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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show,
former member of US Air Force Security Forces, special agent and current Detective Corporal of Maple Shade Police Department, Jeffrey Engel.
Now in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics from his journey into the military, his transition into the civilian law enforcement world,
the differences between the two, working in Korea, the partnership they have in the UK, some career calls, his own powerful mental health story, the Boulder Crest program and so much more.
Now before we get to this incredible conversation, as I say every week, please just take a moment, go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.
Every single five-star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of well over 1,000 episodes now, so all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.
So with that being said, I introduce to you, Jeff Engel. Enjoy.
Well, Jeff, I want to start by saying thank you so, so much for taking the time and coming on the Behind the Shield this morning.
No, I appreciate it, James. Thanks for the opportunity to spend the time with you here for a little while.
So where on planet Earth are we finding you today?
Well, planet Earth finds me in southern New Jersey. It's a, you know, a balmy 10 degrees outside today.
It's, you know, we feel like Mother Nature is obviously made it the world, but, you know, you never know what day.
A couple days ago it was warm, now it's cold and, you know, we're all standing by the fire trying to keep warm. So South Jersey.
Yeah, I wish I could say the same, but it's gorgeous outside, so I won't show you the window.
That's all right. It's, I mean, the sun's burning, but it's not, it ain't hot.
Yeah, those are my favorite days, though. I'm all for blue skies, you know, and cold. That's fine.
It's just when it's gray and wet and cold, like England I grew up in, it's a little demoralizing.
We were missing some rain for, you know, probably seven to eight weeks, I think we were missing rain, and then it just picked up from there and, you know, off it went.
So then it's rained and it got super cold. So here we are, but it is winter, so we got to embrace that, right?
Absolutely. Same as our summers here. They're brutal. Absolutely brutal.
All right. Well, I would love to start at the very beginning of your story.
So tell me where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings?
Sure. Yeah, so I was born and raised in a medium-sized town here in South Jersey, Pensalkin, New Jersey, and then mom and dad, brother and sister growing up,
brothers three years younger than me, and then my sister, I think she's nine and a half years younger than me.
My parents, my dad was a, worked in a paper mill, started as a janitor, you know, and in those times it was, you know, different for him, you know, because he didn't know college education,
but, you know, grew up was never got drafted in the military and, you know, went right into the workforce, brought himself up and, you know, sweeping the floors of just a paper mill and then started himself all the way up to the third in command before the industry was taken over by, you know, other industries, you know, across the pond and whatnot.
But it was just a paper mill and worked that way. And then my mom, you know, worked in a Navy base for a short bit of time when I was born.
And then I said, when my brother came around, she became a stay at home mom at that point and went from there.
So, Pensalkin, New Jersey was, you know, where I was born and raised and, you know, grew up from there and, you know, with the Catholic school for the first nine years of my life.
And then after that transitioned over to the public school education system, and it was probably the best decision I had ever made.
You know, my parents were adamant about the Catholic school piece just because that's what their whole upbringing was, right?
However, for me, it was it was it was a much needed change of pace. And I'm glad I did what I did and were able to articulate to them that, hey, you know, I need to try something different, right?
Because just Catholic school space wasn't really my my style, you know.
I've had a lot of people on here who are second generation, so, you know, their parents immigrated to to the U.S.
And it's amazing hearing the immigration stories like I just had a neurosurgeon on the show and his dad came from Mexico, started as a mechanic, worked his way up to an electrical engineer, and then his son becomes a neurosurgeon.
But obviously, there's another parallel in the states of people that are American that are born and bred here, you know, and their parents are born and bred here.
But, you know, as you said, their initial entry into the workforce wasn't through an Ivy League school and they had to work their way up.
And I think that's the real element of the American dream that I don't hear people talking about anymore.
That in the states, the way the states are supposed to be, you know, dreams can come true.
You can make anything of yourself.
So when you've talked to your dad, what was it about that journey and his mindset that allowed him to go from sweeping floors to one of the highest in command?
You know, I think I think you look at it, you know, in his work ethic.
And it still shows to this day, right?
He is a guy that is, you know, one has always given to me is never give up on your dream and what you're trying to do and achieve.
Right. So you work hard and your work and ethic you put into things, obviously, is what you reprieve out of it.
Right. So for him is, like I said, you start sweeping the floors and then you start getting interested in the machinery.
And then you start taking over the the paper mill itself where they're running the forms and going from there and then, you know, jump into a management role.
And then it just starts to expand and grow from there.
And for him, I said it was his work ethic and drive is really what took him to where it is.
And I think that's something we miss today, but it's a lot different in today's society.
You mean, what was that shift in the paper industry?
My my family on my dad's side had a printing industry.
And so, again, when the Internet really kind of took off, a lot of that kind of dissipated.
And then my ex father-in-law, he worked for Georgia Pacific and it was the same kind of thing.
They were the huge paper manufacturers.
And I'm sure they've seen a decline as well.
Yep. So my dad's industry was Willamette Industries to start out over in Langhorn, Pennsylvania.
And that was bought, I think, by Warehouser and somebody else.
But obviously, you know, according to the same lines like corrugated box paper industry and they said that space, like I said, once it was outsourced across the pond and his business was shut down and they took over.
I think it was a company called Domtar took over the business.
But, you know, I don't really know the intricacies of that.
Like I said, I was still young at the point when he, you know, when he wound up losing his job and separate stepping away from there.
However, you know, the work he said he put into that is, you know, he started out there, you know, from just a young kid and, you know, kind of grew through his piece to get to where he was.
And like I said, that alone showed a lot because we would always go tour the plant and come out and see it and spend the time out there and see, you know, all these giant.
I mean, I'm talking giant paper rolls and you'd look at me like, my God, but like that was, you know, in the times when paper was still that big before it came in a little box, you know, 8.5 by 11.
And they were cutting them up that way, you know, because old like the old school school printers where you would have it that way.
So what about the impact of the forced redundancy and the loss of industry?
When you look at Ohio and some other areas that were thriving a few decades ago, moving those jobs overseas can have a detrimental element to the actual town itself.
Well, sure, I think it's interesting to actually you look at like the warehouses today, right?
They're big, giant, empty buildings and, you know, mostly it's all made for now, Amazon and, you know, all partial shipments back and forth to and from right from all over the world.
Where these buildings used to be filled with machines and, you know, folks who are working hard and they said this area, you know, can be seen for like Camden, New Jersey, for example, you know, Campbell,
Homer Campbell Soup and, you know, RCA used to be down there and you see different, you know, place like that.
But a lot of those places are now either on the ground or they're just just a building.
Right. And it's not so much what it used to be. And his building is the same way.
Right. They took over and, you know, all the equipment gets shipped or sent wherever they go.
And, you know, they outsource it to wherever it has to go. And it's it's a shame because they said a lot of good people lost their jobs and some stay within the industry.
And it was unfortunate to see it like the folks that were educated were the ones that stuck around, you know, because they had the experience and the education to go along with it with as the world evolved.
You know, it was always pushed to get the paper. You need a degree. You need this to be able to advance.
And, you know, he never had that. So, you know, he went up half in the pole to plug and go somewhere out and try to start himself all over again.
That's an interesting parallel with the first responder professions.
It's been a real push to get degrees and those kind of things.
And sometimes the ones that excel in that maybe aren't actually good leaders.
What is your perspective of that whole philosophy of needing needing the pieces of paper versus the actual journeyman's path?
Well, right. And we can look at that, right. And you can see that, you know, with education, it's there, right.
Like, the more you're educated, the better your brain works.
And it's because you're using your brain accordingly. But, you know, with experience comes education as well.
Right. And, you know, you look at the young enlisted folks when I started out as a young airman in the military, I'm sure we'll get to that down the road.
But when you talk about how you work hard to achieve something, the education comes with the experience.
Right. So using your hands, using your brain and going out and doing things, figuring things out because a book's not going to tell you everything.
Right. So you still got to work around how you're going to get to what you need to do.
And all that education grows with the experience and his perspective.
And, you know, to this day, I mean, they said he's one of the smartest guys I know.
I said you talk about a lot of that kind of stuff. And, you know, he talks circles around me for whatever that is.
But, you know, and he's never had college, but, you know, he's a smart man and knows what he's got.
You know, well, I think I'm seeing that firsthand there are college programs, there are community college programs,
there are trade school programs that are phenomenal.
And they're a very, very straight line to that profession or to that next step.
But we've also got a very broken system in higher education where, for example, I did exercise physiology.
And, you know, a lot of us were hoping that we would have all the tools to to then go on and be high level coaches at the end.
And that wasn't the case. It was very, very academic.
And a lot of these these paths almost groom people to be a professor, to teach the very thing that you were just learning from rather than go into the real world
and apply these things firsthand.
I think that's what trade schools and fire academies and police academies do really well.
So, you know, please jump in.
Yeah, I think there's a solid balance to write like you need to have kind of both sides of it.
And I feel like it's either, you know, it's kind of like politics, right?
You're either here, you're here, you know, but if there was a there was a fair middle ground as far as like education with experience,
you know, even with these kids going in high school and, you know, even, you know, my young kids, you know, my kids are little.
Right. And they're, you know, trying to figure out these math problems and trying to figure out how, you know, the education like, you know,
one plus one is not one plus one or more as this whole long paragraph to figure out what one plus one is now.
And, you know, whether there's a science behind that, I don't know.
But, you know, when you look at it in the grander scheme of things, I feel like experience and education have to work hand in hand with each other to,
you know, to make the best product ultimately, which is why a lot of people in our communities and the police, fire, EMS, military, you know,
they get both of it as well as, you know, the discipline component, you know, to kind of keep them on task.
Absolutely. All right. Well, going back to your timeline, when you were a school age, what were you playing and doing as far as sports and exercise?
Well, I try, you know, a little bit of everything.
I was always I started off, you know, peewee football, you know, a little bit of basketball, very little until I realized I couldn't jump or shoot a basket for the life of me.
So I got away from that and then stuck mostly with baseball and soccer. And then as I kind of grew, you know, getting more closer to high school, I found wrestling,
you know, one of the only sports you compete against yourself and others in the same aspect, right?
