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This episode is sponsored by BeaverFit.

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And as always, this is another company

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that I've not only been aware of for several years,

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but I also completely trust

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and I know is a great fit for this audience.

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Having not only been a firefighter in my career,

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but also a strength and conditioning coach,

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I've seen the challenges that we have

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getting the tactical athlete fit

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when it comes to budgets, when it comes to space.

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And BeaverFit has solutions for so many of our challenges.

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When it comes to space, they have the gym box, for example,

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which is literally the size of a foot locker

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that when you open it up and build it,

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becomes a squat rack, a pull-up bar, a box,

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and even a war ball target.

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So you can get a full workout for a crew

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purely on that one box.

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Expanding out, they have storage containers

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that become entire gyms.

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You store everything in the inside

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and you can then deploy racks and pull-up bars

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on the outside.

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They have gyms on trailers

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you can take from station to station.

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They have tactical boxes with breaching props

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and collapse props.

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And then on the flip side,

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the durability is another issue that we see.

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So often departments buy the low bid.

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They are the cheapest they can find.

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And ultimately that hard earned wellness budget

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gets wasted in equipment that rusts and falls apart.

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BeaverFit's gear is designed to be used

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in the most extreme environments,

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whether it's the deserts of the Middle East

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or simply on the deck of a naval ship.

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So they are designed to not only be outside,

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but to be beaten up by some of the most elite operators

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on the planet.

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If you wanna hear more about this company

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and I'm sure you do,

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listen to episode 477 with the original founder,

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Tom Beaver from the UK

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or the founders of BeaverFit USA,

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Alex Rudehouse and Mike Taylor on episode 457.

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Or visit BeaverFit USA

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and click on the military and tactical tab.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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As always, my name's James Gearing

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and this week it is my absolute honor

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to welcome on the show

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Tier One Navy Seal Officer Veteran

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and member of the Nevada Coalition for Psychedelic Medicine,

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John Dalton.

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Now, as you've probably seen before you hit play,

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this was a three hour conversation.

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There was so much to discuss.

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From John's early life,

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his journey into the Navy in 1995,

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9-11,

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responding to Operation Red Wings,

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Extortion 17,

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his transition story,

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the suicide epidemic in the Navy Seal community,

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the healing power of psychedelics and so much more.

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Now, before we get to this incredibly powerful

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and important conversation,

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as I say every week,

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please just take a moment.

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Go to whichever app you listen to this on,

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subscribe to the show,

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leave feedback and leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating

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truly does elevate this podcast,

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therefore making it easier for others to find.

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And this is a free library of over 1000 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share

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these incredible men and women stories

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so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth

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who needs to hear them.

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So with that being said,

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I introduce to you, John Dalton.

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Enjoy.

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So John, I want to start by saying three things actually.

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I don't really want to say two.

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Firstly, we tried to sit down a few weeks ago

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and there were gremlins in the works.

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So I want to welcome you back

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when we figured those things out.

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Secondly, I want to thank you, Michael Booman,

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our mutual friend for connecting us.

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And then most importantly,

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I want to welcome you onto the

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Behind the Shield podcast today.

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Thank you.

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I'm happy to be here.

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

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I am located in Northern Nevada

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up at the foothills of the Sierra in Northwest Reno.

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And not to be confused with Vegas,

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I have friends that are like,

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they'll fly into Vegas and be like,

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hey, I flew into Vegas to the sphere.

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Come check out this concert with us.

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And I'm like, you know, I'm seven hours from there, right?

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So I prefer to think about us.

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We're the more outdoorsy part of Nevada.

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I'm going to do a bizarre tangent right off the bat,

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but while we're talking about Vegas

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and with the background that people were here that you have,

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what was your perspective of the horrendous Vegas attack?

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The reason I asked that,

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coming from near Orlando

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and we had the pulse attacks here that were horrendous,

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but I saw that story go on for a long, long time.

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And eventually it was kind of told who this person was,

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what were the most likely motivations.

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And there was kind of a closure to that particular element.

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When it comes to the Vegas shooting,

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I feel like it abruptly stopped

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and there was no real continuation or, you know,

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unpacking of who this person was,

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what their motivations were,

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how they were able to get things into this particular building.

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What was your kind of overview of that horrendous tragedy

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that they saw in Las Vegas?

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Yeah, well, thank you for bringing that up.

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And, you know, we talk about being Vegas strong because of that.

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And so I don't know, you know,

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I'm certainly not a subject matter expert on the investigation

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and on everything that happened.

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I know nothing more than everybody else does at Washington News.

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And I'll preface everything by saying that I'm a strong

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Second Amendment guy, as you can imagine.

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And I think that, you know, we have there's two, two, two issues

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that seem to be that I see with a lot of these mass shootings

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and that's probably one of them that are recurring.

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And one is mental health crisis that we have in the United States.

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And, you know, I look at guns the same way I look at money.

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They're neither good nor bad.

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It's it's what happens when they're when when those things are in the hands

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of the of the user that determines that.

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And so, you know, you could do all the laws you want to restrict weapons.

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But if you have a mental health crisis, you simply have somebody

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building bombs and Molotov cocktails.

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And so I think that the number one issue we have is mental health.

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I think there's an interesting conundrum with HIPAA

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and, you know, privacy, personal privacy and mental health.

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And if your doctor is recognizing threat

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and I'm not going to be the guy to say where that line needs to be drawn.

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But clearly, it's not right.

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And we need to we need to better identify people

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that have mental health crises because that is I mean,

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just about every person that you see, you know, ultimately

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what happened was a form of insanity.

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And even if even if you just want to call that, you know, psychosis,

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you know, but it's about a form of insanity.

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And so we need to do a real better job of of identifying those people.

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And again, I say this from the perspective of, you know, veterans.

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We you know, you have veterans that have PTSD and, you know,

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there's a lot of people that are very concerned

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because the wrong impression could be given if a diagnosis of PTSD

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is there with and their and gun ownership.

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And it there, you know,

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there are so many people with PTSD that are simply it's survivors guilt

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or it's just, you know, the result is depression.

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It doesn't turn somebody into a raving lunatic.

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And so there's some real complexities there

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that need to be addressed with politics aside

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and just take a look at what is how to how to, you know, target that.

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The other thing I think that's a problem that we see time and time again

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is that, in fact, a lot of times phone calls were made,

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you know, phone calls were made to the FBI or phone calls were made

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to local authorities or in the case of school shootings to a school

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and you see channelized siloed information,

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you don't see the crosstalk or you see that it was outright ignored.

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Now, in fairness, you got to you got to look at how many kind of reports

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are probably given to an agency or a department.

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And so, you know, it's not I'm not saying entirely like, oh, hey,

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this is just all about them.

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But shoot, there has to be something better because

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so many times we hear somebody comes up, it's like, oh, yeah, I saw this happening.

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Or, oh, I knew this would happen with this guy.

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I contacted, you know, the police about him and they did nothing.

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Or I contacted the FBI about them and they did nothing.

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And so so then there's there's also the issue to be addressed

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of understaffing in law enforcement.

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There is the escalation of force of understanding, like when it should be

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when when when a call is just a BS call and when there's needs to be some,

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you know, somebody needs to be looked at and you do find out, oh, yeah,

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this person was on a watch list.

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And then that's the part where I'm just stymied

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because that's not the overworked.

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Somebody realized, you know, somebody in authority,

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some sort of a law enforcement officer recognized, oh, yeah,

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there may be a problem here and I put them on the watch list.

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And then what happens?

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You know, so I think those are the two issues.

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It obviously impacted us tremendously.

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Nevada, you know, we we enjoy hunting.

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We you know, we enjoy our guns.

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This is a you know, we have massive amounts of outdoor that we go,

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you know, to play and shoot, whether that shooting is

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shooting is Chuck or hunting, whether it's mule deer or whether it's shooting

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steel, you know, of which I do all three.

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And I just absolutely love it.

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So there needs to be that that balance of making sure that people don't

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infringe in my rights while we're also looking at how to how to handle

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violent mental health, you know, individuals.

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Absolutely. Well, thank you for that perspective.

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I mean, we'll get to your story now, but I just thought that was an interesting

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thing, because especially like I said, it didn't seem like it was.

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I don't know the right way of saying like it didn't appear to get the airtime

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that so many of these big events do.

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And I was wondering how that affected the healing of Las Vegas as a city.

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You know, we have, you know, obviously, Orlando strong for the the poll shooting.

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But it feels like there was a conclusion to the whole thing.

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But I just didn't feel maybe it's just because I'm disconnected

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from the state of Nevada.

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I didn't feel like that story got the same kind of closure

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for the people in the city.

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Well, I do know of some ketamine clinics

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that some of the survivors of that have since sought out ketamine

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as a form of of therapy to address their their PTSD.

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You know, oftentimes usually combined with regular therapy,

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so unassisted therapy kind of modality.

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All right. Well, I want to go to the very beginning of your timeline now, then.

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

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what your parents did, how many siblings.

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OK. Yeah. So I was a New Englander.

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I was born north of Boston

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in a little town called Ipswich, Massachusetts.

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I grew up I grew up rolling around in the North Atlantic Ocean,

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you know, as a seven year old without my parents watching,

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you know, being being pummeled by surf because, you know, we would go to Cranes

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Beach and that's what we do.

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The parents would let you go run off and you do all kinds of stuff.

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And if you didn't drown, you came back and made it back alive.

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So I look back on that now and realize, OK, this is probably why,

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you know, surf torture felt kind of natural to me.

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But I have one brother, he's a firefighter.

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He's a firefighter in Ipswich, Massachusetts.

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He's a career firefighter.

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And and my parents are both alive.

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They live with me.

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Well, they don't live with me, but they moved out to here to Nevada

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to a little town called Verdi.

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And and they're you know, they're doing they're doing great as well.

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They my dad was a small business owner, started with nothing

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and built up a a company,

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00:12:29,420 --> 00:12:31,860
commercial construction in the pump and tank industry.

253
00:12:31,860 --> 00:12:34,500
So when you think about gas stations and underground storage tanks

254
00:12:34,500 --> 00:12:36,260
and car dealerships, we did stuff like that.

255
00:12:36,260 --> 00:12:38,180
So and I grew up in that family.

256
00:12:38,180 --> 00:12:41,700
And actually, it was my dad.

257
00:12:41,740 --> 00:12:45,260
I grew up where on the weekends and everybody was going out and having fun.

258
00:12:45,260 --> 00:12:49,060
I was working in the family business and.

259
00:12:50,580 --> 00:12:53,700
Through summer vacation, I was working in the family business.

260
00:12:53,700 --> 00:12:57,500
And at the time, there was probably a little bit of resentment, like, gosh, darn it.

261
00:12:57,500 --> 00:13:01,420
I want to go kick some ass and have some fun with everybody else and do stupid shit.

262
00:13:01,780 --> 00:13:06,780
And but but I later realized that

263
00:13:07,940 --> 00:13:11,740
that what was being instilled in me was a work discipline, a work ethic.

264
00:13:11,740 --> 00:13:17,700
And and that and my dad did that in all facets of our life.

265
00:13:18,420 --> 00:13:24,140
In fact, I remember an example we you know, my dad was, like I say,

266
00:13:24,140 --> 00:13:27,740
started working out of our home and then we got a business, you know,

267
00:13:27,740 --> 00:13:32,260
a location headquarters and you know, he did well enough

268
00:13:32,260 --> 00:13:34,300
that we got a little cottage up in Maine.

269
00:13:34,540 --> 00:13:40,060
And I remember one particular November up in Maine on this lake, Thompson Lake.

270
00:13:40,060 --> 00:13:43,300
And it was getting dark out and we were winterizing the camp.

271
00:13:43,780 --> 00:13:50,020
And my dad told me, I want you to go down and pull the raft off the lake, bring it in.

272
00:13:50,340 --> 00:13:56,580
So the raft is about 50 feet, probably more like actually 100 feet off the shore.

273
00:13:57,340 --> 00:13:59,140
And so picture the environment.

274
00:13:59,180 --> 00:14:01,340
It's Maine, it's middle of November.

275
00:14:01,740 --> 00:14:02,940
So it's dark out.

276
00:14:03,260 --> 00:14:07,820
And I am probably 12 or 13, probably 13 years old.

277
00:14:07,820 --> 00:14:11,060
And, you know, my there was a lot of responsibilities given.

278
00:14:11,100 --> 00:14:13,300
And yeah, at least 13, 13, 14.

279
00:14:13,940 --> 00:14:20,540
And there was a canoe and I was to take the canoe and I was to take a line

280
00:14:20,540 --> 00:14:25,900
of some nylon, nylon rope, tied to a tree, get out to the raft,

281
00:14:26,620 --> 00:14:31,660
disconnect the the raft from its mooring, the chain that was there,

282
00:14:31,660 --> 00:14:35,300
and then use that rope to pull the raft back in.

283
00:14:37,140 --> 00:14:38,540
It was a little daunting for me.

284
00:14:38,580 --> 00:14:42,580
And, and there was also a high wind and this is a larger lake.

285
00:14:42,580 --> 00:14:47,340
So there's, there's white caps on this lake and it was pushing, pushing like a

286
00:14:47,340 --> 00:14:49,980
north to south perspective on, on this lake.

287
00:14:49,980 --> 00:14:51,940
So it was pushing down the lake.

288
00:14:52,500 --> 00:14:56,500
So I go out there with the canoe, I'm paddling my butt off.

289
00:14:57,060 --> 00:14:58,660
I still remember it very well.

290
00:14:58,660 --> 00:15:04,260
And I get out there and I pop the board to access the, the clevis pin with the,

291
00:15:04,300 --> 00:15:08,260
for the chain and I'm getting my hands down in there and I'm getting soaking wet

292
00:15:08,260 --> 00:15:12,580
because this, this water is, which has got this, you know, the, the, the

293
00:15:12,580 --> 00:15:16,060
beginnings of ice in the morning, the popping on the, on the shoreline.

294
00:15:16,060 --> 00:15:17,420
So that gives you an idea of that water town.

295
00:15:18,060 --> 00:15:20,580
And I, I'm going to shut this phone off here.

296
00:15:20,620 --> 00:15:21,340
I apologize.

297
00:15:21,740 --> 00:15:26,620
And I, I'm freezing my, my finger, my finger, my finger, my finger.

298
00:15:26,620 --> 00:15:32,580
I'm freezing my, my finger, my scrawny little fingers off and I can't do it.

299
00:15:32,780 --> 00:15:36,780
And so I, I can't break the pin.

300
00:15:37,500 --> 00:15:38,820
This ice started form.

301
00:15:39,740 --> 00:15:44,300
I get back in the canoe and I paddle back to my, to the shoreline and I go back up

302
00:15:44,300 --> 00:15:46,980
and I see dad, I can't get that raft in.

303
00:15:47,740 --> 00:15:50,220
My dad was just connecting the water system at the time.

304
00:15:50,220 --> 00:15:56,180
And he looks at me and he says, if you don't do it, who's going to?

305
00:15:57,900 --> 00:16:01,620
And I, it was not the answer I expected.

306
00:16:01,900 --> 00:16:04,900
And I thought he was just going to be like, yeah, I'll go out and help you out.

307
00:16:05,580 --> 00:16:11,100
And I turned around and I went back down and I cursed his name the whole way down.

308
00:16:11,740 --> 00:16:15,900
And I, I was like, I'm going to die tonight.

309
00:16:15,900 --> 00:16:16,860
I'm going to drown.

310
00:16:16,860 --> 00:16:18,460
I'm going to freeze to death.

311
00:16:18,460 --> 00:16:22,860
I'm going to get hypothermia and boy, boy, won't that show him.

312
00:16:23,660 --> 00:16:26,020
And, and I believed it.

313
00:16:26,020 --> 00:16:28,100
I was like, I don't think I'm going to make it out at the end of the night.

314
00:16:28,580 --> 00:16:37,100
And, and so I went back out there and I, I, I just, I ignored the pain in my,

315
00:16:37,380 --> 00:16:41,860
my hands from the cold and you know, I'm, I'm just jackhammering.

316
00:16:42,340 --> 00:16:43,820
And like I said, I'm a scrawny little guy.

317
00:16:43,820 --> 00:16:48,140
Like I'm not a big guy anyway, you know, but I was, and so I'm just

318
00:16:48,140 --> 00:16:50,060
going after it all of a sudden.

319
00:16:50,060 --> 00:16:58,100
I popped the clevis loose, the pin loose and I'm turning it and I'm, and I break

320
00:16:58,100 --> 00:17:03,820
it loose and I, I grabbed the rope and I pulled the rope back in and I pull the

321
00:17:03,820 --> 00:17:11,980
raft in and I pulled up to shore and I'm like, and I go up and I'm like, dad, I did

322
00:17:11,980 --> 00:17:16,820
it and he's like, I know, I knew you could do it.

323
00:17:16,820 --> 00:17:24,020
And that was a seminal moment for me because what he made me realize at that

324
00:17:24,020 --> 00:17:31,100
point in time, that the, the ceiling that I thought I had my own threshold was

325
00:17:31,100 --> 00:17:35,500
self-imposed and I didn't understand where it's like self-imposed then, but I,

326
00:17:35,500 --> 00:17:36,340
I do now.

327
00:17:36,340 --> 00:17:42,780
And I realized that what he made me do was realize that you don't quit and you

328
00:17:42,780 --> 00:17:46,260
can accomplish a lot more than what you think you can accomplish.

329
00:17:46,260 --> 00:17:52,540
So, you know, that obviously would wrap around to buds, but, but I, but I grew

330
00:17:52,540 --> 00:17:59,260
up in, you know, I graduated high school and I, I was, I was a bit of a train

331
00:17:59,260 --> 00:17:59,780
wreck.

332
00:18:00,780 --> 00:18:05,980
I was all over the place and you know, I think at one point my parents probably

333
00:18:05,980 --> 00:18:09,740
told me that, you know, they think, I think there was a conversation, as I was

334
00:18:09,740 --> 00:18:13,260
being like, as the police were showing up to my house, like yet one more time for,

335
00:18:13,260 --> 00:18:17,100
for high speed driving and, you know, breaking the law and doing the police

336
00:18:17,100 --> 00:18:17,540
chases.

337
00:18:18,100 --> 00:18:24,100
I think there was a conversation about, you know, John, we love you, but we're

338
00:18:24,100 --> 00:18:27,100
not really sure where you're going because you're really not going in the

339
00:18:27,100 --> 00:18:27,900
right direction.

340
00:18:28,380 --> 00:18:36,140
And so, so, you know, things, things were, were, were not, you know, off to an

341
00:18:36,140 --> 00:18:39,700
auspicious start as in a, as John Dalton's adulthood.

342
00:18:39,700 --> 00:18:46,660
And, and I was doing a lot of stupid stuff in it with, with, with automobiles,

343
00:18:46,660 --> 00:18:52,580
sports cars, dirt bikes, you know, and then later rock climbing and, and, and

344
00:18:52,740 --> 00:18:54,820
I'm doing these things.

345
00:18:55,140 --> 00:18:59,820
I'm pushing myself and I'm, and I'm not realizing that, Hey, this is me

346
00:18:59,820 --> 00:19:01,020
looking for dopamine hits.

347
00:19:01,020 --> 00:19:03,620
This is me being, you know, I knew what adrenaline was.

348
00:19:03,620 --> 00:19:05,100
I sure as heck knew what that was.

349
00:19:05,100 --> 00:19:05,700
And I liked it.

350
00:19:05,700 --> 00:19:10,740
And, and I had, and so I continue on.

351
00:19:10,740 --> 00:19:14,060
I had an environment, I started an environmental business doing

352
00:19:14,060 --> 00:19:15,980
soil and groundwater remediation.

353
00:19:16,380 --> 00:19:20,140
It's kind of like a sister company to my dad's company that was pulling tanks.

354
00:19:20,980 --> 00:19:26,980
And, and, and so I was an entrepreneur before I joined the military and did

355
00:19:26,980 --> 00:19:30,980
that for a little while, sold that business, moved down to the Caribbean,

356
00:19:31,020 --> 00:19:34,220
started a water company, and then I went to the U.S.

357
00:19:34,220 --> 00:19:37,860
and then I went to the Caribbean, started a water sports business and

358
00:19:37,860 --> 00:19:42,620
a bungee jumping company and, and loved that.

359
00:19:42,620 --> 00:19:48,620
Also was doing things with jet skis far enough from islands that, you know, I

360
00:19:48,620 --> 00:19:52,820
probably should have, you know, been a, been a statistic, but Darwinism

361
00:19:52,820 --> 00:19:54,100
kicked in and I still made it.

362
00:19:55,340 --> 00:20:02,860
And all this time I was, I was starting to figure something out about myself.

363
00:20:02,860 --> 00:20:07,420
I said I had an environmental business and during that environmental

364
00:20:07,420 --> 00:20:08,900
business, that was the first Gulf War.

365
00:20:09,820 --> 00:20:16,860
And I remember the, the, my buddies talking about the Iraqis.

366
00:20:17,540 --> 00:20:21,860
Yeah, these Iraqis are hardened, you know, soldiers and they're going to kick our ass.

367
00:20:21,940 --> 00:20:27,900
And if there's a draft, I'm moving to Canada and there's something about that,

368
00:20:27,940 --> 00:20:29,740
that, well, it's not something about that.

369
00:20:29,820 --> 00:20:30,820
I did not like that.

370
00:20:30,820 --> 00:20:32,860
I was like, that's wrong.

371
00:20:33,020 --> 00:20:33,940
That's not me.

372
00:20:34,500 --> 00:20:35,700
I was raised as a patriot.

373
00:20:35,700 --> 00:20:40,540
My dad did four years in the air force and he was a, you know, military

374
00:20:40,540 --> 00:20:46,860
historian, so to speak, and, and we, as a family, we loved our country.

375
00:20:47,180 --> 00:20:52,060
We understood, we understood, you know, the challenges of, of the United States,

376
00:20:52,060 --> 00:20:55,820
but the, but how, how blessed we were to live in this country.

377
00:20:55,820 --> 00:21:00,140
And I had this business, the Gulf War was happening.

378
00:21:00,140 --> 00:21:04,580
I didn't know at the time that it was be so short, but it made me realize,

379
00:21:04,580 --> 00:21:06,340
like I couldn't join up.

380
00:21:06,460 --> 00:21:09,500
I wanted to join, but I was financially invested in a business.

381
00:21:10,060 --> 00:21:12,660
I couldn't run that business in the bankruptcy and just go

382
00:21:12,660 --> 00:21:14,140
walk over to the recruiter.

383
00:21:14,380 --> 00:21:16,980
I was unable to do, to, to serve.

384
00:21:17,220 --> 00:21:24,420
And, and that really, that, that set something in my heart and soul that

385
00:21:24,420 --> 00:21:27,860
that, you know, later I ended up addressing.

386
00:21:27,980 --> 00:21:30,620
And so back to St.

387
00:21:30,620 --> 00:21:33,340
Martin, I had the jet ski business and the bunch of jumping company.

388
00:21:33,340 --> 00:21:38,220
And I was, I had, I started up an importing business, bringing sports

389
00:21:38,220 --> 00:21:41,100
cars and pickup trucks to the island of St.

390
00:21:41,100 --> 00:21:41,460
Martin.

391
00:21:42,020 --> 00:21:51,020
And, and I was, I knew a seal growing up that was from Vietnam.

392
00:21:51,020 --> 00:21:54,100
And I knew that I really wanted to serve.

393
00:21:54,260 --> 00:21:58,300
And I looked at, well, if I'm going to serve, and of course, you know,

394
00:21:58,300 --> 00:22:00,980
I, Top Gun was like, what 87, 88, the movie.

395
00:22:01,300 --> 00:22:04,100
So, you know, that looked cool.

396
00:22:04,700 --> 00:22:08,860
And so I start digging in and I'm thinking, what's going to be my next move?

397
00:22:08,860 --> 00:22:10,180
Well, I'm 25 now.

398
00:22:10,660 --> 00:22:17,900
And so I, I looked at being a pilot, a naval aviator, and I looked at being a

399
00:22:17,900 --> 00:22:23,180
seal and I'm like, and I don't know why I would think this, but I was like,

400
00:22:23,500 --> 00:22:27,700
okay, so the pilots, they're flying around this air conditioned, air

401
00:22:27,700 --> 00:22:31,420
conditioned cockpit and the seals.

402
00:22:31,980 --> 00:22:33,420
Well, that looks pretty bad ass.

403
00:22:33,460 --> 00:22:35,620
Like, like they're in the mud.

404
00:22:35,940 --> 00:22:37,940
They're like doing the impossible.

405
00:22:38,340 --> 00:22:42,180
They're these shadow warriors, you know, until we all wrote books, but before that.

406
00:22:42,180 --> 00:22:48,060
And the choir professionals and, and so I started studying about the seals.

407
00:22:48,300 --> 00:22:53,580
And I looked at this like a business venture and I'm like, this is amazing.

408
00:22:53,740 --> 00:22:55,980
Like this dropout rate is insane.

409
00:22:56,060 --> 00:23:00,420
And these guys in Vietnam, because that's what I was referencing.

410
00:23:01,420 --> 00:23:06,100
They were, they were, they were like the power of like, they're like 10 guys in one.

411
00:23:06,100 --> 00:23:07,580
It's because of this whole seal team.

412
00:23:07,580 --> 00:23:09,380
And I was like, I'm going to go to Vietnam.

413
00:23:09,380 --> 00:23:10,340
I'm going to go to the Navy.

414
00:23:10,340 --> 00:23:11,340
I'm going to go to the Navy.

415
00:23:11,340 --> 00:23:12,900
It's because of this whole seal team thing.

416
00:23:13,100 --> 00:23:15,260
I didn't do team sports growing up.

417
00:23:15,660 --> 00:23:19,540
I did, I did a little bit of cross, but for the most part I did running.

418
00:23:19,980 --> 00:23:23,780
I was also really hardcore into rock climbing and dirt bike race racing.

419
00:23:24,620 --> 00:23:26,300
But you know, mostly individual sports.

420
00:23:27,140 --> 00:23:32,940
And, and so I realized, I think this is where I want to go.

421
00:23:32,940 --> 00:23:40,060
I don't want to see another Gulf war happen and not be able to have done my part.

422
00:23:40,060 --> 00:23:42,140
Of course, this is 1994.

423
00:23:42,580 --> 00:23:50,340
So well before nine 11 for context for 1995 and 94, I sell my businesses down there.

424
00:23:51,260 --> 00:23:57,900
1995 I join up and there's my dad again.

425
00:23:57,940 --> 00:24:03,140
And he's like, he's like, you know, John, you don't do too well with authority.

426
00:24:05,500 --> 00:24:09,500
You realize what's going to happen if you don't make it as a seal, right?

427
00:24:09,500 --> 00:24:12,820
What they're going to do to you and where you're going to, you're going to be on a ship.

428
00:24:13,420 --> 00:24:20,060
And, you know, and he was trying, it wasn't talk, trying to talk me out of it, but he was.

429
00:24:20,940 --> 00:24:26,860
Really trying to, you know, help me to face the fact and not just, you know, have some,

430
00:24:27,260 --> 00:24:34,180
you know, have some, you know, flighty dream that, that, that that's not based in reality.

431
00:24:35,260 --> 00:24:37,540
And I said, I know I said, I'm going to have to do it.

432
00:24:37,540 --> 00:24:41,740
And so I started working out.

433
00:24:41,740 --> 00:24:48,580
I started, I discovered I was really good with endurance and, and I also discovered

434
00:24:48,580 --> 00:24:49,980
that pushups wasn't my strong point.

435
00:24:50,620 --> 00:24:57,020
And, yeah, but I can run like a son of a bitch and I could do, I could do sit-ups all day long.

436
00:24:57,020 --> 00:24:59,900
So, and I could do more pull-ups than just about anyone.

437
00:24:59,900 --> 00:25:05,180
So, you know, I, I, I was, I was okay.

438
00:25:05,180 --> 00:25:06,460
I'm in, I'm going to do this.

439
00:25:06,460 --> 00:25:09,820
And, and at that point, by the way, he was, he, he was completely supportive.

440
00:25:10,460 --> 00:25:12,580
He's like, well, then you're going to do it, you know?

