1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,480 Welcome to episode 7 of Behind the Shield. My name is James Gearing and I'm 2 00:00:05,480 --> 00:00:10,240 extremely excited to bring you this week's guest, Sebastian Junger. 3 00:00:10,240 --> 00:00:15,320 Sebastian is probably best known for his book The Perfect Storm which was written 4 00:00:15,320 --> 00:00:21,640 about the fishing boat, the Andrea Gale, and was consequently made into a movie 5 00:00:21,640 --> 00:00:26,800 featuring George Clooney. However, some of his other work I think is is really 6 00:00:26,800 --> 00:00:33,080 what drew me to him as a first responder, as a firefighter. He's written two books, 7 00:00:33,080 --> 00:00:40,800 War and Tribe, that really resonated with me about the effects of trauma on a 8 00:00:40,800 --> 00:00:45,800 human basically and then what happens after they leave their group, their 9 00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:51,720 tribe. And then he's also the man that brought us Restrepo, the documentary 10 00:00:51,720 --> 00:00:58,680 about the 173rd Airborne guys that were on a remote outpost in the middle of the 11 00:00:58,680 --> 00:01:05,120 Korangal Valley in Afghanistan. And those men saw more combat than any other unit 12 00:01:05,120 --> 00:01:10,640 in the conflict so far. And again, he sees what it's like to be a soldier in 13 00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:17,120 this crazy, crazy war and then the effects of their time served after 14 00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:26,320 they leave the valley. The insight that he has on humans, on us as a species, on 15 00:01:26,320 --> 00:01:32,760 the fact that we fundamentally are supposed to be tribal, he talks about 16 00:01:32,760 --> 00:01:38,720 how when early settlers came to the US, many of them were fleeing to Native 17 00:01:38,720 --> 00:01:43,440 American tribes to be a part of something that they felt was was more 18 00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:48,760 organic and almost worthy than our quote-unquote civilized society that we 19 00:01:48,760 --> 00:01:57,720 have. And his view on people banding together during tragedy like 9-11 and 20 00:01:57,720 --> 00:02:02,920 the London Blitz and then the effects of these men and women when they leave the 21 00:02:02,920 --> 00:02:08,080 conflict, they leave the tribe, they leave their army units, navy units and come 22 00:02:08,080 --> 00:02:14,040 back into suburban America or England or whatever country they they demob from. 23 00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:19,160 And the troubles that these men and women have and how this leaving the 24 00:02:19,160 --> 00:02:25,600 tribe affects them and now is when the PTSD and all these other afflictions 25 00:02:25,600 --> 00:02:30,200 start to hit them. So I really wanted to get him on the show, I really wanted to 26 00:02:30,200 --> 00:02:34,000 pick his brains about some of his philosophies and in all honesty I also 27 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:41,120 want to urge everyone listening to this podcast to go out and buy Tribe. I am not 28 00:02:41,120 --> 00:02:44,760 the kind of person that can pick up a book that is full of fluff and just 29 00:02:44,760 --> 00:02:48,960 fight my way through hundreds and hundreds of pages. He is described as a 30 00:02:48,960 --> 00:02:54,520 very very lean writer and I can absolutely testify to that. I can't 31 00:02:54,520 --> 00:02:57,360 remember the exact page number, I haven't got it next to me but I believe it's 32 00:02:57,360 --> 00:03:04,760 sub 200 pages and it is absolutely jam-packed with just totally engaging 33 00:03:04,760 --> 00:03:09,520 stories that really get you hooked and make you kind of rethink about everything, 34 00:03:09,520 --> 00:03:13,880 about the way we're living at the moment, about gyms where we walk in and 35 00:03:13,880 --> 00:03:18,080 we hook into our iPhones and don't talk to another person, 36 00:03:18,080 --> 00:03:21,320 suburban communities where even though we're surrounded by each other we 37 00:03:21,320 --> 00:03:26,680 barely know our neighbors and how that is so different from the way that we were 38 00:03:26,680 --> 00:03:31,840 I wouldn't say raised but the way our species has evolved for generations and 39 00:03:31,840 --> 00:03:37,840 generations. So I was so happy when he agreed to be on the show, I reached out 40 00:03:37,840 --> 00:03:42,920 to him and when he found out it was to help the first responders of the 41 00:03:42,920 --> 00:03:47,720 world he jumped at the chance and responded immediately and said that he 42 00:03:47,720 --> 00:03:52,800 would come on the show. So I think this will be eye-opening for a lot of people, 43 00:03:52,800 --> 00:03:58,480 I think it really will reprogram the way a lot of you guys think after you hear 44 00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:03,240 some of his philosophy and he doesn't even claim to own it, it's his 45 00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:09,120 observations of modern combat, of the Native American culture, of the 46 00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:12,880 New Yorkers during 9-11 and all these different things that he's observed and 47 00:04:12,880 --> 00:04:17,760 when people have stepped up and become the best versions of themselves and 48 00:04:17,760 --> 00:04:23,480 the strongest communities. So I am not gonna ramble anymore, I really want to 49 00:04:23,480 --> 00:04:27,880 get you listening to him as soon as possible and when we're done with this 50 00:04:27,880 --> 00:04:33,040 if you leave with one thing I urge you to go on Amazon or your local bookshop 51 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:38,820 and buy a copy of his book, Tribe. It really should be in every firehouse, every 52 00:04:38,820 --> 00:04:44,800 police station, every EMT or paramedic station because it really 53 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:49,240 pertains to anyone that puts their life on the line, that chooses to serve 54 00:04:49,240 --> 00:04:53,560 others and then sees these horrendous things and is exposed to these 55 00:04:53,560 --> 00:04:56,960 terrible things and then is one day taken away from that whether it's injury, 56 00:04:56,960 --> 00:05:04,240 retirement, promotion, whatever it is and I think that all of you are gonna be 57 00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:09,320 able to relate in your own special way. So I am gonna stop yabbering and get 58 00:05:09,320 --> 00:05:13,600 right on to this interview and I hope you all enjoy it, I'd love to hear your 59 00:05:13,600 --> 00:05:19,640 feedback. So without further ado I give you Sebastian Junger. 60 00:05:19,640 --> 00:05:37,240 Music 61 00:05:37,240 --> 00:05:43,560 Sebastian welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Okay I'm gonna jump straight 62 00:05:43,560 --> 00:05:48,400 in now because I know your time is extremely valuable. You are known for 63 00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:54,200 writing about the working man, the viewers of this show are in the same 64 00:05:54,200 --> 00:05:58,480 category, working men and women. I'm assuming that you wanted to be an author 65 00:05:58,480 --> 00:06:02,400 since you were pretty young but how did you transition to finding an interest in 66 00:06:02,400 --> 00:06:10,680 the working person? I don't know, it's an interesting question. I grew up in a 67 00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:15,240 middle-class suburb and I had a good education and I didn't know that 68 00:06:15,240 --> 00:06:22,840 honestly that many people in those kinds of sort of labor type jobs but my adopted 69 00:06:22,840 --> 00:06:27,600 uncle Ellis who was in my book Tribe, he had done a lot of work in the 50s with 70 00:06:27,600 --> 00:06:34,360 labor rights and he sort of opened my mind to that issue and then later I 71 00:06:34,360 --> 00:06:39,400 had a job as a climber for tree companies. I was an arborist and I worked 70-80 72 00:06:39,400 --> 00:06:43,680 feet in the air with a chainsaw and a rope and I taking trees down and I got 73 00:06:43,680 --> 00:06:47,800 hurt pretty badly doing it and that actually, I for a long time wanted to 74 00:06:47,800 --> 00:06:51,160 become a professional writer and I was writing occasionally for newspapers and 75 00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:56,840 magazines but that sort of galvanized my interest in work related issues and I 76 00:06:56,840 --> 00:07:00,880 started writing about dangerous jobs and the first one that I really focused on 77 00:07:00,880 --> 00:07:03,960 was commercial fishing because I was living in the fishing town of Gloucester 78 00:07:03,960 --> 00:07:08,480 in Massachusetts when a huge storm hit and sank a local boat named the Andrea 79 00:07:08,480 --> 00:07:12,520 Gale and then that story that I investigated became you know eventually 80 00:07:12,520 --> 00:07:15,800 became the perfect my first book The Perfect Storm. Yeah which was an 81 00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:22,480 incredible book they made into a movie became a smash hit I know that. So the 82 00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:25,840 one of your other books that you wrote was a book called Fire which is a 83 00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:30,360 collection of your short stories and the first couple you featured smoke jumpers 84 00:07:30,360 --> 00:07:33,440 out West so how did you get involved with that and what were your experiences 85 00:07:33,440 --> 00:07:38,520 there? Well I had a whole list of dangerous jobs I wanted to look at and I 86 00:07:38,520 --> 00:07:42,960 never was able to write the book that I envisioned which was a whole collection 87 00:07:42,960 --> 00:07:48,520 on series on dangerous jobs one of those jobs was forest firefighting 88 00:07:48,520 --> 00:07:54,000 wildland fire and so I did the research for that and wrote a magazine piece for 89 00:07:54,000 --> 00:07:59,480 it but it never became part of a book and so that was it was also a book that 90 00:07:59,480 --> 00:08:03,880 came out around then called Young Men in Fire by Norman McClain that was a you 91 00:08:03,880 --> 00:08:08,480 know really what I think one of the best nonfiction books in the sort of canon 92 00:08:08,480 --> 00:08:12,920 of American literature and I was a huge admirer of that book as well and I think 93 00:08:12,920 --> 00:08:17,040 that sort of like inspired me I can't quite remember the timing of all that 94 00:08:17,040 --> 00:08:21,520 but it was around then. Right and you actually were embedded with those smoke 95 00:08:21,520 --> 00:08:26,200 jumpers for a small while is that correct? Well no I mean they jump out 96 00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:31,040 airplanes on their fires so I was able to interview them I was I spent some 97 