WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.620 This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran 00:00:02.620 --> 00:00:04.980 -owned and operated performance optimization 00:00:04.980 --> 00:00:08.039 company that I introduced recently as a sponsor 00:00:08.039 --> 00:00:10.820 on this show. Well, since then I have actually 00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:13.080 been using my products and I have had incredible 00:00:13.080 --> 00:00:15.939 success. There was initial blood work that was 00:00:15.939 --> 00:00:19.039 extremely detailed and based on that they offered 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:23.519 supplementation. So I began taking DHEA. BPC 00:00:23.519 --> 00:00:26.399 -157 for inflammation based on the fact that 00:00:26.399 --> 00:00:28.300 I've been a stuntman, a martial artist and a 00:00:28.300 --> 00:00:30.579 firefighter my whole life. Lots of aches and 00:00:30.579 --> 00:00:33.880 pains. Dihexa to help cognition after multiple 00:00:33.880 --> 00:00:36.899 punches to the head and shift work and peptides. 00:00:37.079 --> 00:00:39.520 Four months later they did a detailed blood work 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:42.259 again and I was actually able to taper off two 00:00:42.259 --> 00:00:44.479 of the peptides because my body had responded 00:00:44.479 --> 00:00:47.079 so well to just one of them that it was optimized 00:00:47.079 --> 00:00:50.530 at that point. So I cannot speak highly enough 00:00:50.530 --> 00:00:53.530 of the immense range of supplementation that 00:00:53.530 --> 00:00:55.789 they offer, whether it's male health, female 00:00:55.789 --> 00:00:58.530 health, peptides to boost your own testosterone, 00:00:58.630 --> 00:01:00.829 which I would argue is needed by a lot of the 00:01:00.829 --> 00:01:03.570 fire service, or whether it's exogenous testosterone 00:01:03.570 --> 00:01:06.750 needed, especially after TBIs or advanced age. 00:01:07.239 --> 00:01:09.480 Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of 00:01:09.480 --> 00:01:11.980 this company is an altruistic arm called the 00:01:11.980 --> 00:01:14.840 Transcend Foundation, which is putting veterans 00:01:14.840 --> 00:01:17.620 and first responders through some of their protocols 00:01:17.620 --> 00:01:21.359 free of charge. Now, Transcend are also offering 00:01:21.359 --> 00:01:24.019 you, the audience, 10 % off their protocols. 00:01:24.260 --> 00:01:27.120 And you can find that on jamesgearing .com under 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:29.840 the Products tab. And if you want to hear more 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:32.560 about Transcend and their story, listen to episode 00:01:32.560 --> 00:01:37.390 808 with the founder, Ernie Colling. or go to 00:01:37.390 --> 00:01:42.349 transcendcompany .com. Welcome to the Behind 00:01:42.349 --> 00:01:44.290 the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James 00:01:44.290 --> 00:01:46.189 Gearing, and this week it is my absolute honor 00:01:46.189 --> 00:01:49.709 to welcome on the show 23 -year veteran of the 00:01:49.709 --> 00:01:53.230 U .S. Army, Lieutenant Colonel Retired Oakland 00:01:53.230 --> 00:01:56.530 McCulloch. Now, in this conversation, we discuss 00:01:56.530 --> 00:01:59.769 a host of topics, from his journey into West 00:01:59.769 --> 00:02:04.790 Point, Operation Desert Storm, supporting operations 00:02:04.790 --> 00:02:09.120 in Bosnia, peacekeeping in Kosovo, disaster relief, 00:02:09.479 --> 00:02:13.639 the importance of courage in leadership, writing, 00:02:13.780 --> 00:02:16.400 and so much more. Now, before we get to this 00:02:16.400 --> 00:02:18.680 incredible conversation, as I say every week, 00:02:18.740 --> 00:02:21.719 please just take a moment, go to whichever app 00:02:21.719 --> 00:02:24.219 you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, 00:02:24.439 --> 00:02:28.090 leave feedback, and leave a rating. Every single 00:02:28.090 --> 00:02:31.229 five -star rating truly does elevate this podcast, 00:02:31.530 --> 00:02:33.949 therefore making it easier for others to find. 00:02:34.110 --> 00:02:38.770 And this is a free library of well over 1 ,000 00:02:38.770 --> 00:02:42.349 episodes now. So all I ask in return is that 00:02:42.349 --> 00:02:45.150 you help share these incredible men and women's 00:02:45.150 --> 00:02:48.629 stories so I can get them to every single person 00:02:48.629 --> 00:02:51.650 on planet Earth who needs to hear them. So with 00:02:51.650 --> 00:02:56.270 that being said, I introduce to you, Oak McCulloch. 00:02:56.719 --> 00:03:18.379 Enjoy. Well, Oak, I want to start by saying thank 00:03:18.379 --> 00:03:20.879 you so much for taking the time and coming on 00:03:20.879 --> 00:03:23.939 the Behind the Shield podcast today. Yeah, what? 00:03:24.590 --> 00:03:26.610 Since we talked, I've been looking forward to 00:03:26.610 --> 00:03:29.389 this. This is going to be a great show. I'm really 00:03:29.389 --> 00:03:32.770 looking forward to it. Great conversation. Likewise. 00:03:33.110 --> 00:03:34.610 All right, well, then let's start at the very 00:03:34.610 --> 00:03:36.770 beginning. Where on planet Earth are we finding 00:03:36.770 --> 00:03:40.389 you today? Yeah, so I live in Daytona Beach, 00:03:40.490 --> 00:03:44.250 Florida now. Grew up in Northern Illinois, so 00:03:44.250 --> 00:03:48.830 I'm just a dumb farm boy, which is why I live 00:03:48.830 --> 00:03:50.430 in Florida, because I'm never living through 00:03:50.430 --> 00:03:52.229 winters like that ever again. It's not going 00:03:52.229 --> 00:03:55.409 to happen. Well, let's start in Illinois then. 00:03:55.449 --> 00:03:57.750 So tell me where you were born and tell me a 00:03:57.750 --> 00:03:59.449 little bit about your family dynamic, what your 00:03:59.449 --> 00:04:03.050 parents did, how many siblings. So I was actually 00:04:03.050 --> 00:04:07.349 born in Tennessee, Loudon, Tennessee, but we 00:04:07.349 --> 00:04:09.909 moved to Northern Illinois when I was about three, 00:04:10.090 --> 00:04:12.990 I think, right around that time. I can't remember 00:04:12.990 --> 00:04:16.410 when we moved, but I remember that we did move 00:04:16.410 --> 00:04:19.790 there. So most of my life, young life, I remember 00:04:19.790 --> 00:04:24.740 living in Illinois. My parents, my father never 00:04:24.740 --> 00:04:28.259 finished the eighth grade. My mother never finished 00:04:28.259 --> 00:04:32.560 the 10th grade. He was a factory worker most 00:04:32.560 --> 00:04:36.220 of my life. I worked on farms as a kid, but he 00:04:36.220 --> 00:04:40.120 was a factory worker, worked long hours, provided 00:04:40.120 --> 00:04:43.939 very well for us. My mom stayed at home for the 00:04:43.939 --> 00:04:48.060 first part of my childhood, and then she went 00:04:48.060 --> 00:04:51.699 to work in a factory. And eventually my father 00:04:51.699 --> 00:04:55.839 bought a bar in the small little farm town that 00:04:55.839 --> 00:04:58.860 I grew up in called Kirkland, Illinois. 1 ,200 00:04:58.860 --> 00:05:04.079 people. And when I say small, I mean everybody 00:05:04.079 --> 00:05:07.300 knew everybody. I always sit and tell people 00:05:07.300 --> 00:05:10.279 I used to do something bad on my way home from 00:05:10.279 --> 00:05:14.879 school. And I only walked. My house was six blocks 00:05:14.879 --> 00:05:18.199 from the school. By the time I got home, my dad 00:05:18.199 --> 00:05:21.699 already knew what I had done. So everybody knew 00:05:21.699 --> 00:05:24.139 everybody and had no problems telling on you. 00:05:25.300 --> 00:05:28.100 But yeah, it was a small little farm town. Loved 00:05:28.100 --> 00:05:30.319 growing up there. I wouldn't trade any of it. 00:05:30.920 --> 00:05:34.540 It was a great place to grow up. The rest of 00:05:34.540 --> 00:05:38.259 your question, I had an older sister. She died 00:05:38.259 --> 00:05:42.139 when she was six and I was four of leukemia. 00:05:42.720 --> 00:05:46.000 And so then I became the oldest. And then I had 00:05:46.000 --> 00:05:48.339 three younger brothers. I have a brother that's 00:05:48.339 --> 00:05:51.899 two years younger than me. I have a brother that's 00:05:51.899 --> 00:05:54.000 seven years younger than me, and he passed away 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:58.420 about four years ago. And then I got a brother 00:05:58.420 --> 00:06:01.959 that's 12 years younger than me. So, you know, 00:06:01.959 --> 00:06:04.779 when my wife and I got married, he was 12 years 00:06:04.779 --> 00:06:08.579 old. But actually, I'm probably closer to him 00:06:08.579 --> 00:06:12.899 now than I am any of them. When you reflect back, 00:06:12.980 --> 00:06:16.160 what impact did losing your sister have on you 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:17.740 and your parents? Because that must have been 00:06:17.740 --> 00:06:22.000 absolutely horrendous. Yeah. So obviously more 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:25.279 impact on my mom than than any of the rest of 00:06:25.279 --> 00:06:28.079 us. And now she's buried two children, which 00:06:28.079 --> 00:06:30.759 I can't even fathom. I mean, that just blows 00:06:30.759 --> 00:06:35.660 my mind. But but I remember, you know, I kind 00:06:35.660 --> 00:06:38.399 of even at that age of four, I realized that. 00:06:38.620 --> 00:06:40.800 things had changed, that I was the oldest now. 00:06:40.980 --> 00:06:44.019 I was kind of responsible for, at that point, 00:06:44.040 --> 00:06:50.379 I just had one younger brother. And that just 00:06:50.379 --> 00:06:53.459 kind of stepped up a little bit, which kind of 00:06:53.459 --> 00:06:55.620 took me down that road of leadership, I think. 00:06:55.660 --> 00:06:58.579 I think I started it at that point, not knowing 00:06:58.579 --> 00:07:01.500 it at that point, but kind of, as I look back 00:07:01.500 --> 00:07:03.860 on it, I think that's probably when it all started. 00:07:05.129 --> 00:07:07.850 That community that you had in the actual town 00:07:07.850 --> 00:07:12.209 itself, what are your perceptions of that environment 00:07:12.209 --> 00:07:15.310 versus a lot of the kind of urban suburban sprawls 00:07:15.310 --> 00:07:17.730 that we live in now? Because when I think about 00:07:17.730 --> 00:07:20.230 the loneliness that you hear from people that 00:07:20.230 --> 00:07:22.970 are surrounded by millions of people, I feel 00:07:22.970 --> 00:07:25.370 like once we kind of disconnected from those 00:07:25.370 --> 00:07:27.310 smaller communities is where a lot of the human 00:07:27.310 --> 00:07:30.449 issues started arising. Oh, I absolutely agree 00:07:30.449 --> 00:07:33.480 with you. I can remember as a kid. We used to 00:07:33.480 --> 00:07:36.839 block off the street and we'd have a street party. 00:07:36.939 --> 00:07:38.939 All the people in the community, you know, in 00:07:38.939 --> 00:07:40.759 the neighborhood, they would all come out. We'd 00:07:40.759 --> 00:07:43.120 all take our dish to pass or whatever it was 00:07:43.120 --> 00:07:46.079 that they did. And there was food laid out there. 00:07:46.459 --> 00:07:50.939 We played in the street. We did games. We knew 00:07:50.939 --> 00:07:56.100 our neighbors, you know. It just amazes me moving 00:07:56.100 --> 00:07:59.079 around as an army officer. Most of the time. 00:07:59.480 --> 00:08:02.860 my wife and family and i lived on post but every 00:08:02.860 --> 00:08:05.360 once while they didn't have post housing or we 00:08:05.360 --> 00:08:07.019 didn't want to live on post and we lived off 00:08:07.019 --> 00:08:09.199 post and i remember one time we were in maryland 00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:14.139 moved into this community it was about 35 40 00:08:14.139 --> 00:08:18.639 years old and the person that lived next to us 00:08:18.639 --> 00:08:20.660 and the person across the street had lived there 00:08:20.660 --> 00:08:24.060 since the very beginning of the community 30 00:08:24.060 --> 00:08:27.279 something years they had never had dinner together 00:08:27.279 --> 00:08:31.439 never They didn't even talk. And it wasn't until 00:08:31.439 --> 00:08:34.120 I had my promotion party, I got promoted to major 00:08:34.120 --> 00:08:36.539 and I had a promotion party and invited everybody 00:08:36.539 --> 00:08:39.259 in the neighborhood that they finally connected. 00:08:39.419 --> 00:08:42.659 And then they actually liked each other. And 00:08:42.659 --> 00:08:46.440 there's a concept. But, you know, I think when 00:08:46.440 --> 00:08:49.919 we stopped doing that, when we stopped having 00:08:49.919 --> 00:08:52.600 those community type things, I think we did lose 00:08:52.600 --> 00:08:56.059 something. And my wife and I have lived in two 00:08:56.059 --> 00:09:00.360 older houses in our lives. since since uh i was 00:09:00.360 --> 00:09:02.399 my last assignment on active duty and then when 00:09:02.399 --> 00:09:05.399 i retired and they both had a big front porch 00:09:05.399 --> 00:09:08.980 and our thing was if we're sitting on the front 00:09:08.980 --> 00:09:11.899 porch we're open for business come on up sit 00:09:11.899 --> 00:09:15.539 down have a beer have a drink talk whatever you 00:09:15.539 --> 00:09:18.019 want to do so i think we've got to get back to 00:09:18.019 --> 00:09:21.879 more of that uh i one of the problems i see in 00:09:21.879 --> 00:09:25.529 bedroom communities and those types of communities 00:09:25.529 --> 00:09:28.429 is people come home from a long day work. They 00:09:28.429 --> 00:09:30.590 drive in the garage, they shut the garage door 00:09:30.590 --> 00:09:32.610 and they never come out. And so they don't even 00:09:32.610 --> 00:09:34.350 know their neighbors. They couldn't even tell 00:09:34.350 --> 00:09:41.549 you their names. Yeah, there's a couple of houses 00:09:41.549 --> 00:09:43.740 on my street. I've never even seen them. It's 00:09:43.740 --> 00:09:45.500 bizarre. I know people are living in the houses, 00:09:45.500 --> 00:09:47.759 but I've never seen the actual human beings that 00:09:47.759 --> 00:09:48.820 are in there because I think they do the same 00:09:48.820 --> 00:09:50.659 thing. They drive in, the door closes behind 00:09:50.659 --> 00:09:52.340 them. And so I don't know if they're like, you 00:09:52.340 --> 00:09:53.820 know, smuggling drugs or if they're just really 00:09:53.820 --> 00:09:56.399 shy, but whatever the reason, I mean, I've been 00:09:56.399 --> 00:09:59.740 here for several years now. It's bizarre. Yeah. 00:10:00.259 --> 00:10:04.019 Yeah. We got to get back to building communities 00:10:04.019 --> 00:10:07.019 and people getting to know each other, you know, 00:10:07.019 --> 00:10:11.009 and that. That goes one step further. If we start 00:10:11.009 --> 00:10:12.990 doing that again, then people will care about 00:10:12.990 --> 00:10:15.990 their neighbors and help them out when they need 00:10:15.990 --> 00:10:18.649 help, whether it's a little bit of financial 00:10:18.649 --> 00:10:21.830 or helping them put up their hurricane shutters 00:10:21.830 --> 00:10:25.049 or helping cut their grass when they need to 00:10:25.049 --> 00:10:27.529 because maybe somebody's sick and they can't 00:10:27.529 --> 00:10:31.809 do it. That all went away when we stopped having 00:10:31.809 --> 00:10:36.279 communities. When you look back at the time on 00:10:36.279 --> 00:10:37.919 the farm, I grew up on a farm, and there's a 00:10:37.919 --> 00:10:41.100 lot of discomfort in growing up on a farm. The 00:10:41.100 --> 00:10:44.539 hard work itself, the rain, the cold, getting 00:10:44.539 --> 00:10:48.039 kicked by animals. What elements of that upbringing 00:10:48.039 --> 00:10:51.659 served you well when you got into uniform? The 00:10:51.659 --> 00:10:55.799 self -discipline part of it, for sure. I started 00:10:55.799 --> 00:10:58.840 working on this guy's farm. It was a dairy farm 00:10:58.840 --> 00:11:03.779 when I was 12 years old. You know, he would come 00:11:03.779 --> 00:11:06.860 into town, pick me and another young man up. 00:11:06.940 --> 00:11:11.100 And the other guy was about two years older than 00:11:11.100 --> 00:11:16.080 me, probably. And he'd take us out there. We'd 00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:20.440 milk the cows. Then he'd feed us breakfast. Then 00:11:20.440 --> 00:11:22.440 we'd go out and work in the fields, do whatever, 00:11:22.580 --> 00:11:25.980 bale hay or whatever he needed us to do, feed 00:11:25.980 --> 00:11:29.600 the cows, whatever. And then we'd come in, have 00:11:29.600 --> 00:11:32.870 lunch. Then we'd go back out to the field, do 00:11:32.870 --> 00:11:35.730 whatever he'd bring us in. We'd have dinner and 00:11:35.730 --> 00:11:39.929 then he'd take us home. And and so I just remember 00:11:39.929 --> 00:11:42.129 the discipline piece of it, the self -discipline 00:11:42.129 --> 00:11:45.250 to get up in the mornings to, you know, go to 00:11:45.250 --> 00:11:49.929 work on those days. And and just he was one of 00:11:49.929 --> 00:11:51.970 those guys that could fix anything, you know, 00:11:51.970 --> 00:11:55.190 with with bailing wire and a pair of pliers. 00:11:55.370 --> 00:11:57.970 He could fix anything on the farm. He was just 00:11:57.970 --> 00:12:04.860 amazing guy. he uh he was probably in his easily 00:12:04.860 --> 00:12:09.059 in his 60s at that point uh but maybe even older 00:12:09.059 --> 00:12:14.879 and uh and just taught us like one day we were 00:12:14.879 --> 00:12:19.159 bailing hay and we had a loaded trailer of hay 00:12:19.159 --> 00:12:23.159 and he said oh jump in that truck and drive that 00:12:23.159 --> 00:12:27.419 to the barn i said fred i said i'm 12 years old 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:30.139 He said, I don't care. Get in the truck and drive 00:12:30.139 --> 00:12:32.700 it to the barn. So that was the first vehicle 00:12:32.700 --> 00:12:34.740 I ever drove. I learned how to drive out there 00:12:34.740 --> 00:12:38.019 on the farm. Yeah, I learned on several vehicles, 00:12:38.100 --> 00:12:40.759 a dump truck, and then my dad's a vet. So their 00:12:40.759 --> 00:12:43.740 veterinary kind of van that they had to move 00:12:43.740 --> 00:12:45.639 animals around. And yeah, it's a pretty good 00:12:45.639 --> 00:12:48.200 place to get some experience behind the wheel. 00:12:48.519 --> 00:12:52.500 Right. Yeah. And just the work ethic, you know, 00:12:52.639 --> 00:12:57.200 that you worked till the job was done. If that 00:12:57.200 --> 00:12:59.899 meant we were done at 6 o 'clock after dinner, 00:12:59.980 --> 00:13:02.279 we went home. If there was still more work to 00:13:02.279 --> 00:13:04.299 do, we'd go back out after dinner and he'd take 00:13:04.299 --> 00:13:07.759 us home when we were done. But that stuck in 00:13:07.759 --> 00:13:13.279 my mind, the work ethic. Finish what needs to 00:13:13.279 --> 00:13:16.039 be done today so that tomorrow we can start fresh. 00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:19.500 And again, I think that's something that has 00:13:19.500 --> 00:13:23.860 gone from a lot in our society today. Absolutely. 00:13:24.460 --> 00:13:26.600 What about sports and exercise? What were you 00:13:26.600 --> 00:13:29.159 doing and playing in the school age? Yeah, so 00:13:29.159 --> 00:13:31.899 as a young kid, I played baseball and basketball. 00:13:32.799 --> 00:13:35.460 Started in Little League and worked my way up 00:13:35.460 --> 00:13:38.799 and played basketball in school. And then high 00:13:38.799 --> 00:13:40.820 school, I played basketball, baseball and football 00:13:40.820 --> 00:13:45.039 and was always the captain of my team. So I think, 00:13:45.039 --> 00:13:47.919 again, go back to the leadership piece. I think 00:13:47.919 --> 00:13:51.539 it started, certainly got some early development 00:13:51.539 --> 00:13:55.230 there as the captain. of the teams um and i played 00:13:55.230 --> 00:13:57.730 college baseball and i had i had scholarships 00:13:57.730 --> 00:14:02.429 to play for very small schools um i had a scholarship 00:14:02.429 --> 00:14:04.429 to play basketball and i had two scholarships 00:14:04.429 --> 00:14:08.029 to play football um but i chose baseball and 00:14:08.029 --> 00:14:11.210 so that's what i chose to do at the college level 00:14:11.210 --> 00:14:15.629 and and and loved every minute of it again the 00:14:15.629 --> 00:14:18.649 the motivation piece the self -discipline piece 00:14:18.649 --> 00:14:25.350 the um The work ethic of being an athlete certainly 00:14:25.350 --> 00:14:28.429 has stuck with me throughout my entire life and 00:14:28.429 --> 00:14:32.789 had great benefits for me throughout my time 00:14:32.789 --> 00:14:36.789 in the military. What about career aspirations? 00:14:36.950 --> 00:14:38.629 As you were progressing through the school ages 00:14:38.629 --> 00:14:41.289 and into college, were you envisioning yourself 00:14:41.289 --> 00:14:43.230 as a professional athlete or was there another 00:14:43.230 --> 00:14:45.309 career in mind prior to the military? Well, you 00:14:45.309 --> 00:14:49.309 know, I think every young... man who plays sports 00:14:49.309 --> 00:14:52.149 has a dream that maybe they would want to play 00:14:52.149 --> 00:14:56.470 in the NFL or the NBA or the Major League Baseball. 00:14:56.649 --> 00:15:00.509 And I certainly did. I thought I would love to 00:15:00.509 --> 00:15:03.590 be in the Major League Baseball, but I quickly 00:15:03.590 --> 00:15:07.629 realized that that wasn't going to happen. As 00:15:07.629 --> 00:15:12.110 good as I was, I wasn't that good. I wasn't good 00:15:12.110 --> 00:15:15.450 enough to play in the Major League Baseball. 00:15:17.149 --> 00:15:20.250 senior level. I might have been in a minor league 00:15:20.250 --> 00:15:22.250 for a few years, and I think I could have done 00:15:22.250 --> 00:15:23.970 that, but I'm not sure that I could have ever 00:15:23.970 --> 00:15:27.450 broken into the Major League Baseball. But, you 00:15:27.450 --> 00:15:30.129 know, I quickly realized that that wasn't going 00:15:30.129 --> 00:15:34.909 to happen. And I think I was a sophomore in high 00:15:34.909 --> 00:15:37.769 school when I kind of, the thought of being an 00:15:37.769 --> 00:15:40.929 officer in the Army entered my mind, and I started 00:15:40.929 --> 00:15:44.090 pursuing ways to make that happen. I applied 00:15:44.090 --> 00:15:46.590 to West Point. I applied to all the academies, 00:15:46.590 --> 00:15:49.909 but I applied to West Point. I applied for ROTC 00:15:49.909 --> 00:15:55.830 scholarships to all the services. And I got accepted 00:15:55.830 --> 00:16:00.110 to all the academies, except the Air Force Academy. 