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I'm extremely excited to announce a brand new sponsor for the Behind the Shield podcast

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that is Transcend.

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Now for many of you listening, you are probably working the same brutal shifts that I did

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for 14 years.

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Suffering from sleep deprivation, body composition challenges, mental health challenges, libido,

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hair loss, etc.

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Now when it comes to the world of hormone replacement and peptide therapy, what I have

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seen is a shift from doctors telling us that we were within normal limits, which was definitely

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incorrect all the way to the other way now where men's clinics are popping up left, right

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and center.

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So I myself wanted to find a reputable company that would do an analysis of my physiology

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and then offer supplementations without ramming, for example, hormone replacement therapy down

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my throat.

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Now I came across Transcend because they have an altruistic arm and they were a big reason

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why the 7X project I was a part of was able to proceed because of their generous donations.

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They also have the Transcend foundations where they are actually putting military and first

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responders through some of their therapies at no cost to the individual.

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So my own personal journey so far filled in the online form, went to Quest, got blood

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drawn and a few days later I'm talking to one of their wellness professionals as they

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guide me through my results and the supplementation that they suggest.

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In my case specifically, because I transitioned out the fire service five years ago and been

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very diligent with my health, my testosterone was actually in a good place.

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So I went down the peptide route and some other supplements to try and maximize my physiology

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knowing full well the damage that 14 years of shift work has done.

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Now I also want to underline because I think this is very important that each of the therapies

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they offer, they will talk about the pros and cons.

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So for example, a lot of first responders in shift work, our testosterone will be low,

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but sometimes nutrition, exercise and sleep can offset that on its own.

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So this company is not going to try and push you down a path, especially if it's one that

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you can't come back from.

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So whether it's libido, brain fog, inflammation, gut health, performance, sleep, this is definitely

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one of the most powerful tools in the toolbox.

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So to learn more, go to transcendcompany.com or listen to episode 808 of the Behind the

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Shield podcast with founder Ernie Colling.

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This episode is sponsored by a company I've used for well over a decade and that is 511.

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I wore their uniforms back in Anaheim, California and I've used their products ever since.

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From their incredibly strong yet light footwear to their cut uniforms for both male and female

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responders, I found them hands down the best workwear in all the departments that I've

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worked for.

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Outside of the fire service, I use their luggage for everything and I travel a lot and they

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are also now sponsoring the 7X team as we embark around the world on the Human Performance

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project.

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We have Murph coming up in May and again I bought their plate carrier.

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I ended up buying real ballistic plates rather than the fake weight plates and that has been

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my ride or die through Murph the last few years as well.

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One area I want to talk about that I haven't in previous sponsorship spots is their brick

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and mortar element.

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They were predominantly an online company up till more recently but now they are approaching

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100 stores all over the US.

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My local store is here in Gainesville Florida and I've been multiple times and the discounts

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you see online are applied also in the stores.

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So as I mentioned 511 is offering you 15% off every purchase that you make but I do

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want to say more often than not they have an even deeper discount especially around

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holiday times.

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But if you use the code SHIELD15 you will get 15% off your order or in the stores every

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time you make a purchase.

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And if you want to hear more about 511, who they stand for and who works with them, listen

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to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with 511 regional director Will Ayers.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast as always my name is James Gearing and this week

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it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show 5th degree Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black

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belt, former Green Beret and the founder of the We Defy Foundation, Alan Shibaro.

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Now in this conversation we discuss a host of topics from Alan's early life, his journey

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into the military pre-911, how the attacks on the World Trade Center shifted his military

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career, his perception of war, his unique and important lens on Gaza, Jiu Jitsu, combatives

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in law enforcement and so much more.

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Now before he gets this incredible conversation as I say every week please just take a moment,

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

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leave a rating.

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Every single 5 star rating truly does elevate this podcast therefore making it easier for

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others to find.

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And this is a free library of now I can say it 900 episodes so all I ask in return is

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that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single

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person on planet earth who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said I introduce to you Alan Shibaro.

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Enjoy.

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Well Alan I want to start by saying thank you so much firstly to Chris Lee who connected

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us for this interview but also I realized that I think that we did a episode of The

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Collective together so I want to thank both of those groups first and then also to welcome

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you to the Behind the Shield podcast today.

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Thank you for having me, appreciate it.

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

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I am actually north of Dallas Texas right now, middle town called Anna.

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Beautiful so let's start at the very beginning of your timeline then so tell me where you

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were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how

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many civics.

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So I was actually born in Mesa Arizona on Williams Air Force Base and my father was

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in the Air Force.

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From there after he got out of the Air Force we went to, my father worked for Raytheon

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for a little bit so lived in Saudi Arabia for about five years and from there my father

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actually started working for Department of Defense as a comptroller and that's how I

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ended up moving from Saudi Arabia to Italy, Italy to Germany, Germany to Austria so moved

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around all the way through my earlier life until I was 19 overseas.

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After I finished high school I moved back to the States, traveled around for about a

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year, ended up visiting my parents in Florida, enlisted in the Army and my first duty station

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ended up being Fort Hood in Texas and that's actually how I ended up in Texas altogether.

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So my first MOS was as a 63 Bravo as a lightweight vehicle mechanic and that was between 95 to

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99 timeframe when I got out and was going to school for a little bit and this is when

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I got into Jiu Jitsu and at the time there's very, very limited amount of places that you

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could train.

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So I ended up transferring from Southwest Texas State University or Texas State University

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now from San Marcos which is south of Austin to Dallas so I could continue training and

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that's how I ended up in the Dallas area.

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After 9-11 I ended up going back active duty a few years later, ended up at North Carolina

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at Fort Bragg, did my ISF time there, came off active duty in 2010 and opened up my gym

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14 years ago and I've been running that since.

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2015, about five years after I opened up the school was when I started We Defy Foundation

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with Joey Bozek and about two years after that is when I ended up traveling to England

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meeting with Sam Sheriff and Mark Omrott or Sam Sheriff at the time to establish Re-Org

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Jiu Jitsu Foundation which turned into Re-Org Charity.

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He was a Royal Marine Commando and Mark Omrott was as well, ended up partnering up later

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on.

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The program worked really well, they took it and it just skyrocketed so they did phenomenal.

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A couple years after that we ended up establishing a mirror image in Australia and as of last

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summer we have a similar program or actually it's We Defy Canada and establishing so it

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got established in the summer, this last summer.

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Beautiful.

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I want to go all the way back first to your childhood because it's unusual that you meet

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someone from the States that's been living in so many places.

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I forget the exact quote but there is a quote out there, I think it was by John Steinbeck

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or someone but it was about how the enemy of prejudice is traveling and I agree 100%

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you start going into different cultures and you debunk so many of the things you were

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told about the French or the Canadians or whoever it was.

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When you reflect back at your formative years, what were the pros of moving from country

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to country and what were the cons?

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I've been growing up overseas, it's pretty much all I knew because we lived in Italy

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for about seven years and so it was kind of strange because I did have a mix of the American

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culture from, because I was going to school in a military installation in Vicenza, Italy

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and so I did have a blend of culture like American culture in there because I went to

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American elementary school, excuse me, Department of Defense school and then as well as in Germany.

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So having that mix of culture, I was able to dab a little bit into the American culture

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at the time but mainly we lived on the economy not actually in the traditional area where

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all the Americans were at.

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So, ended up being more of a local, understanding the language, speaking the language.

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I went to Italian school for two years.

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Then when we moved from Italy to Germany, I ended up learning German.

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So definitely in that aspect, you know, submerging and emerging into the language and the culture

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also gave me a much better understanding of pretty much how the other side lives.

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And I mean, there's a lot of pros and cons, of course, and it depends how you look at

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it.

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I think there's a lot of things, you know, if we shared information or shared different

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things that are positive on one side and to fix one thing and vice versa, I think we'd

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be a lot better off.

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And I think one of them is just like you said, just understanding the culture itself is one

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of the key aspects of having that all around picture to make a determination on whatever

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thought process that you have.

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I've had people from some incredible programs from different countries.

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I've had Norwegian prison governors, I've had educators from Finland, you know, the

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man that spearheaded decriminalization of addiction in Portugal.

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And it really breaks my heart when I see the kind of chest beating America is the greatest

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country in the world, because then that totally negates the ability to grow and get better.

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And that philosophy of, you know, the rising tide lifts all ships when you knowledge share,

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which involves humility.

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And this is the problem.

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You know, you can't be beat in your chest.

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You got to say, hey, for example, 70% of our country is obese or overweight.

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You know, Sweden, what are you doing?

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How are your people so healthy?

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Or, you know, Norway, why is your recidivism rate so low?

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So I think that's such an important point.

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But if you live in the echo chamber and you've never traveled and all you listen to are the

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people that are on these television shows that masquerade as news, then you're never

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going to really understand that there are solutions to some of these problems.

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And if we advocate for them, everyone can learn and Americans can certainly teach the

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world about many areas where they thrive.

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Agreed.

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Reading actually, I think it was just a few weeks ago about Finland's educational system.

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They've always been the top, you know, for public schooling, and they eliminated private

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schools altogether.

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And so everyone actually has to go to public schools.

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And so they've been doing that for, I think, the better part of a decade.

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And the last, I think, five to six years, they've actually been the number one in education.

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And also, I mean, just I think European education altogether.

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I mean, it's especially I know France, I think Belgium.

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There's a few other countries that you actually get paid to go to university.

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So they give you a stipend, they give you housing, they give you everything else to

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actually go.

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So the only thing you're focusing on is your education.

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I think there's a lot to be learned from that.

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The system shouldn't be rewarded to people who have money to be able to get a good education.

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It should be by merit, you know, how you actually earn your way to that.

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And I think that's probably one education wise, I think that's one of the biggest things

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is it's a collective growth for everybody.

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When you know, it's a good education system.

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It thrives technology, it thrives of sciences.

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And these are one of the things that we're actually falling really far behind on.

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And it can change, it can be better.

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I mean, it's not that we're a horrible country by any means.

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And again, American, I'm proud of it.

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But we can't ignore that we have issues and problems that we realistically can't fix.

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And I think that's the big thing is recognizing that, yes, we have a problem, we need to address

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it, we have to fix it.

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100%.

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And the thing is, it's just you have to do something different.

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That's what it boils down to.

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So for example, the addiction crisis that we have locking people up for being addicts

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doesn't work, you know, making them have to go to the underworld for whatever substance

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they're leaning into is not working.

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It's empowering all the shit bags of the world and creating problems and gangs and, you know,

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cartels and all these things.

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So it's just simply going, look, we need to do something different.

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However, you know, what's so nauseating is there's a lot of people out there that oppose

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those change because their organizations are making a lot of money supporting the way that

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we do it now.

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But if that's at the expense of American lives, then you've, you know, you kind of got to

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knowledge share a little bit and go, all right, we need to start demanding this to change.

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And I think what's so beautiful is ironically, the Special Forces, Special Operations communities

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have really kind of spearheaded the psychedelic therapies for mental health, which is really

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challenging the whole prohibition conversation in the first place.

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Absolutely.

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And you nailed it.

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I mean, really nailed it.

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The way that Portugal actually, you know, addresses the addiction problem as a health

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issue instead of a crime issue, it revolutionized.

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I mean, they have the lowest crime rate in Europe and they decriminalized all the drugs,

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you know, but again, it's treated as a health issue.

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But if you think about like, if we established that in the US, how many different, you know,

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businesses that revolve around rehab that charge, you know, 50 grand a month, you know,

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they'd be missing out.

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And of course they have money, they have influence.

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So the one thing is that the whole, it's the problem, they're lazy, they don't want to,

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you know, they don't want to work.

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These are people that have really no understanding about, you know, not just mental health, but

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the addiction issue where 83% or 87% of the homeless people that are addicted to heroin

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got to that position from prescription opioids.

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And when you recognize that, it means like, you know, someone went in for, you know, a

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back issue or, you know, broken leg or whatever it is, they got hooked on the opioids because

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they kept it on for too long, you know, they're making money off of that pharmaceuticals.

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And it changes the actual physiology in your brain.

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I mean, the, you know, fentanyl and the oxycontin, I mean, these are, you know, 10 times more

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addictive than morphine.

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And you know, when you have that in a constant, it's being prescribed by somebody who you're

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entrusting to do the best for your health instead of what's best for them and how much

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money they can make off, you know, these drugs that they're prescribing.

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It's a conflict of interest, you know, where it shouldn't be.

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It should be the patient, it should be, you know, the person that you're trying to make

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better and leave it at that.

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But there's always this conflict of personal gain from that.

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I think that's one of the major issues.

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Absolutely.

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When, if you look at where they targeted, where Purdue targeted, it was, you know, West

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Virginia, Ohio, and a lot of these places, you know, around that time had also lost industry,

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mines, you know, the car industry, steel, whatever it was.

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And so now you have this void.

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So you have this addictive compound matched with these people that are, you know, ultimately

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struggling with some sort of loss and trauma, you know, whether it's through poverty or

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whatever it is, and you have this toxic cocktail.

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And then now you apply guilt and shame because they're addicts and you're forced into the

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underworld and, you know, homelessness and sex work or whatever it is to feed that addiction

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rather than enveloping our arms around these people that are in pain and healing them,

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which if you care about money also puts them back into the workforce and then they're making

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money not, you know, requiring tax support.

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So it makes perfect sense every single way you look at it, unless you are invested, like

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you said, in all these corporations that make a huge amount of money keeping our people

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sick.

255
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Yeah, absolutely.

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I mean, it extends to, you know, and like, for example, the fentanyl problem that we

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have, you know, the majority is actually, you know, carried through the ports by American

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citizen, you know, and the internet, the dark web is another access for fentanyl from overseas.

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I mean, they can literally get it through the mail.

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And so there's, but there's issues with that too, because if you stop the fentanyl problem,

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then you're interfering with the cartels.

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And the reason why you can't interfere with cartels is because, you know, there's gun

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industries making money off that as well.

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So you have these, there's only one place in Mexico where you can actually buy firearms,

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one place, and they just need to pop across the border, get their guns, come back down.

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And that's how they arm themselves.

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So you're interfering with one for the other.

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And gun lobby is extremely powerful.

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They have a lot of money on that.

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So it's one of those things where, you know, how much can you interfere on, you know, one

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thing to correct another?

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And are you able to do that with such a powerful backing?

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Yeah.

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Well, I truly believe there is a paradigm shift.

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And I think if you look at just basic economics, supply and demand, the more we push for the

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prohibition and the, you know, as we said, bringing addiction back into the medical world

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that it is in Portugal, which when you talk about this, sometimes people are like, oh,

278
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so you can just buy crack in the store?

279
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Like, no, you just not throw it into prison when you are found with a user's amount of

280
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whatever substance that you lean into.

281
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But you start healing people that are in pain.

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You start reducing number of addicts.

283
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You don't need to go and start kicking in doors and cartels.

284
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You're hurting them in the worst place, which is their income.

285
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So you know, but that requires enough of us to understand the healing elements of some

286
00:21:40,840 --> 00:21:46,600
of these drugs that should be legalized and used under, again, the right supervision,

287
00:21:46,600 --> 00:21:51,520
whether it's MDMA or, you know, ayahuasca or whatever it is to help with therapies,

288
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whether it's CBD and THC to help or microdosing.

289
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And then the ones that are just, you know, toxic, like the meths and some of these other

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ones, that you're allowing people to get away from that.

291
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Some of the people I've had on the show that were addicted to meth were successful business

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people and firefighters.

293
00:22:09,560 --> 00:22:15,440
And, you know, so they weren't, you know, just looking to become a crackhead one day.

294
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These are people that were on this path and whatever it was, injury, trauma, et cetera,

295
00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:22,200
grief, they found themselves down this path.

296
00:22:22,200 --> 00:22:31,000
So to me, if we all just really push for the prohibition to be removed for the decriminalization,

297
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:35,960
that would have an immense impact without, you know, requiring agents to have to fight

298
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cartels.

299
00:22:36,960 --> 00:22:39,760
I mean, that would always have to be a thing, but you could weaken them so much by just

300
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:45,720
cutting the head off the snake, taking away the demand, therefore, you know, young boys

301
00:22:45,720 --> 00:22:49,120
and girls maybe wouldn't find their way into a gang anymore.

302
00:22:49,120 --> 00:22:54,240
They find their way into a more productive, you know, methods of making money because,

303
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:58,160
you know, slinging dope became a thing of the past.

304
00:22:58,160 --> 00:23:02,720
So I think one of the things too is that's a smaller part than actually what would be

305
00:23:02,720 --> 00:23:03,720
profiting the most.

306
00:23:03,720 --> 00:23:07,040
And you have to privatize prison systems.

307
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And in order for them to actually stay afloat, they have to have a certain amount of prisoners

308
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in there.

309
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:19,000
So for example, you know, cannabis itself, that literally has no recorded deaths from

310
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:27,280
cannabis, none, you know, but we have an alcoholism problem, you know, that's rampant, you know,

311
00:23:27,280 --> 00:23:33,880
there's so many different, you know, severe debilitating, you know, physical and mental

312
00:23:33,880 --> 00:23:35,480
problems that come from alcohol.

313
00:23:35,480 --> 00:23:38,360
Yeah, that's okay, we can go down the street and get that.

314
00:23:38,360 --> 00:23:44,360
But cannabis, even though, and talking to even talking to some of the police officers,

315
00:23:44,360 --> 00:23:48,400
you know, they're like, we get a call if someone's drunk, we, you know, more than likely, there's

316
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:50,000
gonna be a confrontation.

317
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:52,960
If you know, we ever run into somebody that actually, you know, that's spoken with, they

318
00:23:52,960 --> 00:23:58,480
just want to go home and eat, you know, so it's the dynamic, you know, is entirely it's

319
00:23:58,480 --> 00:24:00,360
beneficial for everybody.

320
00:24:00,360 --> 00:24:04,520
You know, it's, it's literally like calming people down, you know, that's what they're

321
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:07,880
actually needing to, you know, to kind of recenter themselves.

322
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:12,480
But it's also something that's, you know, it's, it helps.

323
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:13,480
It's not addictive.

324
00:24:13,480 --> 00:24:18,640
It's not, you know, dangerous to the point where, you know, you're gonna have some physical

325
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:22,320
ailments from that, you know, long term damage.

326
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:29,380
It's literally raw from, you know, from earth, you're taking it in, trying it and using it.

327
00:24:29,380 --> 00:24:34,880
So to me, like, I don't understand why that's still still an issue.

328
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:39,680
So Sivan has had phenomenal results with so many people.

329
00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:44,760
The ketamine drips, the stellate ganglion block, all these things are doing really well.

330
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:49,440
But we can't get, you know, it's not covered by insurance, you got to pay out of pocket,

331
00:24:49,440 --> 00:24:55,160
you know, and you have to go through certain programs to get it, which are becoming a lot

332
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:59,880
more available, but they shouldn't have to be so difficult to get in the first place.

333
00:24:59,880 --> 00:25:01,480
They should be like one of the front running things.

334
00:25:01,480 --> 00:25:05,080
We'll try this first, and then we'll move into other things, you know.

335
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:14,160
So it's, you know, again, one is interfering, one problem, the solution is interfering with

336
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:15,760
someone else's profit.

337
00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:16,760
Absolutely.

338
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:21,160
Well, I want to go back to your early life, because I was reading an article that just

339
00:25:21,160 --> 00:25:24,960
came out recently, I think it's one of the Texas newspapers.

340
00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:29,420
You ended up not only becoming, you know, a high level black belt, one of the leaders

341
00:25:29,420 --> 00:25:36,080
in the combative side when it came to the army, but you also, you know, entered the

342
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:37,080
green beret.

343
00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:41,480
So you're in an elite tactical athlete position.

344
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:44,700
More often than not, you know, there will be assumption that obviously you just came

345
00:25:44,700 --> 00:25:48,380
out the womb as an uber athlete, but talk to me about some of the physical challenges

346
00:25:48,380 --> 00:25:53,820
you had as a child.

347
00:25:53,820 --> 00:26:01,680
So I was actually, when I was 22, I actually competed in my, I have a picture of my first

348
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:08,400
tournament where I weighed in at 147 pounds and I was 22.

349
00:26:08,400 --> 00:26:16,000
And so it was a little embarrassing, just, I mean, I was, my nickname was a Skeletor

350
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:23,280
for a while, not in a good way, you know, just because I was so skinny.

351
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:30,000
Or the other one was I looked like a orange on top of a toothpick.

352
00:26:30,000 --> 00:26:33,960
But I mean, it was a slow, steady, gradual thing where I was gaining weight and it took

353
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:41,960
me about, about five, six years to kind of, to get to, you know, the weight that I'm at.

354
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:44,240
And it was a slow, gradual process though.

355
00:26:44,240 --> 00:26:50,800
And I mean, I got into Jiu-Jitsu initially just because I was bullied pretty much my whole

356
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:55,260
life and then wanted to find something effective.

357
00:26:55,260 --> 00:27:01,040
So I tried, you know, different martial arts and I gave it a chance like three, four months

358
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:02,040
at a time.

359
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:07,120
And the thing was, is that someone brand new would show up, having no experience whatsoever.

360
00:27:07,120 --> 00:27:11,360
And even the time that I dedicated, I was training like five times a week, six if I

361
00:27:11,360 --> 00:27:13,040
could.

362
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:20,060
And you know, even with, you know, that amount of training, like I didn't even stand a chance.

363
00:27:20,060 --> 00:27:23,920
And then that one time that I walked into, you know, a place that was doing the Brazilian

364
00:27:23,920 --> 00:27:28,160
Jiu-Jitsu, there was a guy that was actually smaller than me.

365
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:30,000
So he was about 120, 25 pounds.

366
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,120
I was like, yeah, I got this.

367
00:27:32,120 --> 00:27:34,960
You know, I'm finally, you know, I'm bigger than somebody, you know, be able to actually,

368
00:27:34,960 --> 00:27:36,860
you know, win.

369
00:27:36,860 --> 00:27:42,240
And I got caught with an armbar like four or five times and I just couldn't understand

370
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:43,240
it.

371
00:27:43,240 --> 00:27:45,640
So after the round, I've looked at him and I was like, man, how did you do all that?

372
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:47,960
Yeah, you got me the same thing over and over again.

373
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:49,800
I just, I couldn't find a way out.

374
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:51,720
He's like, I'd only been here for two weeks.

375
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:52,720
That's the only thing I know.

376
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:53,720
It's like, that's it.

377
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:54,720
That's it.

378
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:55,720
That's, I'm sticking with this.

379
00:27:55,720 --> 00:27:56,720
This works.

380
00:27:56,720 --> 00:28:03,560
And I've literally been hooked ever since and everything I've done otherwise, like I

381
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:05,320
got into wrestling to help with my Jiu-Jitsu.

382
00:28:05,320 --> 00:28:07,960
I got into Judo to help with my Jiu-Jitsu.

383
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,960
So everything kind of like coincided with that.

384
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:16,440
So it allowed me to branch off to different things to actually implement it to my game.

385
00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:22,840
And it's been an incredible journey just because not just different martial arts, been able

386
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:24,600
to travel different places.

387
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:26,440
And that's been one of the biggest aspects of it.

388
00:28:26,440 --> 00:28:29,360
Made friends that lasted over 20 years.

389
00:28:29,360 --> 00:28:32,720
I still am really good friends with that made through Jiu-Jitsu.

390
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:40,040
So there's a lot of benefit from it, not just the physical, technical side of it, but there's

391
00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:42,160
incredible benefit to it.

392
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:48,440
The mental health, the physical and mental aspect as well.

393
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:52,480
What was some of the medical and physiological challenges you had as a child?

394
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,000
Because I read abdominal migraines which I never heard before and I know you had some

395
00:28:56,000 --> 00:28:58,400
issues with your legs as well.

396
00:28:58,400 --> 00:29:05,640
They weren't necessarily like where I had to wear braces or anything like that.

397
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:12,080
Not that severe, but it was just from being extraordinarily skinny.

398
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:16,720
No amount of power that was generated from that.

399
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:24,240
So it was like I was just walking skeletal system.

