23:22,960
or Costa Rica and just doing internal training with their host nation, Coast Guard or maritime

354
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:24,240
assets.

355
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:31,440
And so it was on September 12th, 2001, we were supposed to fly to Bolivia to do a three-week

356
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:33,360
training mission for them.

357
00:23:33,360 --> 00:23:37,360
And then September 11th happened and we're just kind of glued to the, to we're on the

358
00:23:37,360 --> 00:23:40,960
quarter deck of the command watching everything kind of unfold on the screen.

359
00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:45,800
And just as anybody can remember that was either, that was on active duty, knew that

360
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:48,640
things were about to really, really dramatically change.

361
00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:54,000
And they did in a heartbeat, but we still had a focus for us as part of the contingent

362
00:23:54,000 --> 00:24:00,960
and extremist force for South America, for Southcom, we still had a focus because Columbia

363
00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:05,720
was still really hot during that time with the FARC and everything that was going on

364
00:24:05,720 --> 00:24:07,860
20 plus years ago.

365
00:24:07,860 --> 00:24:11,600
And there was American hostages in Columbia that we were getting spun up to actually go

366
00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:15,640
and be a blocking force for a respective SEAL platoon for all of these different things.

367
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:19,800
We're also working with Charlie three seven, which was the ODA group that was based out

368
00:24:19,800 --> 00:24:23,760
of there for Southcom, Southcom, what used to be located in Puerto Rico.

369
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:27,480
So there was this big contingent that was still focused on central and South America,

370
00:24:27,480 --> 00:24:29,240
you know, when everything was going on.

371
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:35,160
So while we did spin, spin some guys up and send guys to East Africa post 9 11, just basically

372
00:24:35,160 --> 00:24:36,160
for presence.

373
00:24:36,160 --> 00:24:38,400
And that was where Djibouti kind of started to stand up.

374
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:42,860
We were still a contingent force for Southcom and they didn't want us, they, they couldn't

375
00:24:42,860 --> 00:24:46,160
just take all assets they could and send them to the Middle East.

376
00:24:46,160 --> 00:24:49,920
And plus, I'm a boat guy and Afghanistan was landlocked.

377
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:54,960
So, so we were, we, you know, there was only so much at that point that, that as a SWIT

378
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:58,320
guy that we were part of that, that, that operation.

379
00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:04,000
So I had a guest on Kaye Hernandez, who actually came with us on 7X, which we'll get into in

380
00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:06,440
a little while, but she used Army ODA.

381
00:25:06,440 --> 00:25:10,080
So you just touched on being exposed to the ODA detachment.

382
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:14,800
Talk to me about, you know, what made you transition from the boats to that role?

383
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:17,040
So you know, over the next couple of years, we're really good.

384
00:25:17,040 --> 00:25:24,000
You know, I mean, honestly, if you know, they're not being a war going on, being in the military,

385
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:28,120
being a SWIT guy down in Puerto Rico was, was one of the best kept secrets.

386
00:25:28,120 --> 00:25:30,000
You know, we got a lot of really good training.

387
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:31,440
It was when Vieques was still open.

388
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:34,280
So we were able to do live shooting over at the Vieques Island.

389
00:25:34,280 --> 00:25:37,040
And it was a lot, really a lot of good people.

390
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:39,640
You can get in shape, you could get, there was good surf down there.

391
00:25:39,640 --> 00:25:41,280
It was just kind of like a dream.

392
00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:45,000
But yeah, then the war kicked off and things started getting a little bit, yeah, a little

393
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:46,000
bit real.

394
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:49,480
Did a lot, still did some more training trips down to Columbia.

395
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:53,680
Did a really good, a really long one, about six weeks to Costa Rica, which I didn't have

396
00:25:53,680 --> 00:25:57,840
any complaints about because I was able to find my way, my way, find my way to get some

397
00:25:57,840 --> 00:25:59,880
surf while I was on that trip.

398
00:25:59,880 --> 00:26:06,480
But then we, Puerto Rico, the Naval base was getting braked, was basically up for getting

399
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:08,440
foreclosure.

400
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:12,640
So the, you know, Congress approved it and they ended up closing that Naval base.

401
00:26:12,640 --> 00:26:16,560
And so now all of us are sitting there like, what do I do?

402
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:20,880
At this point, I'd always had this in the back of my mind that I did want to put in

403
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:24,600
an explosive organ disposal technician package.

404
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:28,800
And the time it just, it opened up, like there's this path, there's this opportunity.

405
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:33,040
You're either going to go back to San Diego and be, you know, be a boat guy into your

406
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:39,520
late thirties and forties and, or you have an opportunity to switch to this community

407
00:26:39,520 --> 00:26:41,120
and then actually get into the fight.

408
00:26:41,120 --> 00:26:42,920
And, you know, Iraq had just kicked off.

409
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:44,440
This was March of 03.

410
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:45,960
Afghanistan was still hot.

411
00:26:45,960 --> 00:26:49,720
Here's an opportunity to actually get, you know, build a new trade.

412
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:53,720
And that was what I thought was if I'm going to spend 20 years in this military, I'm going

413
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,000
to get as much out of it as I can.

414
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:58,880
So now you switched from the boats.

415
00:26:58,880 --> 00:27:01,160
If you wouldn't mind, give us an overview of that role.

416
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:02,160
Yeah.

417
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:06,520
So, yeah, so I knew that the process, I was reluctant because I wasn't sure where like

418
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:09,000
the SWCC leadership was going to sit.

419
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:14,200
You know, I didn't want them to think or feel that I was turning my back on the community,

420
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:15,200
but it was really good.

421
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:19,400
And, you know, that last podcast, I couldn't remember his first name, but his name was

422
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:24,240
Mike Whirlman, who was the SWCC sort of detailer who detailed all the enlisted guys, wherever

423
00:27:24,240 --> 00:27:25,240
they were.

424
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:29,320
And I remember the phone call, just like it was yesterday when I told him what I was thinking.

425
00:27:29,320 --> 00:27:32,600
And he said, he goes, look, man, you've done six years for the community.

426
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:34,400
Like, if you want to go, you can go.

427
00:27:34,400 --> 00:27:37,960
And if it doesn't work out for whatever reason, if you fail out or if you get dropped, you

428
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:38,960
can come back.

429
00:27:38,960 --> 00:27:41,760
I mean, it was really, you know, he said, you did a really good job for us.

430
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:45,680
And so there's no hard feelings, at least not from from our office.

431
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:51,320
So an EOD school being, you know, academically challenging, more so academically challenging.

432
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:52,320
It starts with dive school.

433
00:27:52,320 --> 00:27:55,400
It's about two and a half months of dive school in Panama City.

434
00:27:55,400 --> 00:28:03,600
And I was surprised how there was, you know, the student, the class seemed pretty deep.

435
00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:05,200
And we lost a lot of students in dive school.

436
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:06,680
They just weren't comfortable in the water.

437
00:28:06,680 --> 00:28:07,680
And so it's dive school.

438
00:28:07,680 --> 00:28:10,160
I mean, this was this was my this was my bread and butter.

439
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:11,160
This is where I was at.

440
00:28:11,160 --> 00:28:13,760
And so I felt most comfortable.

441
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:17,400
Finished dive school and then EOD school is another 10, 11 months after that.

442
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:20,440
So we're looking at around 12 with a little bit of a hold time.

443
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:26,200
There was about 14 months of training of school before even getting to an EOD command or an

444
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:31,440
EOD mobile unit and then getting worked up and then assigned and then deployed.

445
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:32,840
So it's going to be a long time.

446
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:38,320
But I wouldn't I wouldn't have traded my timing for anything because it was just it was perfect.

447
00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:44,000
You know, I went over to EOD schools and E6 finished EOD school in February of 2005.

448
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:49,240
So that whole cycle of one year long, you know, year and a half long process.

449
00:28:49,240 --> 00:28:55,080
And then eventually found myself in August of 2005 after my first EOD workup and taking

450
00:28:55,080 --> 00:29:00,880
it all in and this new new community, new personalities and new mentors being a new

451
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:02,800
guy all over again.

452
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:07,880
And then assigned to SEAL Team 3, which I which later I pretty much found my home for

453
00:29:07,880 --> 00:29:12,520
the following, you know, eight, 10 years is where I would cycle in and out with those

454
00:29:12,520 --> 00:29:14,320
guys.

455
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:17,600
So you talked about the diving portion.

456
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:21,240
When you're in this new role, was there a skydiving element to it as well?

457
00:29:21,240 --> 00:29:22,240
There wasn't not yet.

458
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:26,960
There was like with EOD, there is a military freefall aspect to it, but it's not a pipeline

459
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:27,960
portion.

460
00:29:27,960 --> 00:29:28,960
So not everybody's going through it.

461
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:35,760
I had gone to, you know, the formerly called Fort Benning, Georgia back in February 2002

462
00:29:35,760 --> 00:29:37,120
for static line airborne.

463
00:29:37,120 --> 00:29:43,040
So three weeks there, that was my first time jumping out of a plane at 1200 feet.

464
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:49,280
So speaking of that, I was just at a talk here in Ocala.

465
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:55,480
There's IHMC is a big research organization and they were doing a concussion study on

466
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:57,780
the airborne candidates.

467
00:29:57,780 --> 00:30:01,540
So all the jumps and they would have this kind of ballistic helmet that they could figure

468
00:30:01,540 --> 00:30:05,000
out kind of what level of impact they took when they fell.

469
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:09,360
And you know, it was an interesting perspective on something that ultimately seems mild.

470
00:30:09,360 --> 00:30:13,360
Now when you're in the role that you're in now, we're talking about obviously explosives

471
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:15,840
and breaching some of these other elements.

472
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:20,440
Jumping ahead again, talk to me about the TBI and concussion element of the men and women

473
00:30:20,440 --> 00:30:22,240
that serve in your role.

474
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:25,000
Oh, it's significant.

475
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:28,640
You know, at the time when you're standing up against a breach, you're setting a breach

476
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:32,680
or a charge is going off, you know, you're young and we hadn't had all these studies

477
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:34,320
yet.

478
00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:35,320
It was awesome.

479
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:40,320
And we're like, yes, this is what I just created on the table or this is what we're doing.

480
00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:42,560
And we love the fireworks show.

481
00:30:42,560 --> 00:30:45,440
And now we're blowing doors open or we're getting rid of ordinance.

482
00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:53,520
So we're basically practicing demo and feeling that shock of what these chemical compounds

483
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:54,520
can do.

484
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:55,520
It's a thrill.

485
00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:57,720
It's a rush.

486
00:30:57,720 --> 00:31:02,320
Over time and that exposure, we have found ways, thankfully in the military, I'm sure

487
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:07,000
at this point I'm granted a little far removed from it, but I found ways to mitigate that.

488
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:12,480
And what we did in I'd say 2012, 2013, it was a requirement for us to wear ballistic

489
00:31:12,480 --> 00:31:15,960
helmets while we were doing breaching operations.

490
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:22,040
Well, the ballistic was for basically for shrapnel if you're exposed to it and then

491
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,480
any of the door shrapnel or anything comes flying at you.

492
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:27,480
What we started to do was kind of say, fuck that.

493
00:31:27,480 --> 00:31:32,680
We're going to wear our vented helmets because when that shockwave goes into it goes everywhere

494
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:37,800
and it goes up into around your head, we don't want that kevlar ballistic helmet keeping

495
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:38,800
in that blast way.

496
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:39,800
We want it to vent out.

497
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:44,240
So we would wear our carbon fiber helmets that we were issued.

498
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:48,960
And so that was a way to so I mean, a lot of us were suffering from short term memory

499
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:52,640
loss and headaches and problems with sleep while we're on active duty.

500
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:55,280
But it's just that we thought, oh, well, like we're sleep deprived.

501
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:58,320
And this is just this is this is how it is and we just can keep going.

502
00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:02,160
I mean, that's that was that was the beauty part about about working with so many great

503
00:32:02,160 --> 00:32:07,640
guys was that we can operate in the red and we can still operate as hard as we can and

504
00:32:07,640 --> 00:32:08,640
perform.

505
00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:13,920
And so but yeah, the traumatic brain injury is definitely a real thing, especially in

506
00:32:13,920 --> 00:32:17,920
a real, you know, almost, you know, kind of an epidemic that's happening because we had

507
00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:23,100
no idea, you know, in the early 2000s, you know, up until just really fairly recently,

508
00:32:23,100 --> 00:32:26,360
how bad it really is and what the after effects are.

509
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:29,720
You know, we thought it was just like, OK, well, this is just this.

510
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:30,720
This is part of it.

511
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:34,760
This is hard and it's cool that we're so close to these charges and it, you know, I'm going

512
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:35,760
to get your blood pumping, man.

513
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:36,760
I mean, it's it's awesome.

514
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:40,760
So but we just didn't know it wasn't good for you.

515
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:42,440
I had Sarah Wilkinson on this.

516
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:44,720
She's gone twice now, I think.

517
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:47,320
But she lost her husband, Chad, you know, who's the seal.

518
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,360
And then Jamie Metcalfe's husband, David, as well.

519
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:53,000
And both of them, it seems like there was a TBI element.

520
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:56,560
So when you know my profession, we don't get as much of that.

521
00:32:56,560 --> 00:32:58,400
You know, we have ceiling fall on my heads.

522
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:03,320
And if we like I did martial arts, so I had a lot of impacts from other human beings.

523
00:33:03,320 --> 00:33:07,840
But, you know, you and law enforcement, those are communities where if we're missing the

524
00:33:07,840 --> 00:33:12,900
TBI element in the mental health conversation, someone might be doing all the right therapies

525
00:33:12,900 --> 00:33:15,440
and still that one portion is being missed.

526
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:20,240
Yeah, no, because it develops scar tissue on the brain.

527
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:25,720
And it's it's from what I understand, it's not it's not really reversible.

528
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:30,600
We have to have different coping mechanisms and different methods in order to cope with

529
00:33:30,600 --> 00:33:33,400
it in order to basically get through it.

530
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:40,240
And it develops into hormone imbalances, it develops into which really then develops into

531
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:49,440
just personality and mindset imbalances where it's just it's just functioning on a different

532
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:53,080
on a different plane because of that developed scar tissue, for sure.

533
00:33:53,080 --> 00:33:54,080
Absolutely.

534
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:58,440
I've had quite a few people say that there's promising information coming out as far as

535
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:02,840
psilocybin, not just the mental health kind of, you know, ayahuasca element, but that

536
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:06,400
compound and actually be able to help the trauma from TBI.

537
00:34:06,400 --> 00:34:09,680
Oh, I mean, not to get too far into it.

538
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:11,920
But yeah, I absolutely support that.

539
00:34:11,920 --> 00:34:15,640
Because I think that what what I've seen that that does is that helps.

540
00:34:15,640 --> 00:34:21,160
It doesn't it's another way of coping with it, but it helps remap how we make decisions.

541
00:34:21,160 --> 00:34:22,960
It doesn't change who you are.

542
00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:28,120
And that was never three thousand plus years ago when they first when when tribes in South

543
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:33,320
America were using these medicines was not to change the person but to help remap their

544
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:35,920
decision making process.

545
00:34:35,920 --> 00:34:36,920
Absolutely.

546
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:38,960
Well, you mentioned Iraq then.

547
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:41,120
So 9-11 happens, you change into the EOD.

548
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:43,640
I've got that anagram right this time.

549
00:34:43,640 --> 00:34:47,360
So now, where did you find yourself in Iraq?

550
00:34:47,360 --> 00:34:48,360
So I found myself in Iraq.

551
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:53,520
You know, first I was paired up with SEAL Team 3 in August of 2005.

552
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:56,720
And then I met the platoon.

553
00:34:56,720 --> 00:35:01,280
And when I met the platoon, it was a really unique, really unique experience that first

554
00:35:01,280 --> 00:35:06,240
day walking into the land warfare facility out there in Island, California, was I got

555
00:35:06,240 --> 00:35:07,520
there when everybody was still sleeping.

556
00:35:07,520 --> 00:35:12,040
They were already they were already had been there for a week training.

557
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:15,880
And this guy's walking down the hall and I'm in, you know, I'm in I'm in uniform because

558
00:35:15,880 --> 00:35:19,000
I thought that's what I was supposed to be is in uniform driving out there.

559
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:23,240
And the guy walking down the hall walks up to me and I'm like, well, no shit.

560
00:35:23,240 --> 00:35:24,880
That's my Tony.

561
00:35:24,880 --> 00:35:31,400
The Tony was a team guy that was on my first deployment to Guam in 1999.

562
00:35:31,400 --> 00:35:34,720
And he walks down the hallway and he's like, Nick, yes, he is.

563
00:35:34,720 --> 00:35:35,720
Are you a guy?

564
00:35:35,720 --> 00:35:37,720
I said, yeah, because you're in trouble, too.

565
00:35:37,720 --> 00:35:38,720
OK.

566
00:35:38,720 --> 00:35:41,480
And so that was that first, you know, so he already knew me from this.

567
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:46,760
He's been six, seven years prior to then putting me into this into his platoon, which turned

568
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:52,160
out to be, you know, Dr. Willings task unit with Charlie and Delta Platoon, Leif Babin

569
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:54,960
with the OIC, was the officer in charge of the platoon.

570
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:59,240
And so those dynamics really started to kind of to really take some really good shape.

571
00:35:59,240 --> 00:36:01,640
You know, it got really good mentorship from those guys as well.

572
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:06,080
You know, guys like Chris Kyle, Ben Teder, Bob Holland.

573
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:11,040
I mean, the list goes on and on and, you know, form really long life standing friendships.

574
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:16,600
I'm still really good friends with Jake Heimbaum and Bob Holland and a lot of those great guys.

575
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:21,440
And we were getting spun up to go to Iraq and we were going to be doing a type of mission

576
00:36:21,440 --> 00:36:22,920
that was like not all that sexy.

577
00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:27,280
It was like we were just going to be doing some PSD, personal security details, what

578
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:28,520
we're going to be tasked with.

579
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:32,600
And I think we got that tasking right around February.

580
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:35,640
And then we had about a month and a half off.

581
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,200
I went to military free fall school, you know, sort of on my pre-deployment leave.

582
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:42,720
So I got a seat at free fall schools three weeks and out in San Diego.