00:16:00.370 --> 00:16:04.149 They didn't want me. And I got accepted for all 00:16:04.149 --> 00:16:09.110 the ROTC scholarships, except the Air Force ROTC. 00:16:09.149 --> 00:16:10.610 They didn't want me. For some reason, the Air 00:16:10.610 --> 00:16:14.070 Force didn't want me. which is fine with me. 00:16:14.110 --> 00:16:16.649 It worked out better anyway. But I got accepted 00:16:16.649 --> 00:16:20.049 to West Point Naval Academy, Merchant Marine 00:16:20.049 --> 00:16:22.409 Academy, Coast Guard Academy. I got accepted 00:16:22.409 --> 00:16:25.730 to all those. And so I really did start down. 00:16:25.970 --> 00:16:29.230 I had already come to the conclusion that that 00:16:29.230 --> 00:16:32.590 was the right path for me and that I was probably 00:16:32.590 --> 00:16:35.029 going to make a career out of it, whichever service 00:16:35.029 --> 00:16:39.120 I pick. So what was that initial on -ramp like 00:16:39.120 --> 00:16:41.139 for you? Where did you find yourself kind of 00:16:41.139 --> 00:16:45.500 assigned, which role? And then what was the either 00:16:45.500 --> 00:16:47.759 great leaders or poor leaders that you had early 00:16:47.759 --> 00:16:51.120 in your career? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I started 00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:54.960 off, you know, I went to my office. I got commissioned 00:16:54.960 --> 00:16:58.879 as an infantry officer. And I went to my officer 00:16:58.879 --> 00:17:03.379 basic course at Fort Benning in Georgia. Then 00:17:03.379 --> 00:17:05.950 it was the school for boys. Now it's. You know, 00:17:05.970 --> 00:17:10.990 it's mixed gender, so boys and girls. But then 00:17:10.990 --> 00:17:13.750 it was this guy in the infantry, and so I went 00:17:13.750 --> 00:17:18.190 there for my six -month basic course. Went to 00:17:18.190 --> 00:17:20.789 Ranger School, got hurt, didn't graduate from 00:17:20.789 --> 00:17:22.930 Ranger School, so they sent me to my first unit, 00:17:23.009 --> 00:17:25.549 which was Fort Stewart, Georgia, because my wife 00:17:25.549 --> 00:17:27.490 was already in the Army. She was an Army nurse 00:17:27.490 --> 00:17:30.089 at that point. She got commissioned about six 00:17:30.089 --> 00:17:32.509 months before I did, so she was already at Fort 00:17:32.509 --> 00:17:35.579 Stewart working at the hospital there. So I showed 00:17:35.579 --> 00:17:39.039 up, and there were three of us lieutenants, infantry 00:17:39.039 --> 00:17:41.440 lieutenants, who showed up that day. Same time. 00:17:41.559 --> 00:17:43.960 We all walked in. I mean, within five minutes 00:17:43.960 --> 00:17:46.819 of each other, we all walked into the in -processing 00:17:46.819 --> 00:17:52.079 G1. And they told us, they said, there's only 00:17:52.079 --> 00:17:55.240 one platoon leader spot. The other two, you're 00:17:55.240 --> 00:17:58.019 going to go to work on a staff until a platoon 00:17:58.019 --> 00:18:00.859 leader spot comes open. And so they took us down 00:18:00.859 --> 00:18:03.660 there, and we interviewed with the battalion 00:18:03.660 --> 00:18:07.509 commander. And for whatever reason, he picked 00:18:07.509 --> 00:18:10.190 me to be the platoon leader, and the other two 00:18:10.190 --> 00:18:15.109 went to the staff. And I remember Colonel Snipe, 00:18:15.210 --> 00:18:20.950 great leader, very smart man, very tactically 00:18:20.950 --> 00:18:27.109 sound, very fair, and a servant leader, which 00:18:27.109 --> 00:18:32.690 kind of took me down that path. to to understand 00:18:32.690 --> 00:18:36.089 that that was the right leadership to be second 00:18:36.089 --> 00:18:40.890 battalion commander not so good um so so you 00:18:40.890 --> 00:18:43.609 know you just never know who you're going to 00:18:43.609 --> 00:18:45.750 get there's there's good and bad people in every 00:18:45.750 --> 00:18:48.210 profession and and you just got to understand 00:18:48.210 --> 00:18:54.369 that and but but having said that you still learn 00:18:54.369 --> 00:18:56.670 from those people you learn what not to do you 00:18:56.670 --> 00:18:59.990 learn other ways to do things. So I think you 00:18:59.990 --> 00:19:01.750 just got to keep your mind open, even when you 00:19:01.750 --> 00:19:05.170 got a bad leader, to still learn what you can 00:19:05.170 --> 00:19:08.470 from those people. Absolutely. Well, then what 00:19:08.470 --> 00:19:11.930 about deployments? Was Desert Storm the first 00:19:11.930 --> 00:19:15.109 time you deployed, certainly out there? That 00:19:15.109 --> 00:19:18.349 was the first wartime or that type of deployment. 00:19:18.470 --> 00:19:22.930 My first actual deployment, besides the National 00:19:22.930 --> 00:19:26.859 Training Center, which technically it... is a 00:19:26.859 --> 00:19:29.420 training deployment my first real deployment 00:19:29.420 --> 00:19:33.480 was hurricane hugo in charleston uh because we 00:19:33.480 --> 00:19:36.980 were so close to them they activated us and we 00:19:36.980 --> 00:19:43.420 went up there and uh i was uh at that point i 00:19:43.420 --> 00:19:47.019 was an itv platoon leader i believe uh there's 00:19:47.019 --> 00:19:49.519 dayton myself because that vehicle hasn't been 00:19:49.519 --> 00:19:53.000 around for a long time um and and they drove 00:19:53.000 --> 00:19:58.099 us up there in buses and we got to the, there 00:19:58.099 --> 00:20:01.299 was, they had to stay at the old Charleston Naval, 00:20:01.400 --> 00:20:06.019 a building that had been abandoned and it looked 00:20:06.019 --> 00:20:08.460 like it had been abandoned both inside and out. 00:20:09.259 --> 00:20:11.539 I don't, we didn't have any running water, no 00:20:11.539 --> 00:20:14.960 electricity. I mean, it was basically camping 00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:18.380 inside of a building. And there were, my platoon, 00:20:18.480 --> 00:20:21.019 we were in one room. So there was, here's 30, 00:20:21.140 --> 00:20:27.339 25. men sleeping in this one room on their sleeping 00:20:27.339 --> 00:20:31.039 bags and um and and so then the next morning 00:20:31.039 --> 00:20:33.920 they took us took us me and my platoon to this 00:20:33.920 --> 00:20:38.359 warehouse and they said okay lieutenant you and 00:20:38.359 --> 00:20:40.259 your platoon is going to run this warehouse and 00:20:40.259 --> 00:20:44.160 i said i'm an infantry lieutenant i know nothing 00:20:44.160 --> 00:20:47.539 about running a warehouse and my battalion commander 00:20:47.539 --> 00:20:50.019 looked at me and said figure it out lieutenant 00:20:50.700 --> 00:20:54.500 He got back in the vehicle and drove away. And 00:20:54.500 --> 00:20:57.220 we did. We figured it out. Between me and the 00:20:57.220 --> 00:21:01.359 platoon sergeant and my junior NCOs, we kind 00:21:01.359 --> 00:21:03.119 of figured out what we had to do and came up 00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:07.380 with a plan on how to do it. And we did it. What 00:21:07.380 --> 00:21:09.559 were some of the things that you remember from 00:21:09.559 --> 00:21:11.920 that time? Obviously, we've had more recent hurricanes. 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:14.059 There's been more and more coverage, social media, 00:21:14.180 --> 00:21:16.660 all that kind of thing. A lot of times, those 00:21:16.660 --> 00:21:18.420 disasters, there's that heartbreaking element, 00:21:18.519 --> 00:21:21.359 but there's also a... An amazing response when 00:21:21.359 --> 00:21:24.259 it comes to community and people coming together 00:21:24.259 --> 00:21:26.599 again. So what do you recall from that deployment? 00:21:27.039 --> 00:21:29.299 Yeah, the first thing I recall, again, having 00:21:29.299 --> 00:21:33.920 grown up in middle America, in northern Illinois, 00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:37.799 I had no idea what hurricanes were. I knew what 00:21:37.799 --> 00:21:40.980 tornadoes were. I used to live through a lot 00:21:40.980 --> 00:21:43.940 of those and saw the damage that they could do. 00:21:44.180 --> 00:21:48.500 And I guess my mind was, okay, it's the same. 00:21:48.970 --> 00:21:52.490 Driving into Charleston, the devastation was 00:21:52.490 --> 00:21:55.109 just unbelievable. And I thought to myself, wow, 00:21:55.349 --> 00:21:59.750 Mother Nature is something else. I mean, trees, 00:21:59.990 --> 00:22:03.869 just acres and acres of trees just broken off 00:22:03.869 --> 00:22:09.529 like a toothpick. And then we got to right along 00:22:09.529 --> 00:22:16.750 the river, the bay. The whole downtown was completely 00:22:16.750 --> 00:22:21.849 flooded, probably five feet of water in the streets. 00:22:22.089 --> 00:22:27.849 And then went out to the barrier island after 00:22:27.849 --> 00:22:30.849 a day or two. We went out to the barrier island 00:22:30.849 --> 00:22:34.230 and there was nothing left. Not even the foundations. 00:22:34.509 --> 00:22:38.289 It had taken the foundations of the houses. It 00:22:38.289 --> 00:22:44.390 was just completely gone. And I guess the second 00:22:44.390 --> 00:22:48.049 part of that is the reaction is the amount of 00:22:48.049 --> 00:22:51.490 stuff that came in to that warehouse, lumber, 00:22:51.769 --> 00:22:58.210 toilets, light bulbs, clothing, food, you name 00:22:58.210 --> 00:23:02.190 it, from all over America was being sent there. 00:23:02.349 --> 00:23:07.049 And that was our job was to intake it, log it 00:23:07.049 --> 00:23:09.450 so that we knew where it was and what we had. 00:23:09.670 --> 00:23:12.829 And then when. people started coming to help 00:23:12.829 --> 00:23:15.670 rebuild then we started handing this stuff out 00:23:15.670 --> 00:23:19.569 you know the the lumber and the appliances and 00:23:19.569 --> 00:23:23.069 whatever else was given to us there at the warehouse 00:23:23.069 --> 00:23:27.950 so the the the generosity of the american people 00:23:27.950 --> 00:23:31.670 was was just amazing to me that's what i've heard 00:23:31.670 --> 00:23:34.960 over and over again and it's so sad because More 00:23:34.960 --> 00:23:36.940 often than not, the news cycle determines how 00:23:36.940 --> 00:23:39.460 much attention there is on some of these disasters. 00:23:39.740 --> 00:23:42.140 And you look at footage from North Carolina now, 00:23:42.200 --> 00:23:44.099 they're still pulling bodies out of the mud. 00:23:44.140 --> 00:23:46.380 There's still people that are completely unhoused. 00:23:47.329 --> 00:23:49.930 You know, it's always important to be reminded 00:23:49.930 --> 00:23:51.730 of these stories and put people back on the radar 00:23:51.730 --> 00:23:54.190 because, you know, the people in L .A. still 00:23:54.190 --> 00:23:56.109 have no home. You know, the people in North Carolina, 00:23:56.269 --> 00:23:59.109 you know, the northwest coast of Florida here 00:23:59.109 --> 00:24:01.029 is still recovering from all the storms that 00:24:01.029 --> 00:24:05.329 we had. Right. Three storms in 18 months, all 00:24:05.329 --> 00:24:09.950 devastating storms. Yeah, absolutely. Well, then 00:24:09.950 --> 00:24:11.869 what about Desert Storm? Walk me through kind 00:24:11.869 --> 00:24:14.569 of where you were assigned and then that conflict 00:24:14.569 --> 00:24:17.519 through your eyes. Yeah, so Desert Shield, Desert 00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:21.980 Storm. So I was in the 24th Intermediate Division. 00:24:22.079 --> 00:24:25.079 We were the second Army unit to get there. The 00:24:25.079 --> 00:24:27.779 82nd got there before we did. But then we were 00:24:27.779 --> 00:24:29.640 the first heavy unit to get there, and we were 00:24:29.640 --> 00:24:32.880 bringing our stuff in. And I remember I was a 00:24:32.880 --> 00:24:36.319 general's aide during that time, the one -star 00:24:36.319 --> 00:24:41.619 general's aide. And we were kind of getting everything 00:24:41.619 --> 00:24:46.079 on the boats down at the port. to get it shipped 00:24:46.079 --> 00:24:51.500 um and they were navy ships and the two -star 00:24:51.500 --> 00:24:54.160 general had decided he wanted to send his bradleys 00:24:54.160 --> 00:24:56.240 and his tanks he wanted to send all those first 00:24:56.240 --> 00:24:58.539 so that they could be first on the ground ready 00:24:58.539 --> 00:25:01.920 to go if needed be and we loaded this ship and 00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:04.079 we loaded with a bunch of tanks and a bunch of 00:25:04.079 --> 00:25:09.680 bradleys and then i remember the guy in the navy 00:25:09.680 --> 00:25:13.400 whoever the captain of the ship said Sorry, dudes, 00:25:13.480 --> 00:25:15.720 you got to unload some of that heavy stuff. He 00:25:15.720 --> 00:25:17.720 said, we'll never make it out of the port. He 00:25:17.720 --> 00:25:20.660 said, we don't have enough clearance to get out 00:25:20.660 --> 00:25:23.319 of the port. So we had to unload a bunch of it, 00:25:23.339 --> 00:25:27.259 load lighter stuff on. And it finally got home. 00:25:28.240 --> 00:25:30.759 And I remember I got there on the, I believe 00:25:30.759 --> 00:25:33.440 it was the 14th of August is when I landed in 00:25:33.440 --> 00:25:38.240 Adamah at the airport there. And I flew over 00:25:38.240 --> 00:25:42.490 on a 141. So I was in a little. you know, one 00:25:42.490 --> 00:25:46.930 of those cargo seats all the way across. We flew 00:25:46.930 --> 00:25:50.089 from Fort Stewart to Bangor, Maine, from Bangor, 00:25:50.109 --> 00:25:55.930 Maine to Sicily, and then Sicily to Audemars. 00:25:56.069 --> 00:25:59.950 And didn't get a whole lot of sleep during that 00:25:59.950 --> 00:26:04.190 trip. And I remember that ramp came down and 00:26:04.190 --> 00:26:09.950 just the heat in August in the desert. And I'd 00:26:09.950 --> 00:26:12.730 been out to National Training Center, Fort Irwin, 00:26:12.869 --> 00:26:15.650 but it wasn't the same heat. First of all, it 00:26:15.650 --> 00:26:17.630 was very humid because you're right on the coast. 00:26:18.410 --> 00:26:21.589 So not only did you have 120 degree temperatures, 00:26:21.710 --> 00:26:26.430 but you had 75 % humidity. And the minute that 00:26:26.430 --> 00:26:28.809 door went down, I mean, you were just soaked. 00:26:28.990 --> 00:26:31.789 And you just stayed soaked because it wouldn't 00:26:31.789 --> 00:26:34.009 evaporate because of the humidity. So you were 00:26:34.009 --> 00:26:37.069 just wet all the time. And then we moved further 00:26:37.069 --> 00:26:41.380 out into the desert. and my job was to coordinate 00:26:41.380 --> 00:26:44.279 the day -to -day operations of the general and 00:26:44.279 --> 00:26:48.480 coordinate his security detail a hand -picked 00:26:48.480 --> 00:26:52.299 number of rangers that we from the ranger battalion 00:26:52.299 --> 00:26:55.599 that we had as his security detail and his they 00:26:55.599 --> 00:26:58.359 drove his humvee and his vehicles and those kind 00:26:58.359 --> 00:26:59.920 of things and i had to coordinate coordinate 00:26:59.920 --> 00:27:03.799 two helicopters two blackhawk helicopters that 00:27:03.799 --> 00:27:07.730 were assigned to us And on a rotation basis, 00:27:07.910 --> 00:27:10.789 we'd fly one today and one tomorrow while the 00:27:10.789 --> 00:27:13.930 other one got their crew rest and all that. So 00:27:13.930 --> 00:27:17.289 my job was to coordinate the day -to -day operations, 00:27:17.609 --> 00:27:21.869 who we wanted to go see, where is it? Let's get 00:27:21.869 --> 00:27:24.029 them there. Is it easier to fly there or is it 00:27:24.029 --> 00:27:26.750 a drive there? Does the weather allow us to fly? 00:27:26.930 --> 00:27:29.650 So we were figuring all that out on a daily basis. 00:27:30.950 --> 00:27:34.660 And that was during Desert Shield. and then we 00:27:34.660 --> 00:27:39.299 moved out for even further west because in during 00:27:39.299 --> 00:27:42.500 the invasion we were the furthest left part of 00:27:42.500 --> 00:27:45.480 the big hook the only people that were west of 00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:49.240 us was the french brigade that was out there 00:27:49.240 --> 00:27:55.460 so we were the furthest west american unit in 00:27:55.460 --> 00:28:00.099 the hook and so we moved out there and for the 00:28:00.099 --> 00:28:04.369 two to three weeks before deserts storm happened 00:28:04.369 --> 00:28:07.690 and then I remember the night Desert Storm kicked 00:28:07.690 --> 00:28:11.769 off with the air raid like it was yesterday. 00:28:12.569 --> 00:28:18.490 It was January 17th, my anniversary, and I remember 00:28:18.490 --> 00:28:21.269 watching all these planes go. Well, first the 00:28:21.269 --> 00:28:24.750 Apaches went out and took out, I guess, radar 00:28:24.750 --> 00:28:28.710 and air defense weapons and then just planes 00:28:28.710 --> 00:28:31.690 after plane after plane after plane going over. 00:28:32.990 --> 00:28:35.769 right over top of us. It must have been the corridor 00:28:35.769 --> 00:28:41.269 because they were just flying non -stop. And 00:28:41.269 --> 00:28:45.769 then two weeks later, three weeks later, February 00:28:45.769 --> 00:28:50.509 14th, so almost a month later, and I remember 00:28:50.509 --> 00:28:52.410 that day because that was my father's birthday. 00:28:52.609 --> 00:28:56.309 So air war started on my anniversary, ground 00:28:56.309 --> 00:29:00.200 war started on my dad's birthday. Then we crossed 00:29:00.200 --> 00:29:03.579 over and for four days we basically drove and 00:29:03.579 --> 00:29:09.400 blew stuff up and ended up on the Euphrates River 00:29:09.400 --> 00:29:14.680 just north of Basra. So that was really the four 00:29:14.680 --> 00:29:18.700 days. And then we stayed there for another week 00:29:18.700 --> 00:29:22.859 or two, maybe three as an occupation until we 00:29:22.859 --> 00:29:25.269 could get everything and everybody out. Yeah, 00:29:25.329 --> 00:29:27.730 I had a couple of people on the show who had 00:29:27.730 --> 00:29:29.609 different perspectives of that, and obviously 00:29:29.609 --> 00:29:32.789 some of them that were on, what was it they called 00:29:32.789 --> 00:29:35.890 the main strip? Was it the Road of Death? Yeah, 00:29:36.009 --> 00:29:40.829 that was much further south of where I was. That 00:29:40.829 --> 00:29:44.309 was the Marines and I think First Cav. I think 00:29:44.309 --> 00:29:46.109 that was the dividing line between the Marines 00:29:46.109 --> 00:29:49.910 and First Cav. Okay. And really, most of that 00:29:49.910 --> 00:29:53.490 death came from air, not from ground troops. 00:29:53.829 --> 00:29:56.089 Yeah. Yeah, I remember him saying as well, when 00:29:56.089 --> 00:29:59.789 they set fire to the oil fields, the actual oil 00:29:59.789 --> 00:30:02.369 was miles away, but you could feel the heat apparently 00:30:02.369 --> 00:30:05.849 from miles away. I mean, the smell of that all 00:30:05.849 --> 00:30:09.750 over, even as far west as we were, we could still 00:30:09.750 --> 00:30:14.730 smell, had a smell of oil in it. Did you get 00:30:14.730 --> 00:30:16.950 to interact with the Iraqi people in that particular 00:30:16.950 --> 00:30:21.089 deployment? I did a little bit after after those 00:30:21.089 --> 00:30:23.970 four days after the actual combat piece of it 00:30:23.970 --> 00:30:27.470 was done then then we did you know we kind of 00:30:27.470 --> 00:30:31.269 shifted from being an invasion army to an occupying 00:30:31.269 --> 00:30:34.069 army and there were some communities there that 00:30:34.069 --> 00:30:37.329 in our area that we had to interact with you 00:30:37.329 --> 00:30:43.569 know and uh and they would come up and ask us 00:30:43.569 --> 00:30:47.980 for about family members or whatever. So I had 00:30:47.980 --> 00:30:50.720 a very little bit of interaction with them, not 00:30:50.720 --> 00:30:53.680 a whole lot, but a little bit. You hear from 00:30:53.680 --> 00:30:58.099 a lot of the guys that went to Iraq in the more 00:30:58.099 --> 00:31:02.099 recent conflicts, the war on terror, global war 00:31:02.099 --> 00:31:04.900 on terror, excuse me. And you hear early on, 00:31:04.940 --> 00:31:07.380 there was a lot of gratitude towards the allied 00:31:07.380 --> 00:31:10.099 soldiers when they were there. But as we stayed 00:31:10.099 --> 00:31:12.119 and stayed and stayed, that started to turn. 00:31:12.859 --> 00:31:15.500 With the Desert Storm perception and obviously 00:31:15.500 --> 00:31:22.160 your career after that, if we could Monday morning 00:31:22.160 --> 00:31:26.160 quarterback, how are we able to facilitate some 00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:28.660 of these conflicts and try and avoid that feeling 00:31:28.660 --> 00:31:31.440 of occupation for the very people that we initially 00:31:31.440 --> 00:31:34.839 were protecting? Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting 00:31:34.839 --> 00:31:38.000 question. Age old question, isn't it? Because 00:31:38.000 --> 00:31:39.680 I think you probably could have run into the 00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:44.480 same thing in Vietnam. You know, probably when 00:31:44.480 --> 00:31:47.180 we first got there, we were heroes. And then 00:31:47.180 --> 00:31:49.599 by that time, we were ready to leave. And we 00:31:49.599 --> 00:31:53.779 did leave. Not so much even with the South Vietnamese 00:31:53.779 --> 00:31:58.000 people, probably. I think, you know, that's one 00:31:58.000 --> 00:32:00.940 of those things. And I think General Powell had 00:32:00.940 --> 00:32:04.180 it right. You know, you have an objective. You 00:32:04.180 --> 00:32:06.579 accomplish that objective. And there's got to 00:32:06.579 --> 00:32:09.900 be an insight to it. There's got to be an end 00:32:09.900 --> 00:32:13.970 piece that says, OK. This is what we're leaving 00:32:13.970 --> 00:32:17.930 at this once we accomplish this thing. And I 00:32:17.930 --> 00:32:20.630 think part of the problem that we ran into after 00:32:20.630 --> 00:32:27.390 2003 in Afghanistan and Iraq is that we got so 00:32:27.390 --> 00:32:30.609 involved in nation building, which is not our 00:32:30.609 --> 00:32:36.890 job, and nor should it be, that we got bogged 00:32:36.890 --> 00:32:41.579 down into that. And then we stayed much longer 00:32:41.579 --> 00:32:45.220 than we should have, which then caused the people 00:32:45.220 --> 00:32:49.460 in there to resent us and want us to go. And 00:32:49.460 --> 00:32:53.619 I think we absolutely stayed longer than we should 00:32:53.619 --> 00:32:59.400 have in both Afghanistan and Iraq after 9 -11, 00:32:59.619 --> 00:33:04.359 when we re -went into Iraq and went into Afghanistan. 