400
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:28,120
And most of that was actually handled later on.

401
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:37,960
But the challenges just, again, it was just made me a target pretty much.

402
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:44,720
And especially not even knowing how to even defend myself, maybe even more of a target.

403
00:29:44,720 --> 00:29:50,380
What is your perspective of children being encouraged to do martial arts, like as many

404
00:29:50,380 --> 00:29:53,360
children as we can get and preventing bullying?

405
00:29:53,360 --> 00:29:57,200
And I think when people hear that conversation first, they're like, oh, so you can make your

406
00:29:57,200 --> 00:29:59,520
kid tough so he'll beat the bullies up.

407
00:29:59,520 --> 00:30:04,520
But what I've seen, this eternal humbling journey, because I did one martial art, got

408
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:08,040
really good, then went into the taekwondo and won national tournaments and then went

409
00:30:08,040 --> 00:30:11,880
to boxing and got murdered and then learned a little bit better and then got to kickboxing

410
00:30:11,880 --> 00:30:14,280
and got murdered and then went to jiu-jitsu and got murdered.

411
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:19,320
So this humility has been like 30 plus years now.

412
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:24,160
But what I realize is that you take a bully, you put them into a situation where they are

413
00:30:24,160 --> 00:30:29,280
challenged and they are humbled and they see respect and they see community.

414
00:30:29,280 --> 00:30:30,760
You stop them from being a bully.

415
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:32,580
It's not being able to beat the bully up.

416
00:30:32,580 --> 00:30:35,240
It's about making less bullies in the first place.

417
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:40,760
So now you've had, obviously, clearly this early life was pretty traumatic for you, but

418
00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:44,240
now arguably you're one of the most dangerous men on the planet.

419
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:48,600
What's your perspective on the environment that we need to create for our children to

420
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:51,680
reduce the amount of bullying and nastiness?

421
00:30:51,680 --> 00:30:59,680
Honestly, I think jiu-jitsu out of, and again, being involved in it for almost 30 years,

422
00:30:59,680 --> 00:31:07,400
I'm not going to be a bit biased, but I've trained in Muay Thai, went to Thailand.

423
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:15,640
The train out there was very involved.

424
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:23,440
One of the biggest things that I realized is that jiu-jitsu is probably the most compassionate

425
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:24,440
of the martial arts.

426
00:31:24,440 --> 00:31:27,720
It's also one of the most brutal.

427
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:35,480
But it teaches you, especially for children, control and restraint.

428
00:31:35,480 --> 00:31:43,100
I think that's one of the biggest things you can teach is you don't have to go like a nuclear

429
00:31:43,100 --> 00:31:45,400
bomb trying to defend yourself.

430
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:51,920
You can escalate and you can have the confidence to escalate without having to permanently

431
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:54,360
damage somebody, especially with kids.

432
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:58,920
Because one of the cases that they had, that I always kind of referred to is when I first

433
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:04,560
moved here, I think it was in 2012 or 2011, I think it was, but there was a child that

434
00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:10,520
was getting bullied from freshman year, sophomore year, and junior year.

435
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:15,240
His parents got fed up with it and they had him in a weightlifting program.

436
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:18,880
They had him in a boxing program.

437
00:32:18,880 --> 00:32:27,320
That senior year he showed up and the kid put on 15, 20 pounds over the course of six,

438
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:30,000
seven months.

439
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:33,140
Was doing private lessons, boxing.

440
00:32:33,140 --> 00:32:37,440
Within the first week, I think it was one of the bullies that had been bullying him

441
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:43,840
through his high school, tried to step up on that, but he was a different person and

442
00:32:43,840 --> 00:32:46,240
literally just knocked him out.

443
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:54,040
The problem with that was that when he got home, they took pictures of it and they filed

444
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:55,640
charges.

445
00:32:55,640 --> 00:33:01,320
They could do that because they had visual evidence of the damage.

446
00:33:01,320 --> 00:33:05,520
I was swollen up, the side of his face.

447
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:10,800
It just looked bad.

448
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:20,240
Because in boxing, there is control to an extent, but once you release that punch and

449
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:23,920
it makes contact, you can't take it back.

450
00:33:23,920 --> 00:33:28,760
I think this is one of the reasons why Jiu Jitsu is in a law enforcement application is

451
00:33:28,760 --> 00:33:34,040
really good too, because you can control somebody and make them realize, hey, this is a really

452
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:36,880
bad situation for you.

453
00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:42,440
Even in the height of the highest tension point that you can find, you can still bring

454
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:46,800
them back down to understand rationally, hey, you're in a really bad situation.

455
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:50,400
It's about to get much worse.

456
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:53,800
So you need to change your mind on this.

457
00:33:53,800 --> 00:34:01,320
You can do that with the amount of control that you have without hurting somebody permanently.

458
00:34:01,320 --> 00:34:05,560
The application for law enforcement is directly correlated to that where you can apprehend

459
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:13,080
a suspect, have control, but at the same time apply restraint where you don't have to pull

460
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:15,760
out your baton and beat the crap out of them.

461
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:20,160
It's better for society in general where it's better for the law enforcement officer because

462
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:24,560
he's a lot more protected, but it's also better for the person that's being arrested because

463
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:27,880
we all know that not everyone that's arrested is guilty of something.

464
00:34:27,880 --> 00:34:33,480
It could be just a bad day, they're fighting back, whatever it is.

465
00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:39,760
It could have definitely escalated or it could de-escalate to the point where, all right,

466
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:43,760
this is bad, but it's not getting worse.

467
00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:48,520
So I've always been encouraging law enforcement and children at the same time to actually

468
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:50,720
get involved in that specifically for that reason.

469
00:34:50,720 --> 00:34:53,400
I mean, there's the optics, isn't it?

470
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:57,960
We've talked a lot with people from the jujitsu world that are also police officers, and this

471
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:00,160
is an interesting conversation.

472
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:06,280
I'm only a blue belt in jujitsu at the moment, my journey has been very, very slow, but it's

473
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:07,880
because I don't train very often.

474
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:08,880
This is what happens.

475
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:11,960
So I'm taking my time at each of these belts.

476
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:16,600
However, I think as you start getting further into it, you realize there's certain things

477
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:20,840
that you favor and I've always loved chokes.

478
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:28,680
When you are trained in choking with a tap or understanding how hard you're squeezing,

479
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:34,280
it seems to me that it would be an incredibly important tool for law enforcement.

480
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:38,760
But when we're talking about optics and obviously you had that incident on the subway in New

481
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:44,560
York recently where that guy didn't let go and that guy died, you have the George Floyd

482
00:35:44,560 --> 00:35:45,560
thing.

483
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:49,000
So there are these anomalies where people did it wrong.

484
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:50,560
They hands down did it wrong.

485
00:35:50,560 --> 00:35:53,160
But it seems to me like that is such a powerful tool.

486
00:35:53,160 --> 00:35:56,680
And when you're getting choked, that's one of those submissions where you're ready to

487
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:58,360
comply really, really fast.

488
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:02,680
So what is your perspective of using chokes specifically in law enforcement if the officers

489
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:07,520
are trained to a certain level?

490
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:09,200
And that's the thing.

491
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:12,000
That very last part was trained.

492
00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:19,520
So for example, that subway incident with Daniel Penny, the Marine, that's the one I'm

493
00:36:19,520 --> 00:36:20,520
referring to, correct?

494
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:21,520
I believe so.

495
00:36:21,520 --> 00:36:22,520
Yeah.

496
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:30,120
So the big thing about that was I'm on his side to an extent.

497
00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:41,240
I'm literally am because there's an exorbitant amount of evidence showing that he was threatening.

498
00:36:41,240 --> 00:36:48,440
He was a possible threat to many people on the subway and he did need to be restrained.

499
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:54,560
Now if you go to a little bit back to what he was saying, what was he yelling?

500
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:56,520
He was yelling he wanted food.

501
00:36:56,520 --> 00:36:59,520
He was saying, I'm not going back to jail.

502
00:36:59,520 --> 00:37:00,520
I'm not doing it.

503
00:37:00,520 --> 00:37:04,120
And you could tell that he definitely had mental health problems.

504
00:37:04,120 --> 00:37:06,400
There is no doubt about that.

505
00:37:06,400 --> 00:37:11,440
And if someone's saying, I want food, you got to kind of like, well, something else

506
00:37:11,440 --> 00:37:12,440
is up.

507
00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:14,060
There's something else wrong with that.

508
00:37:14,060 --> 00:37:17,400
Not saying that you don't restrain him because again, he did pose a threat.

509
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:22,660
Not just to one or two people, but everyone on the train because he was threatening everyone.

510
00:37:22,660 --> 00:37:25,560
So I agreed to the point where he was restrained.

511
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:34,880
But that ends there because someone who, I mean, they teach tapping, they teach, he did

512
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:38,120
have knowledge of how a choke works is what I'm saying.

513
00:37:38,120 --> 00:37:39,200
He knows how long to hold it.

514
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:46,880
He knows that if you hold it for this long, it's going to make the person pass out.

515
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:52,480
Once he's passed out though, it continues and you restrict the blood circulation to

516
00:37:52,480 --> 00:37:53,480
the brain.

517
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:56,320
It could cause brain damage and then ultimately death.

518
00:37:56,320 --> 00:38:01,440
And anyone that has some experience, some training into that basic knowledge of how

519
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:05,320
a choke works, and he wasn't alone.

520
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:09,000
There was like four or five people helping him restrain him.

521
00:38:09,000 --> 00:38:12,440
So there was no need to hold that choke for that long.

522
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:15,000
That's where I disagree 100%.

523
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:18,160
He put him out and he went out cold.

524
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:24,100
He had four or five people, they could have just turned him over and just held him there.

525
00:38:24,100 --> 00:38:27,880
And then he could have been taken by law enforcement.

526
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:30,280
That's how it should have gone in my view.

527
00:38:30,280 --> 00:38:35,120
Again, he was outnumbered.

528
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:36,800
I do understand that he posed a threat.

529
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:38,160
He didn't be restrained.

530
00:38:38,160 --> 00:38:41,280
That is unequivocally justified.

531
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:42,920
I get it.

532
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:50,240
Just the extent that he held that choke on and with the support that he had was completely

533
00:38:50,240 --> 00:38:53,720
entirely unnecessary.

534
00:38:53,720 --> 00:38:59,480
So with that being said, those are some examples where with the wrong person, with the wrong

535
00:38:59,480 --> 00:39:06,600
training, with the wrong ability or the lack of ability to perform under stress, this can

536
00:39:06,600 --> 00:39:10,840
go bad.

537
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:15,280
What is your perspective if we were able to create an environment where police officers

538
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:20,420
were trained to a good level, would that be a good application in law enforcement or would

539
00:39:20,420 --> 00:39:27,820
it still worry you as far as the the fatal element versus an armlock, for example?

540
00:39:27,820 --> 00:39:33,240
And that's the thing is a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

541
00:39:33,240 --> 00:39:34,240
All right.

542
00:39:34,240 --> 00:39:42,120
So you're just enough to do damage, but not enough experience to understand the extent

543
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:48,160
of damage that you're creating.

544
00:39:48,160 --> 00:39:57,400
I think if trained in a continuous training environment where you're it's just like anything

545
00:39:57,400 --> 00:39:58,400
else.

546
00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:01,980
And so the more training that you have on it, the more you understand your capabilities

547
00:40:01,980 --> 00:40:08,600
and how much your control kind of needle will go.

548
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:13,520
If someone isn't trained very well and they get to that position, they're going to panic

549
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:16,200
because they literally aren't sure about themselves.

550
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:20,720
So they'd rather overdo it than underdo it in order to protect themselves.

551
00:40:20,720 --> 00:40:25,880
I think that's where the application of chokes becomes dangerous is when they're trained

552
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:31,720
just enough to get to that position, but then don't have enough experience to be able to

553
00:40:31,720 --> 00:40:34,040
maintain and control in a safe manner.

554
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:38,360
So if that could be the training could be extended to that where it's a regular daily

555
00:40:38,360 --> 00:40:42,800
thing like it should be.

556
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:45,720
I think that chokes can definitely be a good thing.

557
00:40:45,720 --> 00:40:51,720
You know, a way to put someone out, you let go, you know, once they're out, you cuff them

558
00:40:51,720 --> 00:40:55,540
up and be done with it.

559
00:40:55,540 --> 00:41:02,240
But it is a touchy topic because there are some very valid points for brain damage if

560
00:41:02,240 --> 00:41:05,360
it's held for way too long.

561
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:11,080
But again, I think in that environment where you have someone that's trained and has the

562
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:15,480
experience and understands the control, I think it could definitely be a good thing.

563
00:41:15,480 --> 00:41:19,180
I've heard arguments on both sides and they make some very valid points.

564
00:41:19,180 --> 00:41:25,680
But in my opinion, if they're properly trained, they should definitely be utilized.

565
00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:30,360
While we're on the topic, an interesting thing that I've witnessed because I've trained in

566
00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:37,200
a few jujitsu places now, we tend to focus more on the actual grappling and less on the

567
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:38,200
takedowns.

568
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:42,200
But when you look at law enforcement, obviously they're pursuing someone who's initially standing.

569
00:41:42,200 --> 00:41:48,560
You know, I mean, to cuff an individual whilst you've got a sidearm on your hip and not get

570
00:41:48,560 --> 00:41:52,040
shot yourself blows me away that people are even able to do that.

571
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:56,040
So I don't think the public realizes how difficult that is.

572
00:41:56,040 --> 00:42:01,940
But where you see, in my opinion, some really effective hands-on techniques in law enforcement,

573
00:42:01,940 --> 00:42:06,140
it seems like wrestling and jujitsu are a really strong part of that.

574
00:42:06,140 --> 00:42:11,080
And then some of the sports jujitsu schools that may be teaching police officers, you

575
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:15,180
know, pulling guard and that kind of thing, to me, you've got to be careful because you're

576
00:42:15,180 --> 00:42:20,080
missing a big part that is really from the sports side and not from the street.

577
00:42:20,080 --> 00:42:21,680
So what is your perspective?

578
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:25,420
Because you said you did wrestling, you did judo yourself to supplement your training.

579
00:42:25,420 --> 00:42:34,140
What about those, especially in the combatives and law enforcement side?

580
00:42:34,140 --> 00:42:38,920
I made a reputation for myself very early on that, you know, my place, you don't pull

581
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:41,000
guard period.

582
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:48,920
And the main reason for that is whether it be sport or self-defense, let's take sport

583
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:55,300
and we'll take the most stringent of competition rule sets with the IBJJF.

584
00:42:55,300 --> 00:42:59,840
You don't get points for pulling guard, but you do get, you know, two points awarded for

585
00:42:59,840 --> 00:43:00,840
takedowns.

586
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:09,400
So already, you know, just in the sport aspect of how to gain an advantage in points, you

587
00:43:09,400 --> 00:43:17,840
already have a reason why you should be learning takedowns for sport.

588
00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:22,440
But the main thing is that, you know, just like anything else, the more you train something,

589
00:43:22,440 --> 00:43:26,920
the more it becomes your first instinct, the very first thing that you go to.

590
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:30,000
And if your first thing is to pull guard, you know, because that's what you've been

591
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:35,560
training on the most, well, that becomes extremely problematic when you're in, because you're

592
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:36,800
going to fall into your comfort zone.

593
00:43:36,800 --> 00:43:39,000
You're going to fall into what you've been training the most.

594
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:44,720
And if you have a habit of pulling guard, well, that's the last place you want to be,

595
00:43:44,720 --> 00:43:49,560
especially with, you know, you have your spray on one side, you have your gun on the other,

596
00:43:49,560 --> 00:43:57,320
you know, so many different variables that could go wrong versus, you know, Chris's old

597
00:43:57,320 --> 00:44:01,720
philosophy, you know, get on top, stay on top, you know, and always kind of keep that

598
00:44:01,720 --> 00:44:02,880
in mind.

599
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:10,300
So I train my guys, my guys that compete, they do great.

600
00:44:10,300 --> 00:44:13,000
It's not ever anything that I was like super highly focused on.

601
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:16,360
If people want to compete, I try to help them get ready for that.

602
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:27,640
But the self-defense aspect has to be whether it's a primary, you know, goal for you, whether

603
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:31,960
it be self-defense or sport, you know, having the knowledge and understanding of takedowns,

604
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:35,880
you know, whether even if you're not doing the takedowns to understand them and to be

605
00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:37,160
able to counter them.

606
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:45,920
And the first time I actually went into wrestling for about seven, eight months, the guy I was

607
00:44:45,920 --> 00:44:51,840
training with in wrestling, the only thing I trained was counters, just how to stop takedowns,

608
00:44:51,840 --> 00:44:54,040
how to stop wrestling takedowns.

609
00:44:54,040 --> 00:44:58,800
Literally for almost eight months, that's all I did.

610
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:02,920
And that helped me tremendously, you know.

611
00:45:02,920 --> 00:45:08,800
So if I ever encountered somebody that was good at takedowns, I'd be able to counter

612
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:09,800
them.

613
00:45:09,800 --> 00:45:15,220
But I wouldn't have to resort right back to falling onto my back.

614
00:45:15,220 --> 00:45:18,080
If someone wants me on my back, they're going to have to fight tooth and nail for me to

615
00:45:18,080 --> 00:45:19,080
get there.

616
00:45:19,080 --> 00:45:20,080
I'm not just going to give it up.

617
00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:24,240
And that's the same mentality that I want my students to have as well, because you want

618
00:45:24,240 --> 00:45:27,240
that same mentality in a self-defense situation.

619
00:45:27,240 --> 00:45:33,800
So whether it be sport or self-defense, the priorities should almost be identical.

620
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:38,000
And that's the reason why I teach it the way I do.

621
00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:40,960
Will you mention that your father was in the Air Force?

622
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:43,520
Were you dreaming of the military when you were high school age?

623
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:46,640
Was there something else that you were thinking about first?

624
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:49,360
It's always been in the military.

625
00:45:49,360 --> 00:45:54,440
Being born on a military installation, raised on military installations, raised around the

626
00:45:54,440 --> 00:46:01,320
military, then being in the military.

627
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:03,400
I came off active duty.

628
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:04,800
That was National Guard for a couple of years.

629
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:11,020
But even when I wasn't in uniform, within a few years, I was back working with veterans.

630
00:46:11,020 --> 00:46:17,400
So my entire life revolved around the military in some way, shape, form, or fashion.

631
00:46:17,400 --> 00:46:19,840
So it's always been around that.

632
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:29,040
And I used to wake up at 5.30, 5.45, and listen to the guys doing PT, hearing the cadence

633
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:34,080
going on, because we lived right across the street from where the barracks were.

634
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:45,040
So the earlier influence that I had was definitely in the Army.

635
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:48,720
And of course, Vicenza was an airborne country in Italy.

636
00:46:48,720 --> 00:46:52,320
So I get to watch them as a child.

637
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:55,280
So there's a lot of earlier influence that I had.

638
00:46:55,280 --> 00:47:04,240
That's all I ever wanted to be, was be in the Army, but still being able to do the things

639
00:47:04,240 --> 00:47:05,240
that I wanted to do.

640
00:47:05,240 --> 00:47:08,760
Because a lot of the guys that I met, they were like skateboarders and snowboarders that

641
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:10,440
were still active duty.

642
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:16,520
And so it was basically like a way to eat my cake and have it too.

643
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:20,360
So I got really big into skateboarding and then into snowboarding.

644
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:25,080
But that thought process of going to the military was always there.

645
00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:27,520
So you mentioned about becoming a mechanic.

646
00:47:27,520 --> 00:47:32,720
Kind of walk me through the landscape pre-911 for your Army experience.

647
00:47:32,720 --> 00:47:37,520
So I wanted to as a mechanic, because I didn't know anything about working on cars.

648
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:45,880
Growing up overseas, we didn't have like the same kind of setup where you can just go down

649
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:50,640
the AutoZone and pick up car parts and have your own garage where you can work on things.

650
00:47:50,640 --> 00:47:51,840
And we moved around a lot.

651
00:47:51,840 --> 00:47:55,720
So it wasn't anything that really got into.

652
00:47:55,720 --> 00:48:00,160
Maybe just the basics my father taught me, change tires and change your oil, things like

653
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:02,220
that and basic maintenance.

654
00:48:02,220 --> 00:48:05,320
But never to the extent of like building an engine.

655
00:48:05,320 --> 00:48:06,960
And diesels were entirely foreign to me.

656
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:10,480
So that's where I wanted to go.

657
00:48:10,480 --> 00:48:16,520
And come to find out that it was more of a glorified Jiffy Lube than anything else.

658
00:48:16,520 --> 00:48:18,040
We never really got to work on engines.

659
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:23,520
And then the things that I got trained on, it was like the last class or second to last

660
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:27,240
class on all the vehicles that we're learning.

661
00:48:27,240 --> 00:48:36,080
Because I learned how to work on the cut fee, which they eliminated I think entirely in

662
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:40,760
a year or two years later after I went to mechanic school.

663
00:48:40,760 --> 00:48:44,960
The Deuce and a half, the one that wouldn't be used since World War II.

664
00:48:44,960 --> 00:48:46,600
And then the first generation Humvee.

665
00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:51,760
So everything that I learned on, yeah, I still learned some basic understanding of diesel

666
00:48:51,760 --> 00:48:52,760
engines and so forth.

667
00:48:52,760 --> 00:49:01,360
But the actual application of the training that I had received, it just wasn't applicable

668
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:03,000
to anything else I was doing.

669
00:49:03,000 --> 00:49:05,200
So I was kind of disappointed with that.

670
00:49:05,200 --> 00:49:10,880
Now I did get to work at a Robert Gray Army Airfield at Fort Hood.

671
00:49:10,880 --> 00:49:16,540
That gave me an entire new experience about working not on planes, but around planes.

672
00:49:16,540 --> 00:49:20,440
So there was definitely a positive aspect to that.

673
00:49:20,440 --> 00:49:24,000
And again, during that time for me, there was nothing going on.

674
00:49:24,000 --> 00:49:29,240
Somalia was a couple of years before I enlisted.

675
00:49:29,240 --> 00:49:33,360
Bosnia and Kosovo, that whole thing was dying down by the time I came in.

676
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:40,880
And I mean, between 96, 2000, there was literally nothing.

677
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:43,680
So there's no reason for me to go in and did my time.

678
00:49:43,680 --> 00:49:45,620
I'm like, OK, well, that's it.

679
00:49:45,620 --> 00:49:47,600
So started going to school then.

680
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:50,560
So it was a little bit of a disappointment.

681
00:49:50,560 --> 00:49:57,040
But everything kind of got spun back up when 9-11 happened, because that was my opportunity

682
00:49:57,040 --> 00:50:06,200
to serve my grandfather and his brother's tough experience in World War II, where you're

683
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:08,760
actually fighting the just cause.

684
00:50:08,760 --> 00:50:09,760
You fight the good thing.

685
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:13,920
It's doing the right thing.

686
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:16,000
So it's always been there.

687
00:50:16,000 --> 00:50:24,700
It just not at the time I didn't realize my willingness to be in the military as much

688
00:50:24,700 --> 00:50:27,720
as I did until later on.

689
00:50:27,720 --> 00:50:32,040
So what was that day, 9-11, like through your eyes?

690
00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:40,360
And then talk to me about the role that you pursued after that.

691
00:50:40,360 --> 00:50:43,840
So I was living in Arlington at the time.

692
00:50:43,840 --> 00:50:49,160
I was going to school at University of Texas at Arlington that morning in 9-11.

693
00:50:49,160 --> 00:50:59,720
And I remember turning on the radio and hearing that there was a, initially they were saying

694
00:50:59,720 --> 00:51:05,640
it was like a farm plane accident that hit the towers.

695
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:11,880
And then as more reports came on, I turned on TV and actually they were showing the damage

696
00:51:11,880 --> 00:51:12,880
on the first building.

697
00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:15,880
I actually managed to catch the second.

698
00:51:15,880 --> 00:51:21,040
And I remember calling the girlfriend I had at the time and I was like, hey, you need

699
00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:23,760
to turn on TV and see the news.