583
00:36:42,720 --> 00:36:46,680
And that was where I got my first dose of jumping out of a plane, at least in free fall

584
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:47,680
capacity.

585
00:36:47,680 --> 00:36:54,960
When we get to the North Island to take off on the C-17, we were told that we were going

586
00:36:54,960 --> 00:37:01,120
to Al Ambar province in Ramadi and we were going to basically be conducting the Sunni

587
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:09,160
Triangle conducting asymmetrical kinetic operations with the Marine Corps, with the Army and

588
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:15,680
basically being this big assist as advisors with the Iraqi Army, the Iraqi Jundis.

589
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:22,040
And so immediately while we're on the tarmac, we're like, oh shit, like this is going to

590
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:23,040
be pretty bad.

591
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:25,240
We thought we were just doing security detail, but okay.

592
00:37:25,240 --> 00:37:30,000
So the quick shift in all of our sort of demeanor started to kind of happen that day.

593
00:37:30,000 --> 00:37:35,080
And so we, yeah, we found ourselves in Iraq within the first two weeks.

594
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:36,680
We were out doing kinetic operations.

595
00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:40,440
We were just getting fuel, doing some atmospherics and getting a lay of the land and just pouncing

596
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:46,120
on targets, taking Intel and yeah, and really doing our thing, what we're supposed to be

597
00:37:46,120 --> 00:37:50,280
doing and going after bad guys and pissing people off.

598
00:37:50,280 --> 00:37:53,240
Well, Jocko's been on the show a couple of times.

599
00:37:53,240 --> 00:37:55,840
Leif, we were talking about him just before we hit record.

600
00:37:55,840 --> 00:37:56,840
Amazing guy.

601
00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:57,840
Loved having him on as well.

602
00:37:57,840 --> 00:37:58,840
Great guy.

603
00:37:58,840 --> 00:38:02,680
But I want to ask you a different question because I mean, first off, obviously those

604
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:07,320
deployments have been story told quite a lot now, that specific area.

605
00:38:07,320 --> 00:38:13,320
However, I think the really valuable perspective that most people don't get, and I'll preface

606
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:18,500
it with this, when we're back home, when you're a civilian, you get a very polarized view

607
00:38:18,500 --> 00:38:20,200
of war through your televisions.

608
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:24,560
Either kill them all, let God sort them out, stack bodies, or they're all baby killers.

609
00:38:24,560 --> 00:38:29,240
And in the middle are the men and women, arguably sometimes children that we send overseas to

610
00:38:29,240 --> 00:38:31,240
fight for our country.

611
00:38:31,240 --> 00:38:37,200
So first part of the two part question, regardless of the politics that sent you to, in this

612
00:38:37,200 --> 00:38:43,200
case Iraq, was there a point where you started witnessing horrors, atrocities, whatever it

613
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:47,120
was, where you realized, okay, there were some horrendous people that needed to be taken

614
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:48,120
care of?

615
00:38:48,120 --> 00:38:50,120
Oh, without a doubt.

616
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:55,400
Yeah, regardless of politics, at the time, being in my mid, late 20s, and most of us

617
00:38:55,400 --> 00:39:00,800
were all of that age, mid, late 20s, and we were older than what the guys were.

618
00:39:00,800 --> 00:39:03,840
We were, Sebastian Younger followed at Restrepo.

619
00:39:03,840 --> 00:39:10,240
I mean, a lot of those guys were 18, 19 years old, and over there for a long time, man,

620
00:39:10,240 --> 00:39:14,320
I mean, a good year plus.

621
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:23,600
The atrocities of, it definitely wrecks, it impacts your hope in humanity when you see

622
00:39:23,600 --> 00:39:29,280
the way that other people are and that other cultures are and how things just seem to be

623
00:39:29,280 --> 00:39:30,280
okay.

624
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:33,360
You can sit there and say, hey, we should westernize all this, but there's just some

625
00:39:33,360 --> 00:39:36,480
certain dignity that you got to have.

626
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:39,560
You can't treat people like this.

627
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:45,480
And there comes to a certain, there's got to be a line drawn in the sand.

628
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:49,920
This was in 2006, and so it wasn't something we were really ever concerned about getting

629
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:55,460
in trouble for interfering, but there's a line that's got to be drawn where your own

630
00:39:55,460 --> 00:39:59,680
culture has to be implemented when it comes to the human decency.

631
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:03,600
Now granted, that can be a little bit subjective, especially in today's day and age, but there's

632
00:40:03,600 --> 00:40:09,120
got to be a line that where you've got to impose some human decency in how you treat

633
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:11,880
people, no matter what.

634
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:19,760
I mean, we can look, we're directed at what we're looking at on Instagram, on the news

635
00:40:19,760 --> 00:40:24,160
channels and things like that, but if you actually really look or you're able to see

636
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:28,960
some of these countries that are just basically suffering from total genocide because of their

637
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:36,200
religion, it's absurd that you've got to implement your culture in order for some human decency

638
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:38,000
to restore your hope in humanity.

639
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,200
There's no question about that.

640
00:40:40,200 --> 00:40:43,080
And so there was, yeah, I mean, it was really bad.

641
00:40:43,080 --> 00:40:51,240
I don't want to get into any gory details or anything like that, but I was, being in

642
00:40:51,240 --> 00:40:56,800
the military, in combat with your brothers, shoulder to shoulder and seeing the way that

643
00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:03,040
other cultures and other people sort of live and operate, it should really appreciate being

644
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:05,560
an American for sure.

645
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:06,560
Absolutely.

646
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:11,280
Well, the other side of the coin, another perspective that we really don't get, kindness

647
00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:15,040
and compassion amidst these battlefields.

648
00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:19,640
I've had so many people tell just incredible stories, whether it's our own men and women

649
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:23,860
in uniform, whether it's the indigenous people that you guys were over there to protect.

650
00:41:23,860 --> 00:41:27,920
So what were some of the kind of moments that really stuck with you as you transitioned

651
00:41:27,920 --> 00:41:28,920
out?

652
00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:36,040
You know, I remember, I remember going, we were doing a morning daytime clearance and

653
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:43,320
I remember going and usually in the morning, it's really, there's not a lot of tension

654
00:41:43,320 --> 00:41:44,320
in the air.

655
00:41:44,320 --> 00:41:46,720
It's usually in the afternoons and evenings during prayer time.

656
00:41:46,720 --> 00:41:50,120
The mornings we do these clearances and it's more of like a show of force.

657
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:52,520
It's more of a show of presence.

658
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:55,880
We go inside in this building, we've gone inside several, several buildings in this

659
00:41:55,880 --> 00:42:04,200
very urban neighborhood and there's this dad standing up, not a threat, just standing there

660
00:42:04,200 --> 00:42:06,240
with his daughter.

661
00:42:06,240 --> 00:42:13,200
And I remember standing there seeing like he was, he put on this face, like he was trying

662
00:42:13,200 --> 00:42:14,880
to be happy to see us.

663
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:16,520
He was, I mean, he was scared.

664
00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:17,520
She was scared.

665
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:27,240
But I, and I, this was before I was a father and I remember his concern for her safety

666
00:42:27,240 --> 00:42:31,760
and I broke out a little glow stick, you know, kids love these things at Halloween.

667
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:32,760
I broke out a little glow stick.

668
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:34,360
I think it was green or you know, whatever.

669
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:36,920
And I broke it and I gave it to her.

670
00:42:36,920 --> 00:42:41,240
And it wasn't that she was just showered with happiness, but it was more just like, we're

671
00:42:41,240 --> 00:42:46,960
not here to disrupt your way of life.

672
00:42:46,960 --> 00:42:50,960
It's like, you know, and I could see this, this compassion and this care of this father

673
00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:57,160
that he had for these, you know, these men and, you know, in ballistic, you know, attire

674
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:01,160
and guns and all this shit and all these people coming in.

675
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:05,320
And I just, that was the, that was a moment that I reflect back on sometimes.

676
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:10,800
It's like, if that were me in my house and people were coming in, the way I would deal

677
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:13,920
with that would have been drastically different.

678
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:21,720
But the compassion that he had for his daughter definitely sat with me for a long time.

679
00:43:21,720 --> 00:43:24,360
I think this is an important conversation.

680
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:25,360
You hear that over and over again.

681
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:30,080
And I think one of the things that the media does that's very irresponsible is paint the

682
00:43:30,080 --> 00:43:32,160
picture that we're at war with Iraq.

683
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:36,560
We're at war with Afghanistan where, you know, the truth is there's the average person is

684
00:43:36,560 --> 00:43:40,720
just trying to get on with their life, but there are, you know, extremists in their country

685
00:43:40,720 --> 00:43:42,320
that are terrorizing them.

686
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:47,000
So, you know, when you hear about what the average person was like in these countries

687
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:53,880
and the humanity, the shared experience of the soldier and the resident, I think it's

688
00:43:53,880 --> 00:43:56,200
an important perspective that we just don't hear very often.

689
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:57,200
Yeah.

690
00:43:57,200 --> 00:44:01,280
I mean, don't get me wrong, you know, like, you know, before Donald Rumsfeld passed away,

691
00:44:01,280 --> 00:44:04,080
he, you know, there was a documentary that he did.

692
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:08,280
It was called, I think the, the, the unknown knowns.

693
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:11,160
And it was a really good documentary and he admitted to some of the mistakes.

694
00:44:11,160 --> 00:44:14,840
I mean, it's like, yes, they made some mistakes and people died.

695
00:44:14,840 --> 00:44:20,600
And, but these, these were at the time of the intelligence and the data that they were

696
00:44:20,600 --> 00:44:23,960
provided, this was the best decision.

697
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:30,120
These were the, a series of decisions that were made for us to go and execute.

698
00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:31,120
Yeah.

699
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:35,320
They made, they made some mistakes and where it's our job to go, you know, go through and

700
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:38,400
execute as cleanly and as effective as can be.

701
00:44:38,400 --> 00:44:41,560
It's not, it wasn't a uniformed war against Iraq.

702
00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:45,320
It really wasn't a uniformed war against Afghanistan.

703
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:47,320
It just, it doesn't happen that way.

704
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:51,400
It's kinetic and it's asymmetric and it's guerrilla warfare on a completely different playing

705
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:52,400
field.

706
00:44:52,400 --> 00:44:54,800
And it continues to adapt.

707
00:44:54,800 --> 00:45:01,360
It's this insurgency type of revolutionary set of mindset that is just, it is not easy

708
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:04,280
to play that chess game at all.

709
00:45:04,280 --> 00:45:07,920
Now with K.E., I think there was another guest, I'm blanking who it was now, but someone else

710
00:45:07,920 --> 00:45:10,000
was in the EOD role as well.

711
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:15,040
And they were talking about almost the chess game they were playing with the bomb makers.

712
00:45:15,040 --> 00:45:18,780
And when, you know, when you guys found a solution, then they would then one up and

713
00:45:18,780 --> 00:45:20,000
figure around that.

714
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:25,720
So what was your perspective when there was such a big IED element to both of these conflicts

715
00:45:25,720 --> 00:45:27,440
through your EOD lens?

716
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:29,840
Oh, I was terrified.

717
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:32,280
I mean, I was, I was, I was terrified.

718
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:39,240
You know, the EOD role that I had with the SEAL teams is not EOD work every single day.

719
00:45:39,240 --> 00:45:43,560
Whereas where some EOD guys were deployed into a capacity where they were doing response

720
00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:47,800
work where they would be sitting at the FOB or the forward operating base, get a phone

721
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:53,840
call from an element that's out in the, outside the wire and say, hey, we have a suspect IED.

722
00:45:53,840 --> 00:45:57,520
All right guys, load up the truck and then go prosecute an IED.

723
00:45:57,520 --> 00:46:02,200
As simple as that sounds, it's very complex and very difficult and very dangerous.

724
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:08,400
My role as an EOD guy was the, we sort of adopted this adage of a, we're to clear the

725
00:46:08,400 --> 00:46:13,240
impedance, any impedance to assault that has like an explosive component to it, an unknown

726
00:46:13,240 --> 00:46:16,880
explosive, an improvised explosive device.

727
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:19,520
No, I was terrified.

728
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:24,040
You know, while being part of the assigned with the SEAL platoons, it was great because

729
00:46:24,040 --> 00:46:26,480
I got to be on the assault.

730
00:46:26,480 --> 00:46:28,080
I got to be on the offensive.

731
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:33,680
Whereas instead of being an EOD guy waiting for the phone call, that's more of a response

732
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:34,680
to something.

733
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:37,720
So I liked the part of it as being part of the offensive.

734
00:46:37,720 --> 00:46:42,160
And so I sort of stuck with that the rest of my career as an EOD guy.

735
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:44,320
The, I was scared.

736
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:52,400
The thing was is that I adopted this mindset to where, and I used it later on when I would

737
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:57,560
train other EOD guys as I got older in the community was that I didn't want to make a

738
00:46:57,560 --> 00:47:02,920
mistake that got someone else killed or hurt.

739
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:03,920
Like I'm okay.

740
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:06,920
Like wrapping my head around, I'm going to go to work on something.

741
00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:09,160
And if it kills me, that'll suck.

742
00:47:09,160 --> 00:47:10,160
It's fine.

743
00:47:10,160 --> 00:47:12,680
But as long as I don't get anybody else hurt.

744
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:15,920
So that was, it had to do with the training that I gave the guys.

745
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:20,860
When you see me take a knee, get the fuck out of the room, like leave, because if something

746
00:47:20,860 --> 00:47:22,800
goes off, it's, it's me.

747
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:23,800
This is my job.

748
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:28,160
And it's not yours to take the blast for it.

749
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:33,120
And so that was, but yeah, I mean, every target, you know, I would hear over the radio, EOD

750
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:34,920
up and I'm like, oh shit.

751
00:47:34,920 --> 00:47:37,200
You know, like I get pumped and it's like, I get to go to work.

752
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:39,680
But then again, it's like, oh man, what am I going to find?

753
00:47:39,680 --> 00:47:43,880
And so, you know, the first time I got a call was on our first target and I rise and I got

754
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:49,240
a call was like, EOD up and I'm like, go and I go over and it was this stealing fan underneath

755
00:47:49,240 --> 00:47:50,240
the stairs.

756
00:47:50,240 --> 00:47:52,040
And I'm like, what's up?

757
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:54,480
He's like, I don't know, that looks weird.

758
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:59,080
Like it is weird to put a ceiling fan underneath the stairs, but it's just a ceiling fan.

759
00:47:59,080 --> 00:48:04,400
So he said, well, fuck you then, you know, it was, it was good, but it was like, that

760
00:48:04,400 --> 00:48:06,480
was the first time that it was like, okay, it's on.

761
00:48:06,480 --> 00:48:11,080
And so throughout that, you know, any of those deployments, it's like, yeah, I was, I mean,

762
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:15,400
I was afraid, man, I didn't, I didn't want to get in any of my, my, my friends and my

763
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:18,520
teammates who get killed or hurt, you know, because of something that I was responsible

764
00:48:18,520 --> 00:48:19,520
for.

765
00:48:19,520 --> 00:48:22,360
So that's kind of, that's everybody.

766
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:24,760
So, yeah.

767
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:29,880
When I was listening to you on the EOD podcast and you said this same thing about wanting

768
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:32,600
to make sure that your mistake didn't get someone else killed.

769
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:36,560
I don't know if I just picked on something wasn't there, but it almost sounded like there

770
00:48:36,560 --> 00:48:40,000
was a real raw emotion behind that statement.

771
00:48:40,000 --> 00:48:41,000
Yeah.

772
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:45,760
So, you know, I, I came back from those deployments.

773
00:48:45,760 --> 00:48:52,960
There's a lot of combat lost, lost more guys than we, we thought, you know, we weren't

774
00:48:52,960 --> 00:48:59,640
supposed to lose anybody because we've got, you know, we have the tactical advantage.

775
00:48:59,640 --> 00:49:02,880
We have the equipment, we have nighttime, we have night vision equipment, you know,

776
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:06,080
we have all these things that are advantage, but yet we still, you know, we're able to

777
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:10,520
find that, find out that we were human.

778
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:16,960
So I wanted to package everything that I learned and pass that down and, and it wasn't just

779
00:49:16,960 --> 00:49:22,200
the actions on because actions on they change in even from region to region, whether that

780
00:49:22,200 --> 00:49:26,280
be in the West and now AMBAR or in Baghdad, you know, they operate and they have different

781
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:32,240
equipment they have, they're able to get different technology for their IDs and weapon systems

782
00:49:32,240 --> 00:49:33,240
in different areas.

783
00:49:33,240 --> 00:49:38,200
So it was different, but what I was trying to adopt was a mindset pass down.

784
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:42,480
And that was just take care of your guys better.

785
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:44,840
I mean, it better than you take care of yourself.

786
00:49:44,840 --> 00:49:45,840
And that's the mindset.

787
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:50,600
And that's the, that's the, what brotherhood really is, is putting the, you know, the safety

788
00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:54,240
and wellbeing of others above your own.

789
00:49:54,240 --> 00:50:05,600
And to, yeah, just to not do something so ballsy that it was, it's irresponsible and

790
00:50:05,600 --> 00:50:08,760
get someone else killed.

791
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:17,840
It was, it is emotional because I, I, you know, I got out of it unscathed and I never

792
00:50:17,840 --> 00:50:20,840
any of the decisions I made, I made, you know, for the team.

793
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:25,560
It wasn't just for, for me and my safety was to make sure that I didn't put my hands on

794
00:50:25,560 --> 00:50:30,880
something that I came across until everybody was out because I didn't, I can't imagine

795
00:50:30,880 --> 00:50:36,120
someone, one of the, another EOD guy or living with themselves after that and knowing that

796
00:50:36,120 --> 00:50:41,680
if you, you know, you made a mistake and you got someone fucking blown up and killed, um,

797
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:43,240
would just be really, really hard.

798
00:50:43,240 --> 00:50:49,960
And so that was, um, it still is something that, that, that, that stays with me for sure.

799
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:55,160
Um, I just, even with the work that I do now is to make sure that everything is covered

800
00:50:55,160 --> 00:51:01,160
the best I can so that way anybody that, that I'm working with is as safe as possible.

801
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:04,520
Because I just can't be in that position.

802
00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:12,280
Um, if it, yeah, safety begins, you know, they like, we like to, the officers and everybody

803
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:13,800
used to like to say, well, safety is paramount.