00:33:04.680 --> 00:33:07.980 For me, it wasn't a... big deal we were we were 00:33:07.980 --> 00:33:10.099 there less than two or three weeks and we there 00:33:10.099 --> 00:33:12.460 was always the plan that we were coming out very 00:33:12.460 --> 00:33:16.720 quickly so i never had to deal with that i i 00:33:16.720 --> 00:33:20.000 dealt with a little bit in kosovo uh during that 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.619 deployment but not in iraq give me one second 00:33:24.619 --> 00:33:29.359 i'm so sorry that's all right hey get out thank 00:33:29.359 --> 00:33:36.779 you she's doing her job too well there's a Murphy's 00:33:36.779 --> 00:33:38.660 Law. I haven't had a package delivered in about 00:33:38.660 --> 00:33:40.799 two weeks. And when we sit down and do this, 00:33:40.839 --> 00:33:42.880 all of a sudden everyone wants to send me stuff. 00:33:43.319 --> 00:33:47.019 All right. We'll stay on this topic because, 00:33:47.039 --> 00:33:50.720 again, you are such the perfect person to ask 00:33:50.720 --> 00:33:54.299 this. Coming from a complete layman, someone 00:33:54.299 --> 00:33:56.900 who never served in the military, donated to 00:33:56.900 --> 00:33:58.859 the Salvation Army, was about the closest I got. 00:34:00.339 --> 00:34:04.730 When I look at... how many people make an incredibly 00:34:04.730 --> 00:34:07.309 large amount of money when we send our men and 00:34:07.309 --> 00:34:11.789 women off to war? I wonder where the checks and 00:34:11.789 --> 00:34:13.949 balances are. Of course, there is a time and 00:34:13.949 --> 00:34:15.969 place, and World War II is always the perfect 00:34:15.969 --> 00:34:18.949 example, where we roll up our sleeves and then 00:34:18.949 --> 00:34:22.630 we head towards the tyranny and we try and be 00:34:22.630 --> 00:34:25.469 part of the solution. But when you understand 00:34:25.469 --> 00:34:28.829 that military weapons and uniforms and MREs and 00:34:28.829 --> 00:34:32.860 all the things that... create these bases and 00:34:32.860 --> 00:34:36.699 these abilities to go to war that, you know, 00:34:36.699 --> 00:34:40.000 there's such a huge amount of money made. And 00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:42.239 you look at the parallel with the pharmaceutical 00:34:42.239 --> 00:34:45.559 industry, the answer is to make people healthier. 00:34:45.800 --> 00:34:50.179 And yet the push for healthy Americans seems 00:34:50.179 --> 00:34:54.780 to be opposed. And, you know, we're inactivity 00:34:54.780 --> 00:34:58.739 and processed food seems to be the biggest lobbyist. 00:34:59.880 --> 00:35:05.599 I really worry about the resistance to peace, 00:35:05.800 --> 00:35:09.940 the promotion of diplomacy. In this position 00:35:09.940 --> 00:35:12.739 that you've been at, how do we stop our young 00:35:12.739 --> 00:35:15.199 men and women being sent to wars that they never 00:35:15.199 --> 00:35:17.960 should have been a part of? Yeah, well, I just 00:35:17.960 --> 00:35:22.119 saw something online the other day that is absolutely 00:35:22.119 --> 00:35:25.659 right. It said, a country run by banks will always 00:35:25.659 --> 00:35:29.550 be in debt. Run by... Big Pharma will always 00:35:29.550 --> 00:35:32.849 be sick and run by the military industrial complex 00:35:32.849 --> 00:35:35.369 will always be at war because that's how they 00:35:35.369 --> 00:35:37.809 make money. They don't make money in peacetime. 00:35:38.030 --> 00:35:40.250 If you're the military industrial complex, they 00:35:40.250 --> 00:35:43.869 don't make money. Big Pharma doesn't if everybody's 00:35:43.869 --> 00:35:48.690 healthy. And so we really got to change the way 00:35:48.690 --> 00:35:52.730 we do our government, the mindset behind the 00:35:52.730 --> 00:35:56.130 government. I think if you follow on what's going 00:35:56.130 --> 00:36:00.780 on. today in America with the new administration, 00:36:01.079 --> 00:36:03.480 I think that is the mindset that we're going 00:36:03.480 --> 00:36:05.920 to change the way we do things. Because I will 00:36:05.920 --> 00:36:09.539 tell you that there is no accountability for 00:36:09.539 --> 00:36:13.460 equipment, for money, all of that stuff in those 00:36:13.460 --> 00:36:21.960 times. It's all about give me more, give me more, 00:36:22.000 --> 00:36:25.610 give me more, and a lot of it is wasted. and 00:36:25.610 --> 00:36:30.849 i saw saw a lot of that waste um when we got 00:36:30.849 --> 00:36:34.050 ready to cross over the border we got the order 00:36:34.050 --> 00:36:38.309 bury all of our camouflage nets so you're talking 00:36:38.309 --> 00:36:42.809 about camouflage nets for every vehicle in the 00:36:42.809 --> 00:36:48.670 division what 15 000 camouflage nets that we 00:36:48.670 --> 00:36:51.889 just buried out in the desert and just left them 00:36:52.679 --> 00:36:54.920 Well, when we got back, guess what we had to 00:36:54.920 --> 00:36:58.559 reorder? Camouflage nets. Camouflage nets. And 00:36:58.559 --> 00:37:06.360 that's just one of the things that we did. It's 00:37:06.360 --> 00:37:09.000 mind -boggling how much money is just thrown 00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:12.400 and nobody cares where it is or what happened 00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:16.079 to it. And we got to change that mindset. And 00:37:16.079 --> 00:37:18.739 I think we're starting down that road because 00:37:18.739 --> 00:37:21.840 we finally figured out that. After being $35 00:37:21.840 --> 00:37:26.039 trillion in debt, we actually do have to think 00:37:26.039 --> 00:37:28.400 about what we're spending and how it's being 00:37:28.400 --> 00:37:31.440 spent. Absolutely. I mean, there's so many false 00:37:31.440 --> 00:37:34.059 economies. The false economy of the way we do 00:37:34.059 --> 00:37:37.119 medicine at the moment is it costs people trillions 00:37:37.119 --> 00:37:42.059 of dollars. The false economy of constantly thinking 00:37:42.059 --> 00:37:44.380 that war is a solution for everything is, again, 00:37:44.480 --> 00:37:46.260 it's crippling our nation. And if you look at 00:37:46.260 --> 00:37:49.530 the money needed. for education, for the first 00:37:49.530 --> 00:37:53.289 responder professions, for more areas of recreation 00:37:53.289 --> 00:37:55.849 so our young people can actually be out and play, 00:37:56.110 --> 00:37:58.949 the money is there, but it's being wasted in 00:37:58.949 --> 00:38:03.269 these other areas. Yeah, I agree. And I think 00:38:03.269 --> 00:38:07.690 you're absolutely right. I mean, there is money 00:38:07.690 --> 00:38:10.289 available, but it's not being put in the right 00:38:10.289 --> 00:38:15.110 place because we don't have our priorities in 00:38:15.110 --> 00:38:19.030 the right place. Again, I think, and not just 00:38:19.030 --> 00:38:22.309 America, I mean, I think that's most of Western 00:38:22.309 --> 00:38:26.789 civilization, what we call Western civilization, 00:38:27.130 --> 00:38:32.489 you know, the European countries, Australia, 00:38:32.610 --> 00:38:35.630 New Zealand, Canada, you know, all of them. I 00:38:35.630 --> 00:38:40.429 think we've, for far too long, we've kind of 00:38:40.429 --> 00:38:45.219 lived that way that... we can do whatever we 00:38:45.219 --> 00:38:47.360 want we don't have to worry about what it costs 00:38:47.360 --> 00:38:50.400 or where the money goes because there's all we 00:38:50.400 --> 00:38:53.900 can always print more um and and it's finally 00:38:53.900 --> 00:38:56.380 caught up to us and we got to start thinking 00:38:56.380 --> 00:38:58.639 about those things and again i think we are i 00:38:58.639 --> 00:39:04.019 think this elon musk is is whether you like the 00:39:04.019 --> 00:39:07.340 guy or not but whatever you think about him um 00:39:07.340 --> 00:39:11.820 i kind of tend to like the guy Somebody asked 00:39:11.820 --> 00:39:13.820 me one time, if I could have lunch with anybody 00:39:13.820 --> 00:39:16.000 in the world, who would it be? And I said, Elon 00:39:16.000 --> 00:39:18.340 Musk, without a doubt. I mean, whether you like 00:39:18.340 --> 00:39:20.619 him or not, he's a brilliant guy and he's interesting. 00:39:20.900 --> 00:39:24.079 But he is uncovering all kinds of waste, fraud 00:39:24.079 --> 00:39:28.239 and abuse in our government that's been going 00:39:28.239 --> 00:39:32.900 on for, your guess is as good as mine, 50, 60, 00:39:33.039 --> 00:39:37.420 70 years. So I think there is a mindset. I think 00:39:37.420 --> 00:39:40.159 the American people have said we've had enough. 00:39:40.670 --> 00:39:44.250 And we want some accountability. There's a dirty 00:39:44.250 --> 00:39:48.369 word for you, accountability. And our leaders 00:39:48.369 --> 00:39:50.909 to take some responsibility, another dirty word. 00:39:52.150 --> 00:39:55.130 But I think we're going to demand it here in 00:39:55.130 --> 00:39:58.349 America here soon. It's funny because there's 00:39:58.349 --> 00:40:00.710 such a parallel in the fire service. And again, 00:40:00.809 --> 00:40:02.949 I'm not an economist. I never rose above the 00:40:02.949 --> 00:40:05.090 rank of firefighter. You know, I don't hold a 00:40:05.090 --> 00:40:08.670 doctorate, but it's so easy. Me neither, and 00:40:08.670 --> 00:40:12.639 don't want one. But it's so easy to see, again, 00:40:12.699 --> 00:40:14.840 the false economy. You just have to take a shallow 00:40:14.840 --> 00:40:19.199 dive into the financial side to see that, for 00:40:19.199 --> 00:40:22.880 example, in the fire service, they are woefully 00:40:22.880 --> 00:40:25.900 understaffed at the moment because of mismanagement. 00:40:26.159 --> 00:40:28.079 I mean, there's no other way to describe it. 00:40:28.139 --> 00:40:30.199 The people that are at the helm, whether it's 00:40:30.199 --> 00:40:33.579 our unions, whether it's the chiefs, have basically 00:40:33.579 --> 00:40:37.960 refused to... progress with the the massive uh 00:40:37.960 --> 00:40:40.519 increase in the amount of calls that we're running 00:40:40.519 --> 00:40:42.539 i mean there's so many departments 20 years later 00:40:42.539 --> 00:40:44.980 have the same exact staffing and our calls have 00:40:44.980 --> 00:40:47.320 gone through the roof and you look at because 00:40:47.320 --> 00:40:50.179 of these holes now these these vacancies are 00:40:50.179 --> 00:40:52.800 not able to fill and that firefighters are having 00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:55.219 to work that some sign up for it many are actually 00:40:55.219 --> 00:40:58.679 forced into it So the overtime that's spent is 00:40:58.679 --> 00:41:00.739 millions and millions and millions and millions 00:41:00.739 --> 00:41:02.960 of dollars. The amount of money that's wasted 00:41:02.960 --> 00:41:05.659 on recruiting and training people that then leave 00:41:05.659 --> 00:41:07.920 two, three, five years later is millions and 00:41:07.920 --> 00:41:10.619 millions of dollars. And so we need Elon Musk 00:41:10.619 --> 00:41:12.760 to look at the fire service too and go, what 00:41:12.760 --> 00:41:17.119 are you doing? I'm sure at Tesla, they invest 00:41:17.119 --> 00:41:18.800 in their people. I'm sure Rest and Recovery, 00:41:19.039 --> 00:41:21.019 just like Google and Virgin, they've probably 00:41:21.019 --> 00:41:25.119 got gyms and cafes. You know, masseuses and all 00:41:25.119 --> 00:41:26.780 these things, because you see these in the Silicon 00:41:26.780 --> 00:41:30.760 Valley companies because they know that it's 00:41:30.760 --> 00:41:32.960 going to create a healthy workforce and increase 00:41:32.960 --> 00:41:37.780 productivity and longevity in them. So I think 00:41:37.780 --> 00:41:41.199 we've got to look at everything. I think we're 00:41:41.199 --> 00:41:44.559 at a point now where I think we can and we should 00:41:44.559 --> 00:41:49.000 look at everything and see how we can improve 00:41:49.000 --> 00:41:51.760 it. And I think, you know, part of the problem 00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:55.369 with. recruiting for first responders and the 00:41:55.369 --> 00:41:59.650 military and pick a profession out there. I mean, 00:41:59.670 --> 00:42:02.070 all of them. I mean, there's restaurants here 00:42:02.070 --> 00:42:06.269 in the area that can't even open them like it 00:42:06.269 --> 00:42:09.409 used to because they can't staff waiters. So 00:42:09.409 --> 00:42:12.809 I think we've got to get back to, and I think 00:42:12.809 --> 00:42:16.070 a lot of that is leadership, that people are, 00:42:16.170 --> 00:42:19.010 I'm a firm believer that this great resignation 00:42:19.010 --> 00:42:22.039 that we see going on. in the Western world is 00:42:22.039 --> 00:42:23.960 because people are fed up with being treated 00:42:23.960 --> 00:42:27.300 the way they've been treated by the leaders. 00:42:28.039 --> 00:42:33.559 Leaders, and I use that word very loosely, are 00:42:33.559 --> 00:42:36.059 treating their people, you know, and goes back, 00:42:36.159 --> 00:42:39.159 I believe it was Steve, it was Richard Branson, 00:42:39.300 --> 00:42:45.460 who said, train people and treat people so that 00:42:45.460 --> 00:42:47.940 they can leave, train them so that they can leave, 00:42:48.019 --> 00:42:49.820 treat them so that they don't want to leave. 00:42:50.219 --> 00:42:53.420 And that's the point you were making is we got 00:42:53.420 --> 00:42:56.840 to figure out how to keep the people that we 00:42:56.840 --> 00:43:01.400 recruit. You know, when I was a kid, people stayed 00:43:01.400 --> 00:43:04.780 with a company their entire life. My dad's best 00:43:04.780 --> 00:43:07.579 friend worked at Ford Chrysler Motor Company 00:43:07.579 --> 00:43:12.400 in Belvedere, Illinois, for 38 years. You know, 00:43:12.440 --> 00:43:16.139 you don't see that anymore because one, because 00:43:16.139 --> 00:43:18.539 the way they're being treated. Number two, just 00:43:18.539 --> 00:43:21.289 because. I guess our culture, there's always 00:43:21.289 --> 00:43:23.429 something greener on the other side of the fence, 00:43:23.550 --> 00:43:27.309 I guess. But I think a lot of it is the way they're 00:43:27.309 --> 00:43:30.809 being treated. They say, I'm done with this company. 00:43:30.889 --> 00:43:34.030 I'm moving on. And even pro athletes. When I 00:43:34.030 --> 00:43:37.090 was a kid, pro athletes stayed on the same team 00:43:37.090 --> 00:43:40.250 their entire career. Now they leave for an extra 00:43:40.250 --> 00:43:44.429 $100 ,000 when they're making $21 million. You 00:43:44.429 --> 00:43:48.190 know, we got to fix our mindset here a little 00:43:48.190 --> 00:43:52.070 bit. I really feel, and I just posted a piece, 00:43:52.130 --> 00:43:54.570 I haven't written an article for, I think it 00:43:54.570 --> 00:43:56.909 was 2019 was my last one. So basically almost 00:43:56.909 --> 00:44:00.190 six years. And I only write when something's 00:44:00.190 --> 00:44:02.869 burning in my heart. So I've written two books 00:44:02.869 --> 00:44:05.050 since then, but this was something that's just 00:44:05.050 --> 00:44:08.570 been so apparent and it just needs to be said. 00:44:09.269 --> 00:44:12.010 I think it started with COVID and then it's just 00:44:12.010 --> 00:44:14.929 really shown itself more and more, but you've 00:44:14.929 --> 00:44:17.030 got people that are taking very large salaries. 00:44:17.719 --> 00:44:20.119 have all kinds of jewelry and brass on their 00:44:20.119 --> 00:44:24.119 class A uniforms that actually aren't leading. 00:44:24.480 --> 00:44:27.179 And I'm seeing a lot of cowardice in these positions. 00:44:27.260 --> 00:44:29.400 And it can also be union leaders and presidents. 00:44:29.500 --> 00:44:31.280 It can be all the way down to the firefighters 00:44:31.280 --> 00:44:34.659 themselves. But taking a step back and going, 00:44:34.760 --> 00:44:37.159 what is the most important thing? Now, to me, 00:44:37.179 --> 00:44:39.340 the first thing is your family. And we have a 00:44:39.340 --> 00:44:42.059 profession where divorces and domestic violence, 00:44:42.139 --> 00:44:45.460 all these things are very, very common. You know, 00:44:45.480 --> 00:44:47.539 and then it's, you know, your own health, of 00:44:47.539 --> 00:44:49.719 course, and then your ability to serve your community. 00:44:50.400 --> 00:44:52.579 And when you look at the, you know, what's happened 00:44:52.579 --> 00:44:55.039 and this resistance to change, all of those have 00:44:55.039 --> 00:44:57.860 diminished. And locally, and this is in the article, 00:44:58.079 --> 00:45:01.460 the department that protects my family had four 00:45:01.460 --> 00:45:04.480 suicide in as many years, but they had a fifth 00:45:04.480 --> 00:45:08.219 one who survived. stuck himself with a paralytic 00:45:08.219 --> 00:45:11.079 in an ER on a call and told someone and then 00:45:11.079 --> 00:45:12.780 dropped down. And thank God they were able to 00:45:12.780 --> 00:45:15.360 revive him. And I asked about this gentleman 00:45:15.360 --> 00:45:17.420 for a long time. No one even knew who he was, 00:45:17.500 --> 00:45:19.199 what his name was, from the same department. 00:45:19.579 --> 00:45:23.980 That's the culture. Isn't that scary? No, it's 00:45:23.980 --> 00:45:27.400 horrendous. And that department also, after this, 00:45:27.460 --> 00:45:29.360 a local businessman, not the fire department, 00:45:29.579 --> 00:45:32.519 funded a study with IHMC. I don't know if you 00:45:32.519 --> 00:45:34.280 ever came across them, but they work with DARPA, 00:45:34.480 --> 00:45:37.559 NASA. Naval Special Warfare. They're a human 00:45:37.559 --> 00:45:40.500 performance organization, research. And they 00:45:40.500 --> 00:45:42.820 came back with, what are you doing? You've got 00:45:42.820 --> 00:45:45.340 to get these work weeks down. That's the first 00:45:45.340 --> 00:45:48.119 thing. You're killing your people. And with all 00:45:48.119 --> 00:45:50.400 this free research done with this top performance 00:45:50.400 --> 00:45:52.539 agency, they still were like, no, we're not going 00:45:52.539 --> 00:45:55.340 to do that. So this is now at the point where 00:45:55.340 --> 00:45:57.820 there are some raising, as you said, servant 00:45:57.820 --> 00:46:00.539 leaders, courageous people with moral courage. 00:46:00.719 --> 00:46:04.699 But you really now see. If they refuse, if they 00:46:04.699 --> 00:46:06.699 will not advocate for the health of their people, 00:46:06.780 --> 00:46:08.820 even if they've never lost anyone, you've lost 00:46:08.820 --> 00:46:11.619 four, almost five people. Actually, they lost 00:46:11.619 --> 00:46:15.679 a former firefighter to suicide a few months 00:46:15.679 --> 00:46:18.400 after that as well. If you've got this litany 00:46:18.400 --> 00:46:20.860 of deaths in your department and you still refuse 00:46:20.860 --> 00:46:23.820 to act and the solutions are all out there. And 00:46:23.820 --> 00:46:26.380 like we said, the false economy, the money is 00:46:26.380 --> 00:46:28.960 there. It's just having the courage to stand 00:46:28.960 --> 00:46:31.980 up and actually do what you're paid to do. That 00:46:31.980 --> 00:46:35.139 is just heartbreaking because I see that so much 00:46:35.139 --> 00:46:37.219 now. They're paid, they have this position and 00:46:37.219 --> 00:46:39.579 title, but they actually don't have the metal 00:46:39.579 --> 00:46:42.559 to do what they're paid to do. I agree with you 00:46:42.559 --> 00:46:46.679 100 % and you see it across the board in every 00:46:46.679 --> 00:46:52.920 profession and at every level. I always use three 00:46:52.920 --> 00:46:55.039 words and I think we got to get back to these 00:46:55.039 --> 00:46:59.460 three words. As an organization and certainly 00:46:59.460 --> 00:47:01.739 as a leader, accountability, everybody needs 00:47:01.739 --> 00:47:04.480 to be held accountable for your actions, for 00:47:04.480 --> 00:47:07.239 your performance, for everything. And that includes 00:47:07.239 --> 00:47:10.340 from the lowest person in the organization all 00:47:10.340 --> 00:47:12.460 the way up to the highest person. Everybody needs 00:47:12.460 --> 00:47:14.940 to be held accountable. And I don't see that 00:47:14.940 --> 00:47:19.360 happening today. Authority, because as a leader, 00:47:19.420 --> 00:47:22.000 you get authority just from the title you have. 00:47:22.760 --> 00:47:27.829 Whether you deserve it or not, you get it. Unfortunately, 00:47:27.909 --> 00:47:31.769 I see too much in this world today that leaders 00:47:31.769 --> 00:47:33.829 are afraid to give away some of that authority. 00:47:34.090 --> 00:47:35.730 They think they've got to hang on to all that 00:47:35.730 --> 00:47:38.710 authority, and that's the exact wrong way to 00:47:38.710 --> 00:47:41.190 do it as a leader. You've got to hand that. When 00:47:41.190 --> 00:47:43.190 you assign somebody a project, give them the 00:47:43.190 --> 00:47:46.630 authority to make it happen. When that project's 00:47:46.630 --> 00:47:49.010 done, you can bring that authority back to you, 00:47:49.030 --> 00:47:51.309 and you can hand it off to the next person that's 00:47:51.309 --> 00:47:58.030 got a project. The best leaders are the ones 00:47:58.030 --> 00:48:01.349 who give the authority out to the people who 00:48:01.349 --> 00:48:03.670 are actually going to do the job where it needs 00:48:03.670 --> 00:48:06.869 to be done. And then responsibility. You know, 00:48:06.889 --> 00:48:08.969 as a leader, you don't get to pick and choose 00:48:08.969 --> 00:48:12.050 what you want to be responsible for. Sorry, it 00:48:12.050 --> 00:48:14.429 doesn't work that way. You can't say, well, that 00:48:14.429 --> 00:48:16.170 went really well. I'm going to take responsibility 00:48:16.170 --> 00:48:19.269 for that. That didn't go so well. I'm going to 00:48:19.269 --> 00:48:22.530 blame James for that. Sorry, that's not a leader. 