Because it's just you and somebody else. Right. And it's survival to fitness.
Ultimately, I fell in love with wrestling. You know, while it never really turned into anything major, you know, it was still something I enjoyed and kept me active.
I did that through the course of high school and then, you know, which led up to my military career.
So, well, let's get to that journey. When you were in high school, were you dreaming of the military or was there something else on your mind?
No. So I was I was always I was called a nerd alert with the artwork.
Like I used to love to draw computer like computer graphics and stuff like that was really big in my mind.
Like I enjoyed trying just taking designs and making things and building stuff and spent a lot of time outside as a kid, like said, you know, messing around.
So like the making and building and drawing and whatever, you know, having ideas and plans in your mind were always a thing of mine.
And then shortly before that, I had an uncle that was a drill instructor in the Marine Corps.
He's since passed, but, you know, was a very huge inspiration of mine.
And, you know, he was always, you know, you know, a hard charger.
And I always saw that, but it was never something I ever really understood.
And like I said, you know, seeing that and knowing that the familial history of the military was something that was just very real, you know.
But I had never really experienced it just because I, you know, it wasn't something we did when we were growing up.
So it was always I was always an interest, but it's nothing that had piqued me to get say, hey, I'm leaving tomorrow to go out and join.
And there was thoughts of it, you know, when I came to high school at the end, I'll never forget as I was getting ready to graduate high school.
We're going to do the buddy program going into going into the Marine Corps.
And my uncle, who obviously was a D.I., was came up to me and he's like, boy, you want to kill people for a living?
And I'm like, not really. You know, I'm not really sure where, you know, where that's going to take me.
You know what I mean? You know, because I have obviously had dreams and things of what you want to do growing up.
But so I kind of throttled back of that and stuck with the EMS world because that was something I had done from like a sophomore in high school.
I became a first responder and then transitioned to an EMT when I turned 18 years old.
So it was kind of a space that I lived in. It was more to help people than to hurt people.
You know what I mean? Yeah, I do completely.
One hundred percent. Even said when, you know, if I was ever being forced to be in the military and be in a higher tier level, then the PJs would be the best fit
because they're really like firefighters in the military, as opposed to the SEALs and the Delta guys that are running towards the bullets like you guys do in law enforcement.
Right. And I said and they said, I, you know, taking myself to the military career, like, you know, when I joined the Air Force in 2001, it was prior to September 11th.
And, you know, it was a thought of mine. And I had a real close friend of mine.
She decided she was going to join the military and it was like, you know, out of out of chance.
I was like, you know what? Screw it. What do I I'm, you know, either going to become a paramedic or I was going to do something else in my life.
So I figured why not join the military to get the experience?
And I walked myself into the recruits office and signed the papers and I was off. Off I went.
Just prior to that, talk to me about your experience as an EMT.
I think a lot of us, you know, we we live in regular society and then you end up, you know, working in a profession like law enforcement or EMS or fire.
And you all of a sudden are looking behind the curtain now and you're like, oh, you know, sure, it's a pretty jarring reality when you're a young first responder.
So what were those couple of years like for you?
They had like an Explorer program for EMS at this first aid squad in a small town next to where I grew up.
And, you know, I joined over there to keep myself busy and stay engaged in that.
You know, I found something I liked and started riding the ambulance, like I said, as a first responder.
And, you know, we're right in the back of the rig and you're assisting the paramedics and you're assisting the other grown EMTs with all the stuff.
We're grabbing the supplies and doing that.
But you're experiencing all the the blood, guts, gore and death and everything else you want to see.
You know, at a young age, right. And, you know, it just kind of became a thing.
I got to carry a pager and get the respond to calls and, you know, do all this fun stuff.
But, you know, it kind of just transitioned and made me grow up a little bit faster, I guess, in a sense, just because you saw things and experienced things that, you know,
normal people don't really ever really get to see unless you're watching it on TV or you come to happenstance or show up on it.
You know, yeah, absolutely.
Well, walk me through your journey into the Air Force and then what is your 9-11 story, too, because that's a pretty unique place to be just a few months prior.
Yeah, we all remember that, right.
And, you know, so I joined, I walked myself in the recruiter's office back probably February, March 2001.
And after I said, my good friend of mine, she joined the military and I walked in there and I met up with old Staff Sergeant Mark Cucci, who was my recruiter at the time.
And, you know, I always had an interest in it and were there wasn't sure where to go.
And he's like, hey, come on in, sat me down and, you know, he's promising me the world and, you know, they're salesmen, right.
So they sell you everything they want you to hear.
Right. And, you know, it looked amazing and whatnot.
So he went up, signed me up for security forces, which is, you know, military police for the Air Force and signed the papers.
And May 1st, I left and off I went to the Wild Blue Yonder, went to basic and basic was just a run of the mill, you know, normal.
Everybody experience kind of thing, right.
You're yelling, screaming, push ups, setups, you know, run a move and learn and grow.
And I transitioned right to the schoolhouse.
Security forces always down at Lackland Air Force Base.
It was hot. Nothing I was used to, you know, coming out of the northeast and you're down in, you know, Texas itself.
So I wound up doing a schoolhouse there and then we graduated.
Let me see. We graduated September 7th, 2001, four days prior to September 11th.
And, you know, we're doing our out processing and while I was there, I hadn't gotten orders yet.
And, you know, we're all kind of sitting around and just waiting for our, you know, wherever our assignments were going to be, not predicting anything was ever going to happen.
Right. And then I was out processing at the dental clinic at Lackland Air Force Base when the planes hit the towers.
And I can remember trying to call home and, you know, with home being up in the northeast, you're like, you know, full blown panic mode.
I'm 21 years old trying to figure out, you know, what's what.
I wound up finding my getting a hold of my family.
You know, we watched on the news and the dental clinic and then immediately after that, it was an all call recall.
We're thrown into force protection, con delta. And, you know, we're sitting on the gates, you know, brand new certified security force members,
you know, sitting out there ready to rock and roll and, you know, not knowing what's going to happen and everything.
Everything then becomes a threat. Right. And we don't really ever know what what's happening there.
And then two days later, I got orders to South Korea, which was kind of a wake up call because I never had predicted ever in my life to be flying overseas to spend time.
And they said not knowing what's going on in the world was definitely a wake up call.
What was your experience in Korea? Obviously, the tensions have kind of, you know, undulated over the last couple of decades.
But what was your lens in that that particular time?
So so Korea was interesting was all force protection. Right.
So I was I ran I sat on a flight line for the entire year that I was there and, you know,
is, you know, in a Humvee freezing and cold in the wintertime and hot summer and, you know,
garden F-16s and the the eight tens that were there at the time.
And, you know, it was a little bit of a learning curve because I had never left the country or been out anywhere outside of my home state.
Right. So, you know, automatically be emerged right into Korean culture.
It was interesting. And, you know, downtown Osan was always interesting because, you know,
not that it was ever, you know, I always say it's like human trafficking was not really ever looked upon at that point.
But when you look back on it, you're like, wow, like they would fly the Russians in, they would have the Filipinos in.
They would have different cultures in the bars working for the American military members.
And you would go in and you have to buy these little juicy cup drinks and, you know, they would drink so many of them.
And then they got a free pass for the night if they sold so many.
But, you know, they would be friends and some would exploit it for me.
You know, it was kind of an interesting space, but you never really knew what they were or why they were doing there.
But they were there. But they were always different.
You never had the same people at the same places throughout the time.
So eating the food and, you know, kind of getting used to that culture was, you know, interesting itself.
They said, but I love Korean food now. It was just at that time, it was definitely a culture shock because, you know,
eating raw cabbage, kimchi and, you know, trying to figure out, you know, what's what, these spices and all the things they got going on.
It's totally different animal.
There is kind of an arrogance sometimes towards the way we look at the US, you know, with the greatest country in the world.
And it's sad because there are so many countries that do certain things really well that if we had some humility, we could learn from.
And just to preface that, if you look at us and how we rank in education, if you look at the obesity crisis, I mean, there is room for improvement.
When you look at the Korean culture, were there any things that you remember being impressed by that maybe would be good if applied here in the US?
I mean, technology obviously is one thing. I mean, they're way up to speed on their technology.
And I said they're very humble people.
You know, I enjoyed we had a guy that was, you know, we became friends with.
He was his father was the mayor of the area where we were hanging out most of the time downtown.
And he got to take us around and show us the things.
But like just to see a different perspective at 21 years old and how they live compared to how we lived and the way things were like phones were a thing over there.
And like they were very well dressed and like they seem to be trending on like styles and like things that they had that way.
And it was interesting to kind of watch and see, you know, as you know, when you come home, it's like, oh, you got all this nice stuff.
And it's like you get over there and it's like, well, it's different, but it's nicer than what we have here.
But like I said, even with the food and going back to that is, you know, their food's all there's there's not all the junk's in the food.
Right. So you're eating quality food and, you know, going out and like, you know, a mushroom house and you're eating all all types of mushrooms and not the tripe kind,
but they just quality, wholesome food, you know, built in there.
And it was it was good. Like I said, it was very much a life changing experience to kind of give you a better appreciation for what we have compared to we have here.
Absolutely. Beautiful. All right. Well, then talk to me about after Korea.
So after Korea, I went back, came to MacDill Air Force Base that was in October 2002.
So obviously, we're still in the flight of all the chaos in the world.
And, you know, they're still doing whatever they're doing here on the war of terror and just everything's kind of ramping up at that point.
And I arrived at MacDill Air Force Base again, like I said, living in Tampa, Florida was another great place.
You know, Florida is always, you know, I always got a heart in Florida because I love that place.
But it was it was interesting because I said the MacDill Air Force Base is centrally located on the east or the west coast of Florida,
like in between St. Petersburg from on the west coast and in Tampa, you know, right there.
And at Tampa, you know, there's that was called a Tampa stand, but like there's special operations command, Marsox down there.
You got central command. So there's a lot of different things happening at that base.
And there's a lot of powerful people there as well.