00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:36,440 time on the hotshot crews that are that get to the fire you know on foot usually 98 00:08:36,440 --> 00:08:40,280 but I didn't jump out of any airplanes I mean you you you're written that's not 99 00:08:40,280 --> 00:08:45,400 actually really allowed. Okay yeah I know you were out out there in the wildland 100 00:08:45,400 --> 00:08:50,520 with them for a little bit okay so transitioning then so what steered you 101 00:08:50,520 --> 00:08:58,040 towards becoming a military journalist? Well I you know war reporting was one of 102 00:08:58,040 --> 00:09:01,760 the things that interested me as a dangerous job and in the early 90s there 103 00:09:01,760 --> 00:09:06,600 was a war in Bosnia obviously long before the US got there it was a civil 104 00:09:06,600 --> 00:09:11,840 war and Sarajevo was under siege by Bosnian armed forces and like a lot of other 105 00:09:11,840 --> 00:09:19,640 freelancers I got into Sarajevo with on a UN relief flight and started my you 106 00:09:19,640 --> 00:09:26,800 know in a very sort of like clumsy and uninformed way I started my fledgling 107 00:09:26,800 --> 00:09:32,040 career as a war reporter freelance war reporter. Right and as a civilian up to 108 00:09:32,040 --> 00:09:37,720 that point what was that initial experience like going from living in you 109 00:09:37,720 --> 00:09:43,280 know urban or suburban America to being in the middle of a war zone? You know 110 00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:46,880 life was more normal than I expected I mean people still do everything they do 111 00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:52,000 when there's no war is everything's a little bit harder you know water doesn't 112 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:55,120 come out of the pipes in your kitchen you have to go get it at a pump there's 113 00:09:55,120 --> 00:09:58,880 no electricity you're burning candles you can't go to the supermarket to get 114 00:09:58,880 --> 00:10:04,000 food you have to grow food in your backyard what have you I mean it 115 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:08,880 reduced life to a kind of communal very sort of primitive communalism that 116 00:10:08,880 --> 00:10:13,960 actually I found really appealing in some ways I mean the closeness of the 117 00:10:13,960 --> 00:10:18,320 society the closeness of these neighborhoods of these families was 118 00:10:18,320 --> 00:10:25,040 really you know incredibly appealing and and why later much later I went back to 119 00:10:25,040 --> 00:10:29,760 Sarajevo you know a year and a half ago 20 years after the war ended and you 120 00:10:29,760 --> 00:10:33,120 know this one person I talked to I talk about this in my book but one woman I 121 00:10:33,120 --> 00:10:36,760 talked to said that everyone really missed the war precisely because people 122 00:10:36,760 --> 00:10:41,660 were so close and so collaborative during those difficult days. Right yeah 123 00:10:41,660 --> 00:10:47,440 and that's pretty much one of the main topics in your latest book Tribe that 124 00:10:47,440 --> 00:10:53,720 publication that that book I think is gonna resonate so so deeply as it did 125 00:10:53,720 --> 00:10:58,760 with me in First Responders as well as military that haven't read it yet the 126 00:10:58,760 --> 00:11:03,560 the different ways of looking not only at war itself but but at how people are 127 00:11:03,560 --> 00:11:07,520 when they come back from war and then looking at our own country as well so 128 00:11:07,520 --> 00:11:13,760 you in in the book talked about that very thing about how communities that 129 00:11:13,760 --> 00:11:19,040 maybe weren't as strong initially were brought together during times of trouble 130 00:11:19,040 --> 00:11:23,080 for example the London Blitz and 9-11 131 00:11:23,080 --> 00:11:28,360 Yeah I mean human society reacts to to trauma and hardship and threat by 132 00:11:28,360 --> 00:11:34,320 unifying those circumstances don't bring out bad behavior in you in people they 133 00:11:34,320 --> 00:11:39,360 bring out typically pro-social behavior in people group-oriented behavior where 134 00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:44,960 you know we are we're social humans are social primates we survive and even 135 00:11:44,960 --> 00:11:49,720 thrive in the natural world because we function in groups and when we're under 136 00:11:49,720 --> 00:11:54,960 threat we cohere into those groups even more strongly than we do ordinarily 137 00:11:54,960 --> 00:12:02,480 modern society because it is so safe so protected so stable we don't really need 138 00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:09,280 to function in terms of groups in order to get by until there's a crisis until 139 00:12:09,280 --> 00:12:12,240 there's a threat until there's an attack or an earthquake or what-have-you and 140 00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:17,040 then people do that very very naturally it clearly feels good to do that because 141 00:12:17,040 --> 00:12:21,720 people often say that they missed you know the worst events of their lives 9-11 142 00:12:21,720 --> 00:12:25,960 the Blitz in London why would anyone miss those terrible days but in fact 143 00:12:25,960 --> 00:12:29,320 that's exactly what people do because they like the feeling of being needed by 144 00:12:29,320 --> 00:12:34,520 their group they like the feeling of acting well actor-militaristically we 145 00:12:34,520 --> 00:12:38,840 enjoy those experiences they make us feel good about ourselves even though 146 00:12:38,840 --> 00:12:43,200 that there are very unfortunate sad circumstances that require them 147 00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:47,880 absolutely another another thing that you discussed during the book which I 148 00:12:47,880 --> 00:12:55,560 found was fascinating was the number of reported depression cases and PTSD cases 149 00:12:55,560 --> 00:12:59,960 during these times of tragedy now these are people that had these symptoms 150 00:12:59,960 --> 00:13:06,920 before actually declined during these tragic events yeah I mean the British 151 00:13:06,920 --> 00:13:10,080 government was prepared for mass psychiatric casualties during the Blitz 152 00:13:10,080 --> 00:13:15,560 and to their surprise emissions to psych wards went down during the Blitz 153 00:13:15,560 --> 00:13:20,640 psychologists that I found an Irish psychologist that I found did some 154 00:13:20,640 --> 00:13:24,800 really interesting research about depression levels during the what are 155 00:13:24,800 --> 00:13:29,840 called the troubles in Northern Ireland the violence and the murders of the 156 00:13:29,840 --> 00:13:37,000 fighting that happened in 1969 1970 and what he found was that the more violent 157 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:42,160 the district they lower the depression levels in the society and the only 158 00:13:42,160 --> 00:13:47,720 district that found where he found depression levels to go up was County 159 00:13:47,720 --> 00:13:52,480 Derry where there was no violence whatsoever oh really yeah I it's 160 00:13:52,480 --> 00:13:57,480 interesting talking about Ireland I grew up in a town in England that was next to 161 00:13:57,480 --> 00:14:02,840 an army base and during that whole time in my childhood I had to check under my 162 00:14:02,840 --> 00:14:05,280 car for bombs and that kind of thing because it would be a perfect place to 163 00:14:05,280 --> 00:14:11,280 put one to kind of hit the base from the outside and then when I came to the US 164 00:14:11,280 --> 00:14:16,440 there was a lot of kind of pro IRA feeling until we had some terrorist 165 00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:20,400 attacks on our doorstep and people really kind of were introduced to what 166 00:14:20,400 --> 00:14:24,840 terrorism was really like and realized that there was not some Hollywood version 167 00:14:24,840 --> 00:14:32,520 of a freedom fighter but the same kind of murderous you know horrible character 168 00:14:32,520 --> 00:14:38,000 that exists in all these terrorist organizations around the world yeah yeah 169 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:42,240 no that's right that's right you know it's really interesting the the role of 170 00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:48,320 stress on a community and how it affects people I was in El Paso Texas and I 171 00:14:48,320 --> 00:14:55,280 talked to a student at the University of El Paso who grew up across the river and 172 00:14:55,280 --> 00:15:02,360 in a very very very violent neighborhood during these outrageous drug wars 173 00:15:02,360 --> 00:15:06,920 that were raging in northern Mexico you know some years ago and I mean there was 174 00:15:06,920 --> 00:15:12,760 such so much gunfire on the Mexican side that the bullets would land on the 175 00:15:12,760 --> 00:15:18,240 campus of the University of El Paso on the American side at any rate this kid 176 00:15:18,240 --> 00:15:22,120 that I was talking to said that he grew up during that time in northern Mexico 177 00:15:22,120 --> 00:15:27,800 and and that he you know he's living the dream right he's a he's got a 178 00:15:27,800 --> 00:15:31,480 scholarship or whatever it was he gained entry the United States he's a student 179 00:15:31,480 --> 00:15:36,560 at an American University having come from the from the very violent 180 00:15:36,560 --> 00:15:42,800 neighborhoods across the river and he said that he really missed that he missed 181 00:15:42,800 --> 00:15:46,480 those days that he was incredibly lonely and he knew he was sort of living the 182 00:15:46,480 --> 00:15:50,840 dream but actually he was much much happier during those days of violence and 183 00:15:50,840 --> 00:15:55,960 and the community that violence forces people to engage in in order to survive 184 00:15:55,960 --> 00:16:00,440 and he really missed that yeah yeah and I think that's I guess what we're seeing 185 00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:05,120 now in the same kind of thing in the first responders I'm gonna kind of come 186 00:16:05,120 --> 00:16:10,480 back to this topic more but you have these these paramedics you have these 187 00:16:10,480 --> 00:16:14,400 policemen and women and then even more so I think the fire department because 188 00:16:14,400 --> 00:16:18,320 we live you know for 24 hours at a time with each other some sometimes even more 189 00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:23,960 and it is a band of brothers and then when people leave that group whether it's 190 00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:28,120 retirement whether it's injury or as I would realize even recently it could 191 00:16:28,120 --> 00:16:31,800 even be promotion we've lost two chiefs in this central Florida area in the 192 00:16:31,800 --> 00:16:39,240 last two months to PTSD so being removed from that