00:48:24.090 --> 00:48:27.110 not even close to a leader. You got to own everything 00:48:27.110 --> 00:48:30.409 in your organization and you got to make the 00:48:30.409 --> 00:48:34.170 right decisions because now we all make mistakes. 00:48:34.289 --> 00:48:37.429 I got there, but you got to go into it with the 00:48:37.429 --> 00:48:39.150 mind that I'm going to make the right decisions, 00:48:39.289 --> 00:48:41.429 not because somebody's watching me, but because 00:48:41.429 --> 00:48:44.989 it's the right thing to do. Even if it's not 00:48:44.989 --> 00:48:48.250 in my best interest, if it's in the best interest 00:48:48.250 --> 00:48:50.969 of the people, I have the privilege to lead and 00:48:50.969 --> 00:48:54.719 it is a privilege to be the leader. or the organization 00:48:54.719 --> 00:48:57.699 even if it isn't in my best interest that's the 00:48:57.699 --> 00:48:59.980 right decision and we got to do that and i don't 00:48:59.980 --> 00:49:03.239 see that happening today not at all absolutely 00:49:03.239 --> 00:49:06.739 well i want to move on to eastern europe then 00:49:06.739 --> 00:49:09.699 let's talk about kosovo and bosnia and again 00:49:09.699 --> 00:49:11.820 your kind of perceptions of what you saw and 00:49:11.820 --> 00:49:17.039 the roles you played yeah so but for bosnia i 00:49:17.039 --> 00:49:20.780 was not assigned inside of bosnia i was a congressional 00:49:20.780 --> 00:49:25.579 liaison officer for the Supreme Allied Commander. 00:49:27.860 --> 00:49:31.239 Went on trips into Bosnia with him and those 00:49:31.239 --> 00:49:33.440 kinds of things, but I was not assigned there. 00:49:37.079 --> 00:49:41.340 I was there to track all the CODEL visits all 00:49:41.340 --> 00:49:44.579 over the theater and coordinate their trips and 00:49:44.579 --> 00:49:46.260 those kinds of things, and I did that, and I 00:49:46.260 --> 00:49:50.960 did that for the four -star general. In Kosovo, 00:49:51.039 --> 00:49:53.179 I was there for nine months as an operations 00:49:53.179 --> 00:49:55.460 officer for an armored battalion, and we had 00:49:55.460 --> 00:49:58.639 our sector, and I was out every day. My job was 00:49:58.639 --> 00:50:01.820 to run the day -to -day operations of that battalion, 00:50:01.940 --> 00:50:06.400 do the plans of what was coming up, who was going 00:50:06.400 --> 00:50:08.679 to do what, and then to make sure that it was 00:50:08.679 --> 00:50:11.340 executed. So I was out the gate every single 00:50:11.340 --> 00:50:14.179 day. There wasn't a single day that I wasn't 00:50:14.179 --> 00:50:19.139 out with visiting troops, visiting. towns. I 00:50:19.139 --> 00:50:22.159 used to hold meetings. When I first got there, 00:50:22.239 --> 00:50:26.239 you know, the three groups in Kosovo were the 00:50:26.239 --> 00:50:31.340 Albanians, the Serbs, and the Gypsies. The Roma, 00:50:31.480 --> 00:50:35.119 I guess, if you want to call them that. And so 00:50:35.119 --> 00:50:38.159 when I first got there, they did nothing together. 00:50:38.699 --> 00:50:40.940 You know, you had this Albanian town and right 00:50:40.940 --> 00:50:43.500 next you had a Serb town and, you know, they 00:50:43.500 --> 00:50:46.019 were completely separate, didn't use the same 00:50:46.670 --> 00:50:49.469 stores, didn't use the same gas stations, nothing. 00:50:50.409 --> 00:50:53.590 So when I go there, when I got there originally, 00:50:53.710 --> 00:50:56.130 I held meetings in each one of these towns and 00:50:56.130 --> 00:50:59.469 I'd have a meeting with the Serb in this town 00:50:59.469 --> 00:51:02.070 or a meeting with the Albanians or I'd bring 00:51:02.070 --> 00:51:05.250 Serbs in from all over our area and we'd have 00:51:05.250 --> 00:51:10.210 a meeting downtown. And they all started exactly 00:51:10.210 --> 00:51:12.489 the same way for the first couple weeks I was 00:51:12.489 --> 00:51:15.030 there. You know, the first 15 minutes of it was 00:51:15.849 --> 00:51:18.329 The Serbs telling me everything that the Albanians 00:51:18.329 --> 00:51:21.269 had done mean to them for the last 1500 years. 00:51:21.429 --> 00:51:23.630 And when I did to the Albanians, they would tell 00:51:23.630 --> 00:51:25.809 me what the Serbs. Finally, I just told them, 00:51:25.829 --> 00:51:27.969 look, I'm a history major. I know you're all 00:51:27.969 --> 00:51:29.849 bad people and you've done bad things to each 00:51:29.849 --> 00:51:32.550 other. So I don't care. We're going from this 00:51:32.550 --> 00:51:35.010 point on. So I don't want to hear any history 00:51:35.010 --> 00:51:38.230 lessons anymore. Let's talk about how do we make 00:51:38.230 --> 00:51:40.969 it better for you now, today, you and your family. 00:51:41.829 --> 00:51:44.630 And I finally got to the point where I was making 00:51:44.630 --> 00:51:48.250 some head. way with each of the groups and then 00:51:48.250 --> 00:51:50.849 I so then I got brave and I said okay we're going 00:51:50.849 --> 00:51:53.449 to have a joint meeting we're going to bring 00:51:53.449 --> 00:51:56.510 all the leaders from all three groups in and 00:51:56.510 --> 00:51:58.909 that took me a while to get everybody to agree 00:51:58.909 --> 00:52:02.409 and coordinate that piece of it but we eventually 00:52:02.409 --> 00:52:04.889 did and we started making a difference there 00:52:04.889 --> 00:52:11.590 was a a quarry there in our sector that before 00:52:11.590 --> 00:52:15.369 the conflict before we got there The Serbs owned 00:52:15.369 --> 00:52:18.090 the quarry. Now the Albanians owned the quarry. 00:52:18.690 --> 00:52:21.269 Well, they didn't have any explosives and we 00:52:21.269 --> 00:52:23.150 weren't going to give them any explosives. So 00:52:23.150 --> 00:52:25.829 the quarry was just sitting there. And there 00:52:25.829 --> 00:52:28.809 were, I think there were 25 Albanians who were 00:52:28.809 --> 00:52:32.409 employed at the quarry doing nothing, just sitting 00:52:32.409 --> 00:52:35.010 around. So I finally walked up one day and I 00:52:35.010 --> 00:52:39.449 said to the owner, the person in charge, whatever 00:52:39.449 --> 00:52:44.769 he was, the Albanian, I said, I can get you explosives. 00:52:45.269 --> 00:52:49.090 We'll bring them in. We'll monitor. You tell 00:52:49.090 --> 00:52:51.489 us what piece of the mountain you want blown 00:52:51.489 --> 00:52:54.329 up, and I'll make sure it gets done. And then 00:52:54.329 --> 00:52:56.690 you can start working again. He was all excited, 00:52:56.769 --> 00:53:00.409 and I said, one caveat. You've got to hire five 00:53:00.409 --> 00:53:04.750 serves. No, no, no, can't do that. I said, okay. 00:53:05.159 --> 00:53:07.539 You don't get any explosives. And I walked out, 00:53:07.559 --> 00:53:10.019 came back the next week, made the same offer. 00:53:10.159 --> 00:53:12.460 I think I think the third week or fourth week, 00:53:12.519 --> 00:53:15.619 he finally said, OK, I agree. And so we did. 00:53:15.880 --> 00:53:20.059 I sat through the hiring process to make sure 00:53:20.059 --> 00:53:23.960 that it was all up and up. And once he hired 00:53:23.960 --> 00:53:26.300 those five, I made sure that any time they were 00:53:26.300 --> 00:53:32.460 on the premise, the on the. in the quarry that 00:53:32.460 --> 00:53:35.119 I had a security detail standing there making 00:53:35.119 --> 00:53:38.920 sure that they were safe. And when it first started, 00:53:39.079 --> 00:53:42.860 the Serbs were completely by themselves. They 00:53:42.860 --> 00:53:45.679 were doing their job, but they were not interacting 00:53:45.679 --> 00:53:47.719 with the Albanians. They'd eat their lunch at 00:53:47.719 --> 00:53:50.280 a completely different place. They had them working 00:53:50.280 --> 00:53:53.880 in a completely different place. By the time 00:53:53.880 --> 00:53:56.250 we left, the Serbs I didn't even have a security 00:53:56.250 --> 00:53:58.650 detail there anymore. The Serbs and the Albanians 00:53:58.650 --> 00:54:00.389 were eating lunch together. They were talking 00:54:00.389 --> 00:54:02.610 together. They were working together. And we 00:54:02.610 --> 00:54:04.969 did the same thing at a meatpacking plant that 00:54:04.969 --> 00:54:08.369 was owned by the Serbs. And they needed something 00:54:08.369 --> 00:54:11.829 done that they couldn't coordinate. And I said, 00:54:11.869 --> 00:54:14.150 well, I can make that happen for you. And they 00:54:14.150 --> 00:54:16.750 were all excited. And I said, you got to hire 00:54:16.750 --> 00:54:20.610 five Albanians. And eventually they did. And 00:54:20.610 --> 00:54:23.130 by the time I left, the meatpacking plant was 00:54:23.130 --> 00:54:26.170 up and running. Same thing with a gas station. 00:54:26.250 --> 00:54:29.769 There was a gas station central in our area of 00:54:29.769 --> 00:54:33.969 operation. And it only sold gas to Albanians. 00:54:34.429 --> 00:54:36.610 And so one day I walked up and I said, you're 00:54:36.610 --> 00:54:39.650 going to sell gas to Serbs. And he goes, I can't. 00:54:39.670 --> 00:54:42.750 I said, yeah, you can. He said, no, can't. I 00:54:42.750 --> 00:54:45.610 said, okay. Took a padlock and I locked all of 00:54:45.610 --> 00:54:52.449 his gas tanks. The pumps? Yeah, pumps. And I 00:54:52.449 --> 00:54:54.769 said, when you're ready. Then we'll take them 00:54:54.769 --> 00:54:57.429 off. Until then, you're not selling gas to anybody. 00:54:57.670 --> 00:54:59.269 Either you sell it to everybody or you sell it 00:54:59.269 --> 00:55:01.510 to nobody. And I think it took him about three 00:55:01.510 --> 00:55:04.210 days and he decided that he might be able to 00:55:04.210 --> 00:55:08.050 sell gas to the service. So I think, you know, 00:55:08.090 --> 00:55:12.650 the thing, and I went through all that, not to 00:55:12.650 --> 00:55:17.889 toot my own horn, to explain the situation on 00:55:17.889 --> 00:55:21.880 the ground when we got there. The hatred. I mean, 00:55:21.900 --> 00:55:24.559 we in the West, in America, we think we know 00:55:24.559 --> 00:55:27.039 what hatred is. We have no idea what hatred is. 00:55:27.139 --> 00:55:31.039 And it's a good thing that we don't. They hated 00:55:31.039 --> 00:55:35.340 each other and had been taught that way for many, 00:55:35.460 --> 00:55:37.400 many years. I'll give you a perfect example. 00:55:39.079 --> 00:55:43.000 I was taking a Serb priest, the highest ranking 00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:47.239 priest in our area, to a meeting. He didn't have 00:55:47.239 --> 00:55:49.559 his own vehicle, so I went and picked him up, 00:55:49.599 --> 00:55:51.239 and I was taking him to the meeting with me. 00:55:52.400 --> 00:55:55.119 And I got a call that there was a disturbance 00:55:55.119 --> 00:55:57.719 in one of the Albanian towns, and they needed 00:55:57.719 --> 00:56:01.320 me to go there to help settle it down. So I said, 00:56:01.360 --> 00:56:04.900 okay. So we drove there, and here's this Serb 00:56:04.900 --> 00:56:08.340 priest all decked out. No doubt he's a Serb priest. 00:56:08.639 --> 00:56:10.460 He's sitting in the back of my Humvee, and when 00:56:10.460 --> 00:56:13.880 I got out of the Humvee, I said, do not get out 00:56:13.880 --> 00:56:16.320 of this Humvee. I said, if you stay in the Humvee, 00:56:16.400 --> 00:56:18.280 my guys can protect you. You get out, you're 00:56:18.280 --> 00:56:21.400 on your own. And when I came back after about 00:56:21.400 --> 00:56:23.840 45 minutes, an hour, he's sitting there in the 00:56:23.840 --> 00:56:27.059 Humvee. And as I'm walking up, there's this little, 00:56:27.119 --> 00:56:32.079 probably five -year -old Albanian kid who walks 00:56:32.079 --> 00:56:35.300 up to him, looked in there, noticed it was a 00:56:35.300 --> 00:56:39.559 Serb, and he went like this. A five -year -old 00:56:39.559 --> 00:56:45.219 kid. That's hatred that's been taught. over generations 00:56:45.219 --> 00:56:49.139 and you know and you're you're from the uk you 00:56:49.139 --> 00:56:51.500 know how long you know let's talk about northern 00:56:51.500 --> 00:56:55.179 ireland and ireland and in the uk how many years 00:56:55.179 --> 00:56:57.500 it took to get where we are today and we're still 00:56:57.500 --> 00:56:59.840 not perfect there but we're certain you know 00:56:59.840 --> 00:57:02.500 they're not blowing each other up and killing 00:57:02.500 --> 00:57:04.519 each other on the streets like they like they 00:57:04.519 --> 00:57:07.340 did 20 years ago but it took us about 50 years 00:57:07.340 --> 00:57:10.119 to get there because you're not going to change 00:57:10.119 --> 00:57:13.820 the people there now the adults, you're not going 00:57:13.820 --> 00:57:16.179 to change the kids. They've already been brainwashed. 00:57:16.380 --> 00:57:19.059 So the best you're going to do is change the 00:57:19.059 --> 00:57:21.739 kids' kids. And you might get a few of those, 00:57:21.960 --> 00:57:25.820 but your real chance is those kids' kids' kids, 00:57:26.159 --> 00:57:31.719 which is about 50 years. I know we talked on 00:57:31.719 --> 00:57:34.860 the phone a couple of weeks ago about this. My 00:57:34.860 --> 00:57:38.980 personal opinion when it comes to Gaza, Is I 00:57:38.980 --> 00:57:41.139 see that back and forth. So that's the perfect 00:57:41.139 --> 00:57:43.980 kind of landscape for the beginning of this conversation 00:57:43.980 --> 00:57:46.900 is that hatred between Palestinians and Israelis 00:57:46.900 --> 00:57:50.280 in that area seems to be a very similar example 00:57:50.280 --> 00:57:54.059 of what you just laid out. Absolutely. But the 00:57:54.059 --> 00:57:57.300 response to October 7th thing about that, right. 00:57:57.380 --> 00:58:01.179 You know, which was absolutely horrific to me 00:58:01.179 --> 00:58:03.159 is like getting in a street fight, you know, 00:58:03.159 --> 00:58:05.619 someone punching you in the face once and then 00:58:05.619 --> 00:58:08.099 you punch them and then. stomp them until they're 00:58:08.099 --> 00:58:10.840 just mush now you know the way i parallel it 00:58:10.840 --> 00:58:13.440 is you know i witnessed obviously from the mainland 00:58:13.440 --> 00:58:15.500 what was going on in in northern ireland and 00:58:15.500 --> 00:58:17.699 we had lots of bombings in the mainland and innocent 00:58:17.699 --> 00:58:20.860 you know men women and children were killed and 00:58:20.860 --> 00:58:22.739 it would be like the british then going over 00:58:22.739 --> 00:58:25.380 and completely destroying the city of belfast 00:58:25.380 --> 00:58:28.739 every man woman and child um so that's james 00:58:28.739 --> 00:58:31.099 gearing's opinion of it and i think now seeing 00:58:31.099 --> 00:58:34.340 our president standing side by side with netanyahu 00:58:34.340 --> 00:58:37.230 i'm disgusted when they're talking about owning 00:58:37.230 --> 00:58:40.969 Gaza now. That's my personal opinion. Talk to 00:58:40.969 --> 00:58:43.570 me again with this history lens that you have 00:58:43.570 --> 00:58:45.710 and understanding two cultures that have got 00:58:45.710 --> 00:58:50.929 this insidious hatred for each other. Where do 00:58:50.929 --> 00:58:55.429 you hope that conflict, that area of the world 00:58:55.429 --> 00:58:58.570 goes? And then if you have any opinions on what 00:58:58.570 --> 00:59:00.449 we're saying we're going to do as a country, 00:59:00.590 --> 00:59:03.579 feel free to put that in as well. Yeah, so I 00:59:03.579 --> 00:59:05.840 think, you know, you got to break the cycle. 00:59:06.559 --> 00:59:09.119 And it starts with kids. Again, you're not going 00:59:09.119 --> 00:59:12.219 to change the minds of those that don't. That's 00:59:12.219 --> 00:59:15.019 sad. You might change one or two, but you're 00:59:15.019 --> 00:59:16.820 not going to change enough to make a difference. 00:59:17.460 --> 00:59:21.219 You got to start with the kids. And we, you know, 00:59:21.239 --> 00:59:24.860 and we see it through our history that an overreaction 00:59:24.860 --> 00:59:32.260 like that, where you punish. and other people 00:59:32.260 --> 00:59:35.219 to the point where you just drive that hatred 00:59:35.219 --> 00:59:41.519 even deeper. You're justifying the hatred in 00:59:41.519 --> 00:59:44.179 their mind. So then they just pass it on even 00:59:44.179 --> 00:59:48.599 further and stronger to their kids. We've got 00:59:48.599 --> 00:59:52.960 to find a place in the Middle East, in Gaza, 00:59:53.239 --> 00:59:57.360 between Gaza and Israel, that is a common ground 00:59:57.360 --> 01:00:02.340 that both sides can agree to. And I don't know 01:00:02.340 --> 01:00:09.260 what that is. The perfect solution would be a 01:00:09.260 --> 01:00:12.599 two -state. The Palestinians have their own state. 01:00:13.699 --> 01:00:16.099 Israel has its own state, and they both agree 01:00:16.099 --> 01:00:21.139 to accept each other. Will that happen in our 01:00:21.139 --> 01:00:25.820 lifetime? I don't know. Could outside forces 01:00:25.820 --> 01:00:32.300 make it happen artificially? peacekeeping force 01:00:32.300 --> 01:00:35.500 that stands between the two of them until we 01:00:35.500 --> 01:00:40.400 can. But you're talking about 25, 30, 40 year 01:00:40.400 --> 01:00:43.840 commitment to do that, to get to the point where 01:00:43.840 --> 01:00:49.980 they're not needed anymore. I think that the 01:00:49.980 --> 01:00:54.840 problem is the overreaction on both sides for 01:00:54.840 --> 01:00:59.710 so long. that it just fuels that hatred and it's 01:00:59.710 --> 01:01:02.210 just a vicious cycle i do something to you you 01:01:02.210 --> 01:01:06.309 retaliate and do twice as much to me which then 01:01:06.309 --> 01:01:09.349 makes me want to do twice as much to you and 01:01:09.349 --> 01:01:11.269 it's just that vicious cycle that's going around 01:01:11.269 --> 01:01:12.929 and around and around and we got to break it 01:01:12.929 --> 01:01:17.389 and i think it can be broken we've proven it 01:01:17.389 --> 01:01:23.610 can be um again northern ireland ireland uk um 01:01:24.380 --> 01:01:27.559 I think Kosovo seems to be in a pretty good spot 01:01:27.559 --> 01:01:29.860 right now. I haven't been back there since I 01:01:29.860 --> 01:01:36.639 left back in 2000. But I know we have an embassy 01:01:36.639 --> 01:01:39.159 there. I know people who were stationed at that 01:01:39.159 --> 01:01:43.480 embassy and it seems to be that we have started 01:01:43.480 --> 01:01:47.599 to turn the corner to where they're living in 01:01:47.599 --> 01:01:52.039 somewhat peaceful ways now. But it takes a lot 01:01:52.039 --> 01:01:56.559 of effort and it takes... some restraint on maybe 01:01:56.559 --> 01:01:59.719 in the beginning forced restraint on both sides 01:01:59.719 --> 01:02:02.639 but then eventually you know they got to figure 01:02:02.639 --> 01:02:05.460 that out themselves and and have that constraint 01:02:05.460 --> 01:02:11.400 i i don't i think america has a place to help 01:02:11.400 --> 01:02:17.119 it can't do it we've learned that uh you can't 01:02:17.119 --> 01:02:23.269 force peace on people uh They got to decide on 01:02:23.269 --> 01:02:25.989 their own. You can help them decide that. You 01:02:25.989 --> 01:02:29.590 can separate the two warring factions until they 01:02:29.590 --> 01:02:32.110 can decide that they're going to work together. 01:02:32.289 --> 01:02:38.610 But you can't force it on them. So I think we 01:02:38.610 --> 01:02:41.889 need to play a part in it. I just don't know 01:02:41.889 --> 01:02:44.369 what that part is. That's a little above my pay 01:02:44.369 --> 01:02:47.190 grade. Yeah, I mean, again, coming from a complete 01:02:47.190 --> 01:02:50.199 layman, what I'm seeing through... the lens at 01:02:50.199 --> 01:02:52.679 least that I'm perceiving that at, is that we've 01:02:52.679 --> 01:02:55.760 taken a side, Israel's side. So I don't know 01:02:55.760 --> 01:02:57.480 when you're holding the hand of one country, 01:02:57.519 --> 01:02:59.840 how you can forge peace with the other. Yeah. 01:03:00.519 --> 01:03:06.199 I'm not sure that Trump is completely on the 01:03:06.199 --> 01:03:09.360 side of Israel. I think he is going to hold Netanyahu 01:03:09.360 --> 01:03:14.519 accountable for what he does going forward. At 01:03:14.519 --> 01:03:18.630 least that's my perception. I may be wrong. But 01:03:18.630 --> 01:03:25.489 I think, is he leaning more toward supporting 01:03:25.489 --> 01:03:28.389 Israel? I think probably, as most Americans are. 01:03:29.829 --> 01:03:34.750 But I do think that he will hold Netanyahu accountable 01:03:34.750 --> 01:03:39.329 for the actions going forward. And he needs to 01:03:39.329 --> 01:03:41.909 be held accountable going forward, because he 01:03:41.909 --> 01:03:44.449 has not been held accountable for a long time. 01:03:46.639 --> 01:03:52.400 So I think there is some light at the far end 01:03:52.400 --> 01:03:54.440 of the tunnel, and that tunnel is a long tunnel. 01:03:54.820 --> 01:03:57.239 But I think there is a light down there, and 01:03:57.239 --> 01:04:02.260 we just got to work toward it. I had an American 01:04:02.260 --> 01:04:06.000 physician, Palestinian American, who works as 01:04:06.000 --> 01:04:09.980 an ER doc in Chicago. So he obviously is seeing 01:04:09.980 --> 01:04:13.099 a lot of violence in his hospital. And he went 01:04:13.099 --> 01:04:14.860 over there on one of the humanitarian trips. 