So when I got there, General Franks, I think, was the commander sent come at the time.
And, you know, we had a couple of different missions, which was law enforcement and force protection at that point.
But we wound up myself and my roommate, actually from Korea, we landed on the Marine Unit,
which was probably the best job in the Air Force because we were only 24 hour, 24 seven Marine unit active in the Air Force at that time.
We were on a boat, you know, patrolling the seven point two miles of coastlines back and forth, you know, on our shift.
And, you know, we weren't bothered by flight.
We weren't half. You didn't have to worry about dealing with all the noise of the base.
And you said you go out on a boat and your whole mission was to protect the coastline.
You know, and it was quite a quite a surreal experience because it was an all weather thing.
Right. If it's raining, if it's, you know, it never snowed, obviously.
But if it was rough out, you still had to go out and still had to do your job.
And it was, you know, quite a remarkable experience, to say the least.
Obviously, if you think about like the Miami area, there's a lot of, you know, people trying to kind of immigrate from different countries in the Caribbean area.
What was some of the things that you encountered when you were working in that particular role?
Right. So we we would have a lot of people that were just curious.
We had a lot of fishermen because around the base, they would have the the mangroves and, you know, the different spaces where, you know, the snook would like to come run and hide.
So you dealt with a lot of fishermen.
But then every once in a while you would have because of what was going on there, you would have people rolling a boat and they would show up and they would penetrate the line and we'd stop them and challenge them and have a conversation.
And, you know, they really couldn't explain why they were there.
Right. And you'd kick them loose, you know, whether you were, you know,
handing them out a ticket for a magistrate court to go to go to court or just to get capture or fill interview cards, adapt capture data.
Right. We'd be out there just trying to figure out the why of what they're doing there.
And then, like I said, you would see them on one side and the other ship would deal with them a couple of weeks later.
And there was never really a rhyme or reason why you dealt with them.
But, you know, but we obviously know today that, you know, whether just collect an intel or trying to get that picture or just, you know, they just need to see something that show a pattern of life, you know,
built in that space. You never really know where that falls, you know.
Absolutely. When I looked at your LinkedIn, it said special agent, but it said RAF.
Is that attached to some sort of UK base?
Yeah. So so how how my career went into like a little further and I'm still involved, you know, I'm still a reservist at this point.
When I transitioned out of active duty from security forces, I, you know, in 2005, I separated active duty and I prior to punching the punching the ticket to go out.
I had applied to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations as a criminal investigator and nothing that never ever thought it would take me into that space.
But, you know, I wound up finding it and met some folks when I was deployed for a short time in Kurdistan down range.
But I talked to these folks and, you know, I'd really taken a peak interest in their job and what they were doing.
So I applied on the reserve side and one of getting picked up as a reservist for them and then said became a special agent.
But what, you know, as that course of my career took me off is I'm currently assigned over at RAF,
Milton Hall, which is over in England, as my reserve assignment, which is obviously interesting in itself,
especially as a reservist, because I only go a couple of times, you know, you know, short bit of time in a year.
So interesting. And what what what is kind of an overview of the special agent role in the Air Force specifically?
Right. So we we investigate all felony crimes related to the, you know, the military, the Air Force specifically.
And, you know, we we we have a dual headed mission where we do criminal and counterintelligence work.
Majority of that space is, you know, all it depends on what side of the house you work on.
But a lot of times people come into the criminal side and they either find themselves going to work in fraud or they're going to go work in criminal or counterintelligence.
So they're going to go work in a different section that does whatever their mission is going to be.
And throughout the country, you know, we're on every base throughout there.
And you said anytime something bad happens, you know, related to a military member or, you know, against the base or all these drones flying, you know, whatever, whatever comes out to be,
you know, we're we're taking a look at it to see, you know, what's going on and finding out if there's a threat to the base and installation.
You know, we're detached, but we're we're there. You know what I mean?
So I've had quite a few people on the show, some of whom are victims of this, some of whom have just talked about it, but the prevalence of sexual assault within the military.
What is your lens on on that whole theme and how prevalent it actually is?
So I obviously can't speak numbers, but it does happen right there, you know, no matter where you are.
And, you know, and I think it's very, very visible in the military side of things, right, because it's so small.
Right. And the military force being as big as they are, but they're also very small.
And you're not expecting to find stuff like that happen in the military.
Right. However, you know, when people are making advances or they're doing things to folks, whether they like it or not,
you know, it's the perception of how one perceives it to, you know, portray it as, hey, he sexually assaulted me or he inappropriately touched me or, you know, it's, you know, it's a it's a boundary.
Right. And some people come from different areas and don't see it as one way.
But, you know, you raise the flag on it and, you know, it's there.
I mean, it's very prevalent. I mean, it happens.
It's not nobody's, you know, invincible for me from it, you know, I mean, because I said, no matter where you go, whenever it is, you know, everybody's going to have an experience, you know, whether it's good or bad.
And they said that in that in that sexual assault piece, you know, some seem to be, you know, appropriate, not appropriate, but like some are portrayed because they were told to do it and not necessarily how they were seen or somebody else saw it.
Right. And then it's our job to obviously figure out what happened. Right.
So you find the facts and you present the facts to the command and the command makes the decision from there. Right.
But, you know, other people are true victims of it. Right.
And somebody else, you know, whether they went on a date and somebody did something that was not appropriate or, you know, so there's a lot of in between from there with both end of spectrum is it's very minor to very major.
And they said it happens, you know, across, you know, across the planet, unfortunately.
And I said, especially when you travel across the way and like you've seen it where, you know, boyfriend, girlfriend or husband, wife or, you know, dating one gets deployed and when they come back and then all this sexual assault to me.
And it may or may not have been right. And our job is to find that.
And like I said, sometimes you find out that they were having an affair and that they were just embarrassed.
And they said that that's what happened. But, you know, but that's our job is to find those facts out.
You know, they said, I will never take it away from the victims of a crime.
Right. Because, you know, they are true victims.
And they said, you want to make sure that, you know, they have their voice at the end of the day.
And they said nothing to ever take away from them.
But, you know, sometimes it's hard in our shoes to have to go down the path of having to experience their worst day.
Right. And then portray it to the command and your leadership to say, hey, this is what this person experienced.
And this is the why. Right. And those facts will come out.
And like I said, the decisions made with the command to make those decisions and how they're going to handle that.
Right. But it's sad. You know, it's sad to see.
You wish it could never happen, but it does, unfortunately.
And we obviously want to make sure that, you know, that the lines being held where it needs to be held and there's zero tolerance for it.
Right. Because it's just not acceptable.
Well, that was the military law enforcement side.
What made you make the decision to get into the municipal side?
So my grandfather was a police chief and he was a police chief in a small town.
I never met the man, but I said he was he was a supposedly a very stand up, you know, well known individual.
And everybody loved the guy. And, you know, he was the guy to go to.
And my mom always talked high of him.
And, you know, getting out of the military, you know, at that time, you know, police work was very hard to get into.
Right. Like it was it was it was a very hard challenge to get into that space because, you know, you would take a test and then there would be hundreds of people, you know,
aligning to take a test and then you have to compete against them to get into the runnings of the police department.
But, you know, we reversed back to when I left EMS going into the military.
The town I worked in is.
The town I worked in as an EMT, I had got to become friendly with a bunch of the cops there.
And once I had known them, when I came out of the military, like, hey, you should come over and join us, took the civil service test and jumped into the police world.
And, you know, going from being a military policeman to a civilian policeman was obviously majorly different.
But it was definitely an experience, to say the least.
And that's kind of what drew me to that space. And, you know, once I found that I loved it and I couldn't stop.
It's so interesting hearing people that start because I started my first job in the fire service was oh, four.
And for most of us testing around that time, it was incredibly competitive.
You know, my next one in California, I was against over a thousand certified recruits in the actual written test.
So that means that they were probably a lot more that were filtered out prior to that.
Fast forward 20 years and now we're in this immense recruitment crisis.
Before I kind of load the question, what is your perspective on how we've got here?
Listen, I mean, we could we could talk about that. It was from Sunday in regards to how we got here. Right.
And, you know, everybody can have their own opinion about it. Right.
A noble profession by by trade, for sure.
I think that, you know, we went, like I said, in the recruiting crisis that we're in, you know,
from convention centers to conference rooms is hiring now. Right.
Like we started out huge. And now we're at the point where you're lucky if you get five resumes in for a hiring cycle.
And, you know, is it I think politics has a huge play in it.
I think that the media has a big play in the why of why people don't want to become cops.
And, you know, the the bastard, the pasturization of police work over the last almost 10 years now.
Right. Has really gotten hard for folks because who wants you obviously meet people at your worst day.
And then you're coming in and you're expecting to have the support of your of your team and your leadership.
And, you know, I have I have a great team on my end.
But like I said, all their agencies aren't so great. Right.
And they get the experience of, hey, this is what you're going to do.
You're getting written up and you're getting jammed up for a bad guy's behavior.
And you said you're only trying to keep the peace.
But again, like the military conversation where people will sort each other. Right.
Like there are good cops and there are bad cops or bad firemen or bad good firemen.
There are good lawyers and there are bad lawyers. Right.
Like what the problem is, is the bad outweigh the good on the TV because then they exploit it and it becomes, you know, mainstream.
And that's what makes it very, very challenging.
And I think that if there was less of that,
like somebody said the other day, if the news wasn't 24 hours a day, it wouldn't be worth it.
It'd be worth watching. But now that it's on 24 hours a day, it's not even worth it.
Right. Because it's the same story over and over again.
If you believe it, you hear it so many times, you're going to start to believe it.
But what's sad as well, and I've had people from journalism, especially one Larry Doyle, who was revered in that world.
He was the first person to interview Nelson Mandela after he was released and Saddam Hussein.
And I was asking him and he said, yeah, the moment that they switch from companies having the news just as news to requiring the news to make money.
That's when this downward spiral here. So you've got this 24 hour news cycle.
It's not to keep everyone educated. It's to keep you stuck to the TV.
So you'll watch their shitty laundry detergent commercial that they paid a million dollars for.