that tribal environment it 193 00:16:39,240 --> 00:16:42,560 appears like their world comes crumbling down then that that support structure 194 00:16:42,560 --> 00:16:46,120 was there keeping them up when they were in it but when they were taken from it 195 00:16:46,120 --> 00:16:51,880 you know it everything changed yeah I mean we're clearly wired to survive 196 00:16:51,880 --> 00:16:56,400 adversity in groups and we can obviously do that quite well and if we couldn't 197 00:16:56,400 --> 00:17:00,200 the human race wouldn't exist so we can just take that as a sort of base 198 00:17:00,200 --> 00:17:05,520 assumption that we are highly adapted to deal with trauma successfully and that 199 00:17:05,520 --> 00:17:10,600 we do that best in groups groups of people that were very close to not a 200 00:17:10,600 --> 00:17:14,400 random group of strangers on a subway car but people that were close to 201 00:17:14,400 --> 00:17:18,400 possibly related to possibly not but have a really powerful emotional 202 00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:22,240 connections to and that in that kind of circumstance we can survive almost 203 00:17:22,240 --> 00:17:28,920 anything and again if that were not so we wouldn't exist or another way to put 204 00:17:28,920 --> 00:17:32,520 it is that we're the descendants of individuals in our evolutionary past who 205 00:17:32,520 --> 00:17:37,680 were able to survive trauma fairly effectively within their groups so it 206 00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:40,840 stands to reason that if you take a group of people like firemen first 207 00:17:40,840 --> 00:17:44,720 responders who go through incredibly dangerous difficult things together and 208 00:17:44,720 --> 00:17:49,400 rely on each other psychologically and physically in order to be able to do 209 00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:55,080 those things that you take an individual out of that the residual trauma that 210 00:17:55,080 --> 00:17:58,120 they have that they experienced as a group with people they care about 211 00:17:58,120 --> 00:18:01,920 people they love that residual trauma they're now dealing with completely by 212 00:18:01,920 --> 00:18:06,200 themselves or surrounded by people who really didn't have those experiences and 213 00:18:06,200 --> 00:18:09,960 don't understand like their wife their children their neighbors that that would 214 00:18:09,960 --> 00:18:13,720 be psychologically extremely hard and that's what veterans face when they come 215 00:18:13,720 --> 00:18:18,880 home but you don't even need to be traumatized something like 25 percent of 216 00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:22,280 Peace Corps volunteers you know we spent two years in a closed communal 217 00:18:22,280 --> 00:18:25,480 environment in the developing world which is its own hardship but it's not 218 00:18:25,480 --> 00:18:29,840 necessarily dangerous around 25 percent of Peace Corps volunteers slip into a 219 00:18:29,840 --> 00:18:33,520 significant depression when they come back it's that loss of communality 220 00:18:33,520 --> 00:18:40,000 which is so hard on the human psyche yeah and now you you talk about that in a 221 00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:43,320 lot of detail in the book and I've already read it twice and I'm gonna 222 00:18:43,320 --> 00:18:46,800 read it a third time because I absolutely love it so let's take it right 223 00:18:46,800 --> 00:18:50,000 right back to the very beginning you're welcome and all the other ones as well 224 00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:54,440 I'm halfway through war and I'm gonna be getting fire next and then I just 225 00:18:54,440 --> 00:19:00,120 recently watched Restrepo and Korongal again and you know the look in those 226 00:19:00,120 --> 00:19:05,280 young men eyes the men's eyes you can see in the policeman the fireman it's 227 00:19:05,280 --> 00:19:10,760 the same in a thousand yards there but I want to go back to kind of the basis of 228 00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:15,280 human culture so that we can kind of look at our ancestors and learn from 229 00:19:15,280 --> 00:19:18,880 them and then fast forward to where we are now and understand more about you 230 00:19:18,880 --> 00:19:25,680 know why people are going through this so you your your view on humans as a 231 00:19:25,680 --> 00:19:31,000 nomadic but tribal society could you expand on that a little bit more I mean 232 00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:34,600 it's not my view it's the consensus among archaeologists and anthropologists 233 00:19:34,600 --> 00:19:41,280 that that was our evolutionary past from about 2 million years ago the advent of 234 00:19:41,280 --> 00:19:46,080 toolmaking the use of fire all the way on up through the recent ice age in 235 00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:50,440 Europe and right on up till about 10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture 236 00:19:50,440 --> 00:19:57,600 in the Middle East that the typical human group was 30 40 50 individuals and 237 00:19:57,600 --> 00:20:04,760 that they were highly highly mobile they married outside of their groups they 238 00:20:04,760 --> 00:20:11,120 subsisted on obviously on hunting and gathering and that they were completely 239 00:20:11,120 --> 00:20:15,440 dependent on the group for their own survival humans virtually no primates 240 00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:21,960 actually survive in nature by themselves if you find yourself alone in nature you 241 00:20:21,960 --> 00:20:28,080 are dead you are a dead primate and so that those those human relations are 242 00:20:28,080 --> 00:20:32,200 important not just to our emotional welfare our psychological welfare but 243 00:20:32,200 --> 00:20:39,080 to our physical survival absolutely and now the the example you use which I 244 00:20:39,080 --> 00:20:46,120 found amazing again was the European settlers in early Western American 245 00:20:46,120 --> 00:20:51,320 history being snatched from you know where their villages were by Native 246 00:20:51,320 --> 00:20:55,680 Americans and then when they were being quote-unquote rescued them actually 247 00:20:55,680 --> 00:20:59,560 resisting and wanting to go back to the Native American tribes that had taken 248 00:20:59,560 --> 00:21:04,200 them could you tell the people more about that story yeah it was this strange 249 00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:08,360 phenomenon I mean strange in a sense that the people at the time were puzzled by 250 00:21:08,360 --> 00:21:14,400 that here you have a quote superior Western Christian civilization bordered 251 00:21:14,400 --> 00:21:17,640 by and this is one of the few times in history this has happened bordered by 252 00:21:17,640 --> 00:21:25,760 basically stone age level nomadic or semi nomadic groups and what was 253 00:21:25,760 --> 00:21:31,960 interesting and people noticed it at the time was that as Benjamin Franklin said 254 00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:37,280 we have thousands of examples of of young people fleeing the colonies 255 00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:43,400 fleeing the settlements and absconding to the Indians and taking up with the 256 00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:48,480 Native tribes and he said we don't have one example of a native person going the 257 00:21:48,480 --> 00:21:52,220 other direction and choosing voluntarily to be part of Western society and how 258 00:21:52,220 --> 00:21:55,720 could that you know really confounded people like we're we're a superior 259 00:21:55,720 --> 00:22:00,040 Christian society like why why are the people should be going the other 260 00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:05,000 direction they should be coming towards us not the other way around but even as 261 00:22:05,000 --> 00:22:10,120 you say even people who were captured in it by an Indian race along the frontier 262 00:22:10,120 --> 00:22:15,000 are brought back to these tribal communities very often when given the 263 00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:19,840 chance to be repatriated during a peace treaty or an incursion by colonial 264 00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:23,400 military forces or American military forces that these people who had been 265 00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:27,240 abducted and adopted adopted these tribes would go into hiding would have 266 00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:30,960 what would avoid being found would do everything they can to not be 267 00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:37,000 repatriated and again that really could have founded the white Christian sense of 268 00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:42,000 superiority that they fell towards what they called the savages and what do you 269 00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:46,880 think was the driving force behind them returning to the Native American culture 270 00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:53,280 you know I think the the basic broad and fundamental egalitarianism that existed 271 00:22:53,280 --> 00:22:59,720 in these in these societies was very appealing I I think hunting is more fun 272 00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:05,760 than plowing fields I think the sexual liberty enjoyed by these people was was 273 00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:09,960 much greater and more satisfying than the you know incredibly burdensome 274 00:23:09,960 --> 00:23:18,600 puritanical norms in colonial society and you know and finally I think just 275 00:23:18,600 --> 00:23:23,600 the experience of a close communal society where people were literally and 276 00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:28,720 figuratively sort of gathered around the campfire that that you know that's 277 00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:36,480 extremely appealing to our evolutionary wiring and and when when given the 278 00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:41,360 possibility many people quote go native we don't interestingly we don't have a 279 00:23:41,360 --> 00:23:44,760 phrase in English to go civilized like doesn't know what apparently no one 280 00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:48,440 really wants to do it if they have the choice I agree with that statement like 281 00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:52,880 you said in one of your other interviews you get to walk around almost naked and 282 00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:58,160 hunt and have sex a lot versus the alternative I definitely go there too 283 00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:05,680 so touching on on the