441
00:25:12,580 --> 00:25:21,700
And so I went into basic training and I got to see what basic training of the Navy was like,

442
00:25:22,420 --> 00:25:30,940
which was both, both a little bit like, I was like, wow, this is, this is, this is the, this is a,

443
00:25:31,180 --> 00:25:35,020
this is a slice of America I haven't seen, you know, because it was everyone.

444
00:25:35,020 --> 00:25:40,060
Right. It was the entire, it's an entire society of America, culturally right in there.

445
00:25:40,060 --> 00:25:43,260
And, and I also saw something pretty amazing.

446
00:25:43,260 --> 00:25:50,380
I saw the Navy take people that didn't know how to make their beds and were crying behind their bunks

447
00:25:50,380 --> 00:25:55,140
because it's the first time they've been away from home and turn them into nukes, turn them

448
00:25:55,140 --> 00:26:01,660
into enlisted nuclear technicians and turn them into intelligence specialists and crypto techs.

449
00:26:01,660 --> 00:26:11,140
And all this incredible stuff. And, and I was actually quite impressed with, with that process,

450
00:26:11,140 --> 00:26:17,260
so to speak. So I went to Bud's and you want to keep on going like this?

451
00:26:17,260 --> 00:26:20,420
Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to circle back on something, but there's no need to do it right now.

452
00:26:20,420 --> 00:26:21,420
So please carry on.

453
00:26:22,100 --> 00:26:30,740
Okay. So, so in, in that time and phase place in 1995, there was no special operation.

454
00:26:30,740 --> 00:26:35,180
Special operator rating. So I went to Gunners Mate school and I thought, oh yeah, well,

455
00:26:35,180 --> 00:26:39,340
that'll make me good at guns. Well, that's a seal thing. So that's way better. I'm going to do that.

456
00:26:39,340 --> 00:26:45,340
And little did I know that out of the six month school, it was like robotics, hydraulics,

457
00:26:45,340 --> 00:26:50,540
electronics, you know, electrical. And there was only like two weeks dedicated to small arms.

458
00:26:50,540 --> 00:26:55,980
And, but, you know, all good. So I got really smart at, you know, I can, I can wire my house now.

459
00:26:55,980 --> 00:27:06,700
So that's good. But I, I signed up as a Gunners Mate. I went to Gunners Mate A school and,

460
00:27:09,100 --> 00:27:14,700
and, you know, I remember listening to a few guys and, you know, they were a couple, a couple

461
00:27:14,700 --> 00:27:19,740
guys were all for it. And one of the chiefs, the Gunners Mate chiefs comes up to me and he says,

462
00:27:19,740 --> 00:27:26,220
John, it's like, are you sure you want to go be a seal? Now, keep in mind, I'm not a big guy.

463
00:27:26,220 --> 00:27:33,420
And I'd probably weighed about a buck 40 right then. And so he's got the stereotypical image

464
00:27:34,060 --> 00:27:40,060
of what you see in a movie. And he's like, he's like, look at so-and-so. And this, and he talked

465
00:27:40,060 --> 00:27:44,380
about a guy that was like, had a, was a wrestler's build, right? Really, really kind of looked apart.

466
00:27:44,380 --> 00:27:50,220
And he's like, I think that guy's going to make it. And he's like, well, look at so-and-so. I,

467
00:27:50,220 --> 00:27:56,700
I don't know if he's going to make it. And you, I'm just not sure that this is the right direction

468
00:27:56,700 --> 00:28:04,780
that you should be going. And I'm like, okay, right on, you know, noted. And I put that guy in my head

469
00:28:05,340 --> 00:28:10,940
as, so that when I was going through seal trading, he would pop up in my head whenever anything was

470
00:28:10,940 --> 00:28:16,620
getting difficult. And I'd be like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, fuck you motherfucker. Watch this shit. As

471
00:28:16,620 --> 00:28:21,180
I'm like, you know, cruising through surf, surf torture or something like that, you know? So,

472
00:28:23,020 --> 00:28:29,340
made it through Gunners Made A School, went to, went to Bud's class 206. And there were about

473
00:28:29,340 --> 00:28:40,860
220 guys that started, 220 is like prior to first phase. And we, you know, went through Bud's.

474
00:28:42,860 --> 00:28:46,140
It was, and we started with 220, we finished with 17.

475
00:28:47,260 --> 00:28:52,300
Eight of us started and finished together. This was a pretty decent attrition rate. I think that

476
00:28:52,300 --> 00:29:02,460
was like probably 92, 93%. And I learned teamwork. I told, I said before, I hadn't been in team

477
00:29:02,460 --> 00:29:10,780
sports. I ran businesses. I thought I knew what it meant to be in a team and I didn't. And candidly,

478
00:29:11,260 --> 00:29:19,740
I was a little bit off guard on that. And I'm so grateful because it, that's where I learned

479
00:29:19,740 --> 00:29:26,860
to be a team player. And that's where I learned like to help the other guy when he's down.

480
00:29:28,300 --> 00:29:32,460
And also in Bud's, you kind of make the determination. Like if there's somebody that's,

481
00:29:33,500 --> 00:29:36,460
that's, it's almost like a triage, right? Like there's some guys that you're like,

482
00:29:36,460 --> 00:29:40,220
I'm not going to bother helping him. He's not going to make it. But then there's guys,

483
00:29:40,220 --> 00:29:43,820
you're like, you know, let me help him. And I remember one guy in particular,

484
00:29:43,820 --> 00:29:50,780
during the four mile run, he's a big guy, big dude. And we were, you know, we were, we were,

485
00:29:50,780 --> 00:29:55,980
we were good friends as well. And, and he was having trouble making the four mile run because

486
00:29:55,980 --> 00:30:02,220
he was so big. And I would run with him and, you know, I might even actually push him. And,

487
00:30:03,420 --> 00:30:08,380
you know, I remember I failed that one run and instead of getting my, you know, 26 mile,

488
00:30:08,380 --> 00:30:15,740
26 minute, you know, run time, I got like 32, you know, 30 or 31, 30, you know, as the phase

489
00:30:15,740 --> 00:30:21,500
has progressed and you're, and 32 might've been the cutoff, right? And I remember the instructors

490
00:30:21,500 --> 00:30:26,300
pulling me aside and say, Hey, you failed that run. So you got to sign this, but we want you to

491
00:30:26,300 --> 00:30:33,260
know, we know why you failed that run. And, you know, right on good, good stuff, man. Good shit.

492
00:30:33,260 --> 00:30:41,420
Inversely, that same guy, we were swimming and I wasn't doing so hot in the swims. And I was,

493
00:30:42,220 --> 00:30:46,140
my swim buddy was a foreign national who's a, who's a, who's a phenomenal dude, but he just

494
00:30:46,140 --> 00:30:51,420
wasn't strong in the swims. And, you know, at that point, you don't have the choice to like swim off

495
00:30:51,420 --> 00:30:55,100
away from your swim buddy. That's a, that's a quick way to get, you know, shit can right.

496
00:30:55,740 --> 00:31:01,580
And also you can't, but because you're like tied together, but, but, but, you know,

497
00:31:01,580 --> 00:31:07,740
it's dumb, but, uh, I was failing a couple of swims because of that. And so he,

498
00:31:09,100 --> 00:31:13,340
we, they, the instructors in their infinite wisdom, and I mean that in a positive way here,

499
00:31:13,340 --> 00:31:16,860
they paired me with this guy, perhaps because of what happened in the runs.

500
00:31:17,580 --> 00:31:24,300
And now we're doing the two mile swims and I'm kicking my ass off and I'm swimming like a

501
00:31:24,300 --> 00:31:29,740
motherfucker as hard as I can. And it's still not as fast as this guy's going because he might've

502
00:31:29,740 --> 00:31:37,100
been slow on, you know, on, on the land, but he was, he was a very fast swimmer and he would

503
00:31:37,100 --> 00:31:44,700
grab my UDT vest and pull me along. And, um, and, and, you know, all of a sudden my swim time

504
00:31:44,700 --> 00:31:50,700
skyrocketed in terms of, or rather dropped, right. In terms of the finishing. And so that's like the

505
00:31:50,700 --> 00:31:55,820
beautiful example of like, on one hand, I'm helping him and then I'm struggling a little bit. He's

506
00:31:55,820 --> 00:32:03,180
helping me. And, and I really, I understood like, I, this is where I started to really gel, but

507
00:32:03,180 --> 00:32:11,260
understanding the value of a team and, and boy did I, boy did I, boy did I really love that idea,

508
00:32:11,260 --> 00:32:21,580
you know? So yeah, so we graduated and, um, I, uh, I ended up getting honor grad and I only say that

509
00:32:21,580 --> 00:32:25,420
I was, I joked that was honor grad by attrition because all the guys that really deserved it got

510
00:32:25,420 --> 00:32:31,500
booted. But I mean, God, God had medical medical disquals, but, um, the relevancy to that is that

511
00:32:31,500 --> 00:32:41,980
I, um, my dad was in the audience during graduation day. And so I took a moment to call out my dad in

512
00:32:41,980 --> 00:32:49,900
this very same discipline that I had, that I had articulated to you earlier. I had put that out to

513
00:32:49,900 --> 00:32:58,380
this entire audience. Um, and I, you know, I, I credited some of my, I credited my performance with

514
00:32:58,380 --> 00:33:03,260
my team, with the, with the buds class, but also with my dad. And I said, if it wasn't for the

515
00:33:03,260 --> 00:33:08,380
discipline instilled in me by my dad, I never would have made it through. And that's true. And, um,

516
00:33:09,100 --> 00:33:13,900
at that moment, I saw tears run down his eyes and I'm like, yes,

517
00:33:13,900 --> 00:33:21,500
that's a motherfucker. I'm making you cry in front of him because he wasn't a crier, you know, so,

518
00:33:21,500 --> 00:33:25,820
well, but, uh, yeah. So that was, that was, um, that was buds.

519
00:33:26,940 --> 00:33:31,900
Few questions. Firstly, the foreign national, it wasn't Drago, was it? I had him on the show.

520
00:33:31,900 --> 00:33:36,460
Okay. No, no, no, no. Drago. I don't think would have been, I don't know. I don't know if Drago

521
00:33:36,460 --> 00:33:41,580
was slow in the swim, but he definitely was a strong motherfucker. So, yeah. All right. Well,

522
00:33:41,580 --> 00:33:50,700
then going back to, um, the attrition first, as we sit here in 2024, the many, many areas of the

523
00:33:50,700 --> 00:33:54,780
U S are seeing recruitment crises in the first responder professions. You know, you've got

524
00:33:54,780 --> 00:33:59,420
obviously the law enforcement and you've had a lot of, uh, arguably organizational betrayal behind

525
00:33:59,420 --> 00:34:06,140
that particular profession. And then on the fire service side, really, if you kind of unpack it,

526
00:34:06,140 --> 00:34:12,540
we've asked our first responders to work these insane work hours for a long time. And as, as the

527
00:34:12,540 --> 00:34:16,220
recruitment crisis is getting worse, now we're getting mandatory over times. You've got

528
00:34:16,220 --> 00:34:21,820
firefighters working 80 hours a week, you know, not sleeping every third or fourth day. Um, and,

529
00:34:21,820 --> 00:34:26,620
you know, now these young intelligent recruits are looking at what it looks like to be a firefighter

530
00:34:26,620 --> 00:34:30,940
and going, that doesn't look very good. And that's a shame, you know, but that is the reality that

531
00:34:30,940 --> 00:34:38,780
we're in a very poor solution. In my opinion is that now they're bringing standards down with the

532
00:34:38,780 --> 00:34:45,020
kind of fairy tale that that's going to attract more people. What I have seen working for four

533
00:34:45,020 --> 00:34:50,220
different fire departments, arguably one of the worst and one of the best in the country is when

534
00:34:50,220 --> 00:34:54,940
the bar was held high, that's when people were still lining up around the building because,

535
00:34:54,940 --> 00:35:00,540
you know, the kind of person that wants to be a firefighter or a cop or, or a Navy seal wants to

536
00:35:00,540 --> 00:35:04,780
be held at the highest standard. That's the challenge of being in that profession. What is

537
00:35:04,780 --> 00:35:13,340
your perspective of, um, lowering standards versus maintaining them and, uh, you know, regardless of

538
00:35:13,340 --> 00:35:18,540
the environment holding strong when it comes to that, because ultimately lives depend on those

539
00:35:18,540 --> 00:35:27,980
people. Yeah. So that's, that's a great question. And I, I'm friends with firefighters and friends

540
00:35:27,980 --> 00:35:34,780
with law enforcement. Uh, my ex-girlfriend's a Reno firefighter and, uh, she would discuss with me

541
00:35:34,780 --> 00:35:40,380
some of the, some of the standards because she's the type of person that, uh, did not want to have

542
00:35:40,380 --> 00:35:45,260
anything to do with a female standard. You know, she wanted to be meeting the male standard. Uh,

543
00:35:45,260 --> 00:35:51,820
but, and I got cop friends that are like, dude, the types of people, this is, you know, after

544
00:35:51,820 --> 00:35:57,340
the, um, you know, the riots and what have you and, and the BLM, you know, riots and whatever.

545
00:35:57,340 --> 00:36:02,540
And he's like, the types of people we're getting now, we're not getting the good quality guys.

546
00:36:02,540 --> 00:36:10,140
We're getting people that we would have never wanted to get. And so I think it all kind of is

547
00:36:11,740 --> 00:36:18,540
related. And so I'm sure this is no surprise to you. It's, I think that changing standards is a

548
00:36:18,540 --> 00:36:25,660
horrible thing. Those standards were designed to save lives. And those standards, whether it was

549
00:36:26,380 --> 00:36:33,740
firefighter, law enforcement, special operations were written in the, those SOPs were written in

550
00:36:33,740 --> 00:36:41,660
blood by our predecessors. They were put there for a reason and they were put there, not based on

551
00:36:41,660 --> 00:36:48,860
recruiting, but they were put there based on the best chance of survival for that particular trade

552
00:36:49,420 --> 00:36:55,500
and that in those individuals and that crew. And so, yeah, I think it's a terrible thing. I think,

553
00:36:56,300 --> 00:37:01,340
I think, you know, this is one of those band-aid solutions that doesn't actually address the core

554
00:37:01,340 --> 00:37:07,900
problem. And so, so the solution isn't to drop standards, the solution to address the core problem.

555
00:37:07,900 --> 00:37:13,420
And that is that when we look at, when we look at, say firefighters and law enforcement,

556
00:37:14,060 --> 00:37:22,780
it's, it is an information operations campaign to help people understand the good and the value

557
00:37:23,500 --> 00:37:30,060
that first responders bring to the community. That's been lost. You know, you grow up

558
00:37:30,780 --> 00:37:35,660
with kids wanting to be a firefighter or wanting to be a, you know, wanting to be a cop. And there's

559
00:37:35,660 --> 00:37:40,300
all this good that's wrapped around it. And the reality is that those firefighters, those cops are

560
00:37:40,300 --> 00:37:45,020
no different than firefighters and cops now. It was good, it was bad, and it was in between. And,

561
00:37:45,900 --> 00:37:50,860
you know, there's also like every community has its own ship bags and it has its own rock stars,

562
00:37:50,860 --> 00:37:57,020
right? We didn't have a 24 hour news cycle. So the ship bags did, you know, you kind of tried to

563
00:37:57,020 --> 00:38:05,900
attract them out through the crew, through the teams and work to get them. And there might not have been

564
00:38:06,620 --> 00:38:13,340
as well of a standard during, you know, previous times on your note, you need to leave the community.

565
00:38:13,980 --> 00:38:20,620
I think that's changed, but it's changed to the point now that you could be a good and honorable dude

566
00:38:21,660 --> 00:38:25,820
doing your job. And all of a sudden the spotlight's on you because of a mistake,

567
00:38:25,820 --> 00:38:31,180
not a fuck up, right? You know, just for, just so everybody doesn't, might not understand the

568
00:38:31,180 --> 00:38:36,300
difference, you know, mistake is, there's mistakes and fuck ups and mistakes. That's, that's, that's

569
00:38:36,300 --> 00:38:41,340
what you want to make because that's, you make mistakes to get better. You make mistakes because

570
00:38:41,340 --> 00:38:45,820
you're human. And then a fuck up is when you're doing something where there's probably some sort

571
00:38:45,820 --> 00:38:52,540
of nefarious intent or cheating or you're screwing over your own team. And that's where that line is

572
00:38:52,540 --> 00:38:59,100
drawn. And so, you know, now we target people that make the stakes and that's the same with cops and

573
00:38:59,100 --> 00:39:06,940
shootings. It's so easy in this world that we live in where kids are playing Xbox and they're, you

574
00:39:06,940 --> 00:39:12,220
know, whacking everybody and, you know, they don't, you know, don't whack the good guy. And they're

575
00:39:12,220 --> 00:39:19,660
not really in the shoes of a cop who has had limited training, limited amount of ammunition allowed

576
00:39:19,660 --> 00:39:27,740
to use towards, towards, towards his marksmanship and shooting skills. And, and

577
00:39:29,660 --> 00:39:37,100
their understanding of escalation of force is, was taught at the academy, but it's maybe not

578
00:39:37,740 --> 00:39:41,660
consistently there with training because of training budgets. And the same falls in the

579
00:39:41,660 --> 00:39:47,020
firefighter category with, with, with their training budgets. So I won't go down the rabbit

580
00:39:47,020 --> 00:39:55,020
hole of defund the police, but you're, you're, you're causing more problems by that. And so,

581
00:39:55,020 --> 00:40:01,180
yeah, there's a big cultural change effort that needs to go underway on helping our society to

582
00:40:01,740 --> 00:40:06,860
remember the good that our organizations do so that we can increase recruiting that way,

583
00:40:06,860 --> 00:40:12,220
not by decreasing standards. I've had the same phrase said to me a couple of times in the last

584
00:40:12,220 --> 00:40:18,620
few days, the answer to the recruitment crisis is retention. And I've, and the way they unpacked

585
00:40:18,620 --> 00:40:24,060
that, which I thought was brilliant is, you know, when you have a happy workforce, they're your best

586
00:40:24,060 --> 00:40:29,260
PR agency. They're saying, this is amazing. You should do this one day. You know, well, let me

587
00:40:29,260 --> 00:40:33,500
help you train for it. Let me help you prepare for it. But the problem that we're having now is,

588
00:40:33,500 --> 00:40:38,860
and it's heartbreaking. You know, you used to have this multi-generational element when it came to

589
00:40:38,860 --> 00:40:42,940
fire service. You know, my father was, my grandfather was, whatever it was, same with the military.

590
00:40:43,500 --> 00:40:49,900
Now I'm hearing far more first responders say, I tell my kids, don't do this job. So whether it's

591
00:40:49,900 --> 00:40:55,180
within the family, whether it's just, you know, peers that you meet, when you allow a profession

592
00:40:55,180 --> 00:41:01,580
to start decaying, like fire and police is at the moment, and you have the people in the profession

593
00:41:01,580 --> 00:41:06,940
seeming physically and mentally like they're, they're, they're getting worse. There's your real

594
00:41:06,940 --> 00:41:12,540
poster. And again, like you said, there's such an easy fix. It's the proactive invest in your people

595
00:41:12,540 --> 00:41:17,500
fix. Give the first responders the rest and recovery between these shifts. Give them the training,

596
00:41:17,500 --> 00:41:22,540
give them fitness standards, for Christ's sake, make them stay at a high standard, you know,

597
00:41:22,540 --> 00:41:27,100
and then all of a sudden you will have that excitement. Because when I tested as a firefighter

598
00:41:27,100 --> 00:41:33,740
only 20 years ago, I was up against thousands of people. Now these departments are taking the

599
00:41:33,740 --> 00:41:39,820
entire list. Then they took the top five, 3% of the list. So this is what people are not understanding.

600
00:41:39,820 --> 00:41:43,980
18 and a heartbeat does not mean the right candidate for that profession.

601
00:41:44,940 --> 00:41:51,100
Yeah, absolutely. And in the military, we call the multi-generational military family, the warrior

602
00:41:51,100 --> 00:41:57,500
caste, right? It's, it is, it is your dad did it. Your great granddad did it. Your great great

603
00:41:57,500 --> 00:42:03,100
granddad did it. And thank God that in the South, we still have a strong warrior caste, but yeah,

604
00:42:03,100 --> 00:42:10,700
no, it comes down to the, the cultural, the cultural perspective of what it means to join

605
00:42:10,700 --> 00:42:15,340
the military or what it means to be a cop. And so that's, or firefighter. And so that's,

606
00:42:16,060 --> 00:42:22,860
that's the start point. But then if you're then in there, and when there was, when, when our wars

607
00:42:22,860 --> 00:42:29,100
were, you know, at max operational tempo, you couldn't get it. There were, there were so many,

608
00:42:29,100 --> 00:42:36,220
there were so many young men signing up to be SEALs. And, you know, it wasn't just to meet the,

609
00:42:36,780 --> 00:42:44,220
you had to do the, the SEAL qualification test. You had to just knock it out of the park against

610
00:42:44,220 --> 00:42:50,140
a bunch of other people that were training for it that were really good. And it was our best time.

611
00:42:50,140 --> 00:42:58,060
And even though, you know, our, our, our fatalities were at the highest, the, the camaraderie was

612
00:42:58,060 --> 00:43:06,140
there. Everybody was doing the job, right. And you talk to guys now, and especially, and I don't

613
00:43:06,140 --> 00:43:11,820
want to overemphasize this, but with the, with the, some of the woke culture that's been happening

614
00:43:11,820 --> 00:43:17,740
and some of the DEI that's been injected in there, where instead of meritocracy, regardless of the

615
00:43:17,740 --> 00:43:24,940
color of somebody's skin or religion or race or anything like that, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,

616
00:43:24,940 --> 00:43:29,660
it's driving people away and it's driving people away for the wrong reasons. It's, it's, and so

617
00:43:30,860 --> 00:43:39,820
when, when there's not a war to be fought, there's, and instead you're, you're looked down upon,

618
00:43:41,020 --> 00:43:46,220
nobody wants to be in that environment. And that's, and so, yeah, that's, that's that,

619
00:43:46,940 --> 00:43:53,580
I mean, the resiliency of the individual drops, then they see opportunity on the outside and

620
00:43:53,580 --> 00:44:01,100
they're like, why am I putting up with this bullshit? And, you know, it could, and I can't

621
00:44:01,100 --> 00:44:06,780
blame guys for, for leaving. It's just really, it's just really, we're, we're paying the price and,

622
00:44:06,780 --> 00:44:10,300
and you know, we're going to continue to pay the price until we can change something.

623
00:44:11,660 --> 00:44:17,100
When it comes to the diversity conversation, one of the solutions in the fire service specifically

624
00:44:17,100 --> 00:44:23,020
that I absolutely love is a friend of mine started a mentorship program here where I live

625
00:44:23,020 --> 00:44:28,300
and they have training at a central location, which is close to arguably some of the poorer

626
00:44:28,300 --> 00:44:34,540
areas in the city. And if you can just physically make it to the station, they have equipment,

627
00:44:34,540 --> 00:44:38,620
they have people training you, then there's, you know, scholarships for the fire academy,

628
00:44:38,620 --> 00:44:42,860
which happens to be in my town as well. There's obviously fire departments begging for people.

629
00:44:42,860 --> 00:44:48,620
If you come out the other side, but it's removed the barriers to entry to some of these underserved

630
00:44:48,620 --> 00:44:53,420
populations. Cause there are certainly groups that, you know, it just wasn't even in their radar to

631
00:44:53,420 --> 00:44:59,340
become a seal or a firefighter. But what they do is they set that bar and like, all right, group from

632
00:44:59,340 --> 00:45:04,780
over here, which one of you are willing to come to this bar. And then you end up finding the best

633
00:45:05,340 --> 00:45:09,980
candidates from these underserved areas. You're not just scooping them all up and say, you know,

634
00:45:09,980 --> 00:45:14,860
we need 20 English guys come over here without seeing if they even want to be in this profession

635
00:45:14,860 --> 00:45:20,540
in the first place. What's interesting on that kind of prep, prep class philosophy though,

636
00:45:20,540 --> 00:45:25,980
is a few of, you know, your fellow seals have talked about them doing a sort of, not so much

637
00:45:25,980 --> 00:45:31,500
of a diversity, but doing a prep class for buds. And when it was analyzed, it wasn't really making

638
00:45:31,500 --> 00:45:34,780
a difference on the succession. What have you seen as far as that?

639
00:45:37,900 --> 00:45:43,660
Well, I have not been in, as an instructor in basic seal training, and it's been a long time,

640
00:45:43,660 --> 00:45:49,340
so I've been there. So things have changed. What I would say is, I think when you think about

641
00:45:49,340 --> 00:45:57,420
something, say like inclusion, if you're able to access an untapped reserve of, you know, men and

642
00:45:57,420 --> 00:46:06,460
women that are capable of doing the job, then that's a win. So if you're able to provide

643
00:46:06,460 --> 00:46:12,300
resources to help, you know, get people involved where they otherwise either had no idea or they

644
00:46:12,300 --> 00:46:21,580
didn't have the resources to be able to do so, that's a good thing. I think, but the one constant

645
00:46:23,420 --> 00:46:27,500
is standards, right? You just need to make sure you don't change the standards.

646
00:46:29,020 --> 00:46:34,380
You know, that's something that is, what that's going to do is it's going to cause resentment,

647
00:46:34,380 --> 00:46:41,260
because nobody cares about who you are on the battlefield. They just care that you're able to

648
00:46:41,260 --> 00:46:49,660
meet the standard and that if I get shot, somebody else is going to be able to pick me up and carry

649
00:46:49,660 --> 00:46:55,580
me away. Even from a mental health point of view, when I think about the good academies or

650
00:46:55,580 --> 00:47:01,740
orientations that I did in fire service versus the last one I did where there was no PT, nothing,

651
00:47:01,740 --> 00:47:08,220
you just signed papers, drove around a lot and then put the uniform on and off you went, is that

652
00:47:08,220 --> 00:47:13,820
shared suffering I think builds camaraderie and that forges a better mental health. When you lower

653
00:47:13,820 --> 00:47:18,860
standards, it's actually detrimental to the mental health and camaraderie of your department too.

654
00:47:20,380 --> 00:47:25,820
Yeah, 100%. I mean, you know, again, I, whether I look back at buds and I'm like carrying a boat

655
00:47:25,820 --> 00:47:32,220
on my head and there's a, there's a little Filipino dude that is like, help carrying my weight,

656
00:47:32,220 --> 00:47:37,420
you know, I'm like, thank God, you know, like, thank God for you, brother, you know, like,

657
00:47:37,420 --> 00:47:43,180
I'll get you a beer this weekend, you know, like, and yeah, that, so that, that camaraderie is built

658
00:47:43,180 --> 00:47:48,860
and, you know, when we, when we talk about things like race, I, there's a couple, there's several,

659
00:47:49,420 --> 00:47:55,740
there's several minority leaders that I worked with both on the enlisted side and the officer side

660
00:47:55,740 --> 00:48:07,580
and they, two in particular stick out and they were amazing humans. I learned so much from them

661
00:48:08,300 --> 00:48:17,580
and my bond with them was tight. My respect for them was tight because they were dialed

662
00:48:17,580 --> 00:48:22,860
and I learned from them. And so, you know, the more I learned from somebody else, the more I can

663
00:48:22,860 --> 00:48:28,300
the more I can certainly appreciate that and, and, you know, and I did. So, yeah.

664
00:48:28,300 --> 00:48:36,220
Vinay Prasad So you enter in 95, obviously that's a few years before 9-11, which part of the world

665
00:48:36,220 --> 00:48:40,860
did you end up kind of protecting at that point? And then let's kind of go through to 9-11 through

666
00:48:40,860 --> 00:48:41,500
your eyes.

667
00:48:41,500 --> 00:48:51,260
Chris Bounds Okay. So I, so obviously, peace was, you know, we're a peacetime country at the time.