804
00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:17,280
And we would say, well, safety is third, you know, get it done.

805
00:51:17,280 --> 00:51:20,840
But at the end of the day, you, if you're going to do something risky, just make sure

806
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:25,920
that it's just you and you don't take down your brothers, uh, for, for fucking up.

807
00:51:25,920 --> 00:51:30,680
So I had, I think it was Alistair McCarthy, McCarthy that was on the show, a fellow Brit

808
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:31,960
and then base jumper.

809
00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:37,120
Um, and we were talking about diligence and he said, uh, I forget I'm paraphrasing, but

810
00:51:37,120 --> 00:51:41,400
he says something like, you know, most people will say, well, you know, as long as I'm 95%

811
00:51:41,400 --> 00:51:42,680
there, then we good.

812
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:45,680
He said in the world of base jumping, there is no 95%.

813
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:47,400
It's gotta be a hundred.

814
00:51:47,400 --> 00:51:54,200
And what I see in my profession, there are some phenomenal firefighters that understand

815
00:51:54,200 --> 00:51:58,040
that lives are at stake in our job, you know, our own lives, the lives of men and women

816
00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:01,240
to the left and right of us and obviously who we serve.

817
00:52:01,240 --> 00:52:04,800
But there's also a real cancer of complacency and that can be organizational, it can be

818
00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:05,800
personal.

819
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:11,600
Um, that drives me crazy because lives are at stake, you know, lives depend on us.

820
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:15,960
So through this, you know, journey, as you get through Iraq and ultimately Afghanistan

821
00:52:15,960 --> 00:52:22,600
and out into the skydiving world, how have you managed to, to fight complacency yourself

822
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:27,320
and then also culturally or with the people around you?

823
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:34,400
So, um, the fighting complacency is actually not been, um, it hasn't been too hard.

824
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:42,360
Um, I think that what I've done is with the, the types of the types of the type of work

825
00:52:42,360 --> 00:52:48,320
that I do and the type of jumps that I do or, you know, can be really, uh, sketchy at

826
00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:54,320
best, um, sometimes and, you know, really, you know, high altitude testing, new parachutes,

827
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:57,840
um, heavy weights testing, new parachutes.

828
00:52:57,840 --> 00:53:04,000
Um, it's, I'm very calculated, uh, when it comes to, when it comes to this kind of, when

829
00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:07,920
it comes to these types of operations, uh, these types of, you know, events, the testing

830
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:12,400
events or even just basically executing very similar and we'll talk about later in the

831
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:14,600
triple seven very calculated.

832
00:53:14,600 --> 00:53:17,600
What, when, what does it look like?

833
00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:20,280
What is, what is, what does X look like?

834
00:53:20,280 --> 00:53:23,480
Or how does it, what does it take to get there?

835
00:53:23,480 --> 00:53:25,200
What are going to be the effects of it?

836
00:53:25,200 --> 00:53:28,720
So when, when I talk about the effects of it, it's like doing, you know, deploying a

837
00:53:28,720 --> 00:53:32,400
parachute at a, at a moderate, you know, a moderate to heavy weight at high altitudes

838
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:35,280
at high speeds, that's going to fucking hurt.

839
00:53:35,280 --> 00:53:38,600
And that's going to hurt the body and it's going to be 60 below.

840
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:41,280
So there's a lot that you have to contend with.

841
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:47,520
So the prep work that goes into it is trying to think of every single, every single factor

842
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:51,160
that contributes to success or failure.

843
00:53:51,160 --> 00:53:56,320
And so I think that that's what like a lot of the EOD work and my experience in EOD really

844
00:53:56,320 --> 00:53:59,240
has provided for me is I'm very, very calculated.

845
00:53:59,240 --> 00:54:04,280
I'm not going to do anything that's, is just like, it doesn't make any sense or the reward

846
00:54:04,280 --> 00:54:07,720
is minimal for the, for the, for the risk.

847
00:54:07,720 --> 00:54:12,920
You know, for testing, it's like, I have to go through, you know, I, my, my team and I

848
00:54:12,920 --> 00:54:18,860
go through a lot of arduous testing when it comes to the engineering aspect and the design

849
00:54:18,860 --> 00:54:24,160
of the parachutes, the intricate design of the parachutes in order to minimize the impacts

850
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:30,000
that the test jumper myself gets and receives, you know, the opening shock.

851
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:33,040
So it's very, very calculated.

852
00:54:33,040 --> 00:54:34,760
So I don't feel there's a whole lot of complacency.

853
00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:40,520
And I think that a little bit driving force behind that was that I look at it like I survived

854
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:41,520
multiple combat deployments.

855
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:44,040
I retired at 39.

856
00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:45,480
I'm 46 now.

857
00:54:45,480 --> 00:54:48,520
I'd like to see 76.

858
00:54:48,520 --> 00:54:53,920
So I'm going to take care of my body and take care of my mind by basically, if we're going

859
00:54:53,920 --> 00:54:57,880
to do these high risk things at my age, then they're going to be very calculated for the

860
00:54:57,880 --> 00:55:00,320
best, best possible outcome.

861
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:01,760
It happens.

862
00:55:01,760 --> 00:55:09,440
I get hard hits all the time, shitty landings, and it sucks, but I'm able to keep going because

863
00:55:09,440 --> 00:55:15,320
I feel like that we're very calculated in looking at the risks and really doing a lot

864
00:55:15,320 --> 00:55:19,120
of like kind of risk management, risk mitigation.

865
00:55:19,120 --> 00:55:23,160
I'm the, a lot of the operators that this equipment is going to be going to are, you

866
00:55:23,160 --> 00:55:25,400
know, 12, 15 years younger than I am.

867
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:30,740
Some of them are a little bit, a little bit less, but I've got to stay, I have to stay

868
00:55:30,740 --> 00:55:37,320
in shape so I can perform as close to that, you know, as close to that top tier as I can,

869
00:55:37,320 --> 00:55:41,960
you know, considering the body degradation at 46 years old, but I try to do the best

870
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:44,560
I can so that way I can mimic the results.

871
00:55:44,560 --> 00:55:49,600
Well, while we're on the kind of training philosophy conversation, again, in the EOD

872
00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:54,360
podcast, you touched on the importance of the basics and it's something that I talk

873
00:55:54,360 --> 00:55:55,520
about a lot in the fire service.

874
00:55:55,520 --> 00:55:56,880
There's a lot of shiny objects.

875
00:55:56,880 --> 00:56:02,360
There's a lot of, you know, videos on Instagram of firefighters doing, you know, poodle tricks

876
00:56:02,360 --> 00:56:04,320
for lack of a better word.

877
00:56:04,320 --> 00:56:08,240
And that's great if you are an absolute master of the bread and butter movements that we

878
00:56:08,240 --> 00:56:09,240
have to do.

879
00:56:09,240 --> 00:56:12,760
But talk to me about your philosophy, especially as you transitioned into the training role

880
00:56:12,760 --> 00:56:15,440
when it comes to mastery of the basics in your profession.

881
00:56:15,440 --> 00:56:21,720
Well, I think that if we always remember the basics, then the advanced movements will then

882
00:56:21,720 --> 00:56:22,960
start to reveal themselves.

883
00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:29,600
I think we had a tendency to do was get in, being so being such in such a rush to be the

884
00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:33,560
best to be the fastest, to be the quick, you know, the quickest, the cleanest, the most

885
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:35,560
efficient get in and get out.

886
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:40,320
But if you go back to the very rudimentary basics and use those as stepping stones, the

887
00:56:40,320 --> 00:56:45,040
only reason that we're here is because of the foundation that was laid in the framework

888
00:56:45,040 --> 00:56:51,480
that was created in order for us to accomplish, you know, be so fast because we would find

889
00:56:51,480 --> 00:56:57,360
that doing you're doing a lot of our training runs that we would be in such a hurry that

890
00:56:57,360 --> 00:57:02,800
we would we would we would say no more comps stop talking because people would yell and

891
00:57:02,800 --> 00:57:04,440
people would be all over the radio.

892
00:57:04,440 --> 00:57:08,840
And so stripping that down, going back to the basics using hand and arm signals and

893
00:57:08,840 --> 00:57:17,880
normal two man, four man room clearance type of mindset really helps reset, reset everything

894
00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:20,960
because everybody's already made it through to different types of basics.

895
00:57:20,960 --> 00:57:22,760
So we don't have to be so advanced.

896
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:29,320
We have to master the basics that then in turn reveals your expertise and that you're

897
00:57:29,320 --> 00:57:31,480
able to fine tune those things.

898
00:57:31,480 --> 00:57:35,880
And so we really carry that over into the civilian world that I work in in this industry

899
00:57:35,880 --> 00:57:40,720
is that keeping it simple and mastering the basics and understanding what these different

900
00:57:40,720 --> 00:57:44,600
types of components do and why they do it and stick with those things and evolve and

901
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:50,520
innovate from that as opposed to completely coming out of a different direction.

902
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:53,840
I know you found yourself, as I said, in the kind of training development role and obviously

903
00:57:53,840 --> 00:57:56,200
ultimately in the skydiving area.

904
00:57:56,200 --> 00:58:01,800
One thing I'm always intrigued is the EOD in this case, you know, the special operator,

905
00:58:01,800 --> 00:58:06,640
special forces soldiers perspective of the first responder professions, because in many,

906
00:58:06,640 --> 00:58:11,040
many of the conversations that I have with them, they kind of hold us to the same standard.

907
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:14,520
And obviously we're protecting their families when you guys are overseas.

908
00:58:14,520 --> 00:58:20,760
However, behind the curtain, it's a very different scenario as far as our support, training,

909
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:24,120
equipment, etc. than some of the tier one groups.

910
00:58:24,120 --> 00:58:27,560
So I don't know if you've had any perspective in law enforcement or fire.

911
00:58:27,560 --> 00:58:33,120
If you have, have you noticed any inequities between maybe some of the training and equipment

912
00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:36,640
that you were afforded versus the people on the street back home?

913
00:58:36,640 --> 00:58:43,000
Oh, I think that the from, you know, I work with some with a few guys down at in Lee County,

914
00:58:43,000 --> 00:58:45,600
Lee County Sheriff's Department SWAT team.

915
00:58:45,600 --> 00:58:52,920
And those poor guys, it feels it seems like, you know, they are stuck with a lot more administrative

916
00:58:52,920 --> 00:58:54,960
work than we were ever stuck with.

917
00:58:54,960 --> 00:59:01,160
Then and that was that that that sucks.

918
00:59:01,160 --> 00:59:06,320
So these guys are not like able to pound on doors, do call outs and things like that,

919
00:59:06,320 --> 00:59:10,720
do their job because they're stuck in a lot of the bureaucratic stuff because in my in

920
00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:15,960
my perspective is that, you know, with firefighters as well as obviously with the police departments

921
00:59:15,960 --> 00:59:20,840
and sheriff's departments throughout the country is that there's more of a spotlight on your

922
00:59:20,840 --> 00:59:25,400
guys is daily operations when you're going into a fire, you're going into onto a target

923
00:59:25,400 --> 00:59:30,640
to, you know, to issue a warrant or anything like that or arrest somebody.

924
00:59:30,640 --> 00:59:35,800
There's more the potential of a spotlight and people, you know, fellow Americans seeing

925
00:59:35,800 --> 00:59:40,680
your actions on target are way more prevalent than us.

926
00:59:40,680 --> 00:59:44,760
I mean, granted, you know, when video gets out of us from, you know, from, you know,

927
00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:49,280
from any type of ISR platform or things like that, that's that would piss us off.

928
00:59:49,280 --> 00:59:53,720
So you guys definitely have a lot of our sympathy and appreciation for having to deal with,

929
00:59:53,720 --> 00:59:58,320
you know, being operating within the confines of the audience themselves.

930
00:59:58,320 --> 01:00:00,680
You know, so, you know, we operate.

931
01:00:00,680 --> 01:00:03,080
The idea was that nobody sees us.

932
01:00:03,080 --> 01:00:09,680
But when I think of, again, the that group within the SEAL teams, you're looking for

933
01:00:09,680 --> 01:00:14,720
the best new techniques, the best equipment, you know, the best nutrition, strength, conditioning,

934
01:00:14,720 --> 01:00:16,760
mindfulness training, et cetera.

935
01:00:16,760 --> 01:00:20,480
And I think that this is something that we need to elevate ourselves in the first responder

936
01:00:20,480 --> 01:00:25,800
professions that we are asked to do, you know, from zero to a hundred in a numerous amount

937
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:26,800
of ways.

938
01:00:26,800 --> 01:00:29,560
I mean, just for example, my shopping mall here in Ocala, Florida, a few days ago, two

939
01:00:29,560 --> 01:00:33,840
days before Christmas, someone was executed in front of everyone that was Christmas shopping.

940
01:00:33,840 --> 01:00:34,840
I saw that.

941
01:00:34,840 --> 01:00:37,800
So all the first responders that responded there were probably sitting around waiting

942
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:38,800
for a call.

943
01:00:38,800 --> 01:00:42,480
And then all of a sudden, they're doing a manhunt and trying to clean a dead guy off

944
01:00:42,480 --> 01:00:43,480
the floor.

945
01:00:43,480 --> 01:00:49,840
So, you know, for me, I feel like we need to kind of lean into the ethos from your profession

946
01:00:49,840 --> 01:00:53,800
more as far as hiring standards, as far as fitness standards, but also equipment and

947
01:00:53,800 --> 01:00:54,800
training as well.

948
01:00:54,800 --> 01:00:56,320
I couldn't agree more.

949
01:00:56,320 --> 01:01:00,800
I feel I think that it's underappreciated and it's not looked at as much as because

950
01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:02,120
it really wasn't trendy.

951
01:01:02,120 --> 01:01:06,840
I mean, it was, it was, it made sense to like look at the military, look what they've done,

952
01:01:06,840 --> 01:01:11,280
look what all these men and women have done for the past 20 plus years in Iraq and Afghanistan

953
01:01:11,280 --> 01:01:13,720
and in Syria and in Africa and everywhere.

954
01:01:13,720 --> 01:01:16,720
So like, let's throw all this attention to them.

955
01:01:16,720 --> 01:01:22,600
Whereas I'm sure guys, you know, like in hotspots of fire departments and police departments

956
01:01:22,600 --> 01:01:24,960
are kind of like, well, yeah, we support that.

957
01:01:24,960 --> 01:01:27,760
You know, we could probably use some of that human performance initiative as well.

958
01:01:27,760 --> 01:01:28,760
I'm sure.

959
01:01:28,760 --> 01:01:31,800
And I think, you know, with the matter of speaking, I think, I think it's coming, you

960
01:01:31,800 --> 01:01:35,840
know, I think that like the guys that I work with down in South Florida, they do have a

961
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:38,200
small human performance stuff that they're working on here.

962
01:01:38,200 --> 01:01:41,560
They've got, they're doing hormone levels and hormone treatment stuff with those guys

963
01:01:41,560 --> 01:01:43,560
or at least monitoring and advising.

964
01:01:43,560 --> 01:01:46,480
So some of that, it looks like it's starting to take off.

965
01:01:46,480 --> 01:01:52,760
I think that traditionally and notoriously, it's always been sort of behind, you know,

966
01:01:52,760 --> 01:01:57,080
your tier one to tier three military operators.

967
01:01:57,080 --> 01:02:04,200
The local first responders and treatment and care has been just a little bit behind of

968
01:02:04,200 --> 01:02:05,200
the military.

969
01:02:05,200 --> 01:02:07,920
And I think that that's like, that's something that I think we can look back on the past

970
01:02:07,920 --> 01:02:10,080
30 or 40 years and sort of do that.

971
01:02:10,080 --> 01:02:12,480
I mean, in the nineties, there was no humor performance stuff.

972
01:02:12,480 --> 01:02:16,400
You know, it's like with being a SWIT guy, it's like, you're, you're going to be, you

973
01:02:16,400 --> 01:02:18,800
know, three inches shorter if you do this for 15 years.

974
01:02:18,800 --> 01:02:22,080
That was a big incentive for me to get out of, stop riding boats because I don't, you

975
01:02:22,080 --> 01:02:24,880
know, back in the back knee and neck problems.

976
01:02:24,880 --> 01:02:29,200
So the, you know, those guys have done a whole lot of studies because there was people that

977
01:02:29,200 --> 01:02:33,040
were that study cases over 15 years of riding boats.

978
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:38,000
And I think that it's only, you know, I think that only a matter of time before, you know,

979
01:02:38,000 --> 01:02:42,360
your local fire departments and your police officers and sheriff's department actually

980
01:02:42,360 --> 01:02:46,360
do start to get some of those treatments and some of that attention.

981
01:02:46,360 --> 01:02:47,360
Absolutely.

982
01:02:47,360 --> 01:02:51,440
Well, I want to get to the transition out and then obviously we'll talk about 7X and

983
01:02:51,440 --> 01:02:52,440
7X7.

984
01:02:52,440 --> 01:02:56,720
Before we do though, you talked about Iraq.

985
01:02:56,720 --> 01:03:00,480
What were the contrasts between Iraq and your time in Afghanistan?

986
01:03:00,480 --> 01:03:03,080
Oh man, that was really interesting.

987
01:03:03,080 --> 01:03:06,080
You know, cause I had, there was a bit of a hiatus before I went, you know, after I

988
01:03:06,080 --> 01:03:11,520
left Iraq for my last time and then went to Afghanistan.

989
01:03:11,520 --> 01:03:15,760
The Afghanistan piece, as you heard before, was really unique for me because I was in

990
01:03:15,760 --> 01:03:19,200
the training detachment in the urban combat cell.

991
01:03:19,200 --> 01:03:25,020
So I was basically responsible for giving, you know, EOD training to EOD technicians

992
01:03:25,020 --> 01:03:28,440
that were assigned with their seal platoons during urban combat.

993
01:03:28,440 --> 01:03:34,240
So it was a huge opportunity to really help shape those guys, their expectations and,

994
01:03:34,240 --> 01:03:38,200
and get some really good training for them so they could provide training for their respective

995
01:03:38,200 --> 01:03:39,740
seal platoons.