the Native American concept for the moment another 284 00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:10,640 thing you talk about is the art of the masculine role and also the art of 285 00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:16,160 storytelling now I think this is very pertinent right now we as a culture in 286 00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:21,480 in I think any first responders telling telling stories of course that we've 287 00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:25,880 been on is a great way of decompressing and again sharing with that quote-unquote 288 00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:32,040 tribe PTSD as it stands has almost been shamed in our culture which I'm hoping 289 00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:34,880 we're gonna start to try and reverse because it's just ridiculous the 290 00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:39,440 military's already way ahead of us with with that but the storytelling you're 291 00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:42,200 talking about in the Native Americans was it was a kind of a way of boasting 292 00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:48,400 but also a way of showing the physical prowess of what you did and a 293 00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:54,640 humanitarian side what you did for your culture yeah I mean I imagine the same 294 00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:58,320 thing happens in firehouses and emergency rooms and police precincts and 295 00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:03,080 all kinds of other places that there is a kind of recounting of one's ordeals 296 00:25:03,080 --> 00:25:08,160 and exploits before you're the most important community that you're part of 297 00:25:08,160 --> 00:25:13,840 and so in a lot of Native American societies after combat the warriors were 298 00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:20,880 given the chance to through dancing and storytelling and singing sort of recreate 299 00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:27,360 their their feats their exploits on the battlefield and that provided presumably 300 00:25:27,360 --> 00:25:31,680 that provided a kind of cathartic experience for the warrior it also 301 00:25:31,680 --> 00:25:37,080 allowed the community to to morally participate in the violent actions that 302 00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:42,360 were done for them on their behalf which of course is very helpful I think one of 303 00:25:42,360 --> 00:25:46,680 the very difficult things for soldiers is and I guess firemen don't get this 304 00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:50,480 but first responders may not get this but for soldiers they're sent thousands of 305 00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:54,160 miles away outside of their communities outside of their country to do something 306 00:25:54,160 --> 00:25:59,320 that most Americans feel is morally suspect which is killing other human 307 00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:02,760 beings and then they come back and there's it's not really clear like who 308 00:26:02,760 --> 00:26:08,640 they did this for and why and that leaves them in a really profound emotional 309 00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:15,040 distress that's not something I suppose that the fire department has to deal 310 00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:18,600 with although occasionally of course the police might have to yeah now we're 311 00:26:18,600 --> 00:26:23,640 definitely fortunate in fire and EMS where we're viewed more as the the hero I 312 00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:27,800 guess of the community so we're not we're not normally having to make the 313 00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:32,440 same kind of decisions that the military and the police do that that leads me to 314 00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:36,280 a good question though and you've I know I've heard you answer this before when 315 00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:43,160 people say they're against war you what's your view on that well I would 316 00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:48,360 just ask what you know I would ask about World War two I would ask if it was okay 317 00:26:48,360 --> 00:26:52,000 for them to in their opinion would it have been okay for the United States to 318 00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:58,080 stand back and watch the German military machine having killed six million Jews 319 00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:04,880 continue its it's a rampage through the world imposing fascism on virtually all 320 00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:09,400 of our allies would that be all right yeah and if it's not okay then you're 321 00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:13,620 not completely against war what you're against is human suffering and human 322 00:27:13,620 --> 00:27:18,360 misery and killing and that's a different matter altogether absolutely I 323 00:27:18,360 --> 00:27:22,920 spoke to Tim Kennedy the UFC fighter in Green Beret and he had this the same 324 00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:26,160 kind of thing as you know once you're out there you've got a job to do and I 325 00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:29,440 know you've you've said the same thing you know that the soldiers didn't start 326 00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:33,720 the war the politicians did but when you see the suffering by these you know 327 00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:39,160 insane murderers in these different countries now your your goal is to to 328 00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:42,880 stop them from causing more suffering and obviously that the sad byproduct is 329 00:27:42,880 --> 00:27:49,280 civilian loss of life in the process yeah that's correct that's right okay now 330 00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:54,520 touching again on the on the the tribal part of the Native American culture which 331 00:27:54,520 --> 00:28:00,560 kind of relates to this you explained how one of the tribes I think it was in 332 00:28:00,560 --> 00:28:06,800 Navajo you said had the two leaders the peacetime leader and the military leader 333 00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:11,920 although that was fascinating concept your quite yeah there is your quite yeah 334 00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:18,040 there were there were war leaders and peace leaders and the war leaders 335 00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:25,000 immediately took over when there was a declared conflict and as soon as a peace 336 00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:30,520 agreement was arranged between the warring parties the agreement was okayed 337 00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:35,560 by the peacetime leaders and as soon as they okayed as soon as they give their 338 00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:42,400 approval of the treaty the war leaders immediately stepped down and were 339 00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:46,600 replaced by the peacetime leaders peacetime leaders who were occasionally 340 00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:51,960 women and often elected by women as well as men okay that sounds like something 341 00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:59,360 we should maybe try in this country once yeah well speaking of that so so the 342 00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:05,280 other thing is about gender roles you talked about that in times of crisis too 343 00:29:05,280 --> 00:29:09,320 yeah I mean the genders are different and they respond to circumstances in 344 00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,960 very different ways and obviously are used by society in very different ways 345 00:29:12,960 --> 00:29:21,320 because of their different capacities if you look at statistics the vast majority 346 00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:27,720 I mean you know 97 98 percent something like that's on that order of people whose 347 00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:33,080 bystanders who spring into action to save someone from an imminent physical 348 00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:36,880 threat a fire in a building someone who's fallen onto the subway tracks with 349 00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:41,240 a train bearing down that kind of thing the vast majority of the people who 350 00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:47,080 spontaneously do that are male young male and they're superbly adapted for it 351 00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:53,400 men are on average 20 percent stronger than women in their upper bodies they 352 00:29:53,400 --> 00:30:01,480 we know that they have quicker reflexes all kinds of adaptations that make them 353 00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:07,600 skilled at hunting and at war and it dealing with in a sort of abrupt 354 00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:13,960 muscular way with emergencies and crises well what women are really good at is a 355 00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:18,720 kind of moral courage and this was found during World War two the decision to 356 00:30:18,720 --> 00:30:22,960 hide Jewish families in one's basement if you were not Jewish if you're a 357 00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:27,320 Gentile in northern Europe during the beginning and during World War two the 358 00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:30,240 decision to hide a Jewish family in your basement if you were discovered by the 359 00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:36,400 by the Nazis to have done so met immediate death and so the decision to 360 00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:41,760 do that doesn't require muscular physical action but it potentially is 361 00:30:41,760 --> 00:30:45,440 just as deadly as running into a burning building to save someone else's children 362 00:30:45,440 --> 00:30:50,960 and women were more likely than men to make that decision that's again as a 363 00:30:50,960 --> 00:30:58,400 kind of moral courage it's an equal form of bravery but it requires different 364 00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:04,760 actions right because you I remember you said that the the gender roles weren't 365 00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:09,680 