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I'll spell that to you because it's not as you
think, T -E -A -M -B -U -I -L -D -R .com. Welcome
to the Behind the Shield podcast. As always,
my name is James Gearing, and this week it is
my absolute honor to welcome back for the third
time Army psychologist and author of multiple
books, Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman. Now,
in this conversation, we discuss a host of topics,
from his new work studying hunting, the impact
of the defund movement, Ovaldi, school safety,
sleep, therapy dogs. tourniquets and so much
more now before we get to this incredible conversation
as i say every week please just take a moment
go to whichever app you listen to this on subscribe
to the show leave feedback and leave a rating
Every single five -star rating truly does elevate
this podcast, therefore making it easier for
others to find. And this is a free library of
well over 1 ,000 episodes now. So all I ask in
return is that you help share these incredible
men and women's stories so I can get them to
every single person on planet Earth who needs
to hear them. So with that being said, I welcome
back onto the show, Lieutenant Colonel... Dave
Grossman enjoy Well, Dave, I want to say thank
you so, so much for coming back onto the Behind
the Shield podcast. You're one of my very first
guests on episode 27. So we're talking eight
years ago now. And then it was about six, seven
years ago when you came on last. So that was
episode 99. So I want to welcome you back today
in 2025. Thank you, James. And thanks for all
that you've been doing. Looking at your achievements,
the people watching, the lives you've been touching.
Congratulations. You know, we survived the pandemic
and we were there for people when they needed
us. And before going further, I should introduce
to your listeners here, your learners. They're
not listeners. They're learners. They're not
there to listen. They're to learn. And this is
Charlie. And Charlie is a True Blue service dog.
And later in the show, I want to talk to you
about he's what they call a hearing dog. My ears
are shot. You can't sleep with your hearing aids
in. So Charlie lets me know when the alarm goes
off in the morning. And he lets me know when
somebody knocks on the door. And later on in
the show, let's spend a few minutes talking about
the whole service dog. Because it's a really
important subject when we talk about wellness.
And we'll make that next step as we strive for
that level. But it's been a good ride. We survived
the pandemic, you and I both. And it's been crazy
times. My book, On Combat, received the Ukrainian
translation, received the Book of the Year award.
Amazing. And their military brought me out in
May, June of 2024 now to train their military
across the country. We can talk briefly. You
know, I had this, they're all small audiences
because you put too many people together, it
becomes a target. And there were two or three
a day with the translator. And I generally had
to fit it into an hour. And look at these guys.
I got a son who just retired after nine combat
tours. I got a grandson who's in Kuwait right
now. And I thought, what if that was my grandson?
This is my son. This is the book I wrote for
my son going to his first combat tour. And if
I only had an hour, with translation slowing
it down, if I only had an hour, what would I
want my grandson to know before he's back in
the trenches? So we can talk about that a little
bit if you want. But a great ride. And we're
still rocking on, you and I both. Good way to
begin this, and I begin in my presentations,
is why we stay in the fight. For all first responders
out there, it's terrible. You know, I work for
one of our nation's largest fire departments.
And they said the cops have terrible recruiting.
But the fire guys always had ample numbers, but
not anymore. Now they're not getting the numbers.
You know, those behind the badge, those who stand
behind the shield, those who go in harm's way,
those who are willing to do that, they've really,
really gone down. And what happens if nobody
wants to do this job? What happens if nobody
wants to be a cop? Nobody wants to be fire, EMS?
What would it be like? Chaos and despair. And
this is the breakdown of our civilization since
we last talked. We should talk a little bit about
crime data. Because in 2020, the homicide rate
exploded like nothing we have ever seen before.
The last time we talked, we talked about how
medical technology is holding down the murder
rate. It's much, much worse than it looks. And,
you know, we talked about the fact that tourniquets
alone have cut the murder rate in half easily,
probably much, much more. So I carry, I like
the SWAT key. It fits everywhere. I've got one
in my... everywhere, every jacket pocket, every
glove compartment, and the combat gauze. And
when we talk about tourniquets, we're talking
about packing wounds. We're not just stopping
there. You know, we're talking about the T -triple
-C type dynamics. And so you've got to rep your
murder. Just tremendously underrepresent the
situation. It's far more worse than it looks.
We've got one good solid data point from the
1960s to the 1990s. Medical technology, 911 systems,
medevacs, medical technology cut the murder rate
to a third or a quarter would otherwise be. That
is, compare the murders in the 1990s to the 1960s.