996
01:03:39,740 --> 01:03:45,960
And so I was able to pull off going to Afghanistan as an augment, as an augmentee, which is most,

997
01:03:45,960 --> 01:03:49,480
as a lot of people know, if you're able to pull that off from being in a training, you

998
01:03:49,480 --> 01:03:54,440
know, a training command to go on deployment is gold because you kind of miss most of the

999
01:03:54,440 --> 01:03:55,440
workup.

1000
01:03:55,440 --> 01:03:58,160
If you have good rapport with the guys, you don't really, like you're going to, you're

1001
01:03:58,160 --> 01:04:01,020
going to get there and you're going to have good rapport with them already.

1002
01:04:01,020 --> 01:04:06,160
So I went over there and, you know, took a couple of guns with me and some equipment

1003
01:04:06,160 --> 01:04:10,000
and some cold weather gear and was basically just operating out of a basic, a big backpack.

1004
01:04:10,000 --> 01:04:16,320
So that way I can move around by myself from, from a couple of different locations.

1005
01:04:16,320 --> 01:04:20,880
I remember going into the dining facility for the first time in Afghanistan.

1006
01:04:20,880 --> 01:04:26,320
Now, the last time I had been into in a dining facility overseas was in Iraq.

1007
01:04:26,320 --> 01:04:27,760
Yeah.

1008
01:04:27,760 --> 01:04:31,840
Outside of Biop when we were working Sadr city.

1009
01:04:31,840 --> 01:04:35,160
And so, or Biop being Baghdad international airport.

1010
01:04:35,160 --> 01:04:41,400
And you remember seeing, and this was really prevalent in Al Ambar in 2006 in Iraq, when

1011
01:04:41,400 --> 01:04:46,000
you would sit down at the dining facility and you would look over at other people in

1012
01:04:46,000 --> 01:04:49,000
their, their faces, they're, they were just, they were just staring.

1013
01:04:49,000 --> 01:04:51,080
It was just the very thousand yard stare.

1014
01:04:51,080 --> 01:04:55,000
Like they just came out of the shit or they were just getting ready to go back into it.

1015
01:04:55,000 --> 01:04:58,640
And they're just basically trying to get some caloric intake and get some energy and get

1016
01:04:58,640 --> 01:04:59,640
some fuel.

1017
01:04:59,640 --> 01:05:03,640
But there were, there were, that was hard to see that.

1018
01:05:03,640 --> 01:05:06,320
That was not the case in Afghanistan in 2014.

1019
01:05:06,320 --> 01:05:09,440
I mean, it looked like a, you know, a shopping mall food court.

1020
01:05:09,440 --> 01:05:15,640
And it was just, it was really a stark reality for me that to see the difference between

1021
01:05:15,640 --> 01:05:21,960
guys and girls that were doing conducting conventional kinetic operations.

1022
01:05:21,960 --> 01:05:27,120
And then a few, several years later, retrograde and pulling, getting ready to pack things

1023
01:05:27,120 --> 01:05:31,680
up, cutting vehicles in half and getting knowing that the withdrawal is coming.

1024
01:05:31,680 --> 01:05:34,280
And so that was a huge difference.

1025
01:05:34,280 --> 01:05:38,840
However, our kinetic operations were still very prevalent.

1026
01:05:38,840 --> 01:05:42,680
Something that I didn't do very much that I can't even recall anything that, that stands

1027
01:05:42,680 --> 01:05:46,240
out in Iraq was we'd never really did any helicopter inserts.

1028
01:05:46,240 --> 01:05:51,440
So getting on 46s and, and flying, you know, the target and then walking, you know, five,

1029
01:05:51,440 --> 01:05:55,120
eight kilometers, it was not something that was all that common for us in Iraq.

1030
01:05:55,120 --> 01:05:57,200
So that was a huge difference for me.

1031
01:05:57,200 --> 01:06:00,920
And then, you know, going to 8,000 feet above sea level, you know, takes them getting used

1032
01:06:00,920 --> 01:06:03,520
to January in Afghanistan.

1033
01:06:03,520 --> 01:06:09,880
So there was definitely the, the playing field was different for me going over there.

1034
01:06:09,880 --> 01:06:14,640
And but the guys, man, the guys, the guys were, I mean, it was, it was remarkable to

1035
01:06:14,640 --> 01:06:17,880
be with the, with that task unit and that, that troop and those, those guys from the

1036
01:06:17,880 --> 01:06:23,960
platoon and with the, the, the, the 10th special forces, ODA group that was out there with

1037
01:06:23,960 --> 01:06:24,960
us.

1038
01:06:24,960 --> 01:06:29,200
They're just a lot of great people doing a lot of really good, really good kinetic operations.

1039
01:06:29,200 --> 01:06:30,200
It was fantastic.

1040
01:06:30,200 --> 01:06:31,200
I loved it.

1041
01:06:31,200 --> 01:06:37,120
A lot of people that have come on the show that served in Afghanistan, that, you know,

1042
01:06:37,120 --> 01:06:41,040
obviously lost friends in Afghanistan is of course applies to Iraq as well.

1043
01:06:41,040 --> 01:06:46,040
But you know, that particular withdrawal, the way it was done, I think, I don't think

1044
01:06:46,040 --> 01:06:47,040
there's a single person out there.

1045
01:06:47,040 --> 01:06:51,160
I hope there's not, that doesn't realize that they made a huge difference while they were

1046
01:06:51,160 --> 01:06:52,160
there.

1047
01:06:52,160 --> 01:06:54,920
And even like you said, if it's handling a scared girl, a glow stick all the way through

1048
01:06:54,920 --> 01:06:58,320
to building schools and, you know, all the things that you guys did.

1049
01:06:58,320 --> 01:07:05,880
However, you know, that sudden just evacuation, I think left a lot of our veterans feeling,

1050
01:07:05,880 --> 01:07:09,280
you know, a multitude of emotions.

1051
01:07:09,280 --> 01:07:13,120
I think it contributed probably to a lot of mental health challenges as well.

1052
01:07:13,120 --> 01:07:14,320
You know, what was it for?

1053
01:07:14,320 --> 01:07:19,800
And the, the, the survivor element, I mean, all these different things.

1054
01:07:19,800 --> 01:07:21,700
And I think organizational betrayal too.

1055
01:07:21,700 --> 01:07:24,600
You were part of this tribe, you wore this flag on your shoulder.

1056
01:07:24,600 --> 01:07:29,040
And then the very organization that you represented did something like that.

1057
01:07:29,040 --> 01:07:33,760
So I mean, I was going to say without loading the question, clearly I just loaded already,

1058
01:07:33,760 --> 01:07:35,720
but what is your perspective of that?

1059
01:07:35,720 --> 01:07:38,480
Because just like the pandemic, for example, people are like, Oh, I don't want to talk

1060
01:07:38,480 --> 01:07:39,480
about anymore.

1061
01:07:39,480 --> 01:07:43,360
I think it's important because these are lessons that we can learn and maybe apply God forbid

1062
01:07:43,360 --> 01:07:46,800
if there's another sort of combat, apply that to the next one.

1063
01:07:46,800 --> 01:07:51,880
So kind of giving you the microphone, what is your perspective of Iraq and or Afghanistan

1064
01:07:51,880 --> 01:07:55,520
as we sit here outside both those countries?

1065
01:07:55,520 --> 01:08:01,080
These are going to be, you know, hopefully they're going to be huge lessons learned in

1066
01:08:01,080 --> 01:08:02,080
a hundred years.

1067
01:08:02,080 --> 01:08:06,800
You know, we can look at, you know, Washington crossing the Delaware, you know, 200 years

1068
01:08:06,800 --> 01:08:12,480
ago as at least like lessons learned in military history, we can look at the long shakes, you

1069
01:08:12,480 --> 01:08:17,080
know, and look at the way that they operated and they did kinetic operations, you know,

1070
01:08:17,080 --> 01:08:18,580
hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

1071
01:08:18,580 --> 01:08:23,380
So like this, these mistakes, you know, or hopefully the way that they're going to be

1072
01:08:23,380 --> 01:08:29,240
perceived is like these lessons learned or should be definitely, you know, lack of a

1073
01:08:29,240 --> 01:08:33,600
better way of putting it in the textbooks going forward for military history and tacticians

1074
01:08:33,600 --> 01:08:36,000
as a whole.

1075
01:08:36,000 --> 01:08:41,620
The withdrawal of Afghanistan specifically because it was so abrupt, there was a lot

1076
01:08:41,620 --> 01:08:46,040
of like this Vietnam type of feel to it.

1077
01:08:46,040 --> 01:08:50,200
This granted when we pulled out of Vietnam, you know, I was born in 77.

1078
01:08:50,200 --> 01:08:55,320
So obviously that the withdrawal out of Vietnam, but those videos in the way that it was depicted

1079
01:08:55,320 --> 01:08:58,840
and depicted today was reminiscent of that.

1080
01:08:58,840 --> 01:09:04,240
I can only imagine, you know, being in Afghanistan during the withdrawal, I can only imagine being

1081
01:09:04,240 --> 01:09:09,020
in Vietnam during that withdrawal, during that hasty withdrawal.

1082
01:09:09,020 --> 01:09:18,280
We know deep down what the score is, you know, it's really easy for us as Americans and policymakers

1083
01:09:18,280 --> 01:09:25,280
to get us into and into conflict and disrupt things and basically turn them into our operating

1084
01:09:25,280 --> 01:09:27,480
system very, very quickly.

1085
01:09:27,480 --> 01:09:33,260
What it appears to me, what we suck at is actually rebuilding and building and then

1086
01:09:33,260 --> 01:09:35,360
leaving and continuing to support.

1087
01:09:35,360 --> 01:09:40,120
Because we look at Afghanistan now, it's like how much we're funding the Taliban right now

1088
01:09:40,120 --> 01:09:43,720
to be able to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq or in Afghanistan.

1089
01:09:43,720 --> 01:09:45,560
It's mind blowing to me.

1090
01:09:45,560 --> 01:09:56,360
So that hasty, hasty, that incredibly hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan just does not

1091
01:09:56,360 --> 01:09:59,760
seem like it was very well calculated at all.

1092
01:09:59,760 --> 01:10:05,720
And me being me, a very calculated person, I don't feel like we were looking at as a

1093
01:10:05,720 --> 01:10:12,480
whole, the first, second, third order effects of what we were doing.

1094
01:10:12,480 --> 01:10:19,280
We were trying to basically appease the American public by stop spending money in Afghanistan,

1095
01:10:19,280 --> 01:10:21,160
stop spending money in Iraq and get out of it.

1096
01:10:21,160 --> 01:10:22,160
We were there.

1097
01:10:22,160 --> 01:10:24,160
We've been there for over 20 years, you know, 20 plus years.

1098
01:10:24,160 --> 01:10:25,160
Let's get out.

1099
01:10:25,160 --> 01:10:27,740
And so that was sort of the popular thing to do.

1100
01:10:27,740 --> 01:10:37,840
But it just surprised me how we were not very calculated as policy enforcers and policymakers

1101
01:10:37,840 --> 01:10:39,720
to do that.

1102
01:10:39,720 --> 01:10:42,640
And it just, I mean, I can't imagine.

1103
01:10:42,640 --> 01:10:43,960
Jericho was actually there.

1104
01:10:43,960 --> 01:10:48,120
You know, Travis's brother was there, you know, when all that was going down, he was

1105
01:10:48,120 --> 01:10:49,120
there reporting.

1106
01:10:49,120 --> 01:10:51,040
And so that hit him pretty hard.

1107
01:10:51,040 --> 01:10:55,760
And when I talked to him, you know, talking to someone that was there, out of all the

1108
01:10:55,760 --> 01:10:58,520
combat operations he had done, that was one of them.

1109
01:10:58,520 --> 01:10:59,800
That was not a combat operation.

1110
01:10:59,800 --> 01:11:01,280
That was one of the hardest ones.

1111
01:11:01,280 --> 01:11:03,920
And the anniversary always kind of gets to him.

1112
01:11:03,920 --> 01:11:07,240
I mean, that was fucked.

1113
01:11:07,240 --> 01:11:09,040
Now it went down for sure.

1114
01:11:09,040 --> 01:11:10,040
Absolutely.

1115
01:11:10,040 --> 01:11:15,760
Well, one kind of one element or one more area on this topic.

1116
01:11:15,760 --> 01:11:22,680
When I think about the pharmaceutical industry and the nation's health, I'm hoping for an

1117
01:11:22,680 --> 01:11:28,240
honest box here, as someone who's come from a wellness background and fitness and all

1118
01:11:28,240 --> 01:11:29,600
that stuff.

1119
01:11:29,600 --> 01:11:36,160
Clearly, there is an element where if we make Americans sick, but keep them alive, you have

1120
01:11:36,160 --> 01:11:38,000
an incredible consumer.

1121
01:11:38,000 --> 01:11:43,000
Well with that same lens, when you look at war and you make uniforms, MREs, weapons,

1122
01:11:43,000 --> 01:11:47,520
whatever it is, there's an element that wants war to continue so that certain groups can

1123
01:11:47,520 --> 01:11:48,960
make a huge amount of money.

1124
01:11:48,960 --> 01:11:53,720
Now that's separate from protecting our country and being there when we're absolutely needed.

1125
01:11:53,720 --> 01:11:57,040
Oh no, it's a war machine for sure.

1126
01:11:57,040 --> 01:12:03,600
So how do we, you're king for a day, how do we increase accountability so that we don't

1127
01:12:03,600 --> 01:12:09,360
allow certain groups to keep forcing us into conflicts that we may or may not need to be

1128
01:12:09,360 --> 01:12:12,280
in in the first place?

1129
01:12:12,280 --> 01:12:19,240
A very deliberate and calculated level of transparency.

1130
01:12:19,240 --> 01:12:24,600
I just don't think that we are having the right conversations.

1131
01:12:24,600 --> 01:12:28,600
Maybe we are having the right conversations, but we're not being transparent.

1132
01:12:28,600 --> 01:12:31,080
And that usually, that breeds itself, right?

1133
01:12:31,080 --> 01:12:34,240
So calm breeds calm and honesty breeds honesty.

1134
01:12:34,240 --> 01:12:42,600
So if we can have some actual king for a day transparency, I think is, I can't go wrong

1135
01:12:42,600 --> 01:12:43,600
there.

1136
01:12:43,600 --> 01:12:48,280
But what we have now is king for a day is where's the money at?

1137
01:12:48,280 --> 01:12:49,280
Where does the money go?

1138
01:12:49,280 --> 01:12:53,160
I mean, you talked about the pharmaceutical company, companies in the pharmaceutical industry.

1139
01:12:53,160 --> 01:12:54,880
That's a money thing.

1140
01:12:54,880 --> 01:12:55,880
That's exactly where it's at.

1141
01:12:55,880 --> 01:13:02,040
And I remember not to get too much on the pharmaceutical stuff, but the Lipitor and

1142
01:13:02,040 --> 01:13:03,960
cholesterol meds, same thing.

1143
01:13:03,960 --> 01:13:06,080
My dad was on Lipitor and he's like, fuck this.

1144
01:13:06,080 --> 01:13:07,720
I've got all these different side effects.

1145
01:13:07,720 --> 01:13:11,680
And then later on, after he got off of it, these cholesterol companies, these companies

1146
01:13:11,680 --> 01:13:17,680
making this cholesterol medication were like, hey, this is a great way to basically pump

1147
01:13:17,680 --> 01:13:24,320
meds into our society because everybody has, the number one killer is heart disease.

1148
01:13:24,320 --> 01:13:30,200
So I think that if we could just be a little bit more transparent and be welcome to the

1149
01:13:30,200 --> 01:13:33,040
vulnerability and accept that.

1150
01:13:33,040 --> 01:13:36,560
I think that if you can have a little bit of like self-compassion as opposed to being

1151
01:13:36,560 --> 01:13:39,360
selfish, I think is going to really, really help.

1152
01:13:39,360 --> 01:13:45,040
And I really think that a lot of policymakers could benefit from some of the treatments

1153
01:13:45,040 --> 01:13:51,360
that veterans are getting with hormone treatment, psychedelic treatment, and actual like no

1154
01:13:51,360 --> 01:13:56,440
kidding, like getting in touch with who you are kind of treatment moving forward.

1155
01:13:56,440 --> 01:14:01,080
I think that congressmen, senators, and cabinet members could benefit from that kind of treatment

1156
01:14:01,080 --> 01:14:02,080
themselves.

1157
01:14:02,080 --> 01:14:03,080
Just my opinion.

1158
01:14:03,080 --> 01:14:04,080
No, I agree 100%.

1159
01:14:04,080 --> 01:14:08,800
When we talk about the mental health crisis, obviously we focus on, you know, whether it's

1160
01:14:08,800 --> 01:14:13,480
the addiction we see on our streets and homelessness, whether it's our veterans and first responders,

1161
01:14:13,480 --> 01:14:17,800
but there was a guy, a sad guru who was on Joe Rogan's podcast and he made, it was almost

1162
01:14:17,800 --> 01:14:21,960
in passing, he made a comment, but Joe was talking about, I think it was drug companies

1163
01:14:21,960 --> 01:14:23,280
and he was like, no, even them.

1164
01:14:23,280 --> 01:14:25,720
And I was like, I'd never thought about that.

1165
01:14:25,720 --> 01:14:29,880
There's only way that you can sleep at night knowing that you pulled out of a country and

1166
01:14:29,880 --> 01:14:35,000
betrayed all the allied nations that were there and all the people that serve in uniforms

1167
01:14:35,000 --> 01:14:37,480
is you have to be a sociopath.

1168
01:14:37,480 --> 01:14:41,880
The only way you can sleep at night knowing that drug prohibition is an epic failure and

1169
01:14:41,880 --> 01:14:46,720
yet your prisons are full of people that were caught with marijuana 20 years ago is you

1170
01:14:46,720 --> 01:14:47,960
have to be a sociopath.

1171
01:14:47,960 --> 01:14:53,040
So our mental health crisis, I think extends deeply into our politicians and owners of

1172
01:14:53,040 --> 01:15:00,840
news stations and other drug company execs and people that should not be able to sleep

1173
01:15:00,840 --> 01:15:04,760
knowing the unethical practices of the organizations they work for.

1174
01:15:04,760 --> 01:15:06,080
I couldn't agree more.

1175
01:15:06,080 --> 01:15:11,160
But yeah, but I think it boils down to money, power and position of authority for sure.