700
00:51:23,760 --> 00:51:25,880
She was like, what channel?

701
00:51:25,880 --> 00:51:27,880
And I said, any.

702
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:37,680
I mean, I think that was kind of daunting in a sense where go to any channel and it's

703
00:51:37,680 --> 00:51:38,680
playing that.

704
00:51:38,680 --> 00:51:42,600
And it was that much of a severe situation.

705
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:50,560
But and you kept hearing we're under attack, we're under attack, we're under attack.

706
00:51:50,560 --> 00:51:54,880
And at the time I was a drill sergeant.

707
00:51:54,880 --> 00:52:00,200
I went from being a mechanic to field artillery and I was doing my trial time at Fort Sill

708
00:52:00,200 --> 00:52:05,600
and just graduated from drill sergeant school in South Carolina through the reserves.

709
00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:12,640
And they actually wanted me to go up to Fort Sill for two years and train troops.

710
00:52:12,640 --> 00:52:14,400
And that was literally the last thing I wanted to do.

711
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:17,720
I mean, I don't want to stand on the sidelines.

712
00:52:17,720 --> 00:52:20,360
If our country is going to war, we've been attacked.

713
00:52:20,360 --> 00:52:21,360
And that was the mentality.

714
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:24,140
Then I want to be part of the fight.

715
00:52:24,140 --> 00:52:30,040
And so I did some admin paperwork, a little battle to get out of this contract and go

716
00:52:30,040 --> 00:52:31,560
into another.

717
00:52:31,560 --> 00:52:35,580
The closest National Guard unit that I could find that was SF, to where I could go to try

718
00:52:35,580 --> 00:52:39,200
to get into the pipeline was in Mississippi.

719
00:52:39,200 --> 00:52:42,240
So it was eight and a half hour drive one way.

720
00:52:42,240 --> 00:52:48,120
And I'd have to do that for, so I did that for like nine months.

721
00:52:48,120 --> 00:52:52,280
And we're trying to get a slot to go to selection.

722
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:54,040
And finally got a slot to go to selection.

723
00:52:54,040 --> 00:53:02,440
I made selection, then went to airborne school, finished out the Q course.

724
00:53:02,440 --> 00:53:10,000
And when I finished, I went back to my National Guard unit and told them I got recruited on

725
00:53:10,000 --> 00:53:12,840
to third group at the SIF.

726
00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:16,340
And so I'm going to go active duty.

727
00:53:16,340 --> 00:53:22,760
And so I went back, did all my paperwork to get out and make the transfer active duty.

728
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:26,080
I went back to BRAG, signed in a group.

729
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:30,680
A couple of days later, signed into the battalion.

730
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:34,620
And then shortly after that, I was on a plane and met my team in Iraq.

731
00:53:34,620 --> 00:53:39,000
So it was like a boom, boom, boom right into it.

732
00:53:39,000 --> 00:53:40,760
And that was my first deployment.

733
00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:42,740
So I didn't have any experience.

734
00:53:42,740 --> 00:53:46,040
My first deployment was with the SF teams.

735
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:49,040
And it was literally like thrown into the mix.

736
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:56,560
I didn't have a, I had a interim team I was assigned to, but I was volunteering for all

737
00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:57,840
the teams that were there.

738
00:53:57,840 --> 00:54:00,920
And anytime they'd go out like, hey, do you need a driver, do you need a gunner, do you

739
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:01,920
need more security?

740
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:06,440
Whatever the case may be, I was volunteering so I could actually gain more experience.

741
00:54:06,440 --> 00:54:13,880
So 2007, I had a lot of experience gained just from the variety of different positions

742
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:19,880
that I was holding, just so I could get familiarized with everything that was going on and get

743
00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:25,240
a better understanding of battle, how it was being fought.

744
00:54:25,240 --> 00:54:30,720
A question I always ask about, or to anyone who's been deployed and or seen combat, should

745
00:54:30,720 --> 00:54:33,520
I say, is a two-part question.

746
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:35,640
And the backstory is very simple.

747
00:54:35,640 --> 00:54:40,880
The civilians of the world, like myself or the US, get a very polarized view of war through

748
00:54:40,880 --> 00:54:41,880
our screens.

749
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:45,200
You know, either kill them all, like God saw them out, or they're all baby killers.

750
00:54:45,200 --> 00:54:51,160
And in the middle are the men and women, arguably children, that we send overseas with our flag

751
00:54:51,160 --> 00:54:52,980
on their shoulder.

752
00:54:52,980 --> 00:54:55,880
And so it's their perspective that I think is the most valuable.

753
00:54:55,880 --> 00:55:00,980
So the first of the two part, for example, you watch 9-11 happen, this is a terrorist

754
00:55:00,980 --> 00:55:04,960
who's hiding in Afghanistan, now you find yourself in Iraq.

755
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:10,280
So regardless of the politics or reasons that you were in that particular country, was there

756
00:55:10,280 --> 00:55:16,280
a moment where you witnessed things, atrocities, whatever it was, that justified you being

757
00:55:16,280 --> 00:55:17,280
there?

758
00:55:17,280 --> 00:55:25,960
That was the crazy part, is the more you got shot at, the more it validated you being there.

759
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:33,320
So this is one of the very tricky subjects that, you know, it's why you're there, when

760
00:55:33,320 --> 00:55:37,960
the information that you're given, the intel that you're given, and everything surrounding,

761
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:43,440
keep in mind this is, you know, before the social media boom, we had, you know, MySpace

762
00:55:43,440 --> 00:55:46,040
and Facebook, I think it's time.

763
00:55:46,040 --> 00:55:51,920
So MySpace wasn't really your source for wartime media.

764
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:55,480
But literally every channel was saying the exact same things.

765
00:55:55,480 --> 00:56:01,200
And so we're always going in there thinking you're doing the righteous thing, you're

766
00:56:01,200 --> 00:56:03,720
justified in what you're doing, everything you're doing is for the right thing.

767
00:56:03,720 --> 00:56:09,040
And these are bad people.

768
00:56:09,040 --> 00:56:12,920
These are radicalized Muslims making everyone else look bad.

769
00:56:12,920 --> 00:56:19,200
And I've never been, I never gone into anything thinking it was a religious thing ever.

770
00:56:19,200 --> 00:56:25,760
So it wasn't like all Muslims are bad, we got to eliminate all, it's just like Christians.

771
00:56:25,760 --> 00:56:30,040
You know, you have some bad Christians, does it make all Christians bad?

772
00:56:30,040 --> 00:56:33,960
And same thing with Muslims, you have, you know, the majority of moderates, but you have

773
00:56:33,960 --> 00:56:35,280
the extremists.

774
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:38,920
And those are the ones that we're going after.

775
00:56:38,920 --> 00:56:44,480
But you always fed that same, that narrative.

776
00:56:44,480 --> 00:56:51,600
And again, this is something for me, but didn't recognize till after was why were we in Iraq?

777
00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:57,720
You know, what was, when you see the end result going and looking back of, you know, 15 years

778
00:56:57,720 --> 00:57:00,360
that we've been there, for what?

779
00:57:00,360 --> 00:57:01,600
You mean, what did we better?

780
00:57:01,600 --> 00:57:06,260
You know, we went in there for, you know, to eliminate the terror cells and created

781
00:57:06,260 --> 00:57:07,260
another one.

782
00:57:07,260 --> 00:57:10,040
We went from Al-Qaeda to ISIS.

783
00:57:10,040 --> 00:57:14,880
We didn't, you know, there was trillions of money that was spent.

784
00:57:14,880 --> 00:57:18,960
There was millions of civilians lives lost.

785
00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:22,440
On the Iraqi side, there was, you know, thousands on the American side.

786
00:57:22,440 --> 00:57:26,760
But if you look around, I mean, what was the benefit to the working class, the people that

787
00:57:26,760 --> 00:57:30,200
were actually fighting there, the people that were, you know, that was supposed to be, you

788
00:57:30,200 --> 00:57:32,040
know, bettering our lives for it?

789
00:57:32,040 --> 00:57:40,920
I mean, we didn't even find, I mean, we got Saddam Hussein, sure, but that was years prior,

790
00:57:40,920 --> 00:57:41,920
you know?

791
00:57:41,920 --> 00:57:44,120
And so what was the continuation for?

792
00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:46,800
What benefit came out of this?

793
00:57:46,800 --> 00:57:47,800
You look at that and Afghanistan.

794
00:57:47,800 --> 00:57:51,680
I mean, we went to Afghanistan to eliminate the Taliban.

795
00:57:51,680 --> 00:57:55,120
Well, we ended up making them the official government.

796
00:57:55,120 --> 00:58:01,280
I mean, so again, trillions of dollars, millions of lives lost, you know, thousands of American

797
00:58:01,280 --> 00:58:03,600
lives lost.

798
00:58:03,600 --> 00:58:07,560
And the worst part about both these wars is that the majority of people brought that war

799
00:58:07,560 --> 00:58:11,280
home with them in one shape or another.

800
00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:15,380
They brought it back with them, you know, some people to much more deeper extent and

801
00:58:15,380 --> 00:58:17,280
some much less.

802
00:58:17,280 --> 00:58:22,240
But they all brought it back in some fashion.

803
00:58:22,240 --> 00:58:27,680
And that's the thing too, is that once we did, it was, you know, it was looked down

804
00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:35,000
as especially mental health, you're weak and you're sad and everyone gets sad, get over

805
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:37,720
it, you know, stop complaining.

806
00:58:37,720 --> 00:58:44,040
So even just the mere fact of trying to get treatment, you had to go through like a, you

807
00:58:44,040 --> 00:58:46,720
know, it was a dirty secret.

808
00:58:46,720 --> 00:58:48,560
You had to be very secretive of it.

809
00:58:48,560 --> 00:58:53,040
And, you know, because if you're going to see therapy, you're like, you're not a man,

810
00:58:53,040 --> 00:58:57,540
you know, you know, I'm feelings and like, oh, I mean, there's just so many things

811
00:58:57,540 --> 00:59:02,000
that just literally kind of ostracize you for wanting to get help.

812
00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:07,240
That has definitely changed over the last few years, but especially like 10 years ago,

813
00:59:07,240 --> 00:59:12,280
and there's still like a stigma attached to it because a lot of people are just uninformed.

814
00:59:12,280 --> 00:59:16,480
And if they're uninformed, you know, more than likely they're misinformed if they do

815
00:59:16,480 --> 00:59:19,380
think they know something.

816
00:59:19,380 --> 00:59:21,900
So it created like a whole new mess.

817
00:59:21,900 --> 00:59:29,400
And you see that the effects of it, especially like, you know, the recruitment, the last,

818
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:34,680
you know, I think six years or so it's been like the lowest, you know, military recruitment

819
00:59:34,680 --> 00:59:42,120
in the last hundred years, the last century.

820
00:59:42,120 --> 00:59:46,800
But more likely than anything else, everyone's saying, well, it's because of the woke, it's

821
00:59:46,800 --> 00:59:53,400
because of this, or it's because an entire generation grew up watching a war and seeing

822
00:59:53,400 --> 00:59:57,360
their veterans, they never had to be there, but they see the veterans come back and all

823
00:59:57,360 --> 01:00:01,600
the damage that is caused and all the, you know, the problems that's created.

824
01:00:01,600 --> 01:00:07,520
And you know, you start saying like, for what, you know, so people start realizing, you know,

825
01:00:07,520 --> 01:00:13,120
by the time they get to like, you know, 2018, that entire generation literally lived through

826
01:00:13,120 --> 01:00:15,520
a 20 year war their entire life.

827
01:00:15,520 --> 01:00:23,040
Their country has been at two wars on some front and, you know, into where it brings

828
01:00:23,040 --> 01:00:26,560
them back home and still dealing with it.

829
01:00:26,560 --> 01:00:32,560
So I think that has much more of a issue to do with than, you know, some other people's

830
01:00:32,560 --> 01:00:42,080
policies on, you know, the diversity and inclusion, you know, any of the woke stuff, I think it's

831
01:00:42,080 --> 01:00:46,480
literally just the experience of people seeing it for themselves, you know, this entire generation

832
01:00:46,480 --> 01:00:52,400
of seeing it and experience has been more influential than anything else that's been

833
01:00:52,400 --> 01:00:54,320
brought up.

834
01:00:54,320 --> 01:00:57,160
It's interesting because it parallels the recruitment crisis that we got in the fire

835
01:00:57,160 --> 01:00:58,640
service at the moment.

836
01:00:58,640 --> 01:01:04,360
And I say the exact same thing because obviously we're not seeing the horrors of war in the

837
01:01:04,360 --> 01:01:05,960
fire service.

838
01:01:05,960 --> 01:01:10,400
But as you mentioned, you know, when I first became a firefighter, social media was almost

839
01:01:10,400 --> 01:01:15,400
nonexistent, you know, when 9-11 happened, it was almost nonexistent.

840
01:01:15,400 --> 01:01:21,160
So you know, the kind of knee-jerk reaction to the attacks on our home front was all a

841
01:01:21,160 --> 01:01:25,800
lot of people needed to sign up, whether it was in police, fire or the military.

842
01:01:25,800 --> 01:01:32,480
Fast forward to 2018, for example, 2020, people can go online and go, what is it like to be

843
01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:35,600
a veteran in Afghanistan, in Iraq?

844
01:01:35,600 --> 01:01:38,080
And now all of a sudden they're presented with all this stuff.

845
01:01:38,080 --> 01:01:41,680
And obviously you've got to sift through to find the middle of the road, common sense,

846
01:01:41,680 --> 01:01:42,680
real stuff.

847
01:01:42,680 --> 01:01:47,800
But, oh, you know, collateral damage and, you know, never found WMDs and industrial

848
01:01:47,800 --> 01:01:50,480
military complex and all this kind of thing.

849
01:01:50,480 --> 01:01:51,800
And it's the same in the fire service.

850
01:01:51,800 --> 01:01:56,640
Now you look in and go, oh, they have 56 hour work weeks plus mandatory because they're

851
01:01:56,640 --> 01:01:57,640
understaffed.

852
01:01:57,640 --> 01:02:02,040
So now 80 hour work weeks, marriages, cancer, suicides, overdoses.

853
01:02:02,040 --> 01:02:05,440
And it doesn't negate from what the profession should be.

854
01:02:05,440 --> 01:02:09,200
The profession in the fire service should be exactly what we do in the military.

855
01:02:09,200 --> 01:02:11,760
It should be all the good things that you guys do.

856
01:02:11,760 --> 01:02:14,840
And I'll get to the kindness and compassion in a second, because that's a very important

857
01:02:14,840 --> 01:02:17,160
part of the conversation too.

858
01:02:17,160 --> 01:02:22,880
But this awakening isn't a bunch of, you know, screaming women and men with piercings and

859
01:02:22,880 --> 01:02:24,080
green hair.

860
01:02:24,080 --> 01:02:27,800
That's not why we're struggling to recruit in the military and the first responders.

861
01:02:27,800 --> 01:02:30,640
It's that this next generation is really smart.

862
01:02:30,640 --> 01:02:34,300
And when they do their research, they go, that sounds a bit shit actually, the way it's

863
01:02:34,300 --> 01:02:35,760
doing it right now.

864
01:02:35,760 --> 01:02:39,240
And I remember thinking the exact same thing I grew up when the Falklands war happened

865
01:02:39,240 --> 01:02:40,760
in England.

866
01:02:40,760 --> 01:02:46,860
And it was a lot of, you know, political jockeying and a lot of Argentinian boys died and a lot

867
01:02:46,860 --> 01:02:50,160
of British boys died for, you know, a rock.

868
01:02:50,160 --> 01:02:51,160
Now I get it.

869
01:02:51,160 --> 01:02:54,240
I understand that the principle behind it and, you know, there's a certain point where

870
01:02:54,240 --> 01:02:59,920
you have to act, but I still to this day wonder if diplomacy could have actually sorted that

871
01:02:59,920 --> 01:03:01,040
out in the end.

872
01:03:01,040 --> 01:03:05,440
So I grew up going, so a politician can decide if we go to war or not.

873
01:03:05,440 --> 01:03:09,360
And I was very young, but that right from the beginning dissuaded me from being in the

874
01:03:09,360 --> 01:03:10,520
military.

875
01:03:10,520 --> 01:03:14,360
Had I grown up after World War II, I probably would have been lining up in the recruitment

876
01:03:14,360 --> 01:03:15,360
office, you know?

877
01:03:15,360 --> 01:03:19,400
So this is, I think, and it's such an important conversation.

878
01:03:19,400 --> 01:03:26,000
If we just expect people to believe the Hollywood version of what we do and that's it, then

879
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:31,520
you're diluted in 2024 because people actually can see everything now, documentaries, social

880
01:03:31,520 --> 01:03:33,400
media, you know, books.

881
01:03:33,400 --> 01:03:38,520
And so if we're not fixing the things that are broken, we will have a recruitment crisis.

882
01:03:38,520 --> 01:03:42,400
If we don't stop sending our men and women to war at the drop of a hat, because there

883
01:03:42,400 --> 01:03:48,360
are people that pay our government that make uniforms and ammunition and missiles and battleships

884
01:03:48,360 --> 01:03:53,440
are getting fucking rich every time we go to war and there's no checks and balances,

885
01:03:53,440 --> 01:03:54,880
then we're not going to have soldiers anymore.

886
01:03:54,880 --> 01:03:56,540
We're not going to have any firefighters.

887
01:03:56,540 --> 01:04:01,040
So it's up to us, you know, the communities to push against some of that and be like,

888
01:04:01,040 --> 01:04:06,760
we will put a uniform on as long as we see you taking care of our people and in the military

889
01:04:06,760 --> 01:04:13,720
side only sending our children to war when it's absolutely fucking necessary.

890
01:04:13,720 --> 01:04:16,440
I agree 100%.

891
01:04:16,440 --> 01:04:24,880
One of the things to add on to that is, you know, at least for the, I know this, it's,

892
01:04:24,880 --> 01:04:28,560
the US doesn't have allies, it has interests.

893
01:04:28,560 --> 01:04:36,160
And anytime there's like the name of democracy and the most recent example that I can use

894
01:04:36,160 --> 01:04:38,240
is Somalia, right?

895
01:04:38,240 --> 01:04:46,760
To take out Farah ad-Did and restore democracy and bring peace to the area, what was always

896
01:04:46,760 --> 01:04:56,200
left out was Chevron BP and five major oil companies that wanted to drill off the shoreline

897
01:04:56,200 --> 01:04:58,440
of Somalia.

898
01:04:58,440 --> 01:05:00,200
But that never was brought up, you know?

899
01:05:00,200 --> 01:05:04,900
So again, the interest, because a year later, I think it was even less than a year later

900
01:05:04,900 --> 01:05:13,280
that after Mogadishu happened with the Rangers was the Rwanda Hutu and Tutsis, right?

901
01:05:13,280 --> 01:05:16,680
800,000, you know, within two months, it was a slaughter.

902
01:05:16,680 --> 01:05:18,160
Why don't we get involved with that?

903
01:05:18,160 --> 01:05:19,480
We didn't even bother going down there.

904
01:05:19,480 --> 01:05:23,200
It was kind of one of those things that was like, you know, even the UN didn't want to,

905
01:05:23,200 --> 01:05:26,560
you know, go down there on that.

906
01:05:26,560 --> 01:05:32,800
And that was literally like an opportunity for peacekeeping, you know what I mean?

907
01:05:32,800 --> 01:05:38,200
But it wasn't brought up.

908
01:05:38,200 --> 01:05:46,120
We have to accept responsibility for the messes that we actually created.

909
01:05:46,120 --> 01:05:50,960
If you take a look at a lot of the immigration problems that we have, it's because we destabilized

910
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:55,320
that government at some point in time.

911
01:05:55,320 --> 01:06:06,440
Because back as early as 1953 with Mosaddegh in Iran, right?

912
01:06:06,440 --> 01:06:16,920
There was somebody that wasn't within our interests with the UK doing the Anglo-Iranian

913
01:06:16,920 --> 01:06:20,240
oil company, I think it was called.

914
01:06:20,240 --> 01:06:24,840
But because they want to nationalize their own resources, well, okay.

915
01:06:24,840 --> 01:06:30,000
Well now we have to set up a coup, you know, and when they put the person that was, you

916
01:06:30,000 --> 01:06:32,560
know, for interest, it was horrible for the country.

917
01:06:32,560 --> 01:06:39,560
And it got to such a horrible point where they brought in Ayatollah Khomeini, right?

918
01:06:39,560 --> 01:06:41,560
So that led up to 1979.

919
01:06:41,560 --> 01:06:45,720
And it's been like an enemy since, right?

920
01:06:45,720 --> 01:06:47,240
And filed.

921
01:06:47,240 --> 01:06:51,480
But if you go back to what caused that, you know, you have to understand the cause for

922
01:06:51,480 --> 01:06:52,480
the effect.

923
01:06:52,480 --> 01:06:55,960
And I think that's one of the biggest things that people are missing is understanding the

924
01:06:55,960 --> 01:06:58,200
context and the cause for what we have now.

925
01:06:58,200 --> 01:07:00,400
People don't want to go back to that.

926
01:07:00,400 --> 01:07:03,520
I don't know if it's laziness, I don't know if it's algorithms, and that's another huge

927
01:07:03,520 --> 01:07:06,960
thing that you were talking about is that, you know, this new generation is smart.

928
01:07:06,960 --> 01:07:08,240
You're absolutely right.

929
01:07:08,240 --> 01:07:13,440
But these algorithms, if you put in, if you word it, you know, if I'm looking up like,

930
01:07:13,440 --> 01:07:20,120
you know, whatever online and I just phrase it differently, you're going to have something

931
01:07:20,120 --> 01:07:27,200
that takes you down a deep hole that goes on and on and on of, you know, all this meta

932
01:07:27,200 --> 01:07:30,600
misinformation, right?

933
01:07:30,600 --> 01:07:33,520
So, and then it starts turning into confirmation bias.

934
01:07:33,520 --> 01:07:35,080
It's not actual research.

935
01:07:35,080 --> 01:07:37,960
It's like, oh, I found this article on that, found this article, no one even checks to

936
01:07:37,960 --> 01:07:38,960
see what the source is.

937
01:07:38,960 --> 01:07:40,840
And it's like, oh, yeah, it's the same thing.

938
01:07:40,840 --> 01:07:43,920
So you know, all these different news outlets are saying the exact same thing because they

939
01:07:43,920 --> 01:07:47,720
have the exact same source, but they don't check that.

940
01:07:47,720 --> 01:07:48,720
They don't look into that.

941
01:07:48,720 --> 01:07:52,360
So the majority of people that are saying they're doing research is actually confirmation

942
01:07:52,360 --> 01:07:53,360
bias.

943
01:07:53,360 --> 01:07:56,320
And I understand this because I used to do the exact same thing myself until I started

944
01:07:56,320 --> 01:08:00,400
actually paying attention to the sources of that and actually saying, okay, well, let

945
01:08:00,400 --> 01:08:04,920
me go and find out, you know, the opposite end of this.

946
01:08:04,920 --> 01:08:08,200
And that's what I may actually see a lot more clearly about the different clock tricks that

947
01:08:08,200 --> 01:08:13,400
we've been into and the context as well as the cause for these conflicts to better understand

948
01:08:13,400 --> 01:08:16,280
where we're at right now and where we can go in the future.

949
01:08:16,280 --> 01:08:17,280
Absolutely.

950
01:08:17,280 --> 01:08:23,560
I mean, I think one of the perfect examples of how far we've deviated from where we should

951
01:08:23,560 --> 01:08:28,440
be and I'm a huge believer in you want to change the world, start a home.

952
01:08:28,440 --> 01:08:29,440
It's up to us.

953
01:08:29,440 --> 01:08:31,600
Everyone can actionably do something in our homes.

954
01:08:31,600 --> 01:08:35,240
It might be our own fitness and nutrition and mental health practices through to how

955
01:08:35,240 --> 01:08:37,400
we parent, how we love our partner.

956
01:08:37,400 --> 01:08:41,280
And then obviously in the community, how do we either, you know, a part of the problem,

957
01:08:41,280 --> 01:08:42,720
part of the solution.