That's why they're trying to keep you on.
So, you know, the more click bait stories and the more, you know, defund or whatever the thing is.
And like I said, yes, there are mistakes in uniform of all our professions and they should be held into the spotlight.
But the problem is they're presented as this is the entire law enforcement community rather than this is an isolated incident or this is what happens when you have poor leadership in a department like Valdi.
And I totally agree with you. And like I said, when we look at going back and I think, you know, a lot of, you know, whether it was happening prior and it's just not seen, right.
But we know, you know, the incident in Ferguson, right. And how bad that that created chaos in the world. Right.
But I often look at it to like the community bank was just empty at that point.
The folks there were just tired of, you know, whatever was going on there.
And like I said, there was more withdrawals than deposits going into the bank. Right.
And at that point, it was it was a shame because I said, you know, when the incident happened, you know, it was it was sad.
Right. And like I said, nobody wants to see anybody get hurt.
You know, we don't go to work wanting to hurt people. But, you know, when you're entrusted and put in a position to do your job and you said some, you know, you never know what you're going to come across.
Right. And it makes it very, very hard.
But I think, you know, a lot of the chaos that ensued there, you know, and I said, I'm not I'm not, you know, into all the science and understanding of the whys and the hows and the what's what was going on there.
But I feel like the community bank at that point was empty.
A law enforcement as a whole. And it just it took traction. And like I said, everything else started off from there.
You know, there could have been more positive deposits put into the bank. And there wasn't that way.
You know what I mean? Absolutely. Yeah. Someone said to me recently, water boils at two hundred and twelve degrees and a lot of people are walking around at two hundred and ten.
That's the perfect analogy. All it took was that straw to break the camel's back.
Yep. And I agree with that. I mean, it makes perfect sense. Right. Because, like I said, is, you know, you can only withdraw so much right before you have a problem.
And they said if a bank goes bankrupt, what happens or what happens when your bank account goes empty? Right. You don't have it no more.
Right. So what do you start doing? You start freaking out. Well, if the community is out of money in a sense, right.
And community relations and how you treat the people and everything like that.
Well, if enough's enough, they're going to throw their hands and it's going to be a problem.
So when you entered the law enforcement agency here in the U.S., you know, what was your experience at the front door?
What were the fitness standards? Was there any mental health conversation?
What was the kind of environment that you walked into?
There was a basic mental health examination to get in, but there was no real mental health.
I mean, as far as like mental health on the the cop side, you know, we can, you know, you can talk about that.
There was, you know, resilience was not a thing. There was no conversations about, you know, you either you sucked up and you're pressed on.
You keep moving forward. You shut up at college. You did whatever you had to do to get through it.
The police academy alone, you know, it was, you know, like I said, a good mix of education and experience,
but a lot of discipline and, you know, a lot of grit and, you know, just rolling around in the grass and the dirt and, you know, push up, set up to run the hazing, whatever they wanted to do.
The instructors were young instructors at the time, and they were they weren't that far out from out of the police academy from where I was at.
Right. Just a couple of years out and they were now instructors.
And they said you took your beatings as they took it and you said you get through it.
And that was six months of just straight chaos in the police academy.
And you're trying to learn all your laws and everything else you got to get to and understand the grasp of things.
Right. And then you come out and you're dropped in the FTO, which is a complete different animal from the police academy,
because now there's not the yelling and screaming, but now you have to perform. Right.
And you have to show up to work every day and be the best you can.
And you're making mistakes. And at the time, you know, there was no not that it's that long ago, but seven, 18 years, almost 18 years ago, we were still handwriting reports out.
And you would write a report out by hand and you take the FTO and look at it and crinkle it up, throw it in a trash can.
You have to rewrite it again. So, you know, that was the learning style.
You could never do that today. You trunk it up a young kid's paper today, man.
It'd be a heart attack, you know, but the times were just different. Right.
So we, you know, we navigated that. And I said, getting into the spaces, you know, you were called to call to call to call and 12 hours a day.
You know, you know, my agency, while we're small, we're averaging anywhere from twenty five thousand to twenty seven thousand calls a year.
That's a lot, you know, over the course of a three point square mile, three point some square mile town.
So you're humping it and you're working hard, you know.
Again, you come out of high school and you enter, you know, pre-hospital medicine, you know, and you get this one lens.
Now you've been in the military in the law enforcement side and you enter your department here.
What was some of the kind of jarring moments or aha moments about the difference between what you've been doing in the military and what you were doing here in the U.S.?
Well, military law enforcement is different because, you know, obviously, military have, you know, there's at least a standard set in the military where you have a baseline.
Right. The civilian side is you never know what you're walking into.
You're people only ever call you. They don't call you to say hello.
They only ever call you when they need you. Right.
So you're showing up at their worst moment of their time in their life.
And, you know, the military coming out of that space, you know, as a as a young cop in the Air Force, it was very strict.
You're challenging people on the flight line. You're pointing guns at them, put them on the ground, challenge them, you know, get them off the flight line,
searching them, interrogating, figuring out what's going on and why they're there and what not.
And then you go to the police world. You can't follow those same rules.
And, you know, while early in my career, it was a lot of that kind of stuff was similar in a sense.
But, you know, I tell you that I learned only really how to talk to people when I became a detective.
And, you know, when I transitioned into the detective world about six years into my career, you know, it wasn't until then I realized how much communication,
just being able to empathize with people really made a difference, you know.
So I feel like that was something that, you know, was kind of lacking at the point, which, you know, is very well, you know, very, you know, sought now.
And, you know, guys are very much told how to communicate and, you know, well, average 30 to 50 minutes on a call with people now versus just, you know, hammer them out,
hammer them out and just go to the next. Right. Because that's all we had.
But, you know, you're forever shifting gears. You know, you start out with grandma that fell down her steps to somebody dead on a, you know, on an overdose or you shift the gear to a really bad car crash or you're dealing with CPR on a child.
Like, you never know what you're going to walk into.
And you said those 40 to 60 calls are answering in a shift is a lot, you know.
One of the big things about the recruitment crisis and the fireside is, you know, they work, I think Northeast, they have quite a few departments that work 42 hour work weeks, but most of the countries work in 56.
So 24, 48. And, you know, when I came on, you weren't questioning work weeks, you were just, you know, all kind of starry eyed and wanting to be a firefighter.
And it's an admirable pursuit. But as you mentioned, the core lows, a lot of our agencies have not to mention the mandatory overtime because we have this recruitment crisis now is creating these insane work weeks.
And, you know, in the fireside, I think what's happening is a lot of these young people do value their physical health, their mental health, their time with family.
And they're looking at the black and white, you know, what it looks like to be a firefighter and the divorces and the cancers and all the things and going that doesn't look very attractive.
And I totally understand. I think it's a very intelligent way of looking at it.
What is it with the law enforcement side that you think has caused this shift from testing against hundreds, if not thousands of people to five applications?
Well, I think I said again, like it's, you know, the world politics, I think drives a big thing is, you know, you're set for an example for others, right?
If you do one thing wrong, you're going to be the next figurehead on TV, right?
Being blessed for doing something wrong. But also, too, is like, you know, we've seen it with some of our younger guys that we've hired where they'll go through the police academy, embrace all the suck that they could ever have for that six months.
They'll get in the field training and they start dealing with the public and they immediately are pumping the brakes and saying, well, I didn't sign up for this.
And that's what what did you expect to do? And, you know, whether we're failing to articulate it properly in the police academy was still old style mindset of training.
And not articulating enough, you know, where we are to what we're dealing with on the street.
Right. Or is it, you know, you know, when I get on a shift work as the Academy is Monday through Friday, you know, eight to four or eight to five or seven to five, whatever it comes out to be.
Right. And then you come to shift work and now you're working days and nights, days and nights, you know, 12 hour shifts.
You know, you're locked into a shift, you know, some agencies switch weekly, some agencies switch three months, you know, but they hit these 12 hour shifts.
And that's a lot of time away from home and you're missing holidays and then you start experiencing, you know, especially as a young as a young younger kid.
Right. Like some kids are just starting families.
What's the pressure at home they're getting, you know, and they're coming home telling them about, oh, my God, I stood at a dead body for four hours because I was waiting for the detectives to finish up.
And then I had to go deal, you know, and then my boss was pissed because I didn't get my reports done.
You know, so they take a beating because of the expectations. But, you know, are we not setting them up for success in the academy early on, you know, to get them to roll into where they are today?
Do you think the fact that they have been raised in an electronic age is also setting them up for failure when it comes to simply interacting?
Because I see even young people that are holding down jobs and being successful, but even you can just see the ability to maintain eye contact,
the ability to have a conversation just doesn't seem the same as it was when I was a teen.
Right. If I'm sitting here having a conversation, we're talking and I'm looking at my phone the whole time and I'm not paying any attention to you.
I mean, how effective is that going to be? Right.
But, you know, with the addictiveness of these phones and the time that we spend on them and the amount of space that we live in, I mean, it's there, right.
It's it's there's a dopamine effect to these things, you know, where you get sucked into them and you can't put them down.
Right. And, you know, whether you're you're sitting on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, the blue skies, the new the new what is it?
New Twitter that's coming out now, you know, all these new fancy, you know, social media platforms that are popping up.
But what's you know, they draw you in for it, just like you said earlier, right.
The click bait and everything else you want to do.
And, you know, my wife has recently found on Instagram that they have these really, really bad acting short stories on Instagram.
And she loves to loves to watch them and they draw you in, but they hit you with a small thing.
You watch them and it goes from there. You know, so it's it's very hard because majority of their time is spent looking at this.
They don't know how to communicate with anybody because even going to see my little guy in first, you know, in school when I was there, you know, they're pecking away at the computer.
The teacher says, all right, well, click this button and go to this exercise and do this.
And she just sits and watches them like, are we really educating our kids or we're letting somebody else do it via a means of a computer?
Yeah. Well, I think especially in our field, you know, whether it's doing an assessment, you know,
as a paramedic or whether it's trying to deescalate situations, a police officer, you're not just having to communicate.