668
00:48:51,260 --> 00:48:58,460
And however, I saw South America, I kept hearing the language was Colombia is a power keg waiting

669
00:48:58,460 --> 00:49:03,980
to explode. And the FARC, which was a narco terrorist group, was running rampant and the

670
00:49:03,980 --> 00:49:09,820
Sandero Luminosa was running rampant and, you know, another narco terrorist group and,

671
00:49:10,780 --> 00:49:16,060
and the cartels were, you know, having their way with, with, you know, assassinating people left

672
00:49:16,060 --> 00:49:24,700
and right. And so I went to SEAL Team 4 and that was a Central and South America team, primarily.

673
00:49:24,700 --> 00:49:30,380
And this was before something called Force 21 when, when the teams became, each team became a

674
00:49:30,380 --> 00:49:36,220
little bit more of a jack of all trades. And so that was, so my expertise at the time was, aside

675
00:49:36,220 --> 00:49:43,900
from being a sniper, I was, I was, you know, a jungle warfare specialist. And, and so I worked

676
00:49:43,900 --> 00:49:49,420
down in South America and I thought that was awesome. I loved it. But I also, you know,

677
00:49:49,420 --> 00:49:53,340
we were doing a lot of what's called foreign internal defense, which means I'd go down there

678
00:49:53,340 --> 00:50:06,140
and I would be living in an ex cartel leaders fortress that was over, you know, taken over by,

679
00:50:06,140 --> 00:50:12,380
by the government. And we would be inside these safe walls. We might go party at night in, you

680
00:50:12,380 --> 00:50:19,340
know, Cartagena or something like that, or Cali or, or Lima or anything like that. But, but we would

681
00:50:19,340 --> 00:50:25,820
be training locals, local special operations units and they would go out at night and they would do

682
00:50:25,820 --> 00:50:31,100
their thing and they would come back and they, you know, they might have casualties or what have you.

683
00:50:31,100 --> 00:50:36,540
And for the most part, we would be behind the wall. They would occasionally, we could find an

684
00:50:36,540 --> 00:50:44,620
excuse to get out and advise, but it was, that was more the exception than the rule. I found that

685
00:50:44,620 --> 00:50:49,260
frustrating. I also understood these are the, these are the rules. And so whatever, you know,

686
00:50:49,260 --> 00:50:56,860
but I was around 2000, I was going to get out. I was, I was looking at my, my enlistment was

687
00:50:56,860 --> 00:51:03,340
going to be up in like, I think it was 2002. And so I started a business in New England,

688
00:51:03,340 --> 00:51:08,620
a residential development business to start, you know, buying properties and building homes and,

689
00:51:09,180 --> 00:51:15,020
and what have you. And that's, so I was, I would, on my leave time, I would go up to Massachusetts

690
00:51:15,020 --> 00:51:19,740
and Maine to start working this. And I kind of, in my head, I was like, okay, I checked the block,

691
00:51:19,740 --> 00:51:24,380
I'll be in a Navy SEAL. That's cool. I'm going to go do something else, make a bunch of money. And,

692
00:51:24,380 --> 00:51:34,620
and then, you know, nine 11 happened. And my partner at the time, I, who was, you know, civilian,

693
00:51:35,740 --> 00:51:43,100
I told him, I said, Hey, 9-11 happened. And he's like, I get it. He, I'm like, I'm not,

694
00:51:44,060 --> 00:51:51,180
this is what I was built to do. And everything I trained for. And he's like,

695
00:51:51,180 --> 00:51:58,300
go do it. And so I went to go back seat there. And it was at that point that I realized, okay,

696
00:51:58,300 --> 00:52:03,820
well, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to screen for Dev group and try to get over there.

697
00:52:04,620 --> 00:52:11,820
And so I did, I screened, I went over there and, and, you know, subsequently did like,

698
00:52:12,940 --> 00:52:15,580
I think, I think I did his own 11 combat deployments.

699
00:52:15,580 --> 00:52:20,140
What was the actual day of 9-11 for you through your eyes? Where were you? And what would you

700
00:52:20,140 --> 00:52:31,100
remember? Okay. So I had a 1970 Corvette Mako shark, and I was doing a body off restoration

701
00:52:31,100 --> 00:52:36,220
on it. So bear in mind SEAL team four is located at Virginia Beach. And so I was down in New York,

702
00:52:36,220 --> 00:52:41,420
North Carolina, which later became the home actually right then it was the birthplace,

703
00:52:41,420 --> 00:52:48,540
so Blackwater back when it was quite literally some portable shooting trailers and, you know,

704
00:52:48,540 --> 00:52:52,700
their idea of a range back then, which is clearing away a road and we could, you know,

705
00:52:52,700 --> 00:53:00,780
go shoot yard lines with it. But I was, I went down to check on my Corvette that was, that was,

706
00:53:00,780 --> 00:53:05,660
you know, the body was off, it was down to the frame and all this. And talking to this,

707
00:53:05,660 --> 00:53:13,180
the secretary that was at the at the counter, she was very well endowed,

708
00:53:14,460 --> 00:53:21,420
gal with narrow hips, narrow waist rather, and long blonde hair, blue eyes. And, and I think I was

709
00:53:22,460 --> 00:53:27,900
attempting to probably pick her up or do something to that effect. And it was, I was,

710
00:53:27,900 --> 00:53:35,580
it was moving towards success. And then my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my,

711
00:53:35,580 --> 00:53:41,580
buddy comes in that drove me down there and he's like, John, plane just hit one of the, one of the

712
00:53:41,580 --> 00:53:49,500
towers. And candidly, my initial reaction was, jeez, what a fucking moron. I look, I just figured

713
00:53:49,500 --> 00:53:57,180
that was a private aircraft and somebody had fucked up. And I didn't, I didn't think terrorist

714
00:53:57,180 --> 00:54:06,620
attack. And so I'm like, right on man. Thanks. That's crazy. And I continue with my, with the

715
00:54:06,620 --> 00:54:14,140
endeavor that I'm involved in and comes back in another plane hit the other world trade center.

716
00:54:14,780 --> 00:54:20,220
And that's when it was obviously, you know, very, very obvious what happened. So I,

717
00:54:20,220 --> 00:54:24,940
we jumped into the car. I'm like, I need you to take me to my seal team drove up to the seal team,

718
00:54:24,940 --> 00:54:29,980
dropped me off. I went in and, you know, we were obviously the, the, the base was in full lockdown.

719
00:54:30,780 --> 00:54:35,820
We were chomping at the bed on what, you know, what to do, how to get involved. And it was so,

720
00:54:35,820 --> 00:54:40,940
you know, it was so early on. Now I do remember just a couple of, you know, probably a week

721
00:54:40,940 --> 00:54:43,900
before that, maybe, maybe a month before that now, when

722
00:54:43,900 --> 00:54:49,740
they, oh shoot, Mansour was a Mansour, the private, the president of Afghanistan with all the

723
00:54:49,740 --> 00:54:54,140
president of the Northern Alliance, the guy that ran the Northern Alliance, Masood Masood. Thank

724
00:54:54,140 --> 00:55:00,300
you. Thank you. They were doing an interview with him and, you know, they used a video camera,

725
00:55:00,300 --> 00:55:05,420
of course, back then, the other cameras like this big, you know, with explosives and, and killed

726
00:55:05,420 --> 00:55:09,500
them. And so we all knew, you know, that was the first time that we were going to be in a

727
00:55:09,500 --> 00:55:16,060
room like this, you know, with explosives and, and killed them. And so we all knew

728
00:55:17,180 --> 00:55:23,980
that was, that was a hotspot. But, you know, at team four, we didn't, we weren't expecting

729
00:55:23,980 --> 00:55:28,620
this to happen. We were, you know, in terms of counter terror, we looked at the coal, which

730
00:55:28,620 --> 00:55:33,660
happened, you know, not, not to just, you know, a few years prior. And so there's all these

731
00:55:33,660 --> 00:55:38,140
onesy-twosy things. However, you know, the Clinton administration was in there at the

732
00:55:38,140 --> 00:55:46,140
issue and, you know, and, and the, the resistance to actually do anything worthwhile, you know,

733
00:55:46,140 --> 00:55:52,540
particularly when Black Hawk Down was happening. And so none of us would have expected, I think,

734
00:55:52,540 --> 00:55:55,900
to go to the Middle East, certainly not team four guys, until that happened.

735
00:55:57,820 --> 00:56:04,220
So what was the contrast between training? Obviously, the, the SEAL veterans that you

736
00:56:04,220 --> 00:56:07,100
were learning from, certainly if they were Vietnam era, obviously there was a lot of

737
00:56:07,100 --> 00:56:12,620
focus on jungle warfare. I know, you know, Bosnia, for example, was a, was an arena where

738
00:56:12,620 --> 00:56:18,700
it was more urban warfare. What was the training prior? And then what, if anything, did you

739
00:56:18,700 --> 00:56:22,780
suddenly have to start shifting to prepare for this new arena that you're going to be going to?

740
00:56:22,780 --> 00:56:35,900
Yeah. So I completely shifted from jungle warfare stuff to understanding desert.

741
00:56:37,340 --> 00:56:43,420
Fortunately, I'd always tried to have my fingers in mountain warfare. And, you know, that, that,

742
00:56:43,420 --> 00:56:50,780
that obviously paid off. But it, but it shifted entirely towards a, you know, towards, towards

743
00:56:50,780 --> 00:56:56,540
desert warfare with some amount warfare kicked, kicked in there. It was a, you know, completely

744
00:56:56,540 --> 00:57:00,940
different, completely different environment. Now, obviously the group that you were in,

745
00:57:00,940 --> 00:57:05,100
I'm not going to talk about where and when and all that kind of thing. So I'll throw something

746
00:57:05,100 --> 00:57:09,260
at you and then obviously we'll talk about some of the tragedies that you responded to as well.

747
00:57:10,060 --> 00:57:17,340
But for people that have been in combat, when we, the civilians are at home, I would argue we get

748
00:57:17,340 --> 00:57:22,860
a very polarized view of war, either kill them all, let God sort them out, or they're all baby

749
00:57:22,860 --> 00:57:27,420
killers. And obviously in the middle are the men and women that we serve, you know, that we send

750
00:57:27,420 --> 00:57:34,380
overseas with our flag on their shoulder to go and, you know, protect and serve. It's a two-sided

751
00:57:34,380 --> 00:57:38,940
story because you don't really hear either of these. The first one, was there a moment where

752
00:57:38,940 --> 00:57:44,140
you realized, you know, you witnessed that there absolutely were some horrific people that needed

753
00:57:44,140 --> 00:57:47,820
to be taken care of, regardless of the politics that maybe sent you there?

754
00:57:49,900 --> 00:58:00,700
So when I was in Afghanistan for the first time, I, you know, I believed and I still do,

755
00:58:00,700 --> 00:58:09,020
that, you know, I was involved in a noble effort, noble war. And, but I also, I also recognized that

756
00:58:09,020 --> 00:58:18,460
what I didn't want to be was that, that guy that it was just, you know, take that hill and I'm

757
00:58:18,460 --> 00:58:23,900
blindly charging it without understanding why. And so that was the first time I really started to

758
00:58:23,900 --> 00:58:33,260
study foreign policy. And because I wanted to really understand the bigger picture as I was on

759
00:58:33,260 --> 00:58:38,620
the cutting edge, you know, the kind of the pointy end of the kinetic side of foreign policy, so to

760
00:58:38,620 --> 00:58:46,460
speak. Right. And I wanted to make sure I, you know, when I was, when I was civilian, I heard

761
00:58:46,460 --> 00:58:51,820
other things, you know, I heard about the government doing things and, you know, all this,

762
00:58:51,820 --> 00:58:58,460
all this stuff that was conspiratorial. And, you know, I, and, you know, you hear stories about,

763
00:58:58,460 --> 00:59:10,220
you know, what happened in Vietnam. And I was, I was recognizing my own morality and getting a

764
00:59:10,220 --> 00:59:16,460
pretty clear picture that whatever I did, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to be challenging

765
00:59:16,460 --> 00:59:22,140
my own, you know, morals and values. What I could tell you is that I, you know, throughout my entire

766
00:59:22,140 --> 00:59:32,140
career, that, that I was not challenged. I was, I was fully invested. My eyes were open. I knew

767
00:59:32,140 --> 00:59:42,460
everything I was doing. And I was doing it for, for the greater good of, of America. And I realized,

768
00:59:42,460 --> 00:59:49,660
too, and this was, you know, we're talking early part, you know, 2002, 2003, 2004. And

769
00:59:49,660 --> 00:59:54,700
the, the, the news stations weren't quite as polarized as they are now. And yet I also

770
00:59:54,700 --> 01:00:02,060
recognized that what I was seeing on the news was this small slice of the reality of what was

771
01:00:02,060 --> 01:00:07,420
happening there. And some of that was because it's, it's a two minute snippet, but the other part is

772
01:00:07,420 --> 01:00:13,180
because they just don't know. And yeah, it's great to have people embedded or whatever, but

773
01:00:13,180 --> 01:00:17,180
you can't, that's not practical. That's not practical all the time. And that's not practical

774
01:00:17,180 --> 01:00:21,740
most of the time. And in fact, a lot of times that's just plain dangerous and sometimes just

775
01:00:21,740 --> 01:00:27,500
stupid because you don't, you're in a classified operation. You can't have somebody that's not,

776
01:00:27,500 --> 01:00:33,420
doesn't have a clearance involved with that and understands the bigger picture. And so I saw that.

777
01:00:33,420 --> 01:00:42,460
I saw, I saw slices of what we were doing in the news and I'm like, huh, that's how that was taken.

778
01:00:42,460 --> 01:00:52,780
Okay. And, and I also realized, I started realizing that, that the Taliban, that their information

779
01:00:52,780 --> 01:00:57,740
operations campaign and Al Qaeda and of course later ISIS, but that their IO campaigns were much

780
01:00:57,740 --> 01:01:04,380
better than us, much better than us. And we would walk off a target and then we'd later be told

781
01:01:04,380 --> 01:01:15,820
something to the effect of, you know, the, there were, there were, you know, civilian casualties on that target. And I know without it, you know, there's no question.

782
01:01:15,820 --> 01:01:20,620
Nobody hides that from me. You don't walk up to a target, you know, and take down a target and then like,

783
01:01:21,420 --> 01:01:27,500
not know if there was civilian casualties. And yet you would hear that and you would not see anything,

784
01:01:27,500 --> 01:01:38,780
but you would hear it. And so I saw that there is, there was a, there was a very highly organized campaign to discredit,

785
01:01:38,780 --> 01:01:50,940
you know, Americans, you know, in these locations, both to reduce morale at home and also to turn the, you know,

786
01:01:50,940 --> 01:01:57,820
the locals, attempt to turn them against us. And sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.

787
01:01:57,820 --> 01:02:04,460
What about the, the philosophy of the duration of the war? It seems like a lot of your community,

788
01:02:04,460 --> 01:02:11,100
certainly the Greenberry community, when looking back now, and again, of course, you know, hindsight is 2020,

789
01:02:11,100 --> 01:02:17,500
but there seems to be again, a common denominator of them initially thinking that you guys were going to go in,

790
01:02:17,500 --> 01:02:22,460
you know, hit the main targets, shut down the training camps, and then leave again.

791
01:02:22,460 --> 01:02:29,420
But from a complete layman's point of view, you can see how the longer that, you know, our forces are there,

792
01:02:29,420 --> 01:02:36,620
after a while, that's going to create ultimately more opponents, more terrorists by that seemingly, you know,

793
01:02:36,620 --> 01:02:39,100
occupation element of us being there.

794
01:02:39,100 --> 01:02:46,940
Yeah, okay. So a couple things to bring up there. So one is more like a tactical short term thing,

795
01:02:46,940 --> 01:02:54,380
and others to strategic long view, right, which, and then you overlay that with counterinsurgency,

796
01:02:54,380 --> 01:03:03,940
as well as counter terror. And, and in fact, when you look at, excuse me, the

797
01:03:03,940 --> 01:03:11,260
Afghanistan and you look at it from, when you look at the 20 year war that we did there,

798
01:03:11,260 --> 01:03:21,100
and you look at why did Bush send us in in the first place, and that was to prevent any more strikes on American soil

799
01:03:21,100 --> 01:03:28,740
from ever happening again. And so that couldn't be accomplished simply by counterinsurgency, or by

800
01:03:28,740 --> 01:03:34,020
counter terror. And for the listeners who don't, who are maybe not familiar with coin, which is

801
01:03:34,020 --> 01:03:39,220
counterinsurgency, that is the winning the hearts and minds, which is the, it's a stupid expression,

802
01:03:39,220 --> 01:03:48,100
but it's, but basically it means to go in and, and, and, and influence, you know, the locals to turn

803
01:03:48,100 --> 01:03:51,940
against an insurgent, which in this case would be the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

804
01:03:51,940 --> 01:04:03,700
And force those insurgents out and, you know, make, replace it with a, a government that is, that is,

805
01:04:03,700 --> 01:04:09,220
you know, ideally democratic, which is also one of the problems, because you might not have an

806
01:04:09,220 --> 01:04:14,500
environment where that necessarily is how things work. We might have a more of a tribal, you know,

807
01:04:14,500 --> 01:04:20,260
landscape. And so, you know, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the, that's the

808
01:04:20,260 --> 01:04:25,540
landscape. And, and so when we think about counterinsurgency, and we think about counter

809
01:04:25,540 --> 01:04:33,380
terror, the counter terror mission, which is the mission that would prevent anyone from striking

810
01:04:34,420 --> 01:04:42,740
American citizens on American soil ever again, that was a 100% success. And that's easy to see.

811
01:04:42,740 --> 01:04:51,540
We never had another 9-11. Counter terror mission could not be solved and it could not be successful

812
01:04:52,340 --> 01:04:58,340
without a counterinsurgency operation happening. Also, you needed to have some sort of a military,

813
01:04:58,340 --> 01:05:06,180
you know, foreign military Afghan national army. You needed to have them to be able to also

814
01:05:06,180 --> 01:05:12,180
undergo this so that, you know, they're taking the risks as opposed to Americans taking the risks.

815
01:05:12,180 --> 01:05:17,220
And obviously, when we look at a 20-year war, there's a big sliding, you know, scale to that,

816
01:05:17,220 --> 01:05:22,900
right? Like that certainly wasn't happening at all in the beginning. And, but what you don't have to

817
01:05:22,900 --> 01:05:29,780
have is a 100% success in your counterinsurgency mission. And we didn't have success, 100% success

818
01:05:29,780 --> 01:05:35,620
in that counterinsurgency mission. And there was, look, I'm not, I'm not, there's, there's a lot of

819
01:05:35,620 --> 01:05:41,460
guys well above my pay grade that are masters at understanding this better than me. What I will say

820
01:05:41,460 --> 01:05:49,220
from my perspective, and I was, you know, I was fortunately being in the, you know, different

821
01:05:49,220 --> 01:05:54,180
units that I was in, I was able to, you know, access to information where you could see a bigger

822
01:05:54,180 --> 01:05:59,620
picture. It wasn't just that, okay, you're going to go, you know, do a village stability operation

823
01:05:59,620 --> 01:06:04,820
and check out a village. You're going to, or live there for a while, you're going to, you really

824
01:06:04,820 --> 01:06:10,820
understand the bigger picture, which is also helpful when you spend, you know, six months there.

825
01:06:10,820 --> 01:06:15,460
And you don't feel like you've accomplished shit, but you realize that you probably have.

826
01:06:16,420 --> 01:06:21,060
So the counterinsurgency operation, I don't know, but we could just call it 50% successful

827
01:06:21,060 --> 01:06:28,740
and 50% of failure. We could even call it 40% successful and 60% failure. But that was what was

828
01:06:28,740 --> 01:06:33,940
required to have a 100% success on the counterterrorist mission. And then when we think about

829
01:06:33,940 --> 01:06:39,540
counterinsurgency, there was definitely a learning curve for Americans and including myself, you know,

830
01:06:39,540 --> 01:06:44,740
initially it was, it was, Hey, we're here and we're bad ass and we're Americans. We're going to make

831
01:06:44,740 --> 01:06:50,500
your place like America. You're going to love it. Trust us. It's awesome. And then, you know, we

832
01:06:50,500 --> 01:06:56,980
realized like, they give zero fucks about it looking like America. They only give like a half

833
01:06:56,980 --> 01:07:00,420
a fuck about getting a road built from one village to another. You know, some of them were like, Oh,

834
01:07:00,420 --> 01:07:04,980
that's awesome. Some of them don't even get it. And then a few of them are part of Taliban. They're

835
01:07:04,980 --> 01:07:12,420
going to go blow the road up. So there's, you know, we, we had to do some learning on forcing

836
01:07:12,420 --> 01:07:19,540
our culture onto them versus understanding their culture, you know, to use the expression I hear

837
01:07:19,540 --> 01:07:27,220
these days, in the, you know, the world I'm in now is meeting them where they're at. And initially,

838
01:07:27,220 --> 01:07:36,340
we struggled a lot with that. But in the end, what we saw was this dramatic decrease in,

839
01:07:37,300 --> 01:07:44,100
in American casualties, an increase in Afghan casualties. And I'm not saying that is a good

840
01:07:44,100 --> 01:07:50,020
thing, but the point being that we got to a point that near the end of that war, we weren't having

841
01:07:50,020 --> 01:08:01,540
American casualties, we were, we were successfully prosecuting targets using their people, our people

842
01:08:01,540 --> 01:08:06,420
would be involved in high risk operations, especially, you know, care what units and,

843
01:08:06,420 --> 01:08:10,820
and special operations forces in general, we're still going to do that, because we knew that we

844
01:08:10,820 --> 01:08:15,460
could go in, you know, that the chances very high of, of being able to do these things successfully

845
01:08:15,460 --> 01:08:23,140
without casualty coming back, and not always, of course, but, but that that model, even a partially

846
01:08:23,140 --> 01:08:30,580
successful counterinsurgency operation allowed us to be able to do that and get recruitment for

847
01:08:31,860 --> 01:08:39,540
the armies, the Afghan National Army, for example, Iraqi armies and, and, you know, and we could

848
01:08:39,540 --> 01:08:43,860
do that successfully, even if every once in a while, you'd look at one or two of those guys,

849
01:08:43,860 --> 01:08:47,620
and they're looking at you like they want to kill you. And you're like, I'm not going to let that

850
01:08:47,620 --> 01:08:52,660
guy get behind me, because I don't want to be shot in the back. So, you know, it had its own risks, too.

851
01:08:54,100 --> 01:08:57,940
So the other side of that question, I'm so glad I asked that, because again, that's a totally

852
01:08:57,940 --> 01:09:02,100
different perspective than I heard from before. And it also makes perfect sense, which is why I'm

853
01:09:02,100 --> 01:09:06,020
asking not trying to convince the world that James Gearing has the answer who never served.

854
01:09:06,580 --> 01:09:12,580
That would be ridiculous. The other side, though, I don't think gets anywhere near enough reporting

855
01:09:12,580 --> 01:09:17,940
is simply the kindness and compassion that I hear over and over again, amidst some of these combat

856
01:09:17,940 --> 01:09:23,460
zones. So throughout your career, wherever it's been, what were some of those moments of, of,

857
01:09:24,020 --> 01:09:26,980
you know, of community and kindness that you witnessed in uniform?

858
01:09:34,660 --> 01:09:39,540
I mean, there was absolutely the people that would come up and say thank you.

859
01:09:39,540 --> 01:09:49,620
And how much it meant for us to be there. The challenge, though, wasn't the compassion

860
01:09:50,580 --> 01:09:54,980
that we were showing them and the appreciation that they were showing us,

861
01:09:56,340 --> 01:10:04,500
or the risks that some of them might be taking to help. You know, they would, you'd have an

862
01:10:04,500 --> 01:10:08,420
individual that would come up to, you know, the intelligence unit to talk to them about something

863
01:10:08,420 --> 01:10:12,020
going on. And, you know, they put their entire family and their family's family at risk doing

864
01:10:12,020 --> 01:10:17,540
that. The challenge was, and this isn't what you asked, but this is what I'm going to tell you, is,

865
01:10:18,100 --> 01:10:24,820
is when they would say, but how much longer are you going to be here for? You know, because America

866
01:10:24,820 --> 01:10:31,140
has a history of, of, you know, just kind of picking up and taking off. And, and of course,

867
01:10:31,140 --> 01:10:36,580
we didn't for 20 years, but then eventually we did. And, you know, we all know what a fuck up that was.

868
01:10:38,100 --> 01:10:42,820
What have you seen personally, as far as, again, we touched on organizational betrayal earlier,

869
01:10:43,380 --> 01:10:48,820
as far as the impact of that on our men and women that actually served and lost friends,

870
01:10:48,820 --> 01:10:51,300
lost limbs and brought home trauma with them?

871
01:10:51,300 --> 01:10:57,860
I think, you know, I talk to guys a lot these days and the majority of guys that I talk to are

872
01:10:57,860 --> 01:11:06,260
conventional military guys. And one of the things that I hear a lot of times is a frustration

873
01:11:06,820 --> 01:11:15,220
about what was going on. And in fact, often a, a, um,

874
01:11:15,220 --> 01:11:23,620
desire to embrace like a conspiracy theory, to solve the answer, come up with the answers of why

875
01:11:23,940 --> 01:11:29,620
they might not have been successful, why they didn't feel they were successful, so to speak.

876
01:11:32,740 --> 01:11:36,580
I told you that from day one, I realized I needed to get involved in foreign policy and

877
01:11:36,580 --> 01:11:43,220
really understand the importance of foreign policy. And I was, I was, I was, I was, I was

878
01:11:43,220 --> 01:11:47,780
interested in foreign policy and really understand that I needed to read intelligence reports.

879
01:11:47,780 --> 01:11:53,860
I had access to all of these things because of my clearances. And so whether it was unclassed,

880
01:11:54,660 --> 01:12:00,180
you know, data that I was looking at, or whether it was classified data, I, I was,

881
01:12:00,740 --> 01:12:08,100
I had a very similar picture to what our general officers were looking at. And, um, and that gave

882
01:12:08,100 --> 01:12:17,620
me a, a, I saw the bigger picture and I saw that we weren't doing everything right. And I also,

883
01:12:17,620 --> 01:12:25,860
you can't do everything right. And, but a lot of, I think the, a lot of guys, they didn't see any

884
01:12:25,860 --> 01:12:31,380
of that. And so they're in the dark. They're exactly the type of person I told you about

885
01:12:31,380 --> 01:12:38,420
tick that Hill. You're, you know, you're an E3, you know, you're, you're, you're a low ranking

886
01:12:38,420 --> 01:12:42,500
individual that, that, you know, doesn't deserve to understand the whole thing. I'm not going to

887
01:12:42,500 --> 01:12:45,940
bother wasting my time telling you. And it's, you know, you're not clear to know this anyway,

888
01:12:45,940 --> 01:12:51,940
and they don't know. And so they're doing it without fully understanding the reasons why

889
01:12:51,940 --> 01:12:57,620
they're doing it. And candidly, there's absolutely, there's times that, that the wrong

890
01:12:57,620 --> 01:13:02,740
things were done, wrong, wrong decisions were made, whether that means something was a waste of time

891
01:13:03,380 --> 01:13:10,900
and a waste in a, in a, in a tragedy of human life on either side or, or whether, you know,

892
01:13:10,900 --> 01:13:16,980
in, in, in small, very small degrees, there could be, you know, it could be, you know, we go back

893
01:13:16,980 --> 01:13:22,500
to that mistakes were suck ups. It could be fuck ups where, where, where people had the absolute

894
01:13:22,500 --> 01:13:28,740
wrong reasons to be doing something. And so then, then you have, you have a, you know,

895
01:13:28,740 --> 01:13:36,660
junior enlisted member who is faced with this and they, you know, they did four years

896
01:13:37,860 --> 01:13:44,260
for the GI bill and, or four years because they wanted to serve their country. And they, this,

897
01:13:44,900 --> 01:13:51,860
none of this was in the brochure. None of this was what they expected. They don't have the full

898
01:13:51,860 --> 01:13:57,380
situational awareness and they don't have the emotional preparation. That's another thing

899
01:13:57,380 --> 01:14:05,700
that's beautiful in special operations is, is you are, you are emotionally and spiritually

900
01:14:06,260 --> 01:14:13,780
prepared. You, you know, you're going to face casualties. You know why you believe in your

901
01:14:13,780 --> 01:14:21,860
mission. And, and, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't mean that the things like PTSD don't exist by any

902
01:14:21,860 --> 01:14:27,300
man because they do, but you, because you have a stronger understanding of the bigger picture,

903
01:14:27,300 --> 01:14:34,100
you have more resilience. And if you're only given this much information, you, you're not going to

904
01:14:34,100 --> 01:14:40,740
have the resilience and you're going to find yourself out of that information, doing something,

905
01:14:40,740 --> 01:14:46,420
not understanding why, questioning it, your buddy gets killed. You're frustrated about that as you

906
01:14:46,420 --> 01:14:52,420
should be, and you're looking for an answer. And, and that's, I think where a lot of guys struggle

907
01:14:52,420 --> 01:14:58,660
with, with, with trauma. Absolutely. Well, speaking of trauma, I mean, I mentioned too, you know,

908
01:14:58,660 --> 01:15:02,820
big tragedies in your community. Let's talk about operation Redwings first.