01:04:15.480 --> 01:04:17.880 And it was such a fantastic interview because 01:04:17.880 --> 01:04:20.619 you said that before they went into Gaza, they 01:04:20.619 --> 01:04:23.460 were in Jerusalem and you had Christians, Muslims 01:04:23.460 --> 01:04:26.400 and Jews all praying side by side and living 01:04:26.400 --> 01:04:29.559 somewhat harmoniously. So I think this is what's 01:04:29.559 --> 01:04:32.239 so sad. You know, if you really boil down to 01:04:32.239 --> 01:04:33.940 what's important to most of us, whether you're 01:04:33.940 --> 01:04:36.980 Catholic and Protestant or a loyalist or whatever 01:04:36.980 --> 01:04:39.719 your kind of faction is in your part of the world, 01:04:39.880 --> 01:04:43.400 you want. a roof over your head, food in your 01:04:43.400 --> 01:04:45.159 stomach. You want your kids to be educated. You 01:04:45.159 --> 01:04:47.059 want a safe place for them to play. We've all 01:04:47.059 --> 01:04:48.900 got the same thing. And this is what I heard 01:04:48.900 --> 01:04:51.000 from a lot of the military guests that have come 01:04:51.000 --> 01:04:53.500 on. When I ask about kindness and compassion 01:04:53.500 --> 01:04:56.719 through the soldier's eyes, it's always, oh, 01:04:56.840 --> 01:04:59.000 we just saw families being families. They said 01:04:59.000 --> 01:05:01.320 it could have been in Kansas, but it was in Kandahar. 01:05:01.400 --> 01:05:04.860 Same kind of thing. So it seems like the further 01:05:04.860 --> 01:05:07.909 we're pulled away from our commonalities. Let's 01:05:07.909 --> 01:05:09.670 be honest, this country in the last four or five 01:05:09.670 --> 01:05:12.309 years, we were dragged into World War I trenches 01:05:12.309 --> 01:05:15.889 with COVID and masks and police and all these 01:05:15.889 --> 01:05:19.869 other things. Then that wedge is cleaved, it's 01:05:19.869 --> 01:05:22.369 driven between you, and now you're easy to start 01:05:22.369 --> 01:05:25.190 kind of dismantling. But when you actually see 01:05:25.190 --> 01:05:28.500 that shared humanity, I think that then... kind 01:05:28.500 --> 01:05:31.119 of debunks a lot of the myths of this hatred 01:05:31.119 --> 01:05:33.639 that we've been fed, whether it's hatred of the 01:05:33.639 --> 01:05:35.659 other political party in America, whether it's 01:05:35.659 --> 01:05:38.159 hatred of a different religion in the Middle 01:05:38.159 --> 01:05:42.059 East. Yeah, well, you know, to go to that point, 01:05:42.199 --> 01:05:49.159 there was a school in one of the small little 01:05:49.159 --> 01:05:52.679 towns that we had, and there was an Albanian, 01:05:52.719 --> 01:05:57.550 it was before the... before we got there, it 01:05:57.550 --> 01:05:59.949 was a mixed school. So there were Albanians and 01:05:59.949 --> 01:06:04.070 Serbs going to that school, little kids. And 01:06:04.070 --> 01:06:06.909 when I got there, the windows had all been blown 01:06:06.909 --> 01:06:10.150 out and there was, you know, there were no desks, 01:06:10.150 --> 01:06:14.750 there was nothing. So I worked with an NGO, which 01:06:14.750 --> 01:06:19.769 is another subject. But I worked with this NGO 01:06:19.769 --> 01:06:26.320 who had desks. And I worked with some other people 01:06:26.320 --> 01:06:28.599 who helped put windows in. So we put the windows 01:06:28.599 --> 01:06:31.340 in and then this NGO said, well, I can provide 01:06:31.340 --> 01:06:35.320 desks. And I said, great. And he said, but only 01:06:35.320 --> 01:06:37.780 for the CERB kids. And I said, no, that's not 01:06:37.780 --> 01:06:39.780 going to happen. I said, this is going to be 01:06:39.780 --> 01:06:43.280 a mixed school like it was before. And it took 01:06:43.280 --> 01:06:46.059 me a while to make that happen. But eventually 01:06:46.059 --> 01:06:50.840 we did. And, you know, one of the things I carried 01:06:50.840 --> 01:06:55.320 in my Humvee was I carried a huge bag of soccer 01:06:55.320 --> 01:06:59.460 balls. And every time I saw a group of kids out 01:06:59.460 --> 01:07:01.920 playing, I'd throw a soccer ball up to them. 01:07:03.000 --> 01:07:06.420 And I did that at this school. I brought a soccer 01:07:06.420 --> 01:07:12.619 ball and I handed it to this kid. And an Albanian 01:07:12.619 --> 01:07:15.679 kid said, where's ours? I said, that's everybody's 01:07:15.679 --> 01:07:19.159 soccer ball. Put teams together that all of you 01:07:19.159 --> 01:07:22.909 can play with it. And they did. again by the 01:07:22.909 --> 01:07:27.010 time we left they were playing next to each other 01:07:27.010 --> 01:07:30.250 with each other uh playing soccer doing all kinds 01:07:30.250 --> 01:07:35.110 of things so so you you we can fix it um but 01:07:35.110 --> 01:07:37.769 it but it takes an effort and that's only one 01:07:37.769 --> 01:07:40.769 little piece of that pie and you know that big 01:07:40.769 --> 01:07:43.489 piece of pie but it but you got to start somewhere 01:07:43.489 --> 01:07:48.090 you got to start in those small places make that 01:07:48.090 --> 01:07:52.679 work and then as people see that it works Well, 01:07:52.719 --> 01:07:54.679 I want some of that. I want my kids to be able 01:07:54.679 --> 01:07:58.260 to play safely with other kids. I want, like 01:07:58.260 --> 01:08:00.739 you said, a roof over my head. I want food. I 01:08:00.739 --> 01:08:03.800 want my kids to get an education. You know, I 01:08:03.800 --> 01:08:07.800 always I think no matter pick a place in the 01:08:07.800 --> 01:08:10.280 world, it doesn't matter. But I would say here 01:08:10.280 --> 01:08:13.739 in America. I would use this analogy because 01:08:13.739 --> 01:08:18.039 I'm normally talking to Americans. You know. 01:08:19.070 --> 01:08:22.170 80 % of Americans are center, left, center, right. 01:08:22.989 --> 01:08:24.829 They might be a little bit left. It might be 01:08:24.829 --> 01:08:26.550 a little bit right, but they're pretty much center. 01:08:27.130 --> 01:08:30.729 Absolutely. It's those fringes on the end who 01:08:30.729 --> 01:08:33.909 unfortunately have had the voice. They've had 01:08:33.909 --> 01:08:37.750 the media. So we think that's the thing. And 01:08:37.750 --> 01:08:40.050 I always tell people, if you want to fix something, 01:08:40.270 --> 01:08:44.229 you got to start with what you have in common. 01:08:46.090 --> 01:08:48.270 Because if you start out here with what you have 01:08:48.270 --> 01:08:51.949 differences about, you'll never get to fixing 01:08:51.949 --> 01:08:54.569 the problem. If you start with what you have 01:08:54.569 --> 01:08:57.609 in common and work your way out where your differences 01:08:57.609 --> 01:09:01.310 are, then we can start compromising and coming 01:09:01.310 --> 01:09:04.609 to meet closer to the middle. Will we ever get 01:09:04.609 --> 01:09:06.869 exactly to the middle where everybody agrees? 01:09:06.989 --> 01:09:09.670 No, that's called fantasy land. But at least 01:09:09.670 --> 01:09:12.029 we can get close enough that everybody agrees 01:09:12.029 --> 01:09:14.880 that that's a good. way to solve the problem 01:09:14.880 --> 01:09:17.060 that we're trying to fix but you got to start 01:09:17.060 --> 01:09:19.600 with what we have in common that we all want 01:09:19.600 --> 01:09:21.720 a good educate our kids to have an education 01:09:21.720 --> 01:09:26.220 we all want medical care we all want good food 01:09:26.220 --> 01:09:30.800 for our our families we want a job all those 01:09:30.800 --> 01:09:34.199 things start with what we have in common and 01:09:34.199 --> 01:09:37.420 then work your way up that's funny because that's 01:09:37.420 --> 01:09:41.220 how i view these interviews as well people on 01:09:41.220 --> 01:09:44.979 the show have you know got all kinds of areas 01:09:44.979 --> 01:09:47.859 where they venture towards those 10 % on either 01:09:47.859 --> 01:09:50.819 side. But if you start in the middle, you can 01:09:50.819 --> 01:09:53.039 have an amazing conversation with someone. And 01:09:53.039 --> 01:09:55.500 then you start pushing the borders a little bit 01:09:55.500 --> 01:09:57.720 if that's where the conversation organically 01:09:57.720 --> 01:09:59.359 goes. And then you're like, okay, that was a 01:09:59.359 --> 01:10:02.779 little Islamophobic or whatever it was. Let's 01:10:02.779 --> 01:10:04.420 just go back in the middle again. Hold my hand. 01:10:04.479 --> 01:10:07.060 Here we go. I don't mean that to be patronizing, 01:10:07.079 --> 01:10:09.640 but this is where the great conversations happen. 01:10:10.109 --> 01:10:12.229 You know, you don't like Manchester United or 01:10:12.229 --> 01:10:15.770 Chelsea or, you know, insert whatever here, transgender. 01:10:15.890 --> 01:10:18.529 Okay, that's fine. I don't remember asking you 01:10:18.529 --> 01:10:20.529 that. Let's just talk about the things that, 01:10:20.550 --> 01:10:23.109 you know, are actually pertinent that hopefully 01:10:23.109 --> 01:10:26.289 people listening will get takeaways from. Over 01:10:26.289 --> 01:10:29.409 a thousand conversations, I have never had a 01:10:29.409 --> 01:10:31.550 problem yet because this is, you know, like you 01:10:31.550 --> 01:10:35.010 said, 80 % of us agree with each other. We really, 01:10:35.010 --> 01:10:38.329 really do. Now, we may not agree 100 % right 01:10:38.329 --> 01:10:41.029 down the center, but we agree enough that we 01:10:41.029 --> 01:10:45.250 can make a compromise that both sides benefit 01:10:45.250 --> 01:10:48.029 from, not one side over the other, that both 01:10:48.029 --> 01:10:50.550 sides benefit from. But to get there, you've 01:10:50.550 --> 01:10:53.090 got to start in the middle and work your way 01:10:53.090 --> 01:10:56.390 up. And we all have things in common. I don't 01:10:56.390 --> 01:10:59.149 care how much we are different. There's always 01:10:59.149 --> 01:11:03.029 those one things. And I was, you know, after 01:11:03.029 --> 01:11:06.789 the election, right, Thanksgiving. A lot of people 01:11:06.789 --> 01:11:09.689 ask me, so how do I bring up, how do I talk to 01:11:09.689 --> 01:11:15.770 my Democrat family members after the Trump victory? 01:11:15.930 --> 01:11:18.430 I said, again, start with things that you have 01:11:18.430 --> 01:11:22.529 in common that every American likes and wants 01:11:22.529 --> 01:11:25.170 and needs, and then work your way out toward 01:11:25.170 --> 01:11:28.770 there. And that's always worked for me. That's 01:11:28.770 --> 01:11:32.130 always been my answer. And it's worked here. 01:11:32.800 --> 01:11:36.460 in my job in America, in many different jobs. 01:11:36.640 --> 01:11:39.500 And it worked overseas when I had to deal with 01:11:39.500 --> 01:11:44.699 groups that didn't like each other much. I still 01:11:44.699 --> 01:11:48.380 was able to start with what they all had in common 01:11:48.380 --> 01:11:52.760 and work the way up. Absolutely. Well, let's 01:11:52.760 --> 01:11:54.899 transition to 9 -11. You've already been in the 01:11:54.899 --> 01:11:57.079 military for quite a while by that point. How 01:11:57.079 --> 01:11:59.699 did that day unfold through your eyes? And then 01:11:59.699 --> 01:12:01.560 how did it affect the trajectory of the next 01:12:01.560 --> 01:12:07.949 few years for you? Yeah. So I was a major and 01:12:07.949 --> 01:12:11.130 I was at our Army Command General Staff College 01:12:11.130 --> 01:12:13.850 that morning. And I'd already been in S3 for 01:12:13.850 --> 01:12:15.890 two years, an armored battalion S3. I'd already 01:12:15.890 --> 01:12:19.569 been to Kosovo. I'd already had my branch qualifying 01:12:19.569 --> 01:12:23.289 job. So I knew when I went there, I probably 01:12:23.289 --> 01:12:25.449 wasn't leaving there. I was probably going to 01:12:25.449 --> 01:12:28.430 be an instructor because they weren't going to 01:12:28.430 --> 01:12:30.250 send me back out and take a job that somebody 01:12:30.250 --> 01:12:34.449 else needed. So I kind of figured that. And the 01:12:34.449 --> 01:12:38.250 morning of 9 -11, we were in class. And I remember 01:12:38.250 --> 01:12:40.390 the class like it was yesterday. It was law class. 01:12:40.729 --> 01:12:44.869 We were learning international law. And the professor 01:12:44.869 --> 01:12:47.489 was sitting there teaching us. And it was boring 01:12:47.489 --> 01:12:49.750 as could be. I was trying to keep from poking 01:12:49.750 --> 01:12:54.550 my eyes out. And somebody ran in the room and 01:12:54.550 --> 01:12:58.569 said, you got to turn the TV on. And the professor 01:12:58.569 --> 01:13:01.310 reluctantly turned on the television and here's 01:13:01.310 --> 01:13:06.250 this. I think the first building had already 01:13:06.250 --> 01:13:09.350 been struck and he turned it on just about the 01:13:09.350 --> 01:13:12.350 time right before because we watched the second 01:13:12.350 --> 01:13:17.529 plane strike the second building. And we watched 01:13:17.529 --> 01:13:19.630 it for about 30 minutes or so. And then he said, 01:13:19.710 --> 01:13:21.310 well, now we're going to turn it off and get 01:13:21.310 --> 01:13:23.850 back to class. And we said, oh, you're sorry, 01:13:24.630 --> 01:13:27.090 that's not happening. And so we watched it for 01:13:27.090 --> 01:13:28.789 a little while, and eventually they sent all 01:13:28.789 --> 01:13:30.729 of us home because they were worried about having 01:13:30.729 --> 01:13:37.310 1 ,500 majors sitting in one building that they 01:13:37.310 --> 01:13:42.630 thought it was a terror magnet. And so they sent 01:13:42.630 --> 01:13:47.569 us home, and I remember sitting there. My parents 01:13:47.569 --> 01:13:50.590 called. My wife's parents called. My brother 01:13:50.590 --> 01:13:54.520 called. just on the phone all day kind of talking 01:13:54.520 --> 01:13:58.100 about what this means. And I told every single 01:13:58.100 --> 01:14:01.680 one of them, because I actually believed it at 01:14:01.680 --> 01:14:03.739 that point, and I think it was, I said, this 01:14:03.739 --> 01:14:10.060 will change America forever. And I don't think 01:14:10.060 --> 01:14:14.199 it had to, but I knew it was going to. And I 01:14:14.199 --> 01:14:19.359 think we went down some roads and some ways that 01:14:19.359 --> 01:14:23.479 we didn't have to go, but we did. which led to 01:14:23.479 --> 01:14:26.699 the war on terror and invasion of Afghanistan 01:14:26.699 --> 01:14:34.399 and Iraq. And a lot of restrictions being put 01:14:34.399 --> 01:14:37.619 on Americans that were never there before. You 01:14:37.619 --> 01:14:40.619 know, one of the saddest things to me was we 01:14:40.619 --> 01:14:43.140 didn't have class for like three or four days. 01:14:43.479 --> 01:14:46.899 I think I didn't have class till like the following 01:14:46.899 --> 01:14:49.960 Monday. We went back to the building. And they 01:14:49.960 --> 01:14:54.300 put up barricades all around the building. And 01:14:54.300 --> 01:14:56.460 they said, well, it's just temporary. And I said, 01:14:56.500 --> 01:14:59.859 there are no temporary barricades. You put a 01:14:59.859 --> 01:15:02.680 barricade up, it's there. Nobody's going to take 01:15:02.680 --> 01:15:04.279 the chance to say, well, I'm going to take it 01:15:04.279 --> 01:15:07.619 down and then something happens. So, I mean, 01:15:07.699 --> 01:15:12.380 they since built a new building at Leavenworth 01:15:12.380 --> 01:15:15.479 that houses the Command General Staff College. 01:15:16.840 --> 01:15:19.929 And when they built it, they built. prettier, 01:15:19.929 --> 01:15:23.609 but it's got barricades around it. I mean, so 01:15:23.609 --> 01:15:26.229 I think, you know, once those things happen, 01:15:26.430 --> 01:15:29.689 it's hard to unwind them and to get those freedoms 01:15:29.689 --> 01:15:35.069 and those, that way of life back. And I think 01:15:35.069 --> 01:15:38.210 we still haven't gotten there. Again, I'm hoping 01:15:38.210 --> 01:15:42.289 that going forward we do and we unwind some of 01:15:42.289 --> 01:15:49.449 this anti -American citizen. stuff that's going 01:15:49.449 --> 01:15:52.029 on it has been going on in this country for a 01:15:52.029 --> 01:15:55.529 while now that we got it got to give people back 01:15:55.529 --> 01:15:59.189 their freedoms absolutely yeah I went home to 01:15:59.189 --> 01:16:01.409 England a few times actually last year and it 01:16:01.409 --> 01:16:03.189 was so sad because around you know Westminster 01:16:03.189 --> 01:16:05.810 and some of the areas they're not pretty barriers 01:16:05.810 --> 01:16:09.069 at all just big old yellow striped you know concrete 01:16:09.069 --> 01:16:11.869 barriers and steel barriers and it's because 01:16:11.869 --> 01:16:13.949 of some of the attacks and I get it but again 01:16:13.949 --> 01:16:17.539 like at what point do you say look you know the 01:16:17.539 --> 01:16:20.060 chances of some of that happening again are diminished 01:16:20.060 --> 01:16:23.000 do we need to you know have these all over the 01:16:23.000 --> 01:16:26.020 the city now on the what if i mean you know where 01:16:26.020 --> 01:16:30.340 is that line yeah and you're absolutely right 01:16:30.340 --> 01:16:33.399 and what point do we have to say okay we're going 01:16:33.399 --> 01:16:36.180 to live our lives and we're going to not live 01:16:36.180 --> 01:16:39.979 in fear um and i think we we have been living 01:16:39.979 --> 01:16:42.500 in fear for a while and we got to get over it 01:16:42.500 --> 01:16:46.220 um Because let's be honest, if somebody really 01:16:46.220 --> 01:16:48.060 wants to attack a building, they're going to 01:16:48.060 --> 01:16:49.979 attack the building. They'll figure out a way 01:16:49.979 --> 01:16:52.960 to do it, especially now today with drones and 01:16:52.960 --> 01:16:58.079 everything else. We got to do the things that 01:16:58.079 --> 01:17:01.779 we can do to minimize the dangers, but you can't 01:17:01.779 --> 01:17:05.880 live in fear. We got to move past that. Correct 01:17:05.880 --> 01:17:08.520 me if I'm wrong. Did you tell me that you helped 01:17:08.520 --> 01:17:12.199 write some speeches for Obama? I did not. That 01:17:12.199 --> 01:17:14.039 was not me. Okay. I'm thinking of someone else. 01:17:14.100 --> 01:17:16.100 Okay. Because I was going to ask an interesting 01:17:16.100 --> 01:17:19.079 question after some of the speeches that we heard 01:17:19.079 --> 01:17:23.899 over the last two presidencies, about articulation 01:17:23.899 --> 01:17:26.479 and communication. Yeah. I never worked for one 01:17:26.479 --> 01:17:29.039 of the presidents. Worked for a couple of four 01:17:29.039 --> 01:17:31.579 -star generals, but never a president. Okay. 01:17:32.619 --> 01:17:34.520 All right. Well, then let's talk about your transition. 01:17:34.720 --> 01:17:37.100 I know this can be very jarring for a lot of 01:17:37.100 --> 01:17:39.260 people in uniform. You know, you've got this, 01:17:39.300 --> 01:17:41.039 especially yourself. I mean, early in your life 01:17:41.039 --> 01:17:43.399 and such a long career, you know, you have purpose. 01:17:43.460 --> 01:17:46.020 You've got this tribe, you know, and then one 01:17:46.020 --> 01:17:48.220 day you're kind of that's it. You know, the idea 01:17:48.220 --> 01:17:50.859 doesn't work and you're out. What was the transition 01:17:50.859 --> 01:17:55.239 like for you specifically? Yeah. So you're right. 01:17:55.319 --> 01:17:57.720 I mean, it's a huge part of your life. You know, 01:17:57.760 --> 01:18:01.350 I spent. 23 years on active duty. If you count 01:18:01.350 --> 01:18:05.869 my time in the National Guard and ROTC, you had 01:18:05.869 --> 01:18:11.670 another, so almost 30 years I'd been, the Army 01:18:11.670 --> 01:18:14.810 was my life. I mean, that was how I identified 01:18:14.810 --> 01:18:19.470 as a soldier, as an officer. And so it came down, 01:18:19.550 --> 01:18:22.289 I was on active duty. My last assignment, I ran 01:18:22.289 --> 01:18:24.989 an Army ROTC program at the University of South 01:18:24.989 --> 01:18:28.420 Alabama in Mobile. And I loved it. I'd still 01:18:28.420 --> 01:18:30.100 be doing it today if they had left me there. 01:18:32.420 --> 01:18:36.359 But they got to the point where they offered 01:18:36.359 --> 01:18:39.279 me a couple of jobs that one I wasn't willing 01:18:39.279 --> 01:18:41.180 to take. And the other one my wife didn't want 01:18:41.180 --> 01:18:45.340 me to take. So I always told my wife, you know, 01:18:45.359 --> 01:18:49.000 for the first 20 years, we and you specifically 01:18:49.000 --> 01:18:51.600 have very little to say on what where what assignments 01:18:51.600 --> 01:18:54.819 I get. The Army is going to tell us after 20 01:18:54.819 --> 01:18:57.880 years, you get a. equal say and uh so when she 01:18:57.880 --> 01:19:00.359 said that you're not doing that i said okay then 01:19:00.359 --> 01:19:03.220 we need to retire and and it was it was time 01:19:03.220 --> 01:19:07.560 for me to retire looking back on it um we loved 01:19:07.560 --> 01:19:10.420 it in mobile we loved we we had bought our first 01:19:10.420 --> 01:19:12.640 house there we never bought a house because we 01:19:12.640 --> 01:19:16.760 were always moving around and and uh lived on 01:19:16.760 --> 01:19:19.619 post most of the time and so we we loved our 01:19:19.619 --> 01:19:22.880 house we loved our neighborhood it was time and 01:19:22.880 --> 01:19:25.850 so i then i had to figure out what i wanted when 01:19:25.850 --> 01:19:30.470 I grew up. And, and so I'm looking around and 01:19:30.470 --> 01:19:34.090 I had to work for Fortune 500 is there in the 01:19:34.090 --> 01:19:40.029 area. But I knew I didn't want to move. And what 01:19:40.029 --> 01:19:44.229 I was, there was no army bases in Mobile, but 01:19:44.229 --> 01:19:47.369 there were two Coast Guard bases. And one, one 01:19:47.369 --> 01:19:49.829 of the commanders used to hold a monthly meeting 01:19:49.829 --> 01:19:55.720 with community leaders, veterans. active duty 01:19:55.720 --> 01:19:59.000 coast guard army whoever you know whoever the 01:19:59.000 --> 01:20:02.180 commanders were for the recruiting command and 01:20:02.180 --> 01:20:05.960 all that that were in that area and i was on 01:20:05.960 --> 01:20:09.340 that invite list i used to go every month to 01:20:09.340 --> 01:20:13.020 this breakfast and one of the guys that was there 01:20:13.020 --> 01:20:16.640 was the guy who ran the food bank and he was 01:20:16.640 --> 01:20:19.659 a retired army colonel and he'd been running 01:20:19.659 --> 01:20:23.899 that food bank for about probably 15 years And 01:20:23.899 --> 01:20:26.720 he asked me, he said, oh, what do you plan on 01:20:26.720 --> 01:20:28.539 doing now that you're going to retire? And I 01:20:28.539 --> 01:20:31.340 said, well, I don't, I have no idea. And he said, 01:20:31.359 --> 01:20:33.619 well, I got a deal for you. He said, you come 01:20:33.619 --> 01:20:36.920 work for me at the food bank. You'd be my associate 01:20:36.920 --> 01:20:41.180 director. And you do that for a year, 18 months, 01:20:41.300 --> 01:20:43.439 and then I'll retire and you take over as the 01:20:43.439 --> 01:20:47.859 director of the food bank. And I said, it's a 01:20:47.859 --> 01:20:50.960 servant oriented job, which I was in my heart. 