1176
01:15:11,160 --> 01:15:12,160
Yeah.

1177
01:15:12,160 --> 01:15:16,640
Because, you know, a king can move a man, right?

1178
01:15:16,640 --> 01:15:21,960
And so that's the mindset is I can just move all of these different pieces, these 400 million

1179
01:15:21,960 --> 01:15:25,840
pieces that I have in the United States, I can move all this and I can adjust all this.

1180
01:15:25,840 --> 01:15:32,880
But we have to really look at is that like you're in your own good, keep it alone.

1181
01:15:32,880 --> 01:15:40,240
And you can't say, you know, before, you know, religious stuff aside, but when you go before,

1182
01:15:40,240 --> 01:15:44,880
when you die, these are your decisions that you have made.

1183
01:15:44,880 --> 01:15:49,120
You know, so if people are going to basically do all of these puppeteer work and all these

1184
01:15:49,120 --> 01:15:54,120
different things in order for their own benefit, you've got to be able to make your own decisions

1185
01:15:54,120 --> 01:15:56,080
and be good with what you're doing.

1186
01:15:56,080 --> 01:15:58,600
And so I wholeheartedly agree with you, man.

1187
01:15:58,600 --> 01:16:04,280
Like I think that if I was, I couldn't ever do that and be in good, in good keeping alone

1188
01:16:04,280 --> 01:16:07,960
with myself and sleep at night for sure.

1189
01:16:07,960 --> 01:16:13,040
Well speaking of mental health, one area that I think is very jarring for military and first

1190
01:16:13,040 --> 01:16:17,560
responders is the transition out, whether it's injury, whether it's being fired, whether

1191
01:16:17,560 --> 01:16:19,800
it's simply retiring.

1192
01:16:19,800 --> 01:16:22,640
We and you talk about Sebastian Junger, he's been on the show several times.

1193
01:16:22,640 --> 01:16:24,760
You know, that tribal element is so important.

1194
01:16:24,760 --> 01:16:29,360
You know, we had a purpose, we were part of a tribe, you know, we knew when we went home

1195
01:16:29,360 --> 01:16:31,980
that day that we made the world a little bit better.

1196
01:16:31,980 --> 01:16:35,640
And then you find yourself the other side, your ID doesn't work, you know, you're not

1197
01:16:35,640 --> 01:16:38,120
around the same people anymore.

1198
01:16:38,120 --> 01:16:42,180
Some people transition well, they already have those tribes set up for moving out.

1199
01:16:42,180 --> 01:16:44,080
Some people it's a little bit more difficult.

1200
01:16:44,080 --> 01:16:45,960
What was your transition story yourself?

1201
01:16:45,960 --> 01:16:49,520
I mean, it was terrifying.

1202
01:16:49,520 --> 01:16:54,800
But just like me, I tried to be very calculated in what I was going to do.

1203
01:16:54,800 --> 01:16:59,860
You know, leaving Coronado and leaving Southern California after being there for so many years

1204
01:16:59,860 --> 01:17:03,680
and having so many close friends and somebody within the community and having someplace

1205
01:17:03,680 --> 01:17:07,880
to always go with people was gone.

1206
01:17:07,880 --> 01:17:12,120
You moved to Florida and it's like just a few, you know, family members that live out

1207
01:17:12,120 --> 01:17:18,180
here and starting over out here in Florida and trying to basically make a name for myself

1208
01:17:18,180 --> 01:17:22,520
in the industry and work in the industry.

1209
01:17:22,520 --> 01:17:24,200
I say make a name for myself in the industry.

1210
01:17:24,200 --> 01:17:25,200
That's not really correct.

1211
01:17:25,200 --> 01:17:28,480
I think it's really just contribute to the industry because what I do for a living is

1212
01:17:28,480 --> 01:17:34,080
and this is how I sit comfortably with what I do for a living is that I'm helping equip

1213
01:17:34,080 --> 01:17:39,440
still, because like almost as if I was still on active duty, helping train and equip military

1214
01:17:39,440 --> 01:17:42,800
service members, you know, not just US, but also our allies.

1215
01:17:42,800 --> 01:17:47,520
So there's a big part of that for me that I'm still kind of this active duty sort of

1216
01:17:47,520 --> 01:17:55,920
training component that in itself has definitely helped with my transition because I'm still

1217
01:17:55,920 --> 01:18:01,280
around some of the boys, not like, you know, it is, you know, when I was back home in San

1218
01:18:01,280 --> 01:18:05,800
Diego or back in Coronado, but it's really close to it.

1219
01:18:05,800 --> 01:18:10,480
And so I've been out, I've been retired for seven years and the first few years were really,

1220
01:18:10,480 --> 01:18:18,200
really hard because I was struggling to find purpose.

1221
01:18:18,200 --> 01:18:23,440
And on the daily was tough to find out.

1222
01:18:23,440 --> 01:18:25,280
I'm 39 years old.

1223
01:18:25,280 --> 01:18:26,280
Who am I?

1224
01:18:26,280 --> 01:18:27,280
Why am I here?

1225
01:18:27,280 --> 01:18:33,720
I still have a lot of life left over and I don't know what to do with it.

1226
01:18:33,720 --> 01:18:40,920
And I've got this, I've got a family, but I'm still so, I mean, I was looking at like,

1227
01:18:40,920 --> 01:18:41,920
I'll deploy again.

1228
01:18:41,920 --> 01:18:42,920
Like, I don't care.

1229
01:18:42,920 --> 01:18:45,720
Like, you know, whatever it is, I would, you know, I was just looking for something to

1230
01:18:45,720 --> 01:18:46,720
grasp a hold of.

1231
01:18:46,720 --> 01:18:52,320
And it was really hard to find anything that was not, it was really hard to find a grip

1232
01:18:52,320 --> 01:18:54,200
hold on something.

1233
01:18:54,200 --> 01:18:57,880
And then, yeah, a few years into it, I finally did.

1234
01:18:57,880 --> 01:19:04,600
And then I realized, you know, that my family has been there the whole time and I just didn't

1235
01:19:04,600 --> 01:19:07,080
grab a hold of them the way I should have.

1236
01:19:07,080 --> 01:19:12,840
And while I don't have a whole lot of regret, I'm glad I learned the way I learned as opposed

1237
01:19:12,840 --> 01:19:14,760
to just like, oh yeah, this is how you're supposed to do it.

1238
01:19:14,760 --> 01:19:19,880
But where I found that was through some mentorship and through, you know, through community with

1239
01:19:19,880 --> 01:19:26,720
seeing other guys retire and get out, them have problems going down, you know, trying

1240
01:19:26,720 --> 01:19:30,520
to find their solution at the bottom end of a bottle, at the bottom of a bottle, but still

1241
01:19:30,520 --> 01:19:33,360
some guys being able to have that strong family component.

1242
01:19:33,360 --> 01:19:39,520
And then it sort of started to get me like reset into, yes, being a father, being a husband

1243
01:19:39,520 --> 01:19:42,800
and doing this piece is my mission.

1244
01:19:42,800 --> 01:19:43,800
And that's my purpose.

1245
01:19:43,800 --> 01:19:48,680
So because they're my teammates for life, you know, it's not like they're going to rotate

1246
01:19:48,680 --> 01:19:49,680
after two years.

1247
01:19:49,680 --> 01:19:50,680
So that really helped.

1248
01:19:50,680 --> 01:19:58,920
But with my work now, it was tough, but to be able to find my niche within the industry

1249
01:19:58,920 --> 01:20:04,000
and to still be up around, you know, different tier levels in the community has been beneficial

1250
01:20:04,000 --> 01:20:05,000
for me.

1251
01:20:05,000 --> 01:20:08,480
I mean, it really helps find that mission and find that purpose and give me value because

1252
01:20:08,480 --> 01:20:13,440
I think that that's what we're missing in society, especially younger men is that is

1253
01:20:13,440 --> 01:20:19,520
being valued and having that value and knowing that our job is really just to protect and

1254
01:20:19,520 --> 01:20:24,040
provide and not only for yourself, but obviously primarily for your family, because that's

1255
01:20:24,040 --> 01:20:29,120
what's in our DNA, in our male DNA for thousands and thousands of years is that the perfect

1256
01:20:29,120 --> 01:20:32,880
and provide to go out and hunt and then to provide shelter and to provide food and to

1257
01:20:32,880 --> 01:20:37,200
provide these different types of things so we can have sustenance and live.

1258
01:20:37,200 --> 01:20:44,040
So that is what's really gotten me through a lot of this, a lot of the shit and a lot

1259
01:20:44,040 --> 01:20:51,680
of like the dark times is realizing that this my baseline is this caveman genetics that

1260
01:20:51,680 --> 01:20:55,480
I have to be able to protect and provide.

1261
01:20:55,480 --> 01:20:59,000
And then throughout the, you know, the small little things like I write a lot.

1262
01:20:59,000 --> 01:21:03,400
I'm trying to reading some good books and the writing has really helped.

1263
01:21:03,400 --> 01:21:07,520
You know, I was working with a coach a couple of years ago and she told me, Nick, you and

1264
01:21:07,520 --> 01:21:08,520
you guys are all the same.

1265
01:21:08,520 --> 01:21:10,000
You're all fucking chess players.

1266
01:21:10,000 --> 01:21:13,360
You like to use all these different things with your words and you're so fancy with your

1267
01:21:13,360 --> 01:21:17,800
words and you can dance around this stuff, but you really can't get into your emotions

1268
01:21:17,800 --> 01:21:19,560
and just sit and feel your emotions.

1269
01:21:19,560 --> 01:21:20,920
And she got me to start writing.

1270
01:21:20,920 --> 01:21:24,280
And so like the journaling has been going really, really good.

1271
01:21:24,280 --> 01:21:26,560
And I try to be an advocate for it for other guys.

1272
01:21:26,560 --> 01:21:28,440
It's like, just write, like, I don't know what to write about.

1273
01:21:28,440 --> 01:21:29,720
It's like, don't write about anything.

1274
01:21:29,720 --> 01:21:33,520
Just almost like free association, pull up a pen and paper, pull up your phone, listen

1275
01:21:33,520 --> 01:21:35,000
to a song, inspire it.

1276
01:21:35,000 --> 01:21:36,000
It can be dark.

1277
01:21:36,000 --> 01:21:37,000
It can be light.

1278
01:21:37,000 --> 01:21:41,440
It can be whatever you want, but at least you're getting something out, you know, and

1279
01:21:41,440 --> 01:21:45,600
not in itself as a form of art, you know, like just, just put it, get it out.

1280
01:21:45,600 --> 01:21:46,600
You don't have to share it.

1281
01:21:46,600 --> 01:21:47,600
Nobody's going to read it.

1282
01:21:47,600 --> 01:21:51,920
Just write because it's very cathartic and very therapeutic.

1283
01:21:51,920 --> 01:21:55,600
Even if you reread it and you like see all these typos and, and you're like, man, this

1284
01:21:55,600 --> 01:21:57,760
sounds like I'm fucking, I'm a sociopath.

1285
01:21:57,760 --> 01:22:00,560
Just write because it'll get better.

1286
01:22:00,560 --> 01:22:01,560
It will get better.

1287
01:22:01,560 --> 01:22:02,880
Just practice at it.

1288
01:22:02,880 --> 01:22:03,880
So.

1289
01:22:03,880 --> 01:22:07,280
Well, two things that you said, firstly, purpose being your family.

1290
01:22:07,280 --> 01:22:12,680
I think that's a really important conversation because they were without you for, you know,

1291
01:22:12,680 --> 01:22:17,520
in my profession every third day for 14 years, you know, and yours, you were deployed months

1292
01:22:17,520 --> 01:22:18,520
at a time.

1293
01:22:18,520 --> 01:22:22,160
So that, you know, and I think also you're, you're rebuilding yourself.

1294
01:22:22,160 --> 01:22:25,600
I mean, I know you're still beating your body up at the moment, but I mean, 14 years for

1295
01:22:25,600 --> 01:22:29,680
me, hormonally and mentally, you know, there's, there's a lot of fixing that I'm doing right

1296
01:22:29,680 --> 01:22:30,680
now.

1297
01:22:30,680 --> 01:22:32,240
But the other thing is that purpose.

1298
01:22:32,240 --> 01:22:37,280
And I think that it's hard for some of us in uniform to understand that there are so

1299
01:22:37,280 --> 01:22:38,520
many ways to serve.

1300
01:22:38,520 --> 01:22:42,000
There are so many ways to keep giving and it could be become a counselor or a fitness

1301
01:22:42,000 --> 01:22:47,840
coach or, you know, write books or, you know, whatever it is, or create the best new shoots

1302
01:22:47,840 --> 01:22:51,200
for people that are going to deploy 10 years from now.

1303
01:22:51,200 --> 01:22:55,680
But where I've heard people struggle, you know, if we're talking about the, the role

1304
01:22:55,680 --> 01:23:00,400
that they go into is, is the seal that becomes a realtor or goes into finance.

1305
01:23:00,400 --> 01:23:02,800
I think it's because there isn't that service.

1306
01:23:02,800 --> 01:23:07,080
So there are so many ways to serve, but there are also ways not to serve.

1307
01:23:07,080 --> 01:23:12,920
And I think for a lot of us that did that for so many years wearing a uniform, I think

1308
01:23:12,920 --> 01:23:16,640
it's important to kind of ask yourself, all right, what kind of position do I want to

1309
01:23:16,640 --> 01:23:17,640
want to go in?

1310
01:23:17,640 --> 01:23:21,360
And when I lay my head on the pillow that night, do I still feel like I made the world

1311
01:23:21,360 --> 01:23:22,840
a little bit better?

1312
01:23:22,840 --> 01:23:23,840
Yeah.

1313
01:23:23,840 --> 01:23:30,640
I think that we, I remember having this, this, this misconception that it's like, wait a

1314
01:23:30,640 --> 01:23:35,320
minute, like I've been in combat and I led people and I was the TL on this and I did

1315
01:23:35,320 --> 01:23:36,320
all this.

1316
01:23:36,320 --> 01:23:40,920
I should, you should bring me in as the fucking president of this company or the CEO or the

1317
01:23:40,920 --> 01:23:42,080
CFO or something.

1318
01:23:42,080 --> 01:23:44,320
So no, it doesn't.

1319
01:23:44,320 --> 01:23:49,240
And I had that mindset for a long time and it doesn't work that way, unfortunately.

1320
01:23:49,240 --> 01:24:00,440
But I think that finding that purpose for me, finding that purpose for me has been crucial.

1321
01:24:00,440 --> 01:24:04,320
In late 2017, now I wasn't sure if I was going to talk about this or not, but I think it's

1322
01:24:04,320 --> 01:24:09,080
really important because I think that a lot of people can relate to this.

1323
01:24:09,080 --> 01:24:12,200
So I retired in October, 2016.

1324
01:24:12,200 --> 01:24:17,400
We moved here the summer of that year and throughout that year was really tough for

1325
01:24:17,400 --> 01:24:18,400
me.

1326
01:24:18,400 --> 01:24:22,040
I was just doing some coaching and some jumping, making very little money.

1327
01:24:22,040 --> 01:24:26,440
I mean, thankfully retirement and, and some other stuff, uh, it's financially kept us

1328
01:24:26,440 --> 01:24:29,320
afloat living in Florida is a lot better than living in Southern California financially

1329
01:24:29,320 --> 01:24:31,920
on for obvious reasons.

1330
01:24:31,920 --> 01:24:40,800
Late 2017, um, I left my wife and we split for about two years and I went off and just

1331
01:24:40,800 --> 01:24:46,800
wanted, I was in such a dark place that I didn't like myself.

1332
01:24:46,800 --> 01:24:51,120
And so that resentment carried, you know, basically went to her and I resented her for

1333
01:24:51,120 --> 01:24:58,320
it because when we first met in 2005, when I moved to San Diego, she, not that I had

1334
01:24:58,320 --> 01:25:02,800
a whole lot of life problems or life experiences, but she was there for everything and she solved

1335
01:25:02,800 --> 01:25:03,800
everything.

1336
01:25:03,800 --> 01:25:09,720
She was part of these, these training trips, these deployments, these losses, these gains,

1337
01:25:09,720 --> 01:25:13,480
you know, with every, with every victory, there is a fall, you know, I mean, part of

1338
01:25:13,480 --> 01:25:14,480
all of it.

1339
01:25:14,480 --> 01:25:18,640
And then now that I'm retired and we've had two kids, I'm retired and I've got all these

1340
01:25:18,640 --> 01:25:23,640
like issues that I can't seem to wrap my head around about my identity.

1341
01:25:23,640 --> 01:25:25,440
She wasn't solving it anymore.

1342
01:25:25,440 --> 01:25:29,560
And so this resentment built up and this wasn't just, you know, over the span of a year and

1343
01:25:29,560 --> 01:25:33,120
a half, the span of probably a good like, you know, nine, 10 years, I was dealing with

1344
01:25:33,120 --> 01:25:34,120
a lot of darkness.

1345
01:25:34,120 --> 01:25:41,680
And so finally in November, 2017, um, I said, I have to go and we split up and I stayed

1346
01:25:41,680 --> 01:25:53,320
close and we co-parented, um, and we went into, I dove into work really, really hard.

1347
01:25:53,320 --> 01:26:01,120
And May of 2019, um, I did a retreat with a buddy of mine who encouraged me to go with

1348
01:26:01,120 --> 01:26:05,600
him, came back about six, eight months later and things started to kind of come back to

1349
01:26:05,600 --> 01:26:06,600
me.

1350
01:26:06,600 --> 01:26:12,720
I forgave myself for the things that I've done and I started to like myself again and

1351
01:26:12,720 --> 01:26:17,880
have some self-compassion sort of remap things, if you will, in my decision making process.

1352
01:26:17,880 --> 01:26:22,000
And I could sort of see the forest for the trees were all these years before I thought

1353
01:26:22,000 --> 01:26:23,640
I was.

1354
01:26:23,640 --> 01:26:32,600
Um, and then early December, uh, 2019, uh, I bought her a car for her, for Christmas

1355
01:26:32,600 --> 01:26:37,760
to always surprise her and then I asked her on a date and then, uh, about three months

1356
01:26:37,760 --> 01:26:40,880
later we got back together and we've been together ever since.

