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

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I wore their uniforms back in Anaheim California and have used their products ever since.

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

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

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

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ballistic plates rather than the fake weight plates and that has been my ride or die through

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Murph the last few years as well. But one area I want to talk about that I haven't in previous

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sponsorship spots is their brick and mortar element. They were predominantly an online

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company up till more recently but now they are approaching 100 stores all over the US.

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

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online are applied also in the stores. So as I mentioned 511 is offering you 15% off every

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or in the stores every time you make a purchase. And if you want to hear more about 511, who they

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stand for and who works with them, listen to episode 580 of Behind the Shield podcast with

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511 regional director Will Ayers. This episode is brought to you by Thorn, the industry leader in

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your first order and if you want to learn even more about Thorn go to episode 323 of behind the

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shield podcast and you will hear my interview with Wes Barnett and Joel Totoro from Thorn.

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Welcome to the behind the shield podcast as always my name is James Gearing and this

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week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show Kagan Gill. Now I met Kagan when he joined

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us in Dubai on the human performance project 7x as we circumnavigated the entire globe in one week.

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So we discuss a host of topics from his journey into the world of aviation joining the military,

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the crucible that is becoming a fighter pilot, his near-death experience after rejecting at

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the speed of sound, his physical rehabilitation journey, his extremely powerful mental health

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story, psychedelics and so much more. Now before we get to this incredibly powerful conversation

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as I say every week please just take a moment go to whichever app you listen to this on,

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subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating. Every single five-star rating truly does

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elevate this podcast therefore making it easier for others to find and this is a free library of

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well over 700 episodes now so all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and

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

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So with that being said I introduce to you Kagan Gill enjoy.

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Okay again I want to start by thanking you for coming on. We are sitting in a hotel in the outskirts

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of Dallas Texas. We have just been around the world in an airplane. You just finished your second

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marathon so we were going to kind of unwrap your entire story but I don't know a huge amount about

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your story because we just met two days ago so I'm super excited so I just want to say thank you

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for us for joining me today. Thank you for having me I'm glad we're able to make this work. Absolutely

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we connected on this. So weird for everyone listening we are holding a microphone so hopefully

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there's not going to be too much banging around it's not the normal setup but that's what happens

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when your studio is in a in a suitcase. All right well I would love to start at the very beginning

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of your story so tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic,

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what your parents did and how many siblings. So I was born in Tulsa Oklahoma and my mom was completing

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her medical residency for medical school and I don't remember a whole lot from Tulsa other than

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ticks and softball size hail. When I was three years old we moved to Alamosa Colorado.

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By the time I was five I was bombing down black diamonds on my skis you know a little 30 pounds

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of inertia and fluffy white powder and I always kind of had a an attraction to extreme sports and

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and doing fun stuff like that. I then continued my childhood up in northern Michigan. So my mom had

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completed a scholarship program through the National Health Service which is what brought

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us to Alamosa. She served in a rural community and basically got all of her medical school paid for

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by doing that. She became an obstetrician gynecologist and once she completed her duties

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in Alamosa we moved to Traverse City Michigan which is where I primarily grew up in northern Michigan.

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There growing up I kind of had an unconventional childhood. My parents were sort of out of the box.

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My dad's a very outdoorsy kind of guy. I mean he carves his own bows. He you know he'll patch his

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old clothes together. He refuses to ever buy anything. He's always been an endurance athlete.

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He's completed Ironman triathlons. He's done Pike's Peak marathon. He used to run around pushing me

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in in a stroller doing triathlons. He ran one of his fastest triathlons when he got to push me

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on the run. He used to load me up in a backpack and take me out into the mountains when we were in

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Colorado and went backcountry skiing. He was a big telemark skier. So I kind of always had adventurous

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parents and an unconventional upbringing. You know we didn't have a lot of fancy stuff.

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We kind of had old beater vehicles and they like to spend their money on travel and we got to explore

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the national parks and do a lot of adventuring growing up. When I was about 12 years old my

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parents had a friend that took me up flying in a little Cessna 152 and I absolutely fell in love

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with you know being up above the world and flying like Peter Pan. So when I graduated high school

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there was a little flight program at the community college in Traverse City called Northwestern

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Michigan College and I still kind of had a passion for flying and I didn't really know what I wanted

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to do with my life but I remember that I really enjoyed that. So I figured being a pilot was going

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to be a good balance of a professional career and adventure and the last thing I wanted to be was

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you know trapped in an office filling out worksheets under fluorescent lighting. So I ended up going

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there. I became a certified flight instructor while I was in college completing my bachelor's degree.

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I became an aerobatics instructor primarily because I was the smallest flight instructor

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and we only had this little Cessna aerobat as our aerobatics aircraft. So they could fit me in there

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with my parachute and a full-size grown-up and get up and fly around in this thing.

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Did the full-size grown-up have a parachute as well? Yeah yeah. That would be unnerving if you

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were the passenger and only the pilot had a parachute. We had to wear these little

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pair. I never had to use it but in case of emergency there were these little poles on

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the doors of the aerobat. You pop the door open and you can jump out. Unfortunately never had to

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do that but it was a good gig. Once I graduated college with my bachelor's degree I got hired by

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Poneman Institute which is a privacy research and think tank out of northern Michigan and I

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became their company pilot essentially and I flew all over the world or all over the country

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with them which was a great experience. I got a lot of single pilot experience flying the aircraft

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and instructing the owner on occasion as he rode with me on a lot of the flights.

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I had a great experience with them but kind of still had an itch to do something more

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and my friend was applying to go to Navy OCS for a pilot slot, my friend Mark. At the time I thought

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you had to go to the Naval Academy and your dad had to be an admiral to do that but he filled me

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in and said no you can apply to OCS. You have flight experience. You have a bachelor's degree.

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You're fully qualified to do that. I did a bunch of research on a website called Air Warriors

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which is an online form that I highly recommend for anybody who's interested in getting into the

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world of military aviation and I learned about what tests I needed to take, how to prepare

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and I took the test to get in. I did well on the test after studying and with my background in

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aviation already it made for a pretty strong package and I got picked up for a pilot slot

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for the Navy. Now how many people that apply have the kind of flight experience that you do already?

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Because the Navy must have been loving the fact that you had that resume. Yeah you don't have to

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have any flight experience to apply. It definitely helped but it was completely unnecessary. I

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probably had more flight experience than most going in which was good in some ways but also

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at disadvantages I had to relearn to do everything the Navy way but it certainly helped with the

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application process for sure. I went to Navy OCS out of Newport, Rhode Island, graduated through

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there and then headed down to Pensacola, Florida where I went to aviation pre-flight indoctrination

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which was basically a month of ground school as well as some survival training. We got to do

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things like swim a mile in our flight suits and then do the helo dunker where they flip you upside

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down in this body of a helicopter in a pool and unclip yourself and escape blindfolded

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which was a good time. Once I finished there I headed to Corpus Christi, Texas where I completed

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primary flight training and the T-34 Charlie the turbo mentor which is a pretty high performance

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single engine prop plane with a turbine engine on it fully aerobatic and it was actually a

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pretty surprising to see that that's the first aircraft the Navy uses for training because it's

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a pretty powerful aircraft but that's the way naval training works. They cram a lot into a very

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condensed syllabus and get the most out of the time and money that they put into it. My previous

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flight experience definitely helped with the flying part of that. I already had the stick and rudder

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skills to help me excel and graduate towards the top of my class and I was able to select jets

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coming out of that. I then headed to Kingsville, Texas with VT-22 and I was trained in the T-45

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Charlie Goss Hawk which is a single engine jet and I did my intermediate training and once I

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completed intermediate training I went to an interview process and that's where you can

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either select the F-18 route or you can select the E-2 C-2 route which is a carrier based

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airborne radar system aircraft. It's got like a huge disc on the top big prop plane and then the

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C-2 is basically the cod. They basically are like the mailman and they deliver people and everything

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onto the aircraft carrier. I wanted the F-18 slot and went to the interview process and it went well

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and I got selected for the F-18 training program. Then I headed to VFA-106 which is in Virginia

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Beach, Virginia at NAS Oceania and I spent a year completing the F-18 training program there which

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was extremely intense. It's not as physically demanding as what the special operations guys

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go through but it's certainly the mental version of that as far as having to perform at a very high

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level absorb a massive amount of information. It's kind of the expression as trying to drink out of a

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fire hose. There's so much that comes at you and so much you have to learn just to get the baseline

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of information and then being able to actually perform in the jet. Everything is graded, the

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standards are extremely high and it was intense but made it through that training. Initially did

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the transition syllabus where you learn the aircraft systems, emergency procedures, a lot of

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the basic flight ops, navigation of the aircraft and you quickly get into operating the radar

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system, doing intercepts with the radar on other aircraft and then you do the strike syllabus which

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is where you learn how to basically use the aircraft to drop bombs in a bunch of different

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scenarios including close air support. Completed that and then moved to the air to air syllabus

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or the fighter syllabus. The F-18 is sort of the jack of all trades, master of none so we have to

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be able to do a wide variety of roles in the aircraft which always keeps it interesting but

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you never feel like you know what the hell you're doing because of it. It's just not the fire service.

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Yeah but did the fighter syllabus learning air combat maneuvering or BFM which is fighting the

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jet in the visual arena all the way out to long range air to air intercepts and tactics which gets

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extremely complex and difficult and then the last part of the syllabus you do carrier qualifications

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which is basically the most difficult thing you can do in an aircraft is try to land on the back

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of a moving aircraft carrier in the dark in bad weather. Actually my first time out to the aircraft

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carrier I disqualified at the boat which is semi-common for that phase just because it's so

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demanding but I was fortunate to get a second chance and I went back and my second time I

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qualified and I graduated VFA 106 and was picked up by VFA 143 the Pukin Dogs out of Virginia Beach.

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It's a good name. Yeah there's actually there was a lot of controversy behind their name

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and I think back in the 90s they had to switch it. They were originally the Griffins back in the 1950s

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when the squadron was established. There was a party at the officer's club at one point and

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somebody had made a papier-mache statue of the Griffin this winged lion that was the

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the mascot of the squadron and one of the you know everybody's drinking having a good time and one of

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the wives of one of the pilots was from New Orleans she had a real thick accent she said

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oh that looks like a pukin dog and everybody cracked up and thought it was the perfect name

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and it stuck with the squadron until the political correct police came in and made

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them switch it back for a while but because the dogs with nausea were offended or I guess I guess

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yeah they were they were offended and but fortunately now it's a good name.

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And but fortunately now it's again the pukin dogs despite all the political correct nonsense

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that's going on in the world these days. But yeah I was there for about eight months.

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I wasn't the new guy anymore there were maybe four or five newer guys in the squadron.

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I was finally starting to feel like I was getting the swing of things and on January 15 2014

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I was heading out on a flight to do some air to air refueling and then on the back side of that

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with extra fuel and a little bit of time I was going to go do BFM basic fighter maneuvering which

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despite having the word basic in it there's not much basic about it's you know dog fighting is

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very dynamic some people describe it as a knife fight in a phone booth so you're you're within

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visual range of another jet and you're trying to shoot each other down in this case for training

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it's a very perishable skill so anytime we get the chance to practice it we we go out and practice.

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A lot of the training that's done in the F-18 is intense we you know we train harder than

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hopefully we ever have to do in real life and that's certainly the case with the with BFM

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you know it's it's dynamic but it was it was my favorite thing to do in the jet you know I'm a

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fairly short guy at the time I was pretty pretty stocky build so I did well with the G's and and I

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it was just the most exciting thing ripping around the jet pulling G's trying to shoot the other guy

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down you're operating weapon systems defensive systems radar it's kind of like playing chess

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jazz piano being in a wrestling match and and driving in heavy traffic with screaming kids in

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the back of your car talking on the phone so there's a lot going on but it's it's a good time

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anyways getting ready for the flight my buddy Fisty who joined the squadron about the same time

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as I was standing duty officer that day which means he's the pilots take turns rotating through

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that position each day and you basically answer the phone the radio coordinate the flight schedule

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and anyways as a joke we're always doing stuff to keep things light because it's a pretty high

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stress job and you can easily let that overwhelm me if you don't laugh at it and Tom Fisty is an

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expert at keeping things light and making it fun he's kind of like Chris Pratt and Chris Farley all

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in one guy just awesome human being and and anyways he on the whiteboard behind the SDO desk he had

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put up basically a big picture of the working area the airspace that we were going to utilize

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that day over the Atlantic Ocean and for fun below it he had marked all the locations of these GPS

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tagged sharks off of the shark tracker app and just so happened that that day there was a 16 foot

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3500 pound white shark named Mary Lee directly underneath the area I was going to go out to

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and Tom joked hey it'd be a bad day to eject because there's this freaking white shark right

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under you at the time I had had the small mouth big ears was my primary tactic going into a

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fighter squadron as a new guy so I had been you know kept my head down I hadn't stuck out really

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and and that because of that I didn't earn a call sign yet you normally get a call sign because of

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something stupid you do or something that is embarrassing and right before the flight another

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one of the more senior junior officers in the squadron another pilot Basil had come up to me

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and he said hey you know you just haven't done anything stupid enough to earn a call sign yet

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they had another whiteboard in the squadron and all the new guys on it and and most of the other

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new guys had you know already earned a call sign or had a whole laundry listed call signs for

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potential or potential call signs give me some examples because in Top Gun everyone's just got

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very complimentary name Maverick Iceman so what a call sign that is

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Maverick Iceman so what a call sign that is actually how it works so so well Basil so

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he's gonna hate me for telling this story but he he his was Basil which was an acronym for

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Bang's a sister-in-law because he had allegedly had sexual relationships with his sister-in-law

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which is probably not true at all but it's stuck anyway yeah and then Fisty he had earned his

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because he had gone out on a flight one day a jet had just come out of maintenance and they needed

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somebody to just go fly the jet around and make sure everything was good on it and he basically

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just got to go out for a joyride in F-18 we have a moving map in the jet and it depicts some of the

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airspace and things on it but unfortunately those are oftentimes out of date and don't include all

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the restricted areas and things in them like the old garments that you had to update every time

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and so he went out on a flight and he was just having a good time flying right right where he

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thought was no issue and he ended up accidentally flying through a restricted area and there were a

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bunch of marines that were live firing a stinger missile which is a like a heat seeking shoulder

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mounted missile system intended to shoot down aircraft and they had test fired it like within

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seconds of him flying through this restricted area so he got Fisty because it was flu and

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distinger territory but yeah he almost got shot down by friendly marines by accident

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so here in that one and in a trip to the to the base skipper i love that in the fire service

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there's some of the best names just to give you one quickly we had a guy one of the nicest most

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chill fire captains i ever worked on his name was Joel but and we've just been exposed to acute sleep

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deprivation so you'll understand this at night time when we got the calls he turned he just just

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always super super angry so they called him by Jola that's great yeah yeah so it's it's

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normally something embarrassing or something you hate or something goofy about you but it's not

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normally very flattering anyways i got ready for the flight the buoy temperature that of the water

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that day in january we'd had a really cold winter and the water temperature that i was going to be

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operating over was 37 degrees fahrenheit so after the brief got on my dry suit along with the g suit

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and all the other normal gear we wear and walked out to the jet i had just gotten qualified with

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my jehemix helmet which is a joint helmet mounted queuing system it's this big bulgy visor but

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wherever you turn your head the the weapon systems in your display will all come with you and all

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your flight information a very cool system but i was still kind of getting used to this new piece

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of gear which became a factor in the flight that i'll get into anyways took off with my flight lead

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and we got out to the working area and did some air to air refueling another junior officer buddy

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call sign hipster was was flying the tanker jet that day this air ars refueling pod aerial refueling

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system had just come out of maintenance so they needed us to test and make sure that it was working

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properly so i got a few practice plugs that air to air refueling you basically extend a little probe

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out of the nose of the jet fly behind a basket and get fuel and and that all went great and so we had

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extra time and and airspace so me and my flight lead headed out and we we set up for some bfm

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which was awesome we did uh like four or five rounds of it which is kind of like a round of

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martial arts or wrestling or whatever you kind of fight until somebody has a clear clear win and

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you knock it off and you reset and uh being that i was fighting my commanding officer that day

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someone who had been a top gun graduate you know a master of the craft who'd been doing it for 15

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plus years you know he it was like stepping in the ring with mike tyson and he kicked my ass but

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that's that's how you learn to do that is is you get in over your head in the navy and and you

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figure it out uh anyways we had done several iterations and we were on our last set of the day