958
01:08:42,720 --> 01:08:49,080
But if we're looking at the top and I use that term very loosely, 330 million people,

959
01:08:49,080 --> 01:08:52,880
the last eight years, for example, we could go back a lot longer than that, but the last

960
01:08:52,880 --> 01:08:58,860
eight years, the fact that we're presented with those two choices and you hear over and

961
01:08:58,860 --> 01:09:04,000
over and over again, the lesser of two evils and you know, the way these get is again,

962
01:09:04,000 --> 01:09:05,360
algorithms and lobbying.

963
01:09:05,360 --> 01:09:06,800
And then I'm not big into politics.

964
01:09:06,800 --> 01:09:13,560
I just from my white belt way of looking at the world, I know thousands of people that

965
01:09:13,560 --> 01:09:17,640
will be phenomenal leaders and they wouldn't be able to get in that position because they're

966
01:09:17,640 --> 01:09:20,880
not million or billionaires and they have ethics.

967
01:09:20,880 --> 01:09:24,600
So they wouldn't take money from people that say, hey, I'm a drug company or hey, I'm a

968
01:09:24,600 --> 01:09:27,640
oil company, you know, I'll pay for you to get in.

969
01:09:27,640 --> 01:09:30,440
But when you get in, here's what I want you to do.

970
01:09:30,440 --> 01:09:34,920
So this is the other side of it is like, I think that we, I hope that there's a, there's

971
01:09:34,920 --> 01:09:35,920
an awakening.

972
01:09:35,920 --> 01:09:40,760
I really do that people, especially after the pandemic where we realized that all these

973
01:09:40,760 --> 01:09:43,720
people are called themselves leaders, couldn't fucking lead their way out of a wet paper

974
01:09:43,720 --> 01:09:49,000
bag that now we'll actually challenge the way that we even choose people and put real

975
01:09:49,000 --> 01:09:50,720
leaders in these positions.

976
01:09:50,720 --> 01:09:56,640
So that again, whether it's obesity or starting another war that we actually have people.

977
01:09:56,640 --> 01:09:59,380
And I love the concept that Sebastian Junger wrote about.

978
01:09:59,380 --> 01:10:01,840
You have a peacetime leader and a wartime leader.

979
01:10:01,840 --> 01:10:02,840
I love that too.

980
01:10:02,840 --> 01:10:07,240
We got to change the way we do it and the way that the last eight years, I mean, if

981
01:10:07,240 --> 01:10:11,200
there's a core value of a leader, it's that it brings people together.

982
01:10:11,200 --> 01:10:15,160
And whether you're a Democrat or Republican, you cannot fucking argue with the fact that

983
01:10:15,160 --> 01:10:20,320
the last eight years, so that's both of you fuckers have done nothing but divide this

984
01:10:20,320 --> 01:10:21,320
country.

985
01:10:21,320 --> 01:10:25,760
I couldn't agree more.

986
01:10:25,760 --> 01:10:32,800
One of the things that's a little bit aggravating here in the US is, is everyone wants to have

987
01:10:32,800 --> 01:10:38,360
a, everyone needs to have their in a little box, right?

988
01:10:38,360 --> 01:10:44,640
So if you're a Republican, then you fit in this box and nothing else can enter it or

989
01:10:44,640 --> 01:10:45,640
exit it.

990
01:10:45,640 --> 01:10:47,200
And same thing with Democrats.

991
01:10:47,200 --> 01:10:52,120
The thing is, is that there are some good policies and ideas that come from the Republicans

992
01:10:52,120 --> 01:10:53,120
side.

993
01:10:53,120 --> 01:10:54,960
There's some good ideas, policies come from the Democratic side.

994
01:10:54,960 --> 01:10:58,600
They can't agree on it because they're Democrat and the Republican, which is to me the most

995
01:10:58,600 --> 01:11:03,200
asinine thing, if it makes sense, make it happen.

996
01:11:03,200 --> 01:11:11,720
But then again, you have, again, you know, what's, you don't see everything that they

997
01:11:11,720 --> 01:11:14,600
want to do because it's massed for interests.

998
01:11:14,600 --> 01:11:17,640
Again, there is profit to be made.

999
01:11:17,640 --> 01:11:19,600
So like, well, you know, we could go this route.

1000
01:11:19,600 --> 01:11:21,200
It'd be better for a short term.

1001
01:11:21,200 --> 01:11:22,680
We can blame it on someone else.

1002
01:11:22,680 --> 01:11:27,700
It's literally always short term for the solution to give the immediate improvement, regardless

1003
01:11:27,700 --> 01:11:32,880
of the situation that'll happen later and then let someone else deal with it.

1004
01:11:32,880 --> 01:11:34,440
Or the blame.

1005
01:11:34,440 --> 01:11:35,440
It's that simple.

1006
01:11:35,440 --> 01:11:39,000
So they blame the guys prior for their mistakes.

1007
01:11:39,000 --> 01:11:44,760
I got to fix this because, well, it was your policy, but okay, we'll go that way.

1008
01:11:44,760 --> 01:11:47,920
Perth example, the withdrawal of Afghanistan.

1009
01:11:47,920 --> 01:11:49,880
The Trump administration initiated the withdrawal.

1010
01:11:49,880 --> 01:11:51,920
They're the ones who negotiated with the Taliban.

1011
01:11:51,920 --> 01:11:56,240
They're the ones who released 5,000 of the Taliban from the Afghan prisons.

1012
01:11:56,240 --> 01:11:59,920
They're the ones who, you know, the Trump administration was the one that told them

1013
01:11:59,920 --> 01:12:03,600
scheduling exactly like what installations were going to be closed down so they could

1014
01:12:03,600 --> 01:12:05,440
totally occupy them and then move down south.

1015
01:12:05,440 --> 01:12:12,280
So by time, Biden, and don't get me wrong, Biden, you know, I mean, inequitably fucked

1016
01:12:12,280 --> 01:12:15,280
up that exfil like hands down.

1017
01:12:15,280 --> 01:12:16,280
I'm blaming both.

1018
01:12:16,280 --> 01:12:17,280
You know what I mean?

1019
01:12:17,280 --> 01:12:20,440
I'm, I, I, I meant for what makes sense in doing the right thing.

1020
01:12:20,440 --> 01:12:22,760
So regardless of your Democrat, if you're doing the wrong thing, guess what?

1021
01:12:22,760 --> 01:12:23,760
You're doing the wrong thing.

1022
01:12:23,760 --> 01:12:26,120
You're, you're screwing this up.

1023
01:12:26,120 --> 01:12:31,280
If you're Republican, you know, it's exact same standards, but people want to defend,

1024
01:12:31,280 --> 01:12:35,680
you know, and I find this, I don't know if that's the same in England, but what I find

1025
01:12:35,680 --> 01:12:43,720
is that when people's ideology becomes their identity, it becomes very dangerous because

1026
01:12:43,720 --> 01:12:46,780
it's no longer like their belief system or their opinions on things.

1027
01:12:46,780 --> 01:12:55,400
It's literally their personal, I should put this like a, a, you're attacking them personally,

1028
01:12:55,400 --> 01:12:58,200
not, not what they think about policy that you literally attack them.

1029
01:12:58,200 --> 01:13:02,560
And I think that's one of the biggest problems is, you know, that's very dangerous because

1030
01:13:02,560 --> 01:13:07,200
now they're attaching, you know, their, you know, their opinions on different things and

1031
01:13:07,200 --> 01:13:12,240
their beliefs on different things into a personal context.

1032
01:13:12,240 --> 01:13:14,440
And so they're literally feeling attacked personally.

1033
01:13:14,440 --> 01:13:18,880
That's why they're getting like so emotional and, and so involved into it.

1034
01:13:18,880 --> 01:13:22,480
But if you're able to kind of separate yourself from these, you know, different groups of

1035
01:13:22,480 --> 01:13:28,600
different identities, you know, you can see like, hey, this is beneficial for this group

1036
01:13:28,600 --> 01:13:29,600
only.

1037
01:13:29,600 --> 01:13:30,680
Why are we doing this?

1038
01:13:30,680 --> 01:13:33,320
You know, then this is, we could do so much better.

1039
01:13:33,320 --> 01:13:39,200
The amount of money on foreign aid, you know, and been doing this for years, you know, when

1040
01:13:39,200 --> 01:13:43,120
we have our own problems at home, why are we giving blank checks with no oversight to

1041
01:13:43,120 --> 01:13:44,120
these foreign countries?

1042
01:13:44,120 --> 01:13:45,880
We don't even know what they're doing with it.

1043
01:13:45,880 --> 01:13:48,560
You know, we could have solved the homelessness problems.

1044
01:13:48,560 --> 01:13:57,960
I think the Department of Agriculture, the housing, I forgot the name of it, was saying

1045
01:13:57,960 --> 01:14:02,200
20 billion to fix homelessness in the United States.

1046
01:14:02,200 --> 01:14:04,960
We've given that money away.

1047
01:14:04,960 --> 01:14:10,120
And I think this last year alone, you know, a year before that, a year before that, a

1048
01:14:10,120 --> 01:14:13,720
year before that, why are we taking care of our own people first?

1049
01:14:13,720 --> 01:14:20,920
You know, we have, you know, issue, 2% of the world's population, yet we hold 25% of

1050
01:14:20,920 --> 01:14:26,600
the, you know, the global imprisoned population here in the United States.

1051
01:14:26,600 --> 01:14:31,000
How come if we have that high of a rate, how come we're not the safest country in the world?

1052
01:14:31,000 --> 01:14:32,000
It doesn't make any sense.

1053
01:14:32,000 --> 01:14:35,200
So people don't even want to recognize that there's a problem.

1054
01:14:35,200 --> 01:14:38,040
There's accepting that is like, okay, that's okay, though.

1055
01:14:38,040 --> 01:14:39,040
That's all right.

1056
01:14:39,040 --> 01:14:40,040
We can do that.

1057
01:14:40,040 --> 01:14:41,040
But why?

1058
01:14:41,040 --> 01:14:42,040
Why are we accepting this?

1059
01:14:42,040 --> 01:14:44,960
Because people recognize that there's a problem that we need to fix.

1060
01:14:44,960 --> 01:14:48,680
And just like we kind of touched on earlier, it literally leads to where the money's coming

1061
01:14:48,680 --> 01:14:49,680
from.

1062
01:14:49,680 --> 01:14:51,160
Because someone's benefiting off it.

1063
01:14:51,160 --> 01:14:52,240
Someone's making money off it.

1064
01:14:52,240 --> 01:14:56,400
Someone's going to be making it rich off these decisions.

1065
01:14:56,400 --> 01:15:03,780
And it affects the public, but they hide that with, oh, well, you know, this will benefit

1066
01:15:03,780 --> 01:15:06,080
us in this way in the future later on.

1067
01:15:06,080 --> 01:15:08,640
But these, they're all empty.

1068
01:15:08,640 --> 01:15:16,920
These all the money that we are paying ourselves going to these large corporations that they're

1069
01:15:16,920 --> 01:15:19,520
going to feel the difference, not us.

1070
01:15:19,520 --> 01:15:21,280
So if you got shares, yeah, great.

1071
01:15:21,280 --> 01:15:22,920
You know, your stocks are going to go up.

1072
01:15:22,920 --> 01:15:26,680
But everyone else is going to suffer tremendously for it.

1073
01:15:26,680 --> 01:15:28,720
Well, you mentioned Somalia before.

1074
01:15:28,720 --> 01:15:34,400
I think one of the saddest things I've heard is I think it was the documentary Sea Spirit

1075
01:15:34,400 --> 01:15:35,400
Sea, I think.

1076
01:15:35,400 --> 01:15:38,400
And I'd heard this from many people and even people that have worked shorelines in, you

1077
01:15:38,400 --> 01:15:39,560
know, in our uniform.

1078
01:15:39,560 --> 01:15:43,960
But if you look at the origin story of the piracy in Somalia, that comes from the overfishing

1079
01:15:43,960 --> 01:15:44,960
of their wars.

1080
01:15:44,960 --> 01:15:48,920
You know, a lot of them were just fishermen and they were able to sustain themselves on

1081
01:15:48,920 --> 01:15:52,160
what they did for arguably thousands of years.

1082
01:15:52,160 --> 01:15:54,280
And then corporate greed comes in.

1083
01:15:54,280 --> 01:16:00,120
And I'm like, oh, it's not just a single reason, but this was a big, big amplifier.

1084
01:16:00,120 --> 01:16:04,380
And now you've turned what were fishermen into criminals at a desperation because they

1085
01:16:04,380 --> 01:16:08,120
want to feed and clothe their children.

1086
01:16:08,120 --> 01:16:09,120
But that's left out.

1087
01:16:09,120 --> 01:16:13,920
You see, I mean, that's just like you preface it, the conspiracy of this.

1088
01:16:13,920 --> 01:16:14,920
You see what I mean?

1089
01:16:14,920 --> 01:16:15,920
But it's not a conspiracy.

1090
01:16:15,920 --> 01:16:16,920
It's literally what's happening.

1091
01:16:16,920 --> 01:16:19,320
And it's part of the issue.

1092
01:16:19,320 --> 01:16:20,320
It needs to be addressed.

1093
01:16:20,320 --> 01:16:24,640
It needs to be brought up like, OK, well, it's not just a democracy, right?

1094
01:16:24,640 --> 01:16:27,720
In the car, we were trying to bring peace to the region.

1095
01:16:27,720 --> 01:16:33,600
OK, maybe let's say for all intents and purposes, that's part of it, right?

1096
01:16:33,600 --> 01:16:38,040
Well, now we got to bring up also, you know, people want to drill oil.

1097
01:16:38,040 --> 01:16:40,880
That's their interest in it.

1098
01:16:40,880 --> 01:16:46,200
The fishing, like you mentioned, all these things are not brought up to make the public

1099
01:16:46,200 --> 01:16:48,320
make an informed decision.

1100
01:16:48,320 --> 01:16:51,480
And I think that's one of the biggest travesties of this is that people aren't even making

1101
01:16:51,480 --> 01:16:54,600
informed decisions because they're not informed by the people.

1102
01:16:54,600 --> 01:16:56,320
It's kind of a biomission, right?

1103
01:16:56,320 --> 01:17:00,220
Like, yeah, there are the issues, but we're going to highlight just these that benefit

1104
01:17:00,220 --> 01:17:01,800
us and the reason why we're going in there.

1105
01:17:01,800 --> 01:17:06,800
And that's why we're actually taking your tax money and applying it to this.

1106
01:17:06,800 --> 01:17:10,840
And the whole thing of like, you know, we're going to see it at the pump, you know, and

1107
01:17:10,840 --> 01:17:11,840
that's going to benefit us.

1108
01:17:11,840 --> 01:17:17,880
I mean, have we seen anything in the last 20 years, you know, that has benefited us

1109
01:17:17,880 --> 01:17:20,920
other than prices skyrocketing up?

1110
01:17:20,920 --> 01:17:21,920
Nothing.

1111
01:17:21,920 --> 01:17:29,600
I mean, so there has been no benefit to especially the working class American, the person actually,

1112
01:17:29,600 --> 01:17:34,600
you know, the majority of the people that put in for the taxes, for the money to be

1113
01:17:34,600 --> 01:17:37,960
spent elsewhere for other people to make that decision.

1114
01:17:37,960 --> 01:17:43,520
I always find it hilarious when people blame Trump or Biden for the gas prices going on.

1115
01:17:43,520 --> 01:17:47,320
Like they've got some little like lever in the White House and they're like, bloop, bloop,

1116
01:17:47,320 --> 01:17:48,320
bloop, bloop.

1117
01:17:48,320 --> 01:17:49,320
Like, really?

1118
01:17:49,320 --> 01:17:52,360
There's only one companies or, you know, a collection of companies that control the oil

1119
01:17:52,360 --> 01:17:57,800
prices and they may be paying DC a lot of money, but they're the ones turning the knob.

1120
01:17:57,800 --> 01:18:01,320
They're the ones telling you that one day it's a dollar freaking more expensive than

1121
01:18:01,320 --> 01:18:04,020
it was two days ago.

1122
01:18:04,020 --> 01:18:06,280
And then the reasons they give, you know what I mean?

1123
01:18:06,280 --> 01:18:14,160
So any type of, you know, environmental disaster or any type of, you know, catastrophe or whoops,

1124
01:18:14,160 --> 01:18:16,960
are you there?

1125
01:18:16,960 --> 01:18:17,960
Okay.

1126
01:18:17,960 --> 01:18:21,240
Any type of, you know, disaster that happens, they're like, oh yeah, this is the reason

1127
01:18:21,240 --> 01:18:23,360
why we're bringing, you know, we have to raise the prices.

1128
01:18:23,360 --> 01:18:27,900
You know, Hurricane Katrina was one of the first ones that's, you know, initiated that.

1129
01:18:27,900 --> 01:18:28,900
The prices went up.

1130
01:18:28,900 --> 01:18:29,900
They never came back down.

1131
01:18:29,900 --> 01:18:35,480
I mean, they came back down, you know, a smidge, just a little bit.

1132
01:18:35,480 --> 01:18:39,120
But that was the reason for them to kind of get that step, you know, to kind of get going.

1133
01:18:39,120 --> 01:18:43,280
But, you know, diesel went up, even though that's, they were saying, oh, the refineries,

1134
01:18:43,280 --> 01:18:46,200
the refineries, you know, they got hit, they got damaged.

1135
01:18:46,200 --> 01:18:50,040
Well, they were saying that they didn't affect diesel.

1136
01:18:50,040 --> 01:18:52,040
So why did that go up?

1137
01:18:52,040 --> 01:18:53,040
You know what I mean?

1138
01:18:53,040 --> 01:18:58,160
But that was the majority of how all our products, you know, get shipped from coast to coast

1139
01:18:58,160 --> 01:19:05,680
is, you know, through, you know, the truckers using, you know, the diesel to transport.

1140
01:19:05,680 --> 01:19:13,000
So it's, again, it's one of those things where, yes, they bring up the partial truth, but

1141
01:19:13,000 --> 01:19:15,280
not the whole truth for the reason for it.

1142
01:19:15,280 --> 01:19:21,080
And, you know, what we saw, if you watch the congressional hearings is that the, you know,

1143
01:19:21,080 --> 01:19:28,320
66% was, you know, corporations were to blame, you know, for the increase in prices, you know.

1144
01:19:28,320 --> 01:19:31,400
But no one wants to, and I understand why no one would accept that.

1145
01:19:31,400 --> 01:19:38,600
A perfect example is what happened in the train disaster in Palestine, right?

1146
01:19:38,600 --> 01:19:47,680
You know, nobody understood that, you know, the $22 billion company that was responsible

1147
01:19:47,680 --> 01:19:52,520
for that disaster, you know, only put in like $2 million for like the cleanup.

1148
01:19:52,520 --> 01:19:56,120
And then they're shifting more money to, oh, blame the government, blame it.

1149
01:19:56,120 --> 01:19:57,120
Why?

1150
01:19:57,120 --> 01:19:58,120
I never understood that.

1151
01:19:58,120 --> 01:20:01,620
And again, this is, I hate defending Biden.

1152
01:20:01,620 --> 01:20:04,480
But at the same time, like, what did he have to do with that?

1153
01:20:04,480 --> 01:20:05,480
You know what I mean?

1154
01:20:05,480 --> 01:20:06,480
Why is that a government problem?

1155
01:20:06,480 --> 01:20:08,880
That was literally a private company that screwed up.

1156
01:20:08,880 --> 01:20:12,760
They should be paying out the ass to clean everything up within days.

1157
01:20:12,760 --> 01:20:16,080
Not weeks, not months, and not waiting for like FEMA to come in, not waiting for the

1158
01:20:16,080 --> 01:20:17,200
government to come in.

1159
01:20:17,200 --> 01:20:21,440
But they should be able to literally take responsibility for the things that you're

1160
01:20:21,440 --> 01:20:23,600
doing, you know.

1161
01:20:23,600 --> 01:20:25,240
You screwed that up.

1162
01:20:25,240 --> 01:20:26,240
Guess what?

1163
01:20:26,240 --> 01:20:27,240
Fix it.

1164
01:20:27,240 --> 01:20:32,320
You know, instead of in the, what people didn't realize is that, you know, because they're

1165
01:20:32,320 --> 01:20:38,840
much less stringent regulations, again, to make it cheaper so they can make more money,

1166
01:20:38,840 --> 01:20:46,400
you know, was causing, I think, a thousand, just over a thousand train wrecks, derailments

1167
01:20:46,400 --> 01:20:47,720
in a year alone.

1168
01:20:47,720 --> 01:20:49,400
But you didn't hear about that.

1169
01:20:49,400 --> 01:20:53,020
You just heard about this and how the government failed to respond.

1170
01:20:53,020 --> 01:20:54,800
It's not a government issue.

1171
01:20:54,800 --> 01:20:57,380
It's a private company that screwed up.

1172
01:20:57,380 --> 01:21:02,320
You know, if I wreck my car and I wreck it into a house, I'm going to blame the government?

1173
01:21:02,320 --> 01:21:03,920
Or am I to blame?

1174
01:21:03,920 --> 01:21:05,200
You know what I mean?

1175
01:21:05,200 --> 01:21:06,840
I have to pay for that.

1176
01:21:06,840 --> 01:21:11,520
But when it's corporations doing the exact same thing, now it's the government's fault,

1177
01:21:11,520 --> 01:21:12,520
not my fault.

1178
01:21:12,520 --> 01:21:15,240
So they should pay for it, which means we pay for it.

1179
01:21:15,240 --> 01:21:16,240
That's the problem.

1180
01:21:16,240 --> 01:21:18,840
What people don't realize is that once you start kind of building the government, you're

1181
01:21:18,840 --> 01:21:22,400
billing us, you know, the actual taxpayers.

1182
01:21:22,400 --> 01:21:24,400
So let them clean up their damn mess.

1183
01:21:24,400 --> 01:21:27,640
You know, that was the thing I was frustrated about like heavily.

1184
01:21:27,640 --> 01:21:28,800
Like they screwed that up.

1185
01:21:28,800 --> 01:21:30,760
It was an environmental disaster.

1186
01:21:30,760 --> 01:21:32,840
Make them pay for it.

1187
01:21:32,840 --> 01:21:35,200
It's like the Grenfell fire in London.

1188
01:21:35,200 --> 01:21:39,480
The whole reason why that happened was poor maintenance of the building.

1189
01:21:39,480 --> 01:21:45,320
And then they paid, from what I understand, that the Grenfell area is kind of buttoned

1190
01:21:45,320 --> 01:21:48,040
up against a very, very rich area of London.

1191
01:21:48,040 --> 01:21:50,600
And those residents didn't want the eyesore of this tower.

1192
01:21:50,600 --> 01:21:56,320
So they put this cladding over it, which basically was just a giant wall of fuel.

1193
01:21:56,320 --> 01:21:59,280
So this fire started, it ran all the way up.

1194
01:21:59,280 --> 01:22:01,720
The London Fire Brigade were incredibly heroic.

1195
01:22:01,720 --> 01:22:03,800
I mean, I had the chief at the time on the show.

1196
01:22:03,800 --> 01:22:06,240
I had one of the firefighters that made it all the way to the top.

1197
01:22:06,240 --> 01:22:09,520
So I know firsthand about what these people did.

1198
01:22:09,520 --> 01:22:13,380
And then they turned it around and through the fire department under the bus and said

1199
01:22:13,380 --> 01:22:14,760
it was their fault.

1200
01:22:14,760 --> 01:22:19,160
Not the people who hadn't maintained the building, which was the government in this case, or

1201
01:22:19,160 --> 01:22:24,680
the contractor that had put this deadly cladding on this building that took dozens and dozens

1202
01:22:24,680 --> 01:22:25,680
of lives.

1203
01:22:25,680 --> 01:22:29,920
So another perfect example, the people that actually are out there doing the right thing

1204
01:22:29,920 --> 01:22:35,920
made the scapegoat, whilst these shitbag politicians and corporations hide behind their wall of

1205
01:22:35,920 --> 01:22:36,920
lies.