You've got to multiply the 90s by a ratio of
three or four. And the leaps and bounds of life
-saving technology are astounding. What if somebody
said, your grandpa made 25 cents an hour? This
job pays $25 an hour. You're 110 richer than
your grandpa. That's your BS meter going off.
We all know about inflation. But I had the opportunity
to be at the White House with President Trump.
It was kind of a fun story, just part of a roundtable
thing. And then back to the White House to brief
Vice President Pence. And I said, just like we
have inflation -adjusted dollars, we need medically
-adjusted murders. And when we do that, it will
transform the way we see the situation. So when
we talk about murders, we see some terrible murder.
Oh, that proves that mankind's a killer. It's
an outlier. It's one in a million. We are a nation
of a third of a billion people. That one terrible
crime you heard about, that's one in a third
of a billion. Explain to me that on any given
day, we have an average of about 50. murders
a day. Now, that under -represents a problem
because technology is saving more lives. But
if we save 25 lives a day, we slap a aggregate
on 25 people and save a crime victim's life,
we cut the murder rate in half. And, you know,
roughly one murder per day per state, although
it's not distributed like that. I trained our
nation's largest fire EMS service. They said,
Dave, we guarantee you, in our city alone, 20
to 30 times a day, we slap on a tourniquet and
save a crime victim's life. It's bad. It's so
much worse. And here are the people in the middle
of all that, just behind the shield, trying to
sustain themselves in these tragic, tragic times.
So I've been giving them presentations. I outline
how bad it is, because the first step in resiliency
is motivation. You got to believe that your sacrifice
is for a noble and worthy purpose. And when you
chose to wear the shield, fire, EMS, cops, when
you chose to stand behind the shield, you chose
a life of sacrifice. You're never going to get
stinking, filthy, American dream rich as a first
responder, at least not legally. You're never
going to be a famous celebrity as a first responder,
at least not in a good way. When you chose this
profession, you chose a life of sacrifice. And
you must believe your sacrifice for a noble and
worthy purpose. If it's so bad, why do we stay
in the fight? In 2020, we've never seen more
than a 12 % annual increase in homicides. In
2020, it was 30%. It was the George Floyd effect.
The data's there. The FBI guys talk about it.
It began in May. of 2020. We've never seen anything
remotely like what happened. An increase in homicides,
threefold worse than anything we've ever seen.
And if we allow for medical technology, it's
more like 10, 20 times worse than anything we've
ever seen. The wheels will come off the bus.
The next year, 2021, it bumped up 4%. Now, oh,
it's down the next year. It's nothing compared
to the up we saw in 2020. And there's so much
more to talk about on crime rate stuff. And we've
got this survey. And then we've got what the
cops report. And the National Crime Victim Survey
says we've got, in some cases, 100 times more
recorded in the survey than in what the cops
are reporting. There's whole parts of our society
that don't report crime, that don't trust crime,
that don't report it. Usually dead people get
counted. But the rest of it's just not happening.
And it's coming unglued. So why would anybody
do this job? Well, I asked the question to my
audience. I said, what's the opposite of evil?
And I submit to you, the opposite of evil is
love. Evil is the absence of love, just as darkness
is the absence of light. And love is what truly
makes us do what we do. And it's called empathy.
You know what makes a great responder? It's empathy.
What if it was my family trapped in that burning
building? What if it were my spouse that had
been raped? What if my child had been murdered?
What if my dad lay in there needing CPR? That's
empathy. And empathy is love with its shoes on.
Empathy is what makes a great responder. Love.
And the opposite of evil is love. How do we fight
evil? With love. Love for our children, love
for our family, love for our God, love for our
nation, love for our fellow man. That's why we're
in this fight right now. And we've got to understand
that. So I tell people, all I can tell you is
why I stay in the fight. I'm 68 years old. Last
year, I was 67 when my 66 -year -old wife sent
me off to Ukraine for summer vacation in the
war zone. Has she got a man on the side? Was
there an ulterior motive? Maybe so, you know.
All right, I've got to tell you a joke. about
the man on the side type thing, right? So in
the, and I'm so glad we got a couple hours here.