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uh we had hit joker fuel which means we were almost out of fuel for the day and we were

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kind of heading back towards oceania uh we set up for one last set a little bit lower and a little

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bit faster than we normally would uh no big deal though he called the fights on and we pitched in

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off of what's called the beam set i pitched the jet towards him we were kind of in a dive towards

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each other um and as we merged i was partially inverted i was getting used to this jahemmick's

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helmet and there's a bunch of hotas which is like the the controls you use on the stick and throttle

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to operate that system i was focused on that and trying to use the radar and get used to that and

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it distracted me just for a moment i didn't realize how fast i had gotten at that merge

258
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and i was already about 30 degrees nose low and partially inverted i opted to roll the jet fully

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inverted and pull the jet down towards the ocean in what's called a split s maneuver

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which is basically a big loop down towards the ocean and then come back up was my plan

261
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i would have been okay but as i hit bullseye nose low so pointed straight down at the ocean

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the aircraft hit a transonic mock which is right before you break the speed of sound

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and at that speed it enacted this feature of the f-18 called the g bucket it uh it basically the

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aircraft thought there were bombs on the wings that weren't actually there and because of that

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at that transonic region parasitic drag so the the force of the air acting on the aircraft when

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you're pulling g's gets really extreme at that point it's actually once you break the sound

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barrier that force actually decreases a little bit but that's back uh back when they were trying

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to initially break the sound barrier all the engineers thought you can't get through that

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that drag because it's like a wall the sound barrier you can't break through that which of

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course the pilots were like well watch us we're going to break through it anyways

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uh but that's basically where i was at with the aircraft and because of hitting that speed

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the aircraft reduced the g available to me on the jet so i went from a seven and a half g pull which

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you know you can feel on your body the jehemix helmet in my head together weighed approximately

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20 pounds so at almost eight times that it's like having a 150 pound person on your head

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and you can feel that through your body but especially in your head trying to look around and

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and keep sight of the other aircraft and so all of a sudden i you know i had the stick in my lap

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i'm blasting through the sky and all of a sudden i just felt that force lift off down to about four

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and a half g's and you know this all just happens in a few seconds and before i know it i'm just

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stuck in a dive at the ocean and uh you know i'm pulling the stick all the way in my lap but it was

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like going around a sharp corner in a sports car and then having the steering wheel kick back halfway

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but instead of skidding off the side of the road i was now stuck diving at the ocean so what would

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have been an acute curve became a lot longer curve so you never would have made that turn it

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drastically increased the turn radius of the jet uh and and you know the aircraft was trying to

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protect itself from a minor overstress potentially but the result was that the aircraft

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was trying to protect itself from a minor overstress potentially but the result of it

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outsmarting me was it put us in a catastrophic situation which in part was my fault for maneuvering

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the jet so aggressively but this g bucket has you know caused mishaps near mishaps and killed

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people prior to me and and unfortunately it is i know at least one guy who has died because of it

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but i'm diving at the ocean and i can sense the ground rush of the ocean coming up at me rapidly

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and there was no other option at that point to where i'd gotten i'd pulled the throttle to idle

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i'd put out a speed break but it was too little too late in the few seconds i had to figure out

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what was going on and i was at 51 degrees nose low going 695 miles per hour which is 0.95 indicated

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mach at 2000 feet above the ocean so essentially at the speed of sound and two seconds before

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impacting the ocean i pulled the ejection handle and a normal ejection is is pretty violent it

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compresses your spine you're sitting on a rocket on the seat and when that rocket ignites you get an

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instantaneous 50 g's of force which will permanently compress your spine and that eases up into about

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12 to 14 sustained g's which is still a very high g load to get you out of the aircraft in less than

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half a second when i pulled the ejection handle i was two seconds from impacting the water by the

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time the ejection seat cleared the aircraft i was about a second and a half from impacting the water

300
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and hitting the airflow at that speed was like hitting the force of an explosion

301
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if you've ever stuck your arm out a car window going about 70 miles per hour down the highway

302
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you felt about one one hundredth of the force that was acting on me at almost 700 miles per hour that

303
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that parasitic drag force is exponentially stronger with airspeed so

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you know it was so powerful just the force of the air it had ripped my helmet off my head

305
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pain in my right arm tore through my brachial artery causing a

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it smashed my head giving me a brain injury it had just pummeled my face i mean my face looked like

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i had just lost in the 15 rounds of boxing it was all black and blue my eyes were swollen

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i broke my neck i broke my left scapula in my shoulder broke both my upper arms

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internal bleeding my left forearm shattered in multiple places destroying the radius and ulna

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i severed my median nerve i had a brachial plexus injury which is the nerve that innovates most of

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your upper body coming out of your c5 and your spine both my lower legs were flailing so violently

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with steel-toed boots on them the steel-toed boots essentially became like a mace and smashed my lower

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legs open so i had both my lower tibia tibia tibia and fibulas were shattered open chunks of

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my bone were falling out with open fractures more nerve damage to my legs and i had ejected so fast

315
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that it had shredded majority of the survival gear off of my vest and it had also ripped open

316
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my dry suit and miraculously the parachute opened enough to slow me so that i didn't die on impact

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in that second and a half that i had to slow and landed in the open atlantic ocean at 37 degrees

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fahrenheit and if you ever felt that kind of cold water if you're into cold plunges you know that

319
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it's like needles on your skin if you put your head under it it feels like brain freeze quickly

320
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:45,600
my dry suit filled up with the ice water and the parachute that just saved my life was pulled under

321
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by the ocean currents and started to drag me underneath we have a system on our harness

322
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called the sewers which is a salt water activated explosive device and what that does is when it

323
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detects salt water it's supposed to set off a little explosive that disconnects your parachute

324
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from you automatically because in high-speed jet ejections it's so common for you to have arm

325
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injuries flail injuries that you can't reach up and disconnect manually you know unfortunately

326
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a lot of our gear is pretty antiquated one of one of the sewers fired but didn't disconnect and the

327
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other one didn't even fire off at all so i was trapped in my parachute with no ability to

328
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disconnect or swim fortunately my lpu my life preserver unit automatically inflated around

329
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my neck giving me a little bit of buoyancy but i spent the next hour and a half being drug under

330
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the ocean by that parachute and if you've ever been held under by a big wave when you need a

331
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breath of air you know that feeling of dread and and how awful is that i was inhaling a lot of salt

332
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water i was in and out of consciousness i coughed up i'd get up get a little bit of float up to the

333
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surface get a quick breath of air cough out what water i had and then i would immediately drug back

334
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under and i was completely helpless at the mercy of the ocean fortunately my uh my flight lead my

335
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:15,280
skipper saw my parachute open and he was able to drop a mark on my location a gps position

336
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he dialed up maritime guard when he spotted a fishing vessel that was about a mile from

337
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my position and tried to get their attention they weren't initially answering so he got down really

338
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low and really fast and at this point he's essentially on fumes at bingo fuel and buzzed

339
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over the bow of their boat getting their attention by doing what's called thumping them you know a

340
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fighter jet flying over your bow real close real fast they quickly realized something was going on

341
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they switched up and were able to get in communication with him on maritime guard

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they eventually got over to my position and were able to throw out a rope i was unable to grab it

343
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uh and it ended up getting tangled in lines and around my neck which uh was fortunate that they

344
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ended up not pulling me onto the ship under their boat as that trauma of just getting me out of the

345
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water would have likely killed me at that point um with what fuel my skipper had left he was able

346
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to coordinate as the on-scene commander with air traffic control get out of aircraft and they had

347
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two helicopters coming in my position as well as a coast guard vessel the first helicopter that

348
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arrived had been operating off of a nearby aircraft carrier they had been instructed to take me out of

349
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the water and bring me back to the aircraft carrier not realizing the extent of my injuries

350
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their rescue swimmer dove in and he thought i was on the fishing vessel still

351
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which i wasn't but at least the fishing vessel gave a rough location because i was just a little

352
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dark head bobbing around out in the open ocean and getting drug under so that the fishing vessel was

353
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at least a rough location of where i was at um another thing that had malfunctioned was the

354
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beacon so there was no beacon but again my skipper's quick thinking getting that fishing vessel over

355
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at least got my rough location for people but the first helicopter thought i was on the boat

356
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jumped in swam right by me and uh didn't find me which ended up again being a wild twist of fate

357
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because had they gotten me and brought me back to the aircraft carrier i would have died on the

358
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aircraft carrier because they didn't have the the ability to save me how bad i was and the other

359
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rescue helicopter was actually uh they're guys from hsc 28 which is a navy squadron out in norfolk

360
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they were gearing up to go do a weapons exercise with some of the seal teams uh and had gotten the

361
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call and so they quickly switched their mission the rescue swimmer that was with them uh call

362
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sign cheech the week prior there had been a navy h-53 c dragon one of these big heavy lift

363
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helicopters uh had a fire and had to ditch in the ocean nearby right where i was at that day

364
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the week prior and at the time the navy policy was anybody who's involved in an aircraft accident

365
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and the water has to be put on a backboard to be lifted into the aircraft and because of that it

366
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took them a long time to get everybody that had survived the crash onto the backboard and into

367
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the helicopter and unfortunately several of the people that day perished because of hypothermia

368
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cheech recognized that he was coming off the worst week of his career essentially after

369
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witnessing all these people die you know and he didn't get any time off he was back at it

370
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and he showed up to my rescue and in the back of his mind was you know this dude is gonna be

371
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hypothermic and i don't care about the backboard if he has a back injury that's unfortunate which

372
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i did but he's like if if we take all this time to put him on a backboard

373
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he's gonna die from hypothermia so screw it um the the pilot of their helicopter was the first

374
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one to actually spot my location in all the chaos of this rescue effort um they spotted

375
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they spotted me and got over to my position cheech jumped in and he said he got down to me and he

376
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was able to clip into my titanium d-ring on my harness and he said as soon as he clipped in that

377
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parachute pulled both of us underwater and he had done training in in the pools and been helped

378
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pulled under and he said you know in the pool you see the bottom of the pool but when we got

379
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drug under by that parachute that day he said it was just this dark blue abyss and tangled

380
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:39,040
paracord and parachute below us he said it was you know pretty pretty incredible to see pretty

381
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scary you know but his training kicked in he was able to get down and disconnect with his knife to

382
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cut me loose of all the paracord and quickly got me riding up the line to the helicopter you know

383
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:56,080
we were going up the line just spinning around like crazy getting blasted with prop wash from

384
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the h-60s uh helicopter got me into the helicopter uh one of the other crew members uh had started to

385
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:10,000
eat his lunch right before they had gotten the call and so he had this meatball sandwich and then

386
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:13,920
when they got the call he had to kind of like toss it back and what he had left of these shreds of

387
00:40:13,920 --> 00:40:19,120
the wrapper and threw it in the corner of the helicopter and by the time i had gotten up there

388
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:24,400
his meatball sub had kind of rolled all over the floor of the helicopter and so they they kind of

389
00:40:24,400 --> 00:40:30,560
had me in it and and i was covered in like marinara sauce and meatballs and uh you know on the

390
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:37,600
ride to the to norfolk general uh it was only like a 40-ish minute ride 45 minute ride but they said

391
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:43,120
it seemed like it lasted five hours because the whole time i was in and out of consciousness you

392
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:48,320
know so near death they they kept trying to resuscitate me doing sternum rubs everything

393
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:53,760
they could to get me to come back um by the time we got to norfolk general i was just covered in

394
00:40:53,760 --> 00:41:01,200
meatballs and marinara sauce so it looked like a bloody mess so as the the hospital staff came out

395
00:41:02,560 --> 00:41:06,880
they had to explain to him hey this is all meat he's in bad shape but that's all just meatballs

396
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:13,520
his wounds take delicious but you know at this point i'm i'm really out of it i'm like sitting

397
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:18,880
up occasionally screaming for help still just completely out of it uh they wheeled me in and

398
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:24,720
got me into treatment uh they took my core body temperature and my core body temperature was at

399
00:41:24,720 --> 00:41:31,600
87 degrees fahrenheit so i should have been dead from hypothermia but they said had i not had this

400
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:37,680
severe hypothermia i would have bled to death way before anybody got there so it was again another

401
00:41:37,680 --> 00:41:44,080
miraculous twist in it um they treated me for hypothermia i had kidney failure just my body was

402
00:41:44,080 --> 00:41:51,040
so overwhelmed processing all the the the damage to my muscles um i had to have blood transfusions

403
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:57,280
once they got me semi-stable they induced a coma and rushed me into surgery and i spent the next

404
00:41:57,280 --> 00:42:05,280
week undergoing over a dozen surgeries um they rebuilt my skeleton with uh these they call them

405
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:11,920
a titanium nail which is a rod that they put inside the bone uh they hold in place with screws so i

406
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:18,080
had titanium rods in both my upper arms a big steel plate with a bunch of screws in my left forearm

407
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:24,160
both my tibia uh were rebuilt with these titanium not uh rods or nails the surgeon called

408
00:42:24,160 --> 00:42:32,080
intermediate uh rods i think they call them something like that uh they treated me for

409
00:42:32,080 --> 00:42:38,080
compartment syndrome because of all the damage to the extremities uh the muscles were just so swollen

410
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:44,080
it cuts off the circulation and in just a few decades ago that would have resulted in me being

411
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:49,040
a quadriplegic uh best case scenario they would have just cut off all my extremities to save them

412
00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:55,040
fortunately they had the surgical dream team on that day at norfolk general and they were able to

413
00:42:55,040 --> 00:43:03,760
do limb salvages on all four of my uh my limbs uh with fasciotomies uh and save the limbs but uh by

414
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:12,560
doing that they had to open up these huge uh huge incisions on my arms and legs um after a week of

415
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:18,640
that you know i had a now i look my skeleton looks like freaking wolverine uh and a bunch of scars

416
00:43:18,640 --> 00:43:24,800
from all the surgeries they had to do a brachial artery bypass they they nearly amputated my right

417
00:43:24,800 --> 00:43:29,440
hand because of the artery while it was so damaged did they put a tourniquet on are they aware of

418
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:34,640
that or was it hidden i'm not sure if they put a tourniquet or not i think it i think they didn't

419
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:41,280
initially recognize that because it was internal but uh when they saw that the circulation was so

420
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:48,560
bad where they almost amputated luckily again they called in this uh this vascular surgeon that was

421
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:55,040
able to fix it last second but i was very close to losing that limb even despite the fasciotomies

422
00:43:55,040 --> 00:44:02,400
um after that week of surgeries uh you know at this point my family and squadron mates are at

423
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:07,120
the er just wondering if i'm going to live they were trying to get me out of the coma at that

424
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:12,080
point but i spent another week in a non-induced coma where it was just kind of up in the air

425
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:17,760
what was going to happen to me everybody in my squad a bunch of the guys in my squadron were

426
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:24,480
all sitting around waiting to hear you know some good news and uh basal said you know he's a

427
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:30,960
scrappy motherfucker he'll be fine and so that became my call sign smurf uh they had to can

428
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:36,400
sit condense it down into a makeshift acronym with the politically correct call sign that i'm smurf

429
00:44:36,400 --> 00:44:41,440
because i'm a short guy that turned blue from hypothermia but uh but the real reasons uh they

430
00:44:41,440 --> 00:44:47,120
called me a scrappy motherfucker my friends in college i was a kiteboard instructor and they

431
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:54,000
always called me scrappy and my friend matt i had put on when something bad happens uh when you join

432
00:44:54,000 --> 00:44:59,520
a squadron you fill out a this piece of paperwork and you put people that you want to have contacted

433
00:44:59,520 --> 00:45:05,440
if something bad were to happen and my friend matt who ran uh bronia kiteboarding uh was a good

434
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:10,880
friend of mine and so i had put his name on that letter that i thought nobody would ever have to

435
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:17,040
use so my skipper when everything happened had called him and told him what was going on and

436
00:45:17,040 --> 00:45:22,640
he's like scrappy are you talking about scrappy so that's how the squadron got word of my old

437
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:28,640
nickname scrappy and then it turned into scrappy motherfucker but anyways they were waiting for me

438
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:35,040
to come too and after two weeks slowly the lights started coming back on i remember everything was

439
00:45:35,040 --> 00:45:40,480
dark initially but i could hear familiar voices and when i came to it was like waking up out of

440
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:46,560
a dream i had no idea how i'd gotten there i recognized everybody but i was really out of it

441
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:53,520
between the trauma and the brain injury and the drugs they had me loaded up on i remembered the