01:20:52.270 --> 01:20:58.029 I don't have to move. Done. Too easy. So I decided 01:20:58.029 --> 01:21:02.689 I wanted to do that. And when I retired, I had 01:21:02.689 --> 01:21:05.149 three months of leave built up. So I was going 01:21:05.149 --> 01:21:07.170 to be on terminal leave for three months. And 01:21:07.170 --> 01:21:08.989 I told him, I said, I'm going to take at least 01:21:08.989 --> 01:21:12.670 a month of it and not work at all. I said, so 01:21:12.670 --> 01:21:18.170 I retire one October. I said, all right. I went 01:21:18.170 --> 01:21:22.649 on terminal leave in August. I said, I won't 01:21:22.649 --> 01:21:24.649 come to work till September. And he said, OK, 01:21:24.729 --> 01:21:27.210 well, two weeks into my terminal leave, he gives 01:21:27.210 --> 01:21:29.170 me a call and he said, I really need you to come 01:21:29.170 --> 01:21:31.390 to work. We've got this project going on and 01:21:31.390 --> 01:21:35.010 I need you to run it. And so I did. And I went 01:21:35.010 --> 01:21:38.390 there and I started working it. I took over that 01:21:38.390 --> 01:21:40.810 job running the day to day operations of that 01:21:40.810 --> 01:21:43.050 food bank. And it was a large food bank. It covered 01:21:43.050 --> 01:21:47.470 52 counties across three states on the Gulf Coast. 01:21:47.979 --> 01:21:50.720 So the whole Gulf Coast of Mississippi, the whole 01:21:50.720 --> 01:21:53.439 Gulf Coast of Alabama, and about a third of the 01:21:53.439 --> 01:21:58.539 panhandle of Florida. And I took over that job 01:21:58.539 --> 01:22:02.600 about a month, maybe a month and a half before 01:22:02.600 --> 01:22:07.779 the BP oil spill happened. And so when that happened, 01:22:07.979 --> 01:22:12.880 the number of people that we had to feed increased 01:22:12.880 --> 01:22:15.600 dramatically because all those people who made 01:22:15.600 --> 01:22:18.060 their living in the Gulf. The people who did 01:22:18.060 --> 01:22:22.039 shrimping, fishing, canning, all that, they couldn't 01:22:22.039 --> 01:22:24.380 go out in the Gulf. So they didn't have an income. 01:22:24.579 --> 01:22:29.840 They didn't have a job. So I had to come up with 01:22:29.840 --> 01:22:34.659 some new ways to bring food in and get food out 01:22:34.659 --> 01:22:38.840 to help take care of that additional, not only 01:22:38.840 --> 01:22:40.680 the people we normally took care of, but these 01:22:40.680 --> 01:22:43.380 additional group of people all along the Gulf 01:22:43.380 --> 01:22:48.060 Coast. And so when I took over, We were handing 01:22:48.060 --> 01:22:51.880 out 1 .2 million pounds of food a year. When 01:22:51.880 --> 01:22:55.939 I left two years later, we were handing out 3 01:22:55.939 --> 01:23:00.180 .8 million pounds. I doubled the size of the 01:23:00.180 --> 01:23:03.319 truck fleet, almost doubled the size of the staff. 01:23:04.319 --> 01:23:08.819 We increased the size of the freezers, our facilities. 01:23:10.300 --> 01:23:13.800 So we made a lot of changes. We implemented new... 01:23:14.500 --> 01:23:16.539 food handouts that we had never done before, 01:23:16.659 --> 01:23:19.880 a new way to do it. We came up with that. And 01:23:19.880 --> 01:23:22.960 people always say, well, how'd you do it? And 01:23:22.960 --> 01:23:28.159 I said, well, again, go back to my years as a 01:23:28.159 --> 01:23:32.819 kid. My dad beat into me that you make it happen. 01:23:33.039 --> 01:23:35.079 You do what you got to do to make things happen. 01:23:35.439 --> 01:23:37.100 Would I have come up with a lot of that? Would 01:23:37.100 --> 01:23:38.840 I have doubled the size of the truck fleet if 01:23:38.840 --> 01:23:41.439 it hadn't been for the BP oil spill? I don't 01:23:41.439 --> 01:23:44.590 know. Because the need might not have been there. 01:23:45.390 --> 01:23:48.609 But I saw the need. I knew that there were ways 01:23:48.609 --> 01:23:51.510 that we could fix it, meet that need by fixing 01:23:51.510 --> 01:23:55.510 the how we did business at the food bank. And 01:23:55.510 --> 01:23:57.689 I came up with those plans and we implemented 01:23:57.689 --> 01:24:02.010 them and they worked. So that was an interesting 01:24:02.010 --> 01:24:05.449 time for me. You talk about making a huge jump 01:24:05.449 --> 01:24:08.909 for being a combat arms officer for 23 years 01:24:08.909 --> 01:24:12.619 and running a food bank. You don't get much different 01:24:12.619 --> 01:24:15.619 than that. That's 180 degree difference. Well, 01:24:15.699 --> 01:24:17.939 I always tell people, I say tell like I'm some 01:24:17.939 --> 01:24:20.300 authority, but it's become clear to me, let me 01:24:20.300 --> 01:24:23.899 put it that way, that you hear people that transition 01:24:23.899 --> 01:24:25.760 out the military or first responders and they 01:24:25.760 --> 01:24:28.180 get into finance, you know, and they're just 01:24:28.180 --> 01:24:32.180 so unfulfilled and it's a rocky transition. We 01:24:32.180 --> 01:24:34.970 have that servant's heart. That's what sends 01:24:34.970 --> 01:24:37.109 us into uniform. And it's a beautiful thing. 01:24:37.289 --> 01:24:39.090 And I think that where people struggle is that 01:24:39.090 --> 01:24:40.590 they think that they have to be wearing that 01:24:40.590 --> 01:24:43.810 uniform or do a similar thing when they transition 01:24:43.810 --> 01:24:46.470 out. So cops become security officers. Firefighters 01:24:46.470 --> 01:24:49.130 normally just teach at fire academies or paramedic 01:24:49.130 --> 01:24:52.729 schools. But you can serve in so many different 01:24:52.729 --> 01:24:55.090 ways. Your uniform is just a costume, really, 01:24:55.210 --> 01:24:59.390 if you think about it. It is. And you hit that 01:24:59.390 --> 01:25:02.369 right on the head. I think the transition for 01:25:02.369 --> 01:25:06.529 me was pretty easy. It was a culture shock. Let's 01:25:06.529 --> 01:25:09.670 be honest, dealing with soldiers to dealing with 01:25:09.670 --> 01:25:11.890 people working at the food bank and a lot of 01:25:11.890 --> 01:25:14.670 volunteers, which I'd never had to deal with. 01:25:16.109 --> 01:25:19.989 But it was about service. I understood that piece 01:25:19.989 --> 01:25:22.750 of it, that it wasn't about me and it wasn't 01:25:22.750 --> 01:25:26.130 even about the organization. It was about what 01:25:26.130 --> 01:25:29.689 we had to do and why we had to do what we had 01:25:29.689 --> 01:25:33.670 to do. And to me, that made the transition a 01:25:33.670 --> 01:25:36.729 little bit easier for me than probably some people. 01:25:36.890 --> 01:25:39.449 If I had jumped right into a Fortune 500 company 01:25:39.449 --> 01:25:44.350 as, you know, where profit was the bottom line 01:25:44.350 --> 01:25:46.210 and I had to do whatever I had to do to make 01:25:46.210 --> 01:25:48.829 a profit, I have no doubt I would have hated 01:25:48.829 --> 01:25:52.149 it. Well, as far as feedbacks themselves, it's 01:25:52.149 --> 01:25:53.850 something that we've all heard of. I don't think 01:25:53.850 --> 01:25:56.130 anyone's really kind of seen behind the doors. 01:25:56.689 --> 01:26:01.970 What are the services provided? Obviously, you 01:26:01.970 --> 01:26:03.329 know, one would assume that there's certainly 01:26:03.329 --> 01:26:05.909 an emergency element as just like you said, there's 01:26:05.909 --> 01:26:08.130 an oil spill on a community that makes their 01:26:08.130 --> 01:26:11.489 money from the ocean. Perfect example. But did 01:26:11.489 --> 01:26:13.850 you get to also glimpse at some of the poverty 01:26:13.850 --> 01:26:16.609 that this was serving as well within one of the 01:26:16.609 --> 01:26:19.890 most affluent nations in the world? Oh, absolutely. 01:26:20.050 --> 01:26:23.090 I mean, when you start when you get 50 miles 01:26:23.090 --> 01:26:25.470 from the Gulf Coast in Mississippi, Alabama, 01:26:25.710 --> 01:26:28.829 and even the panhandle, I mean, you saw all kinds 01:26:28.829 --> 01:26:34.750 of. poverty and poor communities that had been 01:26:34.750 --> 01:26:38.069 affected by many things over the years economically. 01:26:39.630 --> 01:26:44.210 And, you know, for years that food bank had served 01:26:44.210 --> 01:26:47.050 those communities and had it pretty much down. 01:26:47.170 --> 01:26:50.789 You know, we'd bring food in. Originally, when 01:26:50.789 --> 01:26:52.850 I first got there, most of it was coming from, 01:26:52.869 --> 01:26:54.750 a lot of it was coming from the government, from 01:26:54.750 --> 01:26:59.370 the USDA. You know, we'd get cheese. vegetables, 01:26:59.370 --> 01:27:01.210 canned vegetables and those kinds of things and 01:27:01.210 --> 01:27:04.970 hand them out. Did a little bit, you know, we 01:27:04.970 --> 01:27:07.130 had food drives, you know, the Boy Scouts always 01:27:07.130 --> 01:27:09.210 had a food drive. The post office always has 01:27:09.210 --> 01:27:11.149 the food drive. So we get some food from that. 01:27:12.170 --> 01:27:14.229 But again, if we were going to increase the amount 01:27:14.229 --> 01:27:15.909 of food that we were going to hand out, then 01:27:15.909 --> 01:27:18.550 I needed to come up with new ways. And we started 01:27:18.550 --> 01:27:24.170 implementing agreements with Walmart, with Winn 01:27:24.170 --> 01:27:29.909 -Dixie, with the big supermarkets. For food that 01:27:29.909 --> 01:27:32.630 they could no longer sell because it was past 01:27:32.630 --> 01:27:36.430 the sell -by date, the food's still good. It's 01:27:36.430 --> 01:27:38.289 good for another two or three years. It's just 01:27:38.289 --> 01:27:41.489 it can't be sold after the sell -by date on the 01:27:41.489 --> 01:27:45.029 label. So they're either going to have to send 01:27:45.029 --> 01:27:48.289 it back to the manufacturer to be destroyed, 01:27:48.430 --> 01:27:51.010 or they could give it to us and write it off. 01:27:51.210 --> 01:27:55.550 And we finally got them convinced to do that, 01:27:55.649 --> 01:27:58.659 and we were getting food from... a bunch of different 01:27:58.659 --> 01:28:03.199 places and then then we talked to the local farmers 01:28:03.199 --> 01:28:07.720 and got some food from them that they couldn't 01:28:07.720 --> 01:28:10.699 for whatever reason they couldn't get it to market 01:28:10.699 --> 01:28:13.460 and it was just going to sit there and rot and 01:28:13.460 --> 01:28:16.500 and so we eventually got some of that too and 01:28:16.500 --> 01:28:18.779 so we got to hand out fresh vegetables and fresh 01:28:18.779 --> 01:28:23.979 fruit and um so it just came you know you just 01:28:23.979 --> 01:28:28.369 had had to think through some some new ways of 01:28:28.369 --> 01:28:32.010 doing things um and convincing people that it 01:28:32.010 --> 01:28:36.149 made sense for them as well and but yeah i i 01:28:36.149 --> 01:28:40.510 saw some parts of america that most people don't 01:28:40.510 --> 01:28:43.729 even would never believe that's how people live 01:28:43.729 --> 01:28:49.090 in america yeah well that point exactly in a 01:28:49.090 --> 01:28:50.689 country that's supposed to be one of the most 01:28:50.689 --> 01:28:53.949 affluent on the planet with this unique lens 01:28:53.949 --> 01:28:57.130 that you had what were some of the contributing 01:28:57.130 --> 01:28:59.569 factors to this poverty? And if you were king 01:28:59.569 --> 01:29:03.710 for a day, how can we change some of the structures, 01:29:03.789 --> 01:29:06.270 like you said, I mean, the huge inefficiency 01:29:06.270 --> 01:29:09.069 in our government system, for example, to empower 01:29:09.069 --> 01:29:11.930 these communities to not receive more handouts, 01:29:11.930 --> 01:29:13.869 but to actually be able to grow and produce and 01:29:13.869 --> 01:29:16.550 earn and not be on the poverty line anymore? 01:29:16.810 --> 01:29:19.029 Well, you know, it's funny that, and I'll answer 01:29:19.029 --> 01:29:21.470 that question, but it's funny that you phrased 01:29:21.470 --> 01:29:24.270 it that way, because I was... One of the things 01:29:24.270 --> 01:29:27.409 that made me finally decide, because I had been 01:29:27.409 --> 01:29:30.470 offered a job to do Army ROTC recruiting as a 01:29:30.470 --> 01:29:32.149 Department of the Army civilian, which I eventually 01:29:32.149 --> 01:29:35.109 took. And I left the food bank after two years. 01:29:35.270 --> 01:29:37.510 But one of the things that convinced me that 01:29:37.510 --> 01:29:42.149 I needed to leave was I was at a conference, 01:29:42.250 --> 01:29:45.550 a national conference for food banks. And I'm 01:29:45.550 --> 01:29:48.250 sitting in this conference room with a bunch 01:29:48.250 --> 01:29:51.029 of people like me, associate directors, directors 01:29:51.029 --> 01:29:55.340 of food banks. And this lady gets up and she's 01:29:55.340 --> 01:29:59.260 talking about all the projects that she is coming 01:29:59.260 --> 01:30:03.920 up with to grow her food bank and to feed more 01:30:03.920 --> 01:30:06.300 people. And I said, that's fantastic. Good for 01:30:06.300 --> 01:30:09.960 you. I said, but let me ask you a question. What 01:30:09.960 --> 01:30:13.279 projects are you coming up with to get them so 01:30:13.279 --> 01:30:16.079 they don't have to come to the food bank? And 01:30:16.079 --> 01:30:19.970 she said, it's not my job. I said. It is. Absolutely. 01:30:20.189 --> 01:30:22.470 We don't want to be in the business of growing 01:30:22.470 --> 01:30:26.470 food banks. We want them to go away. You know, 01:30:26.510 --> 01:30:28.550 I understand you got to grow them when you have 01:30:28.550 --> 01:30:31.909 to, like I did in the Gulf. But that's not what 01:30:31.909 --> 01:30:34.130 we want. We don't want bigger food banks. We 01:30:34.130 --> 01:30:38.090 want less food banks. There will always be some. 01:30:38.270 --> 01:30:40.329 I got it. Because you're always going to have 01:30:40.329 --> 01:30:44.649 to deal with emergencies and those odd cases. 01:30:44.789 --> 01:30:49.329 I got it. So I think to answer the question, 01:30:49.630 --> 01:30:52.369 I think there's a couple of things that have 01:30:52.369 --> 01:30:59.029 contributed to communities being so rundown, 01:30:59.050 --> 01:31:06.689 impoverished. I think one, that we have outsourced 01:31:06.689 --> 01:31:11.609 all of our jobs overseas. So you had factories 01:31:11.609 --> 01:31:16.350 that had been in an area for 75 years that's 01:31:16.350 --> 01:31:20.949 now gone. Well, in those communities, what happened? 01:31:21.909 --> 01:31:25.409 For many, many years, people who worked there, 01:31:25.550 --> 01:31:28.850 their kids came and worked there. And their kids 01:31:28.850 --> 01:31:31.130 came and worked there. And they worked there 01:31:31.130 --> 01:31:33.510 all their life, like we talked about earlier, 01:31:33.829 --> 01:31:36.850 that people would spend their entire life working 01:31:36.850 --> 01:31:40.050 at a factory or a company or whatever it is. 01:31:40.590 --> 01:31:43.470 And now that's gone. So what do those kids do? 01:31:44.489 --> 01:31:49.109 Our education system is absolutely broken, completely 01:31:49.109 --> 01:31:52.569 broken. And these kids, especially these kids, 01:31:52.649 --> 01:31:57.250 were getting almost no education, zero. If somebody 01:31:57.250 --> 01:31:59.289 really wanted one in that community, they could 01:31:59.289 --> 01:32:01.630 figure it out and they would be the ones who 01:32:01.630 --> 01:32:04.649 got out of there and make it. But the majority 01:32:04.649 --> 01:32:08.930 of those kids had no chance. And we got to we 01:32:08.930 --> 01:32:12.590 got to fix that. And I think that's common. And 01:32:12.590 --> 01:32:18.729 then I think. that um again it's it's that vicious 01:32:18.729 --> 01:32:22.869 cycle that once they start down that road of 01:32:22.869 --> 01:32:25.989 becoming impoverished that there's nothing to 01:32:25.989 --> 01:32:30.069 help get them out to not as a handout forever 01:32:30.069 --> 01:32:35.229 to get started to fix that to to do some training 01:32:35.229 --> 01:32:39.550 to become an electrician to do some training 01:32:39.550 --> 01:32:42.920 to become a plumber or whatever it is that that 01:32:42.920 --> 01:32:46.060 community needs and there's just nothing there 01:32:46.060 --> 01:32:51.920 right now which leads to you know for so many 01:32:51.920 --> 01:32:55.039 years we've insisted that you had to go to college 01:32:55.039 --> 01:32:58.239 to get to be successful in this country and that 01:32:58.239 --> 01:33:01.720 is absolutely not true and we gotta stop that 01:33:01.720 --> 01:33:04.939 and we gotta put some money into our trade schools 01:33:04.939 --> 01:33:09.020 and our apprenticeship programs and which the 01:33:09.020 --> 01:33:13.609 australians do very well And we don't. We don't 01:33:13.609 --> 01:33:16.090 do it well at all. And it shows. I mean, you 01:33:16.090 --> 01:33:18.210 can't find a plumber today or an electrician. 01:33:18.250 --> 01:33:21.130 And when you do, they make more money than I 01:33:21.130 --> 01:33:24.090 made as a lieutenant colonel with 23 years in 01:33:24.090 --> 01:33:26.430 the Army. So why would you not tell some kid 01:33:26.430 --> 01:33:28.510 to go be a plumber or an electrician or a mechanic 01:33:28.510 --> 01:33:33.010 or a welder? College is not for everybody, but 01:33:33.010 --> 01:33:35.869 we've driven that into people's heads that if 01:33:35.869 --> 01:33:37.550 you can't go to college, you can't be successful. 01:33:37.750 --> 01:33:41.399 So this young man, young lady. who can't afford 01:33:41.399 --> 01:33:43.560 to go to college because they're from that community, 01:33:43.899 --> 01:33:47.220 their mindset already is that they're going to 01:33:47.220 --> 01:33:49.060 be a failure, that there's nothing they can do 01:33:49.060 --> 01:33:52.539 to be successful in this country. And it's just 01:33:52.539 --> 01:33:55.500 that self -licking ice cream cone. Okay, I don't 01:33:55.500 --> 01:33:57.579 believe I can be successful, so I'm not going 01:33:57.579 --> 01:34:00.399 to be successful. And I think that that's what 01:34:00.399 --> 01:34:04.039 we're finding in a lot of rural America today. 01:34:06.590 --> 01:34:08.909 Thought about this a lot recently. And my son 01:34:08.909 --> 01:34:11.270 is my youngest is now 17. So he's actually going 01:34:11.270 --> 01:34:13.689 to college. But that's because he wants to become 01:34:13.689 --> 01:34:15.970 a veterinary surgeon. So that is the track for 01:34:15.970 --> 01:34:18.710 that. There are things you have to go to college 01:34:18.710 --> 01:34:21.529 for. There's many things you don't have to go 01:34:21.529 --> 01:34:23.630 to college for. And if you want to go to college, 01:34:23.689 --> 01:34:26.310 good for you. Do it. But we shouldn't be pushing 01:34:26.310 --> 01:34:29.369 kids to go to college to get a gender's degree 01:34:29.369 --> 01:34:33.329 study or, you know, some some degree that isn't 01:34:33.329 --> 01:34:35.560 going to give them a job. that's going to make 01:34:35.560 --> 01:34:38.659 them successful. Absolutely. Well, I saw an article 01:34:38.659 --> 01:34:41.539 in the New York Times a couple weeks ago I shared, 01:34:41.680 --> 01:34:43.859 and it said a lot of Gen Z are going into the 01:34:43.859 --> 01:34:46.460 trades. And my bonus boy, my stepson, is a mechanic. 01:34:46.739 --> 01:34:49.720 And he hated school, hated academics. He's an 01:34:49.720 --> 01:34:52.460 amazing mechanic. And so this is what I tell 01:34:52.460 --> 01:34:54.739 the fire service in this recruitment crisis. 01:34:55.399 --> 01:34:57.579 You have got a lot of young people that actually 01:34:57.579 --> 01:35:00.869 do want to do our job. but they're also very 01:35:00.869 --> 01:35:03.369 intelligent. They value their physical and mental 01:35:03.369 --> 01:35:05.689 health. They value their relationships and they 01:35:05.689 --> 01:35:07.850 research. All right, well then what is this job? 01:35:07.909 --> 01:35:09.890 What are the hours? How much does it pay? When 01:35:09.890 --> 01:35:12.750 can I be home? And it's not laziness. They just 01:35:12.750 --> 01:35:14.409 want to see, okay, what looks good and what looks 01:35:14.409 --> 01:35:17.270 bad. And on paper, the American fire service 01:35:17.270 --> 01:35:19.710 looks fucking horrendous at the moment in a lot 01:35:19.710 --> 01:35:22.510 of places. So we're blaming all these kids don't 01:35:22.510 --> 01:35:24.250 want to work. And that's absolute bullshit. Some 01:35:24.250 --> 01:35:26.850 kids don't, but that's every generation, you 01:35:26.850 --> 01:35:29.539 know, all of us, isn't it? But if you actually 01:35:29.539 --> 01:35:32.060 show a young person that you care and you invest, 01:35:32.199 --> 01:35:35.180 going back to, I'm assuming Tesla, but I know 01:35:35.180 --> 01:35:38.079 Google and Virgin, Richard Branson, that really 01:35:38.079 --> 01:35:40.720 invest in their people, people flock to them. 01:35:40.939 --> 01:35:43.279 And then you can set that bar high, the fitness 01:35:43.279 --> 01:35:45.460 standards and the hiring standards, and you can 01:35:45.460 --> 01:35:47.899 make young people challenge themselves to reach 01:35:47.899 --> 01:35:51.479 it. But right now, we're offering financial incentives, 01:35:51.699 --> 01:35:55.039 we're lowering the bar, and it's not working 01:35:55.039 --> 01:35:57.039 because that's not the problem. You've got to 01:35:57.039 --> 01:36:00.149 show these people. It's a profession that they 01:36:00.149 --> 01:36:02.909 have to fight to earn. And if they get there, 01:36:03.069 --> 01:36:05.470 we will take care of you and you will be an amazing 01:36:05.470 --> 01:36:07.909 firefighter, have an incredible career and a 01:36:07.909 --> 01:36:11.369 healthy retirement. You hit right on the head. 01:36:11.510 --> 01:36:14.050 When you lower the standards, now you're not 01:36:14.050 --> 01:36:16.029 going to keep them because they're probably not 01:36:16.029 --> 01:36:19.130 going to meet the standards later on. And this 01:36:19.130 --> 01:36:21.689 is the thing that I always emphasize when I go 01:36:21.689 --> 01:36:25.569 around talking to companies or corporations or 01:36:25.569 --> 01:36:30.989 organizations like... first responders is you 01:36:30.989 --> 01:36:35.470 have to show this generation coming up that there 01:36:35.470 --> 01:36:38.909 is a path forward for them in that organization 01:36:38.909 --> 01:36:42.630 whether it be leadership or just promotion to 01:36:42.630 --> 01:36:45.189 the next level whatever it is and the way you 01:36:45.189 --> 01:36:47.569 do that is through leadership development programs 01:36:47.569 --> 01:36:50.430 and professional development programs and if 01:36:50.430 --> 01:36:54.270 you don't have that if i'm an 18 year old and 01:36:54.270 --> 01:36:57.489 i come work for you and I have aspirations to 01:36:57.489 --> 01:37:00.409 be a leader and you don't have a path forward 01:37:00.409 --> 01:37:03.329 with a leadership development program that I 01:37:03.329 --> 01:37:05.550 can see there is a path forward that I might 01:37:05.550 --> 01:37:07.729 have an opportunity to be a leader, then I'm 01:37:07.729 --> 01:37:11.109 going somewhere else that does because that's 01:37:11.109 --> 01:37:14.130 part of my aspirations. So you're losing the 01:37:14.130 --> 01:37:18.050 best people out of your organization that are 01:37:18.050 --> 01:37:20.130 going somewhere else because you didn't take 01:37:20.130 --> 01:37:25.779 the time to take care of them. And provide them 01:37:25.779 --> 01:37:28.079 with a professional development and a leadership 01:37:28.079 --> 01:37:30.619 development program, not just for the leaders, 01:37:30.699 --> 01:37:34.100 for everybody. Because, you know, the analogy 01:37:34.100 --> 01:37:36.899 I always use is this. Pick a sport team, any 01:37:36.899 --> 01:37:42.239 sport you want, who year after year after year 01:37:42.239 --> 01:37:46.840 are at the top of those sports teams, professions. 