necessarily filled by those specific genders as well because I identify both 366 00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:14,720 of those roles within areas of first responders for example you know the 367 00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:19,080 fireman that kicks in the door and drags a person out would be probably assigned 368 00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:23,240 more to the the masculine type of those two gender roles but then if that same 369 00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:27,120 person then has to take off their gear and then take care of them medically now 370 00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:30,840 you're almost slipping into the more compassionate female side of the gender 371 00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:35,960 role but within the same human being yeah that's right I looked at a coal mine 372 00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:41,960 disaster in in Canada in the 1950s and these people were these it was all men 373 00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,920 they were trapped who my two miles underground by a collapse of the mine 374 00:31:45,920 --> 00:31:51,360 shafts because of an explosion and the first leaders that emerged from these 375 00:31:51,360 --> 00:31:58,080 this group of you know a dozen or so maybe 18 I can't remember 18 men were 376 00:31:58,080 --> 00:32:07,120 these sort of proactive unemotional on on empathic action-oriented individuals 377 00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:11,840 who literally started trying to dig their way past the blockage to to freedom 378 00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:17,160 they did that for a few days and it didn't work and then they had this the 379 00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:20,880 group had to settle into a different kind of survival mode which was waiting 380 00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:25,040 to see if they could be rescued and when that happened a different leader 381 00:32:25,040 --> 00:32:31,040 emerged the first kind of leaders the the more typically male in some ways 382 00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:37,760 leaders took a backseat step back and what emerged were leaders who were very 383 00:32:37,760 --> 00:32:41,640 empathic they were good at keeping the morale of the group up and you know this 384 00:32:41,640 --> 00:32:45,920 is in complete darkness while they're starving and dying of thirst never 385 00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:50,840 knowing if they'll be rescued or even if their bodies will be recovered and 386 00:32:50,840 --> 00:32:55,920 in that horrible horrible circumstance there were men who who emerged who were 387 00:32:55,920 --> 00:33:00,560 they were compassionate and they were caretaking emotionally caretaking they 388 00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:05,560 they wanted people to function collectively in the group they cared 389 00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:10,280 very much what other people thought of their actions and that was a classically 390 00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:16,400 more female role my point was that there are these two gender roles they need to 391 00:33:16,400 --> 00:33:19,760 be filled and it doesn't matter if they're filled by males or females it 392 00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:24,360 doesn't matter at all if a group of women were trapped in a coal mine some 393 00:33:24,360 --> 00:33:27,600 women would step forward as the sort in the sort of classically male role the 394 00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:33,320 sort of action-oriented role and others would fill the other the other more 395 00:33:33,320 --> 00:33:37,160 compassionate role and likewise if for a group of men it really doesn't matter 396 00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:42,080 what sex fills those roles as long as those roles get filled yeah yeah because 397 00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:46,760 I think what they look at the kind of the stereotypical fireman policeman 398 00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:52,000 paramedic as in a very two-dimensional way instead of looking at that we need 399 00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:55,280 you know a spectrum of people because depending on events you know you might 400 00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:58,820 need a door kicker like they refer to him in the seals or you might need the 401 00:33:58,820 --> 00:34:03,560 person to to be the compassionate one in a giant disaster where you've got all 402 00:34:03,560 --> 00:34:08,000 kinds of people you know extremely upset so yeah that could be fit may excuse me 403 00:34:08,000 --> 00:34:12,200 fit by male or female but I think emotionally you need that spectrum if if 404 00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:17,760 you're gonna function well as a group absolutely yep absolutely okay so getting 405 00:34:17,760 --> 00:34:25,720 back to you actually in the Korangal Valley you were assigned to Rastrepro 406 00:34:25,720 --> 00:34:33,080 which was named after Juan Rastrepro who was Navy corpsman is that correct no he 407 00:34:33,080 --> 00:34:37,760 was he was in the airborne airborne infantry he was a he was the platoon 408 00:34:37,760 --> 00:34:41,740 medic I was a platoon medic I'm sorry so I knew he was a medic okay so he was the 409 00:34:41,740 --> 00:34:48,800 platoon medic so when you were there you that group was the saw more action than 410 00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:53,560 anyone else in Afghanistan at the time is that right yeah for a while most of 411 00:34:53,560 --> 00:35:00,000 the majority of the combat in in Afghanistan was in that immediate area 412 00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:08,040 okay and what made you decide to go from writing as your main source of media to 413 00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:13,760 filmmaking oh you know I started shooting video a few years earlier it 414 00:35:13,760 --> 00:35:17,400 just seemed like a good way to capture situations that were moving too quickly 415 00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:22,320 for me to write you know right keep track of in a notebook with a pen and 416 00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:26,240 then I decided if I was going to spend you know a year off and on with a 417 00:35:26,240 --> 00:35:29,400 platoon I wanted to write a book about about a platoon in combat I thought if 418 00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:31,800 I was going to spend a year off and on with a platoon I might as well shoot a 419 00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:37,960 lot of video and see if I could not only would that help in my reporting but maybe 420 00:35:37,960 --> 00:35:43,200 I could make a documentary right and then the documentary focus is not so 421 00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:48,280 much on on the actual events I think the event set the scene but it's more really 422 00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:53,280 that the the guys once they've come home so what were your initial observations 423 00:35:53,280 --> 00:36:00,440 when you first saw those soldiers back in the civilian lifestyle well we I mean 424 00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:05,000 you know Sim and I spent most of a year out there we had one chance to interview 425 00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:08,680 them after their deployment but they weren't home they were in Vicenza Italy 426 00:36:08,680 --> 00:36:12,360 where the one 70 30 space and we had a couple of days to interview all those 427 00:36:12,360 --> 00:36:17,960 guys about about their experience of the prior year they were they were pretty 428 00:36:17,960 --> 00:36:23,280 messed up actually they were having a lot of a lot of psychological problems 429 00:36:23,280 --> 00:36:28,200 right yeah cuz I you could see that I mean being a first responder and seeing 430 00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:34,600 you know my peers like I said we've lost several in the last 12 months that that 431 00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:40,320 look in their eyes and that that look of being lost once removed from which most 432 00:36:40,320 --> 00:36:44,360 people look at the most dangerous place you think you'd want to run you know run 433 00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:48,320 for the hills from that that yearning to be back there and I know several of them 434 00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:51,280 say that exactly that almost with tears in their eyes they wish they were back 435 00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:55,960 with their their brothers in in the Korangal yeah absolutely there was a 436 00:36:55,960 --> 00:37:00,960 real longing to go back I think it felt the proximity of the other men made them 437 00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:04,960 feel safe even though that there were bullets flying overhead and the idea of 438 00:37:04,960 --> 00:37:11,320 being without their brothers alone even in a physically safe environment like 439 00:37:11,320 --> 00:37:15,880 their hometown was a really dreadful prospect and very few of them wanted to 440 00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:25,480 face it yeah now it's interesting yeah the observation of how house quote-unquote 441 00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:30,840 civilization is now because I know what when I've come back from calls before 442 00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:37,360 no problem you know where I've literally had you know child fatalities and come 443 00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:41,840 back to a neighbor bitching at me about allegedly my cat crapping on his yard or 444 00:37:41,840 --> 00:37:44,720 something and it's taking every ounce of strength not to lay him out there in the 445 00:37:44,720 --> 00:37:49,760 driveway so I can't imagine a year's worth of trauma and then coming back to 446 00:37:49,760 --> 00:37:54,600 in my opinion a very selfish society at the moment I can imagine that would 447 00:37:54,600 --> 00:37:59,720 really enhance the the effects of being just dropped back in and removed from 448 00:37:59,720 --> 00:38:04,240 your guys yeah I think it's very hard I mean most of them actually didn't come 449 00:38:04,240 --> 00:38:10,160 back they you know they stayed within the milit in the military and deployed 450 00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:13,280 again and those