442
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:58,000
the blanket over me it was just this little thin wool blanket i thought it was made out of lead

443
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:03,760
or something i couldn't budge it but it was because i was paralyzed all my extremities were

444
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:10,800
vacuum sealed in this plastic wrap to prevent its infection i had nearly 200 sutures and staples

445
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:18,480
in all of my open fasciotomy wounds i looked like frankenstein you know with all the all the scar

446
00:46:18,480 --> 00:46:26,080
or all the incisions and once you know my family had come in and given me hugs and and been so

447
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:31,040
they were so happy to see me that the medical staff came in and were we're kind of like hey

448
00:46:31,040 --> 00:46:36,400
you're just to give you realistic expectations you're you're proud you're never going to walk

449
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:42,320
again you're not going to use your arms again and your flying career is over and in the back of my

450
00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:46,800
mind i was just kind of like i'm going to prove you wrong you know and that became my driving

451
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:54,400
force is i'm going to get back and fly and uh after a couple weeks in the icu i was eventually

452
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:59,840
transferred down to richmond virginia's polytrauma center at the va hospital there in richmond

453
00:46:59,840 --> 00:47:09,680
virginia uh and every day most every just became uh doing therapy of every kind i had to do

454
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:17,280
vision therapy speech therapy occupational therapy physical therapy kinesia therapy aqua therapy

455
00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:24,000
recreational therapy all this stuff all day every day and for a long while you know i i could barely

456
00:47:24,000 --> 00:47:30,880
move i couldn't use my arms i couldn't use my legs but little by little keeping at it things started

457
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:36,880
turn back on uh you know the staff at the hospital there the va hospital was really incredible

458
00:47:36,880 --> 00:47:40,640
everybody that worked on that floor was there because they were passionate and really wanted

459
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:46,640
to be there and help um there were certainly some shortcomings of the va hospital the the biggest

460
00:47:46,640 --> 00:47:52,480
one i would say is the nutrition aspect you know they have all this equipment they have this this

461
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:58,080
sort of facade of the facility being very nice because it had just been renovated every room had

462
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:06,080
these big screen tvs in it fresh paint nice art uh and all this equipment but the most foundational

463
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:10,800
piece of your healing is the nutrition that you take in and unfortunately the food that they were

464
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:18,240
giving us uh for example my favorite one i jokingly called the holiday feast which was um

465
00:48:18,240 --> 00:48:26,160
um kind of like a thanksgiving dinner but it was the turkey was this sliced slimy deli meat that

466
00:48:26,160 --> 00:48:32,800
looked like it was near rancid that had come off the half off rack at the deli uh the mashed potatoes

467
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:37,200
were clearly from a box as there were still like dried chunks of powdery stuff in them

468
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:47,040
on top was this can shaped gelatinous brown uh disc of what was supposed to be the gravy but it

469
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:52,800
looked like it had just come out of a can of dog food and then on the side was a white generic

470
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:58,880
jelly packet that just said cranberry and you open it up and it was basically purple jello made out

471
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:06,400
of high fructose corn syrup and artificial color so you know your body wasn't getting

472
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:15,200
decent nutrition and i saw a lot of guys there not make progress despite all the therapy and

473
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:20,880
everything i was fortunate that i had friends and family start to bring me food from the outside so

474
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:27,120
i actually got some nutrition um but you know they're they're driving this food because it was

475
00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:32,080
probably the lowest bidder for the contract they're they're they're making the stuff all the way out

476
00:49:32,080 --> 00:49:37,040
on hampton roads like an hour and a half away putting it into metal boxes and then driving

477
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:43,520
it to richmond virginia so by the time it gets to you it's well one it's already very nutrient

478
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:48,880
lacking food but it's been reheated stuck in a hot box and it's like so it's like airplane food

479
00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:53,200
garbage bad airplane food bad airplane food yeah yeah actually our airplane food on this trip was

480
00:49:53,200 --> 00:50:02,960
way better and it wasn't great so that's a lot but after three months uh i had regained the ability

481
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:08,880
to get around on a walker and i was released into outpatient therapy i moved back to virginia beach

482
00:50:08,880 --> 00:50:17,120
and continued therapy um i had several more surgeries and i had at that point been put on

483
00:50:17,120 --> 00:50:23,040
a massive amount of pain pain medications i was on an over a dozen medications plus all the

484
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:29,360
medications the counter-effect the side effects of those medications and uh you know i was in a

485
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:34,720
pretty bad spot but the guys in my squadron my buddy fisty from the squadron my buddy vinnie

486
00:50:34,720 --> 00:50:40,000
uh and guys from the squadron and the strike fighter community kind of kept me at it that you

487
00:50:40,000 --> 00:50:44,960
know they were taking me out taking me out to chick's oyster bar going out and having drinks we

488
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:50,720
they had me out wake surfing and they got me out doing things again otherwise i would have probably

489
00:50:51,360 --> 00:50:56,160
you know just been down in oxycodone and whiskey and melted into a chair for the rest of my life

490
00:50:56,160 --> 00:51:00,720
but well just to interject for a second you're told that you'll never walk again use your arms

491
00:51:00,720 --> 00:51:06,560
use your arms etc now you're talking about wake surfing so walk me through before we get past that

492
00:51:06,560 --> 00:51:10,960
the journey from that incredibly inspiring speech you got for the medical stuff to

493
00:51:11,840 --> 00:51:17,360
to how you were able to stand up behind a boat yeah i mean i i just little by little i had kept

494
00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:22,320
pushing myself uh especially getting out wake surfing you know i could barely walk onto the

495
00:51:22,320 --> 00:51:28,160
boat but they got me back behind the boat and and i got standing up on the surfboard and

496
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:33,760
and it was just like all these little things were reinvigorating my soul and getting me back at it

497
00:51:33,760 --> 00:51:40,720
and it was very slow um a few of my buddies took me down to the outer banks uh i could barely put

498
00:51:40,720 --> 00:51:46,640
on my wetsuit because my arms were still so weak and we went out into this pretty heavy like 10 to

499
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:54,240
12 foot swell and i just got annihilated by these waves but i popped back up and i had a smile on

500
00:51:54,240 --> 00:52:01,440
my face and it was just it was that sort of thing that really kept me going my friends uh my buddy

501
00:52:01,440 --> 00:52:08,960
erin callsign spicoli he he took me uh to bryce which is a a downhill mountain bike park

502
00:52:08,960 --> 00:52:14,640
a few hours from virginia beach and took me out downhill mountain biking i i had done some trail

503
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:19,280
riding before but i'd never done the downhill stuff but you know i had all the armor and

504
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:24,320
everything on and a full face helmet and i'm out there my my left hand was so weak at this point

505
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:30,960
i could barely still use the the front brake and but i miraculously made it down you know without

506
00:52:30,960 --> 00:52:37,200
dying now what about the war just to go back for a second you had a pretty traumatic event in the

507
00:52:37,200 --> 00:52:43,440
ocean was there a mental kind of journey getting back into the ocean to or back into the water

508
00:52:43,440 --> 00:52:49,760
to get behind the boat you know i i thought that there might be problems being held under by that

509
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:56,960
wave but i was it did the opposite it wasn't terror it was like it reinvigorated me and it made me

510
00:52:56,960 --> 00:53:04,160
excited to get back on the horse and face those demons and and uh yeah when we initially were

511
00:53:04,160 --> 00:53:07,920
going down there i was like i don't know how this is going to go being if i get held under by a wave

512
00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:14,320
but then it happened and it was like oh i'm fine i can survive that i survived all that other

513
00:53:15,040 --> 00:53:23,120
craziness this is nothing now uh so it really it really helped inspire me a lot actually refacing

514
00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:31,920
those fears um after two years uh of pretty intense rehabilitation my actually one of the

515
00:53:31,920 --> 00:53:36,960
guys in my squadron smuggler his wife amanda was a physical therapist she took me under her wing

516
00:53:36,960 --> 00:53:43,120
uh outside of the clinical setting uh and the first day she showed up with an algin bottle and on the

517
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:49,200
side of it it said patients tears uh so she had you know this dark sense of humor and she proceeded

518
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:55,760
to kick my ass uh when i first started working with her i was still walking on a cane and uh she

519
00:53:55,760 --> 00:53:59,920
kind of snatched it away from me and i tossed it and it's like i never want to see you use that again

520
00:54:00,400 --> 00:54:05,760
but uh she proceeded to kick my ass you know in more of like a crossfit style workout and

521
00:54:05,760 --> 00:54:11,280
workout and um really intense training which i really liked because i was into that kind of

522
00:54:12,320 --> 00:54:19,200
stuff before and so despite you know having a fraction of the ability that i did before

523
00:54:19,200 --> 00:54:27,200
it helped uh just trying to do it um after two years i had gone through a fienab which is a

524
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:35,200
field naval aviator evaluation board i had crashed uh in 2014 it would have been 89 million dollar jet

525
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:41,440
adjusted for inflation today that's about 106 million dollars and so there was uh you know a

526
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:46,240
lot of questions to be answered about that and i went through a full investigation uh at the end

527
00:54:46,240 --> 00:54:53,440
of the investigation uh i eventually went in to see an admiral uh and had to get in my dress whites

528
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:58,640
and stand at the end of this big long wooden table with aviators on either side of it um

529
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:04,800
um and i explained my side of what had happened and you know i largely took fault for what had happened

530
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:12,160
i had made a mistake i had overly aggressively maneuvered this aircraft and and

531
00:55:13,200 --> 00:55:20,720
largely took it upon myself for what happened uh and the admiral walked in and everybody

532
00:55:20,720 --> 00:55:25,600
rose at the table as he sat and told us all to sit down and he looked across the table at me

533
00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:30,720
and the only question he asked me is he said lieutenant gil are you fearless and i kind of

534
00:55:30,720 --> 00:55:36,480
thought for a moment and and responded and i don't know if it was what came over me but the answer

535
00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:43,840
that came out is uh i don't remember some of the things from the ejection but i'm certain

536
00:55:43,840 --> 00:55:48,240
what little cushion there is on an ejection seat was puckered up inside me real good

537
00:55:48,240 --> 00:55:56,480
real good and he didn't smile he just stood up and left the room and i was thinking oh god that

538
00:55:56,480 --> 00:56:04,160
didn't go very well but uh eventually another one of the the higher ranking officers there pulled

539
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:11,280
me into his room and sat me down and he handed me a lifesaver a little mint and i put it in my mouth

540
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:15,840
and he put one in his mouth and he said congratulations you're gonna go back and fly

541
00:56:15,840 --> 00:56:23,360
and shook my hand so um i'd gotten the opportunity to go back to fly assuming i could

542
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:27,520
physically get better and at this point i was still pretty bad shape physically

543
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:33,600
but it gave me a huge amount of motivation and after two years after struggling with

544
00:56:33,600 --> 00:56:37,840
prescription drug addiction i weaned myself off of all the medications they had me on

545
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:46,480
uh including oxycodone oxycontin amitriptyline tramadol trazodone and massive doses of neratin

546
00:56:46,480 --> 00:56:52,480
or gabapentin which was supposed to be a safer non-addictive alternative pain medication but

547
00:56:52,480 --> 00:56:59,600
that one actually ended up being the most difficult for me to get off of uh and again against the

548
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:04,000
advice of all the pain management clinic and the doctors they wanted me to just stay on all that

549
00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:09,280
stuff and i went against their advice and slowly weaned myself off it which was miserable

550
00:57:10,000 --> 00:57:15,920
i continued to do pt and little by little i got back a lot of my physical abilities and after two

551
00:57:15,920 --> 00:57:21,920
years i could max out the navy's physical fitness test again and i was crushing it and i felt good

552
00:57:21,920 --> 00:57:27,280
again and the commodore where i was stationed through my recovery at the strike fighter wing

553
00:57:27,280 --> 00:57:33,120
on oceania he saw me and he just couldn't believe that i was doing this again i was literally running

554
00:57:33,120 --> 00:57:39,040
circles around the majority of the command at command pt uh and so before i knew it i got in

555
00:57:39,040 --> 00:57:45,280
i got a date to class back up for retraining in the f-18 and i went back through retraining

556
00:57:45,280 --> 00:57:50,640
and i had an immense amount of support from the instructors there like they were ecstatic to see

557
00:57:50,640 --> 00:57:55,680
me come back from that and the strike fighter community really welcomed me with open arms

558
00:57:55,680 --> 00:58:03,360
and i had been back flying uh i did a i did the refresher training syllabus in the f-18

559
00:58:03,360 --> 00:58:10,560
went really well and uh ended up graduating at the top of my class and getting the top stick award

560
00:58:10,560 --> 00:58:14,720
granted i had you know already done it so it was kind of like cheating but but you had also been

561
00:58:14,720 --> 00:58:20,800
smashed to pieces yeah so but i was i was stoked to be back i ended up getting stationed with vfa

562
00:58:20,800 --> 00:58:27,920
136 the night hawks out of uh nas lamor in california is that previously the the pooping cats

563
00:58:29,280 --> 00:58:36,000
they were the night hawks uh so not nearly as controversial of a name but uh uh still flying

564
00:58:36,000 --> 00:58:44,240
f-18 echoes super hornets again and uh it started off good i felt solid and uh

565
00:58:44,240 --> 00:58:52,160
uh you know i was back and we were out on a detachment at uh what's called in wessup which

566
00:58:52,160 --> 00:58:58,000
is a weapons exercise down in tindall air force base run by the air force and i got to go out and

567
00:58:58,000 --> 00:59:07,360
do a live fire exercise with an aim 9 mike sidewinder heat seeking missile and uh went out

568
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:14,160
shot the missile at a drone and uh after i i did that i i joined up with an f-22 raptor there were

569
00:59:14,160 --> 00:59:20,080
some guys there from the hawaiian raptor squadron uh based out of a wahoo which is probably got to

570
00:59:20,080 --> 00:59:26,720
be the the best flying gig ever flying raptors out of a wahoo uh anyways uh after i did the

571
00:59:26,720 --> 00:59:33,040
missile shoot i got to join up with the raptor another junior officer you know so two young guys

572
00:59:33,040 --> 00:59:39,120
in their 20s out flying fighter jets uh with each other was pretty rad and i remember you know seeing

573
00:59:39,120 --> 00:59:44,400
that aircraft maneuver and you know it's got directional thrust on it and it just moves like

574
00:59:44,400 --> 00:59:50,720
a spaceship came back from the flight and i was watching my tapes for the missile shoot portion

575
00:59:50,720 --> 00:59:56,240
and i realized i didn't remember a majority of what happened with the missile shoot i remember the

576
00:59:56,960 --> 01:00:02,960
fighting the raptor but i was pretty concerned with not being able to remember so much of firing

577
01:00:02,960 --> 01:00:11,040
a real missile uh so i went back that night to the hotel and i was having trouble sleeping and i

578
01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:17,120
didn't really feel that great um the next day fortunately i was just on duty so i was running

579
01:00:17,120 --> 01:00:23,280
the radios and coordinating the flight schedule and the further the day went on i just got feeling

580
01:00:23,280 --> 01:00:29,360
worse and worse and worse and just kind of toughed it out went back to the hotel that night could not

581
01:00:29,360 --> 01:00:35,760
sleep i i sat down on the end of the bed and it felt like the room was tumbling around me i got

582
01:00:35,760 --> 01:00:42,000
really bad vertigo and i started just feeling extremely anxious and in the back of my mind i

583
01:00:42,000 --> 01:00:48,160
thought this could be decompression sickness there was uh for a long while we had some issues with

584
01:00:48,160 --> 01:00:54,640
the pressurization system on the hornets and super hornets malfunctioning uh and it would cause rapid

585
01:00:54,640 --> 01:01:00,880
and rapid cabin fluctuations uh pressure the pressure would rapidly fluctuate and if you're

586
01:01:00,880 --> 01:01:05,040
a scuba diver you're familiar with decompression sickness when you come back up from the depths of

587
01:01:05,040 --> 01:01:10,640
the ocean too quickly the nitrogen in your blood can can basically come out of solution and cause

588
01:01:10,640 --> 01:01:16,960
these little bubbles and if you get it in your joints type 1 dcs it's very painful but if you

589
01:01:16,960 --> 01:01:21,200
get those little bubbles forming in your brain that's called type 2 decompression sickness and

590
01:01:21,200 --> 01:01:26,320
it can give you all sorts of mental impairments it can be like having an aneurysm it can even kill you

591
01:01:28,000 --> 01:01:33,040
so that was the first thing that came to mind maybe i have decompression sickness so i contacted the