You're having to communicate in a potentially life or death situation.
So by, you know, by restricting their ability to communicate. And again, this is not blaming any one particular entity,
but this environment that these kids have been grown up in, especially adding in the fricking pandemic for these poor kids as well.
You know, it's a very, very dangerous thing to then put them in and say, oh, yeah, now you've got to learn how to talk.
And by the way, that person might shoot you if you get it wrong.
So, you know, it really is an important conversation if we're going to set the next kind of generation of recruits up for success.
And I agree with you. I think that, you know, we we have to do a better job.
Right. And it's on us, you know, as the current, you know, workers in the spaces to, you know,
continually evolve and educate ourselves to find the better. Right.
Scott's Scott's on and just put an article out.
I don't know if you saw my post about it on LinkedIn, but he posted something the other day about the readiness,
you know, the statures of readiness over the course of time.
And I pulled up real quick, I can tell you the but I thought it was very well written.
And I was telling I sent a message saying, hey, there was a great, great, great article there because I felt like it hit a lot of important parts
because it was talking more about the military side of things.
But his whole article was the evolution of human human performance training, navigating the geopolitical paradigm shifts.
And then when you go into it, it just basically goes through the years of 2001 to 2008 was lethality, 2008, 2016 was recovery.
Right. 2016 to 2020 was readiness and the preparedness and just trying to be ready for what's to come.
And 2020, 2024 was resiliency. Right. Why is it resiliency?
We all know that, right, because we're in the isolation era of the covid.
And then we're expected, you know, one, our kids were expected to embrace that, not knowing any idea what's going on.
But then, two, we're experiencing it, nothing that we've ever experienced before.
So the isolation era really put a damper on things.
And now, 2024 to forward is that cognitive overmatch, which he talks about integrating advanced technologies, decision making under pressure,
multi domain operational skills like those are the things that we need to start looking at.
And I think he really nailed the head on the article with the fact that we have to continue to evolve.
But we need to be more in tune with what's going on.
Ultimately, you mean with training our folks.
Yeah, absolutely. It's funny.
I've had this conversation with a couple of people recently.
It really struck me not too long ago that when we're talking about physical and mental health,
realistically, we're talking about stopping our police officers and firefighters from dying.
We're not talking about human performance.
There's not really anything that we do that's in the weight room trying to forge an uber athlete in the fire service.
I'm not talking about some sporting level, but making them physically better, making their breath work better, making their mindset better.
We're just saying, hey, let's try and stop them from killing themselves.
Let's try and get them less obese.
And I feel like this conversation has devolved to the point.
And I know this is because I've seen it with my own eyes.
You know, a strength and conditioning expert will come to a fire department and they'll teach him how to make oatmeal and walk around the station twice.
We couldn't be further from the demands of a firefighter in a worst case scenario.
So I think that's a huge red flag is that if our human performance conversation, air quotes,
is simply about mitigating the insane illnesses and deaths, then we have to kind of recalibrate where we should be,
get our people back to baseline and then go beyond because, you know, we are supposed to be there on people's worst day.
So you need a fit, you know, injury free or limited injury, calm thinking, well rested first responder to be there on your family's
worst day.
100 percent. I always say, too, is like you can't build a structure without a solid foundation.
Right. So if your foundation is not solid and if you don't have, you know, if you have an inch thick of concrete versus two feet of concrete,
what's your difference? Right. A lot. Right. Structure.
So if you can't build the foundation early and even if you had to revert it back to reeducation and, you know,
re-experience, like you're never going to take away all the experiences, but you can build a stronger foundation by,
you know, fixing what's there and then each pillar of wellness or however you want to performance or however you want to look at it,
you know, can then be sought upon. But, you know, you try to put that stuff into the academies early on when it comes to the resilience front.
Right. Like in New Jersey here, we have the mandatory resilience training that came out in 2019 and, you know,
everybody is mandated to take it. But, you know, it happened. It couldn't happen at a better time, you know, prior to the COVID era.
Right. Because, you know, we, you know, when everybody was isolated, you had the resources and tools that, you know,
were somewhat available to take you from baseline and put you at a higher accession line so that way you can ride here so that when you do fall.
And we still are in crisis. Right. Like there's no question that, you know, there's not, you know, but we need to do a better job.
And I, you know, I'm a huge advocate for it, as you can see from my postings and, you know, because I experienced struggle myself.
Right. And, you know, as you go through and navigate these things is you have to ultimately seek hard to find the stuff to make you better.
You know, absolutely. When you reflect back on your career, what are some of the what we would call career calls that you've had?
And so we've had, you know, it's not nice to say, but, you know, you call it frog when people are crossing the highway and,
you know, it's reminds you of the old game Frogger where they're trying to jump lily pad to lily pad and they get hit by a car and,
you know, they get they get annihilated. And that's something in our small town that we deal with regularly, unfortunately, is that,
you know, people are crossing the highway, they don't pay attention or it's dark or they're not dressed appropriately and they get annihilated
by a car and they're killed and you come up to a scene and, you know, they're all all the way down the highway and now you have to come and,
you know, seeing that as a young as a young police officer, you know, is hard at one. But then the harder part is going to have to tell the families.
Right. And before we started our chaplain service, you know, we didn't we it was two officers and we had to go wrap on the first
find out where they lived and then go knock on the door and let them know that their loved one had passed.
And, you know, that really leaves a profound impact on you because it's hard.
Right. And, you know, to experience tragedy, you know, on the on the opposite end of the receiving end.
Right. It's almost as hard as probably receiving it. Right. Because what do you do for a family that one, you don't even know.
But then, too, you're trying to articulate how the wise and everything else, because there's a thousand questions.
But then also to watch them literally fall to their knees and, you know, praying to God or whoever they believe in that the fact that their loved ones no longer here.
You know, so that that has made a huge impact, you know, being able to do that.
And, you know, and it's definitely over the time you become numb to it.
But then, you know, dealing with especially now as a detective, you know, you see all the all the bad.
Right. So, you know, you're showing up to the dead bodies are showing up to the real bad assaults and seeing the different things that way.
And I can remember at one point in my careers and I know it left a profound impact on a friend of mine.
But, you know, it's still I can talk about it to this day, because we talk about it regularly because the little girl is a vegetable.
But it was a child abuse case. And the guy wound up smashing his girl's head into the wall and shifted her brain.
And it's like, you know, now she's a vegetable. But, you know, we saw her, too.
This is probably 10 years ago. Now she's 12. But she's still.
A vegetable, you mean, like it's sad, you know, but then the guy, you know, doesn't I mean, he was wrong or he didn't get what he was supposed to get.
You mean like the court's failure, however you want to look at it.
But those things leave lasting impressions in your mind and never really disappear. Right.
Same with the homicides. You get out there and you deal with homicides and we're we don't we're not a bad town.
But we've had our share of homicides, whether it's one or two a year to up to four here.
Right. And same thing as you go there and you're doing the work to try to figure out the who, the what, the when, the where, the why, the how.
And, you know, trying to dig through all this mess and, you know, having to relive the experience for these people,
for them to get to where you need to be ultimately. Right.
And some motives you can understand some motor you just never will understand.
You know, how much of the death and destruction that you've had to witness,
do you think is down to the national mental health crisis that a lot of people seem to be intent on ignoring?
Man, I mean, we are in a mental health crisis, no doubt, no doubt about it. And I said, I feel like, you know,
it's it's very, very hard because drugs are an all time high, you know,
and it's in the drugs have been an all time high for several years. Right.
So the families that were users then now their kids are coming back. Right.
And that does have a ripple effect to it. Right. So like there is a major problem with it.
I feel like we're slowly doing a better job at managing the mental health,
but we still have the mental health support in the courts and everything else that you need to be in.
Right. To really get that effect out to the public. Right.
Because I said, they're one is still cost money. You still need to have insurance.
You still need to be able to because, you know, insurance is only going to cover you what they want.
They'll take all your money, but they ain't never going to give it to you.
So those that are struggling, you know, you know, they're not they're always going to struggle
because they just throw medicine at it. And what you say when you don't treat it appropriately,
it's all manageable for the most part. You know, obviously there's things they can't.
But, you know, when you just throw medicine at things, it's a suppressant.
It's not something that's going to fix the end all be all.
And kind of like drugs. Right. We have a drug court in New Jersey and, you know,
people use drugs and they go into the drug court and they get kicked loose.
They get clean drug tests and, you know, follow the rules for X amount of time.
Then it relapsed and then it happens again. It's just the cyclical nature of it.
And it's unfortunate. You know, drugs today are just chemicals.
They're not even natural drugs.
They were back in the day coming out of the poppy fields or, you know, out of the cocoa plant.
Right. Like they're all, you know, xylosine and all these other chemicals of they're just chemicals
pumping into your body. And, you know, they just they just do so much damaging effects.
And it doesn't create a healthy mind. But then their minds are bad.
But then the families are put through so much that their minds start to get touted. Right.
And then it's the ripple effect outward. You know, so I feel like it's a problem.
You know what I mean? But there are things that they're trying to do.
And I know that there are some good people trying to do it.
You just need to get a lot of the more powerful people behind it to say, hey, you know,
this is what we got to do. You know, I think this is what's really unfair with the law
enforcement conversation is they're constantly looking at you to mitigate the things.
And if you're too rough, then, you know, you're demonized.
And, you know, why do you look like you go into war with all the body armor?
But no one's ever saying why are the streets of America so dangerous?
What have we done in this country that's created so much homelessness that our children,
just like my son did the other day, have these code reds where they assume that someone's
going to walk into their classroom and execute them all, that we have gangs.
You look at other parts of the country, some some are just as bad other parts of the world.
But there's a lot of countries that are a lot, lot safer than we are.
And I think this is the element is if we're not addressing this multigenerational trauma
that's creating this violence and this mental ill health and we're just putting it on law
enforcement shoulder, nothing's going to change.
It's just going to get worse and worse.
And exactly the truth, like like New Jersey is a sanctuary state, whether you want to
believe in it or not, I mean, I, you know, I leave my opinion where it's to be left.