We can take a minute. I've never put this on
before, but it so ties in. It was in the, it
was before 9 -11, the late 90s. And I was part
of what was called Trexpo. And there's a big
presentation outside of Washington, D .C. every
year and military and law enforcement. And they've
gone away since, but they were really doing a
great job. And they brought me out there almost
every year. And we had a World War II 82nd Airborne
Division veteran who came every year. And he
always had a girlfriend with him. He called him
his lady friend. He always had a lady friend
with him every year, another lady. And he must
have been in like his late 70s, early 80s back
then. He's probably long gone now. And these
ladies with him were maybe, you know, nice looking
ladies. the 60s, you know. A lot of you say,
how can a lady in the 60s be good looking? Well,
when you get up here, your dynamics change, your
perspective change a little bit. But he sat down
with us one time over a bunch of beers, we were
talking. He said, boys, he said, I remember when
the first automobile drove through my little
town. He said, I remember when the first airplane
flew overhead, one of the barnstormers. We all
ran out of school, little one -room schoolhouse,
we all ran out and watched that that plane fly
overhead and defy gravity. He said, then World
War II began. I jumped into Sicily and Normandy
and Holland. He said, I've seen moon landings
and heart transplants and technology, little
computers and these crazy phones. He said, what
I'm here to tell you, boys, the single greatest
technological medical innovation of my lifetime.
The single greatest medical breakthrough I've
ever seen is a Viagra. So when you talk about
the man on the side there, but it's been a good
ride. So why did I stay in the fight? Waiting
her home for me is my bride of 49 years. This
July will be 50 years. My high school sweetheart.
Truly, truly, she was 15. I was 17 when I proposed
to her. Well, we are from Arkansas. Then two
years later, she married a crazy Army paratrooper,
and she'd been with me 49 years. I love her more
than life itself. But I'm on the road a couple
hundred days a year. I get home one, two, three
nights a week, conical visit, clean underwear.
I'm back on the road. Why would I leave her?
Well, see, the only people more important than
her are my children, my grandchildren. I've got
a grandson in Kuwait right now in the army. And
we believe if we love our children, if we love
our grandchildren, if we love our nation, if
we love our God, if we love our fellow man, we
will give 100%. That's what love means. Love
means the worse it gets, harder you fight. That's
my audience. Any country western fans out there,
you know, maybe you remember one of the, maybe
one of the 10 saddest country west songs ever
written. Kenny Rogers. He picked a fine time
to leave me, Lucille. He picked a fine time to
leave me, Lucille. Four hungry children and a
crop in the field. I've had some bad times through
some sad times. This time the hurting won't heal.
He picked a fine time to leave me, Lucille. That
song rips your heart out. The idea of a mother
abandoning four hungry children. And love means
the worst it gets. How do we fight? Honor those
who moved on to greener pastures. Honor those
who served and moved on. But most of all, honor
those who stayed in the fight in these tragic,
tragic, dark, and desperate times. The violence
of the Old West is a stinking Hollywood myth.
The gunfight of the OK crowd wouldn't make the
state news today. In our 250 -year -long war
against our Native American brothers and sisters,
we were violent. That was war. But the day -to
-day level of violence has never been remotely
like what's happening today. And so those who
are serving deserve great honor. And I tell people,
there was another tragic, terrible time in our
history. It was the winter of 1776. George Washington's
army was a volunteer army. And when the winter
of 1776 came on, they just melted. Many of them
just went home. And the ones who stayed in Valley
Forge had bloody footprints in the snow when
Valley Forge was real. And Thomas Paine wrote
these words in late 1776. He said, He said that
those who serve the nation, he said, we're not
sunshine soldiers or summer soldiers or sunshine
patriots. He said, those who serve their nation
in this dark hour deserve the love of all men
and women. And he said, we have this consolation.
Here's the payoff. Got it? The big payoff. The
more difficult the battle, the more the glory.
And those who are out there fighting this desperate
battle, they deserve that honor, that glory.
And so believe in who you are, believe in what
you do. It's a crazy time, but it's the worst
of times, it's the best of times. Because progress
is going leaps and bounds. Just like medical
progress, wellness progress has taken off. And
it'll tie up with that. I was just at, just two
days ago, at the FOP, the largest police organization,
the worker bees down there, the largest union
or police organization. I was at their first
wellness conference. 300 people there in charge
of wellness across America. And I told them,
guys, wellness is not going away. I said, it's
not like, you know, DEI, not making some political
statement. But the whole DEI thing is like some
political football. And, you know, it's driven
by beliefs and values. But wellness is like tourniquets,
right? Tourniquets are not going away. You know,
it may get better. It may do different. But,
you know, we got our SWAT tier, whatever you
got. We got our quick plan. We're ready to rock
and roll. So one of the cops there told me, he
said, he said, I got a lieutenant who hates wellness.