909
01:15:05,060 --> 01:15:05,560
Okay.

910
01:15:05,560 --> 01:15:15,160
So, so I was over there at the time of operation Redwings and when it happened,

911
01:15:19,160 --> 01:15:27,960
we were, we were hanging out on alert and heard that the Redwing guys were compromised

912
01:15:27,960 --> 01:15:37,240
and that we started to spin up. We started to spin up to go be a quick reaction force for them.

913
01:15:38,600 --> 01:15:46,040
And then we were told we've got, there's a QRF already in place, standby. I know, I know some

914
01:15:46,040 --> 01:15:51,640
of the guys that were on that QRF. One of them in fact was, yeah, I went to sniper school with,

915
01:15:51,640 --> 01:15:58,760
and, and so we were like, okay, cool. We'll just hang out clothes just in case, but,

916
01:16:00,040 --> 01:16:06,680
you know, didn't really have much expectation. And, and then

917
01:16:08,120 --> 01:16:10,600
the afternoon is kind of getting along and

918
01:16:10,600 --> 01:16:17,720
then we got the call that, or we got the word that, that Turban 3-3 had gone down. And so Turban 3-3

919
01:16:17,720 --> 01:16:29,240
was the QRF with the other SEALs that were going to do a combat search and rescue operation on,

920
01:16:30,120 --> 01:16:39,160
on the, on the Redwing guys. And so we were, we were, we were, we were, we were, we were,

921
01:16:39,160 --> 01:16:46,760
we were looking at it. We had a click stew on it. We were looking at all the SACs being

922
01:16:46,760 --> 01:16:55,160
loaded on the Redwing guys. And that's when we, that's when we were called to

923
01:16:55,800 --> 01:17:05,960
go, to work and go do a CESAR for everyone. For the QRF. And for the Redwing guys,

924
01:17:05,960 --> 01:17:10,960
as it was after it crashed, was on the ground.

925
01:17:11,360 --> 01:17:14,120
There's a lot of real hotspots on the imagery

926
01:17:14,120 --> 01:17:17,640
because of the engines.

927
01:17:17,640 --> 01:17:21,400
And it was difficult.

928
01:17:21,400 --> 01:17:23,160
You couldn't identify, if you saw movement,

929
01:17:23,160 --> 01:17:26,640
you couldn't identify if it was friend or foe or goat.

930
01:17:28,120 --> 01:17:33,120
And we mobilized and we threw our gear on

931
01:17:33,120 --> 01:17:37,720
to go do a CESAR.

932
01:17:37,720 --> 01:17:42,720
And it was one of the most challenging operations

933
01:17:42,840 --> 01:17:46,960
because it was the first time that I was involved

934
01:17:46,960 --> 01:17:49,480
in something where there were guys I knew that,

935
01:17:49,480 --> 01:17:54,480
I've been in plenty of CESARS and going in as QRFs

936
01:17:56,440 --> 01:18:00,160
to help other elements like Ranger elements,

937
01:18:00,160 --> 01:18:02,160
SF elements that were ambushed

938
01:18:02,160 --> 01:18:05,280
and would need to be, they need backup.

939
01:18:05,280 --> 01:18:08,080
But in this particular one, it was a lot of guys we knew.

940
01:18:09,320 --> 01:18:13,360
And it was one of the most challenging operations

941
01:18:13,360 --> 01:18:14,560
I'd ever done.

942
01:18:14,560 --> 01:18:18,000
And part of that was because there were 19 guys

943
01:18:18,000 --> 01:18:21,560
that had been killed.

944
01:18:21,560 --> 01:18:25,960
There were the three or four of the guys on Red Wing

945
01:18:25,960 --> 01:18:27,840
were killed.

946
01:18:27,840 --> 01:18:32,840
And then there were SEALs that were in Turbine 33.

947
01:18:35,160 --> 01:18:36,920
And then also there were Night Stalkers,

948
01:18:36,920 --> 01:18:40,000
which is the 1 60th that were in there,

949
01:18:41,240 --> 01:18:42,720
the flight crew.

950
01:18:42,720 --> 01:18:44,640
So all total there were about 19 guys.

951
01:18:44,640 --> 01:18:49,280
And that was the first time I'd ever really experienced

952
01:18:49,280 --> 01:18:54,280
a, it was almost surreal in pulling that many body bags

953
01:18:58,960 --> 01:19:03,960
off of the mountain and off the crash site.

954
01:19:04,040 --> 01:19:09,040
You're pulling body bags that might weigh like 15 pounds

955
01:19:09,960 --> 01:19:13,160
because it was just somebody's pelvis.

956
01:19:13,160 --> 01:19:16,760
That's the only thing left, the rest is burned.

957
01:19:16,760 --> 01:19:19,520
The challenge was also that some of the remains

958
01:19:19,520 --> 01:19:21,160
were so bad.

959
01:19:22,040 --> 01:19:24,640
And I know that firefighters are very familiar with this.

960
01:19:24,640 --> 01:19:29,480
I was not, but the only way we could,

961
01:19:29,480 --> 01:19:31,280
we have that motto of never leave a man behind

962
01:19:31,280 --> 01:19:33,760
and we firmly stand behind that.

963
01:19:33,760 --> 01:19:38,760
And so it wasn't enough to find the remains.

964
01:19:42,360 --> 01:19:45,320
We needed to identify the DNA of the guys

965
01:19:45,320 --> 01:19:47,960
that we couldn't find.

966
01:19:47,960 --> 01:19:50,600
And so until we could identify that DNA,

967
01:19:50,600 --> 01:19:55,160
so there was this mobilization of getting the remains,

968
01:19:55,160 --> 01:19:59,880
getting them into another helo, getting that back,

969
01:19:59,880 --> 01:20:03,280
getting those remains to a forensics location

970
01:20:03,280 --> 01:20:06,240
that could analyze the DNA with the DNA

971
01:20:06,240 --> 01:20:08,960
of the known service members to be able to say,

972
01:20:08,960 --> 01:20:10,480
okay, you got this guy, you got this guy,

973
01:20:10,480 --> 01:20:11,440
but you didn't get this guy.

974
01:20:11,440 --> 01:20:13,400
He's still out there somewhere.

975
01:20:13,400 --> 01:20:18,320
And that was a challenge.

976
01:20:18,320 --> 01:20:22,160
Took about seven days to do that from,

977
01:20:22,160 --> 01:20:25,080
it happened on June 28th, 2005.

978
01:20:25,080 --> 01:20:27,640
And I think we were on the ground on the 29th.

979
01:20:28,800 --> 01:20:33,400
We couldn't get in any earlier because the 160th

980
01:20:33,400 --> 01:20:35,840
did not wanna fly during daytime

981
01:20:35,840 --> 01:20:39,760
because they didn't want the possibility

982
01:20:39,760 --> 01:20:42,840
of another helo going down.

983
01:20:42,840 --> 01:20:47,280
I understand that, I understand that risk assessment.

984
01:20:47,280 --> 01:20:48,920
And from my perspective back then,

985
01:20:48,920 --> 01:20:50,040
it made me really furious.

986
01:20:50,040 --> 01:20:51,320
I look back on it now and understand

987
01:20:51,320 --> 01:20:52,640
why they wanted to do that.

988
01:20:57,840 --> 01:21:01,680
But it was, the whole event was very challenging.

989
01:21:01,680 --> 01:21:05,720
In fact, when you go through Hell Week,

990
01:21:05,720 --> 01:21:07,880
they explain why you do Hell Week.

991
01:21:07,880 --> 01:21:12,200
And as we were doing this, we had prepared,

992
01:21:12,200 --> 01:21:17,200
I had a small Camelback mule, kind of a Camelback.

993
01:21:17,480 --> 01:21:22,480
And it was enough for like a day or two worth of MREs,

994
01:21:22,640 --> 01:21:27,120
cut down and water and just ammo.

995
01:21:27,120 --> 01:21:30,520
And we were there for seven days.

996
01:21:30,520 --> 01:21:35,520
So it was dramatically longer than we expected.

997
01:21:38,240 --> 01:21:40,880
And that was just the result of the reality on the ground,

998
01:21:40,880 --> 01:21:45,880
dictating and we experienced in one operation,

999
01:21:48,480 --> 01:21:52,240
you experienced hypothermia and hyperthermia.

1000
01:21:52,240 --> 01:21:57,240
So you might be out as an element

1001
01:21:58,560 --> 01:22:03,560
and you're holding security in the middle of the night

1002
01:22:04,120 --> 01:22:08,560
and it's raining and you're at 8,000 feet of elevation

1003
01:22:08,560 --> 01:22:11,680
and it's down to like 40 degrees

1004
01:22:11,680 --> 01:22:15,640
and you're in one spot not moving, you're jackhammering.

1005
01:22:16,520 --> 01:22:20,440
But you're also amped, right?

1006
01:22:20,440 --> 01:22:22,760
You're dialed and you're like,

1007
01:22:22,760 --> 01:22:24,520
because this is like none other

1008
01:22:24,520 --> 01:22:26,120
and no other situation you've been in,

1009
01:22:26,120 --> 01:22:27,320
at least for me it wasn't.

1010
01:22:29,160 --> 01:22:32,200
And then you could be down in a valley the next day

1011
01:22:32,200 --> 01:22:34,640
and it's hot, you don't have enough water,

1012
01:22:34,640 --> 01:22:37,360
you're dehydrated and it's,

1013
01:22:37,360 --> 01:22:40,880
and you've got guys that are overheating.

1014
01:22:40,880 --> 01:22:44,120
So it was why they held me capits

1015
01:22:44,120 --> 01:22:47,480
and it was why we could push through.

1016
01:22:48,840 --> 01:22:51,320
I mentioned before we hit record, I had one of the Rangers,

1017
01:22:51,320 --> 01:22:54,360
I think it was a subject of the documentary Ranger,

1018
01:22:54,360 --> 01:22:55,920
but I don't wanna say the name

1019
01:22:55,920 --> 01:22:57,040
in case I got the wrong person,

1020
01:22:57,040 --> 01:22:59,000
but they were talking about that.

1021
01:22:59,000 --> 01:23:01,960
And like you said, a lot of us in the fire service

1022
01:23:01,960 --> 01:23:04,560
can think about the horrendous damage

1023
01:23:04,560 --> 01:23:06,480
that fired us to the human body,

1024
01:23:06,480 --> 01:23:10,960
but also that the span of where they were finding people

1025
01:23:10,960 --> 01:23:11,960
was extremely large.

1026
01:23:11,960 --> 01:23:14,600
And I think he mentioned one specific,

1027
01:23:14,600 --> 01:23:16,320
I don't know if it was a seal or part of the crew

1028
01:23:16,320 --> 01:23:19,320
that they found, I think it was after like a day of looking

1029
01:23:19,320 --> 01:23:22,800
because of the magnitude of the site

1030
01:23:22,800 --> 01:23:25,520
that you guys were having to search and then recover.

1031
01:23:26,800 --> 01:23:29,560
Yeah, it was massive, it was a massively large swath.

1032
01:23:29,560 --> 01:23:34,440
And what was crazy was also how far away from the crash site

1033
01:23:34,440 --> 01:23:38,320
you'd find the carbon fiber of the blades

1034
01:23:38,320 --> 01:23:42,360
and pieces of the aircraft.

1035
01:23:42,360 --> 01:23:46,440
And you just like, you think about the energy being expended

1036
01:23:46,440 --> 01:23:48,320
as those blades are coming into the ground

1037
01:23:48,320 --> 01:23:51,640
and the RPMs of whipping around

1038
01:23:51,640 --> 01:23:54,600
and just how far away some of this stuff was.

1039
01:23:54,600 --> 01:23:56,560
And you're like, it just was like,

1040
01:23:56,560 --> 01:23:58,960
just no idea that would be the case.

1041
01:23:58,960 --> 01:24:01,720
And also everyone, every unit,

1042
01:24:01,720 --> 01:24:06,720
regardless of whether SEALs, Rangers, SF, Marines,

1043
01:24:07,120 --> 01:24:10,840
because there was a ton of guys that were coming into there.

1044
01:24:10,840 --> 01:24:15,840
But you get a call that there was ISR picked up

1045
01:24:15,920 --> 01:24:18,960
some sort of a glint or reflection

1046
01:24:18,960 --> 01:24:22,280
and it could be a signal mirror, but it probably wasn't.

1047
01:24:22,280 --> 01:24:25,400
But you didn't know, so they would be like,

1048
01:24:25,400 --> 01:24:27,960
yeah, there's a possible sighting

1049
01:24:27,960 --> 01:24:31,600
five, only five kilometers from your area.

1050
01:24:31,600 --> 01:24:36,600
And yet five kilometers is a,

1051
01:24:36,600 --> 01:24:38,800
there's 8,000 feet of elevation change

1052
01:24:38,800 --> 01:24:43,040
between you and that location as the crow flies,

1053
01:24:43,040 --> 01:24:46,240
unless you wanna do 15 clicks around a mountain.

1054
01:24:46,240 --> 01:24:51,240
And we were wavered to not need body armor.

1055
01:24:51,520 --> 01:24:52,400
And so we didn't.

1056
01:24:52,400 --> 01:24:57,400
And because the risk of an increased chance of fatality

1057
01:24:57,400 --> 01:25:00,320
was outweighed by maneuverability.

1058
01:25:00,320 --> 01:25:05,320
And the majority of the forces on the ground

1059
01:25:05,600 --> 01:25:06,760
were wearing body armor.

1060
01:25:06,760 --> 01:25:09,560
And I remember one unit in particular,

1061
01:25:09,560 --> 01:25:11,600
and I won't name the name of the unit,

1062
01:25:11,600 --> 01:25:13,040
but I had a lot of sympathy for them

1063
01:25:13,040 --> 01:25:14,720
because we were running around without body armor.

1064
01:25:14,720 --> 01:25:19,720
They were, and I heard a particular officer on the radio

1065
01:25:20,520 --> 01:25:24,200
when they tasked this unit to go from one point to another,

1066
01:25:24,200 --> 01:25:27,560
and it represented that 8,000 feet of elevation change.

1067
01:25:27,560 --> 01:25:29,280
And it was the third or fourth time

1068
01:25:29,280 --> 01:25:33,480
that this unit was trying to go from one spot to another.

1069
01:25:33,480 --> 01:25:35,960
And I heard the words, we are combat ineffective.

1070
01:25:35,960 --> 01:25:40,960
And you just can't, you can only push the human body

1071
01:25:41,280 --> 01:25:42,840
just so much.

1072
01:25:42,840 --> 01:25:47,840
And that's the level that everyone out there was working

1073
01:25:48,400 --> 01:25:53,400
to try and make this more of a combat circuit.

1074
01:25:53,400 --> 01:25:57,040
Of a combat search and rescue rather than a recovery.

1075
01:25:57,040 --> 01:25:59,960
At that point, it already was clearly both,

1076
01:25:59,960 --> 01:26:02,160
but we all knew that time was running out.

1077
01:26:02,160 --> 01:26:05,880
And people were pushing themselves

1078
01:26:05,880 --> 01:26:09,040
to the point of being combat ineffective.

1079
01:26:10,560 --> 01:26:13,840
What do you remember about when Marcus was found?

1080
01:26:13,840 --> 01:26:16,240
Because I think that's the element of the book.

1081
01:26:16,240 --> 01:26:18,060
I think the movie did a little disservice to this,

1082
01:26:18,060 --> 01:26:20,040
but when you read the book,

1083
01:26:20,040 --> 01:26:24,560
you talked again about the courage of the indigenous people,

1084
01:26:24,560 --> 01:26:27,880
the courage that that village had to protect him

1085
01:26:27,880 --> 01:26:30,640
to the point where ultimately he was able to be rescued,

1086
01:26:30,640 --> 01:26:33,260
I think was kind of understated in the film,

1087
01:26:33,260 --> 01:26:35,780
but it was so powerful in the book.

1088
01:26:35,780 --> 01:26:37,200
So what do you remember about,

1089
01:26:37,200 --> 01:26:38,580
thinking you'd lost all the seals

1090
01:26:38,580 --> 01:26:41,480
and then discovering that one has survived?

1091
01:26:41,480 --> 01:26:46,480
Yeah, and so, I didn't recover him specifically.

1092
01:26:46,480 --> 01:26:49,480
And of course I am very acutely aware of it.

1093
01:26:49,480 --> 01:26:51,760
And I'm not an expert in Islam,

1094
01:26:51,760 --> 01:26:56,760
but there is a, I don't know if you call it a rule,

1095
01:26:56,760 --> 01:27:00,760
or a tenant, but there's that tenant

1096
01:27:00,760 --> 01:27:03,760
of helping someone in need.

1097
01:27:04,760 --> 01:27:09,760
And so, clearly the individual that found Marcus

1098
01:27:12,880 --> 01:27:14,840
was following this tenant.

1099
01:27:14,840 --> 01:27:17,840
And putting himself at risk for it.

1100
01:27:17,840 --> 01:27:22,840
And it almost seems contradictory to us,

1101
01:27:24,200 --> 01:27:29,200
but it's, it clearly was a positive thing.

1102
01:27:30,200 --> 01:27:35,200
It was the difference between being fatality and not,

1103
01:27:36,240 --> 01:27:38,240
because I think it would have been a lot easier

1104
01:27:38,240 --> 01:27:40,840
for that individual to just turn him over.

1105
01:27:40,840 --> 01:27:42,480
It certainly would have been,

1106
01:27:42,480 --> 01:27:45,480
a lot less than what his family had to deal with after that.

1107
01:27:46,840 --> 01:27:49,520
There was a lot of backlash on that guy.

1108
01:27:49,520 --> 01:27:52,280
And that's a real understatement.

1109
01:27:53,280 --> 01:27:56,840
I know that there were a lot of attempts on his life

1110
01:27:56,840 --> 01:27:58,480
and his family's life.

1111
01:27:58,480 --> 01:28:03,480
And the Taliban are pretty brutal when it comes to that.

1112
01:28:04,480 --> 01:28:07,480
So it's ironic that the Taliban claims,

1113
01:28:07,480 --> 01:28:09,480
that they're so close to,

1114
01:28:09,480 --> 01:28:12,480
to following Islam and all this.

1115
01:28:12,480 --> 01:28:14,480
And yet they just conveniently decide that,

1116
01:28:14,480 --> 01:28:16,480
that rule doesn't apply.

1117
01:28:16,480 --> 01:28:21,480
So it's just one more irony of, or hypocrisy,

1118
01:28:24,480 --> 01:28:25,480
I guess would be a better way to put it,

1119
01:28:25,480 --> 01:28:29,480
of how this Taliban operated over there.

1120
01:28:29,480 --> 01:28:31,480
Absolutely.

1121
01:28:31,480 --> 01:28:35,480
Well, going to sadly another huge tragedy in your community.

1122
01:28:35,480 --> 01:28:36,480
Talk to me about,

1123
01:28:36,480 --> 01:28:41,480
extortion 17.

1124
01:28:41,480 --> 01:28:45,480
Yeah. So, but, you know, Turban 3-3 represented the single largest loss of life

1125
01:28:46,480 --> 01:28:50,480
for Naval Special Warfare since World War II.

1126
01:28:50,480 --> 01:28:53,480
And, you know, that was bad enough.

1127
01:28:53,480 --> 01:28:56,480
And then extortion 1-7 happened and it,

1128
01:28:56,480 --> 01:29:01,480
and it, you know, it superseded Turban 3-3 in that statistic.

1129
01:29:01,480 --> 01:29:05,480
And, and in fact,

1130
01:29:05,480 --> 01:29:10,480
I think represented the single largest loss of life for any unit in Afghanistan

1131
01:29:10,480 --> 01:29:12,480
at any one point in time.

1132
01:29:12,480 --> 01:29:13,480
And as everyone knows,

1133
01:29:13,480 --> 01:29:15,480
there's something I'm saying here that isn't already out, you know,

1134
01:29:15,480 --> 01:29:19,480
all out there that, you know, that was a tier one unit that was,

1135
01:29:19,480 --> 01:29:22,480
that was, it was operating,

1136
01:29:22,480 --> 01:29:26,480
and acting as a QRRF at the time.

1137
01:29:26,480 --> 01:29:30,480
And from my personal perspective,

1138
01:29:30,480 --> 01:29:34,480
there were guys on that aircraft that,

1139
01:29:34,480 --> 01:29:41,480
that I knew several of the guys and one of them I considered a mentor.

1140
01:29:41,480 --> 01:29:48,480
As I, as I matured in, you know, the unit that I was in,

1141
01:29:48,480 --> 01:29:56,480
and this, you know, I looked up to this individual and I learned from him.

1142
01:29:56,480 --> 01:30:00,480
This, this person to me was the,

1143
01:30:00,480 --> 01:30:04,480
he was a warrior defined.

1144
01:30:04,480 --> 01:30:08,480
And I mean, like your read about,

1145
01:30:08,480 --> 01:30:15,480
he was everything when you think about, you know, a tier one operator that,

1146
01:30:15,480 --> 01:30:21,480
you know, he's, he was like the poster boy, you know, I mean,

1147
01:30:21,480 --> 01:30:27,480
an amazing individual, a, a incredible sense of humor.

1148
01:30:27,480 --> 01:30:34,480
His performance, his performance was,

1149
01:30:34,480 --> 01:30:38,480
it was everything you think about when you think about a tier one operator.

1150
01:30:38,480 --> 01:30:44,480
And, and, you know,

1151
01:30:44,480 --> 01:30:52,480
I'm sure that that individual had dramatically more impact on me than I did him.

1152
01:30:52,480 --> 01:30:58,480
I mean, I, I think that, you know,

1153
01:30:58,480 --> 01:31:02,480
I'm a very, very good friend of his and we worked together for,

1154
01:31:02,480 --> 01:31:03,480
for several years.

1155
01:31:03,480 --> 01:31:07,480
And we're in a couple of occasions.

1156
01:31:07,480 --> 01:31:08,480
In very small units.

1157
01:31:08,480 --> 01:31:11,480
Very small group of guys working, working together. And.

1158
01:31:11,480 --> 01:31:14,480
I can't begin to describe the.

1159
01:31:14,480 --> 01:31:17,480
The loss.

1160
01:31:17,480 --> 01:31:22,480
The group that was in that bird when it went down.

1161
01:31:22,480 --> 01:31:25,480
Everyone was like that.

1162
01:31:25,480 --> 01:31:29,480
They were, everyone was like that. They were all the constant warriors.

1163
01:31:29,480 --> 01:31:34,480
And, and at that point in our, in our progression.

1164
01:31:34,480 --> 01:31:38,480
For Naval Special Warfare and for JSOC, we had honed.

1165
01:31:38,480 --> 01:31:45,480
We had honed our, our operators. They, they were so good at their craft.

1166
01:31:45,480 --> 01:31:48,480
And so.

1167
01:31:48,480 --> 01:31:52,480
To see that and to know the families was devastating.

1168
01:31:52,480 --> 01:31:58,480
So, and there was another individual of significance to me because.

1169
01:31:58,480 --> 01:32:00,480
There was another guy that I mentored.

1170
01:32:00,480 --> 01:32:02,480
And so this was the opposite side.

1171
01:32:02,480 --> 01:32:06,480
And he was a new guy with me at SEAL Team Four.

1172
01:32:06,480 --> 01:32:08,480
And then.

1173
01:32:08,480 --> 01:32:11,480
And then he, you know, he progressed up through the ranks.

1174
01:32:11,480 --> 01:32:15,480
And he was a very, very good guy.

1175
01:32:15,480 --> 01:32:18,480
And his experience progressed and it's funny. Another.

1176
01:32:18,480 --> 01:32:20,480
Another interesting thing about it is.

1177
01:32:20,480 --> 01:32:23,480
Again, this guy's sense of humor was.

1178
01:32:23,480 --> 01:32:24,480
Hilarious.

1179
01:32:24,480 --> 01:32:29,480
And.

1180
01:32:29,480 --> 01:32:31,480
You know, and that's, I think a recurring thing, right?

1181
01:32:31,480 --> 01:32:32,480
That's how we deal with stresses.

1182
01:32:32,480 --> 01:32:35,480
With bizarre and dark humor.

1183
01:32:35,480 --> 01:32:38,480
Something commonly found in firefighters and law enforcement also.

1184
01:32:38,480 --> 01:32:42,480
And so.

1185
01:32:42,480 --> 01:32:45,480
He was the younger cat that was.

1186
01:32:45,480 --> 01:32:46,480
And by the way, he was a minority.

1187
01:32:46,480 --> 01:32:48,480
As well. And.

1188
01:32:48,480 --> 01:32:50,480
He.

1189
01:32:50,480 --> 01:32:52,480
He was.

1190
01:32:52,480 --> 01:32:57,480
Just.

1191
01:32:57,480 --> 01:33:01,480
It was beautiful to watch this guy progress and get better.

1192
01:33:01,480 --> 01:33:04,480
You get better and just be dialed. And, you know,

1193
01:33:04,480 --> 01:33:08,480
And he was a very, very good guy.

1194
01:33:08,480 --> 01:33:12,480
And I think I influenced this kid, you know, as he was.

1195
01:33:12,480 --> 01:33:14,480
When he, when he didn't know what the fuck he was doing.

1196
01:33:14,480 --> 01:33:16,480
You know, at least guided him in the right direction.

1197
01:33:16,480 --> 01:33:18,480
And now he's better than me. You know, that's good.

1198
01:33:18,480 --> 01:33:20,480
And so.

1199
01:33:20,480 --> 01:33:21,480
And.

1200
01:33:21,480 --> 01:33:23,480
But.

1201
01:33:23,480 --> 01:33:24,480
But yeah, it was.

1202
01:33:24,480 --> 01:33:26,480
It was.

1203
01:33:26,480 --> 01:33:28,480
It was like nothing that our community had.

1204
01:33:28,480 --> 01:33:33,480
Had ever seen.

1205
01:33:33,480 --> 01:33:34,480
And so.

1206
01:33:34,480 --> 01:33:35,480
And so.

1207
01:33:35,480 --> 01:33:36,480
And so.

1208
01:33:36,480 --> 01:33:37,480
The last thing that we lost.

1209
01:33:37,480 --> 01:33:41,480
Was the families.

1210
01:33:41,480 --> 01:33:44,480
Because.

1211
01:33:44,480 --> 01:33:46,480
You didn't lose.

1212
01:33:46,480 --> 01:33:48,480
What 38 guys or.

1213
01:33:48,480 --> 01:33:50,480
Whatever you lost.

1214
01:33:50,480 --> 01:33:52,480
You lost.

1215
01:33:52,480 --> 01:33:55,480
Entire families.

1216
01:33:55,480 --> 01:33:58,480
Who didn't know what to do, you know,

1217
01:33:58,480 --> 01:34:01,480
They were just broken and.

1218
01:34:01,480 --> 01:34:03,480
And.

1219
01:34:03,480 --> 01:34:06,480
And the least that we could do was to do everything we could to

1220
01:34:06,480 --> 01:34:08,480
help them.

1221
01:34:08,480 --> 01:34:10,480
And.

1222
01:34:10,480 --> 01:34:12,480
And help those families.

1223
01:34:12,480 --> 01:34:22,480
And.

1224
01:34:22,480 --> 01:34:26,480
But there's no.

1225
01:34:26,480 --> 01:34:31,480
There's no way to do that.