But, you know, you know, there are, you know, there are things that are in play for that.
And like I said, you know, to kick every illegal in this country out is not the way to go.
About things right.
Like you can't just do that.
It's one.
It's a cost that's never anybody's ever going to achieve.
Right.
But there are a lot of bad people that are locked up or there are pending extraditions
out of the country that they need to focus on to get them out of here.
Right.
But then you start looking at, like I said, the active shooter things.
Right.
When's the last time the schools burnt down?
You know, and this is what something I talk about.
Right.
And your fire service career, when, when, when can you tell the last person or last
time the schools burned down?
Right.
Yeah.
Well, apparently it was the fifties when they had a multi multi-facility.
Yeah.
Right.
The fifties.
But that's the last time we can ever articulate a fire, but we still practice fire drills.
Right.
But then when it comes to active shooters, right, we can't put our kids through it because
it's too hard on their minds.
Right.
And I, and I understand it to a point, like you can sensitize it and make it what it is,
but just practicing the safety has it, but the C something says whatever you want to
look at, however, you know, whatever program you want to talk about, you know, that's out
there, but like I said, you know, it is scary.
And they said, our young kids are having to face these and you know, you have to have
the conversations early so that they're prepared.
Right.
And then, you know, you talk about, you know, looking at what's happening with these gangs
and stuff that are taking over these apartment complexes and different things like that.
I mean, yeah, there's a lot of bad things happening, but you know, we're in a recruiting
crisis so people aren't jumping across the table to become a cop.
Right.
So it's almost like, what do we do at this point now?
And you know, the old timers are starting to wear down and you know, as they get older
in their career, are they going to be wanting to fight the same fights that the young kids
are going to want to fight?
And it's not that way, you know.
If you were king for a day, what would be the elements that you would change so that
you could get back to get back to 20 years ago, but obviously, you know, with the technology
and advances of 2024, how do we get back to the point where people are lining up to be
police officers again?
Right.
I think, well, I think, I think that if we kind of like what I was saying with that article
that I was talking about is if we can take a new approach to building a better foundation
of human performance, ultimately, in a sense, right, and giving all the tools and resources
that you need and making it something that, you know, it's not all bad.
Like I said, you're going to experience that, right.
There's never going to get away from it.
But if you had to revert it back to what it's something that's worth its space to bring
more people on board is one, you got to make it something that they're going to want to
come back to.
Right.
And if you throw them in, then it's not throwing them in now.
Right.
Are there not enough police, police videos on YouTube and, you know, there are positive
versus just shootings and, you know, because that's a lot of that stuff that is right.
How many taser deployments or your shootings are out there on the Internet that everybody
wants to watch over and over again?
Well, you know, you could find them all day.
But some kids like I'm not going to do that because I'm not going to get involved in that,
you know.
So is it, you know, is it trying to find a space that, you know, you bring more into
the trade space like you talked about with the technical schools, you know, and the kids
are growing and they evolve into a space that's built that way.
You know, I mean, whether it's any responders base, you know, I'd say it's first, second,
third responders.
Doesn't really matter.
You're all responders, right?
Whether you're nurses, doctors, fire, EMS, police, you're all responding somewhere to
do something that normal people aren't going to do.
Right.
So we find whatever responders base we got and, you know, however you're going to train
them.
But you can start early, you know, in a sense where I started my career, you know, and find
those that are going to enjoy it and teach them the right way, you know, to build that
foundation.
I think that's what you bring back, you know, especially on the human performance front
is, you know, there's a lot of pieces that go into it, you know, mind, body, spirit,
you know, all that kind of stuff is there.
A lot of it, which is we don't get that anymore.
I had Sebastian Junger on the show several times.
And one of the conversations he talked about wanting to bring in national service and he
said, it doesn't have to be military, but a year where you are serving your country
in some capacity.
And again, you could be working in the veterinary surgery, you could be volunteering as a firefighter
or whatever the thing is.
But now, you know, it's kind of like the Israeli model.
I know they're not exactly glowing with their leadership choices at the moment, but with
their military, their whole ethos is that they have a buddy system and they are watching
their buddies ass and their buddy is watching their ass.
So when you are in an organization where you understand, you know, the importance of being
in a community, the importance of service and what you're at, the impact that your actions
have on your nation, I think, you know, generationally, we would probably go back to the quote unquote
good old days.
But at the moment, you know, with people who are really putting their lives on the line
being demonized while people just sit there on their cell phone, you know, keyboard warrioring,
there's no skin in the game.
And I really like that idea of everyone having to serve for a year.
And I don't think there's anything wrong with that, right?
Because one, you're going to find out some may just never have even had the thought of
even trying to do it right.
So they now you're put into a position where they have to do it right.
And you experience and you may find it would be something you enjoyed, right?
Like I never thought I was going to be a cop one day.
I never thought I was going to be in the military one day.
But you know, I stepped outside the box to where it is.
And here I am.
You know, I said it's something, you know, it's still a noble profession.
It's just we're struggling.
And like I said, it's very, very hard, you know, especially on our guys on our shifts,
you know, you know, in the fire service as well.
Like people aren't knocking the doors down.
So your guys are constantly at minimums are working overtime.
They're never getting a break from the day to day.
And you said there you spend more time at work ultimately now than you do with your
families.
What really nauseates me is when the papers will do an article and it will say, oh, this
firefighter made this much money.
This is how much they're getting paid.
They're not telling them they work 56 hours a week.
Plus they were forced to be, you know, every two weeks forced to do an 80 hour week.
That's never in the conversation.
So it looks like, oh, wow, they made that much money.
Yeah.
Well, you would make that much money if you work.
And I have to mention, it's usually great.
They usually look at gross pay and they'll advertise the gross pay versus your net pay.
And we all know that's a huge difference.
Right.
So, you know, what shows on paper is not what I'm bringing home every day.
You know what I mean?
Absolutely.
Well, you touched on, you know, obviously some of the traumatic elements of the job.
What have been your kind of mental health highs and lows throughout your career?
Man.
So, you know, I, you know, and we always and I know you've talked about this way many,
many, many times in the past is, you know, we look at, you know, we started with our
families, right.
The adverse childhood experiences, the experience growing up.
And, you know, one thing I mentioned about my dad and stand up guy that he was, but he
suffered from alcoholism.
And, you know, that was a very, very hard piece to deal with.
Right.
My mom was a heavy hand growing up because that's how she was raised.
And, you know, having, you know, family members that, you know, treat you in that aspect is
hard.
Right.
So then you kind of get away from it and you move into the military space where now you're,
you know, yelling, screaming, hooting, hollering discipline is a thing.
And then you grow up and then you start experiencing different things, you know, whether it's in
a deployed environment or it's something you experience, you know, at home, you know, at
home, but like in the police world, right.
You meet everybody at the worst day.
Right.
So those things all compound and then the, you know, the trauma just kind of builds and,
you know, whether you want to call it trauma or terrible experiences, they all kind of
have a piece and it's, you know, Nick's it's your armor.
Right.
And the vicarious trauma that happens over the course of your career, you know, starting
from a very young age, because we come out this perfect little baby.
Right.
And then you're thrown out to the world and, you know, going from there.
So, you know, I, you know, I suffered a little bit, you know, with my dad being an alcoholic
and then, you know, thank God he's recovered from that.
And, you know, God bless his soul.
And I said, that's, you know, something that's huge at this point.
Right.
But then I said, you know, mom, it's a heavy hand and, you know, some, probably some mental
health issues.
I couldn't tell you, I'm not a doctor.
Right.
But, you know, growing up and then they said with the police, the police world, it's, it's
tough, except because you meet everybody at their worst.
You don't ever know what ever calls you to say hello.
They'll drop cookies off at Christmas time, but that's about the only time, you know,
somebody's calling you because what do people do?
They call you when they're at the worst.
Right.
So you get there, you deal with whatever you got to deal with and you're expected to go
to the next 30 to 40 to 50 to 60 calls, whatever you got to deal with in a shift, you know,
and they all could be bad the whole day.
You never know.
Right.
And then, so for me, one thing we did, we had obviously the state of New Jersey brought
out the resilience program.
But early in the military career is you got the, you know, the Air Force has comprehensive
airman fitness, you know, the army has the army, the model for resilience, you know,
whatnot.
And that was a lot of that was implicated, you know, started back in what 2008, 2009
timeframe through the University of Penn.
So we call up University of Penn to try to get something started from New Jersey.
New Jersey kicked off the resilience program in 2019, which was just a baseline foundational
program for wellness.
And then some other folks, you know, in that space, they wound up retiring from law enforcement
and created a program for resilience.
And I, you know, wound up going through that and experiencing that and started to be a
facilitator for them just because I found out how important it was.
All during that time is, you know, and you know, where the struggle for me and a little
bit of it comes into play is, you know, with all that experience prior with, you know,
the family and whatnot is, you know, learning, you know, from some minor health issues, cholesterol
issues that I discovered that my dad that raised me was not my dad, you know, biologically.
And you know, when I discovered that it kind of puts you in a spiral, right?
Because you're like, you can one of that all day long, right?
And trying to figure that space and, you know, it kind of put me down a little bit.
And then to the point where I was struggling, I had a lot of a couple of dark days and,
you know, a couple of times where I just didn't know what was what ended was going to be up,
right?
And, you know, you just didn't know how to navigate it.
And you said we were immersed in my career and, you know, said, you know, on the detective
side, you experienced a lot of the negative and with the DNA finding, it was kind of like,
well, what's this mystery now?
You know, I mean, and where did this all come from?
Because, you know, your mom and dad are raising you all day long to tell you to do the right
thing and never do anything wrong.
And then all of a sudden you're told, hey, wait, your mom screwed up.
And it's been a lifelong secret of yours at age 40, you find out, right?
So I wound up stumbling upon, not stumbling upon, but I found initially I had taken a
class with Tom Spooner and some of his team from Northern Red.
And he had talked about a program called Warriors Heart.
And it kind of left a lasting impression, which is that was more for substance abuse
and, you know, for military veterans.
And, you know, so I found out that I was struggling after several iterations of resilience training.