1357
01:26:40,880 --> 01:26:48,720
So it's a hard one though, because I put that woman through a lot, you know, and, uh, the

1358
01:26:48,720 --> 01:26:58,560
fact that she took me back and without skipping a beat to really let me back in and allow

1359
01:26:58,560 --> 01:27:04,520
us to create this, this, this bloodline, this Kush family bloodline, this legacy for both

1360
01:27:04,520 --> 01:27:11,560
of us, um, has been, yeah, I'm grateful for her every day, man.

1361
01:27:11,560 --> 01:27:16,240
So, well, firstly, thank you for trusting me enough to share that because it is, it

1362
01:27:16,240 --> 01:27:18,280
is important and so many people struggle.

1363
01:27:18,280 --> 01:27:24,120
I've watched firefighters that I adore, you know, incredible men literally start to crumble

1364
01:27:24,120 --> 01:27:29,040
before my eyes and, and, you know, just head over heels with their wives and all of a sudden

1365
01:27:29,040 --> 01:27:32,120
their marriages start devolving.

1366
01:27:32,120 --> 01:27:33,360
And it's, you know, it's the job.

1367
01:27:33,360 --> 01:27:37,440
And I always tell people that if someone was a shit bag day one on the grinder, then they're

1368
01:27:37,440 --> 01:27:42,120
probably a shit bag and they got some stuff from before, but if they were, you know, loyal

1369
01:27:42,120 --> 01:27:47,620
and, and, and all the things that we admire in someone and then five, 10 years later,

1370
01:27:47,620 --> 01:27:51,600
they weren't anymore, then it's the job, you know, it is the job.

1371
01:27:51,600 --> 01:27:57,160
So you talked about a retreat, you know, what kind of a treat was it?

1372
01:27:57,160 --> 01:28:03,200
And then what were the observations that you made that you were then able to forgive yourself

1373
01:28:03,200 --> 01:28:08,560
and navigate yourself back to that incredible man that you were that she fell in love with

1374
01:28:08,560 --> 01:28:09,560
in the first place?

1375
01:28:09,560 --> 01:28:12,520
Oh, yeah, that's a good one.

1376
01:28:12,520 --> 01:28:16,600
Um, so I'll just keep it, um, at surface level.

1377
01:28:16,600 --> 01:28:25,360
Um, but it was, it was, um, yeah, it was like a four day retreat, um, down, uh, down south.

1378
01:28:25,360 --> 01:28:28,840
So I do want to keep it service level just for some of the, some of the other reasons,

1379
01:28:28,840 --> 01:28:29,840
for some other reasons.

1380
01:28:29,840 --> 01:28:36,400
Um, and it, and it, and it allowed me to really, I mean, it allowed me, it forced me to take

1381
01:28:36,400 --> 01:28:41,960
a long look at my, not when look at my life.

1382
01:28:41,960 --> 01:28:45,540
When I, when I say I look at my life, it wasn't just here.

1383
01:28:45,540 --> 01:28:49,780
So it forced me to take a long look at my life here.

1384
01:28:49,780 --> 01:28:56,200
So from birth, childhood, present, and then projections of a future.

1385
01:28:56,200 --> 01:29:01,920
And that was a huge eye opening experience for me.

1386
01:29:01,920 --> 01:29:07,240
And it caused me throughout the following, you know, six, eight months, I just, I paused

1387
01:29:07,240 --> 01:29:12,160
and I was in like really deep and good thought.

1388
01:29:12,160 --> 01:29:16,580
And I knew that I would eventually, I felt drawn that I would find my way home.

1389
01:29:16,580 --> 01:29:18,740
I didn't know that she was going to say yes.

1390
01:29:18,740 --> 01:29:21,120
I was really apprehensive that she would say yes.

1391
01:29:21,120 --> 01:29:29,760
Um, and so this long buildup of is this going to happen, um, was really nerve wracking,

1392
01:29:29,760 --> 01:29:32,920
but I wasn't, I wasn't super, I wasn't hyper focused on it.

1393
01:29:32,920 --> 01:29:37,320
I was really focused on finding some compassion in myself.

1394
01:29:37,320 --> 01:29:41,920
And it's like what I've done and what I've been through, whether it was by, you know,

1395
01:29:41,920 --> 01:29:47,120
because of me or not because of me, just by circumstance and being in combat and you know,

1396
01:29:47,120 --> 01:29:55,000
these, these different atrocities, but I was able to finally take a look inward, which

1397
01:29:55,000 --> 01:29:59,600
then helped me view things outward a lot better.

1398
01:29:59,600 --> 01:30:04,600
Um, so I could, the biggest thing was actually to find to like myself again, cause I didn't,

1399
01:30:04,600 --> 01:30:08,800
I didn't for the longest time was to actually appreciate what I actually provide and what

1400
01:30:08,800 --> 01:30:12,240
I give and what I, what I receive because of it.

1401
01:30:12,240 --> 01:30:20,080
Um, the self-compassion I think is literally be a lot of, can solve a lot of, uh, can help

1402
01:30:20,080 --> 01:30:23,800
open doors for, for, for solving a lot of problems for us down the road.

1403
01:30:23,800 --> 01:30:24,800
Yeah.

1404
01:30:24,800 --> 01:30:29,600
Well, again, it's a powerful story, you know, because the job does have an impact.

1405
01:30:29,600 --> 01:30:30,600
It just does.

1406
01:30:30,600 --> 01:30:31,600
It's just the bottom line.

1407
01:30:31,600 --> 01:30:36,160
So to be able to navigate back and for your wife to have the forgiveness as well, I had

1408
01:30:36,160 --> 01:30:38,880
a guest on Chris Fields who became a good friend.

1409
01:30:38,880 --> 01:30:43,360
And he, if you think about the Oklahoma bombing, there's an iconic, tragically iconic picture

1410
01:30:43,360 --> 01:30:45,880
of a firefighter holding a dead toddler.

1411
01:30:45,880 --> 01:30:47,160
And that was Chris.

1412
01:30:47,160 --> 01:30:51,740
So you imagine you talk about anniversaries every year that that happened.

1413
01:30:51,740 --> 01:30:55,940
His picture is all over the magazines, all over the TV screens.

1414
01:30:55,940 --> 01:31:02,700
And he had a complete, you know, spiral downwards and ended up being unfaithful and ultimately

1415
01:31:02,700 --> 01:31:07,240
was able to get help navigate his way back and his amazing wife, Cheryl took him back

1416
01:31:07,240 --> 01:31:09,680
and they're still happily married again today.

1417
01:31:09,680 --> 01:31:14,160
But I think, you know, these, we need to hear this because you fell in love with, with an

1418
01:31:14,160 --> 01:31:19,460
incredible first responder soldier, whoever it was, and then they went to war or then

1419
01:31:19,460 --> 01:31:22,920
they did what we do for 10, 20, 30 years.

1420
01:31:22,920 --> 01:31:27,920
Doesn't give you an excuse to behave in a certain way, but it's a reason.

1421
01:31:27,920 --> 01:31:32,680
And if a couple's dynamic is able to navigate that and a person's going to put in the work

1422
01:31:32,680 --> 01:31:36,760
and get help, then there's hope for some of these relationships that are struggling right

1423
01:31:36,760 --> 01:31:37,760
now.

1424
01:31:37,760 --> 01:31:38,760
It's true.

1425
01:31:38,760 --> 01:31:39,760
Yeah.

1426
01:31:39,760 --> 01:31:48,560
And, and she's the, she's the, the best and the best, she's the best kind of best kind

1427
01:31:48,560 --> 01:31:52,160
of person and I'm very fortunate, but also sometimes unfortunate because she has her

1428
01:31:52,160 --> 01:31:53,640
doctorate in clinical psychology.

1429
01:31:53,640 --> 01:31:58,520
So, you know, you get where I'm going with that and she'll be okay with it.

1430
01:31:58,520 --> 01:31:59,520
I said that.

1431
01:31:59,520 --> 01:32:02,680
But yeah, so she's very analytical as well.

1432
01:32:02,680 --> 01:32:06,000
And so she looked at things.

1433
01:32:06,000 --> 01:32:09,920
It was really hard for her not to, for her not to look at things, obviously with a huge

1434
01:32:09,920 --> 01:32:14,080
bias because I completely upended her world, you know, by doing that.

1435
01:32:14,080 --> 01:32:18,480
And for us to continue to work on stuff because it's, everything's a process.

1436
01:32:18,480 --> 01:32:22,440
You know, you just go to the gym and peek out at your deadlift or bench press and then

1437
01:32:22,440 --> 01:32:23,440
that's it.

1438
01:32:23,440 --> 01:32:24,440
I'm good.

1439
01:32:24,440 --> 01:32:27,440
You know, you still, it still takes discipline, it still takes practice and commitment for

1440
01:32:27,440 --> 01:32:28,440
sure.

1441
01:32:28,440 --> 01:32:29,440
So yeah.

1442
01:32:29,440 --> 01:32:30,440
Beautiful.

1443
01:32:30,440 --> 01:32:31,680
That's what, that's what I want to be good at.

1444
01:32:31,680 --> 01:32:34,880
You know, for so many years I want to be good at this, this, this, and this.

1445
01:32:34,880 --> 01:32:37,080
I want to be good at being a dad.

1446
01:32:37,080 --> 01:32:39,280
I want to be good at being a teammate.

1447
01:32:39,280 --> 01:32:41,160
That's what I want to be good at.

1448
01:32:41,160 --> 01:32:46,800
And the fact that she never told me that's what you need to do in order for this to be

1449
01:32:46,800 --> 01:32:52,720
successful that I figured that out on my own was, was one of my bigger accomplishments

1450
01:32:52,720 --> 01:32:58,040
for myself, you know, at least in the, in the head space world was that I realized that

1451
01:32:58,040 --> 01:32:59,480
this is what I want to be good at.

1452
01:32:59,480 --> 01:33:01,320
I want to be, I want to be good at being a husband.

1453
01:33:01,320 --> 01:33:04,920
I want to be good at being a dad, you know, so.

1454
01:33:04,920 --> 01:33:06,120
Well I think that's what a man is.

1455
01:33:06,120 --> 01:33:09,600
And we've had lots of conversations about this, but you know, the, the kind of two dimensional

1456
01:33:09,600 --> 01:33:12,240
facade of masculinity is, oh, it's the seal.

1457
01:33:12,240 --> 01:33:13,240
It's the firefighter.

1458
01:33:13,240 --> 01:33:15,200
It's like, no, we're a yin and a yang.

1459
01:33:15,200 --> 01:33:18,080
You know, we're also a father, a husband, a lover.

1460
01:33:18,080 --> 01:33:21,840
You know, you can, you can be shooting a terrorist or you can be handing a little girl a chem

1461
01:33:21,840 --> 01:33:22,840
stick.

1462
01:33:22,840 --> 01:33:27,760
Still the same seal or EOD operator, but you know, two sides of the same coin.

1463
01:33:27,760 --> 01:33:30,480
All right.

1464
01:33:30,480 --> 01:33:34,640
Well then one more area I want to hit before we go to the closing questions.

1465
01:33:34,640 --> 01:33:40,280
February last year, you and I both were part of a round the world trip.

1466
01:33:40,280 --> 01:33:41,280
Yours was seven by seven.

1467
01:33:41,280 --> 01:33:45,040
Mine was seven X. When I say mine, it was my friend Ryan's, Ryan Parrot, and then the

1468
01:33:45,040 --> 01:33:48,080
Navy seal who, who was spearheading that.

1469
01:33:48,080 --> 01:33:53,140
We went around the world and the goal really was to break down these, these incredible

1470
01:33:53,140 --> 01:33:58,720
humans and kind of plan how to, how to train them for it, break them down, which they did

1471
01:33:58,720 --> 01:33:59,720
incredibly successfully.

1472
01:33:59,720 --> 01:34:01,040
It destroyed us.

1473
01:34:01,040 --> 01:34:04,520
And then how do we kind of put the pieces back together again?

1474
01:34:04,520 --> 01:34:07,520
Yours was, you know, I know there was some kind of human performance studying going on

1475
01:34:07,520 --> 01:34:10,520
as well, but also there was an actual record attempt with your group.

1476
01:34:10,520 --> 01:34:15,200
So talk to me about your experience of circumnavigating the globe skydiving.

1477
01:34:15,200 --> 01:34:16,200
Geez.

1478
01:34:16,200 --> 01:34:17,200
Yeah.

1479
01:34:17,200 --> 01:34:20,800
So, I mean, I got to give it a little bit of history, not to, not to repeat it too,

1480
01:34:20,800 --> 01:34:30,880
too much from, from, from, from earlier, but the, it was July, 2021 that my former teammate,

1481
01:34:30,880 --> 01:34:36,960
Mike Cirelli gave me a call and Mike and I had done two deployments to Iraq in 2006 and

1482
01:34:36,960 --> 01:34:37,960
in 2008.

1483
01:34:37,960 --> 01:34:38,960
And we had lost touch.

1484
01:34:38,960 --> 01:34:42,480
He would gone, he'd gone over to the East coast and I was staying on the West coast.

1485
01:34:42,480 --> 01:34:45,400
And then we, you know, every once in a while conversations would come up, but then he reached

1486
01:34:45,400 --> 01:34:49,440
out to me and kind of cold called me and said, I have this idea.

1487
01:34:49,440 --> 01:34:55,120
We'd like to do seven skydives on seven continents in seven days.

1488
01:34:55,120 --> 01:35:00,760
And I was like, bro, you are, you are, you are biting off a lot on this one, you know,

1489
01:35:00,760 --> 01:35:03,760
just to do that logistically.

1490
01:35:03,760 --> 01:35:04,760
And so we started planning.

1491
01:35:04,760 --> 01:35:08,800
I had a really good friend who had been to all seven continents and who actually held

1492
01:35:08,800 --> 01:35:12,200
the skydiving record for all seven continents.

1493
01:35:12,200 --> 01:35:16,400
He had done it in like six months and like three weeks, I think.

1494
01:35:16,400 --> 01:35:23,880
And his name was Tom Noonan and Tom was a world renowned tandem master tandem instructor.

1495
01:35:23,880 --> 01:35:30,040
So he ran the tandem program for United parachute technologies, which is a manufacturer, sort

1496
01:35:30,040 --> 01:35:33,760
of the birthplace of tandem skydiving here in Deland.

1497
01:35:33,760 --> 01:35:38,800
And so Tom was the pioneer sort of leader for that, for the safety and training for

1498
01:35:38,800 --> 01:35:40,160
that program.

1499
01:35:40,160 --> 01:35:46,200
Sadly, we were planning and October 16th, 2021, Tom died.

1500
01:35:46,200 --> 01:35:52,800
So now our go-to guy for all this overseas and all of his experience worldwide was now

1501
01:35:52,800 --> 01:35:54,360
kind of in ashes.

1502
01:35:54,360 --> 01:35:56,720
And so, you know, went to Tom's funeral.

1503
01:35:56,720 --> 01:36:02,080
That was really tough because Tom is a very dear friend of mine.

1504
01:36:02,080 --> 01:36:05,680
And then we sort of circled the wagons and decided to keep going.

1505
01:36:05,680 --> 01:36:11,920
And so fast forward to summer of 2022, we started to get some funding.

1506
01:36:11,920 --> 01:36:17,280
Like in Andy Stump, who was a big part of the expedition team.

1507
01:36:17,280 --> 01:36:23,120
They got on, did a podcast with Joe Rogan and was able to do a pitch for the overall

1508
01:36:23,120 --> 01:36:26,200
nonprofit we were raising money for, which was Folds of Honor.

1509
01:36:26,200 --> 01:36:31,080
And Folds of Honor is a nonprofit that raises money for kids' education scholarships for

1510
01:36:31,080 --> 01:36:35,920
deceased, disabled, first responders and service members.

1511
01:36:35,920 --> 01:36:38,920
And so they do basically private education.

1512
01:36:38,920 --> 01:36:41,160
And so we wanted to raise money for Folds.

1513
01:36:41,160 --> 01:36:45,880
And the big reason we wanted to do it for Folds was we really liked their mission.

1514
01:36:45,880 --> 01:36:48,600
And we had an eclectic group on our team.

1515
01:36:48,600 --> 01:36:54,240
We had a Ranger, we had a Canadian guy, we had a couple of team guys, we had a Marine

1516
01:36:54,240 --> 01:36:58,160
Scout sniper, and then we have myself.

1517
01:36:58,160 --> 01:37:02,040
And so we had this group where if we went to the Navy SEAL Foundation or another foundation,

1518
01:37:02,040 --> 01:37:05,540
it's not their against Navy SEAL Foundation or any other foundation was that in order

1519
01:37:05,540 --> 01:37:10,640
to get support from some of those foundations, you had to have had been an SF guy or a Ranger

1520
01:37:10,640 --> 01:37:11,640
or a SEAL.

1521
01:37:11,640 --> 01:37:16,680
So with Folds, it was, it didn't matter who you are, if you're a first responder, you

1522
01:37:16,680 --> 01:37:21,760
know, 100% disabled service, you know, veteran or deceased family, dependent of a deceased

1523
01:37:21,760 --> 01:37:24,040
service member, you qualify.

1524
01:37:24,040 --> 01:37:25,720
That was kind of, we looked at it.

1525
01:37:25,720 --> 01:37:29,240
Was it like we want to spread it out and push forward from there.

1526
01:37:29,240 --> 01:37:34,680
So we had a training camp in October with the guys were, you know, kind of, you know,

1527
01:37:34,680 --> 01:37:38,320
getting a feel for everybody, you know, jumping, you know, we had some low jump numbers, some

1528
01:37:38,320 --> 01:37:41,960
high jump numbers, and so we're just trying to get some reps, because all we were doing

1529
01:37:41,960 --> 01:37:42,960
was jumping.

1530
01:37:42,960 --> 01:37:47,840
Then we did, you know, along the way, I was having to do paperwork for all of these respective

1531
01:37:47,840 --> 01:37:54,080
locations, Antarctica, the drop zone in Chile, drop zone in Florida, Barcelona, Egypt, UAE,

1532
01:37:54,080 --> 01:37:57,200
and Australia, and working all of those pieces.