01:37:47.960 --> 01:37:50.520 They're always in the playoffs or just miss the 01:37:50.520 --> 01:37:53.859 playoffs. Oh, you know, it's the teams that. 01:37:54.159 --> 01:37:57.159 build from their minor league, from their farm 01:37:57.159 --> 01:37:59.399 team. It isn't the ones that go out and find 01:37:59.399 --> 01:38:03.680 the $25 million free agent for one year and then 01:38:03.680 --> 01:38:06.359 he leaves because he gets $21 million and $100 01:38:06.359 --> 01:38:10.180 ,000 goes to the next team. It's those ones that 01:38:10.180 --> 01:38:14.100 you grow and teach them the culture, teach them 01:38:14.100 --> 01:38:17.039 your culture, teach them your standards, your 01:38:17.039 --> 01:38:21.500 beliefs. That's how you grow an organization 01:38:21.500 --> 01:38:25.930 and we are not doing that. in most places today, 01:38:26.109 --> 01:38:29.189 but certainly in the first responder area and 01:38:29.189 --> 01:38:34.239 in the military, it's broken. One of the beautiful 01:38:34.239 --> 01:38:37.039 solutions aside from obviously fixing the work 01:38:37.039 --> 01:38:39.619 week. And I mean, there's even some great technology 01:38:39.619 --> 01:38:42.000 now with telehealth where you can integrate into 01:38:42.000 --> 01:38:44.979 911 and take away some of the calls that they 01:38:44.979 --> 01:38:46.359 should never be running in the first place, a 01:38:46.359 --> 01:38:49.039 non -immersion call. So there's so many solutions 01:38:49.039 --> 01:38:52.260 out there to take the workload off, give them 01:38:52.260 --> 01:38:54.000 a healthier environment. And then, like I said, 01:38:54.039 --> 01:38:56.579 put standards in because the number of guests 01:38:56.579 --> 01:38:58.539 I've had on that didn't realize that the fire 01:38:58.539 --> 01:39:01.240 service doesn't have fitness standards. I've 01:39:01.240 --> 01:39:03.760 still yet to hear of a department that has a 01:39:03.760 --> 01:39:07.340 true punitive standard. And as I was a lifeguard 01:39:07.340 --> 01:39:09.279 for quite a while when I was younger, you think 01:39:09.279 --> 01:39:12.199 about, say, the extreme lifeguards, so the Hawaii 01:39:12.199 --> 01:39:15.779 beach lifeguards. Can you imagine if they were 01:39:15.779 --> 01:39:17.239 like, well, it's not fair that we have to do 01:39:17.239 --> 01:39:19.880 swim tests? That is what my profession has done. 01:39:20.060 --> 01:39:22.430 You're trying to take my job. It's too hard. 01:39:22.630 --> 01:39:24.829 I mean, it's, it's absolute insanity when you 01:39:24.829 --> 01:39:26.649 think about it, but this is what we've allowed. 01:39:26.810 --> 01:39:29.630 So you create that healthy environment, but you 01:39:29.630 --> 01:39:33.289 also put that bar up because lives are at stake. 01:39:33.670 --> 01:39:35.289 Realistically, you might have to throw on a hundred 01:39:35.289 --> 01:39:38.250 pounds of gear and climb 20, 30 flights of stairs 01:39:38.250 --> 01:39:40.350 before you even go to work. That is the problem. 01:39:40.729 --> 01:39:46.050 The problem is if you don't have high standards, 01:39:46.109 --> 01:39:48.529 then you don't draw the people that you want 01:39:48.529 --> 01:39:51.390 to draw. and again that just leads to the turnover 01:39:51.390 --> 01:39:53.930 because if they don't if that they're not the 01:39:53.930 --> 01:39:56.550 people you really want to draw then they're going 01:39:56.550 --> 01:39:58.930 to become disenfranchised and they're going to 01:39:58.930 --> 01:40:01.109 leave after three four years and you're starting 01:40:01.109 --> 01:40:03.750 all over again and you're already back behind 01:40:03.750 --> 01:40:06.770 the power curve again and the other piece of 01:40:06.770 --> 01:40:08.909 that and we kind of touched on it earlier that 01:40:08.909 --> 01:40:13.390 vicious cycle it applies to leadership so When 01:40:13.390 --> 01:40:15.909 we promote people who should not be promoted 01:40:15.909 --> 01:40:17.789 to leadership positions, and we're doing that 01:40:17.789 --> 01:40:22.010 today in every profession, then they're not good 01:40:22.010 --> 01:40:25.710 leaders and they drive out the good young men 01:40:25.710 --> 01:40:27.930 and women who are in that organization because 01:40:27.930 --> 01:40:30.810 they're not going to put up with that. Who stays? 01:40:31.149 --> 01:40:33.710 The average or maybe a little bit below average 01:40:33.710 --> 01:40:37.430 person. Well, then who gets promoted? They stay, 01:40:37.550 --> 01:40:39.090 so they're the ones that are going to get promoted. 01:40:39.289 --> 01:40:42.010 And who's the leader that they are emulating? 01:40:42.910 --> 01:40:45.609 this horrible leader. And so that's the leader 01:40:45.609 --> 01:40:49.270 they become. So then 10, 15 years from now, when 01:40:49.270 --> 01:40:51.569 they become the leader, they're going to drive 01:40:51.569 --> 01:40:54.949 out the next group of young, outstanding young 01:40:54.949 --> 01:40:57.250 men and women. And it's just that cycle that 01:40:57.250 --> 01:40:59.689 goes round and round and round. And we are in 01:40:59.689 --> 01:41:02.369 that cycle right now that just is just continuing 01:41:02.369 --> 01:41:06.449 on the do loop. And we got to break it. If we 01:41:06.449 --> 01:41:09.590 don't, these organizations are in a lot of trouble. 01:41:10.280 --> 01:41:12.340 Well, this is even affecting the mental health 01:41:12.340 --> 01:41:14.359 of our first responders, because a number of 01:41:14.359 --> 01:41:16.020 people that I spoke to, and obviously people 01:41:16.020 --> 01:41:17.579 that listen to the Behind the Shield podcast 01:41:17.579 --> 01:41:20.399 are the ones that want to improve themselves, 01:41:20.560 --> 01:41:24.739 performance, longevity, all the things. And the 01:41:24.739 --> 01:41:29.899 kind of detrimental element to the toxic environment, 01:41:30.060 --> 01:41:32.859 to the organizational betrayal, to the micromanager, 01:41:32.920 --> 01:41:35.619 I mean, all these things, that is... Something 01:41:35.619 --> 01:41:37.859 I hear far more than, oh, I saw this horrible 01:41:37.859 --> 01:41:41.039 accident with this child. That, of course, hits 01:41:41.039 --> 01:41:44.340 us hard. When your tribe doesn't support you, 01:41:44.420 --> 01:41:47.119 you've got the very patch on your shoulder and 01:41:47.119 --> 01:41:49.560 you literally have sworn an unofficial oath that 01:41:49.560 --> 01:41:51.760 you will die for this department. And, you know, 01:41:51.800 --> 01:41:54.720 God forbid that it comes to that. And then they 01:41:54.720 --> 01:41:57.220 turn around and they don't support you, whether 01:41:57.220 --> 01:41:59.420 you got cancer and they cast you out or have 01:41:59.420 --> 01:42:01.619 had, you know, law enforcement officers that 01:42:01.619 --> 01:42:04.920 were shot on duty and then got discarded or you 01:42:04.920 --> 01:42:07.039 made the right choice, but you got thrown under 01:42:07.039 --> 01:42:09.119 the bus because of politics, whatever the thing 01:42:09.119 --> 01:42:13.119 is. That is by, you know, absolutely one of the 01:42:13.119 --> 01:42:14.760 reasons why we lose some of our men and women 01:42:14.760 --> 01:42:17.319 in uniform to suicide, because that kind of betrayal 01:42:17.319 --> 01:42:20.920 is crushing to someone who truly has a servant's 01:42:20.920 --> 01:42:23.819 heart and takes this profession seriously. Not 01:42:23.819 --> 01:42:26.260 just the suicide, but certainly you're right, 01:42:26.319 --> 01:42:28.239 that is the case. But just through attrition. 01:42:28.739 --> 01:42:33.140 If you're a good, working, upstanding, meet the 01:42:33.140 --> 01:42:35.920 standard, and you see people that don't are getting 01:42:35.920 --> 01:42:39.899 promoted, or you see people who are improperly 01:42:39.899 --> 01:42:45.779 handled by leaders, then you leave. You go somewhere 01:42:45.779 --> 01:42:48.500 else with the hope that you're going to get a 01:42:48.500 --> 01:42:51.699 better leader somewhere. So, yeah, again, it's 01:42:51.699 --> 01:42:54.760 just that cycle. just continues and continues 01:42:54.760 --> 01:42:59.960 and continues and and if we don't break it then 01:42:59.960 --> 01:43:05.380 then uh organizations die they really do absolutely 01:43:05.380 --> 01:43:08.039 well one of the solutions that i think is is 01:43:08.039 --> 01:43:10.359 incredible and not only is it for the recruitment 01:43:10.359 --> 01:43:13.060 element but also even the diversity element because 01:43:13.060 --> 01:43:16.140 you know as we've known in the past there have 01:43:16.140 --> 01:43:18.159 been departments some more famous than others 01:43:18.159 --> 01:43:21.270 that really were not, you know, leaning into 01:43:21.270 --> 01:43:23.989 other cultures and ethnicities in the hiring 01:43:23.989 --> 01:43:26.850 practices. And that was addressed by a massive 01:43:26.850 --> 01:43:28.850 pendulum shift the other way where they were 01:43:28.850 --> 01:43:31.789 scooping up, you know, a hundred of insert person 01:43:31.789 --> 01:43:34.710 here and then just bringing them in. And then 01:43:34.710 --> 01:43:36.529 that created friction because within that group 01:43:36.529 --> 01:43:38.409 was some people that were phenomenal firefighters 01:43:38.409 --> 01:43:40.710 and some people that had no business doing the 01:43:40.710 --> 01:43:43.930 job. So the solution of the mentorship programs, 01:43:44.069 --> 01:43:46.229 and I absolutely love the one we have here in 01:43:46.229 --> 01:43:48.649 Ocala, my friend Chris Hickman started it up. 01:43:49.289 --> 01:43:52.229 You go into a central location and you reach 01:43:52.229 --> 01:43:56.409 out to the whole city, but especially the underserved 01:43:56.409 --> 01:43:59.329 populations, they just have to show up at that 01:43:59.329 --> 01:44:02.989 station. They get free gear, free training. They 01:44:02.989 --> 01:44:04.989 get kind of prepared for the fire academy. There 01:44:04.989 --> 01:44:07.250 are scholarships they can get for the fire academy 01:44:07.250 --> 01:44:09.529 because that is a barrier to entry in our profession. 01:44:09.670 --> 01:44:11.810 If you can't afford to go to school, you can't 01:44:11.810 --> 01:44:15.069 be a firefighter a lot of times. And then there's 01:44:15.069 --> 01:44:16.989 obviously a lot of people looking on the other 01:44:16.989 --> 01:44:20.289 side to hire these young people. So to me, this 01:44:20.289 --> 01:44:23.250 waiting for your chief or your president to fix 01:44:23.250 --> 01:44:25.989 your problems is ridiculous. They say you want 01:44:25.989 --> 01:44:28.229 to change the world, start at home. I think the 01:44:28.229 --> 01:44:30.569 next step after that is become a mentor in your 01:44:30.569 --> 01:44:33.930 community. Oh, absolutely. So talk to me about 01:44:33.930 --> 01:44:37.210 the ROTC program and what took you to Florida. 01:44:39.170 --> 01:44:44.489 So again, I left the food bank. I came to ROTC 01:44:44.489 --> 01:44:50.590 here at Emory Riddle. And I ran for the active 01:44:50.590 --> 01:44:53.069 duty lieutenant colonel. I ran the program at 01:44:53.069 --> 01:44:55.369 Stetson for a couple years. I was the only person 01:44:55.369 --> 01:45:00.270 stationed out at Stetson into land. And when 01:45:00.270 --> 01:45:02.430 I got there, there were 15 cadets in the program. 01:45:02.609 --> 01:45:05.689 And the guy who hired me said, oh, grow the program 01:45:05.689 --> 01:45:07.569 or I'm shutting it down. He said, it's not worth 01:45:07.569 --> 01:45:11.430 my time to have 15 cadets out there. That was 01:45:11.430 --> 01:45:21.039 January 2011. Seven years, we had 115 cadets 01:45:21.039 --> 01:45:26.060 out at Stetson. So we went from 15 to 115. We 01:45:26.060 --> 01:45:29.079 were commissioning 23, 24 lieutenants a year 01:45:29.079 --> 01:45:33.760 out of Stetson, a partner school. There are whole 01:45:33.760 --> 01:45:36.319 programs in Cadet Command that don't commission 01:45:36.319 --> 01:45:41.699 23, 24 lieutenants. Then I was there for two 01:45:41.699 --> 01:45:46.670 years, and then the job for the recruiter. for 01:45:46.670 --> 01:45:49.869 the entire program came open and I applied for 01:45:49.869 --> 01:45:52.850 it and I got it. And I kind of looked at the 01:45:52.850 --> 01:45:54.829 same thing. You know, again, I approached things 01:45:54.829 --> 01:46:00.210 with where are we? Where should we be? How do 01:46:00.210 --> 01:46:03.710 we get there? And I walked into a new lieutenant 01:46:03.710 --> 01:46:05.869 colonel, new lieutenant colonel had taken over. 01:46:06.050 --> 01:46:09.409 And so I walked into his office and I said, you 01:46:09.409 --> 01:46:12.869 know, this program should be twice the size that 01:46:12.869 --> 01:46:16.279 it is. I said, this is a great university. Great 01:46:16.279 --> 01:46:21.659 program. You know, we got such a variety in our 01:46:21.659 --> 01:46:23.979 program. We got a liberal arts college out at 01:46:23.979 --> 01:46:26.460 Stetson. We got a historically black college 01:46:26.460 --> 01:46:30.279 in Bethune -Cookman. We got an outstanding engineer 01:46:30.279 --> 01:46:36.180 in aerospace school here at Emory Riddle. We 01:46:36.180 --> 01:46:39.399 ought to be drawn from all over the world to 01:46:39.399 --> 01:46:45.579 come here. And he said, OK, make it so. And so 01:46:45.579 --> 01:46:50.539 I said, OK. When I took over as the recruiter 01:46:50.539 --> 01:46:54.119 for the entire program, we had 166 cadets in 01:46:54.119 --> 01:46:56.859 the entire program, all three schools. Well, 01:46:56.939 --> 01:46:59.039 I added Daytona State College. That was one of 01:46:59.039 --> 01:47:03.539 the first things I did. I made sure I worked 01:47:03.539 --> 01:47:06.600 through the agreement and the professor of military 01:47:06.600 --> 01:47:08.699 science and the president of the university signed 01:47:08.699 --> 01:47:10.739 it and we added them to the program. So now we've 01:47:10.739 --> 01:47:15.460 got four schools, a community. I call it a community 01:47:15.460 --> 01:47:18.439 college. That's not the way it's called anymore. 01:47:18.539 --> 01:47:20.239 State college, whatever you want to call it. 01:47:21.020 --> 01:47:23.140 And at that point, it only had two year degrees. 01:47:23.220 --> 01:47:26.140 Now it's got seven or eight four year degrees. 01:47:26.159 --> 01:47:29.359 So you can go there the entire time, be an ROTC, 01:47:29.380 --> 01:47:32.560 graduate from Daytona State. We actually graduated, 01:47:32.600 --> 01:47:35.619 I think, during my time there, four or five people 01:47:35.619 --> 01:47:37.880 from Daytona State and commissioned them out 01:47:37.880 --> 01:47:40.479 of that program. So that part of the program. 01:47:41.199 --> 01:47:45.079 So I looked at, okay, what is the problem? And 01:47:45.079 --> 01:47:49.399 so I realized we needed to be a national draw. 01:47:49.579 --> 01:47:53.060 We couldn't just draw from around the area and 01:47:53.060 --> 01:47:55.659 those occasional ones who knew about Emory Riddle. 01:47:55.760 --> 01:47:59.760 So I worked the national scholarship program 01:47:59.760 --> 01:48:07.779 really hard and got our name out there that it's 01:48:07.779 --> 01:48:11.640 a great program. I worked with all... for schools 01:48:11.640 --> 01:48:16.060 to get some special things. So, you know, free 01:48:16.060 --> 01:48:19.100 housing if you're on a scholarship. So it truly 01:48:19.100 --> 01:48:26.340 is a full ride scholarship. I worked to get dedicated 01:48:26.340 --> 01:48:30.840 dorm rooms for cadets. So all the cadets were 01:48:30.840 --> 01:48:34.680 in the same area. I just worked a lot of different 01:48:34.680 --> 01:48:39.079 things trying to make it, like you said. These 01:48:39.079 --> 01:48:41.439 kids today go online and they figure out what's 01:48:41.439 --> 01:48:44.000 the best option for them. They're not just walking 01:48:44.000 --> 01:48:47.199 in blind. So I tried to make it look as good 01:48:47.199 --> 01:48:51.840 as possible on paper for them so that then I 01:48:51.840 --> 01:48:54.560 could get them here to visit. And once I got 01:48:54.560 --> 01:48:56.539 them here to visit, it was a done deal. Very 01:48:56.539 --> 01:48:59.819 rarely did I lose a young man or a young woman 01:48:59.819 --> 01:49:02.460 from coming to our program if I could get them 01:49:02.460 --> 01:49:04.739 and their parents on campus to sit down with 01:49:04.739 --> 01:49:07.359 me and other cadets. And I always had other cadets 01:49:07.359 --> 01:49:11.109 with me. because they were your best people. 01:49:11.229 --> 01:49:13.890 If you took care of them, you didn't take care 01:49:13.890 --> 01:49:16.170 of them, you don't want them around. If you take 01:49:16.170 --> 01:49:18.909 care of the cadets, they'll sell the program 01:49:18.909 --> 01:49:22.090 because they love it here. And it ended up, by 01:49:22.090 --> 01:49:24.670 the time I left, and I was there for 13 years, 01:49:24.770 --> 01:49:28.430 by the time I left, we had one family who sent 01:49:28.430 --> 01:49:32.350 four of their kids through this program. Wow. 01:49:32.449 --> 01:49:35.869 Several times we had, at the same time, we had 01:49:35.869 --> 01:49:40.159 three or four. brothers and sisters. So this 01:49:40.159 --> 01:49:42.260 pair of brothers and sisters, that pair of brothers 01:49:42.260 --> 01:49:44.720 and sisters. So they would go home and tell their 01:49:44.720 --> 01:49:46.779 brother or their sister about the program and 01:49:46.779 --> 01:49:50.939 that kid didn't come to the program. So it became 01:49:50.939 --> 01:49:54.560 that they were selling it for us to their own 01:49:54.560 --> 01:49:58.560 family. They'd ask me, sir, how do I go back 01:49:58.560 --> 01:50:01.380 and talk to my high school? I said, tell me the 01:50:01.380 --> 01:50:03.520 high school. I worked out the details. I said, 01:50:03.880 --> 01:50:05.659 you can show up on this day when you're back 01:50:05.659 --> 01:50:08.399 home here's a bunch of flyers here's my cards 01:50:08.399 --> 01:50:10.840 go talk about they said well what should i talk 01:50:10.840 --> 01:50:14.420 about i said talk about your experience what 01:50:14.420 --> 01:50:16.439 does it mean to you to be in this program what 01:50:16.439 --> 01:50:19.020 is it done for you don't worry about the money 01:50:19.020 --> 01:50:22.039 piece and all that when you get them somewhat 01:50:22.039 --> 01:50:25.479 sold they'll contact me from the card you handed 01:50:25.479 --> 01:50:28.060 out and i'll do that piece you just tell them 01:50:28.060 --> 01:50:31.140 the benefits of being in this program when i 01:50:31.140 --> 01:50:38.939 left as the recruiter In October 2023, so 12, 01:50:39.579 --> 01:50:45.239 almost 13 years, the program had 388 cadets in 01:50:45.239 --> 01:50:49.300 the program. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, we were 01:50:49.300 --> 01:50:52.640 commissioning 55, 60 lieutenants a year out of 01:50:52.640 --> 01:50:55.460 our program. Just to put that in perspective, 01:50:55.939 --> 01:51:00.220 the senior military colleges, VMI, Citadel, Norwich, 01:51:00.439 --> 01:51:04.560 Texas A &M. Only commission 100 lieutenants a 01:51:04.560 --> 01:51:08.960 year out of their programs. What you said about 01:51:08.960 --> 01:51:13.000 these students coming into the meeting with you 01:51:13.000 --> 01:51:14.939 because they're the best advocate, this is something 01:51:14.939 --> 01:51:17.539 I've heard a lot from military first responder 01:51:17.539 --> 01:51:22.060 guests. Back in the day, our greatest recruitment 01:51:22.060 --> 01:51:24.680 tool were the people in the job, in the uniform, 01:51:24.880 --> 01:51:26.899 because we would tell our friends, oh my God, 01:51:26.920 --> 01:51:29.560 it's amazing. We do this and this and this. Now 01:51:29.560 --> 01:51:31.520 you've got people coming in. There was obviously 01:51:31.520 --> 01:51:34.060 a multi -generational element for a long time. 01:51:34.319 --> 01:51:36.859 And what's so sad is this last, you know, certainly 01:51:36.859 --> 01:51:40.479 five years or so, it's the opposite. The number 01:51:40.479 --> 01:51:42.520 of first responders that I know that have told 01:51:42.520 --> 01:51:44.779 their children, I don't want you to be a firefighter. 