And I wound up going, I called Warrior Heart just saying, hey, listen, I'm struggling.
I don't know what to do.
Like, I don't know where I'm going to be tomorrow.
I don't know what's going to be happening.
Like, the world's chaotic.
Like my mind's chaotic.
Like I need help.
Right.
So I found this.
So they referred me to a program called Warrior Path, which is through the Boulder Crest Foundation.
I don't know if you're familiar with them at all.
I have heard nothing but good things about Boulder Crest over and over again.
And James, when I tell you about it, like that program saved my life.
Like when I talk about, you know, and they said I wasn't on the end of the miles, like
some other folks have been and like I said, I've been to a dark place and experienced
the what ifs.
Right.
But when we look at it and I spent the week in Boulder Crest with the Warrior Path family
that I got to meet and now cherish to this day, like, you know, man, it changed my life
forever.
Right.
And so because I would sit out front and cry, I'd be upset, I'd be angry, you know, and
just didn't, the wave of emotions were there.
But once I was able to go to Boulder Crest and Warrior Path, I tell you what, man, it
changed my life forever.
And you know, at that point, it made me realize like we have to do better.
Right.
And you said you learn little pieces over the course of your lifetime, but those little
pieces over the course of your lifetime, you know, you learn to figure out, you know, these
are the things that I need to do.
And that's my new mission.
Right.
Is now just to spread the word and you really just give it back to what Boulder Crest gave
me in the very little bit that I can do.
Right.
And, you know, my whole sole goal is to give somebody a better foundation than I was given.
You know what I mean?
What was it about that program?
What were the tools that were given to you that allowed you to start working through
some of these struggles?
Right.
So mindfulness obviously is huge.
Breathing is huge.
Journaling, just meditation, just giving back a little bit of time for yourself, exercise,
movement, you know, fresh air, like just the basic things that live and surround us on
a daily basis.
Right.
Are the things that we forget about.
Right.
It's almost like I became a cop.
I'm now the cop.
Right.
I'm the what.
Right.
But I forget the who.
The who am I.
Right.
And we forget who that is at that point.
Right.
Because we don't, you know, we become so much in that in tune with that space that we don't
realize what we are.
And like I said, having the ability to meditate, like I never, I'm not a guy that's going to
sit there and, you know, meditate, but just to sit down and be quiet for 20 minutes is
very powerful.
Right.
Just like I said, 20 minute nap will say, you know, is is is great.
Right.
But for that, like 20 minutes of meditation, you know, doing some breathing exercises,
four, seven, eight breathing, box breathing, whatever you want to get into.
Right.
Taking that time for yourself just to kind of slow things down and know that, you know,
put your body back at rest is is huge.
And that's something that I had since lost at that point.
You know, you mentioned ACES, the the adverse childhood experiences score.
It's amazing how we don't talk about from birth or even, you know, in vitro through
to when we put the uniform on, we do a box checking ridiculous psych test that most of
the psych, all the psychologists and psychiatrists have had on have said was never meant to be
to, you know, a standalone test to show if you have the right kind of profile to be a
copper paramedic or a firefighter.
But those, you know, those formative years are so important.
And then obviously understanding the generations prior to that, too.
So what did you do as far as processing the early life?
And did you discover that there was even, you know, like grandparents generation, that
there were struggles that maybe these dominoes get falling?
Yeah, that's that was part of border crest is you had you had a lot of time to kind of
really dig and search.
Right.
And while it's only a short, you know, seven day program in the present, right.
Each day was just jam packed.
And you said your brain really hurt when you were finished.
But it hurt for the good in a sense, because you were working at to a point where you were
able to have an experience and work through the experience with like minded folks around
you and you're safe.
Right.
And ultimately, instead of having to be hyper vigilant and constantly looking over like
you're in a very serene, safe place that you have nothing to worry about.
Right.
And you can be vulnerable.
And I think that being vulnerable is a huge tool.
Right.
Because if you can allow the vulnerability to kick in for yourself, it really makes a
difference because the vulnerability will allow one for yourself, but for others to
grasp upon and to see.
So with that is they have some exercises that we did during the program.
And you would basically in different colors, write the good and the bad of each thing.
And you would talk about it and say, this is the things like, you know, that was an
alcoholic.
Mom would beat the shit out of you.
Dad would had like it was super hard on discipline or, you know, grandpop was this.
And, you know, he would list the goods and the bads and you have it.
But you would find that your list was more red than blue.
Right.
So and the red mean in bed and like you'd be like, oh, my God, like, is this really
true?
And then you would go back and try to think about it.
And all the stuff that you're talking about was like, man.
So then you would talk about it and do some exercises that come along with it.
Part of the program.
And, you know, you don't want to give it all away.
But, you know, it's things that you do while you're there.
And, you know, really makes you dig deep to find those pieces, right.
That we're missing.
And those are the things that you kind of block off in a different part of your brain.
And they loom in there when you start getting angry and frustrated and want to experience
things.
But, you know, on the everyday, they're there, but they're kind of just knowing a way, you
know, where you don't really realize it.
You know, talk to me about where you are now, because I think one of the things I've said
this a lot recently on the mental health conversation, especially in first responders, is we've we've
got our pant leg stuck on stigma.
Like, we're just still there.
Smash the stigma is all you hear.
I'm here for you.
You know, call this number.
There's no actual hope instilled in the post-traumatic growth and what what happens when you work
through these struggles and you hear so many times of people that they've literally become
a beacon of light for others.
People come out the woodwork and like, I've been I've been struggling, too.
And it was their journey that inspired them to then speak out themselves.
So what have you seen within yourself as far as that post-traumatic growth side?
Well, right.
And I could tell you that I feel like, you know, one, you know, using social media as
a positive, right, and share the experiences that you have, right, whether we're having
a conversation now and talking about it like the DNA things, a high priority thing, right,
because you never expect to find what you're going to find.
And if you're going to do those silly tests, you're going to do it.
And like I said, my journey on that space was to find out what was going on with me
inside of my body, not for the whole because 23andMe gives you the raw DNA data versus
it.
So then you can put it into a program to find out what's wrong.
You're expecting to find out that I was going to find that out.
Right.
So, you know, when it comes to working through this stuff and the post-traumatic growth pieces,
you know, we I feel like sharing a story is powerful, right, is just alone, is allowing,
you know, yourself.
Right.
It's like apologies are meant for you, not for other people.
Right.
So you go to apologize for somebody or to forgive somebody.
Your forgiveness is for you, not for them, whether they think it is or not.
It doesn't really matter.
Right.
But you still feel better for relieving that.
Why?
Because you're not letting it sit in the rucksack that's filled with rocks of all these traumas
and everything else that's built in there.
Right.
So if you can unpack the rocks, allow more space for more bad to fit in there, you know
what I mean?
You have a better chance of growth.
Right.
And you're not weighed down by the burden that lives within it, because once you talk
about it, your terrible experience is not really a fault anymore because you've just
relieved that pressure in a sense.
Right.
So, you know, you're not going to go into a fire without pressure testing your bottle,
right.
Right.
So, you know, having that, you know, it's going to work and go forward.
But having a conversation, like I said, and sharing the story with others, you know, and
saying, hey, man, like, I'm here for you.
Like, there's nothing wrong being vulnerable.
There's nothing wrong with showing a side of you that, you know, is, in a sense, sensitive.
Right.
Because sometimes people need to see that because the hard facade that you can show
in the front, if you can show them what you're really about, it's kind of the who and the
what.
Right.
And that's not going to allow me to conversate, but the who and me would allow me to talk
about that all day long.
Right.
But if you continue to share that and show people that you have the ability to do it,
then that just it's almost what is it?
It spreads.
Right.
It's, you know, it allows people to, you know, want to embrace that a little bit.
And while some are harder to penetrate than others is having those conversations that
are more positive versus negative, you know, allows for these folks to get a better show.
You know, I've used this analogy loads of times now, but it's the yin and the yang.
You know, I always tell people it was a soft, compassionate black.
I think it's I don't know why I can never remember which is which, but I think it's
yang that sends us into uniform.
The weather it's coming from trauma and you don't want other people to be hurt the way
you were or whatever the thing is.
It's a very selfless act to go and, you know, go leave your family and go and protect complete
strangers.
And then as we progress through the career, especially if you were raised in our generation
with Stallone's and Rambo's and these kind of stone faced bodybuilders as your example
of masculinity, you know, you now you become a white circle and you've lost the very thing
that actually sent you into uniform.
And so now you believe that, you know, speaking about mental health as being a pussy and its
weakness and we've got it completely backwards is it's courage that takes you to be vulnerable.
That's a brave thing to say, I need some help.
So I think reframing this and getting people to check back in and realizing that we've
got it completely twisted.
And if you are thinking that everyone's okay and you're just going to keep it to yourself,
you're going to bury it down.
That's the opposite of what a courageous man or woman will do.
A courageous man or woman, if they are struggling, will ask for help.
And I think if we can frame that back as the brave thing to do, we are a brave community.
So hopefully then it will get people realizing that, oh, so it's okay for me to ask for help
because that's the very kindness and compassion that I would show anyone else.
And you know, if I knew they were struggling.
And I feel like that relates to a lot of different things, right?
Whether it's our own people, whether it's our families, whether it's the people we encounter
in the street, right?
Is being vulnerable to a point where you empathize and can put yourselves in their shoes under
their same circumstances.
Take yourself and you empathize with that space and say, Hey man, like I can relate.
I may not understand all the ins and outs of it, right?
But if you can empathize with them and put themselves in the same shoes on the same circumstances,
how much of a better person are you going to be to give it back to them, you know, when
you have to deal with them?
You know what I mean?
Absolutely.
But I want to hit one more topic and then we'll go to some closing questions.
But while we're on the topic of courage, I've been doing this now for eight years and eight
years ago in the fire service, I was talking not only about the mental health side, but
also, you know, the insanity of the way that we work our firefighters.
Because I mean, the mandatory overtime has been there for a long, long time.