1226
01:34:31,480 --> 01:34:34,480
When a widow is handed a flag, when a widow is handed a flag,

1227
01:34:34,480 --> 01:34:35,480
there's.

1228
01:34:35,480 --> 01:34:37,480
There's.

1229
01:34:37,480 --> 01:34:39,480
I can only imagine how alone they feel.

1230
01:34:39,480 --> 01:34:47,480
And so.

1231
01:34:47,480 --> 01:34:49,480
You know, a lot of us, I think,

1232
01:34:49,480 --> 01:34:52,480
did everything we could from that point forward.

1233
01:34:52,480 --> 01:34:56,480
And so.

1234
01:34:56,480 --> 01:34:59,480
There was lots of fatalities, but, but in particular, this one.

1235
01:34:59,480 --> 01:35:01,480
And it.

1236
01:35:01,480 --> 01:35:07,480
It.

1237
01:35:07,480 --> 01:35:09,480
We realized that we, we needed to make sure that,

1238
01:35:09,480 --> 01:35:10,480
that those families were.

1239
01:35:10,480 --> 01:35:12,480
We're taking care of.

1240
01:35:12,480 --> 01:35:15,480
And so on that, I would say two things. One.

1241
01:35:15,480 --> 01:35:18,480
That those guys died doing something they loved.

1242
01:35:18,480 --> 01:35:19,480
And.

1243
01:35:19,480 --> 01:35:22,480
And.

1244
01:35:22,480 --> 01:35:23,480
You know,

1245
01:35:23,480 --> 01:35:25,480
I believe there's a nobility in that.

1246
01:35:25,480 --> 01:35:30,480
And.

1247
01:35:30,480 --> 01:35:31,480
You know, I, I,

1248
01:35:31,480 --> 01:35:36,480
I still think about what it would be like if I was in that seat.

1249
01:35:36,480 --> 01:35:38,480
In that bird.

1250
01:35:38,480 --> 01:35:39,480
When that happened.

1251
01:35:39,480 --> 01:35:42,480
And that's as close as I can get. That's a, that's a, that's a far,

1252
01:35:42,480 --> 01:35:45,480
far perspective from the reality of what they were dealing with. But.

1253
01:35:45,480 --> 01:35:49,480
You know,

1254
01:35:49,480 --> 01:35:52,480
That is what we trained to do.

1255
01:35:52,480 --> 01:35:55,480
And I think we all knew that.

1256
01:35:55,480 --> 01:35:57,480
And.

1257
01:35:57,480 --> 01:36:01,480
That is.

1258
01:36:01,480 --> 01:36:03,480
If.

1259
01:36:03,480 --> 01:36:04,480
If a warrior is killed in combat,

1260
01:36:04,480 --> 01:36:07,480
that you don't want to be killed in combat in a helo because you're not on

1261
01:36:07,480 --> 01:36:10,480
the ground, but you know, you're still doing what you were.

1262
01:36:10,480 --> 01:36:15,480
Doing.

1263
01:36:15,480 --> 01:36:18,480
By going out there and it's actually that, that expression.

1264
01:36:18,480 --> 01:36:21,480
One seven was why we, why a group of small group of us created.

1265
01:36:21,480 --> 01:36:24,480
Another nonprofit called the seal legacy foundation.

1266
01:36:24,480 --> 01:36:25,480
And we.

1267
01:36:25,480 --> 01:36:26,480
We created that.

1268
01:36:26,480 --> 01:36:28,480
Directly as a result of.

1269
01:36:28,480 --> 01:36:30,480
Of.

1270
01:36:30,480 --> 01:36:31,480
That crash.

1271
01:36:31,480 --> 01:36:34,480
Because we saw all these.

1272
01:36:34,480 --> 01:36:40,480
You know,

1273
01:36:40,480 --> 01:36:44,480
The Americans that wanted to help that would be like, Hey,

1274
01:36:44,480 --> 01:36:47,480
how can I send money to your command to help? And of course,

1275
01:36:47,480 --> 01:36:49,480
you can't send money to a, to a, you know,

1276
01:36:49,480 --> 01:36:51,480
To a military unit like that. And.

1277
01:36:51,480 --> 01:36:53,480
So, you know, we,

1278
01:36:53,480 --> 01:36:56,480
we helped form one of the nonprofits that were out,

1279
01:36:56,480 --> 01:36:58,480
that are out there for seals to.

1280
01:36:58,480 --> 01:37:01,480
To help, to help families. And then all the families like them.

1281
01:37:01,480 --> 01:37:04,480
And then we were able to do that.

1282
01:37:04,480 --> 01:37:06,480
And the other thing I want to say though is.

1283
01:37:06,480 --> 01:37:13,480
That.

1284
01:37:13,480 --> 01:37:15,480
As bad as that was.

1285
01:37:15,480 --> 01:37:16,480
When that happened.

1286
01:37:16,480 --> 01:37:22,480
What I didn't know then.

1287
01:37:22,480 --> 01:37:25,480
And, you know, I, when I give you the answer about, you know, being,

1288
01:37:25,480 --> 01:37:27,480
you know, these guys died doing something they loved.

1289
01:37:27,480 --> 01:37:29,480
Albeit the Hilo.

1290
01:37:29,480 --> 01:37:31,480
They're a little bit different.

1291
01:37:31,480 --> 01:37:33,480
But there was a time when I was at a funeral.

1292
01:37:33,480 --> 01:37:34,480
And I was there.

1293
01:37:34,480 --> 01:37:35,480
When I was, when I went down.

1294
01:37:35,480 --> 01:37:40,480
Which was suicide.

1295
01:37:40,480 --> 01:37:44,480
And I draw a distinct line there because it's so much different.

1296
01:37:44,480 --> 01:37:50,480
Yeah.

1297
01:37:50,480 --> 01:37:53,480
When you talked about being given a folder flag of, you know,

1298
01:37:53,480 --> 01:37:56,480
a family being given the folder flag, this is what.

1299
01:37:56,480 --> 01:38:01,800
my friends and watching those flags being given to the spouse, watching the helmet being

1300
01:38:01,800 --> 01:38:04,520
given to the child.

1301
01:38:04,520 --> 01:38:10,720
And if it was a structure fire and someone made entry and it was a last-ditch attempt

1302
01:38:10,720 --> 01:38:16,160
and it was risk a lot to save a lot and then the house collapsed and that person was lost,

1303
01:38:16,160 --> 01:38:17,160
then that's one thing.

1304
01:38:17,160 --> 01:38:22,360
That's kind of the same as what you're talking about with Extortion 17, where I think it

1305
01:38:22,360 --> 01:38:27,400
angers me so much is when those flags and helmets are handed over from something that

1306
01:38:27,400 --> 01:38:29,400
was preventable.

1307
01:38:29,400 --> 01:38:33,120
Yeah, yeah.

1308
01:38:33,120 --> 01:38:40,080
And just to clarify, no flag was handed to me, but yes, to the families.

1309
01:38:40,080 --> 01:38:44,680
And when you talk about preventable, that's exactly why I brought up the suicide then,

1310
01:38:44,680 --> 01:38:54,480
because we're at a point right now where the amount of fatalities from veteran suicide

1311
01:38:54,480 --> 01:39:04,880
has superseded the amount of KIAs in Afghanistan and Iraq combined.

1312
01:39:04,880 --> 01:39:09,200
And it might be something like by an order of three or something to that effect.

1313
01:39:09,200 --> 01:39:14,480
I don't remember the exact specifics, but it's considerably more suicides than that.

1314
01:39:14,480 --> 01:39:19,160
And that's the part to me that's preventable.

1315
01:39:19,160 --> 01:39:23,400
There was a graph going a while ago, it was an animation of a graph and I think it showed

1316
01:39:23,400 --> 01:39:24,400
that.

1317
01:39:24,400 --> 01:39:28,400
It showed the KIA in the recent conflicts and then it showed suicide and suicide was

1318
01:39:28,400 --> 01:39:34,120
literally like a 45 degree line versus the other two were 10, 15 degrees.

1319
01:39:34,120 --> 01:39:38,600
So it was just such a powerful representation of what's actually happening at the moment.

1320
01:39:38,600 --> 01:39:46,960
Yeah, well, and so with, and I have this two organizations I'm part of, one is Seal Legacy

1321
01:39:46,960 --> 01:39:49,720
Foundation, the other is Nevada Coalition of Psychiatric Medicines, which I'm sure

1322
01:39:49,720 --> 01:39:51,240
we'll get into a little bit.

1323
01:39:51,240 --> 01:40:00,040
But when I would get, I get text messages with Seal Legacy Foundation that somebody

1324
01:40:00,040 --> 01:40:07,240
had been killed in a heel crash or they were mortally wounded in an assault.

1325
01:40:07,240 --> 01:40:10,280
And we go to work, help trying to do what we could to help the families.

1326
01:40:10,280 --> 01:40:16,720
We work with other nonprofits like the Navy Seal Foundation, for example, and we would

1327
01:40:16,720 --> 01:40:21,480
do everything we could to help not just in that point in time, but then follow on with

1328
01:40:21,480 --> 01:40:23,440
those families.

1329
01:40:23,440 --> 01:40:29,680
But what really started impacting me was when I started getting these text messages of seals

1330
01:40:29,680 --> 01:40:31,880
that were committing suicide.

1331
01:40:31,880 --> 01:40:37,040
And this was, when we look at a chart, this was in direct contrast.

1332
01:40:37,040 --> 01:40:45,320
You had fatalities, friendly KAs, you'd have fatalities from guys killed in action going

1333
01:40:45,320 --> 01:40:47,200
down because the wars were winding down.

1334
01:40:47,200 --> 01:40:49,800
And you'd see this.

1335
01:40:49,800 --> 01:40:52,080
I never saw it coming.

1336
01:40:52,080 --> 01:40:55,840
And I don't think anybody did.

1337
01:40:55,840 --> 01:41:06,320
And it's very emotionally impactful because you see guys that are these high functioning,

1338
01:41:06,320 --> 01:41:11,520
in the seal community, especially these guys, we react to stress pretty well.

1339
01:41:11,520 --> 01:41:19,160
And you would think that once the war is behind you, everything's going to be easier at that

1340
01:41:19,160 --> 01:41:20,160
point.

1341
01:41:20,160 --> 01:41:26,560
And when you get out and you're doing some easy job getting out, because anything's easier

1342
01:41:26,560 --> 01:41:29,520
than it was being a seal, which is also kind of relative, right?

1343
01:41:29,520 --> 01:41:34,520
But that the stress levels are going to be down.

1344
01:41:34,520 --> 01:41:38,360
So why is this happening?

1345
01:41:38,360 --> 01:41:46,000
And that's something that there's a lot of people now taking some really close looks

1346
01:41:46,000 --> 01:41:47,000
at.

1347
01:41:47,000 --> 01:41:48,640
What about you?

1348
01:41:48,640 --> 01:41:55,680
Before we go to the issue itself, and then I would argue the incredible amount of hope

1349
01:41:55,680 --> 01:41:58,440
that's in the psychedelic side now.

1350
01:41:58,440 --> 01:42:00,240
What was your mental health journey?

1351
01:42:00,240 --> 01:42:04,320
You touched on PTSD elements when you were in your teens.

1352
01:42:04,320 --> 01:42:08,520
So were there elements of trauma way, way back?

1353
01:42:08,520 --> 01:42:12,680
And then did you have any low lows yourself as you progressed through your career?

1354
01:42:12,680 --> 01:42:18,600
Yeah, I don't think I had PTSD as a child.

1355
01:42:18,600 --> 01:42:23,080
I described some challenging things, but certainly there's a lot worse out there.

1356
01:42:23,080 --> 01:42:29,240
And I also came from a loving family as well.

1357
01:42:29,240 --> 01:42:40,480
I also, I thought probably until about 2014, I thought that PTSD was actually something

1358
01:42:40,480 --> 01:42:49,520
that probably was experienced by people that weren't prepared, probably by people that

1359
01:42:49,520 --> 01:42:55,200
maybe didn't have the emotional resilience that they maybe were weaker.

1360
01:42:55,200 --> 01:43:00,880
But candidly, that was where I was at in my life at that point in time.

1361
01:43:00,880 --> 01:43:10,200
And I think I also didn't quite understand what PTSD meant back then quite as well.

1362
01:43:10,200 --> 01:43:19,480
And it's funny because I did something called Home Base, which was a four week traumatic

1363
01:43:19,480 --> 01:43:21,720
brain injury and PTSD inpatient program.

1364
01:43:21,720 --> 01:43:31,840
And I remember talking about a survivor's grief type of example and explained that I

1365
01:43:31,840 --> 01:43:39,440
don't have PTSD and that the psych said something to the effect of, if you've been at war as

1366
01:43:39,440 --> 01:43:45,560
long as you guys have and you don't have trauma in your life, you're probably a sociopath.

1367
01:43:45,560 --> 01:43:50,600
I'm like, okay, makes sense.

1368
01:43:50,600 --> 01:43:58,640
And so I think also PTSD can be well defined and it can also be a squishy term.

1369
01:43:58,640 --> 01:44:09,580
But I started to redefine what I saw and probably what I thought that is for people.

1370
01:44:09,580 --> 01:44:14,920
And also that I was probably way wrong, not probably, but I was way wrong on my initial

1371
01:44:14,920 --> 01:44:18,720
thought process on PTSD.

1372
01:44:18,720 --> 01:44:27,200
When I started having to come to grips with guys that were committing suicide and then

1373
01:44:27,200 --> 01:44:34,640
even talking to wives and understanding the challenges that they were going through very

1374
01:44:34,640 --> 01:44:36,960
personally that they weren't sharing.

1375
01:44:36,960 --> 01:44:41,640
And these again were guys that were highly trained.

1376
01:44:41,640 --> 01:44:48,640
So I think so much of it is, I mentioned preparation and that they do such a good job.

1377
01:44:48,640 --> 01:44:54,320
Of preparing you for those emotional challenges.

1378
01:44:54,320 --> 01:45:00,720
And yet also when you look at special operations and how much we are utilized, at one point

1379
01:45:00,720 --> 01:45:07,720
the commander of all of Naval Special Warfare stated that he would break the force if necessary

1380
01:45:07,720 --> 01:45:11,280
to accomplish the mission.

1381
01:45:11,280 --> 01:45:16,960
And well, I understand that statement.

1382
01:45:16,960 --> 01:45:22,840
I think it was probably not the right way to put it.

1383
01:45:22,840 --> 01:45:32,080
And so I think the result was special operators with years and years in which there was no

1384
01:45:32,080 --> 01:45:38,520
break and I think that impacts people dramatically.

1385
01:45:38,520 --> 01:45:47,760
And I think that there is a lot of factors in resilience and what makes someone resilient

1386
01:45:47,760 --> 01:45:53,520
because I think when you look at trauma, the overall majority of people, the overall majority

1387
01:45:53,520 --> 01:45:58,200
of special operators have trauma is how you deal with it.

1388
01:45:58,200 --> 01:46:04,640
That would say diagnose it as PTSD.

1389
01:46:04,640 --> 01:46:10,040
Because also PTSD is such a thing that technically you can have PTSD and then you work through

1390
01:46:10,040 --> 01:46:11,520
it and you no longer get the criteria.

1391
01:46:11,520 --> 01:46:12,720
And that's a good thing.

1392
01:46:12,720 --> 01:46:19,320
It's also in the minority, well in the minority, but there's a lot to it.

1393
01:46:19,320 --> 01:46:23,800
And I think if we're having the conversation about that, then the other part of that is,

1394
01:46:23,800 --> 01:46:28,480
which is not PTSD, is traumatic brain injury.

1395
01:46:28,480 --> 01:46:38,400
And a close relative to that is chronic traumatic and self-hypathy, CTE, which is a traumatic

1396
01:46:38,400 --> 01:46:45,800
brain injury, but it's on a level that is not necessarily, you can't see it except for

1397
01:46:45,800 --> 01:46:47,440
post-mortem.

1398
01:46:47,440 --> 01:46:54,800
And then most recently, hopefully I don't screw this up, but it's interface astroglial

1399
01:46:54,800 --> 01:46:56,600
scarring.

1400
01:46:56,600 --> 01:47:01,760
And so interface astroglial scarring is something that we're now recognizing.

1401
01:47:01,760 --> 01:47:10,240
And it's kind of like CTE, but it's the result of what's in my medical record, which my medical

1402
01:47:10,240 --> 01:47:14,520
record states that I've been exposed to thousands of subconcussive events.

1403
01:47:14,520 --> 01:47:19,120
And I know that the majority of special operators have that in their records.

1404
01:47:19,120 --> 01:47:26,520
And so we're recognizing that some of these suicides are absolutely the result of PTSD.

1405
01:47:26,520 --> 01:47:35,520
A lot of them are also a result of these more insidious forms of TBI, which is CTE and interface

1406
01:47:35,520 --> 01:47:38,000
astroglial scarring.

1407
01:47:38,000 --> 01:47:47,240
And in fact, a real close brother of mine that I did multiple platoons with who retired

1408
01:47:47,240 --> 01:47:50,440
is a wonderful family.

1409
01:47:50,440 --> 01:47:53,320
He had a great family life.

1410
01:47:53,320 --> 01:47:57,640
He had a great job after he retired.

1411
01:47:57,640 --> 01:48:03,480
And he started struggling.

1412
01:48:03,480 --> 01:48:12,800
And he started struggling to the point that he would try to like say put on his Sunday

1413
01:48:12,800 --> 01:48:14,840
dress to go to church.

1414
01:48:14,840 --> 01:48:17,960
And he couldn't do it.

1415
01:48:17,960 --> 01:48:21,680
And he would look to his wife and say, I don't know what to do.

1416
01:48:21,680 --> 01:48:23,400
I can't put my clothes on.

1417
01:48:23,400 --> 01:48:26,160
I don't know what to wear.

1418
01:48:26,160 --> 01:48:32,320
And he was having these challenges that she saw in retrospect, which was clearly something

1419
01:48:32,320 --> 01:48:35,800
going on neurologically.

1420
01:48:35,800 --> 01:48:38,440
And then one day he drives to work.

1421
01:48:38,440 --> 01:48:44,880
He's in the parking lot of the company that he's working for that does different government

1422
01:48:44,880 --> 01:48:55,280
work and contracting work with the military and special warfare, et cetera.

1423
01:48:55,280 --> 01:49:01,200
And he sends her a text and explains that he's not going to be able to pick up the kids

1424
01:49:01,200 --> 01:49:03,040
from school.

1425
01:49:03,040 --> 01:49:05,480
He's very sorry.

1426
01:49:05,480 --> 01:49:08,560
And he loves her very much.

1427
01:49:08,560 --> 01:49:13,000
And then he pulls a pistol out of his glove box and he shows it in his mouth and he pulls

1428
01:49:13,000 --> 01:49:15,160
the trigger.

1429
01:49:15,160 --> 01:49:16,680
And there's more like that.

1430
01:49:16,680 --> 01:49:18,960
There's so many stories like that.

1431
01:49:18,960 --> 01:49:29,080
This times when another team guy FaceTime his wife and did a very similar thing right

1432
01:49:29,080 --> 01:49:31,760
there on FaceTime.

1433
01:49:31,760 --> 01:49:36,080
Another close friend of mine suffering from an anxiety attack.

1434
01:49:36,080 --> 01:49:37,080
Another team guy.

1435
01:49:37,080 --> 01:49:38,080
Impressive individual.

1436
01:49:38,080 --> 01:49:42,160
Tier one operator.

1437
01:49:42,160 --> 01:49:46,400
One of the best guys I knew.

1438
01:49:46,400 --> 01:49:50,400
Successful made it through multiple combat tours without a scratch.

1439
01:49:50,400 --> 01:49:52,600
Had a good job in finance.

1440
01:49:52,600 --> 01:50:02,600
Guy got applied for an MBA at MIT Sloan School of Business without an undergrad and got accepted.

1441
01:50:02,600 --> 01:50:07,600
And he started developing anxiety attacks.

1442
01:50:07,600 --> 01:50:15,880
And he developed anxiety attack one day told his wife she needed to take him to the hospital.

1443
01:50:15,880 --> 01:50:19,600
And she's driving to the hospital in San Diego.

1444
01:50:19,600 --> 01:50:21,960
He said, stop the car.

1445
01:50:21,960 --> 01:50:23,320
Stop the car.

1446
01:50:23,320 --> 01:50:29,800
She pulls over, stops the car, he jumps out of the car and he runs in front of an 18 wheeler

1447
01:50:29,800 --> 01:50:32,680
traveling at full speed on the highway.

1448
01:50:32,680 --> 01:50:34,320
His kids saw the whole thing.

1449
01:50:34,320 --> 01:50:37,000
His wife saw the whole thing.

1450
01:50:37,000 --> 01:50:40,720
And the stories go on and on.

1451
01:50:40,720 --> 01:50:47,080
And yeah, so there's more to this.

1452
01:50:47,080 --> 01:50:51,080
And there's more to it than just PTSD.

1453
01:50:51,080 --> 01:50:58,400
There's these other insidious things happening to the brains of special operators and those

1454
01:50:58,400 --> 01:51:04,560
who are exposed with artillery, high explosives.

1455
01:51:04,560 --> 01:51:10,720
Like I have seven traumatic brain injuries, but that's really not what they are concerned

1456
01:51:10,720 --> 01:51:11,880
about going down the road.

1457
01:51:11,880 --> 01:51:16,280
It's the thousands of subconcussive events.

1458
01:51:16,280 --> 01:51:20,320
And those are mild, by the way.

1459
01:51:20,320 --> 01:51:25,160
But yeah, that's where we're at now.

1460
01:51:25,160 --> 01:51:30,120
Well, I mean, just here I am as an Englishman who became a firefighter at the start of the

1461
01:51:30,120 --> 01:51:31,120
podcast.

1462
01:51:31,120 --> 01:51:35,520
I had Sarah Wilkinson, Chad's widow on the show, had Jamie Metcalf on David's widow.

1463
01:51:35,520 --> 01:51:38,640
And again, there's CTE in both of those.

1464
01:51:38,640 --> 01:51:43,560
So yeah, and that was obviously Sarah and Chad that I'm referring to with the iPhones.

1465
01:51:43,560 --> 01:51:44,560
Yeah.

1466
01:51:44,560 --> 01:51:45,560
Yeah.

1467
01:51:45,560 --> 01:51:48,800
But this is what's so sad is, this is important.

1468
01:51:48,800 --> 01:51:52,320
And I had Chris Free on the show, the guy that came up with operator syndrome, which

1469
01:51:52,320 --> 01:51:57,720
I think one of the conversations that started pulling into this, but where my community

1470
01:51:57,720 --> 01:52:01,920
is, because obviously apart from maybe the SWAT team and law enforcement, the fire, we

1471
01:52:01,920 --> 01:52:05,600
don't tend to have concussions as much.

1472
01:52:05,600 --> 01:52:10,120
But what we do is every third day, 24 hours with interrupted or no sleep.

1473
01:52:10,120 --> 01:52:14,760
And if you look neurologically, and I had Kirk Parsley on years ago talking about this,

1474
01:52:14,760 --> 01:52:19,920
the demyelination of the myelin sheath is actually identical with sleep deprivation

1475
01:52:19,920 --> 01:52:21,940
as it is with head trauma.

1476
01:52:21,940 --> 01:52:25,460
So in your population, you've got a double effect.

1477
01:52:25,460 --> 01:52:28,460
You've got this damage and then the sleeplessness.

1478
01:52:28,460 --> 01:52:34,400
In my population, I would argue it's more chronic, but over decades, these men and women

1479
01:52:34,400 --> 01:52:35,880
are not sleeping, not sleeping.

1480
01:52:35,880 --> 01:52:37,840
And we're seeing the same thing manifest.

1481
01:52:37,840 --> 01:52:41,640
I know there's a California firefighter that jumped from a freeway bridge.

1482
01:52:41,640 --> 01:52:46,200
There's a female police officer that literally leapt out of her car on a freeway.

1483
01:52:46,200 --> 01:52:51,720
And so this is not, as you said, these are high performance used to a high level of stress.

1484
01:52:51,720 --> 01:52:54,120
How are they getting to this point?

1485
01:52:54,120 --> 01:52:55,200
Exactly.

1486
01:52:55,200 --> 01:53:01,640
And so, and I didn't know that about the myelin sheath like you just described.

1487
01:53:01,640 --> 01:53:08,600
And so this brings us back to the neurology of why so many of these things are probably

1488
01:53:08,600 --> 01:53:09,600
happening.

1489
01:53:09,600 --> 01:53:17,120
When you look at a neuron and a neuron has that cell membrane, it has the dendrites that

1490
01:53:17,120 --> 01:53:18,120
come off it.

1491
01:53:18,120 --> 01:53:25,280
It has an axon, which is where the myelin sheath is located, and you look at someone

1492
01:53:25,280 --> 01:53:34,120
with major depressive disorder versus a healthy normal neuron.

1493
01:53:34,120 --> 01:53:40,560
And the two pictures using an electron microscope show you much different.

1494
01:53:40,560 --> 01:53:45,920
It is so obvious that something is happening to cause this.

1495
01:53:45,920 --> 01:53:51,960
And so I'm talking about major depressive disorder, but it is what you described is

1496
01:53:51,960 --> 01:53:53,240
exactly the same.

1497
01:53:53,240 --> 01:53:56,720
And so it's the same because of these different things.

1498
01:53:56,720 --> 01:54:00,600
And so what you see is a neuron that shriveled.

1499
01:54:00,600 --> 01:54:04,320
It's the dendrites pull back in.

1500
01:54:04,320 --> 01:54:08,840
It looks like a dying tree versus a healthy one.

1501
01:54:08,840 --> 01:54:15,060
And the myelin sheath is shrunk down.

1502
01:54:15,060 --> 01:54:17,080
It looks wilted.

1503
01:54:17,080 --> 01:54:20,640
And that's the neuron.

1504
01:54:20,640 --> 01:54:22,080
Neurons are your brain.

1505
01:54:22,080 --> 01:54:27,920
That's your brain still trying to function in that environment.

1506
01:54:27,920 --> 01:54:37,040
Yeah, I was diagnosed with operator syndrome.

1507
01:54:37,040 --> 01:54:39,720
At least you're able to still do your job.

1508
01:54:39,720 --> 01:54:49,680
But yeah, I sometimes think about Jeremy Renner's character, the protagonist in The

1509
01:54:49,680 --> 01:54:50,680
Hurt Locker.

1510
01:54:50,680 --> 01:54:54,080
And that's kind of an example of it.

1511
01:54:54,080 --> 01:55:03,440
And that's the thing with career warriors, professional soldiers, where it's never-ending.

1512
01:55:03,440 --> 01:55:05,440
It's nonstop.

1513
01:55:05,440 --> 01:55:12,920
And yes, when you look at the sleep deprivation that firefighters have, that whole 48 on,

1514
01:55:12,920 --> 01:55:20,360
96 off, or 72 on, whatever off, it seems like a good idea at the time when it comes to being

1515
01:55:20,360 --> 01:55:29,640
able to go have some off time and go up in the mountains camping or something like that.

1516
01:55:29,640 --> 01:55:39,040
And it seems like a good idea, I guess, at the time when it comes to manpower management.

1517
01:55:39,040 --> 01:55:43,760
But it's not when it comes to what's going on with your brain.

1518
01:55:43,760 --> 01:55:51,200
And this is where we're starting to realize, okay, this is not that guy that is...

1519
01:55:51,200 --> 01:55:54,000
This is not the same guy.

1520
01:55:54,000 --> 01:55:59,720
This is the result of a brain that's been through physical trauma, through emotional

1521
01:55:59,720 --> 01:56:08,080
trauma, or in the case of what you're describing, what I would say, not a non-medical perspective,

1522
01:56:08,080 --> 01:56:13,600
is a lack of ability to repair itself and to come back.

1523
01:56:13,600 --> 01:56:26,120
And so, operative syndrome is that you just never come off and allow that regeneration,

1524
01:56:26,120 --> 01:56:29,920
whether that's physically, neurologically, emotionally.

1525
01:56:29,920 --> 01:56:32,440
And so, yeah, no, absolutely.