01:51:45.119 --> 01:51:48.020 And the only thing that's changed. That's happened 01:51:48.020 --> 01:51:51.619 in the military too. During the last three or 01:51:51.619 --> 01:51:54.319 four years that I was here, I had, I don't know, 01:51:54.319 --> 01:51:57.710 four or five. Lieutenant Colonel is either on 01:51:57.710 --> 01:52:00.909 active duty or retired or Sergeant Major on active 01:52:00.909 --> 01:52:03.069 duty or retired. He told me that they told their 01:52:03.069 --> 01:52:05.689 children do not go in the military right now. 01:52:06.430 --> 01:52:09.329 And that's where 75 % of our officer corps comes 01:52:09.329 --> 01:52:13.149 from is historically has come from family members 01:52:13.149 --> 01:52:16.329 of people who had been in the military career 01:52:16.329 --> 01:52:21.210 wise. And if you lose a nose, something's wrong. 01:52:21.810 --> 01:52:24.310 Something's wrong. Yeah, but I mean, again, I'm 01:52:24.310 --> 01:52:26.510 an eternal optimist. I always say I'm an angry 01:52:26.510 --> 01:52:29.449 optimist, but I am a glass half full kind of 01:52:29.449 --> 01:52:31.970 a guy. When you are a crisis, there's no better 01:52:31.970 --> 01:52:35.789 platform to force change because literally, yeah, 01:52:36.449 --> 01:52:39.329 there will literally be a collapse of the fire 01:52:39.329 --> 01:52:42.149 service and law enforcement in certain towns 01:52:42.149 --> 01:52:44.069 and cities if they don't turn it around. These 01:52:44.069 --> 01:52:46.949 poor people, it's like log PT. You know, you 01:52:46.949 --> 01:52:48.770 say you're supposed to have eight people on a 01:52:48.770 --> 01:52:50.970 log. There's a lot of departments where that 01:52:50.970 --> 01:52:53.329 log's only got five people. They can only hold 01:52:53.329 --> 01:52:55.090 it for so long. They're going to quit. They're 01:52:55.090 --> 01:52:57.770 going to break whatever happens first. And then 01:52:57.770 --> 01:53:00.229 now what? Someone said to me, imagine calling 01:53:00.229 --> 01:53:03.409 911 and it's just a dial tone. That's a real 01:53:03.409 --> 01:53:06.710 potential. So going back and just fixing, because 01:53:06.710 --> 01:53:08.710 the fire service hasn't changed. The people that 01:53:08.710 --> 01:53:10.789 were raving about it, it's the same exact job. 01:53:10.890 --> 01:53:13.529 We've been doing fire and EMS for 50 plus years 01:53:13.529 --> 01:53:16.390 in this country. It's the work environment, the 01:53:16.390 --> 01:53:19.869 decline of the support and the incline of all 01:53:19.869 --> 01:53:22.590 the calls. And then obviously the lack of support 01:53:22.590 --> 01:53:24.569 governmentally from a lot of these people too. 01:53:24.770 --> 01:53:28.050 So you fix those elements, you'll go back to 01:53:28.050 --> 01:53:30.529 having cheerleaders again. It will fix itself. 01:53:31.130 --> 01:53:34.869 Absolutely. Yeah, I agree with you 100%. It goes 01:53:34.869 --> 01:53:37.689 back to leadership, as most things in this country 01:53:37.689 --> 01:53:41.329 do, as most things in this world do. Good leaders 01:53:41.329 --> 01:53:45.430 create good organizations that take care of people 01:53:45.430 --> 01:53:50.090 who then take care of the organization. That's 01:53:50.090 --> 01:53:53.550 that's the cycle we want to be on. Good leaders 01:53:53.550 --> 01:53:55.810 taking care of organizations and people and then 01:53:55.810 --> 01:53:57.850 the people taking care of the organization and 01:53:57.850 --> 01:54:00.310 doing the things the leader needs to do. That's 01:54:00.310 --> 01:54:02.550 the cycle we want to be on. And that's not the 01:54:02.550 --> 01:54:05.590 one we're on right now. Well, speaking of leadership, 01:54:05.750 --> 01:54:08.029 talk to me about your leadership legacy, your 01:54:08.029 --> 01:54:09.930 company that you have. And if anyone's listening, 01:54:10.090 --> 01:54:13.689 how can they reach out to you? Yeah, so I wrote 01:54:13.689 --> 01:54:19.609 my book and published it in February 2021. And 01:54:19.609 --> 01:54:23.350 I titled it Your Leadership Legacy, Becoming 01:54:23.350 --> 01:54:26.590 the Leader You Were Meant to Be. So obviously, 01:54:26.810 --> 01:54:32.270 leadership legacy has some meaning to me. And 01:54:32.270 --> 01:54:36.189 since then, I've been out talking on the speaking 01:54:36.189 --> 01:54:39.670 circuit about leadership and success and those 01:54:39.670 --> 01:54:42.329 kinds of things. In fact, I was just in San Antonio 01:54:42.329 --> 01:54:45.909 last week talking at a conference about leadership. 01:54:46.350 --> 01:54:52.899 I was the keynote speaker there. And so to me, 01:54:52.899 --> 01:54:57.020 leadership as a leader has two parts. A very 01:54:57.020 --> 01:55:00.619 small part of your legacy is what you actually 01:55:00.619 --> 01:55:04.140 accomplished in that organization. Now, it matters. 01:55:04.600 --> 01:55:07.159 Results do matter in the real world, maybe not 01:55:07.159 --> 01:55:09.800 in fantasy land. where everybody's a winner and 01:55:09.800 --> 01:55:11.920 everybody gets a trophy maybe not but in the 01:55:11.920 --> 01:55:14.859 real world that we live in and work in results 01:55:14.859 --> 01:55:17.359 do matter so that's important but the problem 01:55:17.359 --> 01:55:20.460 is if you tie your legacy to what you actually 01:55:20.460 --> 01:55:24.039 accomplished in that organization and you leave 01:55:24.039 --> 01:55:27.119 and we're all going to leave and you leave and 01:55:27.119 --> 01:55:29.439 the next person comes in and they change everything 01:55:29.439 --> 01:55:33.319 then what's your legacy so you got to be careful 01:55:33.319 --> 01:55:35.180 that that's not what you're tying your entire 01:55:35.180 --> 01:55:39.609 legacy to Your real legacy is that next generation 01:55:39.609 --> 01:55:44.310 of leaders that you helped produce. And then 01:55:44.310 --> 01:55:46.810 they will help produce the next generation of 01:55:46.810 --> 01:55:50.909 leaders in that servant leadership mode that 01:55:50.909 --> 01:55:54.090 you just taught. So to me, that's what your legacy 01:55:54.090 --> 01:55:57.189 is, that next generation of leaders. That's what 01:55:57.189 --> 01:56:01.310 leaders do is they create more leaders. And you 01:56:01.310 --> 01:56:03.829 do that through mentorship and coaching and training. 01:56:04.539 --> 01:56:06.340 holding people to standard, all those things. 01:56:06.899 --> 01:56:10.600 So that's what this is about. It's about making 01:56:10.600 --> 01:56:13.899 better leaders. And I always say I've got four 01:56:13.899 --> 01:56:16.500 ways to get my message out. I've got my keynote 01:56:16.500 --> 01:56:21.340 talks. I've got my book. I've got my social media. 01:56:21.520 --> 01:56:25.420 I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Hex, YouTube, 01:56:25.819 --> 01:56:30.039 Rumble. And there's videos and I write articles 01:56:30.039 --> 01:56:32.300 and blogs and those kinds of things. And then 01:56:32.300 --> 01:56:35.100 I've got podcasts. This is the 216th podcast 01:56:35.100 --> 01:56:39.640 I've been on as a guest. And so to me, it's just 01:56:39.640 --> 01:56:42.739 about getting that message out there. And so 01:56:42.739 --> 01:56:46.260 I try to use all four methods as much as possible. 01:56:46.819 --> 01:56:50.500 If you want to get a hold of me, either buy a 01:56:50.500 --> 01:56:53.020 book or the book is on Amazon. If you want to 01:56:53.020 --> 01:56:55.250 buy it, it's... Easy to find. There aren't too 01:56:55.250 --> 01:57:00.470 many Oakland McCulloughs out there. And it's 01:57:00.470 --> 01:57:03.130 available hardcover, paperback, e -book and audible. 01:57:03.250 --> 01:57:05.390 And I did the reading for the audible book. The 01:57:05.390 --> 01:57:07.590 only other voice on there is my wife. She did 01:57:07.590 --> 01:57:10.590 the forward and about the author and everything 01:57:10.590 --> 01:57:13.350 else is me. And then if you want me to come speak 01:57:13.350 --> 01:57:15.850 at one of your training events, conferences, 01:57:16.050 --> 01:57:18.949 company, whatever it is that you're doing, some 01:57:18.949 --> 01:57:22.590 leadership stuff, then just reach out to me. 01:57:23.149 --> 01:57:28.670 go to my website, www .LTCOakMcCullough .com 01:57:28.670 --> 01:57:33.069 and my email and my cell phone number on there. 01:57:33.489 --> 01:57:35.949 Give me a call, send me an email and we'll start 01:57:35.949 --> 01:57:38.510 that conversation. I'd love to come speak to 01:57:38.510 --> 01:57:42.010 your organization. Brilliant. Well, I want to 01:57:42.010 --> 01:57:43.949 throw some quick closing questions at you before 01:57:43.949 --> 01:57:47.069 I let you go, if you've got time. I do. All right. 01:57:47.090 --> 01:57:49.550 The first one, we spoke about your book. Are 01:57:49.550 --> 01:57:52.260 there any books that you love to recommend? Yes. 01:57:52.359 --> 01:57:54.000 Will they be related to our discussion today 01:57:54.000 --> 01:57:56.939 or completely unrelated? Oh, they're absolutely 01:57:56.939 --> 01:57:59.720 related. People ask me that all the time. So 01:57:59.720 --> 01:58:01.659 because I talk about professional development 01:58:01.659 --> 01:58:06.479 and the importance of reading, you know, Harry 01:58:06.479 --> 01:58:09.140 Truman said, not all readers are leaders, but 01:58:09.140 --> 01:58:11.659 all leaders are readers. And I absolutely agree 01:58:11.659 --> 01:58:15.439 with that. And so my favorite leadership book, 01:58:15.600 --> 01:58:18.319 three of them, two of them have nothing to do 01:58:18.319 --> 01:58:20.760 with the military whatsoever. One of them is 01:58:20.760 --> 01:58:23.399 On Leadership by John Wood, probably the best 01:58:23.399 --> 01:58:25.699 leadership book I've ever read. And if you've 01:58:25.699 --> 01:58:28.380 never been introduced to John Wooden's Pyramid 01:58:28.380 --> 01:58:30.920 of Success, that book will do it and you will 01:58:30.920 --> 01:58:34.140 be absolutely amazed. That has hung on my office 01:58:34.140 --> 01:58:38.279 wall for many, many years. The second one is 01:58:38.279 --> 01:58:44.460 Lee Iacocca's Autobiography. John Wooden shows 01:58:44.460 --> 01:58:49.000 you what servant leadership is about. Lee Iacocca 01:58:49.000 --> 01:58:53.399 shows you what vision and culture can do for 01:58:53.399 --> 01:58:57.100 an organization. And then the third one is a 01:58:57.100 --> 01:59:01.380 military book. It's an Israeli. Eventually he 01:59:01.380 --> 01:59:03.840 ended up an Israeli general, but the book is 01:59:03.840 --> 01:59:06.939 by Kahalani and it's called Heights of Courage. 01:59:07.039 --> 01:59:10.960 And it's when he was a armored battalion commander 01:59:10.960 --> 01:59:15.659 on the Golan Heights in 1973 and was attacked 01:59:15.659 --> 01:59:20.970 by... the Syrian division plus on the Golan Heights 01:59:20.970 --> 01:59:25.250 and it is an exercise no matter what your profession 01:59:25.250 --> 01:59:28.930 it's about the military no doubt about it but 01:59:28.930 --> 01:59:32.149 about it's about crisis management how do I solve 01:59:32.149 --> 01:59:34.430 this crisis and then go to that crisis and then 01:59:34.430 --> 01:59:36.689 go to that and it's that's what he's doing is 01:59:36.689 --> 01:59:38.810 going from crisis to crisis to crisis sometimes 01:59:38.810 --> 01:59:41.430 two crises at the same time and he had to make 01:59:41.430 --> 01:59:44.449 a choice which one's the the worst situation 01:59:44.449 --> 01:59:48.449 at this point and so it is a exercise in crisis 01:59:48.449 --> 01:59:50.949 management so you got servant leadership you 01:59:50.949 --> 01:59:53.050 got building the culture and you got crisis management 01:59:53.050 --> 01:59:56.649 those are three great books brilliant thank you 01:59:56.649 --> 01:59:59.270 what about uh films and documentaries that you 01:59:59.270 --> 02:00:02.590 love yeah well that's i mean there's so many 02:00:02.590 --> 02:00:07.409 great um great war movies out there um you know 02:00:07.409 --> 02:00:12.140 we were soldiers once and young um The one that 02:00:12.140 --> 02:00:15.100 Mel Gibson played in that was about General Hal 02:00:15.100 --> 02:00:19.800 Moore, who I actually got a chance to hear speak 02:00:19.800 --> 02:00:22.739 twice. And in fact, I have his book that We Were 02:00:22.739 --> 02:00:25.199 Soldiers Once Known signed by him and Galloway. 02:00:25.260 --> 02:00:27.380 I wouldn't take a million dollars for that book. 02:00:28.500 --> 02:00:35.260 And that's a great movie. But there's so many 02:00:35.260 --> 02:00:38.340 great ones out there that aren't even military. 02:00:46.220 --> 02:00:51.239 The Cowboys with John Wayne. Talk about leadership. 02:00:51.420 --> 02:00:55.859 He brought on these young kids, had to teach 02:00:55.859 --> 02:00:59.760 them, mentor them, coach them, be the leader, 02:00:59.880 --> 02:01:04.880 father figure for them. How to build a team, 02:01:04.920 --> 02:01:07.960 basically, is what that movie really shows you. 02:01:08.399 --> 02:01:13.340 And I think well worth the look. But there's 02:01:13.340 --> 02:01:17.199 so many great war movies out there. Saving Private 02:01:17.199 --> 02:01:21.880 Ryan is another good one that deals with culture 02:01:21.880 --> 02:01:29.199 and leadership and building a team during adversity, 02:01:29.680 --> 02:01:33.960 how to handle crisis, crisis management. A lot 02:01:33.960 --> 02:01:36.039 of things in that movie that you can learn from 02:01:36.039 --> 02:01:39.680 as a leader. I've had Captain Dale die on a couple 02:01:39.680 --> 02:01:41.920 of times. I actually did a boot camp with him 02:01:41.920 --> 02:01:45.060 years ago as a stuntman in Japan. And he was 02:01:45.060 --> 02:01:47.899 talking about the Saving Private Ryan with Matt 02:01:47.899 --> 02:01:50.640 Damon and then the Band of Brothers with, I always 02:01:50.640 --> 02:01:52.140 forget the actor's name, but the guy that played 02:01:52.140 --> 02:01:55.779 Ross in Friends that plays the instructor there. 02:01:56.920 --> 02:01:58.760 Yeah, David Schwimmer. That's right. Thank you. 02:01:59.020 --> 02:02:02.649 And how they deliberately, I think with... Saving 02:02:02.649 --> 02:02:04.649 Private Ryan, they just kept Matt Damon away 02:02:04.649 --> 02:02:07.130 the whole time. And then Schwimmer, he kept having 02:02:07.130 --> 02:02:12.649 excuses for being pulled away. So it created 02:02:12.649 --> 02:02:16.510 that shared suffering tribal element and then 02:02:16.510 --> 02:02:19.409 that outsider. So it was so interesting. Coming 02:02:19.409 --> 02:02:23.670 from the fire department, you might in your academy 02:02:23.670 --> 02:02:25.489 have that one person that's not putting in the 02:02:25.489 --> 02:02:28.310 work or comes in at the end or whatever it is. 02:02:28.369 --> 02:02:30.829 And I could see that exact thing. So what a beautiful 02:02:30.829 --> 02:02:33.819 way to... To get that to really show on film 02:02:33.819 --> 02:02:35.819 than to keep the actors away while the others 02:02:35.819 --> 02:02:39.539 are getting their asses handed to them. I think 02:02:39.539 --> 02:02:42.600 the key, whether you're reading or watching films, 02:02:42.840 --> 02:02:50.260 is you got to concentrate on not just the movie 02:02:50.260 --> 02:02:52.380 and the storyline, but you got to concentrate 02:02:52.380 --> 02:02:54.579 on what is it that you can pull out of there 02:02:54.579 --> 02:02:57.920 that you can use as a leader in your profession? 02:02:58.659 --> 02:03:01.460 Because leadership is leadership. Doesn't matter 02:03:01.460 --> 02:03:02.779 where you learned it, doesn't matter where you 02:03:02.779 --> 02:03:04.880 practiced it. Leadership is about people and 02:03:04.880 --> 02:03:07.560 trust. And if you understand that, you can lead 02:03:07.560 --> 02:03:10.439 any organization. And no matter where you were 02:03:10.439 --> 02:03:12.779 a leader, if you move to a new profession, you 02:03:12.779 --> 02:03:14.859 can be a leader there as well, as long as you 02:03:14.859 --> 02:03:16.779 understand it's about people and trust. So every 02:03:16.779 --> 02:03:20.659 time you're in a situation, try to put in the 02:03:20.659 --> 02:03:22.640 back of your head lessons that you're learning 02:03:22.640 --> 02:03:24.760 and things that you're seeing that will help 02:03:24.760 --> 02:03:27.300 you in the next situation you're in. Are you 02:03:27.300 --> 02:03:29.039 going to be in that exact same situation? No. 02:03:29.369 --> 02:03:31.229 But you'll be in something similar that you can 02:03:31.229 --> 02:03:34.210 adapt something that you learned from a movie 02:03:34.210 --> 02:03:38.289 or a film or a book. Absolutely. Have you ever 02:03:38.289 --> 02:03:42.630 watched the show Ted Lasso? I have not. I think 02:03:42.630 --> 02:03:45.689 you'd really like it. It was pretty interesting 02:03:45.689 --> 02:03:51.250 in a storyline. It's an American football coach. 02:03:51.930 --> 02:03:54.609 that's brought over to coach a British football 02:03:54.609 --> 02:03:57.470 team, soccer team. And the initial reason is 02:03:57.470 --> 02:03:59.470 it's this divorced couple and she's trying to 02:03:59.470 --> 02:04:01.470 run the team into the ground despite her ex. 02:04:01.670 --> 02:04:04.529 But it backfires because this guy is just such 02:04:04.529 --> 02:04:07.729 a great coach. It's not technical. And they... 02:04:09.229 --> 02:04:10.970 paints it so well because he literally doesn't 02:04:10.970 --> 02:04:13.289 even understand the sport so it's not about the 02:04:13.289 --> 02:04:15.470 technical side it's about the human side and 02:04:15.470 --> 02:04:18.770 forging relationships and the takeaways are so 02:04:18.770 --> 02:04:21.409 so good this is on apple tv but i highly recommend 02:04:21.409 --> 02:04:24.189 that i'll take a look at that because that sounds 02:04:24.189 --> 02:04:26.949 like something that you could actually learn 02:04:26.949 --> 02:04:30.250 good good lessons learned from about leadership 02:04:30.250 --> 02:04:32.609 yeah yeah and it's funny too so it's very entertaining 02:04:32.609 --> 02:04:35.760 all right well then The next question, is there 02:04:35.760 --> 02:04:37.880 a person that you'd recommend to come on this 02:04:37.880 --> 02:04:40.739 podcast as a guest to speak to the first responders, 02:04:41.039 --> 02:04:43.819 military, and associated professions of the world? 02:04:46.039 --> 02:04:56.739 Yes. Sean Downs. I saw him speak at the National 02:04:56.739 --> 02:05:01.239 Fire Prevention Association Conference in Orlando. 02:05:01.659 --> 02:05:05.710 And he talks about... Leadership and dealing 02:05:05.710 --> 02:05:10.149 with cancer and health issues and things like 02:05:10.149 --> 02:05:16.449 that. That are a huge issue in the fire departments 02:05:16.449 --> 02:05:21.569 today and great speaker. Absolutely worth having 02:05:21.569 --> 02:05:26.750 him on the show. He works in the D .C. area in 02:05:26.750 --> 02:05:29.630 the fire department up there. And I can I can 02:05:29.630 --> 02:05:31.609 send you his contact information. In fact, I 02:05:31.609 --> 02:05:34.189 can. connect the two of you if you want. That 02:05:34.189 --> 02:05:35.930 would be amazing. Let's make it happen. Thank 02:05:35.930 --> 02:05:39.310 you so much. All right. Well, then the last question 02:05:39.310 --> 02:05:41.189 before you just underline where people can find 02:05:41.189 --> 02:05:44.529 you online, what do you do to decompress? Yeah. 02:05:44.949 --> 02:05:47.609 And we all have to, I don't care if you're a 02:05:47.609 --> 02:05:50.590 leader or just a worker bee at some point, you 02:05:50.590 --> 02:05:53.069 got, you got to have those things that allow 02:05:53.069 --> 02:05:57.350 you to rewind and refuel your body. And for me, 02:05:57.369 --> 02:06:02.880 it's the four F's faith, family, friends, and 02:06:02.880 --> 02:06:07.020 fishing. You know, for me, it all starts with 02:06:07.020 --> 02:06:14.220 faith and then family. And you, you know, you 02:06:14.220 --> 02:06:18.779 got to do that on occasion. You got to recharge 02:06:18.779 --> 02:06:22.340 your battery, because if you don't, you can't 02:06:22.340 --> 02:06:24.939 give what you don't have. And at some point, 02:06:24.960 --> 02:06:27.699 you will burn yourself out if you don't take 02:06:27.699 --> 02:06:31.909 some time. every once in a while to recharge 02:06:31.909 --> 02:06:35.250 your own batteries. Absolutely. All right. And 02:06:35.250 --> 02:06:39.149 just one more time online, the social media handles 02:06:39.149 --> 02:06:41.390 and the website, where are the best places? Yeah. 02:06:41.449 --> 02:06:48.250 So on my website, www .ltcoakmccullough .com, 02:06:48.430 --> 02:06:51.189 there is a button on there that goes to all my 02:06:51.189 --> 02:06:55.850 social media, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, Rumble, 02:06:56.090 --> 02:06:59.779 YouTube, all of it, Facebook. And then there's 02:06:59.779 --> 02:07:02.100 my cell phone number and my email address on 02:07:02.100 --> 02:07:05.500 there. And you can contact me any way you want 02:07:05.500 --> 02:07:09.439 and would love to be in contact with you. Brilliant. 02:07:09.539 --> 02:07:11.640 Well, I want to thank you so much. We've talked 02:07:11.640 --> 02:07:15.020 for over two hours now, but getting your perspective 02:07:15.020 --> 02:07:16.800 on some of these topics that we've discussed 02:07:16.800 --> 02:07:19.399 with the background that you've had has been 02:07:19.399 --> 02:07:21.779 invaluable, truly. So I want to thank you so, 02:07:21.859 --> 02:07:23.720 so much for being so generous with your time 02:07:23.720 --> 02:07:25.819 and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today. 02:07:26.440 --> 02:07:28.619 Yeah, well, thanks for having me, James. Like 02:07:28.619 --> 02:07:30.560 I said at the beginning, I've been looking forward 02:07:30.560 --> 02:07:33.380 to this ever since we had that phone conversation 02:07:33.380 --> 02:07:35.640 because I knew it was going to be a great conversation. 02:07:36.300 --> 02:07:40.119 And, you know, I try every single one of these, 02:07:40.159 --> 02:07:43.119 whether it's a podcast or my speaking engagements, 02:07:43.260 --> 02:07:47.680 my goal after every one of them is that we hopefully 02:07:47.680 --> 02:07:51.560 we helped at least one person be a better leader, 02:07:51.659 --> 02:07:55.159 a better person. And if we did, then it was worth 02:07:55.159 --> 02:07:55.560 our time.