1206
01:22:36,920 --> 01:22:37,920
Absolutely.

1207
01:22:37,920 --> 01:22:48,280
I mean, there's example after example of this, but again, what it was flooded, it's the initial

1208
01:22:48,280 --> 01:22:53,720
way, what you see most common around this is the initial reports on this has always

1209
01:22:53,720 --> 01:22:57,560
shifted to kind of muddy the waters.

1210
01:22:57,560 --> 01:23:03,360
And I think that's what's extremely dangerous because then you have this initial understanding

1211
01:23:03,360 --> 01:23:08,760
of what the situation is, but you only got about 15% of it.

1212
01:23:08,760 --> 01:23:09,860
You didn't get the actual...

1213
01:23:09,860 --> 01:23:19,000
And then later on, they might be saying, yeah, so-and-so took responsibility for it.

1214
01:23:19,000 --> 01:23:23,040
But the people that you say have a hundred people that heard the initial reports, you

1215
01:23:23,040 --> 01:23:25,540
only have like 10 people who heard that second one.

1216
01:23:25,540 --> 01:23:31,360
So you still have 90 people that are going around saying, oh, it's because of these guys,

1217
01:23:31,360 --> 01:23:33,760
because of these guys, because of these guys, and they'll maintain that.

1218
01:23:33,760 --> 01:23:37,920
And the longer it goes, the more they solidify in with their beliefs.

1219
01:23:37,920 --> 01:23:42,200
And now if anyone shows them otherwise, again, ideology comes to their identity, they don't

1220
01:23:42,200 --> 01:23:44,160
want to be wrong themselves.

1221
01:23:44,160 --> 01:23:49,240
So they're not going to change their mind like, no, no, no, it's because of this.

1222
01:23:49,240 --> 01:23:55,280
And it goes back to that saying that the problematic cycle that you're continually having.

1223
01:23:55,280 --> 01:23:56,680
Absolutely.

1224
01:23:56,680 --> 01:24:00,560
So I mentioned there were two parts to the combat question.

1225
01:24:00,560 --> 01:24:05,040
The other side that we also never really hear about is kindness and compassion on the battlefield.

1226
01:24:05,040 --> 01:24:09,720
And I think that a real disservice the media does is say that we're at war with Iraq, we're

1227
01:24:09,720 --> 01:24:10,720
at war with Afghanistan.

1228
01:24:10,720 --> 01:24:14,720
But the reality is there are extremists in those countries that are oppressing their

1229
01:24:14,720 --> 01:24:16,320
own people.

1230
01:24:16,320 --> 01:24:21,000
So I've heard some beautiful stories, whether it's from our men and women in uniform, whether

1231
01:24:21,000 --> 01:24:23,460
it's from the indigenous populations that you work with.

1232
01:24:23,460 --> 01:24:27,060
But what are some of the memories that kind of spring to mind when you think about kindness

1233
01:24:27,060 --> 01:24:29,720
and compassion during your time in Iraq?

1234
01:24:29,720 --> 01:24:37,200
I think one of the big things is, and I can't speak for the majority of people, I can speak

1235
01:24:37,200 --> 01:24:41,360
for the people that are on my team and in my company.

1236
01:24:41,360 --> 01:24:45,280
The one thing that I can always appreciate about the people that I worked with is that

1237
01:24:45,280 --> 01:24:52,480
they did have very, very clear lines.

1238
01:24:52,480 --> 01:25:02,360
Meaning if, like children off limits entirely, there is no...

1239
01:25:02,360 --> 01:25:06,440
I don't think I've ever met a group of people that were so adamant about that.

1240
01:25:06,440 --> 01:25:15,120
And it was a great thing because they weren't slaughtering everybody that was in front.

1241
01:25:15,120 --> 01:25:27,460
And for me to know that everybody was...it's difficult, especially in that type of environment

1242
01:25:27,460 --> 01:25:35,640
to make these quick calls, to make these life-changing decisions that could impact you.

1243
01:25:35,640 --> 01:25:44,280
Not just, of course, the people that you're fighting against or people caught in a crossfire,

1244
01:25:44,280 --> 01:25:49,680
but also what you're carrying back home with you.

1245
01:25:49,680 --> 01:25:59,880
And I've discussed this a lot with different people that one of the things that they...the

1246
01:25:59,880 --> 01:26:06,840
worst memories that could have happened, I talked to people saying that if they had made

1247
01:26:06,840 --> 01:26:15,120
decision A instead of B like they did, and they would have shot at this direction instead

1248
01:26:15,120 --> 01:26:20,680
of that one, and there was a child there, they couldn't be able to live with it.

1249
01:26:20,680 --> 01:26:29,360
So even as a lead of a unit that I had, everyone still had a very strict code of morals.

1250
01:26:29,360 --> 01:26:36,280
And I think that was one of the best things going in with these guys is that there was

1251
01:26:36,280 --> 01:26:43,680
no exception to that.

1252
01:26:43,680 --> 01:26:47,000
Everyone had a very strict code.

1253
01:26:47,000 --> 01:26:54,120
And to me, knowing that even in that as chaotic of as that environment can be, everyone still

1254
01:26:54,120 --> 01:27:00,320
maintained that.

1255
01:27:00,320 --> 01:27:06,360
And like a lot of the times the ICTF that we're working with, there were people that

1256
01:27:06,360 --> 01:27:07,880
are going after their families.

1257
01:27:07,880 --> 01:27:14,760
So we ended up bringing a lot of the ICTF onto area four, moving them all in so they

1258
01:27:14,760 --> 01:27:17,520
could be safe.

1259
01:27:17,520 --> 01:27:25,840
But to me, honestly, the most comforting thing that I could tell you is that there are...even

1260
01:27:25,840 --> 01:27:33,080
at that level, there's a strict moral code that is maintained.

1261
01:27:33,080 --> 01:27:40,320
And to me, knowing that, that made everything a lot better operating with these guys.

1262
01:27:40,320 --> 01:27:43,480
I'm jumping ahead now, but I think this is the perfect segue.

1263
01:27:43,480 --> 01:27:52,640
So October 7th, there was an attack on many, many innocent people in Israel.

1264
01:27:52,640 --> 01:27:57,760
And that in itself was a heinous incident for everyone involved that was an innocent

1265
01:27:57,760 --> 01:27:58,760
in that.

1266
01:27:58,760 --> 01:28:01,080
So I want to be very clear with that.

1267
01:28:01,080 --> 01:28:03,160
Then there was obviously a reaction to that.

1268
01:28:03,160 --> 01:28:06,840
And at first, I think most people were like, well, that was a horrific thing that happened.

1269
01:28:06,840 --> 01:28:12,080
No wonder that they're now reacting the same way as the US went to Afghanistan after what

1270
01:28:12,080 --> 01:28:13,760
happened to us.

1271
01:28:13,760 --> 01:28:20,400
But as the example I've used, it seems like you and I are in a street, I punch you in

1272
01:28:20,400 --> 01:28:24,200
the face and then people are like, oh, God, I just punched that guy.

1273
01:28:24,200 --> 01:28:27,020
And you punched me in the face and I'm like, good, he deserved it.

1274
01:28:27,020 --> 01:28:30,160
But then I go down and you start curb stomping me.

1275
01:28:30,160 --> 01:28:36,360
At a certain point, I go from the antagonist to the victim because there's a moral point

1276
01:28:36,360 --> 01:28:40,040
where it's over and above the reaction.

1277
01:28:40,040 --> 01:28:45,040
I started...as the weeks went by and I've got some dear Palestinian friends, some who

1278
01:28:45,040 --> 01:28:49,880
have done incredible relief work for years and years and years in Syria and all these

1279
01:28:49,880 --> 01:28:50,880
other places.

1280
01:28:50,880 --> 01:28:53,880
So they're just really good human beings.

1281
01:28:53,880 --> 01:28:57,280
And I start hearing the boots on the ground story again.

1282
01:28:57,280 --> 01:29:00,560
I'm all about the people that were there, the people that understand it, the people

1283
01:29:00,560 --> 01:29:01,880
that are from that background.

1284
01:29:01,880 --> 01:29:08,600
And I just had Dr. Thea Ahmad on the show who is a physician from Chicago, works in

1285
01:29:08,600 --> 01:29:10,000
the ER in the South side.

1286
01:29:10,000 --> 01:29:15,440
So already exposed to a lot of violence and desperation from an American lens, but he

1287
01:29:15,440 --> 01:29:19,040
and his team just came back from a medical mission there.

1288
01:29:19,040 --> 01:29:25,320
And so literally just five weeks from us having this conversation now was boots on the ground.

1289
01:29:25,320 --> 01:29:32,080
And the way he described what was going on was not a reaction, was not hunting the militia

1290
01:29:32,080 --> 01:29:38,400
that were responsible for the attack, but a systematic destruction block by block of

1291
01:29:38,400 --> 01:29:39,840
the Gaza Strip.

1292
01:29:39,840 --> 01:29:44,160
And then obviously the increased homelessness and starvation and desperation of a lot of

1293
01:29:44,160 --> 01:29:45,520
the Palestinian people.

1294
01:29:45,520 --> 01:29:50,560
And I think at this point we're either side of about 15,000 children killed.

1295
01:29:50,560 --> 01:29:57,080
So you made a very powerful statement at one of the hearings recently.

1296
01:29:57,080 --> 01:29:59,280
We've heard about your time in combat.

1297
01:29:59,280 --> 01:30:03,000
You wore the special forces uniform.

1298
01:30:03,000 --> 01:30:09,440
Talk to me about what has happened since October 7th or go prior if you need to through a warrior's

1299
01:30:09,440 --> 01:30:14,240
eyes.

1300
01:30:14,240 --> 01:30:22,720
So I don't think anyone can argue that what happened then was anything less than horrible.

1301
01:30:22,720 --> 01:30:27,000
I don't think anyone can disagree with that.

1302
01:30:27,000 --> 01:30:31,280
But if you take the context only from that timeframe, I think that's where a lot of people

1303
01:30:31,280 --> 01:30:37,520
are being misled.

1304
01:30:37,520 --> 01:30:39,680
Here's an example.

1305
01:30:39,680 --> 01:30:42,000
It started on August 21st.

1306
01:30:42,000 --> 01:30:49,320
A group of 30 rebels came up from a town, went in and literally massacred men, women,

1307
01:30:49,320 --> 01:30:50,320
and children.

1308
01:30:50,320 --> 01:30:56,560
The local law enforcement came in, they rounded them up, they captured all of them, they executed

1309
01:30:56,560 --> 01:30:57,560
all.

1310
01:30:57,560 --> 01:31:05,200
They went to that nearby town that they came from and killed about 200 of the conspirators.

1311
01:31:05,200 --> 01:31:11,920
After that, they changed all the laws to make it much more difficult to get to the police

1312
01:31:11,920 --> 01:31:16,520
and it was difficult for this rebel group to actually operate.

1313
01:31:16,520 --> 01:31:23,560
Take away the education, freedom of movement, a whole list of different legislative changes.

1314
01:31:23,560 --> 01:31:31,840
Now if you put that into context, well, that was actually a slave rebellion that was led

1315
01:31:31,840 --> 01:31:37,600
by Nat Turner, who was a very well-educated man and a very pious man, who felt that he

1316
01:31:37,600 --> 01:31:45,040
was actually on a mission from God to liberate the other slaves.

1317
01:31:45,040 --> 01:31:51,880
For like a century, that story's been circulating as the Nat Turner massacre, the Nat Turner

1318
01:31:51,880 --> 01:31:56,040
uprising.

1319
01:31:56,040 --> 01:31:57,960
That's all you heard was from August 21st.

1320
01:31:57,960 --> 01:32:03,320
No one's talking about the inhumane treatment that they had, the torture that they had endured

1321
01:32:03,320 --> 01:32:11,760
as slaves, the horrid living conditions, everything they had as slaves had to endure and that

1322
01:32:11,760 --> 01:32:16,200
caused that rebellion.

1323
01:32:16,200 --> 01:32:22,600
One thing that kept popping up on the newsfeed was unprovoked, unprovoked, unprovoked.

1324
01:32:22,600 --> 01:32:24,120
It started October 7th.

1325
01:32:24,120 --> 01:32:25,800
Everything was peaceful before that.

1326
01:32:25,800 --> 01:32:31,840
No one's keeping in mind the three-day air raid campaign that was happening two weeks

1327
01:32:31,840 --> 01:32:39,000
before October 7th, where the Israelis had a bombing campaign, an air raid.

1328
01:32:39,000 --> 01:32:48,160
No one's talking about between January 1st and October 1st of 2023, there was 230 Palestinians

1329
01:32:48,160 --> 01:32:51,720
that were killed by IOF and settlers.

1330
01:32:51,720 --> 01:32:53,680
No one's mentioning that.

1331
01:32:53,680 --> 01:32:55,240
That doesn't make the media.

1332
01:32:55,240 --> 01:32:57,840
The year before that, 240 Palestinians.

1333
01:32:57,840 --> 01:33:00,680
The year before that, 319.

1334
01:33:00,680 --> 01:33:04,400
That's in the last few years alone, they've had a lot more civilians killed than October

1335
01:33:04,400 --> 01:33:06,440
7th.

1336
01:33:06,440 --> 01:33:13,520
The IOF has killed more Palestinians than Hamas ever has since its inception.

1337
01:33:13,520 --> 01:33:16,240
I don't agree with Hamas as an organization.

1338
01:33:16,240 --> 01:33:21,720
Actually, after hearing the reading the Amnesty International reports of the things that they

1339
01:33:21,720 --> 01:33:27,920
were doing in 2014, cross-checking out with other nonprofits that, or excuse me, humanitarian

1340
01:33:27,920 --> 01:33:32,760
organizations, they all coincide with the same thing, the inhumane treatment that Hamas

1341
01:33:32,760 --> 01:33:34,680
was giving to their own people.

1342
01:33:34,680 --> 01:33:39,960
The way I envisioned it, Hamas is like a schoolyard bully.

1343
01:33:39,960 --> 01:33:42,420
You're paying that schoolyard bully to protect you, but at the same time, they're picking

1344
01:33:42,420 --> 01:33:43,720
on you.

1345
01:33:43,720 --> 01:33:49,880
When the other bully comes in, they're the ones that are fighting for you.

1346
01:33:49,880 --> 01:33:54,440
October 7th was a horrible tragedy that shouldn't have happened.

1347
01:33:54,440 --> 01:33:55,860
You want to get rid of a resistance.

1348
01:33:55,860 --> 01:33:58,800
You have to get rid of what they're resisting against.

1349
01:33:58,800 --> 01:34:00,640
We don't have slave uprisings anymore.

1350
01:34:00,640 --> 01:34:05,320
It's like the Nat Turner one, because there's no slavery anymore to resist against, to rebel

1351
01:34:05,320 --> 01:34:08,000
against.

1352
01:34:08,000 --> 01:34:14,440
If they weren't in these living conditions where they're constantly fearing for the lives,

1353
01:34:14,440 --> 01:34:24,120
being terrorized, constant humiliation and dehumanization from the IOF and the settlers,

1354
01:34:24,120 --> 01:34:35,200
displacing them, moving them out of their homes, that is any person, I can't say any,

1355
01:34:35,200 --> 01:34:40,960
a vast majority of people that would fight back.

1356
01:34:40,960 --> 01:34:43,840
The only thing that you're seeing is that moment that they're fighting back, like,

1357
01:34:43,840 --> 01:34:47,240
oh, look, see, this gives us a reason to do this.

1358
01:34:47,240 --> 01:34:48,440
It's not an army that they have.

1359
01:34:48,440 --> 01:34:56,840
It's literally small arms that they're fighting against in tanks and airplanes and a full

1360
01:34:56,840 --> 01:35:04,960
military, organized military that's backed by the United States, which is the global

1361
01:35:04,960 --> 01:35:08,800
superpower.

1362
01:35:08,800 --> 01:35:14,280
If you take away the reason for them to resist, well, you take away the reason for them to

1363
01:35:14,280 --> 01:35:20,040
have a rebellion, a rebel force.

1364
01:35:20,040 --> 01:35:23,400
There is nothing done to protect them.

1365
01:35:23,400 --> 01:35:26,840
I think it's horrible that it got to the point where they had to do that.

1366
01:35:26,840 --> 01:35:27,840
You see what I mean?

1367
01:35:27,840 --> 01:35:28,840
Because what else?

1368
01:35:28,840 --> 01:35:36,520
There was no justice for the 5,000 Palestinians that are being detained in the prison systems

1369
01:35:36,520 --> 01:35:40,080
that they have, men, women, and children.

1370
01:35:40,080 --> 01:35:45,960
When I say children, I'm as young as 12 years old that are being detained.

1371
01:35:45,960 --> 01:35:47,840
How is it that that is justified?

1372
01:35:47,840 --> 01:35:48,840
You know what I mean?

1373
01:35:48,840 --> 01:35:52,840
A lot of these confessions are in Hebrew, and they'll keep you in there until you sign

1374
01:35:52,840 --> 01:35:53,840
it.

1375
01:35:53,840 --> 01:35:57,080
Then once you sign it, you're on the terrorist watch list, so they have reasons for that.

1376
01:35:57,080 --> 01:36:00,600
Again, you want to get rid of Hamas.

1377
01:36:00,600 --> 01:36:03,000
You want to get rid of whatever's going to come up.

1378
01:36:03,000 --> 01:36:04,840
I don't agree with Hamas as an organization.

1379
01:36:04,840 --> 01:36:10,840
I do agree with, and I think anybody that would defend their home and their family would

1380
01:36:10,840 --> 01:36:15,760
agree with the idea of resistance.

1381
01:36:15,760 --> 01:36:17,160
We've seen this all throughout history.

1382
01:36:17,160 --> 01:36:20,560
It's just going to change names.

1383
01:36:20,560 --> 01:36:22,640
Get rid of Hamas entirely.

1384
01:36:22,640 --> 01:36:28,440
If the illegal settlements continue on and displacing keeps going on, you're going to

1385
01:36:28,440 --> 01:36:30,520
have another group that's going to rise after that.

1386
01:36:30,520 --> 01:36:38,040
There's going to be a constant cyclical of violence that's going to continue on.

1387
01:36:38,040 --> 01:36:41,280
You have to get rid of what's the cause of that.

1388
01:36:41,280 --> 01:36:47,600
Again, what's happened on in Gaza right now is literally, it's like shooting fish in a

1389
01:36:47,600 --> 01:36:48,600
barrel.

1390
01:36:48,600 --> 01:36:58,600
They're confined to this 25 by 5, enclosed with autonomous weapons on the walls.

1391
01:36:58,600 --> 01:37:03,840
They keep saying, oh, we dropped flyers.

1392
01:37:03,840 --> 01:37:05,400
Where are they going to go?

1393
01:37:05,400 --> 01:37:08,400
They literally have nowhere to go, so they're bombing in the north.

1394
01:37:08,400 --> 01:37:11,880
Then, oh, it's less dangerous if you go down here, and they bomb in the past when they

1395
01:37:11,880 --> 01:37:15,160
go in the south.

1396
01:37:15,160 --> 01:37:20,240
The proportionality is just insane.

1397
01:37:20,240 --> 01:37:25,440
All that can be debated, but there's certain things like, for example, the flour massacre,

1398
01:37:25,440 --> 01:37:26,760
using food to bake people in.

1399
01:37:26,760 --> 01:37:28,760
Then, oh, it was a stampede.

1400
01:37:28,760 --> 01:37:30,800
How did it start the stampede?

1401
01:37:30,800 --> 01:37:32,500
They came at us threatening.

1402
01:37:32,500 --> 01:37:34,740
You were threatened in a tank?

1403
01:37:34,740 --> 01:37:37,000
They're starving people trying to get to the food.

1404
01:37:37,000 --> 01:37:38,760
How was that even possible that you felt threatened?

1405
01:37:38,760 --> 01:37:41,440
Then we fired weapons into the air.

1406
01:37:41,440 --> 01:37:42,600
Then they changed the story again.

1407
01:37:42,600 --> 01:37:44,480
Oh, we fired at their legs.

1408
01:37:44,480 --> 01:37:52,960
Well, all the gunshot wounds they found were in the chest, shoulder, and head area.

1409
01:37:52,960 --> 01:37:57,360
Using food as bait for starving people and then using it as an opportunity to eliminate

1410
01:37:57,360 --> 01:38:00,320
more, to me, it's deplorable.

1411
01:38:00,320 --> 01:38:01,800
There is no excuse for that.

1412
01:38:01,800 --> 01:38:08,360
Hinrajad, who was stuck in that, trapped in that car, the five-year-old child that literally

1413
01:38:08,360 --> 01:38:12,840
was on the phone begging for someone to help her.

1414
01:38:12,840 --> 01:38:17,520
You had the two red Crescent workers, and they were both killed trying to help her.

1415
01:38:17,520 --> 01:38:22,740
Using that child as bait as they're coming in to try to help them, and it's target practice

1416
01:38:22,740 --> 01:38:28,480
for them.

1417
01:38:28,480 --> 01:38:32,240
I don't understand how it can be the defense for that.

1418
01:38:32,240 --> 01:38:33,800
I don't get it.

1419
01:38:33,800 --> 01:38:36,080
It doesn't make sense to me.

1420
01:38:36,080 --> 01:38:41,480
I mentioned earlier about the media touring an entire nation with the same brush, Afghanistan,

1421
01:38:41,480 --> 01:38:42,480
Iraq.

1422
01:38:42,480 --> 01:38:47,600
I felt the same was the case with Russia, with the Ukraine invasion.

1423
01:38:47,600 --> 01:38:52,400
I failed to believe that most Russians were waking up every morning going, we really need

1424
01:38:52,400 --> 01:38:54,160
to invade Ukraine today.

1425
01:38:54,160 --> 01:38:58,480
They were too busy teaching, building, whatever it was that they do, and making sure that

1426
01:38:58,480 --> 01:39:02,320
their kids had food in their stomach and the roof over their head.

1427
01:39:02,320 --> 01:39:05,240
What is your perspective of Israel as a whole?

1428
01:39:05,240 --> 01:39:11,820
They talked about before he went to Gaza, he was in Jerusalem, and he saw Jews and Muslims

1429
01:39:11,820 --> 01:39:14,640
and Christians all worshiping side by side.

1430
01:39:14,640 --> 01:39:17,000
He was like, we can do this.

1431
01:39:17,000 --> 01:39:23,200
I can't help but feel like it's being projected that all Israelis are behind this initiative.

1432
01:39:23,200 --> 01:39:29,120
But I would argue that knowing what was actually going on, that a lot of Israelis are not behind

1433
01:39:29,120 --> 01:39:30,600
this at all.

1434
01:39:30,600 --> 01:39:36,480
Yes, they have this ongoing thing with Hamas, and as you said, that has history.

1435
01:39:36,480 --> 01:39:42,160
But back to the punch-up analogy again, I'm sure a lot of them are like, you can't be

1436
01:39:42,160 --> 01:39:44,440
doing this under our flag.

1437
01:39:44,440 --> 01:39:52,680
Have you heard voices from the Israeli side as far as in defense of the Palestinian people,

1438
01:39:52,680 --> 01:39:57,160
the innocents that are not just caught up anymore, that are being pursued?

1439
01:39:57,160 --> 01:39:58,800
Absolutely.

1440
01:39:58,800 --> 01:40:05,800
I've heard Israelis speak up, as in Israeli citizens that aren't even religious.

1441
01:40:05,800 --> 01:40:10,080
I've actually talked to rabbis that showed up to the protest and saying, this is definitely

1442
01:40:10,080 --> 01:40:13,080
not a Jew thing.

1443
01:40:13,080 --> 01:40:21,360
I actually don't agree with labeling it in a religious way whatsoever, because it has

1444
01:40:21,360 --> 01:40:23,840
nothing to do with it.

1445
01:40:23,840 --> 01:40:32,720
Israel being a secular democratic state, again, I think one of the big things to keep in mind

1446
01:40:32,720 --> 01:40:41,160
is when people are criticizing the state of Israel, it has nothing to do with Judaism.