1526
01:56:32,440 --> 01:56:37,560
That's an interesting parallel, and I'm 100% sure that that's related.

1527
01:56:37,560 --> 01:56:41,080
I've heard the phrase, disposable heroes used a lot.

1528
01:56:41,080 --> 01:56:43,160
And I think they're absolutely right.

1529
01:56:43,160 --> 01:56:49,280
And I look at the conversation I have with Tulsi Gabbard, for example, and if you parallel

1530
01:56:49,280 --> 01:56:53,920
the health of this nation, you look at one of the areas where we're bleeding money, it's

1531
01:56:53,920 --> 01:56:55,280
healthcare.

1532
01:56:55,280 --> 01:56:58,560
And so, by the way we're doing it, and we'll not get into politics, but obviously there's

1533
01:56:58,560 --> 01:57:03,360
a lot of companies that make a lot of money making our people sick.

1534
01:57:03,360 --> 01:57:05,360
It's a complete false economy.

1535
01:57:05,360 --> 01:57:07,320
So this is what I think...

1536
01:57:07,320 --> 01:57:12,680
I don't know about the military, I'm not in it myself, but that proactive conversation,

1537
01:57:12,680 --> 01:57:17,000
and certainly in the fire service, is that you shouldn't have to do a 48-hour shift.

1538
01:57:17,000 --> 01:57:23,320
We should have a 24 and then a 72-hour period, which a lot of the sleep experts, neuroscientists,

1539
01:57:23,320 --> 01:57:27,080
psychologists I've had on here all say the same thing.

1540
01:57:27,080 --> 01:57:32,760
A 72-hour period is probably the bare minimum to reset from being up or being up part of

1541
01:57:32,760 --> 01:57:34,960
the night in the previous shift.

1542
01:57:34,960 --> 01:57:41,920
But you have this insane thing, 24-48, or a lot of the West Coast is a 48-96, which

1543
01:57:41,920 --> 01:57:47,000
as you pointed to, is pure insanity if you're looking at a performance point of view.

1544
01:57:47,000 --> 01:57:51,480
But there's this kind of stuck in the old ways mentality, and people don't realize that

1545
01:57:51,480 --> 01:57:56,240
the money to fund these things are already there, but they're downstream.

1546
01:57:56,240 --> 01:58:00,640
The VA and all the money that goes into that, imagine if some of that was put in at the

1547
01:58:00,640 --> 01:58:02,920
front and some of these initiatives...

1548
01:58:02,920 --> 01:58:09,120
Of course you can't stop concussive elements when it comes to combat, but putting the rest

1549
01:58:09,120 --> 01:58:13,720
in recovery, minimizing the amount of exposure during training, whatever it is, and in my

1550
01:58:13,720 --> 01:58:18,640
profession, simply adding more people so that A, they're not doing this ridiculous bare

1551
01:58:18,640 --> 01:58:22,880
minimum, but going back to the recruitment crisis, now they're not being told, you've

1552
01:58:22,880 --> 01:58:27,720
got to do yet another 24 hours because we've mismanaged it so much, we've got no one to

1553
01:58:27,720 --> 01:58:29,720
fill the hole.

1554
01:58:29,720 --> 01:58:30,720
Absolutely.

1555
01:58:30,720 --> 01:58:31,720
Yeah.

1556
01:58:31,720 --> 01:58:36,960
And boy, you touched on something that is just an entire conversation in its own, which

1557
01:58:36,960 --> 01:58:43,480
is that our healthcare system is so broken and it is so...

1558
01:58:43,480 --> 01:58:44,480
It is now...

1559
01:58:44,480 --> 01:58:52,080
And again, I hate to use words like rigged, but it is so designed now to throw people

1560
01:58:52,080 --> 01:58:56,960
on meds.

1561
01:58:56,960 --> 01:59:04,280
You look at the number of kids that are pre-diabetic now and the desire just to throw kids on diabetes

1562
01:59:04,280 --> 01:59:19,720
medicine and you look at how the healthcare system is such a palliative care model where

1563
01:59:19,720 --> 01:59:28,120
you're simply treating symptoms, you're not going after the core issues, and so, so much

1564
01:59:28,120 --> 01:59:38,920
money is dedicated to that and of course, there's major profit behind that.

1565
01:59:38,920 --> 01:59:42,800
In a lot of instances, I'm sure there's a lot of good intention of trying to create

1566
01:59:42,800 --> 01:59:46,600
something and look, we created SSRI, this is going to be great.

1567
01:59:46,600 --> 01:59:53,320
And yet then you look at what SSRIs, the fact that most people who get on selective serotonin

1568
01:59:53,320 --> 02:00:00,200
reuptake inhibitors like Zoloft and Prozac and Sertraline and all these things, they're

1569
02:00:00,200 --> 02:00:01,800
never coming off them.

1570
02:00:01,800 --> 02:00:07,920
They may, but they're not the majority and they also will be shifted from one to another

1571
02:00:07,920 --> 02:00:11,400
to another to try and figure out the right one that works.

1572
02:00:11,400 --> 02:00:18,040
And yeah, and of course, the VA is terrible with that as well.

1573
02:00:18,040 --> 02:00:20,960
They're very much like throw a pill at it and see what that does.

1574
02:00:20,960 --> 02:00:26,600
Well, while we're on the pharmaceuticals, I want to get to the psychedelics, but either

1575
02:00:26,600 --> 02:00:33,480
our conversations with each other have spanned the FDA refusing to allow MDMA as a therapeutic

1576
02:00:33,480 --> 02:00:36,080
drug along with counseling.

1577
02:00:36,080 --> 02:00:41,600
As we spoke, when we talked last, I was so nauseated by that because this is the same

1578
02:00:41,600 --> 02:00:48,240
FDA that approved OxyContin, which we know lit an absolute fire on the opioid crisis

1579
02:00:48,240 --> 02:00:49,240
here.

1580
02:00:49,240 --> 02:00:52,400
So what was your take on that?

1581
02:00:52,400 --> 02:01:03,120
Yeah, so obviously that was a huge blow to America really in terms of being able to provide

1582
02:01:03,120 --> 02:01:11,960
the first real solution to PTSD.

1583
02:01:11,960 --> 02:01:18,000
It's been over, I think, 30 years since the FDA approved a drug that they felt would help

1584
02:01:18,000 --> 02:01:20,400
PTSD.

1585
02:01:20,400 --> 02:01:27,200
And when we think about this, putting it into perspective, five out of 100 adults or 13

1586
02:01:27,200 --> 02:01:30,080
million Americans suffer from PTSD.

1587
02:01:30,080 --> 02:01:37,400
Most of those are veterans, survivors of sexual assault, domestic abuse.

1588
02:01:37,400 --> 02:01:42,760
And PTSD is insidious.

1589
02:01:42,760 --> 02:01:54,000
PTSD is one of the few mental health disorders where there is a direct correlation from the

1590
02:01:54,000 --> 02:02:02,520
diagnosis of the disorder to predicting suicidal ideation, suicidal attempts, and suicide mortality.

1591
02:02:02,520 --> 02:02:07,120
It's one of the few psychiatric disorders that accurately predicts transition from suicidal

1592
02:02:07,120 --> 02:02:10,160
ideation to attempting suicide.

1593
02:02:10,160 --> 02:02:13,160
But to me, what this means is for many is a terminal illness.

1594
02:02:13,160 --> 02:02:18,280
When we think about the number of veterans that die from suicide, we've heard the numbers

1595
02:02:18,280 --> 02:02:20,560
17, that's what the VA says.

1596
02:02:20,560 --> 02:02:25,280
We've also heard 22 a day.

1597
02:02:25,280 --> 02:02:30,320
Recent study by something called Operation Deep Dive, which used several universities

1598
02:02:30,320 --> 02:02:37,000
to come up with data that shows that a more realistic figure may in fact be 44 a day.

1599
02:02:37,000 --> 02:02:43,400
This tells us that 6,000 to 16,000 veterans are committing suicide each year.

1600
02:02:43,400 --> 02:02:49,840
And so when we look at MDMA, this is something that has been groundbreaking.

1601
02:02:49,840 --> 02:02:56,920
And by the way, when I say MDMA, I'm going to consider that I'm referring to it as MDMA

1602
02:02:56,920 --> 02:02:57,920
assisted therapy.

1603
02:02:57,920 --> 02:03:02,800
And that's important because this isn't just about taking a pill and it's not just about

1604
02:03:02,800 --> 02:03:04,320
taking MDMA.

1605
02:03:04,320 --> 02:03:10,120
And that's one of the really, really critical things about MDMA assisted therapy and one

1606
02:03:10,120 --> 02:03:19,520
of the challenges that the FDA had with it because they're not set up to approve a drug

1607
02:03:19,520 --> 02:03:28,520
where it is combined with a therapeutic process to get fantastic results.

1608
02:03:28,520 --> 02:03:34,840
And so for the audience, when we think about what those results are, and I'm trying to

1609
02:03:34,840 --> 02:03:44,360
think about where SSRIs ended up laying, but SSRIs provide something to the effect of like,

1610
02:03:44,360 --> 02:03:49,760
ultimately, I think it's like 20 or 30%.

1611
02:03:49,760 --> 02:03:57,440
I don't remember the exact number, but even if it shows initial benefit, it tapers off.

1612
02:03:57,440 --> 02:03:58,600
It's not that effective.

1613
02:03:58,600 --> 02:04:07,000
And so to them, the 20 or 30% was considered a success.

1614
02:04:07,000 --> 02:04:19,160
MDMA, 86.5% of participants after three eight-hour sessions with MDMA assisted therapy achieved

1615
02:04:19,160 --> 02:04:22,440
meaningful, clinically meaningful benefit.

1616
02:04:22,440 --> 02:04:27,920
And then 71.2% of participants, and this is during what was called the phase three studies

1617
02:04:27,920 --> 02:04:35,400
by first maps or by Lycos, which is a for-profit arm or something called maps.

1618
02:04:35,400 --> 02:04:39,000
So 71.2% no longer qualified PTSD.

1619
02:04:39,000 --> 02:04:41,960
We never see these results anywhere.

1620
02:04:41,960 --> 02:04:47,240
And so MDMA assisted therapy is this.

1621
02:04:47,240 --> 02:04:52,200
Whether it's MDMA assisted therapy, ketamine assisted therapy, psychedelic assisted therapy,

1622
02:04:52,200 --> 02:04:58,160
what that means is this isn't where you throw somebody MDMA, but you throw somebody a handful

1623
02:04:58,160 --> 02:05:02,520
of mushrooms and say, take these over the weekend and you're going to be good.

1624
02:05:02,520 --> 02:05:05,780
It's where you start a therapeutic process.

1625
02:05:05,780 --> 02:05:07,480
It could be like cognitive behavioral therapy.

1626
02:05:07,480 --> 02:05:09,440
It could be exposure therapy.

1627
02:05:09,440 --> 02:05:14,760
There's a number of different therapeutic modalities that a licensed clinical professional

1628
02:05:14,760 --> 02:05:19,640
is going to be doing with that patient.

1629
02:05:19,640 --> 02:05:20,640
That could be one month.

1630
02:05:20,640 --> 02:05:26,920
That could be two months, and it helps that person to start to unpack what's going on,

1631
02:05:26,920 --> 02:05:35,760
maybe as far as they can because PTSD involves a lot of things, pain, shame, horrors.

1632
02:05:35,760 --> 02:05:41,280
It activates the amygdala, which is the fear network.

1633
02:05:41,280 --> 02:05:47,120
It's why it's such a hard, difficult thing to solve, to cure.

1634
02:05:47,120 --> 02:05:50,260
And so there's a ramp up process to it.

1635
02:05:50,260 --> 02:05:52,720
And then there's a treatment process to it.

1636
02:05:52,720 --> 02:05:58,520
And so in that treatment process, you're going to administer MDMA or you could be administrating

1637
02:05:58,520 --> 02:06:06,640
psilocybin or ibogaine to someone, which are those last two psychedelics.

1638
02:06:06,640 --> 02:06:13,520
And you've got two people, two trained professionals that are in the room in a controlled environment.

1639
02:06:13,520 --> 02:06:16,160
You're not throwing the stuff at somebody at a rave.

1640
02:06:16,160 --> 02:06:23,560
And then they are going through a therapeutic process during the six hours, eight hours

1641
02:06:23,560 --> 02:06:28,320
that they're there, probably a little less for MDMA than it is for psilocybin.

1642
02:06:28,320 --> 02:06:31,600
And so MDMA does this amazing thing for...

1643
02:06:31,600 --> 02:06:34,960
Do you want me to just go down this road right now?

1644
02:06:34,960 --> 02:06:35,960
Yeah, go for it.

1645
02:06:35,960 --> 02:06:36,960
Okay.

1646
02:06:36,960 --> 02:06:41,960
So MDMA does this amazing thing neurologically.

1647
02:06:41,960 --> 02:06:49,520
It dumps serotonin into the brain.

1648
02:06:49,520 --> 02:06:56,920
Now typically when serotonin is dumped into the brain and serotonin is a feel good chemical,

1649
02:06:56,920 --> 02:06:57,920
dopamine is low.

1650
02:06:57,920 --> 02:06:58,920
Okay.

1651
02:06:58,920 --> 02:07:01,120
If dopamine is high, serotonin is low.

1652
02:07:01,120 --> 02:07:09,920
When you take MDMA, serotonin is high, dopamine is high, acetylcholine is high, oxytocin is

1653
02:07:09,920 --> 02:07:10,920
high.

1654
02:07:10,920 --> 02:07:19,920
So they're all really valuable neurochemicals that are creating this very positive environment

1655
02:07:19,920 --> 02:07:22,360
in the brain.

1656
02:07:22,360 --> 02:07:27,080
And its behavior causes two things.

1657
02:07:27,080 --> 02:07:29,800
One is it's considered an entactogen.

1658
02:07:29,800 --> 02:07:36,100
And that is where if you're getting new age or whatever, but it's like you're getting

1659
02:07:36,100 --> 02:07:37,640
in touch with yourself, right?

1660
02:07:37,640 --> 02:07:43,120
You are recognizing your own feelings in a way that you wouldn't in a non-psychoactive

1661
02:07:43,120 --> 02:07:44,120
state.

1662
02:07:44,120 --> 02:07:46,120
And it's also in a pathogen.

1663
02:07:46,120 --> 02:07:47,880
So you are more susceptible.

1664
02:07:47,880 --> 02:07:50,840
It's kind of more simple as a suggestion, right?

1665
02:07:50,840 --> 02:07:54,160
Like this is also why you have to have two trained professionals there so that you make

1666
02:07:54,160 --> 02:07:55,160
sure that everything's on board.

1667
02:07:55,160 --> 02:07:57,160
You're in a vulnerable state.

1668
02:07:57,160 --> 02:08:02,920
But the point being that you've got this professional that's crossed the way talking to you and

1669
02:08:02,920 --> 02:08:12,640
you're talking about going into a building, pulling out the charred remains of a child.

1670
02:08:12,640 --> 02:08:20,360
You guys were through no fault of your own late getting onto the scene and there was

1671
02:08:20,360 --> 02:08:22,320
nothing you could do about it.

1672
02:08:22,320 --> 02:08:24,240
But you are now dealing with this.

1673
02:08:24,240 --> 02:08:31,000
Or in the case of a naval aviator, I know a guy named Slider who was given the wrong

1674
02:08:31,000 --> 02:08:36,800
ordinance to drop ordinance and he dropped on a family and killed the entire family.

1675
02:08:36,800 --> 02:08:38,800
And it wrecked him emotionally, right?

1676
02:08:38,800 --> 02:08:40,000
Because he's an ethical guy.

1677
02:08:40,000 --> 02:08:42,040
He's trying to do the right thing.

1678
02:08:42,040 --> 02:08:44,800
And this just destroyed him.

1679
02:08:44,800 --> 02:08:53,560
And so you've got this therapist on the other side saying to you, hey, first off, you're

1680
02:08:53,560 --> 02:08:59,520
able to talk about it when you weren't before because you've got these field of chemicals.

1681
02:08:59,520 --> 02:09:03,080
But what MDMA also does is it suppresses the amygdala.

1682
02:09:03,080 --> 02:09:05,520
And so the amygdala is the fear center of the brain.

1683
02:09:05,520 --> 02:09:11,480
So that fear center, which typically is the result of what you'd get, this anxiety that

1684
02:09:11,480 --> 02:09:15,560
would prevent you from having the conversation, fear, shame that's preventing you from having

1685
02:09:15,560 --> 02:09:17,800
the conversation, it's suppressed.

1686
02:09:17,800 --> 02:09:22,680
You're able to talk about things you would not normally be able to talk about.

1687
02:09:22,680 --> 02:09:28,480
And now you've got this therapist saying to you, you know that's not your fault, right?

1688
02:09:28,480 --> 02:09:33,680
Like talking through the situation to process it.

1689
02:09:33,680 --> 02:09:42,720
And so the amazing thing is, is it puts you into this very unique psychoactive, somewhat

1690
02:09:42,720 --> 02:09:48,440
altered state of consciousness where you are able to process something and go to the core

1691
02:09:48,440 --> 02:09:49,760
issue.

1692
02:09:49,760 --> 02:09:57,080
And that's the difference between MDMA, which is a non-traditional psychedelic, and regular

1693
02:09:57,080 --> 02:10:04,640
psychedelics, versus SSRIs, which are that palliative care, they treat the symptoms.

1694
02:10:04,640 --> 02:10:10,240
You get triggered because you see a cardboard box inside of the road, you think it's an

1695
02:10:10,240 --> 02:10:17,720
IED, and these neural pathways activate to create this hypervigilance, this anxiety.

1696
02:10:17,720 --> 02:10:25,200
And this is allowing you to reprocess and re-channel that kind of a thing in a way that's

1697
02:10:25,200 --> 02:10:29,160
not normally ever possible.

1698
02:10:29,160 --> 02:10:40,640
And so this is the reason why something like MDMA, assisted therapy, is so valuable to

1699
02:10:40,640 --> 02:10:44,440
veterans and first responders, but also that 13 million of Americans, women with sexual

1700
02:10:44,440 --> 02:10:48,480
assault, domestic abuse.

1701
02:10:48,480 --> 02:10:58,600
And so now what we're talking about is, you've got these people that are committing suicide,

1702
02:10:58,600 --> 02:11:06,440
and you've got the FDA that did this analysis, and they found several issues.

1703
02:11:06,440 --> 02:11:13,040
And one of them was called double-blind placebo-controlled studies, which is where one group of people

1704
02:11:13,040 --> 02:11:22,200
is given a placebo, the other group of people are given the actual psychoactive drug.

1705
02:11:22,200 --> 02:11:25,440
And with psychedelics, you can't fake it.

1706
02:11:25,440 --> 02:11:30,160
In MDMA being a non-traditional psychedelic, you can't fake it.

1707
02:11:30,160 --> 02:11:37,120
You know when it's happening, when you take the placebo effect, especially because it's

1708
02:11:37,120 --> 02:11:45,080
impossible to create a placebo that has a similar effect, the double-blind studies simply

1709
02:11:45,080 --> 02:11:50,680
aren't going to produce effective results.

1710
02:11:50,680 --> 02:11:54,360
Wouldn't that be the same with anesthesia though?

1711
02:11:54,360 --> 02:11:56,760
You can't fake that either, but that got approved.

1712
02:11:56,760 --> 02:11:59,280
Well, so it's the same with ketamine.

1713
02:11:59,280 --> 02:12:00,880
Ketamine went through the FDA process.

1714
02:12:00,880 --> 02:12:04,360
You can't fake ketamine, which is battlefield anesthetic.

1715
02:12:04,360 --> 02:12:12,600
You can't fake taking ketamine, but they approved that.

1716
02:12:12,600 --> 02:12:19,400
And there's several other drugs that you can't double-blind it, and they've approved it.

1717
02:12:19,400 --> 02:12:29,400
In fact, during the phase two study for MDMA-assisted therapy, they granted Lycos.

1718
02:12:29,400 --> 02:12:33,000
They approved the phase two study and said, move forward with phase three.

1719
02:12:33,000 --> 02:12:35,280
We understand what's going on with the double-blind.

1720
02:12:35,280 --> 02:12:42,280
And yet during the phase three, the advisory committee to the FDA called it out as a failure,

1721
02:12:42,280 --> 02:12:50,680
as if it's a failure to the drug and the inability to determine efficacy when the reality is

1722
02:12:50,680 --> 02:12:59,000
it's a failure of the testing process and a failure of a large organization, a bureaucratic

1723
02:12:59,000 --> 02:13:05,000
organization that is no longer agile, that arguably is never agile, that also has a lot

1724
02:13:05,000 --> 02:13:10,520
of conflicts of interest to people that were once part of Big Pharma that are now on that

1725
02:13:10,520 --> 02:13:17,560
advisory committee that are in the FDA.

1726
02:13:17,560 --> 02:13:19,880
And so I just lost my train of thought on that.

1727
02:13:19,880 --> 02:13:23,000
No, it's actually, I'll jump in as that's a let me to kind of...

1728
02:13:23,000 --> 02:13:24,000
Okay, fine.

1729
02:13:24,000 --> 02:13:25,000
...tell me that way.

1730
02:13:25,000 --> 02:13:26,000
So I was...

1731
02:13:26,000 --> 02:13:27,480
I'm going faster than I can think sometimes.

1732
02:13:27,480 --> 02:13:29,120
No, but it's brilliant though.

1733
02:13:29,120 --> 02:13:33,200
But I was just talking this morning, I've done two interviews today, and it was a Swedish

1734
02:13:33,200 --> 02:13:41,240
doctor, Dr. Anders Hansen, a Swedish psychiatrist and seemingly one of their brightest that

1735
02:13:41,240 --> 02:13:42,240
they have.

1736
02:13:42,240 --> 02:13:44,560
He's had TV shows and written multiple books.

1737
02:13:44,560 --> 02:13:51,000
But I was asking him about the traditional psychiatric meds, and he was saying that...

1738
02:13:51,000 --> 02:13:56,320
He mentioned that with the SSRIs and a lot of the psych drugs, the antidepressants.

1739
02:13:56,320 --> 02:14:03,120
He was like, there was 30, he said that it would work, 30 would be kind of meh, and 30%

1740
02:14:03,120 --> 02:14:04,120
that wouldn't work.

1741
02:14:04,120 --> 02:14:06,940
And so again, there's your 30% efficacy.

1742
02:14:06,940 --> 02:14:13,520
And he said with the ones that they work, we advise them that once you're feeling good,

1743
02:14:13,520 --> 02:14:17,680
don't immediately come off and wait six months and then come off them.

1744
02:14:17,680 --> 02:14:21,480
And this is what I've witnessed, and we touched on this earlier, with medicine in America.

1745
02:14:21,480 --> 02:14:25,380
And again, I'm not blaming all physicians because the structure they're asked to work

1746
02:14:25,380 --> 02:14:29,240
in is completely broken, eight minutes with the patient.

1747
02:14:29,240 --> 02:14:36,400
But when you have someone given drugs for hypertension or cholesterol or diabetes, there's

1748
02:14:36,400 --> 02:14:41,280
not, unless you're with a good physician, there's not that, I'll give you this for the

1749
02:14:41,280 --> 02:14:46,360
moment, but we need to look at your weight, your exercise, your sleep, your mindfulness,

1750
02:14:46,360 --> 02:14:50,000
all these things, because we need to get you off these meds.

1751
02:14:50,000 --> 02:14:54,920
And what I see with Clear Eyes, as you said, we all know the backstory of Oxycontin and

1752
02:14:54,920 --> 02:14:58,840
the corrupt element of the FDA there, that they're literally Purdue pharma people who

1753
02:14:58,840 --> 02:15:01,120
are working there.

1754
02:15:01,120 --> 02:15:05,360
If you have MDMA, and I had Dr. Ben Sessa from University of Bristol on a few years

1755
02:15:05,360 --> 02:15:09,200
ago, and we talked about this, you have free treatments.

1756
02:15:09,200 --> 02:15:12,160
You have the one, I think it was like the next one was two weeks later, and then four

1757
02:15:12,160 --> 02:15:13,160
or six weeks after that.

1758
02:15:13,160 --> 02:15:14,760
And he said, and that's it.

1759
02:15:14,760 --> 02:15:17,760
So you've got these three sessions, and then you're done.

1760
02:15:17,760 --> 02:15:23,620
Now you look at the profit from MDMA versus a lifetime in the American system on a bunch

1761
02:15:23,620 --> 02:15:29,260
of SSRIs that, from a business point of view, well, we've got to crush that thing that's

1762
02:15:29,260 --> 02:15:33,200
not going to make us very much money so that we can keep the thing that makes us money.

1763
02:15:33,200 --> 02:15:34,620
So I see it clearly.

1764
02:15:34,620 --> 02:15:36,280
This isn't about the benefit of the people.

1765
02:15:36,280 --> 02:15:38,480
This is purely about the profit margin.

1766
02:15:38,480 --> 02:15:41,440
No, no, you're absolutely right.

1767
02:15:41,440 --> 02:15:45,480
And so here's how we have to reframe that.

1768
02:15:45,480 --> 02:15:51,980
We have to reframe that with data, financial data, to show insurance companies the amount

1769
02:15:51,980 --> 02:15:58,640
of money we'd save them because they're the ones that are paying for the SSRIs.

1770
02:15:58,640 --> 02:16:03,080
And it's interesting because big pharma insurance companies, there's so much ancestry going

1771
02:16:03,080 --> 02:16:04,080
on there.

1772
02:16:04,080 --> 02:16:10,280
But if you can show an insurance company that you're going to save them over a period of

1773
02:16:10,280 --> 02:16:20,840
two, five, 10 years, money from not just the SSRIs, but also the potential possible ongoing

1774
02:16:20,840 --> 02:16:27,520
psychiatric or psychotherapy care, you look at all the different things it's going to

1775
02:16:27,520 --> 02:16:30,600
cost the insurance company.

1776
02:16:30,600 --> 02:16:38,880
This is the way that you can combat that because this is a titan that you're coming up against.

1777
02:16:38,880 --> 02:16:41,760
This big pharma is a titan.

1778
02:16:41,760 --> 02:16:49,200
And so you have to convince people that you're saving more money to be able to do it.

1779
02:16:49,200 --> 02:16:50,320
It's pretty clear.

1780
02:16:50,320 --> 02:16:55,120
Right now on the state level in Nevada, we're putting that actually together to show, for

1781
02:16:55,120 --> 02:17:06,420
example, all the different ways that you could potentially save the state money when it comes

1782
02:17:06,420 --> 02:17:13,920
to opioid addiction and the amount of resources that are going in law enforcement towards

1783
02:17:13,920 --> 02:17:16,120
opioid related crimes.

1784
02:17:16,120 --> 02:17:22,120
And just for the audience, because this part of this discussion, it would be that things

1785
02:17:22,120 --> 02:17:27,320
like psychedelics can break addiction, can break opioid addiction, in particular, ibogaine

1786
02:17:27,320 --> 02:17:30,360
and also psilocybin.

1787
02:17:30,360 --> 02:17:36,600
And so you have to look at the larger effect of how you can save money from the insurance

1788
02:17:36,600 --> 02:17:40,240
perspective and then on a state and federal level.

1789
02:17:40,240 --> 02:17:47,480
And when you put those kinds of numbers together, that's when you really can go at this to say

1790
02:17:47,480 --> 02:17:52,920
this is where you start deconstructing this crazy broken health care model of being on

1791
02:17:52,920 --> 02:17:53,920
something forever.

1792
02:17:53,920 --> 02:17:58,720
So the only way you can do it is if you can show the people who are spending money doing

1793
02:17:58,720 --> 02:18:01,760
that that you can save them money.

1794
02:18:01,760 --> 02:18:04,720
I want to talk about drug prohibition.

1795
02:18:04,720 --> 02:18:07,000
I went around the world with a load of Navy SEALs.

1796
02:18:07,000 --> 02:18:09,240
Ryan Parrott, Drago was on the trip.

1797
02:18:09,240 --> 02:18:11,120
There's a whole bunch of them.

1798
02:18:11,120 --> 02:18:13,640
And one of the stops was Cartagena.

1799
02:18:13,640 --> 02:18:18,600
I got to shoot with some SF guys and just it was purely an experience.