1533
01:37:57,200 --> 01:38:02,440
So we had seven skydivers, and then myself was going to be, I was the tandem instructor,

1534
01:38:02,440 --> 01:38:07,480
and then Jim Wiginton was my tandem passenger and Jim Wiginton was Tom's passenger for the

1535
01:38:07,480 --> 01:38:08,680
other seven continents.

1536
01:38:08,680 --> 01:38:13,400
So Jim had already had the record as a passenger, but he wanted to do it in seven days.

1537
01:38:13,400 --> 01:38:16,360
So and he's, I think he's now 74 years old.

1538
01:38:16,360 --> 01:38:19,800
So good on him.

1539
01:38:19,800 --> 01:38:26,400
So yeah, then in right before New Year's of December of 22, we flew down to Chile, and

1540
01:38:26,400 --> 01:38:28,720
we were down in Chile for about a week or so.

1541
01:38:28,720 --> 01:38:30,200
And it flew down to Antarctica.

1542
01:38:30,200 --> 01:38:31,760
And then the machine just started.

1543
01:38:31,760 --> 01:38:36,560
You know, we were, we tried and we sat there and looked at like, do we build a contingency

1544
01:38:36,560 --> 01:38:37,560
list?

1545
01:38:37,560 --> 01:38:41,400
Do we have, you know, do we like kind of basically do this as if we're planning and, you know,

1546
01:38:41,400 --> 01:38:42,400
a big operation?

1547
01:38:42,400 --> 01:38:43,400
Yes and no.

1548
01:38:43,400 --> 01:38:48,120
I mean, we were prepared for delayed flights, lost baggage, we had those types of contingencies

1549
01:38:48,120 --> 01:38:52,760
in place, but we didn't really see the point of building out and trying to get super creative

1550
01:38:52,760 --> 01:38:54,880
with this long list of contingencies.

1551
01:38:54,880 --> 01:39:00,800
And then, you know, spending all this unnecessary time trying to figure out this enigma, we

1552
01:39:00,800 --> 01:39:04,580
were going to basically deal this with this puzzle as it came to us.

1553
01:39:04,580 --> 01:39:07,200
So we planned it and we planned it flawlessly.

1554
01:39:07,200 --> 01:39:11,400
And if we knew that it wasn't going to be executed flawlessly, but we were able to respond.

1555
01:39:11,400 --> 01:39:16,240
And that was why we built the team that we had was the guys were incredibly resourceful.

1556
01:39:16,240 --> 01:39:20,760
You know, they had connections in aviation, they had connections with finance, they like

1557
01:39:20,760 --> 01:39:23,160
all these, you know, it's a lot of social media presence.

1558
01:39:23,160 --> 01:39:29,520
So there was all of this resources that opened up this huge scope that we could tap into.

1559
01:39:29,520 --> 01:39:32,520
And we weren't, none of the guys were like professional skydivers.

1560
01:39:32,520 --> 01:39:36,720
You know, like there was two of us that do this for a living on the entire expedition.

1561
01:39:36,720 --> 01:39:40,480
You know, Fred Williams, the president of Complete Parachute Solutions has got 15,000

1562
01:39:40,480 --> 01:39:41,480
jumps.

1563
01:39:41,480 --> 01:39:42,480
I have 12,000 jumps.

1564
01:39:42,480 --> 01:39:46,440
And then right behind me is somebody with like 4,000 jumps on the team.

1565
01:39:46,440 --> 01:39:50,600
And that trickles all the way down to the lowest jump number was 200, because that was

1566
01:39:50,600 --> 01:39:53,260
the base minimum for us to go to Antarctica.

1567
01:39:53,260 --> 01:39:57,640
So we weren't really wasn't a complex skydiving, you know, event.

1568
01:39:57,640 --> 01:40:01,880
It was just it was a logistical enigma is what we were basically going through.

1569
01:40:01,880 --> 01:40:07,440
And the idea was to do something really, you know, loud and over the top to get attention,

1570
01:40:07,440 --> 01:40:11,840
people to follow us kind of Forrest Gump style, and then, you know, raise money for folds

1571
01:40:11,840 --> 01:40:15,960
and talk about folds of honor and tell the story of of our fallen comrades.

1572
01:40:15,960 --> 01:40:21,080
You know, I got to talk about Mark Lee, you know, who is in my platoon and was shot and

1573
01:40:21,080 --> 01:40:25,960
killed on August 2, 2006, while we were on a, you know, on an assault.

1574
01:40:25,960 --> 01:40:30,160
And the friendship and relationship I formed with Debbie Lee, his mom and her foundation,

1575
01:40:30,160 --> 01:40:33,440
because Mighty Warriors doing, you know, traumatic brain injury treatment.

1576
01:40:33,440 --> 01:40:37,480
And so it was it was a really good experience overall.

1577
01:40:37,480 --> 01:40:40,080
And then the platform that we created in order to tell the story.

1578
01:40:40,080 --> 01:40:44,720
And I think the documentary is due to screen I think in February or March of next of this

1579
01:40:44,720 --> 01:40:46,440
coming year.

1580
01:40:46,440 --> 01:40:51,360
And but it was physically like, as you know, a kick in the ass.

1581
01:40:51,360 --> 01:40:55,400
I mean, we were monitored by whoop and whoop did a small, you know, pretty cool little

1582
01:40:55,400 --> 01:40:57,160
study for a few of us.

1583
01:40:57,160 --> 01:41:01,320
And it took me about three weeks to fully get back into the swing of things.

1584
01:41:01,320 --> 01:41:05,400
I mean, sleep and body aches and like, I wasn't sure what was going on, but it was definitely

1585
01:41:05,400 --> 01:41:06,920
we were smashed for sure.

1586
01:41:06,920 --> 01:41:08,200
Yeah, it was brutal.

1587
01:41:08,200 --> 01:41:11,080
I mean, obviously, ours was a couple months later in February.

1588
01:41:11,080 --> 01:41:15,840
And ours was I think total travel time was I think we were gone for 12 days because we

1589
01:41:15,840 --> 01:41:17,840
were in South Africa for a few days.

1590
01:41:17,840 --> 01:41:22,920
Antarctica fell through like last last minute, like, you know, hours before, which was was

1591
01:41:22,920 --> 01:41:23,920
the same.

1592
01:41:23,920 --> 01:41:25,480
But it was funny.

1593
01:41:25,480 --> 01:41:29,240
I'd actually reached out to Kurt Parsley about the sleep supplement.

1594
01:41:29,240 --> 01:41:30,920
And then he's like, Oh, I'm already part of something.

1595
01:41:30,920 --> 01:41:32,120
I'm like, Oh, really?

1596
01:41:32,120 --> 01:41:33,240
And he was part of yours.

1597
01:41:33,240 --> 01:41:40,100
So I remember pictures of the man who really opened my eyes about sleep deprivation, exhausted

1598
01:41:40,100 --> 01:41:44,520
on your social media posts as everyone was fast asleep in an airport.

1599
01:41:44,520 --> 01:41:46,440
We did not intend for it to be a competition.

1600
01:41:46,440 --> 01:41:49,240
And I'm so glad that it wasn't perceived like that.

1601
01:41:49,240 --> 01:41:54,160
You know, really, you know, I mean, maybe between, you know, you know, like, sort of

1602
01:41:54,160 --> 01:41:57,920
like in the team room, if it were, you know, like if Ryan and I are because I met Ryan

1603
01:41:57,920 --> 01:42:01,720
years and years ago and I don't know if he remembers me, but like on the West Coast.

1604
01:42:01,720 --> 01:42:05,800
So but it really like big picture was just like, hey, we're both doing something really

1605
01:42:05,800 --> 01:42:08,960
good for, you know, for veterans.

1606
01:42:08,960 --> 01:42:10,720
And that was basically it in their families.

1607
01:42:10,720 --> 01:42:13,000
So but yeah, Kurt Parsley is awesome.

1608
01:42:13,000 --> 01:42:16,280
Yeah, I still he just got married a few weeks ago.

1609
01:42:16,280 --> 01:42:19,920
And yeah, I still take his sleep remedy every night because it's awesome.

1610
01:42:19,920 --> 01:42:20,920
Yeah, it's great.

1611
01:42:20,920 --> 01:42:21,920
It is.

1612
01:42:21,920 --> 01:42:22,920
And everyone was impressed.

1613
01:42:22,920 --> 01:42:25,080
People had he donated some for us as well.

1614
01:42:25,080 --> 01:42:26,080
Oh, good.

1615
01:42:26,080 --> 01:42:27,080
And people were blown away.

1616
01:42:27,080 --> 01:42:28,800
How well it well I've used it for years myself.

1617
01:42:28,800 --> 01:42:29,800
Yeah.

1618
01:42:29,800 --> 01:42:31,000
One more area.

1619
01:42:31,000 --> 01:42:34,360
I've only done two skydives ever, both tandem.

1620
01:42:34,360 --> 01:42:38,680
One was in New Zealand and then one was out of a Russian helicopter over the pyramids.

1621
01:42:38,680 --> 01:42:43,040
Now, I know there's a very iconic picture from your trip of you guys all, you know,

1622
01:42:43,040 --> 01:42:46,520
holding hands with the pyramids kind of in the middle of the circle.

1623
01:42:46,520 --> 01:42:47,680
Talk to me about that jump for you.

1624
01:42:47,680 --> 01:42:52,160
I mean, you're so experienced already, but was that a pretty, pretty powerful moment

1625
01:42:52,160 --> 01:42:54,520
for you, even though you had so many jumps?

1626
01:42:54,520 --> 01:42:56,520
Yeah, it was.

1627
01:42:56,520 --> 01:43:00,040
You know, out of all of it, out of all those jumps, Antarctica was still my favorite just

1628
01:43:00,040 --> 01:43:04,240
because there's been so few to ever jump over Antarctica.

1629
01:43:04,240 --> 01:43:06,400
And also Antarctica is like another planet.

1630
01:43:06,400 --> 01:43:11,800
You know, I mean, it's it just it doesn't feel or look like it makes sense, you know,

1631
01:43:11,800 --> 01:43:12,800
but the place is amazing.

1632
01:43:12,800 --> 01:43:16,280
And hopefully you get to go back there next December, next year, doing some other stuff

1633
01:43:16,280 --> 01:43:22,840
with Fulnes of Honor with the company that runs the Union Glacier camp down there.

1634
01:43:22,840 --> 01:43:25,040
But the pyramids, yeah, that was really iconic.

1635
01:43:25,040 --> 01:43:30,200
It was funny because I think it was about a 14 mile flight from the airport to the pyramid

1636
01:43:30,200 --> 01:43:31,200
location.

1637
01:43:31,200 --> 01:43:33,600
And then did you guys land on the golf course as well?

1638
01:43:33,600 --> 01:43:37,560
No, we landed right next to the pyramids, right next to the pyramids.

1639
01:43:37,560 --> 01:43:38,560
Yeah.

1640
01:43:38,560 --> 01:43:41,120
So I don't know how they managed to make that work, but it was it was pretty crazy.

1641
01:43:41,120 --> 01:43:42,120
Yeah.

1642
01:43:42,120 --> 01:43:45,040
There's a couple of different companies that sort of operate down there.

1643
01:43:45,040 --> 01:43:46,960
And it was just happened like the one that we were with.

1644
01:43:46,960 --> 01:43:50,440
Yeah, we landed on that golf course just on the east side, I think, of the pyramids.

1645
01:43:50,440 --> 01:43:53,120
But it was really it was really cool.

1646
01:43:53,120 --> 01:43:56,520
I remember getting out with you because I had I was doing the tandem.

1647
01:43:56,520 --> 01:43:58,360
So I had Jim attached to me.

1648
01:43:58,360 --> 01:44:02,000
And it's more like, you know, kind of what Jim moved your head so I can see, you know,

1649
01:44:02,000 --> 01:44:03,000
like this.

1650
01:44:03,000 --> 01:44:07,200
But, you know, we when we were under under canopy flying.

1651
01:44:07,200 --> 01:44:13,480
Yeah, it's really surreal because you see the very tip top of the pyramids and the way

1652
01:44:13,480 --> 01:44:16,360
the sun is hitting it and the shadow that it casts.

1653
01:44:16,360 --> 01:44:22,440
It's just so it's like it's so perfect in a very imperfect type of like kind of world

1654
01:44:22,440 --> 01:44:24,240
almost, it seems like.

1655
01:44:24,240 --> 01:44:26,840
But it was a really good it was really cool.

1656
01:44:26,840 --> 01:44:30,680
You know, we landed and we packed our packer parachutes and they had tea and food and everything

1657
01:44:30,680 --> 01:44:31,680
like that.

1658
01:44:31,680 --> 01:44:37,720
And they said, hey, do you guys want to do like this VIP tour of the pyramids?

1659
01:44:37,720 --> 01:44:43,400
And no, we just want to go to sleep because we were we were so smart.

1660
01:44:43,400 --> 01:44:45,960
I mean, in hindsight, maybe we should have.

1661
01:44:45,960 --> 01:44:49,520
But not there wasn't one person that said, oh, man, I kind of want to go.

1662
01:44:49,520 --> 01:44:51,400
Everybody was just like, we had like four hours.

1663
01:44:51,400 --> 01:44:52,400
We can get sleep at the hotel.

1664
01:44:52,400 --> 01:44:53,960
We're going to get some sleep.

1665
01:44:53,960 --> 01:44:56,280
So it was cool.

1666
01:44:56,280 --> 01:45:00,080
But it was I think that it was surreal to finish.

1667
01:45:00,080 --> 01:45:01,080
You know, it was cool.

1668
01:45:01,080 --> 01:45:04,880
Like we did the jump in Florida, our third location, a lot of our friends and family,

1669
01:45:04,880 --> 01:45:08,000
a lot of people from Folds of Honor had flown down to support us.

1670
01:45:08,000 --> 01:45:13,880
Then to Barcelona, then to Cairo, UAE, and then to Perth.

1671
01:45:13,880 --> 01:45:17,800
And Perth was was great because you had all these people following Black Rifle Coffee

1672
01:45:17,800 --> 01:45:20,960
because we had two Black Rifle Coffee guys with us.

1673
01:45:20,960 --> 01:45:24,840
And and Andy's obviously social media presence and following Legacy Expeditions.

1674
01:45:24,840 --> 01:45:29,240
It was neat to see like 40, 50 people just come out of the woodwork just to be there

1675
01:45:29,240 --> 01:45:33,640
when we finished it, take a big picture and drinking beers at 1030 in the morning Australian

1676
01:45:33,640 --> 01:45:34,640
style.

1677
01:45:34,640 --> 01:45:35,640
It was just it was cool.

1678
01:45:35,640 --> 01:45:36,640
It was great.

1679
01:45:36,640 --> 01:45:43,560
It was great to see all these people around the world, you know, whether it be part of

1680
01:45:43,560 --> 01:45:48,400
skydiving or not, just come together and support.

1681
01:45:48,400 --> 01:45:53,720
I mean, they're supporting a nonprofit that's based in the United States that is educating

1682
01:45:53,720 --> 01:45:56,120
the kids of U.S. citizens.

1683
01:45:56,120 --> 01:45:58,400
They didn't care.

1684
01:45:58,400 --> 01:46:00,960
They just liked being part of what we were being part of.

1685
01:46:00,960 --> 01:46:04,680
And that was like something that I remember thinking at the end of it was with all of

1686
01:46:04,680 --> 01:46:11,720
the stuff that's going on in the world today, where it kind of diminishes your hope in humanity,

1687
01:46:11,720 --> 01:46:14,440
stuff like that restored it for sure.

1688
01:46:14,440 --> 01:46:15,440
100 percent.

1689
01:46:15,440 --> 01:46:16,440
Yeah.

1690
01:46:16,440 --> 01:46:18,600
One of the highlights for us, I think, was London.

1691
01:46:18,600 --> 01:46:22,280
So the lads went off and did they did a base jump out of a crane, I think, in England.

1692
01:46:22,280 --> 01:46:23,280
Yeah, I saw that.

1693
01:46:23,280 --> 01:46:24,280
Yeah.

1694
01:46:24,280 --> 01:46:28,160
I think one guy had a very low opening as well, from what I understand, not one of our

1695
01:46:28,160 --> 01:46:30,800
team, but someone that came along.

1696
01:46:30,800 --> 01:46:36,080
But Leo and the other guys were doing the marathon in the park.

1697
01:46:36,080 --> 01:46:39,280
And I was there kind of, you know, at this place and they were doing loops.

1698
01:46:39,280 --> 01:46:44,800
But I'd got the firefighter charity and Royal British Legion Industries to come over.

1699
01:46:44,800 --> 01:46:48,760
And it was it was again, like you said, a bunch of Americans are doing this run.

1700
01:46:48,760 --> 01:46:52,080
And yet all these people come and then people that were running in the park started joining

1701
01:46:52,080 --> 01:46:53,080
them and doing laps.

1702
01:46:53,080 --> 01:46:54,080
That's so cool.

1703
01:46:54,080 --> 01:46:55,760
Like you said, it was a beautiful moment.

1704
01:46:55,760 --> 01:46:58,920
It's freezing and I'm English and it was still fucking cold.

1705
01:46:58,920 --> 01:47:01,040
But yeah, so powerful.

1706
01:47:01,040 --> 01:47:02,760
Yeah, that's so cool.

1707
01:47:02,760 --> 01:47:03,760
Yeah.

1708
01:47:03,760 --> 01:47:07,800
No, I love that how it, you know, how it how it unveiled itself, because I remember when

1709
01:47:07,800 --> 01:47:13,300
we announced it in September, I think someone from 7X Media had, you know, popped a comment

1710
01:47:13,300 --> 01:47:14,560
on LinkedIn or something like that.

1711
01:47:14,560 --> 01:47:15,560
It was a good comment.

1712
01:47:15,560 --> 01:47:19,240
There was that it never felt like there was any hostility, you know, competition.

1713
01:47:19,240 --> 01:47:21,080
I mean, competition is good, right.

1714
01:47:21,080 --> 01:47:22,880
And that's that's in our nature.

1715
01:47:22,880 --> 01:47:29,620
You know, a good friend of mine, DF, he had said that the combat is emotionally and physically

1716
01:47:29,620 --> 01:47:31,600
taxing and it's competition based.

1717
01:47:31,600 --> 01:47:34,080
So that just kind of goes into who we are.