1447
01:40:41,160 --> 01:40:44,200
They're criticizing the government just like if I criticize the US government just because

1448
01:40:44,200 --> 01:40:47,920
the majority of the population is Christian, it doesn't mean I'm saying anything negative

1449
01:40:47,920 --> 01:40:48,920
about the Christians.

1450
01:40:48,920 --> 01:40:50,920
People don't understand that correlation.

1451
01:40:50,920 --> 01:40:56,840
Yes, the majority of people that are residing in Israel are Jews, but they have Muslims,

1452
01:40:56,840 --> 01:40:57,840
they have Christians.

1453
01:40:57,840 --> 01:41:01,720
They do live in harmony together.

1454
01:41:01,720 --> 01:41:05,760
They were actually for centuries living together in harmony and peace, relative harmony and

1455
01:41:05,760 --> 01:41:09,920
peace at least, for them to be able to coincide together.

1456
01:41:09,920 --> 01:41:13,360
That is, yes, I 100% agree that is possible.

1457
01:41:13,360 --> 01:41:19,880
Again, I think you want Hisbalon not to exist, then stop moving north with the settlements

1458
01:41:19,880 --> 01:41:25,800
and the military outpost into southern Lebanon.

1459
01:41:25,800 --> 01:41:26,880
You can't ignore this.

1460
01:41:26,880 --> 01:41:29,200
You absolutely cannot ignore.

1461
01:41:29,200 --> 01:41:35,340
This has been brought up by the UN year after year about these illegal settlements.

1462
01:41:35,340 --> 01:41:36,340
They are illegal settlements.

1463
01:41:36,340 --> 01:41:38,960
They're displacing people by taking over their home.

1464
01:41:38,960 --> 01:41:42,400
Then when people are defending themselves, defending their home, defending their family,

1465
01:41:42,400 --> 01:41:44,280
this is where people are not seeing that.

1466
01:41:44,280 --> 01:41:48,240
They're seeing as they were the first aggressors.

1467
01:41:48,240 --> 01:41:51,280
They're shooting back at us and we just ended up taking that over.

1468
01:41:51,280 --> 01:41:58,000
It was a military conquest, so they take over that area and then more.

1469
01:41:58,000 --> 01:42:02,280
The context you have to understand is the cause for the effect.

1470
01:42:02,280 --> 01:42:07,920
Nobody heard about the air raids that happened in September.

1471
01:42:07,920 --> 01:42:12,240
No one heard about the illegal settlements that were killing the Palestinians for the

1472
01:42:12,240 --> 01:42:13,960
rest of 2023.

1473
01:42:13,960 --> 01:42:22,880
Nobody heard about the 38 weeks of protests in Israel to get Netanyahu out.

1474
01:42:22,880 --> 01:42:29,220
I think there was like a 400,000 person protest that was literally like a couple of weeks

1475
01:42:29,220 --> 01:42:30,220
before October 7th.

1476
01:42:30,220 --> 01:42:37,680
There was supposed to be another one coming up because Netanyahu was trying to eliminate

1477
01:42:37,680 --> 01:42:43,840
the Supreme Court, the ability for them to... He could actually be soul empowered.

1478
01:42:43,840 --> 01:42:48,840
For corruption, for all these different charges, they own people.

1479
01:42:48,840 --> 01:42:55,960
Time of war, it's redirecting everything to the Hamas, Hamas, Hamas.

1480
01:42:55,960 --> 01:43:00,840
That's our number one problem, not necessarily me, diverting everything to the attention

1481
01:43:00,840 --> 01:43:01,960
of that.

1482
01:43:01,960 --> 01:43:03,600
People are waking up to that now too.

1483
01:43:03,600 --> 01:43:09,920
There's been protests in Israel I think every single week and a lot of it is against Netanyahu,

1484
01:43:09,920 --> 01:43:14,840
not just as for him being a leader in government, but to get the hostages back, to make the

1485
01:43:14,840 --> 01:43:21,280
negotiations for that and to actually try to get the hostages back instead of... Because

1486
01:43:21,280 --> 01:43:23,600
if they knew where they were at, they should have gone and got them.

1487
01:43:23,600 --> 01:43:26,880
If they don't know where they're at, why are they doing a bombing campaign where they could

1488
01:43:26,880 --> 01:43:28,800
be killing their own hostages?

1489
01:43:28,800 --> 01:43:33,140
To me, it never has been about the hostages and there has been anything else other than

1490
01:43:33,140 --> 01:43:36,920
land resources and profit.

1491
01:43:36,920 --> 01:43:49,520
The natural gases that they found off the shore of Gaza, the Ben Gamor canal that they

1492
01:43:49,520 --> 01:43:54,880
wanted to build through there, the other resources that they found within Gaza.

1493
01:43:54,880 --> 01:44:00,200
There's a lot of different reasons why they could benefit from taking over it.

1494
01:44:00,200 --> 01:44:06,520
Not only that, but this is already out there that they're already doing real estate sales

1495
01:44:06,520 --> 01:44:11,480
for West Bank and for Gaza.

1496
01:44:11,480 --> 01:44:15,480
Let's wake up to the reality that there's already been settlers that try to move into

1497
01:44:15,480 --> 01:44:16,480
Gaza.

1498
01:44:16,480 --> 01:44:19,640
They were trying to make a makeshift once.

1499
01:44:19,640 --> 01:44:24,880
They made it I think 500 meters into Gaza and started trying to set up things.

1500
01:44:24,880 --> 01:44:28,440
They were pulled back, but nevertheless, that's how fast they're trying.

1501
01:44:28,440 --> 01:44:33,080
There's still conflict going on and they're already trying to build settlements.

1502
01:44:33,080 --> 01:44:37,960
This is the thing where I feel in order to get a good understanding about the situations

1503
01:44:37,960 --> 01:44:40,320
going on, you have to understand the cause for the effect.

1504
01:44:40,320 --> 01:44:48,240
You have to understand why people are wanting to do this, why they've been pushed to such

1505
01:44:48,240 --> 01:44:50,240
an extreme level.

1506
01:44:50,240 --> 01:44:57,560
When you have the 5,000, again, hostage exchange, they're considering them hostages.

1507
01:44:57,560 --> 01:45:00,920
What other means do they have?

1508
01:45:00,920 --> 01:45:02,520
Diplomacy isn't working.

1509
01:45:02,520 --> 01:45:06,360
The UN has already called them illegal settlements, but who's going to stand up?

1510
01:45:06,360 --> 01:45:07,360
Who's going to bring them justice?

1511
01:45:07,360 --> 01:45:08,800
Who's going to bring them home back?

1512
01:45:08,800 --> 01:45:12,200
Who's going to stop them from being displaced?

1513
01:45:12,200 --> 01:45:13,660
Nobody is helping them out.

1514
01:45:13,660 --> 01:45:17,440
What else do they have left to do?

1515
01:45:17,440 --> 01:45:22,400
The last resort is resistance of some sort.

1516
01:45:22,400 --> 01:45:28,440
This constant cycle is going to continue unless you have an end to the resistance, meaning

1517
01:45:28,440 --> 01:45:33,200
that you give them the human dignity that they deserve.

1518
01:45:33,200 --> 01:45:34,680
Treat them as human beings.

1519
01:45:34,680 --> 01:45:36,240
Give them the rights, the freedom of movement.

1520
01:45:36,240 --> 01:45:44,480
Give them the rights to their economy, to their food, to water, to allow them to go

1521
01:45:44,480 --> 01:45:49,720
fishing past the 150 meters from their shorelines.

1522
01:45:49,720 --> 01:45:53,280
Don't limit that.

1523
01:45:53,280 --> 01:45:55,240
They banned foods from going into Gaza.

1524
01:45:55,240 --> 01:46:01,200
Like you buy basic necessities in there, they just ban them here and left and right.

1525
01:46:01,200 --> 01:46:02,200
The multiple checkpoints.

1526
01:46:02,200 --> 01:46:06,720
It takes an average of three, four hours for them to actually get out the security checkpoints

1527
01:46:06,720 --> 01:46:09,720
so they can go to work for a few hours and come back.

1528
01:46:09,720 --> 01:46:15,000
All these different things that could be done to eliminate the need for resistance need

1529
01:46:15,000 --> 01:46:20,760
to be done in order to have some type of security on both sides.

1530
01:46:20,760 --> 01:46:28,760
I don't think that can happen unless whatever has happened to instigate this is eliminated.

1531
01:46:28,760 --> 01:46:34,580
When I see this, it reminds me of something that I've talked about for several years now.

1532
01:46:34,580 --> 01:46:42,400
When you look at most issues in the world, it's initiated by very few and it might drag

1533
01:46:42,400 --> 01:46:43,680
a lot of us into it.

1534
01:46:43,680 --> 01:46:45,760
The perfect example is slavery.

1535
01:46:45,760 --> 01:46:52,040
If you look at the height of slavery at Britain's history, when British slave traders and obviously

1536
01:46:52,040 --> 01:46:56,400
very wealthy members of that country were making money hand over fist, we were at one

1537
01:46:56,400 --> 01:47:00,200
of our most poor times in our entire history.

1538
01:47:00,200 --> 01:47:04,560
This is, I think, a big thing is that when something is done under a flag, there's an

1539
01:47:04,560 --> 01:47:07,280
assumption that the whole country is in on it.

1540
01:47:07,280 --> 01:47:09,240
The whole country is behind it.

1541
01:47:09,240 --> 01:47:15,040
I tell you right now, most agricultural workers in Wiltshire where I grew up had no idea what

1542
01:47:15,040 --> 01:47:18,080
was happening on the shores of Africa.

1543
01:47:18,080 --> 01:47:21,440
Maybe in Bristol, they saw a lot of ships coming back with tobacco, but they weren't

1544
01:47:21,440 --> 01:47:24,860
thinking that it was humans that they traded for it.

1545
01:47:24,860 --> 01:47:26,480
This is what's so sad.

1546
01:47:26,480 --> 01:47:33,600
I forget the Israeli leader, but Yasser Arafat and him, I think, almost came to a peace deal.

1547
01:47:33,600 --> 01:47:39,720
Then miraculously, he's assassinated, as was JFK, as was Martin Luther King, as was so

1548
01:47:39,720 --> 01:47:43,360
many peacekeepers that almost brought people together.

1549
01:47:43,360 --> 01:47:49,760
Then some force that no one seems to know who, all of a sudden snuffs them out and continues

1550
01:47:49,760 --> 01:47:52,160
a cycle of hate and war.

1551
01:47:52,160 --> 01:47:56,600
Ultimately, it's not about, like you said, religion or any of these things that people

1552
01:47:56,600 --> 01:47:57,720
hide behind.

1553
01:47:57,720 --> 01:48:01,720
It's about power and money every single time.

1554
01:48:01,720 --> 01:48:08,280
Yeah, I could agree more.

1555
01:48:08,280 --> 01:48:11,480
I agree 100%.

1556
01:48:11,480 --> 01:48:16,080
Yitzet Rabin was the one who did the guitar by the Oslo Accords.

1557
01:48:16,080 --> 01:48:17,080
I believe so.

1558
01:48:17,080 --> 01:48:18,440
I'm not super educated on that.

1559
01:48:18,440 --> 01:48:21,320
I do remember it as a young boy.

1560
01:48:21,320 --> 01:48:23,840
So Yitzet Rabin was actually killed.

1561
01:48:23,840 --> 01:48:33,080
I think it was Nyat Nyatla took over after that, then Perez after that, and then Sharon,

1562
01:48:33,080 --> 01:48:34,080
I believe.

1563
01:48:34,080 --> 01:48:42,280
So it was, but once Yitzet Rabin, they actually made a huge amount of progress into that.

1564
01:48:42,280 --> 01:48:48,720
That was in my understanding of this, and again, I don't have a PhD in this, but that

1565
01:48:48,720 --> 01:48:49,720
would have worked.

1566
01:48:49,720 --> 01:48:54,720
I honestly think because one of the statements that Yitzet Rabin actually made was we need

1567
01:48:54,720 --> 01:48:57,360
to give them their autonomy, their...

1568
01:48:57,360 --> 01:49:03,680
I forgot the word that he used.

1569
01:49:03,680 --> 01:49:12,040
Basically give them the respect, excuse me, give them their land out of respect, not out

1570
01:49:12,040 --> 01:49:14,240
of fear.

1571
01:49:14,240 --> 01:49:18,640
And honestly, I think that was one of the big reasons why.

1572
01:49:18,640 --> 01:49:23,120
And then during the negotiations, but that's a perfect example.

1573
01:49:23,120 --> 01:49:28,320
So one of the things that you heard about was the Tel Aviv bombings, but the Tel Aviv

1574
01:49:28,320 --> 01:49:32,080
bombings happened after, what's his name?

1575
01:49:32,080 --> 01:49:39,000
Benjamin Goldstein went into the mosque and fired on, I think he killed like 24 Muslims

1576
01:49:39,000 --> 01:49:44,200
that were praying, injured another like 60 or 70, but you didn't hear about that.

1577
01:49:44,200 --> 01:49:48,500
You heard about the Tel Aviv, the bus bombings.

1578
01:49:48,500 --> 01:49:52,120
So again, you have a piece that...

1579
01:49:52,120 --> 01:49:54,080
And don't get me wrong.

1580
01:49:54,080 --> 01:50:01,340
One thing I can give credit to Yitzar Al-Affat and Yitzet Rabin at the time is they both

1581
01:50:01,340 --> 01:50:08,460
took stringent measures against those factions, the Tel Aviv bombings and Goldstein.

1582
01:50:08,460 --> 01:50:11,720
And so they had a working understanding that we need to make this work, and there's people

1583
01:50:11,720 --> 01:50:14,840
that don't want this to work, but we have to make this work.

1584
01:50:14,840 --> 01:50:22,400
And so they both took the precautionary measures to make sure that these people got punished.

1585
01:50:22,400 --> 01:50:30,960
And it was one of those, just like you were saying, is once you actually have an organization

1586
01:50:30,960 --> 01:50:39,760
that doesn't agree with it, just like you mentioned, there's a very common theme that

1587
01:50:39,760 --> 01:50:43,360
if you get to like a certain point and it's going to change and it's going to make these

1588
01:50:43,360 --> 01:50:46,320
drastic changes, they get eliminated.

1589
01:50:46,320 --> 01:50:49,280
And just like you mentioned, it happens throughout history, so it's not the first time we've

1590
01:50:49,280 --> 01:50:50,280
heard about this.

1591
01:50:50,280 --> 01:50:51,280
Yeah.

1592
01:50:51,280 --> 01:50:53,400
And we have our own versions of those.

1593
01:50:53,400 --> 01:50:57,240
I mean, for example, it's really sad in the fire service, the Charleston Nine is one of

1594
01:50:57,240 --> 01:51:00,120
our biggest line of duty deaths, but there's two Charleston Nines.

1595
01:51:00,120 --> 01:51:04,600
The other one is a black church where a shooter went in and killed a bunch of African American

1596
01:51:04,600 --> 01:51:05,600
people.

1597
01:51:05,600 --> 01:51:08,920
We have the shootings in New Zealand by that Australian psychopath.

1598
01:51:08,920 --> 01:51:13,920
I mean, we in our own countries have examples of this kind of domestic terrorism, but we

1599
01:51:13,920 --> 01:51:17,360
don't then go and annihilate whoever was behind it.

1600
01:51:17,360 --> 01:51:18,360
You know what I mean?

1601
01:51:18,360 --> 01:51:20,120
Again, because these are individuals.

1602
01:51:20,120 --> 01:51:23,680
And a really sad example I grew up around was in a Northern Ireland.

1603
01:51:23,680 --> 01:51:28,960
And again, the backstory of that, I disagree with vehemently.

1604
01:51:28,960 --> 01:51:31,800
I mean, we're two rocks in the middle of the ocean.

1605
01:51:31,800 --> 01:51:35,400
And if we want to call ourselves four different countries, beautiful, but we're all the same

1606
01:51:35,400 --> 01:51:36,400
people.

1607
01:51:36,400 --> 01:51:40,240
I mean, I've had people from Belfast on the show that grew up around in the troubles.

1608
01:51:40,240 --> 01:51:45,560
I've had SAS and military members that were sent to Northern Ireland during that time.

1609
01:51:45,560 --> 01:51:49,440
And the real, from the military perspective, what haunted them is they were like, these

1610
01:51:49,440 --> 01:51:50,840
are our own people.

1611
01:51:50,840 --> 01:51:52,520
This doesn't feel right.

1612
01:51:52,520 --> 01:51:53,520
We're not in Vietnam.

1613
01:51:53,520 --> 01:51:55,760
We're not in the Falkland Islands.

1614
01:51:55,760 --> 01:51:57,400
We're in Northern Ireland.

1615
01:51:57,400 --> 01:52:00,280
So these are literally our own men, women, and children.

1616
01:52:00,280 --> 01:52:02,280
So what was behind that?

1617
01:52:02,280 --> 01:52:05,560
Was it English people going, oh, we hate the Irish?

1618
01:52:05,560 --> 01:52:07,000
Of course it wasn't.

1619
01:52:07,000 --> 01:52:09,640
It was money, power, and greed.

1620
01:52:09,640 --> 01:52:13,920
The potato famine and all these horrific things that some of my forefathers did in certain

1621
01:52:13,920 --> 01:52:16,360
positions that caused these troubles.

1622
01:52:16,360 --> 01:52:21,320
And so if you're not willing to go to the origin story and have the humility to say,

1623
01:52:21,320 --> 01:52:22,320
you know what?

1624
01:52:22,320 --> 01:52:23,480
What we did was wrong.

1625
01:52:23,480 --> 01:52:26,040
But let's start today making it right.

1626
01:52:26,040 --> 01:52:29,800
Whether it's Somalia or, God forbid, Haiti at the moment, that poor country, one of the

1627
01:52:29,800 --> 01:52:34,480
most beautiful islands I've ever seen in my life just being devastated.

1628
01:52:34,480 --> 01:52:38,840
Ten miles from the Florida coast, so we could do so much good there.

1629
01:52:38,840 --> 01:52:45,080
We have to take ownership of the mistakes that we've made, but also understand that,

1630
01:52:45,080 --> 01:52:49,720
for example, slavery, no, not every white person owes a black person an apology.

1631
01:52:49,720 --> 01:52:55,580
There was a lot of things that were done that only a few people fucking benefit from.

1632
01:52:55,580 --> 01:52:59,680
We get over that shit too and just start moving forward and doing what's right.

1633
01:52:59,680 --> 01:53:02,760
And this whole thing with Gaza is like, what's wrong and what's right?

1634
01:53:02,760 --> 01:53:06,780
And as we sit here in 2024, it's wrong.

1635
01:53:06,780 --> 01:53:09,160
You cannot fucking argue it is wrong now.

1636
01:53:09,160 --> 01:53:13,480
So we have to stand up and push back against this and get behind the people who are being

1637
01:53:13,480 --> 01:53:14,480
oppressed.

1638
01:53:14,480 --> 01:53:19,080
It doesn't mean that you're against all Israelis or all Jews, but what is happening in that

1639
01:53:19,080 --> 01:53:21,760
one area is fucking wrong.

1640
01:53:21,760 --> 01:53:24,760
I, 100%.

1641
01:53:24,760 --> 01:53:38,440
And the proportionality of it is, I've never seen, even heard of anything resembling that.

1642
01:53:38,440 --> 01:53:43,240
And the excuses that are constantly made, yeah, but there was, we killed 100 civilians,

1643
01:53:43,240 --> 01:53:48,520
but there was one Hamas guy there that you'll never be able to confirm because you bombed

1644
01:53:48,520 --> 01:53:50,720
it.

1645
01:53:50,720 --> 01:53:59,600
The, again, you see the indiscriminate shootings like the three hostages, that gives you a

1646
01:53:59,600 --> 01:54:05,200
very clear indication that they are indiscriminate about what they're doing.

1647
01:54:05,200 --> 01:54:15,760
They had no shirts on, wearing white flags, speaking in Hebrew and they still got shot

1648
01:54:15,760 --> 01:54:18,760
and killed.

1649
01:54:18,760 --> 01:54:23,640
The, another thing that's happening, a lot of people are ignoring is that this has been

1650
01:54:23,640 --> 01:54:26,320
one of the most deadliest years for the West Bank.

1651
01:54:26,320 --> 01:54:32,320
So there've been over 500, I think, the Palestinians that were killed in the West Bank from illegal

1652
01:54:32,320 --> 01:54:41,960
sediments and IOWF soldiers in just the last year and some change, year and a half.

1653
01:54:41,960 --> 01:54:46,300
But since October 7th, there've been like, I think 200 and something.

1654
01:54:46,300 --> 01:54:51,600
So almost half of the Palestinians, civilians that have been killed in the West Bank have

1655
01:54:51,600 --> 01:54:54,600
happened since October 7th.

1656
01:54:54,600 --> 01:54:55,840
But no one's hearing about that.

1657
01:54:55,840 --> 01:54:56,840
You see what I mean?

1658
01:54:56,840 --> 01:54:59,920
Everyone's just hyper-focused on Gaza and everything's happening in West Bank.

1659
01:54:59,920 --> 01:55:01,660
They think it's a different country.

1660
01:55:01,660 --> 01:55:02,660
It's a different situation.

1661
01:55:02,660 --> 01:55:05,160
It's something, no, it's the same people.

1662
01:55:05,160 --> 01:55:06,280
They've just been separated.

1663
01:55:06,280 --> 01:55:10,540
They can't connect because Gaza's down here and West Bank's up here.

1664
01:55:10,540 --> 01:55:12,560
But it's the same people.

1665
01:55:12,560 --> 01:55:18,040
It's the same reasoning why they're actually going in there, again, is to displace and

1666
01:55:18,040 --> 01:55:23,200
take their land and build the sediments on there and expand their country.

1667
01:55:23,200 --> 01:55:27,360
This is something that if you look at the maps, it gets smaller and smaller and smaller

1668
01:55:27,360 --> 01:55:29,000
and smaller and everyone says, well, it's because of war.

1669
01:55:29,000 --> 01:55:30,200
Now it's because of the resistance.

1670
01:55:30,200 --> 01:55:33,320
They get toppled over and then they're like, oh, it's war.

1671
01:55:33,320 --> 01:55:34,320
So be it.

1672
01:55:34,320 --> 01:55:35,320
We conquered.

1673
01:55:35,320 --> 01:55:40,560
The spoils go to the victor.

1674
01:55:40,560 --> 01:55:41,560
It's not like that.

1675
01:55:41,560 --> 01:55:46,600
It's literally someone defending their home, them resisting by defending the home and then

1676
01:55:46,600 --> 01:55:52,440
the military coming in and just toppling over them and using their resistance, their defense

1677
01:55:52,440 --> 01:55:59,000
as a justification to eliminate them and to, in the public eye, saying we were just for

1678
01:55:59,000 --> 01:56:00,360
doing so.

1679
01:56:00,360 --> 01:56:02,080
But they never show the cause for the effect.

1680
01:56:02,080 --> 01:56:06,440
They only show the after effects on that.

1681
01:56:06,440 --> 01:56:08,840
What about through the American media?

1682
01:56:08,840 --> 01:56:15,320
Again, I talk about Fox and CNN, same exact shitty blueprint.

1683
01:56:15,320 --> 01:56:17,480
Just one wears a blue tie, one wears a red one.

1684
01:56:17,480 --> 01:56:20,440
They talk about each other's presidents.

1685
01:56:20,440 --> 01:56:23,680
But you see Hamas led whatever.

1686
01:56:23,680 --> 01:56:24,680
I just saw it.

1687
01:56:24,680 --> 01:56:25,680
I think it was ABC or CNN.

1688
01:56:25,680 --> 01:56:26,680
I forget now.

1689
01:56:26,680 --> 01:56:29,700
But the Hamas led and it was totally irrelevant.

1690
01:56:29,700 --> 01:56:32,280
Whatever the sentence came after, I forget.

1691
01:56:32,280 --> 01:56:38,280
So there's obviously a lot of propaganda coming through our screens and confusing the Americans

1692
01:56:38,280 --> 01:56:40,080
on should we support this?