were the guys who did the best the ones who actually got out 451 00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:17,240 of the military were the ones who suffered immediate consequences 452 00:38:17,240 --> 00:38:22,440 psychologically and really struggled yeah the the observation you made again 453 00:38:22,440 --> 00:38:26,720 forgive me if this is a Navajo or the Iroquois you you said about the 454 00:38:26,720 --> 00:38:34,120 egalitarian system how the selfish I guess cancer that we have at the moment 455 00:38:34,120 --> 00:38:38,920 the kind of I want everything mentality how in a lot of native cultures that 456 00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:45,240 just a nomadically isn't isn't possible because you can't carry all this wealth 457 00:38:45,240 --> 00:38:50,120 with you and be any greed is punished because you're taken away from from the 458 00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:55,320 rest of the tribe yeah I mean if you think I mean forget about the Native 459 00:38:55,320 --> 00:39:02,400 Americans if you just think about our evolutionary past the with it was it was 460 00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:06,640 nomadic we came out of Africa we spread throughout the world as a nomadic 461 00:39:06,640 --> 00:39:12,400 species living in groups of 30 40 50 people and there's no possibility to 462 00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:16,160 accumulate wealth because you have to carry everything that you own so there 463 00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:22,440 were no meaningful economic distinctions between people in those small groups and 464 00:39:22,440 --> 00:39:26,520 certainly wealth could not be passed on to wealth and power could not be passed 465 00:39:26,520 --> 00:39:32,160 on to generations the people who had authority within the group had that 466 00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:36,840 authority they had earned it and they were and it was by and their authority 467 00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:40,920 came at the permission of the group and if you didn't like the way someone was 468 00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:44,320 running your little band of hunter-gatherers you were free to get up 469 00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:49,320 and go and maybe join your wife's clan or whatever whatever it might have been 470 00:39:49,320 --> 00:39:55,800 so what that all changed at the advent of agriculture once you invest years of 471 00:39:55,800 --> 00:40:01,120 time and labor in digging irrigation dishes and you own you own now you only 472 00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:05,080 have claimed your property you invest your resources in planting that 473 00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:11,160 property at that point you can accumulate wealth there are distinctions 474 00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:16,560 of income between people of wealth between people and you can be taxed by 475 00:40:16,560 --> 00:40:19,320 leaders you could be oppressed by leaders because you know there's no way 476 00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:22,880 you there's no way for you to leave you're too invested in your own property 477 00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:26,920 you can then also have authority structures and armies and police and 478 00:40:26,920 --> 00:40:31,720 that kind of thing they impose the will of a leader on the populace so it all 479 00:40:31,720 --> 00:40:35,600 starts to sort of fall apart with agriculture that that brought a 480 00:40:35,600 --> 00:40:41,240 galatarianism so so when you have a modern society like the United States in 481 00:40:41,240 --> 00:40:46,720 the eight seventeen hundred eighteen hundreds butting up right right up against 482 00:40:46,720 --> 00:40:54,000 a stone-age culture that was way more egalitarian than we even are today it's 483 00:40:54,000 --> 00:41:00,000 an it's undeniably appealing and individuals will choose to to flee and 484 00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:04,760 and take up in these quote primitive societies that are actually in human 485 00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:09,160 terms you know extremely evolved yeah I mean we definitely devolved socially in 486 00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:12,600 that respect there's no question about that I think that's again the the 487 00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:15,520 yearning to be back in that group whether it's military or fire or police 488 00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:22,600 or EMS is when you are I'll take my example if you're a fireman and you're 489 00:41:22,600 --> 00:41:25,880 lazy then you will be ostracized you know you'll be known throughout the 490 00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:29,840 apartment as the excuse my language but a piece of shit and you know if you don't 491 00:41:29,840 --> 00:41:33,560 quit then you'll you'll end up you know bouncing around from crew to crew and 492 00:41:33,560 --> 00:41:38,240 never really being happy and so having that bar set high and expecting other 493 00:41:38,240 --> 00:41:42,880 humans to act a certain way and then you retire you get hurt you you whatever 494 00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:46,480 happens and you're in a quote-unquote regular world and you see the 495 00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:51,960 selfishness and the greed I think it is amplified and it makes I know it makes 496 00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:57,480 me extremely angry when when I see that kind of behavior yeah well listen to you 497 00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:01,600 there are very good evolutionary reasons for your anger someone who does not 498 00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:06,680 carry their weight who depends on the work of others and doesn't doesn't put 499 00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:13,280 into the welfare of the group is not only a drag on the group they can even 500 00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:17,640 be an actual danger to the group and it's you know typically dealt with very 501 00:42:17,640 --> 00:42:20,560 very harshly yeah and they can definitely be a danger in those 502 00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:24,080 professions too I mean that's the person that supposed to be dragging you out if 503 00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:29,800 you go down or you know protecting you with their weapon if if you get shot 504 00:42:29,800 --> 00:42:35,300 well speaking of that actually that trans excuse me it transitions well to 505 00:42:35,300 --> 00:42:40,760 the other question you had a great example of an incident I think it was in 506 00:42:40,760 --> 00:42:45,120 Vietnam where you had two group you had a I'm excuse me you had a special forces 507 00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:49,280 group and a lieutenant who was a regular lieutenant and they measured the stress 508 00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:56,600 levels of them when there was an impending attack yeah that's right that 509 00:42:56,600 --> 00:43:01,000 was in my book war and so what happened was when they heard that there was an 510 00:43:01,000 --> 00:43:06,040 attack coming the stress levels as measured by levels of cortisol and in 511 00:43:06,040 --> 00:43:11,640 urine I believe it was urine samples I believe it was the stress levels in the 512 00:43:11,640 --> 00:43:16,900 lieutenant went up in the special forces soldiers that were that he was 513 00:43:16,900 --> 00:43:22,080 commanding stress levels went down he's all of a sudden they had a good they had 514 00:43:22,080 --> 00:43:27,260 enormous confidence in in their skills and they knew what they had to do and as 515 00:43:27,260 --> 00:43:31,520 soon as they got word that an attack was coming they started filling sandbags and 516 00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:33,960 cleaning their weapons and arranging their ammunition and whatever else they 517 00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:37,480 had to do stringing the claymores and the barbed wire and all that stuff they 518 00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:41,960 got busy right and the stress levels went down because they were busy because 519 00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:47,200 they had something to do and then that the window for the attack came and it 520 00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:53,800 went and it became clear that the attack there was false information or that the 521 00:43:53,800 --> 00:43:59,920 plan said the enemy's plans had changed and things quieted down and then the 522 00:43:59,920 --> 00:44:04,360 lieutenant stress levels dropped and the menu was commanding their stress levels 523 00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:07,920 climbed back up to sort of ordinary high levels where they never knew what was 524 00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:10,760 going to happen and so they were continually on edge but there was not 525 00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:14,160 much they could do about it yeah now it's finally very interesting because I 526 00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:17,840 think that really leans towards the importance of training in in any of the 527 00:44:17,840 --> 00:44:23,040 the first responder professions if you have drilled and drilled and drilled and 528 00:44:23,040 --> 00:44:27,120 you're prepared then when the time comes you get that clarity and like you said 529 00:44:27,120 --> 00:44:32,400 the there was almost an anxiety of wanting a fire wanting you know to to 530 00:44:32,400 --> 00:44:37,720 get in a gunfight whatever your your thing is but when when the time occurs 531 00:44:37,720 --> 00:44:42,840 then you're ready and you're focused and in that Zen moment really that's right 532 00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:47,400 that's right now there's a lot of wiring a lot of adaptation for the for us to be 533 00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:50,760 highly functional in those moments and very very anxious when nothing's going 534 00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:58,720 on absolutely so yourself you obviously saw a huge amount of combat you you know 535 00:44:58,720 --> 00:45:02,040 were reporting so you weren't even carrying a weapon you were there getting 536 00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:06,800 shot at and then having to take it when you came back did you have any incidents 537 00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:15,320 