1718
01:47:34,080 --> 01:47:38,800
It's like, yes, we're going to push ourselves physically, emotionally, and even in the gym

1719
01:47:38,800 --> 01:47:44,920
at home in San Diego, shit's competitive, you know, when it comes to each other, shooting,

1720
01:47:44,920 --> 01:47:49,600
jumping, anything it is, it's like it's in our nature to just continue to, you know,

1721
01:47:49,600 --> 01:47:51,880
to be competitive with one another for sure.

1722
01:47:51,880 --> 01:47:55,000
So it was cool that this was not that case.

1723
01:47:55,000 --> 01:47:56,800
It was like we were kind of boosting.

1724
01:47:56,800 --> 01:47:59,560
We could probably could have in hindsight, we kind of boosted each other up a little

1725
01:47:59,560 --> 01:48:00,560
bit better.

1726
01:48:00,560 --> 01:48:04,800
But I think it's really cool that it was it was one right after the other.

1727
01:48:04,800 --> 01:48:07,560
And it wasn't like one was any it was any more significant.

1728
01:48:07,560 --> 01:48:09,200
You know, that was great.

1729
01:48:09,200 --> 01:48:10,200
Yeah, exactly.

1730
01:48:10,200 --> 01:48:12,200
Two good causes going on simultaneously.

1731
01:48:12,200 --> 01:48:13,200
For sure.

1732
01:48:13,200 --> 01:48:14,200
It's awesome.

1733
01:48:14,200 --> 01:48:15,200
All right.

1734
01:48:15,200 --> 01:48:17,280
Well, then closing questions before I let you go.

1735
01:48:17,280 --> 01:48:21,840
First one I love to ask, is there a book or are there books that you love to recommend?

1736
01:48:21,840 --> 01:48:25,480
It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.

1737
01:48:25,480 --> 01:48:29,960
Well, definitely one of the first one that pops out.

1738
01:48:29,960 --> 01:48:31,040
It's a really easy read.

1739
01:48:31,040 --> 01:48:36,080
And I know it's been recommended probably very extensively is Tribe by Sebastian Younger,

1740
01:48:36,080 --> 01:48:41,960
because I think that what he did in that book was he took all of his time and what he saw,

1741
01:48:41,960 --> 01:48:47,040
you know, in the 80s and Beirut and everywhere he's been and then really wrapped it up with

1742
01:48:47,040 --> 01:48:54,640
his like, I mean, his shock and awe documentation of of Restrepo.

1743
01:48:54,640 --> 01:48:59,440
I think that a lot of his studies and interviews and everything like that really compiled into

1744
01:48:59,440 --> 01:49:00,440
that.

1745
01:49:00,440 --> 01:49:02,200
You know, I mean, he may not say it.

1746
01:49:02,200 --> 01:49:03,520
And I don't I don't know him personally.

1747
01:49:03,520 --> 01:49:06,200
But it's to me, it's a it's a short book.

1748
01:49:06,200 --> 01:49:07,320
It's an easy read.

1749
01:49:07,320 --> 01:49:08,720
But it was like his swan song.

1750
01:49:08,720 --> 01:49:14,120
I mean, it really is everything when it comes to the tribe, because I think that it's not

1751
01:49:14,120 --> 01:49:17,360
just military combatants and things like that.

1752
01:49:17,360 --> 01:49:19,320
I think that it serves in our community.

1753
01:49:19,320 --> 01:49:21,400
It's like, man, be a good neighbor.

1754
01:49:21,400 --> 01:49:26,760
Like, like that's because that's how we were, you know, not that many not that not that

1755
01:49:26,760 --> 01:49:30,440
many years ago is we were living in, you know, living in caves, living in tents, and we had

1756
01:49:30,440 --> 01:49:33,000
to be good neighbors and take care of one another.

1757
01:49:33,000 --> 01:49:36,420
And that's the overall sort of premise I got from that.

1758
01:49:36,420 --> 01:49:39,240
And then one that I'm reading now by Eckhart Tolle is The Power of Now.

1759
01:49:39,240 --> 01:49:44,600
Actually, a friend of mine gave me that book, and that has really helped me in my mind,

1760
01:49:44,600 --> 01:49:53,520
sort of just be more of an observer of the the thoughts that come up and like the dark

1761
01:49:53,520 --> 01:49:55,720
stuff that doesn't is not self serving.

1762
01:49:55,720 --> 01:50:01,440
I can just sort of like sit back and just just observe and don't have to dwell in these

1763
01:50:01,440 --> 01:50:06,000
negative these negative areas, you know, and sort of even in the positive areas, I don't

1764
01:50:06,000 --> 01:50:09,840
treat any of them differently, because I think that there's there's service in both of them

1765
01:50:09,840 --> 01:50:16,720
and growth in both of them is really just to be an observer and act when it's appropriate.

1766
01:50:16,720 --> 01:50:21,320
And it's helped me it's you know, that is influenced me to write and listen to really

1767
01:50:21,320 --> 01:50:22,320
good.

1768
01:50:22,320 --> 01:50:27,080
I love like, good classical music and a lot of piano work and string work.

1769
01:50:27,080 --> 01:50:28,640
It's like it's just it's soothing.

1770
01:50:28,640 --> 01:50:29,640
It's calming.

1771
01:50:29,640 --> 01:50:32,880
But when I go into gym, of course, it's you know, metal and, you know, standard music,

1772
01:50:32,880 --> 01:50:33,880
of course.

1773
01:50:33,880 --> 01:50:37,960
But there's a balance to what I'm finding.

1774
01:50:37,960 --> 01:50:41,400
What I surround myself in my environment is what is who I become.

1775
01:50:41,400 --> 01:50:44,040
So that's that's I think that's true of it all.

1776
01:50:44,040 --> 01:50:45,040
So

1777
01:50:45,040 --> 01:50:46,040
Absolutely.

1778
01:50:46,040 --> 01:50:49,040
Well, what about films and or documentaries?

1779
01:50:49,040 --> 01:50:51,040
Oh, man.

1780
01:50:51,040 --> 01:50:57,440
Well, I mean, we stay on the Sebastian Younger kid, but definitely I watched Restrepo again

1781
01:50:57,440 --> 01:51:04,200
with my son, and I took that off of advice that Andy stumped when he interviewed Sebastian

1782
01:51:04,200 --> 01:51:05,200
Younger a few months ago.

1783
01:51:05,200 --> 01:51:09,640
I remember texting Andy about how good how good of a interview I thought that was.

1784
01:51:09,640 --> 01:51:13,640
Andy had said he watched Restrepo with his kid and his son is a little bit he's a little

1785
01:51:13,640 --> 01:51:14,640
bit older than mine.

1786
01:51:14,640 --> 01:51:17,040
Mine will be 15 next week.

1787
01:51:17,040 --> 01:51:18,720
And that was really cool.

1788
01:51:18,720 --> 01:51:23,480
A really good experience because it wasn't it wasn't I didn't talk to him a whole lot

1789
01:51:23,480 --> 01:51:24,480
through it.

1790
01:51:24,480 --> 01:51:29,600
I sat through it, and I was able to give my perspective of my combat of what they were

1791
01:51:29,600 --> 01:51:30,600
going through.

1792
01:51:30,600 --> 01:51:32,120
And I respected what they were going through.

1793
01:51:32,120 --> 01:51:37,360
It wasn't that mine was any more significant or because I'm not I was part of the special

1794
01:51:37,360 --> 01:51:38,360
operations.

1795
01:51:38,360 --> 01:51:39,360
It wasn't like that.

1796
01:51:39,360 --> 01:51:41,440
It was just like, this is what fucking people are doing.

1797
01:51:41,440 --> 01:51:45,680
You know, these kids are four years older than you, you know, to kind of talking to

1798
01:51:45,680 --> 01:51:50,320
him like that and giving him a little bit of perspective with that.

1799
01:51:50,320 --> 01:51:57,880
I think let's see another one.

1800
01:51:57,880 --> 01:51:58,880
How to Change Your Mind.

1801
01:51:58,880 --> 01:52:02,360
It was a really good book.

1802
01:52:02,360 --> 01:52:09,840
And I think that that goes hand in hand with a lot of the treatments that he he has been

1803
01:52:09,840 --> 01:52:10,840
doing.

1804
01:52:10,840 --> 01:52:13,960
Yeah, that was a really that was a really, really good book.

1805
01:52:13,960 --> 01:52:14,960
I highly recommend that one.

1806
01:52:14,960 --> 01:52:16,240
I won't get too much into that one.

1807
01:52:16,240 --> 01:52:18,080
But How to Change Your Mind, it's a pretty common one.

1808
01:52:18,080 --> 01:52:20,640
I think that people know about this.

1809
01:52:20,640 --> 01:52:21,640
Absolutely.

1810
01:52:21,640 --> 01:52:22,640
All right.

1811
01:52:22,640 --> 01:52:25,800
Well, then the next question, is there a person that you recommend to come on this podcast

1812
01:52:25,800 --> 01:52:30,080
as a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the

1813
01:52:30,080 --> 01:52:31,080
world?

1814
01:52:31,080 --> 01:52:33,640
You know, man, when I looked at your list that we talked about this the other day was

1815
01:52:33,640 --> 01:52:38,320
like, man, like to see Debbie Lee, Lave, JP, Danelle, Richard, Rich Graham, Jock, you've

1816
01:52:38,320 --> 01:52:40,680
had Jocko on, I believe, right?

1817
01:52:40,680 --> 01:52:41,680
Yeah.

1818
01:52:41,680 --> 01:52:46,080
I think honestly, I think Jericho would be a really good one to tie the brothers together,

1819
01:52:46,080 --> 01:52:50,800
especially to see how yeah, I think Jericho would be a great one to have on.

1820
01:52:50,800 --> 01:52:51,800
He's a good friend.

1821
01:52:51,800 --> 01:52:54,480
And he's he's a travel machine.

1822
01:52:54,480 --> 01:52:59,200
Like I said, he's got this like, Anthony Bourdain sort of feel, you know, he loves food, he

1823
01:52:59,200 --> 01:53:03,120
loves writing, you know, he kind of these are my words, you know, he might not be crazy

1824
01:53:03,120 --> 01:53:04,120
about it.

1825
01:53:04,120 --> 01:53:07,480
But he sort of put down the gun and picked up a camera, you know, was doing he's got

1826
01:53:07,480 --> 01:53:12,160
so many interesting stories when he was in Ukraine, Afghanistan, Ukraine.

1827
01:53:12,160 --> 01:53:14,000
And then he was just got back from Israel.

1828
01:53:14,000 --> 01:53:16,960
He was there for about 10 days earlier this month.

1829
01:53:16,960 --> 01:53:21,120
You know, so he's got a lot of really unique perspective.

1830
01:53:21,120 --> 01:53:28,840
I love his his overall picture on just on on what we're doing kinetically overseas.

1831
01:53:28,840 --> 01:53:33,440
Another one that would be phenomenal is a good friend of mine would be Eric Prince.

1832
01:53:33,440 --> 01:53:37,400
I think that for years, he's gotten a lot of you know, he's gotten some bad press.

1833
01:53:37,400 --> 01:53:42,440
The great thing about Eric is he's so well read and so incredibly educated and so incredibly

1834
01:53:42,440 --> 01:53:48,840
smart that he does I'm jealous that he can really not let that shit bother him.

1835
01:53:48,840 --> 01:53:52,480
The man the guy is the guy is rock solid and a very good friend.

1836
01:53:52,480 --> 01:53:53,920
So you're friends would be great.

1837
01:53:53,920 --> 01:53:57,400
Yeah, if you can help us make both of those happen, I think it'd be phenomenal.

1838
01:53:57,400 --> 01:53:58,400
Absolutely.

1839
01:53:58,400 --> 01:53:59,400
Yeah.

1840
01:53:59,400 --> 01:54:00,400
Thank you so much.

1841
01:54:00,400 --> 01:54:01,400
All right.

1842
01:54:01,400 --> 01:54:04,760
Well, then the very last question before we make sure people know where to find you, what

1843
01:54:04,760 --> 01:54:07,520
do you do to decompress these days?

1844
01:54:07,520 --> 01:54:13,840
So a lot of it is is my therapy is found in the gym.

1845
01:54:13,840 --> 01:54:15,760
And I think that that's like getting more and more common.

1846
01:54:15,760 --> 01:54:20,440
I think that 315 on the bar is always going to be 315 on the bar.

1847
01:54:20,440 --> 01:54:24,760
I think that no matter what you're doing, you can get the gym and it can if you put

1848
01:54:24,760 --> 01:54:26,880
40% in, you're gonna get 40% out.

1849
01:54:26,880 --> 01:54:30,680
I think it's the most honest place with that you can be with yourself.

1850
01:54:30,680 --> 01:54:31,680
So that's why I love it so much.

1851
01:54:31,680 --> 01:54:34,920
But that's also why I kind of hate it sometimes.

1852
01:54:34,920 --> 01:54:35,920
But the gym is great.

1853
01:54:35,920 --> 01:54:39,200
I've been playing golf a lot.

1854
01:54:39,200 --> 01:54:41,400
I picked it up when I was in high school.

1855
01:54:41,400 --> 01:54:46,080
And then a little bit while being on active duty and then moved to Florida, it's like,

1856
01:54:46,080 --> 01:54:48,560
okay, got time, may as well start swinging the clubs.

1857
01:54:48,560 --> 01:54:52,880
And my oldest, both my kids are actually starting to get kind of into it as well.

1858
01:54:52,880 --> 01:54:57,200
So that kind of brings a new little bit of enjoyment, you know, enjoyment to it where

1859
01:54:57,200 --> 01:54:58,680
it's fun for me.

1860
01:54:58,680 --> 01:55:00,280
Golf is very calculated.

1861
01:55:00,280 --> 01:55:04,000
And so I can definitely get, you know, definitely go down the rabbit hole on it.

1862
01:55:04,000 --> 01:55:08,040
I like golf because you can experience pretty much every emotion known to man in the span

1863
01:55:08,040 --> 01:55:12,720
of about four hours, you know, love, hate, victory, defeat, you know, the whole thing.

1864
01:55:12,720 --> 01:55:14,920
So that's been a really good experience.

1865
01:55:14,920 --> 01:55:20,080
So yeah, I feel like happy Gilmore when I'm on the bloody golf course.

1866
01:55:20,080 --> 01:55:23,120
It shows me how bad my anger actually is.

1867
01:55:23,120 --> 01:55:28,400
All right, well then for everyone listening, where are the best places to find you online

1868
01:55:28,400 --> 01:55:31,000
and or social media?

1869
01:55:31,000 --> 01:55:33,460
So I pretty much stick to just the Instagram.

1870
01:55:33,460 --> 01:55:37,400
So I'm at Nick Kush 237, pretty easy.

1871
01:55:37,400 --> 01:55:39,760
I'm the owner operator of my own LLC.

1872
01:55:39,760 --> 01:55:42,000
It's called Deland High Performance.

1873
01:55:42,000 --> 01:55:46,760
And I do my primary means for that was to be able to, you know, create the company for

1874
01:55:46,760 --> 01:55:47,760
tax purposes.

1875
01:55:47,760 --> 01:55:50,620
Also, I can bid on government contracts.

1876
01:55:50,620 --> 01:55:55,400
But I really just use that for when I get sole source from different organizations or

1877
01:55:55,400 --> 01:55:58,240
different agencies to basically contract me for work.

1878
01:55:58,240 --> 01:56:02,920
But I'll do anything from skydiving to any EOD support or diving support or anything

1879
01:56:02,920 --> 01:56:05,520
that's in my wheelhouse that I can do.

1880
01:56:05,520 --> 01:56:10,800
And then I also work for Performance Designs Incorporated, which is a parachute manufacturer

1881
01:56:10,800 --> 01:56:11,800
here in Deland.

1882
01:56:11,800 --> 01:56:14,280
And that's what I'm a test jumper and project lead.

1883
01:56:14,280 --> 01:56:15,280
Beautiful.

1884
01:56:15,280 --> 01:56:18,080
Well, I want to say a shout out to Jack Lane as well.

1885
01:56:18,080 --> 01:56:19,240
I know he's another mutual friend.

1886
01:56:19,240 --> 01:56:20,440
I know you work with him too.

1887
01:56:20,440 --> 01:56:22,160
So put that in before we leave.

1888
01:56:22,160 --> 01:56:24,480
Well, Nick, I want to say thank you so much.

1889
01:56:24,480 --> 01:56:29,040
I think it's been an incredible conversation just hearing, you know, your journey starting

1890
01:56:29,040 --> 01:56:34,160
off on boats and then EOD and then ultimately in this skydiving world that you exist in

1891
01:56:34,160 --> 01:56:35,160
now.

1892
01:56:35,160 --> 01:56:42,320
But also for the transparency, I think in our generation, it was raised on arguably

1893
01:56:42,320 --> 01:56:46,800
a pretty two dimensional facade of masculinity.

1894
01:56:46,800 --> 01:56:51,120
There's no better antidote than the man to the man that says, oh, I'm too tough to have

1895
01:56:51,120 --> 01:56:57,160
feelings than having someone from EOD, a Navy SEAL, SAS, firefighter, police officer, whatever

1896
01:56:57,160 --> 01:56:59,960
it is, being courageously vulnerable.

1897
01:56:59,960 --> 01:57:03,200
And so by telling your story today, I know that it's going to resonate with a lot of

1898
01:57:03,200 --> 01:57:04,200
people.

1899
01:57:04,200 --> 01:57:07,040
So I want to thank you so, so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the

1900
01:57:07,040 --> 01:57:09,280
Behind the Shield podcast today.

1901
01:57:09,280 --> 01:57:10,280
I appreciate it, James.

1902
01:57:10,280 --> 01:57:14,160
And I really want to thank you for what you're doing with all the guests and the messages,

1903
01:57:14,160 --> 01:57:17,840
the multiple messages that you're sending and the projects that you're on and involved

1904
01:57:17,840 --> 01:57:18,840
in.

1905
01:57:18,840 --> 01:57:22,920
So I really appreciate what you're doing for the community, for humanity in general.

1906
01:57:22,920 --> 01:57:23,920
So I really appreciate it.

1907
01:57:23,920 --> 01:57:27,840
I think that sometimes might be underappreciated, but I sincerely appreciate what you're doing.