1693
01:56:40,080 --> 01:56:42,000
Should we be against it?

1694
01:56:42,000 --> 01:56:43,000
Who are the bad guys?

1695
01:56:43,000 --> 01:56:45,000
And obviously it's not as simple as that.

1696
01:56:45,000 --> 01:56:49,400
But what are you seeing about the way the story is being piped to the Americans?

1697
01:56:49,400 --> 01:57:00,560
I think it has a lot to do with, excuse me.

1698
01:57:00,560 --> 01:57:04,520
For one, it's the narrative that they're trying to keep.

1699
01:57:04,520 --> 01:57:09,560
And if you actually look at, for example, a lot of these major news outlets, they're

1700
01:57:09,560 --> 01:57:13,160
reporting the same things that came from the same sources, but the same sources aren't

1701
01:57:13,160 --> 01:57:14,160
verified.

1702
01:57:14,160 --> 01:57:21,360
I mean, even to the extent where Biden was actually saying, parroting exactly what they

1703
01:57:21,360 --> 01:57:25,240
were saying about the 40-headed babies.

1704
01:57:25,240 --> 01:57:29,600
He later on retracted that statement because he never saw pictures of it because it didn't

1705
01:57:29,600 --> 01:57:30,640
happen.

1706
01:57:30,640 --> 01:57:33,560
But what do people still remember?

1707
01:57:33,560 --> 01:57:39,040
People are still repeating that exact same thing over and over again.

1708
01:57:39,040 --> 01:57:46,560
Again, I'm not defending Hamas as the organization of Hamas, but let's stick with the facts.

1709
01:57:46,560 --> 01:57:48,480
There was no 40-headed babies.

1710
01:57:48,480 --> 01:57:55,600
There was no baby in an oven and everything else.

1711
01:57:55,600 --> 01:57:58,480
None of this even happened.

1712
01:57:58,480 --> 01:58:08,280
And what we did come to find out was the music festival, one of the Apache helicopters was

1713
01:58:08,280 --> 01:58:10,560
shooting on their own people.

1714
01:58:10,560 --> 01:58:15,520
And they even have what's it called?

1715
01:58:15,520 --> 01:58:25,200
A Hannibal directive, which is like, they said they took it out in 2017 or 2018, I think.

1716
01:58:25,200 --> 01:58:31,320
But they're still following it through.

1717
01:58:31,320 --> 01:58:36,600
It's more beneficial for them to eliminate any potential risk of any idea of being taken

1718
01:58:36,600 --> 01:58:44,760
hostage by killing them rather than them being used as a bargaining chip.

1719
01:58:44,760 --> 01:58:52,440
And that's talked about not just by Al Jazeera and the Palestinian side, but by Israelis

1720
01:58:52,440 --> 01:58:53,440
themselves.

1721
01:58:53,440 --> 01:59:01,680
But again, it's always, we don't trust Hamas numbers, we don't trust this.

1722
01:59:01,680 --> 01:59:06,000
Well, yeah, that's where you get most of your information from.

1723
01:59:06,000 --> 01:59:10,240
They're just denying that because they want to make sure that the narrative stays within

1724
01:59:10,240 --> 01:59:15,280
that same reason why they don't have any international reporting in there.

1725
01:59:15,280 --> 01:59:18,960
If they do have international reporters, they'll be with an Israeli guide so they can actually

1726
01:59:18,960 --> 01:59:22,200
show them and give them the narrative that they need to give them.

1727
01:59:22,200 --> 01:59:26,840
But the Palestinians on the other side, the Palestinian press that are offering that,

1728
01:59:26,840 --> 01:59:38,040
there's been more journalists killed in the last four months than, excuse me, five months,

1729
01:59:38,040 --> 01:59:44,080
than in World War II, than in Vietnam in such a short time span.

1730
01:59:44,080 --> 01:59:47,040
We had the American journalist that was killed years ago.

1731
01:59:47,040 --> 01:59:48,480
No one heard about that.

1732
01:59:48,480 --> 01:59:51,720
The American that was run over by the bulldozer.

1733
01:59:51,720 --> 01:59:54,000
No one heard about that.

1734
01:59:54,000 --> 01:59:59,040
So all these things that were happening before that, that led to what was going on or that

1735
01:59:59,040 --> 02:00:06,160
was trying to bring attention to that, is immediate looked at as propaganda instead

1736
02:00:06,160 --> 02:00:07,840
of the other side.

1737
02:00:07,840 --> 02:00:11,080
Now you might not agree with the other side, but you need to understand the other side

1738
02:00:11,080 --> 02:00:13,600
in order to get understanding of the full conflict.

1739
02:00:13,600 --> 02:00:17,800
And a lot of people are resistant to that because they feel like they're giving into

1740
02:00:17,800 --> 02:00:25,120
that rather than it just being an understanding of what's going on.

1741
02:00:25,120 --> 02:00:33,440
I can read the Communist Manifesto and not be a communist.

1742
02:00:33,440 --> 02:00:35,680
You can read the Bible, not become Christian.

1743
02:00:35,680 --> 02:00:41,240
You have to understand the other side in order to get a better understanding of the entire

1744
02:00:41,240 --> 02:00:42,240
situation.

1745
02:00:42,240 --> 02:00:43,960
And I think that's where a lot of people failed.

1746
02:00:43,960 --> 02:00:50,040
What they failed to do is trying to even attempt to understand both sides of the conflict because

1747
02:00:50,040 --> 02:00:52,360
that would make them a sympathizer with it.

1748
02:00:52,360 --> 02:00:53,360
It's not that at all.

1749
02:00:53,360 --> 02:00:58,140
You have to do, you know, a guarantee of people who had a better understanding of the context

1750
02:00:58,140 --> 02:01:00,800
of it and the cause for the effect.

1751
02:01:00,800 --> 02:01:12,560
They wouldn't be so willingly motivated to defend Israel immediately and to stick to

1752
02:01:12,560 --> 02:01:16,200
October 7th because they would have an understanding about what's going on.

1753
02:01:16,200 --> 02:01:17,200
Yeah.

1754
02:01:17,200 --> 02:01:20,640
Well, I mean, I value your perspective.

1755
02:01:20,640 --> 02:01:25,280
I mean, not only just the places that your life has taken you up to this point, but I

1756
02:01:25,280 --> 02:01:30,400
think of all the special forces, special operations groups, the Green Berets are known as the

1757
02:01:30,400 --> 02:01:33,840
ones with the communication skills, the leadership skills.

1758
02:01:33,840 --> 02:01:36,240
I mean, that is your superpower, the force multiplier.

1759
02:01:36,240 --> 02:01:41,320
So having lived around the world, having lived in Muslim countries and European countries

1760
02:01:41,320 --> 02:01:46,920
and some, yeah, well, let me rephrase that Arab countries and European countries, you

1761
02:01:46,920 --> 02:01:50,920
know, and then what you did in uniform, you know, it really is an important voice, the

1762
02:01:50,920 --> 02:01:55,880
same as Dr. Ahmad that was on, you know, he's a Chicago physician who's going over there.

1763
02:01:55,880 --> 02:01:57,760
It's not about taking sides.

1764
02:01:57,760 --> 02:02:00,700
It's about seeing what is actually going on.

1765
02:02:00,700 --> 02:02:03,880
And if it is wrong, then us stepping up because I understand the confusion.

1766
02:02:03,880 --> 02:02:09,080
I mean, a lot of us grew up hearing the absolute horrors that Jewish people endured during

1767
02:02:09,080 --> 02:02:10,080
World War Two.

1768
02:02:10,080 --> 02:02:14,680
We had one of the Auschwitz survivors on the show, Dr. Edith Eger, phenomenal woman.

1769
02:02:14,680 --> 02:02:18,080
And the whole time she's been calling for nothing but peace and peace.

1770
02:02:18,080 --> 02:02:20,480
You know, that's her takeaway from this.

1771
02:02:20,480 --> 02:02:24,880
But then obviously we had 20 years where a lot of these TV shows were saying, you know,

1772
02:02:24,880 --> 02:02:27,020
these Muslim, Muslim, Muslim, Muslim, Muslim.

1773
02:02:27,020 --> 02:02:34,240
So you've got a very confused, you know, audience here in America that's like, are we actually

1774
02:02:34,240 --> 02:02:38,440
siding with, you know, and it's not siding with Hamas, but you're leaning into the Muslim

1775
02:02:38,440 --> 02:02:41,380
side now because it's the right thing to do.

1776
02:02:41,380 --> 02:02:42,960
It's not about, as you said, labels.

1777
02:02:42,960 --> 02:02:44,480
It's not about, oh, this is where I stand.

1778
02:02:44,480 --> 02:02:46,300
I'm not going to move.

1779
02:02:46,300 --> 02:02:47,560
You've got to be dynamic.

1780
02:02:47,560 --> 02:02:51,440
You've got to allow that, that moral compass to shift.

1781
02:02:51,440 --> 02:02:56,040
And you know, your perception, October 8th, when you watch the BBC or whatever news channel

1782
02:02:56,040 --> 02:03:02,480
you choose, it's OK for it to be different in February or March because things have changed.

1783
02:03:02,480 --> 02:03:05,320
So I think that's the important thing is understanding.

1784
02:03:05,320 --> 02:03:08,920
I love that phrase, you know, they did the best of what they know, you know, five months

1785
02:03:08,920 --> 02:03:15,040
ago we knew this perspective, but now five months later with thousands of children dead

1786
02:03:15,040 --> 02:03:20,340
in hospitals and schools being bulldozers, you know, little girls dying, basically bleeding

1787
02:03:20,340 --> 02:03:24,860
out and dying of starvation, plus two dead paramedics are just feet from her.

1788
02:03:24,860 --> 02:03:26,420
It's a very different story now.

1789
02:03:26,420 --> 02:03:33,480
So I think it takes humility to take a step back and go, it's OK for me to change the

1790
02:03:33,480 --> 02:03:39,840
way I think now, because this has gone from what seemingly was a justified reaction to

1791
02:03:39,840 --> 02:03:46,180
an attack to a systematic elimination of people.

1792
02:03:46,180 --> 02:03:51,040
Even if you don't agree with that, you know, let's let's take the entire situation, you

1793
02:03:51,040 --> 02:03:54,800
know, eliminate that altogether.

1794
02:03:54,800 --> 02:03:59,840
The amount of money that we're actually spending to support them should should be every single

1795
02:03:59,840 --> 02:04:05,480
American's concern, why are we writing a 14 billion dollar check with no oversight to

1796
02:04:05,480 --> 02:04:06,480
a country?

1797
02:04:06,480 --> 02:04:07,480
We have no idea what they're going to do with it.

1798
02:04:07,480 --> 02:04:10,640
This is a country that already has like they have their health care, they have, you know,

1799
02:04:10,640 --> 02:04:11,640
the free education.

1800
02:04:11,640 --> 02:04:13,800
They I mean, they have a standing military.

1801
02:04:13,800 --> 02:04:15,540
They I mean, all these different things.

1802
02:04:15,540 --> 02:04:21,120
Why are we continuing to support them for for, you know, when it's literally like led

1803
02:04:21,120 --> 02:04:25,520
to one conflict after another, after another, another with their intel?

1804
02:04:25,520 --> 02:04:32,160
You know, so if they're like our, you know, our our golden peace within the, you know,

1805
02:04:32,160 --> 02:04:37,120
the Middle East, why is it that only conflicts are coming out of that?

1806
02:04:37,120 --> 02:04:38,120
You know what I mean?

1807
02:04:38,120 --> 02:04:45,440
And so I think for the longest time, the Arabs in general have been vilified.

1808
02:04:45,440 --> 02:04:49,520
And we've had this perception even as as simple as like Hollywood.

1809
02:04:49,520 --> 02:04:50,520
Right.

1810
02:04:50,520 --> 02:04:58,320
And it's always the you know, was it the Russians, the Arabs and it's like one more, which is

1811
02:04:58,320 --> 02:04:59,800
like the trifecta of Hollywood.

1812
02:04:59,800 --> 02:05:04,920
You know, always the British actually.

1813
02:05:04,920 --> 02:05:05,920
Braveheart.

1814
02:05:05,920 --> 02:05:06,920
Yeah.

1815
02:05:06,920 --> 02:05:09,920
OK, I can see that now.

1816
02:05:09,920 --> 02:05:14,480
The English specifically, should I say, were usually the bad guys in a lot of films, too.

1817
02:05:14,480 --> 02:05:15,920
And rightly so if you look at our history.

1818
02:05:15,920 --> 02:05:17,920
So I get it.

1819
02:05:17,920 --> 02:05:18,920
Yeah.

1820
02:05:18,920 --> 02:05:21,320
So that was funny.

1821
02:05:21,320 --> 02:05:24,920
I mean, that was kind of floating around was what is England given the world?

1822
02:05:24,920 --> 02:05:30,480
And someone responded, you know, England's given the most amount of independences, independence

1823
02:05:30,480 --> 02:05:31,480
day holidays.

1824
02:05:31,480 --> 02:05:36,080
And then I was like, well, there really isn't a lie there.

1825
02:05:36,080 --> 02:05:38,440
But at the same time, you know, it's kind of like a low blow.

1826
02:05:38,440 --> 02:05:44,760
But so when you do have an understanding and exactly in the same thing with what you're

1827
02:05:44,760 --> 02:05:50,640
just saying, beyond understanding and like what happened from that, I think there's you

1828
02:05:50,640 --> 02:05:53,520
study history so that things don't repeat themselves.

1829
02:05:53,520 --> 02:05:57,920
We continue with the Holocaust because it was a horrible event that shouldn't have happened

1830
02:05:57,920 --> 02:06:00,800
and we should never allow that to happen again.

1831
02:06:00,800 --> 02:06:06,000
Nobody should have to endure the amount of suffering that they endured at that time.

1832
02:06:06,000 --> 02:06:12,040
The Jewish people at the time were I mean, I can't think of any event in history that

1833
02:06:12,040 --> 02:06:13,040
compares to that.

1834
02:06:13,040 --> 02:06:15,120
It was absolutely a tragedy.

1835
02:06:15,120 --> 02:06:18,140
But why the Palestinians paying for that?

1836
02:06:18,140 --> 02:06:23,080
That's what I don't understand is that, you know, it was it was the Germans, you know,

1837
02:06:23,080 --> 02:06:26,840
that had, you know, created that Holocaust.

1838
02:06:26,840 --> 02:06:30,400
Why don't we break off a chunk of Germany and give it to to the Jews?

1839
02:06:30,400 --> 02:06:33,400
You know, but why the Palestinians paying for that price?

1840
02:06:33,400 --> 02:06:38,280
You know, they keep bringing up the Holocaust like, well, that wasn't the part the Palestinians

1841
02:06:38,280 --> 02:06:43,400
welcomed them in, you know, when they were coming in from the Holocaust.

1842
02:06:43,400 --> 02:06:48,000
So why is it that, you know, they are being, you know, the villain in this?

1843
02:06:48,000 --> 02:06:51,000
This is what I don't understand is they're absolutely right.

1844
02:06:51,000 --> 02:06:52,520
The Europeans kicked them out everywhere.

1845
02:06:52,520 --> 02:06:54,080
It was a horrible thing.

1846
02:06:54,080 --> 02:06:55,680
They wanted to stay for themselves.

1847
02:06:55,680 --> 02:07:02,320
Well, there was already what 16000 hectares that were bought in Africa in their initial

1848
02:07:02,320 --> 02:07:07,120
attempt to establish a Jewish state and decided, you know, into there.

1849
02:07:07,120 --> 02:07:11,000
And then, you know, English got involved with the Balfour Declaration and the Pico Seix

1850
02:07:11,000 --> 02:07:13,760
agreement and and all these things kind of led to that.

1851
02:07:13,760 --> 02:07:18,800
But again, we have a population of people that are paying the price for Europeans kicking

1852
02:07:18,800 --> 02:07:24,640
that group out and creating one of the worst events in human history, you know, with the

1853
02:07:24,640 --> 02:07:25,640
Holocaust.

1854
02:07:25,640 --> 02:07:27,080
Six million.

1855
02:07:27,080 --> 02:07:30,840
Nobody can nobody can deny that that was that was an atrocity that should never happen again.

1856
02:07:30,840 --> 02:07:33,120
But it's happening again in a different manner.

1857
02:07:33,120 --> 02:07:36,600
But it is happening.

1858
02:07:36,600 --> 02:07:40,000
And I don't I don't understand how, you know, we can't learn from that history.

1859
02:07:40,000 --> 02:07:44,280
We can't understand that and put that same logic and reasoning into what's happening

1860
02:07:44,280 --> 02:07:48,240
right now and just be logical about it, be reasonable.

1861
02:07:48,240 --> 02:07:51,280
I think that's one of the hardest things that we have to deal with right now is just people

1862
02:07:51,280 --> 02:07:57,400
understand trying to get to understand and and reason with the situation rather than

1863
02:07:57,400 --> 02:08:04,240
just making an instinctual emotional decision that's almost irrational, right, because they're

1864
02:08:04,240 --> 02:08:08,440
ignoring everything that's happening and everything has happened and they don't understand the

1865
02:08:08,440 --> 02:08:09,440
backstory.

1866
02:08:09,440 --> 02:08:10,440
They don't understand the context of it.

1867
02:08:10,440 --> 02:08:11,440
And they're like, oh, it's complicated.

1868
02:08:11,440 --> 02:08:13,160
It is not complicated at this point.

1869
02:08:13,160 --> 02:08:14,600
It is absolutely not complicated.

1870
02:08:14,600 --> 02:08:15,600
It is a freaking genocide.

1871
02:08:15,600 --> 02:08:18,400
It is an ethnic cleansing.

1872
02:08:18,400 --> 02:08:19,980
It's a continuous dehumanization.

1873
02:08:19,980 --> 02:08:24,120
It's displacement on a mass scale.

1874
02:08:24,120 --> 02:08:29,320
Yeah, you know, if we don't learn from history, we're bound to repeat it.

1875
02:08:29,320 --> 02:08:30,320
Bottom line.

1876
02:08:30,320 --> 02:08:32,160
I couldn't agree more.

1877
02:08:32,160 --> 02:08:36,000
Well, I want to shift away from Gaza now.

1878
02:08:36,000 --> 02:08:41,840
The transition from the uniform professions out a lot of times can be jarring for our

1879
02:08:41,840 --> 02:08:42,840
men and women.

1880
02:08:42,840 --> 02:08:46,040
I mean, when we're in, we've got that tribe, we've got that community, we've got that sense

1881
02:08:46,040 --> 02:08:47,040
of purpose.

1882
02:08:47,040 --> 02:08:52,040
You know, I arguably, you know, when I would drive home from a fire station, there's that

1883
02:08:52,040 --> 02:08:54,120
that feeling that you made the world a little bit better.

1884
02:08:54,120 --> 02:08:56,040
It was very, very powerful.

1885
02:08:56,040 --> 02:09:00,720
And a lot of us then transition out, whether it's retirement, whether it's injury, whatever

1886
02:09:00,720 --> 02:09:06,080
it is, and now you lose a lot of those very things that were so nurturing.

1887
02:09:06,080 --> 02:09:17,120
Talk to me about your transition period and then some of the struggles that you endured.

1888
02:09:17,120 --> 02:09:24,920
And that was a thing, I think, for me, especially the the team that I was on was very, very,

1889
02:09:24,920 --> 02:09:27,600
very tight knit group.

1890
02:09:27,600 --> 02:09:28,600
Great bunch of guys.

1891
02:09:28,600 --> 02:09:35,600
I mean, I can't I was literally standing beside Titans.

1892
02:09:35,600 --> 02:09:40,280
And the camaraderie that we had was it was just something I never experienced before and

1893
02:09:40,280 --> 02:09:41,440
haven't experienced since.

1894
02:09:41,440 --> 02:09:43,760
There really isn't any comparison to it.

1895
02:09:43,760 --> 02:09:46,240
So here's an example.

1896
02:09:46,240 --> 02:09:48,960
You know, by the time you get to the end of the deployment, everyone is at each other's

1897
02:09:48,960 --> 02:09:49,960
throats.

1898
02:09:49,960 --> 02:09:52,680
They're yelling at each other, you know, you know, cussing at each other.

1899
02:09:52,680 --> 02:09:57,120
I mean, it's just a reality when you when you spend so much time around each other.

1900
02:09:57,120 --> 02:09:58,440
You know, it's bound to happen.

1901
02:09:58,440 --> 02:10:01,840
But by the time we get back, you know, the first weekend, we're all getting back together

1902
02:10:01,840 --> 02:10:04,440
for a barbecue and go riding motorcycles.

1903
02:10:04,440 --> 02:10:07,680
You know, it's it was that type of dynamic.

1904
02:10:07,680 --> 02:10:08,800
Right.

1905
02:10:08,800 --> 02:10:13,640
So when you leave that, you have this family that you have created through through a bond

1906
02:10:13,640 --> 02:10:16,360
that can't be replicated.

1907
02:10:16,360 --> 02:10:19,560
And it's very similar for other people when they describe it.

1908
02:10:19,560 --> 02:10:21,880
And you don't have that sports system anymore.

1909
02:10:21,880 --> 02:10:30,960
You don't have the the the same type of cohesion that you would you would have with that team.

1910
02:10:30,960 --> 02:10:32,120
And you do feel alone.

1911
02:10:32,120 --> 02:10:33,880
You feel isolated into that.

1912
02:10:33,880 --> 02:10:40,120
And I think that's one of the biggest things where when we start the We Defy Foundation,

1913
02:10:40,120 --> 02:10:47,840
the one thing that we were trying to figure out was and this is how it plays perfectly

1914
02:10:47,840 --> 02:10:54,120
in was if you wanted to better yourself, you had to step up to the plate and and and do

1915
02:10:54,120 --> 02:10:59,680
it where most people like always have to preface with this.

1916
02:10:59,680 --> 02:11:06,960
I'm not talking shit about any other nonprofits, but you have these nonprofits that, for example,

1917
02:11:06,960 --> 02:11:10,480
buy houses for these disabled veterans.

1918
02:11:10,480 --> 02:11:12,160
It is a phenomenal program.

1919
02:11:12,160 --> 02:11:15,520
It is extremely generous.

1920
02:11:15,520 --> 02:11:17,480
It's a wonderful thing.

1921
02:11:17,480 --> 02:11:24,120
The downside to this that you have to acknowledge is it creates this isolation because now you

1922
02:11:24,120 --> 02:11:25,560
have this castle.

1923
02:11:25,560 --> 02:11:28,760
Now you have you have access to alcohol, access to pills.

1924
02:11:28,760 --> 02:11:29,760
It doesn't force you to leave.

1925
02:11:29,760 --> 02:11:36,160
As a matter of fact, it keeps you inside and it keeps you isolated and it makes it harder

1926
02:11:36,160 --> 02:11:37,360
and harder for you to go out.

1927
02:11:37,360 --> 02:11:41,340
And you hear that a lot with people is just they want to isolate themselves.

1928
02:11:41,340 --> 02:11:44,380
They don't want to have any type of social gathering.

1929
02:11:44,380 --> 02:11:53,480
So one advantage that I had, one was my my my purpose never really shifted.

1930
02:11:53,480 --> 02:12:01,440
And I didn't really understand that until probably about a year about a year, about

1931
02:12:01,440 --> 02:12:10,280
six years after I got out, about 2016, 2017, that my purpose actually stayed the same.

1932
02:12:10,280 --> 02:12:15,120
And my purpose is my father used to bring this up, there's no greater purpose than to

1933
02:12:15,120 --> 02:12:17,160
help someone in need.

1934
02:12:17,160 --> 02:12:21,760
And we looked at it in the military aspect of it versus a civilian.

1935
02:12:21,760 --> 02:12:25,240
It's still the same the same purpose.

1936
02:12:25,240 --> 02:12:28,160
It's just you're going about a different way.

1937
02:12:28,160 --> 02:12:32,600
And I could relate to the veterans that were coming back with the mental health issues

1938
02:12:32,600 --> 02:12:38,440
and and Joey being a triple amputee, he could definitely relate to the people that lost

1939
02:12:38,440 --> 02:12:43,080
limbs, you know, that had physical injuries.