592
01:01:33,040 --> 01:01:38,640
squadron safety officer squeezer and very quickly they got me to mayport dive base which was about

593
01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:44,640
20 minutes from where we were staying uh they put me in a hyperbaric chamber overnight at the dive

594
01:01:44,640 --> 01:01:51,600
center there um and i felt a little bit better the next day but i was certainly still out of it and

595
01:01:52,560 --> 01:01:59,040
the the the wise doc there said hey you know maybe this was decompression sickness but considering

596
01:01:59,040 --> 01:02:04,400
your medical history we really need you to go in and see medical when you get back to lamor

597
01:02:04,400 --> 01:02:08,800
which was the last thing i wanted to have to do after going through the process of getting all

598
01:02:08,800 --> 01:02:14,000
these medical waivers and and all the the fighting and battle and struggle i had to get back in the

599
01:02:14,000 --> 01:02:18,000
jet but i didn't want to injure somebody and i knew something was seriously wrong

600
01:02:19,680 --> 01:02:25,760
i continued to have a real trouble concentrating my memory was was not working the way it normally

601
01:02:25,760 --> 01:02:32,240
did and i started to have really bad insomnia which was leading to paranoia and hypervigilance

602
01:02:32,240 --> 01:02:37,840
where i was just constantly on guard and i started to feel like i was maybe in the truman show where

603
01:02:37,840 --> 01:02:42,000
everybody was watching me and recording me and this wasn't real life and everybody was actors

604
01:02:42,000 --> 01:02:47,280
um anyways that led me to go see the psychology department and before i knew i had to go see a

605
01:02:47,280 --> 01:02:54,720
psychiatrist and they largely focused on the psychological component of it retrospectively

606
01:02:55,760 --> 01:03:02,000
i was having very uh very obvious symptoms of traumatic brain injury i was gonna say i mean you

607
01:03:02,000 --> 01:03:06,800
the the force that you hit out that would be a pretty you know giant red flag as well so it was

608
01:03:06,800 --> 01:03:12,480
either you know this the residual effects of an unresolved brain injury from the ejection

609
01:03:13,120 --> 01:03:18,080
or because of the brain injury that causes from dcs from getting those bubbles in your brain can

610
01:03:18,080 --> 01:03:24,880
cause essentially a tbi or maybe a combination of those it's it's unclear for sure which but

611
01:03:25,920 --> 01:03:32,400
um you know hindsight being 2020 i can i can i'm not judging the medical staff that worked on me

612
01:03:32,400 --> 01:03:39,200
or the psychiatrist but the approach they took was largely pharmaceutical based and focused on my

613
01:03:39,200 --> 01:03:43,280
behavior and the fact that my behavior had changed and that i was getting depressed

614
01:03:43,280 --> 01:03:51,520
and that i was having these problems with insomnia and and mood issues and anyways before i knew it

615
01:03:51,520 --> 01:03:56,880
they had me on a bunch of prescription drugs again uh including eventually it progressed to the point

616
01:03:56,880 --> 01:04:03,440
they put me on one called seroquel or quetiapine which is an anti-psychotic medication that can be

617
01:04:03,440 --> 01:04:10,800
used in low dosage to it to help with insomnia and it did help with the insomnia initial initially

618
01:04:10,800 --> 01:04:16,720
you know it would knock me out made me just feel very drained all the time though well you also

619
01:04:16,720 --> 01:04:21,360
you're not sleeping you're unconscious yeah very different i was not getting restful sleep and

620
01:04:21,360 --> 01:04:26,880
in meanwhile the underlying brain injury was being on it was unresolved and and it was actually

621
01:04:26,880 --> 01:04:32,640
exacerbating the brain injury and little by little uh it got to the point where i was going in and

622
01:04:32,640 --> 01:04:39,840
out of psychoses um i was fully disconnected from reality one minute i thought i was a superhero or

623
01:04:39,840 --> 01:04:45,200
a secret agent or in the next minute i thought i was in the depths of hell i mean it got really

624
01:04:45,200 --> 01:04:51,600
weird um fortunately i eventually uh made it through a medical board which uh was a nightmare

625
01:04:51,600 --> 01:04:58,080
in itself uh it's it took almost two years to go through the medical board process and the whole

626
01:04:58,080 --> 01:05:03,520
way through you kind of get treated like uh your injuries are fake and that you're lying about it

627
01:05:03,520 --> 01:05:10,320
and uh it's i kind of jokingly call it's like the uh the bureaucratic version of the temple of doom

628
01:05:10,320 --> 01:05:16,480
you know it's riddled with these booby traps to to to derail you from the process and and kick you

629
01:05:16,480 --> 01:05:21,360
out of the military without any benefit but fortunately with the support of my command and

630
01:05:21,360 --> 01:05:28,240
the medical staff my wife i eventually got through that i actually had to go appeal my case down in

631
01:05:28,240 --> 01:05:34,560
washington dc stand in front of these three military members and explain my case firsthand

632
01:05:34,560 --> 01:05:38,640
because the whole thing had gotten screwed up to where they weren't going to give me the

633
01:05:38,640 --> 01:05:45,120
up to where they weren't going to give me any medical retirement but uh fortunately i one of

634
01:05:45,120 --> 01:05:50,400
the guys on the board saw what had happened and he you know kind of cut off the other two guys that

635
01:05:50,400 --> 01:05:55,280
were debating you know if blah blah blah are you just trying to get out so you can go fly for the

636
01:05:55,280 --> 01:05:59,360
airlines like they didn't even they hadn't even read my case they hadn't looked at my records

637
01:05:59,360 --> 01:06:03,760
or anything they just deliberately like nosedive into the ocean just so you could one day yeah

638
01:06:03,760 --> 01:06:10,560
yeah right exactly that was my dream to go drive a school bus we know your game uh but fortunately

639
01:06:10,560 --> 01:06:16,240
one of the guys there he was a marine colonel and he stood up or lieutenant colonel maybe he stood

640
01:06:16,240 --> 01:06:22,240
up and he's like listen you you experienced devastating injuries you served your country

641
01:06:22,240 --> 01:06:26,800
and now your country's going to take care of you thank you for your service and they uh they gave

642
01:06:26,800 --> 01:06:31,760
me a medical retirement out of the military but a lot of guys get in that situation they don't get

643
01:06:31,760 --> 01:06:36,960
that and now they're homeless living under a bridge in washington dc or wherever and feeling

644
01:06:36,960 --> 01:06:41,680
betrayed by the very tribe they're a part of and unfortunately it's extremely common with guys with

645
01:06:41,680 --> 01:06:47,680
very legitimate injuries and guys that did a lot more than i did in the military war heroes with

646
01:06:47,680 --> 01:06:56,560
multiple purple hearts decorated heroes that are now homeless struggling drug addicted thrown out

647
01:06:56,560 --> 01:07:02,800
on the streets losing the medical care addicted to all sorts of crap and their result is they

648
01:07:02,800 --> 01:07:10,560
typically get street drugs and crushes their life suicide i was fortunate to again get that lifeline

649
01:07:10,560 --> 01:07:14,880
i moved back to northern michigan with my wife and at this point i had a newborn son

650
01:07:16,240 --> 01:07:24,240
i struggled very badly with suicide one night you know i felt my life had just collapsed and that

651
01:07:24,240 --> 01:07:32,240
i was a failure and i kept a glock 19 in my my end table of my by the bed and i got the glock out

652
01:07:32,240 --> 01:07:36,960
and i was wondering what the barrel was going to taste like in my mouth feel like on my teeth what

653
01:07:36,960 --> 01:07:43,200
the the gun oil was going to taste like in my mouth and i looked over and i saw my little boy

654
01:07:43,200 --> 01:07:48,800
and my wife sleeping beside me and the only thing that kept me from putting the pistol in my mouth

655
01:07:48,800 --> 01:07:54,800
is i didn't want them to wake up and i put the pistol back away and i went to bed um

656
01:07:56,880 --> 01:08:02,640
not long after that i had continued my treatment with quetiapine through the va hospital

657
01:08:03,280 --> 01:08:08,880
and the psychiatrist had just continued to up my dose and i had gone from 50 milligrams a night to

658
01:08:08,880 --> 01:08:16,160
300 milligrams a night eventually and then at this point he recommended i try 450 milligrams per night

659
01:08:16,160 --> 01:08:24,320
and when i up my dose to 450 milligrams per night within a few days my wife heard me rustling around

660
01:08:25,120 --> 01:08:31,440
she came in to find me i had for some reason shaved off my hair in chunks with some clippers

661
01:08:31,760 --> 01:08:37,760
i'd shaved off my eyebrows i had shaved off what facial hair i had at that point and i had nothing

662
01:08:37,760 --> 01:08:44,000
i was completely naked except i had a plastic black garbage bag tied around my neck like a cape

663
01:08:44,000 --> 01:08:49,600
and i thought i was going to go out into the northern michigan cold snowy weather and fight

664
01:08:49,600 --> 01:08:56,320
crime like a superhero. You start beating up raccoons. So my wife uh you know she called the va

665
01:08:56,320 --> 01:09:00,000
the va said hey we're hanging up and we're calling the police there's going to be an uh

666
01:09:00,880 --> 01:09:07,360
a squad car arriving there soon and the the police car showed up this sort of dazed and confused

667
01:09:07,360 --> 01:09:13,360
looking uh law enforcement officer got out of the vehicle and my wife's like there's no way in hell

668
01:09:13,360 --> 01:09:19,440
you're going to put my my husband in the back of a police car in his current state and so she loaded

669
01:09:19,440 --> 01:09:27,360
up our little boy and my mom was fortunately visiting at that point and so she came with us

670
01:09:27,920 --> 01:09:32,240
as we were getting ready my my wife was an ER nurse so she kind of knew how this was going to go

671
01:09:32,240 --> 01:09:38,560
she's and she said before you go um and i you know i'm pretty out of it really out of it i mean i was

672
01:09:38,560 --> 01:09:44,240
a moments ago i thought i was a superhero uh but she got me dressed in clothes uh that were acceptable

673
01:09:46,480 --> 01:09:50,560
and she told me to take the shoelaces out of my shoes because they were going to take them anyways

674
01:09:51,280 --> 01:09:55,840
and as she was getting ready and scrambling to put together a bag my little boy had come out to me

675
01:09:55,840 --> 01:10:02,000
where i was taking the shoelaces off and for some reason i had tied one of the shoelaces into a noose

676
01:10:02,000 --> 01:10:07,360
and i put it around my son's neck and when my wife came out i had this noose around my little

677
01:10:07,360 --> 01:10:13,520
boy's neck and in in my mind i was trying to show her that i was just i would never hurt our son

678
01:10:14,400 --> 01:10:20,320
but as a mother seeing that i mean i can't imagine how concerning that would be

679
01:10:21,680 --> 01:10:26,960
anyway she compartmentalized that loaded me into the car and on our way to the hospital which was

680
01:10:26,960 --> 01:10:34,080
about an hour drive i had intense hallucinations that a nuclear explosion had gone off behind us

681
01:10:34,080 --> 01:10:39,920
as i looked into the rear view mirror i saw this mushroom cloud there were you know trees and

682
01:10:39,920 --> 01:10:46,880
vehicles and and animals flying through the sky from the blast uh it was stormy and

683
01:10:48,000 --> 01:10:53,120
it was a wild ride to the hospital all in my imagination you know but they got me to the

684
01:10:53,120 --> 01:10:59,280
hospital as i got out um i decided it was a good idea to pee in one of the bushes in the lobby

685
01:10:59,280 --> 01:11:06,080
and the security guard came out and saw me peeing in this bush and was not so impressed

686
01:11:06,640 --> 01:11:12,960
uh he was about to take me to jail and fortunately uh my wife and my mom talked him down and explained

687
01:11:12,960 --> 01:11:19,440
the situation he was kind of like well i've seen worse and and almost proceeded to arrest me

688
01:11:20,000 --> 01:11:25,360
but fortunately with the tenacity of my wife and my mom standing up for me got me into the er and

689
01:11:25,360 --> 01:11:33,680
admitted um i then spent two nights in the er and had an out-of-body experience uh from the intense

690
01:11:33,680 --> 01:11:41,280
hallucination i was in i had left my body and i had traveled through time and space and and

691
01:11:42,240 --> 01:11:49,280
and just had a wild experience while in there my mom came in to visit me and she said i was sitting

692
01:11:49,280 --> 01:11:54,320
in the chair with the remote control for the little tv in the room and the tv was on nothing

693
01:11:54,320 --> 01:12:01,280
but just static just going and i had the remote and as i clicked it i looked over her with my

694
01:12:01,280 --> 01:12:06,240
with like an eerie grin and i was speaking in this very fast-paced tocado speech which

695
01:12:06,240 --> 01:12:10,320
i almost didn't even sound like the same person but i just kept saying do you see that do you see

696
01:12:10,320 --> 01:12:15,280
that do you see that do you see that do you see that and in my mind as i clicked the remote

697
01:12:15,280 --> 01:12:20,960
i was able to go either forward in time or back in time so as i clicked back i could see back to

698
01:12:20,960 --> 01:12:26,640
the age of the dinosaurs and as i clicked forward i went into this apocalyptic world where jeff

699
01:12:26,640 --> 01:12:31,120
bezos had basically taken over the world everybody was addicted to his stuff there was garbage

700
01:12:31,120 --> 01:12:36,240
everywhere and everybody was completely out of their minds from pharmaceutical drugs and the

701
01:12:36,240 --> 01:12:42,880
and the uh the toxic environment that we had created anyways it was uh in my mind it was wild

702
01:12:42,880 --> 01:12:49,280
but again for my mom to see it from the outside her once thriving son was now completely out of his

703
01:12:49,280 --> 01:12:55,440
completely out of his mind once semi-stable they put me into an ambulance and they drove me down

704
01:12:55,440 --> 01:13:02,400
to battle creek michigan where i spent a while living in a va inpatient psych facility which was

705
01:13:02,400 --> 01:13:10,880
a an absolute nightmare in itself you're largely treated like a prisoner there your the primary

706
01:13:10,880 --> 01:13:20,160
tool there is more pharmaceutical drugs again the food was abysmal no nutritional value uh you're

707
01:13:20,160 --> 01:13:25,040
constantly sleep deprived because they wake you up every 15 minutes with a flashlight in your face to

708
01:13:25,040 --> 01:13:32,400
make sure you're okay um and the combination of being confined harassed throughout the night

709
01:13:33,040 --> 01:13:40,000
the the mandatory drugs lack of nutrition uh you're lucky to go outside maybe once or twice a week

710
01:13:40,000 --> 01:13:44,960
into a concrete yard between the buildings that's surrounded by fences and concrete walls

711
01:13:45,680 --> 01:13:52,800
um you know if you took a an elite military member and and you can find them in those

712
01:13:52,800 --> 01:13:56,640
situations like if they had gone to seer school or something it was almost like the

713
01:13:57,280 --> 01:14:03,120
the same conditions that you would provide if you had an enemy combatant that you were trying to

714
01:14:03,120 --> 01:14:09,120
break well that's that's how you create more mental illness sleep deprivation loss of autonomy

715
01:14:09,120 --> 01:14:15,920
you know poor nutrition it was everything that you could do to exacerbate mental health seemed

716
01:14:15,920 --> 01:14:22,000
to be going on there and the only remedy was pharmaceutical drugs it was all to drive you

717
01:14:22,000 --> 01:14:29,200
into taking more of these drugs and i was very frustrated to the point that uh i planned an

718
01:14:29,200 --> 01:14:36,480
escape when they wouldn't let me out um i pulled the fire uh the the fire alarm one night to try

719
01:14:36,480 --> 01:14:40,400
to think and they would take us outside but apparently somebody had already tried that trick

720
01:14:41,120 --> 01:14:48,640
and because i had tried to do that they um forced me with an injection of held all which is uh

721
01:14:48,640 --> 01:14:54,960
basically to supposedly help you come out of a psychotic state but what i experienced on the

722
01:14:54,960 --> 01:15:00,560
held all was it felt like there were insects underneath my skin trying to crawl through my

723
01:15:00,560 --> 01:15:07,120
skin and rip off all i wanted to do was rip my skin off uh it made me extremely restless it was

724
01:15:07,120 --> 01:15:11,280
like no matter what i did all i wanted to do was run up and down the hallways and scream

725
01:15:12,000 --> 01:15:20,000
um and that in itself was you know felt like torture um eventually they had me in this