of PTSD yourself yeah I I think probably the first time I had problems was after 538 00:45:15,320 --> 00:45:24,800 Sierra Leone in 19 what was it 1999 I think it was yeah I I had some tough 539 00:45:24,800 --> 00:45:29,000 experiences there and I came back pretty rattled in 2000 I was in northern 540 00:45:29,000 --> 00:45:33,720 Afghanistan with Afad Shama suit who was killed right before 9-eleven I was there 541 00:45:33,720 --> 00:45:38,520 a year before a year prior and you know back then the Taliban had you know they 542 00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:42,800 had Migs they had an Air Force they had tanks they had everything and we got 543 00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:46,880 hammered pretty hard a couple of times and I came back not knowing that I had 544 00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:51,920 been affected by it but I kept having panic attacks panic attacks in in in 545 00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:55,560 situations where I was felt for about a control like a crowded subway station 546 00:45:55,560 --> 00:45:59,040 that kind of thing I didn't connect it to combat because there there were no 547 00:45:59,040 --> 00:46:03,320 subway stations in Afghanistan in the fall of 2000 like I you know I just I 548 00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:09,180 didn't it didn't I didn't think it was combat related because the situation was 549 00:46:09,180 --> 00:46:14,560 so different but I later found out that that's pretty typical that that people 550 00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:17,920 have panic attacks in unrelated situations where they don't feel like 551 00:46:17,920 --> 00:46:23,560 they're in control in combat you're not in control you feel like you could be 552 00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:28,160 killed without getting much of a vote in the matter and that feeling of 553 00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:32,680 helplessness is extremely traumatizing and so anything else that makes you feel 554 00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:37,500 helpless I was in the ski gondola once and I completely freaked out and I'm not 555 00:46:37,500 --> 00:46:40,800 a particularly neurotic person but you know that I just completely freaked out 556 00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:45,080 in the ski gondola and then on the subway and it kept happening and that 557 00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:49,280 was I know you know years later I realized oh my god that was PTSD well 558 00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:55,000 yeah it definitely manifests itself in the most crazy ways from from you know 559 00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:59,160 just a mild feeling of sadness all the way through to such darkness that people 560 00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:02,400 are taking their lives so I'm trying to trying to bring that out to the forefront 561 00:47:02,400 --> 00:47:06,920 I want to touch on something or a couple of things firstly the the incident that 562 00:47:06,920 --> 00:47:12,760 happened that took you away from journalism within the military itself 563 00:47:12,760 --> 00:47:18,320 yeah my my friend and colleague Tim Hetherington that I made restrepo with 564 00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:23,760 he was killed in combat in Libya he went over to cover the Libyan Civil War we 565 00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:26,800 were supposed to be there together at the last moment I couldn't go and he got 566 00:47:26,800 --> 00:47:32,160 killed and so I got out of war recording you know within about an hour of finding 567 00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:37,720 out that he had died over there you know you know it gave me a lot of you know I 568 00:47:37,720 --> 00:47:40,560 felt very guilty about his death I felt like I should have been with him that I 569 00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:44,360 could have protected him that it should have been me a lot of classic feelings 570 00:47:44,360 --> 00:47:47,240 that I remember hearing from soldiers that I knew that I never quite 571 00:47:47,240 --> 00:47:49,760 understood why they felt that way and that's something I kind of got it 572 00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:55,440 because I had those same reactions to Tim's death yeah and you said you you 573 00:47:55,440 --> 00:48:00,840 saw the effects of the people that were left behind as well yeah but I got out 574 00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:05,280 of war reporting because I saw the effect of Tim's death on everyone that 575 00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:09,920 he loved and I didn't want to risk the people that I loved I wanted to want to 576 00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:16,640 risk their their emotional welfare on you know a job that I that I was totally 577 00:48:16,640 --> 00:48:21,680 enamored of but it wasn't worth you know it wasn't worth other people's sacrifice 578 00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:27,520 and so I stopped yeah and I think that's another area of PCSD that people don't 579 00:48:27,520 --> 00:48:32,920 recognize within the first responder groups is and I've had a I can remember 580 00:48:32,920 --> 00:48:39,040 a perfect example I had a young man literally dropped dead in a in a dog 581 00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:43,400 kennel and in a place that you drop off your dogs when you're going away for the 582 00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:49,040 day and he passed away we did everything we could and then we were writing the 583 00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:53,600 report after the call what and his family were about eight feet away just 584 00:48:53,600 --> 00:48:58,640 you know absolutely in tears and beside themselves so being left with you know 585 00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:02,960 that the the fallout from the family and just being in this pain by their 586 00:49:02,960 --> 00:49:06,520 reaction of it I think that's another area that affects people they don't 587 00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:11,120 realize you couldn't save that person and that is so frustrating in itself but 588 00:49:11,120 --> 00:49:15,600 then seeing how that does radiate to everyone they love around them I think 589 00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:21,040 is even more heartbreaking yeah yeah you know I know combat men are 590 00:49:21,040 --> 00:49:24,880 very very hard time because I don't like it are they getting traumatized are only 591 00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:28,320 early are they are they in combat are they firing firing their weapons 592 00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:32,440 potentially killing other people but they're also failing to save their their 593 00:49:32,440 --> 00:49:36,800 comrades and their brothers and then and that's extremely hard on them 594 00:49:36,800 --> 00:49:41,040 psychologically yeah that's it's you know it's a very hard thing to come to 595 00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:44,800 terms with because in the movies everyone survives and in real world not 596 00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:49,280 so much now I just want to touch on something and please tell me if I'm 597 00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:55,160 stepping out of line here my darkest time I think during my career so far was 598 00:49:55,160 --> 00:49:58,560 when I was also going through a divorce and I know you were recently divorced 599 00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:03,520 did did the burden of what you'd seen up to that point magnify everything that 600 00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:10,080 happened there you know I think that my experiences in combat affected my 601 00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:17,300 marriage and I think the divorce affected my attempts to resolve the 602 00:50:17,300 --> 00:50:23,200 emotional fallout from combat for sure they both affected each other I'm not 603 00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:27,720 sure in negative ways I mean I mean both things brought out an extreme 604 00:50:27,720 --> 00:50:34,320 emotionality in me and although he was unpleasant and sometimes awkward that 605 00:50:34,320 --> 00:50:39,640 outpouring of emotions I think ultimately was helpful for me it just 606 00:50:39,640 --> 00:50:42,800 didn't feel very good at the time but I think it was something it was a process 607 00:50:42,800 --> 00:50:47,040 that I kind of needed to do and I and I think only trauma was going to sort of 608 00:50:47,040 --> 00:50:52,400 crack me open enough to have these feelings come out and know that the 609 00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:57,440 feelings were derived from my relationship with my wife were derived 610 00:50:57,440 --> 00:51:01,200 from my experiences in combat but of course for all of us there's a there are 611 00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:05,640 deep wells of sort of sadness and conflicted feelings and residual things 612 00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:10,960 from your family I mean you know it's a whole messy swamp inside all of us and 613 00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:18,160 you know we were you know very sensibly and wisely we wall that stuff off as well 614 00:51:18,160 --> 00:51:21,720 as we can so it doesn't affect our daily lives but at the end of the day if 615 00:51:21,720 --> 00:51:25,240 something breaches those walls and this stuff comes gushing out you know in the 616 00:51:25,240 --> 00:51:28,960 sort of long term I think you're well served by that and both divorce and 617 00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:33,680 combat sort of served serve that purpose in my life and I really feel like I 618 00:51:33,680 --> 00:51:38,400 integrate it but at the end of the day I integrated what was deep inside me and 619 00:51:38,400 --> 00:51:42,000 what was sort of on my functional exterior like those two things got 620 00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:46,800 connected and integrated in a way that right now it feels very very healthy and 621 00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:51,120 functional right and do you do you find your writing as a form of catharsis I 622 00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:56,320 did my first ever blog a couple weeks ago I did about PTSD and I did another 623 00:51:56,320 --> 00:52:01,040 one about sleep deprivation