1800
02:18:18,600 --> 02:18:24,000
But now here we are, a bunch of Americans and Brits in a place that was arguably a lot

1801
02:18:24,000 --> 02:18:27,400
more dangerous probably when you were there.

1802
02:18:27,400 --> 02:18:32,920
And you look at the origin of the prohibition of drugs and Harry Anslinger and the reefer

1803
02:18:32,920 --> 02:18:39,800
madness and you learn that really it was about prejudice and it was about job justification.

1804
02:18:39,800 --> 02:18:43,920
And it came off the epic failure of alcohol prohibition, which is why we know the name

1805
02:18:43,920 --> 02:18:46,600
Al Capone, for example.

1806
02:18:46,600 --> 02:18:49,720
As I progressed through and did this podcast, it was interesting.

1807
02:18:49,720 --> 02:18:54,200
The first few years I talked about that to people that were over in Afghanistan, especially

1808
02:18:54,200 --> 02:18:56,740
and it was a very tight lipped element.

1809
02:18:56,740 --> 02:19:03,680
And something shifted literally about five, four years ago where all of a sudden the veterans

1810
02:19:03,680 --> 02:19:05,180
were talking about this.

1811
02:19:05,180 --> 02:19:11,840
And so, correct me if I'm wrong, there was a large amount of funding for a lot of the

1812
02:19:11,840 --> 02:19:16,200
people that you were fighting from the illicit drug trade.

1813
02:19:16,200 --> 02:19:21,600
So with this very interesting lens that you have of being in Colombia and obviously Afghanistan

1814
02:19:21,600 --> 02:19:28,800
and other places, what did you observe about the dark side of prohibition, the empowerment

1815
02:19:28,800 --> 02:19:32,160
of some of these people that were behind this?

1816
02:19:32,160 --> 02:19:37,080
So I didn't have the visibility I think some of those guys had.

1817
02:19:37,080 --> 02:19:40,880
One of the things I saw that always bothered me was that we knew where there were crops

1818
02:19:40,880 --> 02:19:50,560
of poppy fields and that our rules of engagement and our mission, the counter-terror, counter-insurgency

1819
02:19:50,560 --> 02:19:53,840
mission didn't include that.

1820
02:19:53,840 --> 02:19:59,680
I know the Brits would go eradicate fields and we had no say so in it.

1821
02:19:59,680 --> 02:20:07,640
And so I simply didn't have the visibility that some of those guys probably had.

1822
02:20:07,640 --> 02:20:16,040
In South America, we were consistently challenged because you're not allowed to go engage in

1823
02:20:16,040 --> 02:20:22,960
conflict and combat in a foreign nation without that nation granted permission.

1824
02:20:22,960 --> 02:20:23,960
That didn't happen.

1825
02:20:23,960 --> 02:20:28,520
I'm sure there's a lot of the wrong reasons behind it.

1826
02:20:28,520 --> 02:20:29,880
And so our hands were tied.

1827
02:20:29,880 --> 02:20:33,960
It was also one of the reasons I was looking getting out because I was like, well, this

1828
02:20:33,960 --> 02:20:34,960
sucks.

1829
02:20:34,960 --> 02:20:38,840
But I probably just didn't have the visibility that some of those guys had.

1830
02:20:38,840 --> 02:20:39,840
Interesting.

1831
02:20:39,840 --> 02:20:44,920
Well then, that being said, as you sit here now in 2024 and we're talking about the efficacy

1832
02:20:44,920 --> 02:20:50,400
of a lot of these drugs which are deemed class one and are going to murder everyone, what

1833
02:20:50,400 --> 02:20:54,560
is your perspective on the prohibition laws?

1834
02:20:54,560 --> 02:21:00,280
Because for me, spending the last 20 years, 14 years actually wearing the uniform, there's

1835
02:21:00,280 --> 02:21:04,840
no better witness to the failure of the war on drugs than the first responders because

1836
02:21:04,840 --> 02:21:07,560
we're the ones that scrape up the bodies over and over again.

1837
02:21:07,560 --> 02:21:12,080
We're the ones that find the dead hookers in the dumpsters and the homeless people,

1838
02:21:12,080 --> 02:21:13,460
the overdoses and all these things.

1839
02:21:13,460 --> 02:21:18,700
So for me, it's clear that this epic failure and then when you look at the origin story,

1840
02:21:18,700 --> 02:21:21,080
it should never have happened in the first place.

1841
02:21:21,080 --> 02:21:27,840
But as we sit here now realizing that these very substances, some of them are so therapeutic

1842
02:21:27,840 --> 02:21:33,700
that they're saving our first responders and military's lives, what is your kind of philosophy

1843
02:21:33,700 --> 02:21:37,000
on the actual prohibition itself?

1844
02:21:37,000 --> 02:21:44,360
Yeah, so speaking specifically to, because I see things that work, I see things that

1845
02:21:44,360 --> 02:21:45,360
don't work.

1846
02:21:45,360 --> 02:21:49,520
Of course, we know the Portugal model and then we look at Oregon's attempt at the Portugal

1847
02:21:49,520 --> 02:21:56,200
model which didn't really match that and so it was kind of doomed to failure.

1848
02:21:56,200 --> 02:22:00,320
And so my area of expertise is in psychedelics.

1849
02:22:00,320 --> 02:22:07,400
And so when we look at psychedelic medicine and we look at things like psilocybin and

1850
02:22:07,400 --> 02:22:14,480
DMT and ibogaine and 5-miodmt and ayahuasca, all of these things, so clued at non-traditionals

1851
02:22:14,480 --> 02:22:19,720
like MDMA and ketamine with the exception of ketamine.

1852
02:22:19,720 --> 02:22:22,880
I'm going to throw that to the side because it's technically legal.

1853
02:22:22,880 --> 02:22:28,080
But all these other things I described are what's on the Schedule I Controlled Substances

1854
02:22:28,080 --> 02:22:29,080
Act.

1855
02:22:29,080 --> 02:22:34,880
Schedule I is defined as highly abusive or highly addictive, you kind of hear it both

1856
02:22:34,880 --> 02:22:38,400
ways, and with no medical value.

1857
02:22:38,400 --> 02:22:39,400
And so what has this done?

1858
02:22:39,400 --> 02:22:45,360
It's prevented studies of this medicine which has recently changed.

1859
02:22:45,360 --> 02:22:50,120
You got neuroscientists with DEA licenses that can work on Schedule I stuff, but it's

1860
02:22:50,120 --> 02:22:52,880
very, you know, it's a challenge.

1861
02:22:52,880 --> 02:22:56,960
And nothing could be further from the truth.

1862
02:22:56,960 --> 02:23:04,080
When I say that, let me stress again, when, well, we didn't go over my experience, but

1863
02:23:04,080 --> 02:23:09,120
when I had another team guy hit me up and say, hey, man, you need to take a look at,

1864
02:23:09,120 --> 02:23:15,120
you know, ibogaine and you need to look at going down to Mexico to do this.

1865
02:23:15,120 --> 02:23:20,420
My first response was, and this was about three and a half years ago or so, my first

1866
02:23:20,420 --> 02:23:25,840
response was, that sounds like a bunch of hippie drugs with a bunch of hippie veterans

1867
02:23:25,840 --> 02:23:28,520
looking to go escape reality.

1868
02:23:28,520 --> 02:23:34,840
And he's like, no, give it, just do this for me, take a look at it.

1869
02:23:34,840 --> 02:23:37,520
And I respected this guy, so I did.

1870
02:23:37,520 --> 02:23:43,560
And you know, a product of the 80s, I saw the frying pan with the egg burning on it

1871
02:23:43,560 --> 02:23:50,120
from Nancy Reagan, and I believe that psychedelics would scramble your chromosomes and melt your

1872
02:23:50,120 --> 02:23:52,000
DNA and all this stuff.

1873
02:23:52,000 --> 02:24:02,000
And even in 2002 or whatever, I saw what MDMA supposedly did to primates.

1874
02:24:02,000 --> 02:24:06,120
And it turns out that it was actually, they accidentally gave them a straight amphetamine,

1875
02:24:06,120 --> 02:24:07,120
methamphetamine.

1876
02:24:07,120 --> 02:24:11,200
But I was very much against anything like this.

1877
02:24:11,200 --> 02:24:16,000
But once I started looking at the studies, I realized this was not the bill of goods

1878
02:24:16,000 --> 02:24:17,040
I was sold.

1879
02:24:17,040 --> 02:24:18,600
This is not what I thought.

1880
02:24:18,600 --> 02:24:25,640
In fact, these medicines were initially simply for therapeutic value.

1881
02:24:25,640 --> 02:24:31,360
They were initially being studied for therapeutic value, whether it was for depression, anxiety,

1882
02:24:31,360 --> 02:24:34,400
major depression disorder, things like that.

1883
02:24:34,400 --> 02:24:38,360
And in fact, they were not highly abusive.

1884
02:24:38,360 --> 02:24:40,760
They were actually anti-addictive.

1885
02:24:40,760 --> 02:24:47,440
In fact, you don't take these things and get addicted to them.

1886
02:24:47,440 --> 02:24:51,720
When things happen, number one, you take something like psilocybin, you immediately start building

1887
02:24:51,720 --> 02:24:56,280
a tolerance to where if you were going to take it the next day, which for anyone that's

1888
02:24:56,280 --> 02:25:00,440
taking psychedelics, I can tell you, it's an arduous experience.

1889
02:25:00,440 --> 02:25:06,800
You finish it feeling like you ran a marathon, you're smoked, and you're emotionally smoked.

1890
02:25:06,800 --> 02:25:08,040
Why would you want to do it the next day?

1891
02:25:08,040 --> 02:25:11,440
But even if you did, you'd have to take twice the amount, and then the next day you'd have

1892
02:25:11,440 --> 02:25:13,240
to take twice the amount of that.

1893
02:25:13,240 --> 02:25:15,360
There's also no withdrawal effects.

1894
02:25:15,360 --> 02:25:20,360
So when you take heroin, there is withdrawal effects to it, which currently you should

1895
02:25:20,360 --> 02:25:23,120
take more.

1896
02:25:23,120 --> 02:25:24,280
There's no withdrawal effects to this.

1897
02:25:24,280 --> 02:25:26,960
You don't have that drive to take more.

1898
02:25:26,960 --> 02:25:33,000
And then when we look at the medical value, the efficacy is not even challenged by anybody

1899
02:25:33,000 --> 02:25:34,000
that knows.

1900
02:25:34,000 --> 02:25:38,720
At this point, studies are out there to show that we need to reschedule this stuff.

1901
02:25:38,720 --> 02:25:42,400
So that was the thing with the MDMA-assisted therapy.

1902
02:25:42,400 --> 02:25:48,800
FDA decision was they were supposed to reschedule it to schedule two, schedule three.

1903
02:25:48,800 --> 02:25:51,760
And that's what we're looking at right now with psychedelics, attempting to get this

1904
02:25:51,760 --> 02:25:53,720
stuff rescheduled.

1905
02:25:53,720 --> 02:26:03,920
Because you look at this guy called David Nutt, he worked for Imperial College in England,

1906
02:26:03,920 --> 02:26:09,440
and the ministry there asked him to do an assessment on the 20 most common street drugs

1907
02:26:09,440 --> 02:26:12,560
and their harm to self and others.

1908
02:26:12,560 --> 02:26:14,560
And so he did this study.

1909
02:26:14,560 --> 02:26:22,540
And much to the chagrin of the alcoholics that asked him to do this, he discovered that

1910
02:26:22,540 --> 02:26:27,720
alcohol was the number one most dangerous drug of harm to self or others.

1911
02:26:27,720 --> 02:26:29,760
Next on the list was heroin.

1912
02:26:29,760 --> 02:26:33,200
And then below that was like crack, cocaine, et cetera.

1913
02:26:33,200 --> 02:26:39,080
All the way to the bottom, at the 20th, was psilocybin, harm to self or others.

1914
02:26:39,080 --> 02:26:44,800
And they didn't like that very much.

1915
02:26:44,800 --> 02:26:50,440
But the reality is that these things aren't causing the harm that we thought.

1916
02:26:50,440 --> 02:26:57,400
And in fact, they're incredibly effective when used correctly.

1917
02:26:57,400 --> 02:27:00,480
It's ironic that number one and two are the legal drugs.

1918
02:27:00,480 --> 02:27:01,480
Yes.

1919
02:27:01,480 --> 02:27:02,480
Yeah.

1920
02:27:02,480 --> 02:27:03,480
Yeah.

1921
02:27:03,480 --> 02:27:04,480
Yeah.

1922
02:27:04,480 --> 02:27:05,480
Well, heroin's not legal.

1923
02:27:05,480 --> 02:27:09,320
The abortion of heroin is very, very legal and prescribed like candy.

1924
02:27:09,320 --> 02:27:10,880
Oh, yeah.

1925
02:27:10,880 --> 02:27:12,520
Oh, yeah.

1926
02:27:12,520 --> 02:27:13,520
Absolutely.

1927
02:27:13,520 --> 02:27:14,520
Opioids, right?

1928
02:27:14,520 --> 02:27:15,520
So 100%.

1929
02:27:15,520 --> 02:27:16,520
And yeah.

1930
02:27:16,520 --> 02:27:23,680
And I mean, that's part of the irony here is that we look at Ibogaine and also psilocybin

1931
02:27:23,680 --> 02:27:30,920
to a degree, and we look at its ability to break opioid addiction.

1932
02:27:30,920 --> 02:27:34,640
And there's nothing in the world to compare to it.

1933
02:27:34,640 --> 02:27:39,800
In fact, Professor Nolan Williams described it as one of the most complex molecules he's

1934
02:27:39,800 --> 02:27:43,800
ever studied.

1935
02:27:43,800 --> 02:27:48,880
And that's in large part due to its ability to completely break withdrawal.

1936
02:27:48,880 --> 02:27:56,800
So you're addicted to hydrocodone or OxyContin, and you go into an Ibogaine treatment plan,

1937
02:27:56,800 --> 02:27:58,640
and you do the Ibogaine treatment once.

1938
02:27:58,640 --> 02:28:05,200
And maybe one more time depends, and it breaks withdrawals.

1939
02:28:05,200 --> 02:28:10,520
It rewires the brain to where you no longer have withdrawals from it and to where the

1940
02:28:10,520 --> 02:28:17,600
next day you can walk away feeling like you don't have that need anymore.

1941
02:28:17,600 --> 02:28:19,320
And I discovered the same thing with alcohol.

1942
02:28:19,320 --> 02:28:21,360
I did Ibogaine.

1943
02:28:21,360 --> 02:28:27,840
And what it did was it didn't make me feel like I needed to use willpower to not drink.

1944
02:28:27,840 --> 02:28:33,320
It made me just not care.

1945
02:28:33,320 --> 02:28:39,240
For example, I think in the last seven months I've had, I took one weekend where I was going

1946
02:28:39,240 --> 02:28:43,400
to go meet some people at a fundraising event.

1947
02:28:43,400 --> 02:28:46,880
And I was like, OK, I'm going to make this decision to have a couple of drinks.

1948
02:28:46,880 --> 02:28:47,880
And I did.

1949
02:28:47,880 --> 02:28:48,880
And that was it.

1950
02:28:48,880 --> 02:28:52,280
And I don't really care.

1951
02:28:52,280 --> 02:28:53,280
It's good.

1952
02:28:53,280 --> 02:28:56,520
I also feel a lot better because as I'm getting older, hangovers suck.

1953
02:28:56,520 --> 02:29:02,960
I had Dan Cirillo on the show probably sadly only about a year before he passed away.

1954
02:29:02,960 --> 02:29:04,600
But he was talking about that.

1955
02:29:04,600 --> 02:29:07,440
I mean, just a rampant alcoholism.

1956
02:29:07,440 --> 02:29:11,480
And he's like, James, literally the other end of this, I haven't touched a drink since.

1957
02:29:11,480 --> 02:29:19,640
So this again, what other compound or pill or anything can say that about opioid addiction,

1958
02:29:19,640 --> 02:29:22,840
about alcohol that you can go in and do this treatment?

1959
02:29:22,840 --> 02:29:26,960
And obviously, from the unpacking the mental health side, there's still work to be done.

1960
02:29:26,960 --> 02:29:33,520
But the addiction element, the biochemistry element, to break that cycle, to give you

1961
02:29:33,520 --> 02:29:39,280
now the ability to start healing the other elements, I mean, that should have been approved

1962
02:29:39,280 --> 02:29:41,880
right there and then once we saw efficacy for a while.

1963
02:29:41,880 --> 02:29:43,240
And this is what's so sad.

1964
02:29:43,240 --> 02:29:45,560
And people are going to continue to die and suffer.

1965
02:29:45,560 --> 02:29:48,520
And families are going to continue to be broken up.

1966
02:29:48,520 --> 02:29:53,960
And multigenerational trauma has continued to push another domino down, whilst such an

1967
02:29:53,960 --> 02:29:56,840
effective treatment is being prohibited.

1968
02:29:56,840 --> 02:30:00,920
And I've pointed this out so many times to the point where the men and women that fought

1969
02:30:00,920 --> 02:30:05,360
for our country have to go to a different country to get the therapy for it.

1970
02:30:05,360 --> 02:30:09,040
Yeah, it's incredible.

1971
02:30:09,040 --> 02:30:18,400
And yeah, I mean, this is one of the reasons why psychedelics have such promise.

1972
02:30:18,400 --> 02:30:23,720
There's nothing that we've seen out there that can cure.

1973
02:30:23,720 --> 02:30:32,280
There was this one study, and as far as I know, it's only one study, but it showed individuals

1974
02:30:32,280 --> 02:30:39,120
that people with a record that had a criminal record that were engaged in psychedelics,

1975
02:30:39,120 --> 02:30:42,560
there was a reduction in recidivism versus people that didn't.

1976
02:30:42,560 --> 02:30:51,080
And so that's an important factor, because I was talking to a sheriff of a county in

1977
02:30:51,080 --> 02:30:52,080
Nevada.

1978
02:30:52,080 --> 02:30:58,760
He talked about 80 or 90% of his inmates are in there for an opioid-related crime.

1979
02:30:58,760 --> 02:31:03,280
And he has treatment program in there for opioid treatment programs.

1980
02:31:03,280 --> 02:31:08,960
And this guy, he hates Big Pharma, because he sees, he's on the front lines.

1981
02:31:08,960 --> 02:31:13,120
He sees how it destroys humans.

1982
02:31:13,120 --> 02:31:19,600
And I was like, well, what if you could have a medicine that could treat these guys and

1983
02:31:19,600 --> 02:31:22,440
gals so that they can break that?

1984
02:31:22,440 --> 02:31:27,520
And you could see the gears turning when I was talking about that.

1985
02:31:27,520 --> 02:31:31,440
Well even again with the prohibition laws, and I've had the Dr. Zhao Guilao on a couple

1986
02:31:31,440 --> 02:31:32,440
of times.

1987
02:31:32,440 --> 02:31:35,880
I sat in with him in Lisbon a few years ago, and then we did a gun, I think, only about

1988
02:31:35,880 --> 02:31:38,400
six months ago.

1989
02:31:38,400 --> 02:31:40,000
But what they did is they viewed that.

1990
02:31:40,000 --> 02:31:44,840
They saw that a lot of their jails and prisons were full of people with drug-related charges.

1991
02:31:44,840 --> 02:31:49,680
So when they decided to decriminalize all addiction, and it's addiction, not selling,

1992
02:31:49,680 --> 02:31:54,120
not smuggling, but addiction, and invested, which is what Oregon obviously didn't do.

1993
02:31:54,120 --> 02:31:56,440
They piecemealed the shit out of it.

1994
02:31:56,440 --> 02:32:01,320
Invest in mental health counseling, addiction counseling, which obviously, I became would

1995
02:32:01,320 --> 02:32:06,240
be a great way of knocking that on the head, job creation, housing.

1996
02:32:06,240 --> 02:32:11,560
They went from one of the worst addiction rates in, I keep saying, and I look this up

1997
02:32:11,560 --> 02:32:15,960
and I haven't yet, it's either Europe or the world, I forget which one, to one of the lowest

1998
02:32:15,960 --> 02:32:19,940
in less than 10 years because they were proactive.

1999
02:32:19,940 --> 02:32:24,080
And so as you think about this, most of the crimes are committed either because people

2000
02:32:24,080 --> 02:32:29,660
think they can make money from illicit drugs and or they're addicted to illicit drugs.

2001
02:32:29,660 --> 02:32:35,560
So you take that, you cut the head off the snake by putting all the efforts into rehabilitation,

2002
02:32:35,560 --> 02:32:37,240
through rehabilitation.

2003
02:32:37,240 --> 02:32:42,120
Now you're left with a police force and a judicial system that can hunt the paedophiles

2004
02:32:42,120 --> 02:32:46,760
and the murderers and the burglars and all the true predators of the world because you've

2005
02:32:46,760 --> 02:32:52,600
eliminated that ability to make money from the criminality of drugs.

2006
02:32:52,600 --> 02:32:53,600
Yeah.

2007
02:32:53,600 --> 02:32:59,840
And you also keep those keep those enforcements in place for drug dealers, right?

2008
02:32:59,840 --> 02:33:00,840
Exactly.

2009
02:33:00,840 --> 02:33:07,360
Yeah, so you're not just reducing the demand, but you're going after the people who are

2010
02:33:07,360 --> 02:33:11,400
preying on other people.

2011
02:33:11,400 --> 02:33:16,440
Another area when we're talking about the TBIs that I've heard a lot of optimism about

2012
02:33:16,440 --> 02:33:24,100
is that psilocybin specifically seems to actually be healing or causing neurogenesis or healing

2013
02:33:24,100 --> 02:33:29,560
some of the damage from these TBIs, which I think it's early stages yet, but the potential

2014
02:33:29,560 --> 02:33:34,280
that these psychedelics could even be addressing the TBI side, I think is very exciting.

2015
02:33:34,280 --> 02:33:35,760
Yeah, absolutely.

2016
02:33:35,760 --> 02:33:41,000
And so this is, you know, as a guy that has a medical record that is very concerning for,

2017
02:33:41,000 --> 02:33:43,960
you know, if I'm going to start, you know, forgetting where I put my car keys, which

2018
02:33:43,960 --> 02:33:50,560
I'm actually already doing, but you know, you know, put my car keys in the refrigerator,

2019
02:33:50,560 --> 02:33:51,560
whatever.

2020
02:33:51,560 --> 02:33:54,680
Psilocybin and again, Ibogaine.

2021
02:33:54,680 --> 02:33:59,200
When we look at a recent study done by Professor Nolan Williams of Stanford University, he took

2022
02:33:59,200 --> 02:34:05,800
30 special operation veterans and put them in machines, put them in functional MRI machines,

2023
02:34:05,800 --> 02:34:10,920
so fMRIs, EEGs, positron emission tomography machines, you know, and then ran them through

2024
02:34:10,920 --> 02:34:16,840
a barrage of neuropsychological testing, sent them to Mexico where they could legally do

2025
02:34:16,840 --> 02:34:21,240
Ibogaine to a controlled professional location.

2026
02:34:21,240 --> 02:34:25,560
They're hooked up to an EKG because there's a cardiac risk with Ibogaine, another reason

2027
02:34:25,560 --> 02:34:27,040
why you wouldn't want that for illegal.

2028
02:34:27,040 --> 02:34:32,000
They, you know, put a port in and then gave them something called the magnesium Ibogaine

2029
02:34:32,000 --> 02:34:40,900
protocol, which mitigates cardiac risk along with proper screening, brought them back.

2030
02:34:40,900 --> 02:34:45,040
The results were insane in terms of putting them back in those machines.

2031
02:34:45,040 --> 02:34:52,760
And what they discovered was that these guys that were diagnosed as having a TBI disability

2032
02:34:52,760 --> 02:35:01,240
that were, you know, 30, 40% disabled, that had a 70% engagement in suicidal ideation,

2033
02:35:01,240 --> 02:35:04,040
had a super low quality of life.

2034
02:35:04,040 --> 02:35:15,560
I forgot what the term for that is, but they tested out of being clinically determined

2035
02:35:15,560 --> 02:35:18,880
to be neurologically disabled from traumatic brain injury.

2036
02:35:18,880 --> 02:35:21,240
They tested below the threshold.

2037
02:35:21,240 --> 02:35:28,400
And the amazing thing is the tests, the results were so remarkable, they brought a third party

2038
02:35:28,400 --> 02:35:32,480
in because they're like, there might be something wrong with our testing process here.

2039
02:35:32,480 --> 02:35:38,000
These results are, you know, they didn't want to be the lapping stock of the scientific

2040
02:35:38,000 --> 02:35:39,000
community.

2041
02:35:39,000 --> 02:35:44,460
And so this third party came in and said, no, everything seems like you did this right.

2042
02:35:44,460 --> 02:35:50,360
And so they, since published in Nature magazine.

2043
02:35:50,360 --> 02:35:55,920
And so if you Google like, you know, Nolan Williams, special operation veterans, Ibrahim

2044
02:35:55,920 --> 02:36:00,000
Gain, Stanford study, Nature magazine, then you'll pull up the study.

2045
02:36:00,000 --> 02:36:02,320
And it's absolutely amazing.

2046
02:36:02,320 --> 02:36:07,600
And they are showing similar things with, with, with, with psilocybin as well.

2047
02:36:07,600 --> 02:36:11,220
Remember, we're talking about neurons and we're talking about those dendrites and we're

2048
02:36:11,220 --> 02:36:14,880
talking about the myelin sheath.

2049
02:36:14,880 --> 02:36:22,320
What they're seeing is these, these neurons being built back up to a healthy neuron in

2050
02:36:22,320 --> 02:36:24,000
a way that's incredible.

2051
02:36:24,000 --> 02:36:25,960
And so there's, there's two things that are going on.

2052
02:36:25,960 --> 02:36:28,200
There's neurogenesis to a lesser degree.

2053
02:36:28,200 --> 02:36:34,920
And then there's also this neuroplastic adaptive neuroplasticity, which is causing the, which

2054
02:36:34,920 --> 02:36:39,280
is really the power, even more powerful than neurogenesis.

2055
02:36:39,280 --> 02:36:46,600
And then it's causing, you know, people to, to test out of being neurologically disabled

2056
02:36:46,600 --> 02:36:48,280
for, for TBIs.

2057
02:36:48,280 --> 02:36:49,280
Huge.

2058
02:36:49,280 --> 02:36:55,040
I was just talking to a friend of mine that was medically retired because he had an accident,

2059
02:36:55,040 --> 02:36:58,600
you know, as a firefighter, 19 years in his career.

2060
02:36:58,600 --> 02:37:03,240
And what's so sad is this kind of, again, that disposable heroes, you know, that they'll

2061
02:37:03,240 --> 02:37:08,200
fight them even for that, but that the whole ethos has proved to me that you're disabled.

2062
02:37:08,200 --> 02:37:12,000
Where I think there should be, and this is what I did in my own career, but again, I

2063
02:37:12,000 --> 02:37:16,040
was fortunate enough not to have the kind of injury or disease that would, you know,

2064
02:37:16,040 --> 02:37:21,120
would not allow this, but I rehab back from a back injury and then meniscus surgery on

2065
02:37:21,120 --> 02:37:23,440
one side and same on the other.

2066
02:37:23,440 --> 02:37:25,600
Because you know, that should be the ethos.

2067
02:37:25,600 --> 02:37:29,480
Let's get you back to as close as healthy as you can at the back end of your career

2068
02:37:29,480 --> 02:37:31,160
as a firefighter or a seal.

2069
02:37:31,160 --> 02:37:34,520
Let's not, you know, let's try and minimize the amount of disabled payments, you know,

2070
02:37:34,520 --> 02:37:37,360
and let them be healthy people when they leave.

2071
02:37:37,360 --> 02:37:43,640
So this is again, what's so exciting is even if you don't care about human life financially,

2072
02:37:43,640 --> 02:37:48,440
if you can take care of your people and get them back to being healthy, then there's not

2073
02:37:48,440 --> 02:37:52,080
going to be as much of a financial liability and they're going to go on and, you know,

2074
02:37:52,080 --> 02:37:55,200
use their military pension if they've, if they're vested or they're going to go and

2075
02:37:55,200 --> 02:37:59,820
create their own business and thrive there versus, you know, sitting in an apartment

2076
02:37:59,820 --> 02:38:03,960
building because, you know, their marriage fell apart because of the cumulative elements

2077
02:38:03,960 --> 02:38:09,040
and their addiction problem and now they just become another statistic in the VA.