726
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:26,800
just drug-induced state where i was just drooling on myself um despite being voluntarily admitted

727
01:15:26,800 --> 01:15:32,960
they ended up committing me because of the condition i had gotten into um while i was

728
01:15:32,960 --> 01:15:38,480
basically drooling on myself this soulless lawyer came into the room and she had me sign this

729
01:15:38,480 --> 01:15:47,520
paperwork uh that ended up making me considered legally uh mentally defective uh i spent a while

730
01:15:47,520 --> 01:15:53,360
longer in there before my family eventually got me out you know my mom's a physician my dad worked

731
01:15:53,360 --> 01:15:59,760
in medical world my my wife was an er trauma nurse and with their support and advocacy they said hey

732
01:15:59,760 --> 01:16:04,320
we'll take him home and we'll take care of him he doesn't need to be here and they really fought

733
01:16:04,320 --> 01:16:11,600
them on doing that but they eventually got me out and back home where i spent time uh with my son

734
01:16:12,320 --> 01:16:18,000
outside eating good food getting some exercise and it took about six more months for me to

735
01:16:18,000 --> 01:16:24,800
to start to come out of that psychosis um but when i had come out i realized that i had been

736
01:16:24,800 --> 01:16:32,480
declared mentally legally defective which meant uh anytime i get pulled over i am uh basically on the

737
01:16:33,360 --> 01:16:39,040
the law enforcement network the lean network that shows that uh essentially like i had committed a

738
01:16:39,040 --> 01:16:46,720
felony yeah i can't legally purchase firearms anymore uh so i went as an american veteran to

739
01:16:46,720 --> 01:16:53,280
try to get mental health and instead uh had all that happen and had my constitutional rights to

740
01:16:53,280 --> 01:17:00,320
bear arms stripped from me um anyways i spent years after that struggling with mental health

741
01:17:01,280 --> 01:17:08,800
and again the answer was always more drugs and i continued to get very sick of that approach

742
01:17:08,800 --> 01:17:13,120
and and i had gotten to the point where i could barely read i could barely do the dishes

743
01:17:13,120 --> 01:17:19,360
um all of my emotions were cut off and all i was was just this empty shell and i had found myself

744
01:17:19,920 --> 01:17:25,040
you know yelling at my little boy over nothing and i was i was miserable to be around and we were

745
01:17:25,040 --> 01:17:33,040
basically on the verge of being divorced and then i struggled my way through a few books on health

746
01:17:33,040 --> 01:17:40,960
including uh i read rich roll's book uh finding ultra where he went from you know struggling with

747
01:17:40,960 --> 01:17:46,640
you know struggling with alcohol in the corporate world and and obese and and out of shape but

748
01:17:46,640 --> 01:17:51,120
through a plant-based diet was able to get back into shape and do these ultra marathons

749
01:17:51,920 --> 01:17:58,000
i had read michael pullen's um in defense of food and realize how broken our food system is

750
01:17:58,960 --> 01:18:05,040
i largely went plant-based i was also a hunter so i eat a lot of venison from uh from deer in the

751
01:18:05,040 --> 01:18:10,880
area but that change a big change in my diet getting rid of all the crap started to help and

752
01:18:10,880 --> 01:18:17,280
then i read michael pullen's how to change your mind and again these books i struggled through

753
01:18:17,280 --> 01:18:22,400
because i could you know i could only do about a paragraph at a time uh but i got through them

754
01:18:22,400 --> 01:18:30,960
eventually and that led me to uh contact vet solutions yeah and and i reached out to them and

755
01:18:30,960 --> 01:18:36,880
i i you know i told them my story in their program you know that their situation is kind of like

756
01:18:36,880 --> 01:18:40,720
shindler's list you know they're trying to help as many people as they can but they only have so many

757
01:18:40,720 --> 01:18:46,080
resources and not being of the special operations community i didn't have two combat deployments

758
01:18:46,720 --> 01:18:50,080
they weren't able to take me into their program but they put me in contact with

759
01:18:50,880 --> 01:18:59,360
warrior angel foundation which is run by um andrew and adam mar uh andrew is a former green beret

760
01:18:59,360 --> 01:19:04,800
that went through some very similar struggles and his brother adam is a former army attack helicopter

761
01:19:04,800 --> 01:19:16,160
pilot and uh they working with dr mark gordon uh helped to get veterans on a nutraceutical protocol

762
01:19:16,160 --> 01:19:22,880
to help regenerate brains that have been damaged through tbi more holistically and they were doing

763
01:19:22,880 --> 01:19:28,560
an event called the four by four by 48 challenge which was based off of david goggans uh run four

764
01:19:28,560 --> 01:19:35,280
miles every four hours for 48 hours straight i saw that they were doing a fundraiser so i put together

765
01:19:35,280 --> 01:19:42,480
a fundraiser page uh telling a little bit about my story and my struggles and uh it ended up very

766
01:19:42,480 --> 01:19:47,440
quickly raising a bunch of money for their their cause and before i knew adam had called me up on

767
01:19:47,440 --> 01:19:52,240
the phone and said hey you want to come down to texas we'll fly you down for the event and and you

768
01:19:52,240 --> 01:20:01,840
know at this point uh i i had uh i had done one psilocybin retreat that uh that had allowed me to

769
01:20:01,840 --> 01:20:09,520
correlate uh the the trend of these increasing medications causing worse and worse problems

770
01:20:10,560 --> 01:20:15,520
and it you know to use michael poland sort of analogy that he uses in how to change your mind

771
01:20:15,520 --> 01:20:21,520
it was like this this fresh snowfall over these ruts of negative emotions that i had been trapped

772
01:20:21,520 --> 01:20:29,360
in and i was able to take new paths in my behavior and in my in my day-to-day life um but again that

773
01:20:29,360 --> 01:20:35,440
that led me to getting in touch with them uh at warrior angel foundation getting invited down

774
01:20:36,160 --> 01:20:41,440
and at this point my va psychiatrist is very against the the route i'm going he you know he

775
01:20:41,440 --> 01:20:45,840
really wants me to take the drugs well obviously i mean it's worked so far it's so well up to this

776
01:20:45,840 --> 01:20:52,240
point why not yeah right it's working great you know even my family was very skeptical of

777
01:20:52,240 --> 01:20:59,280
of me trying to get off the medications but i in my heart i knew this had to be the option and so i

778
01:20:59,280 --> 01:21:06,640
got down to the the event in texas and was doing these four mile legs and on each leg i was with

779
01:21:06,640 --> 01:21:11,920
another incredible veteran it was largely uh you know marcus and amber were down or yeah marcus and

780
01:21:11,920 --> 01:21:18,160
amber were both down there doing that uh so i met marcus and amber and i met all these largely with

781
01:21:18,160 --> 01:21:25,280
special forces community guys green berets seals um marsok marines uh there were some guys that

782
01:21:25,280 --> 01:21:30,400
were you know they couldn't talk about what their job was but you could tell they did some pretty

783
01:21:30,400 --> 01:21:36,320
high level stuff in the military and on each of these legs i talked to different guys and we all

784
01:21:36,320 --> 01:21:42,320
had this very common theme which was we had these struggles with brain injury and we had been put on

785
01:21:42,320 --> 01:21:49,680
these psychic psych meds and had been made way worse but it was like this this flame of hope that

786
01:21:49,680 --> 01:21:55,600
it gave me that i was on the right path and it was finally you know at that at that event i saw that

787
01:21:55,600 --> 01:22:02,400
okay there's this whole world of alternative modalities out there they're just not accessible

788
01:22:02,400 --> 01:22:08,560
especially through the va but uh i left that event with this newfound spark of hope

789
01:22:10,800 --> 01:22:16,240
i started doing a bunch of podcasts and sharing my story and i was welcomed into this community

790
01:22:16,960 --> 01:22:25,520
of non-profit organizations largely veteran run that are picking up the slack for the massive

791
01:22:25,520 --> 01:22:31,040
gaps that are in our mental health system especially through the va and i started to

792
01:22:31,040 --> 01:22:37,600
get real treatment um you know i i was invited to be part of a peyote ceremony with a native

793
01:22:37,600 --> 01:22:44,160
american group i left that experience with a newfound sense of purpose in life to share my message

794
01:22:44,160 --> 01:22:50,400
and and help give other people this little spark of hope that i got when i heard that there was a

795
01:22:50,400 --> 01:22:57,840
different way ahead you don't have to be a drug addicted empty soul the rest of your life you

796
01:22:57,840 --> 01:23:04,640
don't have to feel like you want to kill yourself every day and through this past year and a half now

797
01:23:05,680 --> 01:23:12,160
you know i've done a number of different podcasts i was invited by heroic hearts project jesse

798
01:23:12,160 --> 01:23:17,280
gould who runs that was at the warrior angel foundation event in march that i had attended

799
01:23:17,920 --> 01:23:22,720
and he invited me down to peru and i got to go down there and do an ayahuasca ceremony

800
01:23:22,720 --> 01:23:30,160
which was largely healing of my soul and and and very eye-opening and and again

801
01:23:32,080 --> 01:23:37,920
healed me in ways that just could not be healed in other ways so i've had a lot of success with these

802
01:23:39,520 --> 01:23:45,680
psychedelic medications and defenders of freedom run by donna kranz and invited me to

803
01:23:45,680 --> 01:23:52,480
dallas texas this past summer and i did a two-week tbi clinic there and and did a bunch of these

804
01:23:52,480 --> 01:23:59,680
modalities that were very simple really i mean balancing and these supplement protocols they do

805
01:23:59,680 --> 01:24:04,400
a very extensive blood panel and they really find out at a physiological level where you're off

806
01:24:04,400 --> 01:24:08,320
so that they can address hormone imbalances which are very common with brain injury

807
01:24:08,320 --> 01:24:15,920
and after two weeks i had drastic improvements in my cognitive functioning and and was exposed to all

808
01:24:15,920 --> 01:24:22,400
of these modalities that are out there that had they implemented those when i started to have my

809
01:24:22,400 --> 01:24:28,160
struggles i would i would still be flying f-18s for the navy so this is not only this would be a

810
01:24:28,160 --> 01:24:35,440
huge benefit if if we could get the military and the va to implement these these these modalities

811
01:24:35,440 --> 01:24:41,280
but uh you know talking to a lot of people in this community i've learned that the pharmaceutical

812
01:24:41,280 --> 01:24:48,160
industry has a huge interest in making a lot of these things unavailable which we were talking

813
01:24:48,160 --> 01:24:52,960
about this morning the Hippocratic oath first do no harm and here we are in a profit-based system

814
01:24:52,960 --> 01:24:59,760
where pharmaceuticals are you know forcing meds that don't even work on communities including

815
01:24:59,760 --> 01:25:05,760
yours absolutely and yeah it's everybody it's it's the whole mental health system and

816
01:25:06,720 --> 01:25:12,560
and it's they're a business they want to do their primary responsibility is to their shareholders

817
01:25:12,560 --> 01:25:19,680
and to make profit and unfortunately the ethical things that are going on are crushing beneficial

818
01:25:19,680 --> 01:25:25,520
treatments either through purchasing those modalities and disappearing them threatening

819
01:25:25,520 --> 01:25:31,120
the people that are producing those or using their sway at the fda to make a lot of these

820
01:25:31,120 --> 01:25:38,080
modalities illegal for no good reason but they can do those things they have that power or even cbd

821
01:25:38,080 --> 01:25:46,560
which i've advocated for for the longest time the guy that um dr smith gregory smith um we had one

822
01:25:46,560 --> 01:25:51,600
of his products was thc free so the first responder you know anyone who drug tests for for their

823
01:25:51,600 --> 01:25:57,440
career like look this is third party tested you can get this it was easily accessible online they

824
01:25:57,440 --> 01:26:03,120
shut down that so now you cannot buy it online you have to you can call them and still order it

825
01:26:03,120 --> 01:26:07,120
through the phone number but they've made it impossible to just do a simple online order for

826
01:26:07,120 --> 01:26:12,960
something that's hemp you know yeah it's it's a plant it's absurd it really is and even while i

827
01:26:12,960 --> 01:26:21,840
was at that brain clinic uh they they used a um a very beneficial peptide that that was helping

828
01:26:21,840 --> 01:26:27,920
people recover from physical injuries and while i was there the pharmacy said they could no longer

829
01:26:28,560 --> 01:26:34,400
write prescriptions for it because it had been made illegal again you know the pharmaceutical

830
01:26:34,400 --> 01:26:39,920
sway at the fda is very powerful the oxycontin is still legal yeah yeah we'll give you all the

831
01:26:39,920 --> 01:26:45,920
stuff you want even though you know how much corruption was behind that oh yeah uh even even

832
01:26:45,920 --> 01:26:52,560
gabapentin the that nerve pain medication that i was on uh the pharmaceutical industry had to pay

833
01:26:52,560 --> 01:27:00,240
a huge fine because they illegally marketed that product for off-label usage uh and these claims

834
01:27:00,240 --> 01:27:07,040
that it was less harmful um which were simply true untrue completely untrue and and they're able to

835
01:27:07,040 --> 01:27:13,680
manipulate pharmaceutical studies these these studies are done with these double blind placebo

836
01:27:13,680 --> 01:27:19,360
tests and they create a massive amount of data but the way it works in reality is they get to

837
01:27:19,920 --> 01:27:27,120
they get to selectively do these data analyses and then the data analysis that the pharmaceutical

838
01:27:27,120 --> 01:27:33,600
funds that's what gets submitted for peer review so the peer reviewer you know we have this gold

839
01:27:33,600 --> 01:27:40,000
standard of a peer review article and a medical journal that whole system has been corrupted

840
01:27:40,000 --> 01:27:45,040
there's a great book called sickening how big pharma broke american health care and how we can

841
01:27:45,040 --> 01:27:52,240
fix it that goes into detail on a lot of that and and that whole process has been corrupted

842
01:27:53,760 --> 01:27:58,000
and it's led to a lot of the things we're seeing now with these medications that are out there that

843
01:27:58,000 --> 01:28:03,520
are doing a lot more harm than good and that's what we're seeing now with these medications that

844
01:28:03,520 --> 01:28:11,520
we're seeing and anyways i've been very fortunate to get on a new path with the support of all these

845
01:28:11,520 --> 01:28:17,520
veteran nonprofits and actually the reason i joined the 7x project a couple days late is

846
01:28:18,480 --> 01:28:24,960
an organization called no fallen heroes which is run by matthew whiz buckley a former navy f18

847
01:28:24,960 --> 01:28:34,400
pilot himself invited me down to costa rica with some other military pilots and we did a week long

848
01:28:35,200 --> 01:28:44,240
iboga retreat in costa rica and iboga is a root out of a tree from africa that's used by the bwiti for

849
01:28:45,280 --> 01:28:50,800
spiritual purposes and rites of passages it's uh it's the most intense psychedelic it's actually

850
01:28:50,800 --> 01:28:56,720
what they make ibogaine out of um but when you take the actually boga root which we were

851
01:28:57,280 --> 01:29:02,080
literally taking spoonfuls of what looked like wood chips because it is wood chips that you're

852
01:29:02,080 --> 01:29:08,320
eating of this root uh it has a variety of alkaloids and it's about 60 ibogaine and a variety

853
01:29:08,320 --> 01:29:13,600
of these other alkaloids that are the psychoactive chemicals that affect your change in your nervous

854
01:29:13,600 --> 01:29:20,720
system and i had an incredible experience on it it was very challenging i mean very i was very

855
01:29:20,720 --> 01:29:28,240
physically sick the first night of ceremony um i was puking purging in every way possible from

856
01:29:28,800 --> 01:29:35,120
shaking to sweating to crying to laughing to things coming out both ends uh

857
01:29:35,120 --> 01:29:44,960
but it was incredibly powerful i worked with uh troy who who was one of the guides there and he's

858
01:29:44,960 --> 01:29:52,400
actually a psychotherapist and he worked with me through everything from childhood traumas through

859
01:29:52,800 --> 01:29:59,440
my traumas in the military and care after and through it we were able to get out of my system

860
01:29:59,440 --> 01:30:06,000
all of these repressed emotions that i had been holding on to um and i came out the other side of

861
01:30:06,000 --> 01:30:11,680
that and it felt like there was just so much evil that had just been purged from my body

862
01:30:12,480 --> 01:30:17,360
all the stuff that had been trapped in my heart all these negative emotions that i had been holding

863
01:30:17,360 --> 01:30:22,080
down that were result you know you can't just cut off the bad stuff when you cut off the bad stuff