and both of them were rattling around my brain to 624 00:52:01,040 --> 00:52:05,280 the point I couldn't sleep and I literally you know vomited them out onto 625 00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:09,920 the keyboard and it felt pretty amazing after so do you have that same feedback 626 00:52:09,920 --> 00:52:16,640 when you write about the the things you've seen I mean I mean sometimes the 627 00:52:16,640 --> 00:52:22,640 thing my writing process involves some pretty puzzling and intense emotions I 628 00:52:22,640 --> 00:52:27,640 guess that's a form of catharsis I never thought about it like that I wouldn't 629 00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:33,000 say that it catharsis to me is an emotional experience that kind of purges 630 00:52:33,000 --> 00:52:36,080 you of that emotion then you're free of it I wouldn't say it functions that way 631 00:52:36,080 --> 00:52:41,680 okay yeah that would be more of a temporary temporary version of okay well 632 00:52:41,680 --> 00:52:45,160 I know that we're getting to the to the end of the time so I've got a couple of 633 00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:48,400 quick questions for you and I will let you get on your way thank you so much 634 00:52:48,400 --> 00:52:52,600 for the time you've already given us firstly so what is your next project 635 00:52:52,600 --> 00:52:59,560 after tribe you know I don't know I'm finishing up a documentary about the 636 00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:05,600 Syrian Civil War and about ISIS and I didn't shoot any of it but I'm acting in 637 00:53:05,600 --> 00:53:10,040 the capacity of director and and after that I'm not I'm actually not sure what 638 00:53:10,040 --> 00:53:14,920 I'm gonna do next okay does that project have a title yet it's called hell on 639 00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:19,780 earth and it comes out with National Geographic this spring they are they 640 00:53:19,780 --> 00:53:24,120 have not announced their day yet okay fantastic and obviously you are a 641 00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:29,520 filmmaker and an author is there a book and a movie or documentary that you 642 00:53:29,520 --> 00:53:35,880 would recommend other than your own work oh my god I don't know how I could 643 00:53:35,880 --> 00:53:40,920 answer that in less than half an hour I mean there's so many amazing books out 644 00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:47,040 there Peter Matheson is it was a longtime favorite author of mine Joan 645 00:53:47,040 --> 00:53:52,280 Didion John McPhee I mean any any books by any of those people are amazing 646 00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:59,400 Cormac McCarthy is a fiction writer he's just phenomenal dispatches by Michael 647 00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:07,880 Hare is a really fine book about war and I mean every year every year there are 648 00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:12,720 amazing documentaries come out I mean I can't even I can't even sort of think 649 00:54:12,720 --> 00:54:15,920 clearly enough to list the ones that have impressed me but you know there's 650 00:54:15,920 --> 00:54:19,640 amazing there's really really good work being done and it's worth paying 651 00:54:19,640 --> 00:54:24,600 attention to I mean documentary film is a sort of very vibrant art form right now 652 00:54:24,600 --> 00:54:28,960 and we communicate a lot of important things that don't quite make it into 653 00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:32,360 the front pages of the newspaper through the two documentary film is a really 654 00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:37,720 important medium yeah yeah I agree completely as a 42 year old man it's 655 00:54:37,720 --> 00:54:43,120 crazy how you see the same story played out over and over again sometimes 656 00:54:43,120 --> 00:54:47,320 subtly sometimes blatantly but they just remake the same damn fictional film so I 657 00:54:47,320 --> 00:54:51,560 think certainly after you've seen that story played out a few times the the 658 00:54:51,560 --> 00:54:55,720 documentary side really is a lot more satisfying than the fictional movies 659 00:54:55,720 --> 00:54:59,360 there's only so many you know Rambo style movies you can take before it just 660 00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:05,160 gets ridiculous yeah absolutely absolutely so and then what do you do to 661 00:55:05,160 --> 00:55:10,720 decompress or if you need a laugh what's your your outlet these days I you know 662 00:55:10,720 --> 00:55:16,760 I've been athletic my whole life I run a lot I box I really like playing chess I 663 00:55:16,760 --> 00:55:23,360 play accordion and I read a lot 664 00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:30,240 right I wanted to touch on that cuz I knew you box and ran and that that's one 665 00:55:30,240 --> 00:55:33,480 of the things that I've guess let me rephrase that's one of the only things 666 00:55:33,480 --> 00:55:37,720 that they've really shown that that is good for that mental trauma is you know 667 00:55:37,720 --> 00:55:42,600 healthy body healthy mind and everyone that kind of really has an aggressive 668 00:55:42,600 --> 00:55:47,600 exercise routine or love of sport seems to have a much better coping mechanism 669 00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:51,400 usually than than the ones that don't so I think that's an important thing to 670 00:55:51,400 --> 00:55:56,800 underline yeah I mean I think I mean I'm a doctor but I think you know intense 671 00:55:56,800 --> 00:56:03,600 exercise probably lowers cortisol levels and there's a whole hormonal response to 672 00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:09,640 to exercise that I think is probably really beneficial all the endorphins and 673 00:56:09,640 --> 00:56:14,040 all that stuff exercising increases your testosterone increases your adrenaline I 674 00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:18,880 mean all that stuff feels really good in your bloodstream so I you know I'm not 675 00:56:18,880 --> 00:56:23,200 surprised that it's no that's part of a sort of healthy regimen yeah and I guess 676 00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:27,720 that also the tribal side I mean I think that's why things like CrossFit and mud 677 00:56:27,720 --> 00:56:31,920 runs things like that have gained in popularity because you're not putting in 678 00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:34,680 a head set of headphones and just sitting in the corner on your own I mean 679 00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:37,080 when you're boxing you're obviously interacting with all the other guys in 680 00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:42,800 the gym too absolutely yeah exactly it's interesting you know like the boxing gym 681 00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:47,920 that I'm belong to it's an old old gym in New York and you know you have 682 00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:51,800 everything from like Wall Street guys who come in take off their suits and 683 00:56:51,800 --> 00:56:56,880 suit you know and work out to you know like kids from the ghetto in Brooklyn 684 00:56:56,880 --> 00:57:01,120 and but as soon as you walk in that door everyone's equal and the way you're 685 00:57:01,120 --> 00:57:07,040 seen by others is completely dependent on how you act in there and and that's a 686 00:57:07,040 --> 00:57:11,400 very very healthy environment for everybody there's no prejudice in either 687 00:57:11,400 --> 00:57:16,320 direction no prejudice against the sort of like elevated Wall Street dudes and 688 00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:20,160 there's no prejudice against the poor people the sort of less fortunate to 689 00:57:20,160 --> 00:57:24,160 come in from poor parts of town like it's you were completely judged on your 690 00:57:24,160 --> 00:57:29,640 actions and that that to me is deeply is a sort of deeply tribal arrangement in 691 00:57:29,640 --> 00:57:34,040 the healthiest in the healthiest sense and probably reflects our evolutionary 692 00:57:34,040 --> 00:57:37,760 past in a pretty accurate way yeah no I'd agree that completely I mean you know 693 00:57:37,760 --> 00:57:41,280 you put on a pair of shorts and a pair of gloves it's pretty uniform from 694 00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:47,240 there on now it's just about who can hit harder so all right well I'm gonna let 695 00:57:47,240 --> 00:57:50,840 you wrap up but if you wouldn't mind just tell people where they can find you 696 00:57:50,840 --> 00:57:58,400 and your work well my website is Sebastian younger calm and you can find 697 00:57:58,400 --> 00:58:03,360 all of my documentaries on my website or on iTunes or on Amazon Ristrepo 698 00:58:03,360 --> 00:58:08,440 Corningal which way is the front line from here and the last patrol my books 699 00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:14,360 are the perfect storm and fire a death in Belmont war and my most recent book is 700 00:58:14,360 --> 00:58:20,640 called tribe about the community and yeah you know Amazon or Barnes and 701 00:58:20,640 --> 00:58:25,440 Noble whatever any any any bookstore has probably all of my books in them yeah 702 00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:29,720 Amazon definitely does because I've got them all on my Christmas list so the 703 00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:33,120 ones I haven't gotten so yeah I highly recommend anyone listening I think tribe 704 00:58:33,120 --> 00:58:36,880 I put a post on Facebook today tribe basically should be read by every human 705 00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:41,920 being on the planet isn't already functioning as a tribe so I think I 706 00:58:41,920 --> 00:58:45,520 think everyone they took that on board I think right there we'd start making 707 00:58:45,520 --> 00:58:51,760 ourselves a more community-based civilization which I think we need to so 708 00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:55,600 on that note thank you so so much for taking time I know you're extremely busy 709 00:58:55,600 --> 00:59:01,400 and you lent your time to this very humble project of mine and I hope one 710 00:59:01,400 --> 00:59:05,280 day we can touch base again in the future but for now I will let you go and 711 00:59:05,280 --> 00:59:10,440 thank you again from everyone the first responder community for you know a your 712 00:59:10,440 --> 00:59:15,360 book and be taking the time to talk to us hey well thank you I really enjoyed it 713 00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:36,360 good luck to you and to everybody who's listening 714 00:59:45,360 --> 00:59:47,440 you 715 01:00:15,360 --> 01:00:17,420 you