2078
02:38:09,040 --> 02:38:10,480
Yeah.

2079
02:38:10,480 --> 02:38:17,160
And so, you know, Timothy Leary back in the 60s and 70s, who decided to sprinkle LSD all

2080
02:38:17,160 --> 02:38:22,600
over the hippie community and, you know, he went about it the absolute wrong way and he

2081
02:38:22,600 --> 02:38:26,720
had this expression, tune in, turn on and drop out.

2082
02:38:26,720 --> 02:38:29,600
And I believe I'm plagiarizing this expression.

2083
02:38:29,600 --> 02:38:36,520
I think I heard it on Huberman, but the reality is that what this does is it causes people

2084
02:38:36,520 --> 02:38:43,960
to tune in, turn on and lean forward and lean forward back into society.

2085
02:38:43,960 --> 02:38:48,920
And so you know, and that could be an active duty cop struggling with PTSD.

2086
02:38:48,920 --> 02:38:51,880
It could be a firefighter.

2087
02:38:51,880 --> 02:38:52,880
Same thing.

2088
02:38:52,880 --> 02:38:58,840
It could be a guy that's got, that's an active duty guy with traumatic brain injury and especially

2089
02:38:58,840 --> 02:39:02,800
that kind of TBI that we're talking about with those subconcussive events.

2090
02:39:02,800 --> 02:39:11,560
And this stuff, you know, done the way that I described with psychedelic assisted therapy,

2091
02:39:11,560 --> 02:39:19,060
it can cause people to move past something that can disable them to the point of being

2092
02:39:19,060 --> 02:39:25,800
nonproductive members to society, which also absolutely decimates their quality of life

2093
02:39:25,800 --> 02:39:30,880
because nobody wants to be in that spot.

2094
02:39:30,880 --> 02:39:35,720
And this is one of the reasons why, you know, this is so valuable.

2095
02:39:35,720 --> 02:39:37,760
And I'll say one last thing about that.

2096
02:39:37,760 --> 02:39:43,240
Going back to the MDMA, FDA decision, you know, we look at how many, we look at the

2097
02:39:43,240 --> 02:39:49,320
alternative, you know, the alternative of, so what happens when you say no?

2098
02:39:49,320 --> 02:39:57,040
Well, when they said no to rescheduling it, they condemned somewhere between 6,000 to

2099
02:39:57,040 --> 02:40:00,680
16,000 veterans a year who commit suicide.

2100
02:40:00,680 --> 02:40:03,920
A large percentage of that is a result of PTSD and TBI.

2101
02:40:03,920 --> 02:40:06,880
Okay, maybe not all of it, but it's a large percent of it.

2102
02:40:06,880 --> 02:40:09,760
And they condemn those guys to death.

2103
02:40:09,760 --> 02:40:13,240
There's going to be guys that you and I will know that won't be walking this planet next

2104
02:40:13,240 --> 02:40:14,240
year.

2105
02:40:14,240 --> 02:40:17,520
It's going to take over three years to do another phase three study, two to three years.

2106
02:40:17,520 --> 02:40:26,520
And so you're looking at over 32,000 people, that's 12,000, 32,000 people, veterans that

2107
02:40:26,520 --> 02:40:32,020
are going to be committing suicide, not including veterans and first responders, right?

2108
02:40:32,020 --> 02:40:33,520
And so what was the alternative?

2109
02:40:33,520 --> 02:40:40,760
Well, the alternative was to perhaps, because we know that these drugs, whether it's MDMA

2110
02:40:40,760 --> 02:40:44,320
or whether it's psychedelics, we know that they can save lives.

2111
02:40:44,320 --> 02:40:52,040
And we look at if somebody has cancer and there's that right to try piece that's in

2112
02:40:52,040 --> 02:40:57,280
effect that a drug that's not necessarily approved from the FDA can be used for somebody

2113
02:40:57,280 --> 02:40:59,320
during a terminal cancer.

2114
02:40:59,320 --> 02:41:01,760
Well, this could be terminal.

2115
02:41:01,760 --> 02:41:08,440
And so they could have said, well, we're going to start out by anyone who has a diagnosis

2116
02:41:08,440 --> 02:41:15,840
of PTSD that maybe has shown suicidal ideation.

2117
02:41:15,840 --> 02:41:17,760
And I'm really giving a lot here.

2118
02:41:17,760 --> 02:41:20,080
It shouldn't be this.

2119
02:41:20,080 --> 02:41:26,640
But an alternative could have been if they have this diagnosis, they've discussed suicidal

2120
02:41:26,640 --> 02:41:29,880
ideation, let them have the right to try.

2121
02:41:29,880 --> 02:41:33,280
God damn it, we're Americans.

2122
02:41:33,280 --> 02:41:39,240
Don't tell me as an adult what I should be able to do with my own body, particularly

2123
02:41:39,240 --> 02:41:44,140
in a controlled environment, you know, done the right way.

2124
02:41:44,140 --> 02:41:49,000
Don't tell me that I don't have the decision making authority to take care of myself.

2125
02:41:49,000 --> 02:41:53,200
I mean, we certainly like to say that about abortion, right?

2126
02:41:53,200 --> 02:41:55,360
No woman's right and all that.

2127
02:41:55,360 --> 02:42:01,040
So yet we have that women's right to decide, but I don't have the right to try.

2128
02:42:01,040 --> 02:42:07,680
And by the way, gender regardless, like female, male, you know, anybody deals, you know, the

2129
02:42:07,680 --> 02:42:09,960
sexual trauma is a horrific piece.

2130
02:42:09,960 --> 02:42:15,720
And you're telling her that, yeah, she's dealt with something that you could only imagine,

2131
02:42:15,720 --> 02:42:19,340
but that you're going to judge and say, well, you know, this could be dangerous.

2132
02:42:19,340 --> 02:42:24,840
We don't really explain why we could be dangerous, but you don't have the right to try that.

2133
02:42:24,840 --> 02:42:25,840
That's bullshit.

2134
02:42:25,840 --> 02:42:33,160
Well, I think what is so encouraging to me, and even though this is a hurdle at the moment,

2135
02:42:33,160 --> 02:42:39,640
is where, you know, where I see a common denominator over and over and over again, and I talk about

2136
02:42:39,640 --> 02:42:40,640
this all the time.

2137
02:42:40,640 --> 02:42:45,720
Firstly, that the brain is so miswired when these people are in crisis that they truly

2138
02:42:45,720 --> 02:42:48,040
believe that they are a burden to their family.

2139
02:42:48,040 --> 02:42:51,120
And that needs to be brought out into the front as well.

2140
02:42:51,120 --> 02:42:53,640
But that obviously is an element of hopelessness.

2141
02:42:53,640 --> 02:42:58,800
Where these conversations are, where pulling these, you know, this kind of devolution of

2142
02:42:58,800 --> 02:43:03,520
the mind, the psychosis that people find themselves into and identifying it early enough, but

2143
02:43:03,520 --> 02:43:09,840
then especially these treatments, this shows people, look, this toolbox is not pills and

2144
02:43:09,840 --> 02:43:10,840
talk therapy.

2145
02:43:10,840 --> 02:43:14,080
There's so much more available to you.

2146
02:43:14,080 --> 02:43:18,840
And by putting hope back in this conversation, I think that's what's really going to move

2147
02:43:18,840 --> 02:43:19,840
the needle.

2148
02:43:19,840 --> 02:43:24,760
I think if people hope, and I would argue, if you really do the work, for most people,

2149
02:43:24,760 --> 02:43:28,040
there's going to be a better version of yourself waiting on the other side.

2150
02:43:28,040 --> 02:43:29,880
That's even more exciting.

2151
02:43:29,880 --> 02:43:33,160
But these have to be in that toolbox.

2152
02:43:33,160 --> 02:43:38,800
The element of hope that the success that I've seen from MDMA, from ketamine, from,

2153
02:43:38,800 --> 02:43:44,000
you know, this ayahuasca, from the Ibogaine, I mean, I've heard story after story after

2154
02:43:44,000 --> 02:43:45,000
story.

2155
02:43:45,000 --> 02:43:50,240
So, you know, the push to make this more and more accessible, you know, puts hope in that

2156
02:43:50,240 --> 02:43:54,160
conversation because a veteran or a first responder doesn't want to be sitting in a

2157
02:43:54,160 --> 02:43:55,720
dark room drinking.

2158
02:43:55,720 --> 02:43:59,240
They want to be out there being a functioning member of their community.

2159
02:43:59,240 --> 02:44:06,720
Yeah, look, when in 2018, after I got out, I started getting anxiety, something I, you

2160
02:44:06,720 --> 02:44:08,520
know, I'm not used to.

2161
02:44:08,520 --> 02:44:11,400
And as a SEAL, I'm like, my SEALs don't give, I got anxiety, you know, what the fuck is

2162
02:44:11,400 --> 02:44:12,400
that all about?

2163
02:44:12,400 --> 02:44:16,440
And that's a hard thing to share with anybody.

2164
02:44:16,440 --> 02:44:20,400
So I was, you know, I was pretty silent about it at first.

2165
02:44:20,400 --> 02:44:21,760
And then I called the VA.

2166
02:44:21,760 --> 02:44:22,760
That was a mistake.

2167
02:44:22,760 --> 02:44:27,920
Called the VA and I said, hey, something's going on with me.

2168
02:44:27,920 --> 02:44:30,080
I don't know exactly what's happening.

2169
02:44:30,080 --> 02:44:38,520
A while ago, I went into a, you know, something called, you know, NICO and I did this neurological

2170
02:44:38,520 --> 02:44:39,520
testing.

2171
02:44:39,520 --> 02:44:43,600
I need to be tested again to see what's going on.

2172
02:44:43,600 --> 02:44:47,940
The answer I got from this woman on the phone was, oh, well, I see here in your records

2173
02:44:47,940 --> 02:44:50,240
that you recently got your MBA.

2174
02:44:50,240 --> 02:44:51,240
Is that, is that true?

2175
02:44:51,240 --> 02:44:52,240
And I'm like, yeah.

2176
02:44:52,240 --> 02:44:55,520
She's like, well, if you got your MBA, you couldn't have traumatic brain injury that

2177
02:44:55,520 --> 02:44:59,120
to the point that you're, you know, you wouldn't be able to function.

2178
02:44:59,120 --> 02:45:01,160
And I mean, what an insult.

2179
02:45:01,160 --> 02:45:05,560
Forget about the fact that I might have to reread the same page, you know, in my finance

2180
02:45:05,560 --> 02:45:10,680
class five fucking times to try to absorb that data.

2181
02:45:10,680 --> 02:45:16,640
But for you to judge me like that, when I'm saying, I even said, look, I got to tell you,

2182
02:45:16,640 --> 02:45:22,280
this isn't something I really, it's tough for me to actually make this phone call.

2183
02:45:22,280 --> 02:45:24,200
And then what they did was they put me on a whole bunch of SSRIs.

2184
02:45:24,200 --> 02:45:26,200
It was all bullshit.

2185
02:45:26,200 --> 02:45:31,080
And it was after the Ibogaine treatment that I came back to the States.

2186
02:45:31,080 --> 02:45:33,640
And to your point about this could help everybody.

2187
02:45:33,640 --> 02:45:38,600
I realized this could help everyone.

2188
02:45:38,600 --> 02:45:42,600
This could help all our veterans and first responders.

2189
02:45:42,600 --> 02:45:44,600
And yet it's illegal here.

2190
02:45:44,600 --> 02:45:51,800
And that's when I got together with a gallon and kick harder and started the Nevada coalition

2191
02:45:51,800 --> 02:45:52,800
for psychedelic medicines.

2192
02:45:52,800 --> 02:45:54,840
Well, that was the perfect segue.

2193
02:45:54,840 --> 02:45:59,360
So let's talk about that now.

2194
02:45:59,360 --> 02:46:06,840
So when I realized that, OK, this isn't, you know, using Obi-Wan Kenobi's thing when he

2195
02:46:06,840 --> 02:46:09,840
was on tattooing, like talking to the Stormtroopers, like these aren't the drugs you're looking

2196
02:46:09,840 --> 02:46:10,840
for.

2197
02:46:10,840 --> 02:46:13,320
It's like, I realized, OK, these aren't the drugs you're looking for.

2198
02:46:13,320 --> 02:46:15,440
Like these things really work.

2199
02:46:15,440 --> 02:46:24,400
And I started really digging in and understanding where we got to, how we got to this point

2200
02:46:24,400 --> 02:46:31,600
in our American history on these medicines and that we needed.

2201
02:46:31,600 --> 02:46:33,680
I owed it to our society.

2202
02:46:33,680 --> 02:46:41,800
I felt that, I guess, you know, this gave me purpose to work with a small team here

2203
02:46:41,800 --> 02:46:43,480
in Nevada.

2204
02:46:43,480 --> 02:46:48,880
We founded the Nevada Coalition for Psychiatric Medicines to work this on a state level.

2205
02:46:48,880 --> 02:46:54,760
I also work with the Veteran Mental Health Leadership Coalition, which works on a federal

2206
02:46:54,760 --> 02:46:55,760
level.

2207
02:46:55,760 --> 02:47:04,320
And, you know, we also we're in communications with MAPS and different national level organizations.

2208
02:47:04,320 --> 02:47:11,200
And one of the things we saw with MDMA in that recent FDA decision was exactly what

2209
02:47:11,200 --> 02:47:18,280
I've been kind of preaching the whole time, which is you can't wait for the federal government

2210
02:47:18,280 --> 02:47:21,240
to make these decisions.

2211
02:47:21,240 --> 02:47:24,960
They're going to fuck it up every time you look at cannabis.

2212
02:47:24,960 --> 02:47:30,180
There's over 38 states that have some sort of legalization going on.

2213
02:47:30,180 --> 02:47:34,640
And yet they're still schedule one, even after the Biden administration says, well, we're

2214
02:47:34,640 --> 02:47:35,640
rescheduled.

2215
02:47:35,640 --> 02:47:38,120
And yet nothing happens.

2216
02:47:38,120 --> 02:47:41,560
And so you have to push it down to the states.

2217
02:47:41,560 --> 02:47:45,280
Our founding fathers looked at our states as small countries.

2218
02:47:45,280 --> 02:47:50,760
Our founding fathers wanted our states to make these kinds of decisions.

2219
02:47:50,760 --> 02:47:55,480
And our states are the only ones that can be agile enough to really make these kinds

2220
02:47:55,480 --> 02:47:56,480
of decisions.

2221
02:47:56,480 --> 02:48:00,960
And so you look at like Colorado and you look at what they're doing and they're doing it

2222
02:48:00,960 --> 02:48:01,960
right there.

2223
02:48:01,960 --> 02:48:05,960
You look at what they you know, Oregon was a first, you know, they were they're leading

2224
02:48:05,960 --> 02:48:07,580
bleeding edge with this.

2225
02:48:07,580 --> 02:48:09,560
And they they they're working for it.

2226
02:48:09,560 --> 02:48:13,960
Massachusetts has a ballot initiative for MDMA right now.

2227
02:48:13,960 --> 02:48:21,160
And so we're working right now in Nevada to try and change law and work this through hopefully

2228
02:48:21,160 --> 02:48:22,560
the legislative process.

2229
02:48:22,560 --> 02:48:24,280
If not, we'll go to a ballot initiative.

2230
02:48:24,280 --> 02:48:31,680
But to work this psychedelic assisted therapy and to bring this to Nevadans.

2231
02:48:31,680 --> 02:48:36,840
And also, by the way, if you're a Californian, you can drive, you know, three or four or

2232
02:48:36,840 --> 02:48:44,120
five hours from San Diego, Los Angeles over to Vegas or San Francisco, Sacramento, Oakland

2233
02:48:44,120 --> 02:48:51,400
to Reno and, you know, and seek and get psychedelic assisted therapy here.

2234
02:48:51,400 --> 02:48:57,160
So what we're doing is we're working this on several fronts.

2235
02:48:57,160 --> 02:49:00,380
First, we've initiated a cultural change effort.

2236
02:49:00,380 --> 02:49:07,200
And so that is to help people in the state of Nevada understand what the medicines are,

2237
02:49:07,200 --> 02:49:12,560
what they're not, what we're trying to accomplish, who's good for it, who's who's a good candidate

2238
02:49:12,560 --> 02:49:18,240
for it because not everyone is and who's maybe not that these are not a panacea.

2239
02:49:18,240 --> 02:49:22,680
And they're also not just like take some psychedelics and you're better.

2240
02:49:22,680 --> 02:49:27,360
That's the other beauty of this is, is there's there's there's an expression we call do the

2241
02:49:27,360 --> 02:49:29,840
work and it's like really true.

2242
02:49:29,840 --> 02:49:32,960
It's it's really digging into what's going on.

2243
02:49:32,960 --> 02:49:39,120
So you can you can you can address the challenges that you've had and heal and move on.

2244
02:49:39,120 --> 02:49:45,840
So the cultural change effort is to get everyone in Nevada, whether it's in Vegas or Reno or

2245
02:49:45,840 --> 02:49:51,600
out in Eureka and Elko, which is, you know, these are very rural areas, to get them to

2246
02:49:51,600 --> 02:49:56,560
understand that this isn't the drugs that you thought from you might have heard about

2247
02:49:56,560 --> 02:50:02,120
in the 60s and 70s, break those false narratives and break the stigma.

2248
02:50:02,120 --> 02:50:07,200
And that's part of where we look at regulated legalized access, because if we do a strictly

2249
02:50:07,200 --> 02:50:12,360
decrim model, what you're saying is, OK, look, these are still these aren't you know, you're

2250
02:50:12,360 --> 02:50:15,280
not going to go to jail for having mushrooms in your closet.

2251
02:50:15,280 --> 02:50:18,560
But you can go get you can seek treatment in the underground.

2252
02:50:18,560 --> 02:50:21,200
But you know, don't tell everybody about it because it's still kind of illegal.

2253
02:50:21,200 --> 02:50:23,080
It's kind of not gray area.

2254
02:50:23,080 --> 02:50:24,840
That doesn't remove the stigma.

2255
02:50:24,840 --> 02:50:29,960
We believe in saying like, fuck, no, this shit needs to be legalized the right way.

2256
02:50:29,960 --> 02:50:34,560
We don't believe that you should have a psilocybin shelf in the cannabis dispensary where you

2257
02:50:34,560 --> 02:50:38,160
can go, you know, buy a bunch of stuff and then go, you know, hit the you know, go to

2258
02:50:38,160 --> 02:50:44,560
you to go to watch the you to movie at the sphere, you know, but that using psychedelic

2259
02:50:44,560 --> 02:50:49,800
assistance therapy, this should be legalized with trained professionals involved.

2260
02:50:49,800 --> 02:50:54,680
And also the other thing we're looking at the other that's one bill that we're going

2261
02:50:54,680 --> 02:50:59,800
to propose the other bill we're looking at proposing is reducing penalties because we

2262
02:50:59,800 --> 02:51:03,440
don't believe that they should be a felony offense.

2263
02:51:03,440 --> 02:51:08,360
We believe that they should be on par with any other schedule three, schedule four drug.

2264
02:51:08,360 --> 02:51:12,320
And so, you know, it should be certainly a defunding ization effort.

2265
02:51:12,320 --> 02:51:17,520
There should be an effort to bring it down to the misdemeanor, syphilis fraction.

2266
02:51:17,520 --> 02:51:22,840
These are dynamic things that we're looking at right now on the best way to do it because

2267
02:51:22,840 --> 02:51:28,840
each state is different and we have to look at what's right for our state and what's right.

2268
02:51:28,840 --> 02:51:32,440
What are what are what are what Nevadans are going to want to accept and what they're going

2269
02:51:32,440 --> 02:51:38,720
to be comfortable with because you've got to normalize psychedelics as not as a recreational

2270
02:51:38,720 --> 02:51:42,400
drug, but as a therapeutic medicine.

2271
02:51:42,400 --> 02:51:46,320
And that's going to come with some time.

2272
02:51:46,320 --> 02:51:51,440
That's going to come when your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, yourself

2273
02:51:51,440 --> 02:51:56,720
or your sister or your son or daughter who's struggling with a mental health disorder goes

2274
02:51:56,720 --> 02:51:59,200
and gets psychedelic assisted therapy.

2275
02:51:59,200 --> 02:52:03,920
And you see this remarkable change that James, you've just talked about.

2276
02:52:03,920 --> 02:52:08,280
You've seen with all these guys and that I've seen with these guys.

2277
02:52:08,280 --> 02:52:12,320
I mean, a lot of people don't know, but they've been over like fifteen hundred and I think

2278
02:52:12,320 --> 02:52:15,400
it's probably closer to eighteen hundred at this point.

2279
02:52:15,400 --> 02:52:18,480
Special operations guys that have gone down to Mexico to do this.

2280
02:52:18,480 --> 02:52:21,440
This isn't like a couple of a few dozen whack jobs.

2281
02:52:21,440 --> 02:52:25,160
They've like been like, yeah, this kind of worked for me, you know, and then they go,

2282
02:52:25,160 --> 02:52:27,080
you know, they're going nuts with this shit.

2283
02:52:27,080 --> 02:52:29,840
Like it's it's real.

2284
02:52:29,840 --> 02:52:33,840
There's a shitload of guys that are leaving the country to do this.

2285
02:52:33,840 --> 02:52:35,440
And people are finally at a point.

2286
02:52:35,440 --> 02:52:39,080
You know, I don't want anybody to know that I did this at first.

2287
02:52:39,080 --> 02:52:44,800
And it wasn't until I was testifying in front of the legislature that Nevada legislature

2288
02:52:44,800 --> 02:52:48,680
that I, you know, I kind of came out and was like, hey, here's the deal.

2289
02:52:48,680 --> 02:52:50,440
Here's here's what I did.

2290
02:52:50,440 --> 02:52:51,440
Here's why I did it.

2291
02:52:51,440 --> 02:52:54,240
And this is why we should legalize this in the state of Nevada.

2292
02:52:54,240 --> 02:52:55,560
So we look at this.

2293
02:52:55,560 --> 02:52:57,760
We have to fight this on a national level.

2294
02:52:57,760 --> 02:53:03,760
But we also have to bring this to the states because I'm not a big cannabis fan, but I'm

2295
02:53:03,760 --> 02:53:08,240
aware of some of the, you know, some of the benefits that it can have, you know, and what

2296
02:53:08,240 --> 02:53:09,240
have you.

2297
02:53:09,240 --> 02:53:12,500
But but that got changed on a state level.

2298
02:53:12,500 --> 02:53:14,120
And we're not looking at a cannabis model.

2299
02:53:14,120 --> 02:53:18,160
We're not looking at full legalization and recreational use.

2300
02:53:18,160 --> 02:53:22,020
But on a state level is where these changes can happen.

2301
02:53:22,020 --> 02:53:25,940
So we we that's what we're shooting for.

2302
02:53:25,940 --> 02:53:35,000
We also worked with several legislators, state legislators in Nevada last year, in the year

2303
02:53:35,000 --> 02:53:39,160
and a half ago to pass a bill SB 242.

2304
02:53:39,160 --> 02:53:43,680
And what that bill was, was called the psychedelic medicines working group.

2305
02:53:43,680 --> 02:53:46,920
This is for the governor and it's for the legislators.

2306
02:53:46,920 --> 02:53:54,920
And so we've been embarked on a research and analysis of psychedelic medicines so we can

2307
02:53:54,920 --> 02:54:00,760
put to compile this data and present this to the state and present this to the governor

2308
02:54:00,760 --> 02:54:04,380
so that we're having the conversation about psychedelics.

2309
02:54:04,380 --> 02:54:11,160
We're normalizing it, breaking those narratives and hopefully removing the stigmas because

2310
02:54:11,160 --> 02:54:18,840
Nevada bounces on the bottom for in our in our country for mental health and opioid addiction.

2311
02:54:18,840 --> 02:54:23,740
And and also our state pays a lot of money because of that, just like what we talked

2312
02:54:23,740 --> 02:54:24,740
about earlier.

2313
02:54:24,740 --> 02:54:28,280
And this is where we look at if you really want to try to make a difference, convince

2314
02:54:28,280 --> 02:54:30,360
people that you're going to save money.

2315
02:54:30,360 --> 02:54:32,680
And you know, that's when you can make a difference.

2316
02:54:32,680 --> 02:54:36,240
So that's what that's what we've been up to here and here in our state.

2317
02:54:36,240 --> 02:54:37,240
Beautiful.

2318
02:54:37,240 --> 02:54:38,720
Well, I mean, I appreciate what you've done.

2319
02:54:38,720 --> 02:54:42,760
I appreciate your your honesty now, and I've seen that the stigma slowly starts to come

2320
02:54:42,760 --> 02:54:48,080
away and the SEAL community, especially Tommy Aceto and so many people that come on here

2321
02:54:48,080 --> 02:54:49,720
all talking about the same thing.

2322
02:54:49,720 --> 02:54:51,240
And again, this is the beacon of hope.

2323
02:54:51,240 --> 02:54:57,040
This is the resilient human being that's come out the other side and said, that was so fucking

2324
02:54:57,040 --> 02:54:58,040
good.

2325
02:54:58,040 --> 02:54:59,040
You guys have got to do this.

2326
02:54:59,040 --> 02:55:01,420
And yeah, that's where the property comes from.

2327
02:55:01,420 --> 02:55:05,840
If people want to learn more about the coalition or reach out to you personally, where are

2328
02:55:05,840 --> 02:55:08,080
the best places online?

2329
02:55:08,080 --> 02:55:16,040
So Nevada CPM, so the state of Nevada and that CPM as in Nevada Coalition for Psychedelic

2330
02:55:16,040 --> 02:55:20,640
Medicine CPM.org is where they can find us.

2331
02:55:20,640 --> 02:55:26,920
And on there, there's a if you want to get involved, you can click on the link to get

2332
02:55:26,920 --> 02:55:32,680
involved and write in there that you heard me on the behind the shield podcast.

2333
02:55:32,680 --> 02:55:35,440
And I'll reach out to them directly.

2334
02:55:35,440 --> 02:55:39,800
Because what we're doing, we are genuinely building a coalition.

2335
02:55:39,800 --> 02:55:43,200
And that's when we think about organizational change.

2336
02:55:43,200 --> 02:55:47,400
And when I saw what worked right in Afghanistan and Iraq and when I saw what worked wrong

2337
02:55:47,400 --> 02:55:54,000
in Afghanistan and Iraq, it's that cultural change that needs to happen.

2338
02:55:54,000 --> 02:55:59,440
And so the more people we have on our coalition, regardless if you're a Nevadans or you're

2339
02:55:59,440 --> 02:56:03,600
a Pennsylvanian, then we need your help.

2340
02:56:03,600 --> 02:56:04,600
Beautiful.

2341
02:56:04,600 --> 02:56:06,680
Well, I know that you've got to go pick up your daughter.

2342
02:56:06,680 --> 02:56:09,280
I want to be mindful of your time.

2343
02:56:09,280 --> 02:56:13,280
But we've been talking for three hours and we could have done another three hours easily.

2344
02:56:13,280 --> 02:56:16,040
But I want to thank you so much.

2345
02:56:16,040 --> 02:56:22,040
Firstly, your courageous vulnerability, because again, tier one operator, these are the kind

2346
02:56:22,040 --> 02:56:25,920
of men and women that we need to hear this kind of conversation from.

2347
02:56:25,920 --> 02:56:29,920
Because to me, especially on the men's side, it debunks the whole I'm too tough for mental

2348
02:56:29,920 --> 02:56:30,920
health bullshit.

2349
02:56:30,920 --> 02:56:35,440
So that element I want to thank you for and then also just simply being so generous with

2350
02:56:35,440 --> 02:56:38,520
your time and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.

2351
02:56:38,520 --> 02:56:39,520
Absolutely.

2352
02:56:39,520 --> 02:57:01,880
It was a pleasure and honor to be here.