864
01:30:22,080 --> 01:30:27,360
you also cut out all your good emotions and it makes you this sort of shell of yourself

865
01:30:27,360 --> 01:30:34,880
um and then the second night i i took the aboga and i had you know a couple hours of just fun

866
01:30:34,880 --> 01:30:40,640
hallucinations and traveling through space and and these and kind of a good time i didn't feel sick

867
01:30:40,640 --> 01:30:45,840
at all that night it was like whatever sickness had gotten out of me and then i fell asleep and

868
01:30:45,840 --> 01:30:52,240
so that medication worked in my that medicine worked in my subconscious as i slept and i woke

869
01:30:52,240 --> 01:30:59,760
up the next morning and i was just in the state of gratitude peace and love and i felt so connected

870
01:30:59,760 --> 01:31:07,760
to the world again and um there's no doubt that these uh plant technologies are are one of the

871
01:31:07,760 --> 01:31:15,920
most powerful tools for healing on so many levels from the emotional uh the emotional side of it the

872
01:31:15,920 --> 01:31:26,160
trauma and the spiritual side of it as well you know reconnecting you to whatever you want to call

873
01:31:26,160 --> 01:31:32,240
that however you want to explain it there is there is a connection between all of us and when you get

874
01:31:32,240 --> 01:31:40,720
cut off from that you end up very alone and it's very debilitating in our current medical system

875
01:31:40,720 --> 01:31:46,640
with no regard from that aspect is is almost soul draining and cuts you off and it puts you it

876
01:31:46,640 --> 01:31:52,640
isolates you into a very dark place that very frequently leads to suicide and i spent a long

877
01:31:52,640 --> 01:32:00,560
time in that dark place and i am so grateful to be reconnected and you know there's we have five

878
01:32:00,560 --> 01:32:06,240
senses that can detect a little bit about what's going on around us but there's so much more going

879
01:32:06,240 --> 01:32:12,400
on around us that we cannot perceive or really even explain in human language or with the logic

880
01:32:12,400 --> 01:32:18,400
and our abilities but there's so much more going on and i caught a glimpse of that through these

881
01:32:18,400 --> 01:32:26,560
medications and and now i can feel it i can feel the results of it um but i came and joined the

882
01:32:26,560 --> 01:32:32,000
7x project now with you guys coming out of just that amazing experience into this other amazing

883
01:32:32,000 --> 01:32:38,080
experience to raise awareness for veteran suicide prevention um and over the past week we

884
01:32:38,880 --> 01:32:47,520
traveled continent to continent and uh everything from skydiving uh to running marathons and just

885
01:32:47,520 --> 01:32:54,960
doing awesome things with this incredible group of humans uh like yourself you know to to spread

886
01:32:54,960 --> 01:33:01,920
awareness of this and and help give other people hope that our our our our our our our our our

887
01:33:01,920 --> 01:33:11,920
our lost in this time of kind of darkness i feel in our society um but it's been incredible i mean

888
01:33:11,920 --> 01:33:20,400
uh showed up in dubai to join you guys i only got to run a 10 mile or there uh and then egypt got

889
01:33:20,400 --> 01:33:27,520
to go into the pyramids skydived over the pyramids which is out of what out of a freaking russian

890
01:33:27,520 --> 01:33:34,160
helicopter i think is that what are they called the m-117 i think it is uh very cool uh jumping

891
01:33:34,160 --> 01:33:39,520
out of the helicopter really gives you a cool sensation with the skydiving and then to be

892
01:33:39,520 --> 01:33:45,520
gliding down over the great pyramids below you and the sphinx and all that i mean that was unreal

893
01:33:46,240 --> 01:33:53,280
and i keep pinching myself you know i can't believe this just happened uh i ran a marathon

894
01:33:53,280 --> 01:33:58,000
once uh we got to london i found out about this trip like two weeks ahead of the time

895
01:33:59,440 --> 01:34:06,320
my buddy's over at jet hq my buddy vinnie who actually took me in during my recovery uh works

896
01:34:06,320 --> 01:34:12,880
with jet hq the garrett and rebecca who joined us on this trip um they did a fundraiser for me

897
01:34:12,880 --> 01:34:17,760
telling a little bit about my story to to fundraise to fill one of these vip slots

898
01:34:17,760 --> 01:34:23,120
uh and they were able to raise a hundred grand in like two weeks to put me in one of the vip slots

899
01:34:23,120 --> 01:34:28,160
so that was that was awesome that it raised money for this cause and then i got to join in

900
01:34:28,160 --> 01:34:34,800
on the adventure but uh anyways like two weeks out i found out about this so i didn't really train

901
01:34:34,800 --> 01:34:40,400
at all and just started running uh ran i i ran pretty much the whole marathon other than a few

902
01:34:40,400 --> 01:34:48,160
times i slowed down with a few walks but i i knocked out the marathon in london uh and then the next day

903
01:34:48,160 --> 01:34:55,760
we ended up in columbia and uh because some of us didn't have our covid vaccine cards 11 of us got

904
01:34:55,760 --> 01:35:02,320
held up in detention uh in the airport and we got put into this windowless white room for the day

905
01:35:03,040 --> 01:35:07,520
you literally weren't allowed into the country while we all went in and did the stuff that we did

906
01:35:07,520 --> 01:35:12,240
we did but i mean you know at the time it was it was kind of disappointing but we made the

907
01:35:12,240 --> 01:35:18,560
best of it in there uh you know we had pretty good spirits going on uh and they were able to get

908
01:35:18,560 --> 01:35:23,520
treadmills in there so two of the athletes that are doing the seven the full seven marathons on

909
01:35:23,520 --> 01:35:31,440
each place uh george and alex each ran a full marathon in detention in columbia these weren't

910
01:35:31,440 --> 01:35:35,280
exactly i mean all they have was the budget to find the treadmill from somewhere so these were

911
01:35:35,280 --> 01:35:41,600
pretty like oh they were home real janky i mean they were the smallest things and and i was we

912
01:35:41,600 --> 01:35:46,880
were surprised they held up for a full marathon but they knocked out a full marathon while we were

913
01:35:46,880 --> 01:35:54,240
there uh and after 20 hours in detention uh you know not eating the greatest food laying on a

914
01:35:54,240 --> 01:36:00,960
tile floor for the most part uh they released us and luckily we were able to join back in with the

915
01:36:00,960 --> 01:36:05,120
trip initially they said we were going to be stuck in there until sunday which would have been five

916
01:36:05,120 --> 01:36:10,960
days in that room having to ask permission to be escorted to the bathroom that you know it would

917
01:36:10,960 --> 01:36:19,840
have been pretty awful but uh joined back up and then uh yesterday we had our final day here in

918
01:36:19,840 --> 01:36:27,520
dallas and and went out and ran another marathon which was probably a bad idea on my part i ran

919
01:36:27,520 --> 01:36:33,680
the first half marathon and then largely walked the second half of it but uh got it done and man

920
01:36:33,680 --> 01:36:38,080
i i think i was the straggler of the group i was the last guy coming through the finish line but

921
01:36:38,080 --> 01:36:44,480
there was a huge gang of support when i got back so i was incredibly grateful everybody waited up

922
01:36:44,480 --> 01:36:51,200
for me to to welcome me back and uh yeah it's been it's been an awesome journey man it's been

923
01:36:51,200 --> 01:36:59,440
an adventure and uh so grateful to be here and i hope this this mission really helps helps people

924
01:36:59,440 --> 01:37:04,560
out there that that find out about it and i know that the money that's being raised through this

925
01:37:04,560 --> 01:37:09,840
is going to help a lot of non-profit organizations and and hopefully the documentary comes together

926
01:37:09,840 --> 01:37:14,560
telling this incredible story and helps to continue to raise some of that awareness and

927
01:37:15,200 --> 01:37:21,600
and support well firstly i mean it was amazing watching you cross that finish line because i

928
01:37:21,600 --> 01:37:27,520
didn't know much about your story i heard someone on the bus from the airport to dallas talking

929
01:37:27,520 --> 01:37:33,840
about the ejection i know ryan told me about someone you know close to when we left so then

930
01:37:33,840 --> 01:37:38,400
when i retroactively saw you crossing the finish line we were kind of rammed with you at the very

931
01:37:38,400 --> 01:37:43,120
i mean like what 100 meters at the end yeah yeah um you know now when i hear about the extent of

932
01:37:43,120 --> 01:37:48,800
your injuries in your mental health journey it just you know magnifies the achievement of of that

933
01:37:48,800 --> 01:37:53,920
that marathon so i mean firstly it's an honor honor having you here but i want to pull a couple of

934
01:37:53,920 --> 01:38:02,640
things from yeah journey absolutely firstly um one of the the the issues that i see and i've

935
01:38:02,640 --> 01:38:08,800
saw it within myself years and years ago is when we talk about suicide there's kind of like two

936
01:38:08,800 --> 01:38:14,400
camps now i think people that understand crisis and you know mental health and then probably a

937
01:38:14,400 --> 01:38:19,440
majority of the people that are still think suicide is selfish and cowardly and all these things

938
01:38:19,440 --> 01:38:23,600
through all these stories that i've heard and you know the number of people who told a story that

939
01:38:23,600 --> 01:38:28,720
have been you know similar to yours now not to the extent of the other side but certainly the

940
01:38:28,720 --> 01:38:36,160
kind of suicide ideation element a lot of them that i didn't realize part of the the thought

941
01:38:36,160 --> 01:38:41,920
process was they felt like they were a burden to the world to their family and so when you

942
01:38:42,320 --> 01:38:47,600
take someone who is in a profession where they would risk their lives for a stranger whether

943
01:38:47,600 --> 01:38:55,440
it's fire military etc and then the brain is so miswired by trauma you know medications sleep

944
01:38:55,440 --> 01:39:02,560
deprivation etc etc at that point what i'm seeing now is the brain has tricked that person

945
01:39:03,120 --> 01:39:08,880
into feeling like removing themselves from the world is what their family wants if life will be

946
01:39:08,880 --> 01:39:15,680
better for everyone else if i'm not here you're lying next to your son and your wife holding a

947
01:39:15,680 --> 01:39:20,080
holding a pistol i don't want to load the question but was there an element of that

948
01:39:21,040 --> 01:39:26,240
toxic self-taught going on at that point yeah i mean at that point i

949
01:39:28,800 --> 01:39:35,920
i was so depressed and so lost i mean i was losing everything i had worked for you know i had spent

950
01:39:36,640 --> 01:39:43,360
my whole professional life working to be this fighter pilot and i felt like a massive failure

951
01:39:43,360 --> 01:39:49,680
and a disappointment to to the f-18 community that i wasn't able to continue on you know and

952
01:39:49,680 --> 01:39:54,080
i just kept running through my mind you know that they'd put all this money and their faith in me

953
01:39:54,080 --> 01:39:59,600
and got me back flying and then here i am letting them all down because i'm struggling with this

954
01:40:00,480 --> 01:40:07,440
silly in my mind it's just like why am i like this this is my fault you know now i know it

955
01:40:07,440 --> 01:40:14,240
you're with brain injury you're from what i've learned from you know dr mark gordon and dr

956
01:40:14,240 --> 01:40:20,560
michael lewis that i worked with and and the folks at these brain clinics at resiliency brain health

957
01:40:20,560 --> 01:40:25,920
you know all these guys have kind of showed me that when your brain gets injured it gets rewired

958
01:40:25,920 --> 01:40:30,960
and it can put you in this very negative loop i mean you're when your hormone levels get all

959
01:40:30,960 --> 01:40:38,720
jacked up which is extremely common it puts you in this dark place and then on top of that you have

960
01:40:39,760 --> 01:40:45,600
all these running loops in your head of how you screwed up or whatever bad had happened that you

961
01:40:46,240 --> 01:40:52,640
feel guilt or shame depression and you just get trapped in it and you can't escape it and you

962
01:40:52,640 --> 01:40:59,600
start to feel like well one i'm so miserable i want to be out of my misery and two i am this

963
01:40:59,600 --> 01:41:07,920
massive failure and and for my wife i felt like one we have a newborn little boy that she's having

964
01:41:07,920 --> 01:41:15,440
to take care of and now she has to take care of me a full-grown adult who one minute wants to

965
01:41:16,000 --> 01:41:20,560
hide and cower in the corner because i think a government assassin is going to shoot me

966
01:41:20,560 --> 01:41:26,240
through the window uh and the next minute i think i'm a secret agent who's going to go out and try

967
01:41:26,240 --> 01:41:32,160
to save the world or you know i at one point i didn't want to eat or drink any water because

968
01:41:32,160 --> 01:41:39,600
i thought i was being poisoned but i i felt like a burden for sure that she was having to deal with

969
01:41:39,600 --> 01:41:48,080
and that the military was having to deal with and and that's simply not the case you know but it's

970
01:41:48,080 --> 01:41:54,240
the way that you get to feel because of the the physiology in your brain when your brain is jacked

971
01:41:54,240 --> 01:42:01,280
up from brain injury and trauma and it it's just the result of it unfortunately but you don't have

972
01:42:01,280 --> 01:42:07,920
to feel like that there there are ways to get out of it and and for anybody out there that's listening

973
01:42:07,920 --> 01:42:13,120
that is feeling like they're losing that hope you know if you can hold on there's there's a way you

974
01:42:13,120 --> 01:42:18,640
can get out of it you can get back to yourself not only can you get back to where you were you can

975
01:42:18,640 --> 01:42:28,720
get back and be more than you were well with that as well i think that's one thing that almost we're

976
01:42:28,720 --> 01:42:34,160
doing completely wrong like we're doing the opposite of what we should do when people get

977
01:42:34,160 --> 01:42:39,680
in crisis and people that don't understand what we just discussed they say think about your your

978
01:42:39,680 --> 01:42:44,240
family you know yeah think about that and the problem is if you're in crisis and your brain is

979
01:42:44,240 --> 01:42:50,240
rewired to where you're at that point think about saying think about your family is almost pushing

980
01:42:50,240 --> 01:42:55,040
them further towards the suicide attempt well i am i'm thinking about removing myself from my family

981
01:42:55,040 --> 01:42:59,600
because it's gonna and you know and obviously a healthy brian just can't understand that i had a

982
01:42:59,600 --> 01:43:04,560
conversation with with people yesterday but we've got to understand you know it's like if you broke

983
01:43:04,560 --> 01:43:08,480
your femur and then we're going to start hopping contests i mean like why don't you join me in the

984
01:43:08,480 --> 01:43:12,320
hopping contest it's easy just come hop with me well your leg is completely different to my leg

985
01:43:12,320 --> 01:43:17,360
at that moment it's the same with the brain so i really feel like a lot of the suicide awareness

986
01:43:17,360 --> 01:43:22,000
posters one of the things that needs to be said is if you are feeling like a burden to the world

987
01:43:22,800 --> 01:43:26,480
there's your sign that's to pick up the phone what do we say you know i'll reach out to me i'm right

988
01:43:26,480 --> 01:43:31,520
here is my phone number well yeah but you're that's a whole different message if you are feeling like

989
01:43:31,520 --> 01:43:36,960
a burden if you starting to believe the lies that your broken brain is telling you that is a huge

990
01:43:36,960 --> 01:43:43,200
red flag then and if the same with your friends if people around you seeing that saying think of your

991
01:43:43,200 --> 01:43:47,680
family actually isn't the right because of course you're a selfless human being if you thought it

992
01:43:47,680 --> 01:43:52,240
was detrimental to your family you wouldn't be thinking about suicide but you believe that it's

993
01:43:52,240 --> 01:43:58,160
actually going to be a positive impact on your family at that moment in the the the the mist that

994
01:43:58,160 --> 01:44:06,080
you find yourself in yeah there's it's it's very it's very easy to feel that you're a burden and

995
01:44:06,080 --> 01:44:12,480
it's very difficult to want to connect even to close friends you know i didn't want to reach out

996
01:44:12,480 --> 01:44:16,240
because i i felt like such a failure i was like nobody's gonna want to talk to me

997
01:44:17,040 --> 01:44:23,280
nobody nobody wants to deal with me i'm this you know i'm this piece of crap and that's just where

998
01:44:23,280 --> 01:44:29,440
i was at and it couldn't have been more untrue and as soon as i did start reaching out and

999
01:44:29,440 --> 01:44:36,640
reconnecting i realized the incredible incredible amount of love and support you know just from

1000
01:44:36,640 --> 01:44:42,400
starting that first fundraiser page that i did with warrior angel foundation you know i start i