1940
02:12:43,080 --> 02:12:49,480
And right now the foundation been going for for eight years, 94% have been mental health

1941
02:12:49,480 --> 02:12:50,480
issues.

1942
02:12:50,480 --> 02:12:57,760
When I talked to the guys, you know, in England with reorg and talk to the guys with veterans

1943
02:12:57,760 --> 02:13:02,680
grappling in Australia, as well as, you know, we defy Canada, it's the exact same.

1944
02:13:02,680 --> 02:13:09,320
So the mental health issues is one of the biggest issues that they're facing.

1945
02:13:09,320 --> 02:13:15,120
And not only does and yes, I'm promoting We Defy but the program itself has been very

1946
02:13:15,120 --> 02:13:22,540
successful for these specific reasons where they almost it does force you to socialize,

1947
02:13:22,540 --> 02:13:26,760
it does force you to go back and find a new tribe, to find a new group that you can find

1948
02:13:26,760 --> 02:13:31,720
that to keep this and to be able to trust, right?

1949
02:13:31,720 --> 02:13:34,160
You've done jujitsu, you blew about right now.

1950
02:13:34,160 --> 02:13:38,800
One of the biggest things that you had to go into that's that's nerve wracking was,

1951
02:13:38,800 --> 02:13:44,000
I'm going to be put in a position where I could have limbs break, or be choked out unconscious

1952
02:13:44,000 --> 02:13:50,560
where there's a possibility for, you know, there is a possibility of death.

1953
02:13:50,560 --> 02:13:54,720
But you are trusting the other person that when you tap, they're gonna let go.

1954
02:13:54,720 --> 02:13:55,720
Right.

1955
02:13:55,720 --> 02:13:58,200
So it teaches you to trust again.

1956
02:13:58,200 --> 02:14:05,000
It also teaches you compassion, you know, where if you wanted to go further, you absolutely

1957
02:14:05,000 --> 02:14:11,280
could you know, for like, just like the self defense example I was given.

1958
02:14:11,280 --> 02:14:14,960
But also gives you the context and like, hey, you know, I'm trying to get a job here.

1959
02:14:14,960 --> 02:14:20,960
Well, there's somebody in that group of 30 that has like a connection for that.

1960
02:14:20,960 --> 02:14:25,720
So there's a lot of these underlying benefits that you know, with a social group, and it

1961
02:14:25,720 --> 02:14:28,440
doesn't necessarily always have to be jiu jitsu.

1962
02:14:28,440 --> 02:14:32,480
Matter of fact, we have several of the people that have been through the program for like

1963
02:14:32,480 --> 02:14:33,680
a year.

1964
02:14:33,680 --> 02:14:36,520
And then they decide, you know, hey, I found rock climbing.

1965
02:14:36,520 --> 02:14:37,520
And I found this group.

1966
02:14:37,520 --> 02:14:39,560
This is working perfect for me.

1967
02:14:39,560 --> 02:14:41,720
Yes, absolutely.

1968
02:14:41,720 --> 02:14:42,760
Go for it.

1969
02:14:42,760 --> 02:14:46,960
And it's a success on our part, because what we're trying to do is help them find that

1970
02:14:46,960 --> 02:14:53,320
new tribe, that new group, that cohesion, that type family that benefits you the best.

1971
02:14:53,320 --> 02:14:56,880
And what we're doing is offering jiu jitsu as a way of doing it, not selling this is

1972
02:14:56,880 --> 02:14:59,000
the way of doing it.

1973
02:14:59,000 --> 02:15:04,880
And when a lot of people have a lot of the same similar issues, they can talk to them.

1974
02:15:04,880 --> 02:15:09,240
And then thanks to social media, this is one of the positive aspects of social media, is

1975
02:15:09,240 --> 02:15:14,200
that they can, you know, I love seeing this.

1976
02:15:14,200 --> 02:15:17,160
But when you have people calling out, hey, man, where were you training, you know, and

1977
02:15:17,160 --> 02:15:18,780
they start giving them shit about it.

1978
02:15:18,780 --> 02:15:27,120
You know, it's the military way of, you know, showing that you care, right.

1979
02:15:27,120 --> 02:15:30,640
And it might sound harsh, but it might sound mean.

1980
02:15:30,640 --> 02:15:38,320
But at the same time, it's meant in jest, it's meant in humor.

1981
02:15:38,320 --> 02:15:42,800
And it's meant to also motivate and to get you back into that group.

1982
02:15:42,800 --> 02:15:43,980
And you have that constantly.

1983
02:15:43,980 --> 02:15:53,440
So the one change that that we defined made recently was adding a mentor, you know, to

1984
02:15:53,440 --> 02:15:56,400
every athlete that's in the program.

1985
02:15:56,400 --> 02:16:03,680
And we've seen that extend the success rate to one year, one full year in the program,

1986
02:16:03,680 --> 02:16:10,760
you know, went up from about 74 or 75% to about 98%.

1987
02:16:10,760 --> 02:16:14,920
So again, having someone there that they can talk to, not necessarily at the same gym,

1988
02:16:14,920 --> 02:16:18,520
but someone they can talk to and relate to is another huge aspect.

1989
02:16:18,520 --> 02:16:24,480
So that socialization even as I've always been an introvert, so I never actually really

1990
02:16:24,480 --> 02:16:27,160
like being around people, but it's a necessity.

1991
02:16:27,160 --> 02:16:30,400
You have to kind of, you know, do that.

1992
02:16:30,400 --> 02:16:34,240
And when you have it as a constant, you know, you know, church is a good thing, but it's

1993
02:16:34,240 --> 02:16:35,520
once a week, right.

1994
02:16:35,520 --> 02:16:38,800
You can get involved with those social gatherings and there's nothing wrong with that.

1995
02:16:38,800 --> 02:16:41,400
It's a great way of doing it.

1996
02:16:41,400 --> 02:16:49,240
We're just offering a way of having the ability to be able to get, you know, the physical

1997
02:16:49,240 --> 02:16:53,120
exercise in there, a mental exercise where you're, you know, problem solving.

1998
02:16:53,120 --> 02:16:57,600
So you're having to think about things, you're under stress, you know, having to maintain

1999
02:16:57,600 --> 02:16:59,220
that.

2000
02:16:59,220 --> 02:17:02,560
You're having to maintain like in control of all your emotions because sometimes you

2001
02:17:02,560 --> 02:17:05,720
might get angry, you know, because, you know, you're getting tapped out repeatedly and have

2002
02:17:05,720 --> 02:17:07,500
a shit night.

2003
02:17:07,500 --> 02:17:10,920
And then you have that breakthrough where you understand the technique and then all

2004
02:17:10,920 --> 02:17:13,320
of a sudden it's working for you, skyrocket up again.

2005
02:17:13,320 --> 02:17:20,520
You know, it helps you deal with these emotions that, you know, for a lot of other things,

2006
02:17:20,520 --> 02:17:26,040
you're not able to visually or physically see those improvements and your progression

2007
02:17:26,040 --> 02:17:28,700
into this.

2008
02:17:28,700 --> 02:17:33,840
We have a very small niche in this and it's, you know, we just do Jiu Jitsu, but we found

2009
02:17:33,840 --> 02:17:38,240
that, you know, for the people to actually try it, it's worked phenomenal.

2010
02:17:38,240 --> 02:17:44,120
So, you know, but again, it gives you that baseline of this is what I kind of need.

2011
02:17:44,120 --> 02:17:50,920
You know, I need, you know, X, Y, and Z. And, you know, I need the social aspect of it where

2012
02:17:50,920 --> 02:17:58,480
I'm re-engaging in, you know, a populated area, you know, social gathering, the mental

2013
02:17:58,480 --> 02:18:02,480
aspect of it, the, you know, the trust issue.

2014
02:18:02,480 --> 02:18:09,720
And at the same time, you're having a, you're learning a very valuable skill, you know what

2015
02:18:09,720 --> 02:18:10,840
I mean?

2016
02:18:10,840 --> 02:18:18,960
So there's so many, you know, positive aspects to it that, I mean, especially for someone

2017
02:18:18,960 --> 02:18:23,160
who has that combat mentality, you just can't ignore.

2018
02:18:23,160 --> 02:18:28,880
There's been several times now, I'm in a school about 40 minute drive away and I drive all

2019
02:18:28,880 --> 02:18:35,160
that way just because the community is amazing, Ken, our coach, has just created this incredible

2020
02:18:35,160 --> 02:18:36,160
class.

2021
02:18:36,160 --> 02:18:39,080
And there are people that clean house at some of these tournaments.

2022
02:18:39,080 --> 02:18:40,920
So they've got some phenomenal fighters there.

2023
02:18:40,920 --> 02:18:46,920
But the ones that I go to, it's, I can step it up if I choose the right people, if I want

2024
02:18:46,920 --> 02:18:52,100
a hard day, but there's also almost never do I leave with busted ribs and tweaked necks

2025
02:18:52,100 --> 02:18:53,100
and that kind of thing.

2026
02:18:53,100 --> 02:18:55,200
When you're almost 50, it's kind of important.

2027
02:18:55,200 --> 02:18:56,820
Otherwise you just don't go back.

2028
02:18:56,820 --> 02:19:01,860
But there have been several times where I've gone in full intention to train and roll and

2029
02:19:01,860 --> 02:19:08,360
spent the whole class out the back talking to someone because I know, you know, that's

2030
02:19:08,360 --> 02:19:13,740
what I noticed about Jiu-Jitsu versus some of the other sports is because it's so intimate,

2031
02:19:13,740 --> 02:19:17,200
because you're sitting around the mat while, you know, the instructor show new techniques

2032
02:19:17,200 --> 02:19:19,840
and you're rolling with that person.

2033
02:19:19,840 --> 02:19:23,840
It's really hard to mask, to mask if you're in a bad place.

2034
02:19:23,840 --> 02:19:26,740
It's really hard to mask if you're physically exhausted.

2035
02:19:26,740 --> 02:19:29,200
Because people have told them, look, just don't train today.

2036
02:19:29,200 --> 02:19:33,600
And I'm not this mind, I'm not the instructor, but I'm like, look, if you're burnt out,

2037
02:19:33,600 --> 02:19:37,000
just sit and watch, grab a cup of coffee, which is what our, our coach encourages.

2038
02:19:37,000 --> 02:19:38,000
Just, just be there.

2039
02:19:38,000 --> 02:19:40,200
You don't have to actually be rolling that day if you don't want to.

2040
02:19:40,200 --> 02:19:44,920
But that's one thing I've really noticed is it's another tribe for me outside the fire

2041
02:19:44,920 --> 02:19:45,920
service.

2042
02:19:45,920 --> 02:19:46,920
It's that physical exertion.

2043
02:19:46,920 --> 02:19:51,680
It's that, you know, continually training to be this kind of quote unquote sheepdog

2044
02:19:51,680 --> 02:19:52,680
in my community.

2045
02:19:52,680 --> 02:19:56,200
I'm not a cop, but I would like to be one of the people that stops something horrific

2046
02:19:56,200 --> 02:19:58,760
if God forbid it happened in front of me.

2047
02:19:58,760 --> 02:20:04,720
But also that you're able to just see so much more intimately in a jujitsu school if someone

2048
02:20:04,720 --> 02:20:07,800
is simply having a bad day.

2049
02:20:07,800 --> 02:20:10,860
Agreed.

2050
02:20:10,860 --> 02:20:14,840
It's hard to mask, especially when you spend, you know, so many days, so many weeks, so

2051
02:20:14,840 --> 02:20:19,120
many months, years, you know, around, and that's where the friendships start to develop.

2052
02:20:19,120 --> 02:20:25,160
You know, you, you, you spend, just like you're saying, it's very intimate, you know, you

2053
02:20:25,160 --> 02:20:32,600
get to what is a, they said jujitsu is their mistress, right?

2054
02:20:32,600 --> 02:20:38,480
So they, they, they, and a lot of the times, one of the things that I do is they have promotions,

2055
02:20:38,480 --> 02:20:42,400
I have like barbecue and bring everyone in and then they get to meet the family, you

2056
02:20:42,400 --> 02:20:43,400
know what I mean?

2057
02:20:43,400 --> 02:20:46,700
So you got to introduce the family to the mistress in a sense.

2058
02:20:46,700 --> 02:20:50,240
And then, you know, it creates a, a bigger bond.

2059
02:20:50,240 --> 02:20:53,760
And one thing that I noticed, especially after promotions, when everyone starts to meet each

2060
02:20:53,760 --> 02:20:57,000
other, you have a much larger group showing up to the tournaments.

2061
02:20:57,000 --> 02:21:01,840
You have families, you know, in, in holes coming up to support other people, you know,

2062
02:21:01,840 --> 02:21:05,480
even though like the, the, the family member that's actually training in jujitsu isn't

2063
02:21:05,480 --> 02:21:12,480
competing, you know, so that support, that support group absolutely is, is one of the,

2064
02:21:12,480 --> 02:21:19,280
the key parts in, in this, the sport and this therapy, you know, however you want to, you

2065
02:21:19,280 --> 02:21:24,360
know, call it, that, that can't be overlooked.

2066
02:21:24,360 --> 02:21:25,880
Absolutely.

2067
02:21:25,880 --> 02:21:31,240
I went down to Plymouth and trained with Sam, when was it now?

2068
02:21:31,240 --> 02:21:32,960
About a year and a half ago.

2069
02:21:32,960 --> 02:21:37,220
And I think the Pantheon is the name of the facility, Ben's place.

2070
02:21:37,220 --> 02:21:41,040
And it was incredible because I mean, firstly, I rolled and just got completely murdered

2071
02:21:41,040 --> 02:21:44,440
by him, especially in a gi, I don't wear a gi very much.

2072
02:21:44,440 --> 02:21:46,220
So yeah, just brutalized.

2073
02:21:46,220 --> 02:21:50,840
But then I went and, you know, sat and had coffee with them and something to eat.

2074
02:21:50,840 --> 02:21:52,640
And it was incredible watching these Royal Marines.

2075
02:21:52,640 --> 02:21:56,200
I mean, some I rolled with that day and then a load of others circled through.

2076
02:21:56,200 --> 02:22:00,160
Some, some were probably in their, you know, 50s, 60s by this point.

2077
02:22:00,160 --> 02:22:05,760
And seeing that central location and that community and that ability, no matter how

2078
02:22:05,760 --> 02:22:10,640
many years it's been since you wore the uniform, to come in and just kind of dip your toe back

2079
02:22:10,640 --> 02:22:11,640
in that tribe again.

2080
02:22:11,640 --> 02:22:13,680
I mean, I witnessed it with my own eyes.

2081
02:22:13,680 --> 02:22:14,680
It was incredible.

2082
02:22:14,680 --> 02:22:16,560
So talk to me about that.

2083
02:22:16,560 --> 02:22:18,680
You've got Weedify going in the US.

2084
02:22:18,680 --> 02:22:20,620
How did Sam Sheriff come across you?

2085
02:22:20,620 --> 02:22:25,880
And then how did you help them create Reorg?

2086
02:22:25,880 --> 02:22:35,400
So initially we actually connected on Instagram and, and he was trying to get something set

2087
02:22:35,400 --> 02:22:38,800
up similar.

2088
02:22:38,800 --> 02:22:50,120
And I've never met, never met someone as passionate about getting involved in something like this.

2089
02:22:50,120 --> 02:22:54,920
It literally felt like a, like a mirror image of what I was doing.

2090
02:22:54,920 --> 02:22:55,920
Right.

2091
02:22:55,920 --> 02:23:00,640
And his passion for it was, you could, you could see that right off the bat.

2092
02:23:00,640 --> 02:23:07,040
And even to this day, he just oozes that the passion that to help veterans and believes

2093
02:23:07,040 --> 02:23:12,120
in the program so much that just his persona kind of sells it right there.

2094
02:23:12,120 --> 02:23:17,360
And I saw that from the beginning, honestly, that he was so like engaged and so involved

2095
02:23:17,360 --> 02:23:19,480
in wanting to like, how do I do this?

2096
02:23:19,480 --> 02:23:20,480
How do I do that?

2097
02:23:20,480 --> 02:23:25,480
And I was given everything that I could, you know, from how we started it to, you know,

2098
02:23:25,480 --> 02:23:29,720
how we spread, you know, the different type of marketing that we used and, you know, grassroots

2099
02:23:29,720 --> 02:23:31,560
and you know, how we built this up.

2100
02:23:31,560 --> 02:23:36,960
I mean, he took it and just ran with it, you know, and was able to.

2101
02:23:36,960 --> 02:23:42,000
To accomplish so much more because I mean, the US is so huge, you know, it took us a

2102
02:23:42,000 --> 02:23:44,560
while to kind of spread across the nation.

2103
02:23:44,560 --> 02:23:50,520
I mean, he did, you know, what we did in literally half the time, you know, I mean, he was, you

2104
02:23:50,520 --> 02:23:56,240
know, we blew up within a few years, you know, and he's done such a remarkable job with that

2105
02:23:56,240 --> 02:23:59,680
program.

2106
02:23:59,680 --> 02:24:01,920
It's incredible to watch that growth.

2107
02:24:01,920 --> 02:24:11,440
And I'm so proud of him for everything that he accomplished and it's just very inspirational,

2108
02:24:11,440 --> 02:24:14,040
you know, just because he lives it so much.

2109
02:24:14,040 --> 02:24:18,880
Literally you can every day, you know, you see pictures of him, you know, videos of him

2110
02:24:18,880 --> 02:24:27,060
when he's rolling and it's just, it just, he has that persona that literally like engages

2111
02:24:27,060 --> 02:24:31,440
without having to say anything.

2112
02:24:31,440 --> 02:24:37,920
And honestly, I mean, I mean, it took me a little bit to kind of understand him just

2113
02:24:37,920 --> 02:24:45,720
because that Yorkshire accent, but I mean, it's thick, man, you got to admit it's thick.

2114
02:24:45,720 --> 02:24:48,840
But and that develops like such a long term friendship as well.

2115
02:24:48,840 --> 02:24:53,120
I mean, he came to Texas and, you know, we hang out for some, you know, for some time

2116
02:24:53,120 --> 02:25:01,120
and he was actually able to make it for the last gala that we had and phenomenal speaker,

2117
02:25:01,120 --> 02:25:06,080
just incredible, him and Mark, both, both incredible public speakers.

2118
02:25:06,080 --> 02:25:11,840
And I think that that definitely was a, you know, a lifetime friendship that we developed.

2119
02:25:11,840 --> 02:25:12,840
Absolutely.

2120
02:25:12,840 --> 02:25:13,840
Yeah.

2121
02:25:13,840 --> 02:25:14,840
Mark's an incredible guy.

2122
02:25:14,840 --> 02:25:18,280
He's been on the show twice now, I think, and actually went to have coffee with him.

2123
02:25:18,280 --> 02:25:22,600
We didn't roll together, but I met him the next day and just, I mean, so much humility

2124
02:25:22,600 --> 02:25:23,600
and resilience.

2125
02:25:23,600 --> 02:25:28,680
I mean, that man is a literally a walking example of what resilience looks like.

2126
02:25:28,680 --> 02:25:29,680
Yeah.

2127
02:25:29,680 --> 02:25:37,080
He's definitely been, I mean, that's the thing is that their influence has spread across

2128
02:25:37,080 --> 02:25:38,080
to here as well.

2129
02:25:38,080 --> 02:25:39,080
Right.

2130
02:25:39,080 --> 02:25:44,160
I mean, you see the amount of achievements that Mark's made even outside of Jiu Jitsu.

2131
02:25:44,160 --> 02:25:49,560
You know, it's I think it's incomparable, the amount of achievements that he's made

2132
02:25:49,560 --> 02:25:54,400
just because he sees a boundary and he wants to go break it.

2133
02:25:54,400 --> 02:25:57,640
And Sam's been supporting him, you know, from the get go on it, you know.

2134
02:25:57,640 --> 02:26:02,640
So but I mean, Mark, you know, you're absolutely right.

2135
02:26:02,640 --> 02:26:05,520
The amount of resilience is just unmatched.

2136
02:26:05,520 --> 02:26:10,120
Just he doesn't see any boundaries, you know, and it's so inspirational for everyone to

2137
02:26:10,120 --> 02:26:11,120
watch.

2138
02:26:11,120 --> 02:26:12,720
It doesn't matter what you're into.

2139
02:26:12,720 --> 02:26:15,920
If you're seeing someone that like normally you'd be like, nah, that's pretty much the

2140
02:26:15,920 --> 02:26:22,680
end of it, you know, he's like, home my beer, watch this, you know, and he goes after it.

2141
02:26:22,680 --> 02:26:24,800
It's truly amazing.

2142
02:26:24,800 --> 02:26:25,800
Absolutely is.

2143
02:26:25,800 --> 02:26:32,400
Well, we've been talking for two and a half hours now, and it's been an incredible conversation.

2144
02:26:32,400 --> 02:26:36,960
If people listening want to find We Defy or want to find you online, where are the best

2145
02:26:36,960 --> 02:26:39,640
places?

2146
02:26:39,640 --> 02:26:46,920
So We Defy Foundation.org is the website for the foundation itself.

2147
02:26:46,920 --> 02:26:50,360
I'm on social media as Alan Shabar with JJ.

2148
02:26:50,360 --> 02:26:58,120
You know, either one of those, there's also on Instagram at We Defy Foundation, Facebook

2149
02:26:58,120 --> 02:26:59,120
as well.

2150
02:26:59,120 --> 02:27:00,120
Okay.

2151
02:27:00,120 --> 02:27:05,680
And if they're local and they want to go to your gym, where they find that?

2152
02:27:05,680 --> 02:27:07,760
So we have a list of affiliates.

2153
02:27:07,760 --> 02:27:11,740
There are currently, I think, just over 700 affiliates nationwide.

2154
02:27:11,740 --> 02:27:19,000
So if you go to the website and actually just go to the affiliate portion of the website,

2155
02:27:19,000 --> 02:27:24,800
they actually have a map with all the different affiliates that we have.

2156
02:27:24,800 --> 02:27:25,800
All the information is online.

2157
02:27:25,800 --> 02:27:29,520
We try to make it as easy as possible to get involved.

2158
02:27:29,520 --> 02:27:36,160
We streamlined the process and we're putting 50 athletes through a month.

2159
02:27:36,160 --> 02:27:40,200
Initially started with five, so moved up to 50 now.

2160
02:27:40,200 --> 02:27:44,640
And yeah, by all means, you know, get involved and, you know, any of the combat to sale veterans

2161
02:27:44,640 --> 02:27:48,160
that meet the prerequisites for it, you know, try it out.

2162
02:27:48,160 --> 02:27:49,640
You know, that's the big thing.

2163
02:27:49,640 --> 02:27:51,120
Try it, see if it works for you.

2164
02:27:51,120 --> 02:27:52,840
It could lead definitely to something else.

2165
02:27:52,840 --> 02:27:56,640
And that's the big thing is trying to find what works right for you.

2166
02:27:56,640 --> 02:27:57,640
100%.

2167
02:27:57,640 --> 02:28:00,280
Well, Alan, I want to say thank you so much.

2168
02:28:00,280 --> 02:28:02,160
It's been an incredible conversation.

2169
02:28:02,160 --> 02:28:06,020
We've gone all over the place, but I've enjoyed every moment of it.

2170
02:28:06,020 --> 02:28:10,240
So I want to thank you for being so generous with your time and coming on the Behind the

2171
02:28:10,240 --> 02:28:12,520
Shield podcast today.

2172
02:28:12,520 --> 02:28:13,520
I can't appreciate it.

2173
02:28:13,520 --> 02:28:19,440
Honestly, I appreciate this more than you can imagine, just be able to get my point

2174
02:28:19,440 --> 02:28:24,640
of view out without being misinterpreted and get the full story out.

2175
02:28:24,640 --> 02:28:25,640
So I really appreciate it.

2176
02:28:25,640 --> 02:28:44,640
Thank you for your time.