And again, I'm totally fine with mandatory overtime when we have a hurricane or something
that's worthy of an all hands event, but not as a staffing model unending.
And we've seen this decline now.
And the beautiful thing about this recruitment crisis is we really have to act because it's
going to go one of two ways.
You're either going to turn the ship around or your town or city is not going to have
a fire department anymore or a police department.
You know, and do you want to be the fire chief or police chief or council member that sank
the ship for your community?
But where I struggle with is when I was in fire academy, any cowardice would have meant
I would be thrown out of the fire academy.
If I didn't climb the ladder, if I didn't go into the burning building, if I didn't
go off the edge on a rope, then you can't be a firefighter.
Just forward 20 years and I'm seeing a lot of cowardice when it comes to leadership.
And the reason I say that is, you know, you have people who have lost numerous people
in their department that, you know, they're training people and then within two or three
years they're walking out the back door.
And the answer is the answers are all there.
The solutions are all there.
But it takes courage to go to your city, your county, your board members, whoever it is,
and say this needs to change.
We are losing our people.
We are losing people as far as recruitment.
You know, we are at a crisis.
So for me, I feel like 2025 needs to be the year of courage, not only on the mental health,
but on the leadership side too.
And calling out cowardice.
If someone is refusing to actually step up and advocate for their people, then getting
them to step aside and letting someone with a set of balls do the job for them.
So what is your kind of perspective on courage slash cowardice in leadership in our professions,
plural?
Well, right.
And I see, you know, across, you know, in my time in the military and the police world,
and you're not so much, you know, from my place, you know, but it happens a little bit,
but you know, I feel like there's a lot of managers, not a lot of leaders, right?
And you know, whether you're the highly most educated guy there and you're going to be
the leader, but you could be the manager or you could be the most experienced guy and
have the most experience and be a leader, but not a manager.
So there's no real fine line.
And you know, I know, you know, there's a lot of training and going back to the education
experience, right?
Experience is good, but like, you can't be afraid to call it out, right?
And you know, you have to be a voice for those that are never going to speak up, right?
And managers won't speak up.
They're going to, they'll speak up when they can because it's easy, right?
But they won't speak up when they have to, when it's not easy, right?
So if we step up as the leaders in our space, you know, showing that, hey, we're not afraid
to take it on by the head and we're not afraid to go in first, you know, without questions
asked, right?
And you're doing it for the right reasons and you're doing it then, then yes, that's
exactly it.
We 2025 needs to be a time of courage, right?
Because we are in a very, very strange place right now in the world, as we all know.
And you know, there is a lot of cowardice in the world right now and it's not easy to
see.
But we want to make sure that we're stepping with the right foot forward.
And you know, as long as we can articulate it in for the right reasons, for the right
timing and the right space, then listen, the world needs good leaders, right?
As well as even on the local level, from the highest to the lowest, you need to have a
leader, right?
You need to be a leader as a father, you need to be a leader as a, as a husband, you need
to be, or a wife, you know, I mean, like, this is all stuff that needs to be transformative.
And like I say, with the growth part of it, like you have to be able to step in and stabilize
when it's needed the most and I think we're at a crucial time.
And the cowardice cannot be in play at this point because we don't have any more time
for it.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I've seen two types of people.
I've seen the ones that are trying to turn that corner, really trying to steer the ship.
And then I see the ones that will, you know, vehemently defend their apathy.
And I tell them like, look, if, if the way we did it worked, there would be no behind
the shield podcast, because our first responders would be thriving, they'd be performing at
a high level, their marriages would be intact, they'd have a long and fruitful retirement,
but that's not the case.
So the way we did it, we've got like a 50 year longitudinal study on how not to do it.
So let's learn from those lessons, you know, in like, invest in our people, don't use them
as a commodity, but put them as your most valuable resource.
And then you will have people not only staying, which is your most important recruitment tool,
because happy cops and firefighters will recruit other cops and firefighters.
But also then, you know, you'll attract these young people, you know, at the front door
and you know, have most importantly, in my opinion, someone's given 15, 20, 25 years
of their life.
Now you ensure that they are healthy when they transition out and get to enjoy the fruits
of their labor.
I agree.
I 100% agree with that.
And I feel like, you know, we have to be people first, right, and have to put people, you
know, in front of us and you know, know that, you know, no matter what, we're going to be
taking care of them.
And then they have to feel that way too.
Like you said, it's like they have to feel like they're taken care of.
And you know, you don't have to hug and cuddle and give them a trophy every time they need
it.
But you know, they certainly, you know, if there's worth self worth, then there's going
to be a whole lot more coming out of that.
Absolutely.
I've always said I'd much rather a compliment from a chief that I really admired on a fire
scene than some unit citation, you know, from a chief that doesn't even know my name, you
know what I'm saying?
Hugs and high fives carry a lot more weight than a plaque that's going to sit underneath
my bed.
Absolutely.
All right.
Well, as far as the closing questions, the first one I'd love to ask, is there a book
or are there books that you love to recommend?
It can be related to our discussion today or completely unrelated.
So I feel like I mean, my wife always tell you that I'm a buyer of books, like I'll buy
a hundred books, you know, and I'll dig through it and look at it from there.
But one of the books, you know, it's more like a guide in a sense is Ben Greenfield
wrote a book.
If you follow him, it always a big podcaster, but wrote a book called Boundless and it's
probably this thick.
And it's like the Mecca of health and wellness.
And, you know, it's got all kinds of good data and stuff in there.
So, you know, I always revert that out if I'm looking up whether, you know, what kind
of workout we're looking at or there's breathing exercises or, you know, what kind of therapies
are available, you know, whatever you need to know health wellness related, it's in that
book.
And, you know, I talk about it often, they said, because they said what put me on my
health journey was this guy on his podcast from I listened to it, which then put me on
a journey of health and wellness for myself to make myself better.
Right.
And I wouldn't be, I guess, making strides if it wasn't for the steps of this guy.
So, you know, his book Boundless, I tell you, you know, while while huge, definitely well
worth it.
It's almost probably like similar, I guess, to what, you know, Heberman's book for protocols
is going to be just kind of laying out the foundation.
But again, it goes back to foundational work.
Absolutely.
What about films and documentaries?
Man, we just enjoyed a good movie, Red One the other day.
I don't know if you guys saw that I was, you know, especially for the time of year right
now for Christmas time, but very, very, very good movie.
But I you know, the previews of Superman just had me.
I don't know about the dog, but I feel like the new Superman coming out is, you know,
be something that, you know, want to start my kids on a new generation, you know, because
that was for us growing up, you know, Superman getting released back in, you know, back in
the day, and that was, you know, kind of something we saw and looked up upon.
Right.
And, you know, the new superhero needs to step in and do some work, you know.
Have you seen the documentary they did on Christopher Reeve?
No, I haven't.
I saw it online, but I have not watched it.
No, yeah, it's worth watching.
It was amazing.
I mean, it's so sad, but, you know, seeing the kind of human story behind that and how
he was at his pinnacle in his acting career and, you know, the impact of that injury had
him and all the good he still did, even though he was, you know, literally paralyzed from
the neck down.
It was pretty amazing to watch.
All right.
Well, the next question, is there a person you'd recommend to come on this podcast as
a guest to speak to the first responders, military and associated professions of the
world?
Yeah.
So I would say if you, I guess somebody from Bouldercrest, Josh Goldberg, the CEO, man,
if you could ever get him on a hook to get him on there, you know, that guy is just such
an inspiration.
While he's not a military guy, he sure gets it right.
And you know, running such a fantastic organization, you know, if you could ever talk to him or
at one of his team members, you know, they all speak the same language and just, you
know, Ken Falk, you know, would be his partner in crime, you know, those are the guys that
started the Bouldercrest Foundation is like, if you can get any of those guys on there
to have a conversation with, but I'd say you'll never be disappointed.
Like those guys are just, they're something else, right?
But yeah, if I ever had to say a recommendation, you know, well, I don't know if he's, you
know, happy, I'm going to throw his name out there, but I definitely would highly recommend
because like I said, I can listen to that guy talk all day long.
Brilliant.
Yeah.
It's funny, the struggle well program there I've heard mentioned over and over again as
well.
So I've got to, I've got to reach out to them.
Haven't had anyone from that, you know, upper echelon of Bouldercrest.
So I'll make that happen next year.
Definitely.
Oh, I mean, you will not be disappointed.
I promise you that.
Brilliant.
All right.
So before we make sure everyone knows where to find you online, what do you do to decompress?
Decompression for me, I'm always up for a good run.
Whether you know, we get done it, you know, I enjoy like the different runs that they
have, like whether it's the, you know, the Philly, you know, one of the long runs at
Philadelphia or you're going to run, you know, there's a small river by us.
That's the three and a half mile track is that's something that I will never turn down
an opportunity to go do something like that.
It used to be the Spartan and Tough Mudder races for decompression, but you know, my
shoulders and hips aren't working the way they should be anymore.
But so I got to preserve them as best we possibly can.
But I feel like, you know, if I'm going to decompress, you know, I'm going to do that
or we're going to go camp with my family, spend a lot of time with them.
And you know, we spent a lot of time, you know, up in the up in our family's cabin or
down the beach, you know, just kind of enjoying our time together.
And that's the only space I'd ever want to be in.
Brilliant.
All right.
And for people, if they want to reach out to you or learn more about you, where are
the best places online?
So I'm on LinkedIn.
That's obviously a professional space that, you know, you keep it professional.
It's where it is.
You know, my family and stuff, we're on Instagram and Facebook.
But I spend the time on LinkedIn because it's a better platform to share with like minded
professionals that we serve with.
Right.
And I know your show really attracts a lot of, you know, incredible heroes and human
beings.
And, you know, I feel like that's the easiest space to find it.
Absolutely.
Well, Jeff, I want to thank you so much.
It's been such an amazing conversation, really interesting journey that you've had between
all these different roles of law enforcement and then and again, your courageous vulnerability
talking about your mental health journey as well.
So I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and coming on the
Behind the Shield podcast today.
Thanks, brother.
I really appreciate the time.
And I look forward to all you do and keep doing God's work.