1001
01:44:42,400 --> 01:44:46,960
sent it to a few people i didn't have any social media at that time but i just text messaged the

1002
01:44:46,960 --> 01:44:52,160
fundraiser page that i wrote up to a few people that were close and i was expecting maybe you know

1003
01:44:52,160 --> 01:44:56,800
they'd be like oh thanks for sharing and and i wouldn't hear anything i was so you know out of it

1004
01:44:56,800 --> 01:45:03,760
but it lit on fire and it went viral and i got so much love and support but one of the hardest

1005
01:45:03,760 --> 01:45:10,720
things to do is to reach out when you're in that place and say help please help me you don't want

1006
01:45:10,720 --> 01:45:16,080
to you're like i mean i'm i think it's a pretty common mentality for guys and and jobs like yours

1007
01:45:16,080 --> 01:45:20,320
and mine that we don't want to have to ask for help we want to be able to just do it ourselves

1008
01:45:20,320 --> 01:45:25,840
and deal with it but with this mental health stuff and suicide you can't you can't just do it by

1009
01:45:25,840 --> 01:45:34,160
yourself you need to reconnect and if you can reconnect to whoever that may be if you can ask

1010
01:45:34,160 --> 01:45:40,240
for help there are so many people out there that want to help you be it your friends be it your

1011
01:45:40,240 --> 01:45:44,480
family and if not that there's all of these non-profit organizations that are just

1012
01:45:46,000 --> 01:45:51,920
they're they're growing like crazy because there's people like me that get to experience the love and

1013
01:45:51,920 --> 01:45:56,480
transformation from getting some of the benefits from these and they go on to create their own

1014
01:45:56,480 --> 01:46:02,960
non-profits or do something to help and i think a very common theme of people like myself that have

1015
01:46:02,960 --> 01:46:09,840
gotten this flame reignited in us is is we want to be of service again and we want to help and give

1016
01:46:09,840 --> 01:46:16,000
people hope however we can and but yeah taking that first step when you're in that dark place

1017
01:46:16,000 --> 01:46:23,120
and feeling alone and like a burden to the world know that you are not there's so much love and

1018
01:46:23,120 --> 01:46:29,360
support out there and reconnecting is the way to bring you out of it and those connections are what

1019
01:46:29,360 --> 01:46:37,120
are going to help save you you know but it sounds to me as well from your story it's it's inspiring

1020
01:46:37,120 --> 01:46:42,800
to hear how much your community stuck with you especially earlier on you know and and that that

1021
01:46:42,800 --> 01:46:48,320
tribalism and one of the things i think that people struggle with whether it's organizational

1022
01:46:48,320 --> 01:46:52,240
betrayal which it sounds like your organization actually you know stood with you for a long long

1023
01:46:52,240 --> 01:46:56,480
time is people find us out themselves out of the tribe and i'm sure you probably felt like that

1024
01:46:56,480 --> 01:47:02,080
when you're in the psychiatric ward so talk to me about the power of that tribe staying with you

1025
01:47:02,080 --> 01:47:07,600
and then the kind of um the the perspective you had when you found yourself out of that tribe on

1026
01:47:07,600 --> 01:47:15,920
your mental health so yeah that was a one of the most devastating things of leaving the military

1027
01:47:15,920 --> 01:47:20,640
is you've built this close bond with people going through all sorts of crazy stuff you know

1028
01:47:21,280 --> 01:47:26,800
a lot of the days you're doing all these death defying things and it really brings you together

1029
01:47:26,800 --> 01:47:33,680
and you build this brotherhood so when you get removed from that i mean it's a huge loss and it

1030
01:47:33,680 --> 01:47:42,960
leaves this void that can be easily filled with harmful substances and and and just can put you

1031
01:47:42,960 --> 01:47:51,360
on a bad path but if you're able to reach out and keep in touch with those people um and then you

1032
01:47:51,360 --> 01:47:58,480
know like for example this group you get that back and you get that camaraderie back and it's

1033
01:47:58,480 --> 01:48:07,040
it's always there and you just got to reach out though i don't know if that answers your question

1034
01:48:08,240 --> 01:48:15,120
i got a little no no no it does well it's funny i actually did a speech two nights ago in cartagena

1035
01:48:17,040 --> 01:48:23,040
the whole point of this is to replicate a lot of our you know up tempo service if you like

1036
01:48:23,040 --> 01:48:27,600
high up tempo service whether it's the grand fire in london or you know the vegas shooting or

1037
01:48:27,600 --> 01:48:33,760
a deployment in afghanistan and i think we've really created this kind of microcosm this petri

1038
01:48:33,760 --> 01:48:38,560
dish of what a responder or a military member would endure during a profession during a career

1039
01:48:39,360 --> 01:48:45,200
and i had an aha moment that morning so i wanted to talk about this as you said we're we're a tribe

1040
01:48:45,200 --> 01:48:50,560
again now this you know 10 days or shorter for you we've come together and as you said at the

1041
01:48:50,560 --> 01:48:56,640
finish line of the the race your marathon everyone was there in the cold waiting for each runner to

1042
01:48:56,640 --> 01:49:03,600
come because there are people tomorrow we're all getting on planes and we're all going our separate

1043
01:49:03,600 --> 01:49:09,280
ways again so it was kind of like a kind of almost like a warning like hey you're going to be outside

1044
01:49:09,280 --> 01:49:13,120
again we're still a tribe we're a new tribe now we're gonna we're gonna have some amazing things

1045
01:49:13,120 --> 01:49:18,800
in the future but you're gonna find yourself back at home having just shared a plane with people

1046
01:49:18,800 --> 01:49:26,800
for days and days and days circumnavigated the globe so realizing that you know like you said

1047
01:49:26,800 --> 01:49:30,720
staying engaged with the tribes that you have and then also if you don't have the tribe you just

1048
01:49:30,720 --> 01:49:35,760
transition out the military find a running club or a crossfit gym or jiu-jitsu school or a chess

1049
01:49:35,760 --> 01:49:41,680
club or whatever it is and and find those those other people you left one but you can have other

1050
01:49:41,680 --> 01:49:46,640
tribes just don't find yourself you know sitting in a lonely hotel room with a bottle of jack daniels

1051
01:49:46,640 --> 01:49:54,240
yeah for sure i mean getting reconnected to people you know and it can be awesome and if

1052
01:49:54,240 --> 01:49:59,680
whatever you're into if you like to surf operation surf one more wave there's there's all these

1053
01:49:59,680 --> 01:50:06,720
organizations out there that can take you out and get you an experience and reconnect you and yeah

1054
01:50:06,720 --> 01:50:12,960
like you said join a gym get into jiu-jitsu get into whatever you're interested in find something

1055
01:50:12,960 --> 01:50:22,640
that's an active healthy experience or whatever you're into and just reconnect that is that's

1056
01:50:22,640 --> 01:50:28,960
probably the most powerful medicine out there absolutely i want to get to one more topic and

1057
01:50:28,960 --> 01:50:32,640
then go on the positive side the resilience side but just another area that i think needs to be

1058
01:50:32,640 --> 01:50:38,560
spoken about and you touched on it in in the story that you told i don't think there's enough

1059
01:50:38,560 --> 01:50:45,600
recognition of the human experience prior to putting on the uniform so we don't really talk

1060
01:50:45,600 --> 01:50:51,440
about what we brought in you know when we stood on the drill ground through some of these psychedelic

1061
01:50:51,440 --> 01:50:56,000
experiences you talked about processing trauma including childhood trauma what was some of the

1062
01:50:56,000 --> 01:51:03,520
aha moments that you had about that that was the foundation that he was you know somewhat fragile

1063
01:51:03,520 --> 01:51:10,880
before you ever even entered the the navy so one of the big ones was i had quite a bit of anger

1064
01:51:12,000 --> 01:51:17,280
i was i was a bit of a runt growing up i got picked up picked on and beat up until i learned

1065
01:51:17,280 --> 01:51:25,760
how to fight for myself but a lot of that my way of dealing with anger was i just kind of stuffed

1066
01:51:25,760 --> 01:51:36,000
that rage deep down inside of me now a positive of that is i largely use that rage as fuel to propel

1067
01:51:36,000 --> 01:51:42,720
me to be pretty successful and to get through some pretty advanced training and you know reach sort

1068
01:51:42,720 --> 01:51:50,880
of the the higher levels of military fighter aviation was in part because of that fuel that

1069
01:51:50,880 --> 01:51:59,120
i had been burning inside my core so i'm in a way i'm grateful for that but now that i've been able

1070
01:51:59,120 --> 01:52:07,440
to to let go of those that rage and get it out of me and rediscovered the sort of love and connection

1071
01:52:07,440 --> 01:52:15,120
and gratefulness that's an even more powerful fuel and it's way more sustainable you know rage is like

1072
01:52:15,120 --> 01:52:22,400
nitroglycerin it's hard on the engine it works but it takes a toll on you and

1073
01:52:24,640 --> 01:52:30,480
anyways yeah that was that was a big lesson that i learned just on this past aboga journey for sure

1074
01:52:31,440 --> 01:52:35,520
well speaking of that then so you mentioned about trying quite a few psychedelics and i had

1075
01:52:35,520 --> 01:52:40,800
another friend of mine that did a spectrum as well the aboga seemed to be a real kind of breakthrough

1076
01:52:40,800 --> 01:52:47,200
thing one of the other i think the the wrong way that we're messaging mental health is almost like

1077
01:52:47,200 --> 01:52:52,640
your ptsd is that well you know i'm i'm to the point now where i can deal with it well i disagree

1078
01:52:52,640 --> 01:52:57,760
with that messaging i think if you can process trauma same with physical trauma understand

1079
01:52:58,720 --> 01:53:03,200
where the you know the the trauma was the weakness however you want to describe it

1080
01:53:03,200 --> 01:53:07,840
process it work around it i think that becomes a superpower then i think that you know that's what

1081
01:53:07,840 --> 01:53:13,600
really resilience is you go through bad shit you process that bad shit and now you have those

1082
01:53:13,600 --> 01:53:19,440
scars as a kind of emotional steps with all these journeys that you've been through

1083
01:53:20,880 --> 01:53:26,160
you were in a psychiatric facility you were you know all these traumatic things that you told about

1084
01:53:27,440 --> 01:53:31,840
talk to me about the growth and the mindset and where you are now and you know was there

1085
01:53:31,840 --> 01:53:39,120
was there a point where that trauma has now become an asset to you it absolutely has i mean it uh it

1086
01:53:39,120 --> 01:53:45,600
has been an ultimate character development and it's beautiful i mean looking back at it it's like i

1087
01:53:45,600 --> 01:53:53,520
am grateful for all of that because it's made me who i am now it has made me more than i would have

1088
01:53:53,520 --> 01:54:01,120
been without it but i mean the process for me with my first when i first was able to find a guide to

1089
01:54:01,120 --> 01:54:07,680
do a psilocybin journey with you know at that point i was very broken you know and struggling

1090
01:54:07,680 --> 01:54:13,040
on so many levels and near divorce and i was a miserable human being and that energy was

1091
01:54:13,680 --> 01:54:19,120
being rubbed off on my family and my little boy just saw this angry guy that was his dad

1092
01:54:21,120 --> 01:54:28,640
and i went into that i came out of it with you know this new spark of hope a little bit

1093
01:54:28,640 --> 01:54:36,800
in a new way ahead and some of that anger and had been like i said sort of the snowfall had

1094
01:54:36,800 --> 01:54:43,440
filled those ruts up a little bit and it put me on a new path and and then to get invited and do the

1095
01:54:43,440 --> 01:54:50,480
peyote ceremony with the natives that reconnected me to something i mean after the ceremony i went

1096
01:54:50,480 --> 01:54:58,480
and i put my head on a tree that the natives had advised us to do and as i put my head on this tree

1097
01:54:59,040 --> 01:55:05,680
i saw a white flash hit my body and and what we were supposed to do was to sort of give that tree

1098
01:55:05,680 --> 01:55:12,400
our intentions of what we were and where we wanted to go and and i had thought about those but as i

1099
01:55:12,400 --> 01:55:17,760
put my head against the tree there was this instant connection with whatever that force was

1100
01:55:17,760 --> 01:55:25,600
and i was reinvigorated with this sense of purpose that i had lost and so that kind of continued and

1101
01:55:25,600 --> 01:55:30,640
then got me confident enough to start doing podcasts and speaking publicly about what had

1102
01:55:30,640 --> 01:55:38,400
happened to me and sharing and that led to the ayahuasca which was incredibly healing in itself

1103
01:55:38,400 --> 01:55:47,280
it you know it really to put it in short i experienced what god is or whatever you want to

1104
01:55:47,280 --> 01:55:52,800
call that that there is a lot more going on around us than we can perceive and and it gives you a

1105
01:55:52,800 --> 01:55:57,920
glimpse into that world of of the things that we cannot perceive and understand typically

1106
01:55:59,040 --> 01:56:05,280
and a new sense of hope and and and again there were some things i got out through that

1107
01:56:05,280 --> 01:56:10,480
some darkness that was in me that i think i was able to release through the experience there

1108
01:56:10,480 --> 01:56:16,480
and and also built a a strong connection with all the other veterans that were on that you know i

1109
01:56:16,480 --> 01:56:22,400
think the in between our three sessions of ayahuasca there we all the veterans that were there we all

1110
01:56:22,400 --> 01:56:27,280
hung out and we told stories and we reconnected and we you know the camaraderie like we're getting

1111
01:56:27,280 --> 01:56:34,560
on this trip you know we're laughing and telling goofy stories and but you know we were able to

1112
01:56:34,560 --> 01:56:40,480
and dirty stories and just all the stuff that you kind of miss and so that was a huge part of it as

1113
01:56:40,480 --> 01:56:49,600
well and then another psilocybin ceremony this past September and i got deeper and and more healing

1114
01:56:49,600 --> 01:56:59,360
from that and then leading into this just recent iboga where i really ridded some things that were

1115
01:56:59,360 --> 01:57:06,480
trapped in there and was fortunate to work with this incredibly talented gentleman Troy that was

1116
01:57:06,480 --> 01:57:12,560
able to i mean you know you can go into therapy and you can talk about things but you there's a

1117
01:57:12,560 --> 01:57:19,280
lot of these repressed emotions and memories that you can't access and and the psychedelics are a

1118
01:57:19,280 --> 01:57:24,880
tool to access memories and things that have happened to you in your life that you can't

1119
01:57:24,880 --> 01:57:31,280
maybe access otherwise but not only did i access them i relive these things through firsthand

1120
01:57:31,280 --> 01:57:39,520
experience while i was in these journeys and by reliving it addressing it seeing what had happened

1121
01:57:39,520 --> 01:57:47,680
like they call it the truth because you really see the truth of what happens and you're able to

1122
01:57:47,680 --> 01:57:56,240
to forgive yourself forgive others and to let go of a lot and you you purge it physically either

1123
01:57:56,240 --> 01:58:03,280
through shivering sweating crying laughing shitting puking you purge that physically and

1124
01:58:03,280 --> 01:58:10,240
that for me it felt like there was this so much of the stuff trapped in my heart and through that

1125
01:58:10,240 --> 01:58:18,880
through that experience i was able to let it go to forgive forgive myself forgive others and and out

1126
01:58:18,880 --> 01:58:25,360
of that i've i also saw the connection of how everything happened and how beautiful it is in a

1127
01:58:25,360 --> 01:58:33,040
way and that that was sort of like my my destiny to get me to be here in the position that i'm in now

1128
01:58:33,040 --> 01:58:39,200
to share and help with others other people and help to raise other people out of wherever they're

1129
01:58:39,200 --> 01:58:47,040
trapped so yeah i'm i'm incredibly grateful for the traumas and it is despite you know some of

1130
01:58:47,040 --> 01:58:52,480
the stuff being pretty horrible i had to go through it's been an incredible adventure and i wouldn't

1131
01:58:52,480 --> 01:59:01,040
be who i am now here speaking to you had i not had all that stuff happen so it's uh it's truly

1132
01:59:01,040 --> 01:59:09,440
beautiful uh coming out of coming out of all of it and and but you got to hold on and you got to

1133
01:59:09,440 --> 01:59:15,760
have some hope and you got to reconnect well i think it's stories like this that give people hope

1134
01:59:15,760 --> 01:59:21,040
that this is what i love about these conversations it's funny when you were talking about the aboga

1135
01:59:21,040 --> 01:59:26,640
i mean i've had you know obviously the the ibogaine the um you know as you said the ayahuasca the mdma

1136
01:59:26,640 --> 01:59:31,120
lead therapy ketamine there's all these different kind of tools in the toolbox that most people

1137
01:59:31,120 --> 01:59:35,840
don't know about and to use a firefighter analogy it would be like having one room where the door

1138
01:59:35,840 --> 01:59:41,600
was locked in a building and so you're lobbing water all over the fire and you're kind of keeping

1139
01:59:41,600 --> 01:59:46,960
under control but those psychedelics would be like an axe and a halogen a force of entry tool that

1140
01:59:46,960 --> 01:59:52,560
allows you to open that door that's actually the seat of the fire once you can get in there now

1141
01:59:52,560 --> 01:59:57,840
you can address the nucleus of your trauma and then the fire finally will go out absolutely you

1142
01:59:57,840 --> 02:00:04,800
really get you get to the core of the whole problem and it and you can fix it but you got to get there

1143
02:00:05,360 --> 02:00:10,960
and it's an incredible tool to getting to that place no doubt absolutely well just one more

1144
02:00:10,960 --> 02:00:16,720
question i want to make sure everyone knows where to find you but what is next well uh i just finished

1145
02:00:16,720 --> 02:00:23,120
writing a book i'm in the process of getting that published so hopefully uh before too long you guys

1146
02:00:23,120 --> 02:00:30,080
will start seeing that available i've been doing a lot of podcasts i've been hired to do some

1147
02:00:30,080 --> 02:00:35,760
motivational speaking over this past summer so i'm going to continue doing motivational speaking

1148
02:00:36,320 --> 02:00:42,560
hopefully getting this book out there you know i'm a father of two beautiful little children

1149
02:00:42,560 --> 02:00:50,480
um i'm working on rebuilding my relationship with my wife you know it's taken a massive toll on her

1150
02:00:51,040 --> 02:00:58,000
and has been a traumatic experience for her and so um trying to trying to heal the damage that's

1151
02:00:58,000 --> 02:01:05,440
been done there and um yeah finding a new path to help others you know i feel that's my purpose now

1152
02:01:06,960 --> 02:01:10,960
and i don't know the exact way it's going to go but it seems to just be kind of flowing

1153
02:01:10,960 --> 02:01:18,160
flowing uh to me opportunities like this with you uh to reach an audience and and and maybe

1154
02:01:18,160 --> 02:01:24,080
inspire hope even if this just reaches one person who's at that point where they just need that spark

1155
02:01:26,480 --> 02:01:33,360
i really hope i can continue to do that just give sparks some to people that need it it's needed

1156
02:01:33,360 --> 02:01:39,920
it's needed absolutely what's the book going to be called well i've i've had a number of names but

1157
02:01:39,920 --> 02:01:45,760
the one that i kind of like the most is just scrappy motherfucker we'll see what the publishing

1158
02:01:45,760 --> 02:01:50,000
company thinks about that you know there's the the subtle art of not giving a fuck so there's

1159
02:01:50,000 --> 02:01:57,280
been some pretty big books coming out lately with uh with controversial titles but um yeah that's

1160
02:01:57,280 --> 02:02:05,360
that's the one i'm leaning for at the moment but uh but i'll keep you updated once uh once it

1161
02:02:05,360 --> 02:02:10,240
once it finally comes out and gets edited and through that whole process beautiful one more

1162
02:02:10,240 --> 02:02:16,560
question the barfing dog you think it was actually on iboga the whole time the puking dog it might he

1163
02:02:16,560 --> 02:02:24,160
might have been purging yeah yeah he was getting the evil out all right well then we will definitely

1164
02:02:24,160 --> 02:02:28,320
share the book when when it's when it's ready um for people that want to learn more about you

1165
02:02:28,320 --> 02:02:34,480
reach out to you where are the best places online yeah you can uh i recently created an instagram

1166
02:02:34,480 --> 02:02:43,680
page after a long time of not being on social media but it's uh at kegan smurf gil and that's

1167
02:02:43,680 --> 02:02:52,640
spelled k-e-g-a-n smurf just like the smurf and gil like a fish you can also get a hold of me through

1168
02:02:55,120 --> 02:03:01,040
linkedin i'm on there just kegan gil but those are probably the easiest ways to get a hold of me

1169
02:03:01,040 --> 02:03:07,600
uh and i'm happy to you know if if you're a genuine human uh has questions on ways to get some healing

1170
02:03:07,600 --> 02:03:12,640
and gain access to some of these things or just want to talk about what you're going through

1171
02:03:12,640 --> 02:03:19,520
uh please reach out on there dm me send me a message and i'd love to speak with you did that

1172
02:03:19,520 --> 02:03:25,760
shark ever find you in the end no luckily luckily mary lee was uh not into me and i i you know at

1173
02:03:25,760 --> 02:03:31,200
the time i thought sharks loved human blood but i've since learned that typically sharks when they

1174
02:03:31,200 --> 02:03:36,640
smell human blood are actually pretty turned off by it you know we're not there we're not their

1175
02:03:36,640 --> 02:03:41,600
first choice in meal not saying a shark that just swam across the open ocean for days and days isn't

1176
02:03:41,600 --> 02:03:47,280
going to maybe eat their second favorite meal choice but uh luckily mary lee must have had some

1177
02:03:47,280 --> 02:03:50,880
good fish in or something so actually just smoking camels in a trailer somewhere anyway

1178
02:03:50,880 --> 02:03:58,560
so just quickly on the nutrition point of view you had a few times where and i've talked about this on

1179
02:03:58,560 --> 02:04:04,160
the show you know we're we're in a facility where we're trying to heal people but there's machines

1180
02:04:04,160 --> 02:04:10,320
and lights and you know blood pressure checks every 10 10 minutes and then nutrition is terrible so

1181
02:04:12,000 --> 02:04:16,400
what were you what were people bringing into you because you obviously you had it had a

1182
02:04:16,400 --> 02:04:20,640
healing element from the food what was the kind of food philosophy that you brought to that healing

1183
02:04:20,640 --> 02:04:29,680
back then just uh whole foods you know real foods uh be it fruits vegetables healthy meats

1184
02:04:29,680 --> 02:04:36,480
preferably if you can get wild game uh that's ideal um i'm not a fan of the industrial meat

1185
02:04:36,480 --> 02:04:41,920
process this is pretty unethical and there's a lot of tortured animals and it's pretty shitty not only

1186
02:04:41,920 --> 02:04:50,480
for the animals but also for you if you're eating a sick animal i mean i just saw a video of this

1187
02:04:50,480 --> 02:04:56,800
industrial pig farm and they're literally taking garbage and dumping it into the machine that

1188
02:04:56,800 --> 02:05:01,920
produces the pelleted food and i think it's mixed with corn or some other cheap substance

1189
02:05:02,400 --> 02:05:08,240
and the pigs are eating all these plastics mixed in with their food i mean it's got diapers in it

1190
02:05:08,240 --> 02:05:13,040
and plastic bags and you can see all the different colors of plastic when that goes into the pig

1191
02:05:13,040 --> 02:05:18,720
that goes into their fat and then you eat that fat and all that crap and the phthalates that

1192
02:05:18,720 --> 02:05:24,240
are in that plastic become part of you so not only is that bad for you it's bad for the animals

1193
02:05:24,240 --> 02:05:31,040
it's bad for a lot of things i mean but really just eating whole foods uh the more local you

1194
02:05:31,040 --> 02:05:34,880
can get them if you can go to a farmer's market and get your produce you're getting a lot more

1195
02:05:34,880 --> 02:05:40,160
from that than something that's been industrially produced and covered and round up and gmo

1196
02:05:40,160 --> 02:05:45,840
and transported across the world for two weeks it loses a massive amount of its

1197
02:05:46,720 --> 02:05:51,200
but just little steps i mean drink clean water and you're probably going to want some sort of

1198
02:05:51,200 --> 02:05:57,520
water filtration for most places there's a lot of garbage in the water if you're drinking a city tap

1199
02:05:58,480 --> 02:06:02,800
but you can get reverse osmosis units that you can put under your sink fairly inexpensive

1200
02:06:02,800 --> 02:06:08,160
so just kind of taking the crap out of your diet get rid of if you pick up a loaf of bread and you

1201
02:06:08,160 --> 02:06:14,720
read the ingredients and it's got 30 ingredients in it that's not food try to get things that are

1202
02:06:15,760 --> 02:06:20,080
you know five to seven ingredients on the in the nutritional label and if there's something on it

1203
02:06:20,080 --> 02:06:24,640
that you can't pronounce you probably shouldn't eat it if it's got numbers in it and colors

1204
02:06:24,640 --> 02:06:30,160
uh don't eat that uh really if you're going to the grocery store just try to stay on the grocery

1205
02:06:30,160 --> 02:06:36,160
store stick to stick to the produce organic if you can afford it is going to do you more good with

1206
02:06:36,160 --> 02:06:41,600
the micronutrients that are in the soil it's going to give you a lot more than if you eat something

1207
02:06:41,600 --> 02:06:47,680
that's been doused and round up which is for the history lesson of it is was originally a tank

1208
02:06:47,680 --> 02:06:53,600
cleaner and the reason they found that it was a effective pesticide herbicide was because it

1209
02:06:53,600 --> 02:07:00,000
killed all the grass surrounding the tank so that's why it's called a herbicide and it's

1210
02:07:00,000 --> 02:07:07,840
they they marketed it as this as this safer you know pesticide which may be compared to the

1211
02:07:07,840 --> 02:07:13,760
pesticides they were using herbicides they're using back then uh ddt and all that arsenic maybe

1212
02:07:13,760 --> 02:07:19,840
it was slightly better but there's no doubt that that stuff kills the soil and and it in turn

1213
02:07:19,840 --> 02:07:25,600
people kills you behind all the cancers that we see oh no doubt uh you know you need this healthy

1214
02:07:25,600 --> 02:07:33,040
thriving gut microbiome you need you need all of these bacteria your body is made of a lot of that

1215
02:07:33,040 --> 02:07:38,160
stuff and if you kill it with chlorinated water and round up that's in your food and plastics

1216
02:07:38,160 --> 02:07:44,880
that's in your animals you're eating uh you're killing yourself well even them in when you talk

1217
02:07:44,880 --> 02:07:50,400
about the industrialized meat market you know the i think this is something like i may have got this

1218
02:07:50,400 --> 02:07:57,040
wrong but three quarters of the nation's antibiotics are actually used in meat farming because these

1219
02:07:57,040 --> 02:08:01,280
animals are so sick they're just trying to keep them alive long enough to get them to that size

1220
02:08:01,280 --> 02:08:05,600
so again you think about stress and all the hormones that are in stressed meat and then you

1221
02:08:05,600 --> 02:08:10,480
add you know hormones and antibiotics and all those things that's going into your children it's

1222
02:08:10,480 --> 02:08:16,400
going into your family so then those are probably affecting your gut biome and you know then we have

1223
02:08:16,400 --> 02:08:21,760
all these gi issues and cancers and autoimmune diseases and all these things which you know

1224
02:08:21,760 --> 02:08:27,040
there's a lot of people profiting off all that and it's this big system that loves you to be sick

1225
02:08:27,760 --> 02:08:33,760
so you know you want to be a rebel you want to fight the system freaking go to the farmer's market

1226
02:08:33,760 --> 02:08:41,360
eat better buy less crap vote with your dollar um eat clean and and that's the foundation of health

1227
02:08:41,360 --> 02:08:46,720
you know in a lot of this we can do ourselves but it's not easy you can't just take a pill

1228
02:08:46,720 --> 02:08:52,240
and get better you gotta you gotta put in the time you gotta get some exercise if that means

1229
02:08:52,240 --> 02:08:56,880
go for a 10-minute walk outside do it you know you don't have to be an elite athlete you don't

1230
02:08:56,880 --> 02:09:04,240
have to run ultra marathon but start somewhere start with maybe introducing some vegetables and

1231
02:09:04,240 --> 02:09:08,480
fruits to your diet maybe get rid of some of the stuff that's got a bunch of weird ingredients

1232
02:09:08,480 --> 02:09:14,880
you can't pronounce maybe start drinking more clean water instead of a soda or you know drink

1233
02:09:14,880 --> 02:09:21,200
a little less alcohol you know just take some little steps and and over time that's really

1234
02:09:21,200 --> 02:09:26,320
going to be what fixes you make some connections and a lot of this you don't you don't have to have

1235
02:09:26,880 --> 02:09:34,160
a fancy retreat to mexico or costa rica and a lot of it you can just do on your own just by little

1236
02:09:34,160 --> 02:09:41,840
lifestyle changes and and and that's the foundation of it all is what your what your habits are what

1237
02:09:41,840 --> 02:09:47,920
you put in your body who you surround yourself with and the more of that toxicity you can get

1238
02:09:47,920 --> 02:09:54,320
rid of the healthier you're going to be the healthier you are the healthier world we're going

1239
02:09:54,320 --> 02:10:02,080
to have the more healthy conscious people are going to be doing better things in the world and

1240
02:10:02,080 --> 02:10:07,040
you know we have eight billion apex predators on the world right now and if the majority of them are

1241
02:10:07,040 --> 02:10:13,360
just feeding the system of wealth and greed and toxicity it's going to make the world a pretty

1242
02:10:13,360 --> 02:10:19,120
bad place but if you can make the change yourself to change what your habits are to change your

1243
02:10:19,120 --> 02:10:24,320
lifestyle that's what's going to change the world for the better you know we can't we can't change

1244
02:10:24,320 --> 02:10:30,160
the top down largely from from these massive systems that are corrupted but but we can change

1245
02:10:30,160 --> 02:10:35,840
ourselves and that's how we're going to change the world for the better you know we get get ourselves

1246
02:10:35,840 --> 02:10:43,040
healthy i agree 100 it's funny because i was just listening to you when i talk about the pharmaceutical

1247
02:10:43,040 --> 02:10:48,080
industry you know i'm trying to be very careful to point out look it's not all and you're the

1248
02:10:48,080 --> 02:10:53,120
perfect example trauma medicine saved your life absolutely i mean i am very grateful for western

1249
02:10:53,120 --> 02:10:58,240
medicine i'm grateful to have the dilaudid and the oxycodone when i'm in severe pain

1250
02:10:58,240 --> 02:11:04,000
and and there's a place for that stuff but it's it's not there to treat chronic conditions it's

1251
02:11:04,000 --> 02:11:10,720
not the way to live a life they're a tool but unfortunately that tool is being overused

1252
02:11:12,320 --> 02:11:17,040
but yeah i i mean there's definitely a place for that stuff and i don't think i don't think most

1253
02:11:17,040 --> 02:11:21,760
the people in the pharmaceutical industry are evil people at all i think i think a lot of them are

1254
02:11:21,760 --> 02:11:29,520
out trying to help but and some of their products do no doubt but there needs to be a balance there

1255
02:11:30,320 --> 02:11:35,200
for sure absolutely well keegan i want to say thank you so much just for me chatting for

1256
02:11:35,200 --> 02:11:40,160
told you it wasn't gonna be 90 minutes just over two hours now so yeah cool but it's it's amazing

1257
02:11:40,160 --> 02:11:44,960
and it's these are the these are the stories and i know it's like a double-edged sword every time

1258
02:11:44,960 --> 02:11:49,520
someone revisits some of this you know it's gonna peel back the scar a little bit so i want to

1259
02:11:49,520 --> 02:11:55,920
acknowledge that but i know that people listening will be empowered because so many of us were

1260
02:11:55,920 --> 02:12:00,960
raised in this environment especially i would argue men for what i'm about to say we were taught

1261
02:12:00,960 --> 02:12:05,840
you know suck it up rub some dirt in it don't be a pussy and i have some of the you know these most

1262
02:12:05,840 --> 02:12:10,240
elite performers on here that have been to these dark places and yours is extremely dark i mean

1263
02:12:10,240 --> 02:12:16,720
some of the things that you've described but it gives hope when you hear a these you know elite

1264
02:12:16,720 --> 02:12:22,080
war fighters go through the same exact thing as many many other people but more importantly

1265
02:12:22,880 --> 02:12:28,720
that there is a way out now that toolbox may maybe emdr or you know equine therapy or it may be

1266
02:12:28,720 --> 02:12:35,520
ketamine or ibogaine so or iboga so it's it's been an incredible journey and i just want to thank

1267
02:12:35,520 --> 02:12:51,520
you for your courageous storytelling today thank you so much for having me on it's a pleasure