He doesn't believe in it. And so the cop bought
a book and said, I'm going to give this my lieutenant,
sign it for me. I said, that's good, but I want
to give you this one. This one's on me. Now I'll
sign it for your LT. This book is Marine Corps
Commandant's required reading list, translated
into... in the five languages, Ukraine Book of
the Year Award in the middle of a terrible war.
I will sign this book. And I signed his name.
And I said, this is wellness. It's not going
away. It's not some woke goofiness. It's solid,
desperate. It's the worst of times, the best
of times. Because the things we have learned
about wellness, the things we have done to sustain
ourselves in these dark and desperate times.
We'll set a standard and a foundation that will
never go away. It's really interesting. We spoke
about the advances in technology before. And
you think about not only trauma medicine and
tourniquets, but also body armor and all these
other technologies that are saving lives, especially
in the law enforcement side, where the data is
also incredibly skewed. And I'm sure you've become
aware of this. You can serve 10, 20, 30 years
as a police officer or a firefighter. The day
you retire, the day you quit, the day you get
fired, whatever it is, you cease to become a
statistic. So you've got this population that
are giving everything, their heart and their
soul for the majority of their healthy life.
And it's obviously in your 50s, 60s, 70s where
disease is most likely going to manifest. And
then you add in the guilt and shame around suicide
and especially overdose. The supposed statistics
on our cancers and suicides and some of these
other things are an absolute tip of the iceberg
that's actually what's behind the curtain. Yeah.
Yeah, these are bad times. But you know what?
I call it the sheepdog. I got the U .S. government
trademark for that term. Anybody want to use
the word sheepdog in their stuff, just send me
a letter. I'll get you a letter back, suitable
for framing, giving you authority to use the
term sheepdog. But, you know, when the sheepdog
is no longer in the meadow, got a little slow,
got a little gray in the muzzle, they're still
a sheepdog. And, you know, one of the things
I like, you know, we get an outfit called Hero
911. And I'm a huge fan. I've been for 15 years.
And it's really getting along. What it is, is
an app. And a cop. on -duty, off -duty, reserve,
retired. They download the Hero 911 app. Now,
millions of apps on the website, only one limited
just to law enforcement. One of the very few
apps authorized to be used on a federally issued
phone, the Hero 911. I got the program at my
grandkid's school in two different states. Now,
the teacher has an app, and they hit the panic
button, and it goes straight to the cop. There's
no dispatch. There's no... You know, I mean,
boom. And I'm talking the retired guy across
the street. If he's authorized by Leosa to carry
a gun. See, that's a great thing with Leosa.
We've said you're a cop and you're retired, but
you are still authorized to carry the life -saving
tools of your profession. You know, I got that.
I got all this stuff up on the wall, but they're
all gifts. And I got to think about the giving
of a weapon. And we got it on the website. It
implies your confidence in the rightful behavior
of the recipient. It implies your desire for
their well -being. It implies your desire to
make the world a better place by putting this
tool in the hands of a competent person. But
in the end, remember, you are the weapon. Everything
else is just a tool. Our cops are allowed to
carry their tools off duty. They didn't stop
being a sheepdog. And now here's the thing. Hero
911, it's in over a thousand locations and not
just colleges. And the Hero 911 program, the
teacher hits the schoolguard .com, teacher hits
it, boom, goes right to the cop. We had a case
in Indiana, cop was there 30 seconds flat. They
just happened to be driving down the street,
screeched a halt, running the door, 30 seconds
flat. Very often. The various kids and would
-be perps said, how'd you get here so fast? And
again, the off -duty guy, he's going to be there
anyway. It's the one that gets there in the first
30 seconds of matter. It's what this does, the
receiver, right? The receiver. And what's really
cool about the Hero 911 program is they have
just expanded the fire and EMS. Because we want
you there with the tourniquet. We want you to
slap that tourniquet and pack that wound and
have those resources you carry with them. You
are the sheepdog too. And you are responding,
and you are there when we need you. If my grandchild
is sitting there bleeding out, I want that sheepdog
to slap on the tourniquet and pack that wound
right stinking now. And 30 seconds later, that
kid is dead. Many of us saw the video of the
Nashville Covenant School massacre. They're not
shootings. Cops do shootings. Criminals do massacres
and murders. And we saw the cops going like thunder
and shoot the perp. But that was like 12 minutes
later. It took 12 minutes for God to win that
war. God bless him. But we needed something there
in the first 30 seconds. And so that's that garden
I want. But we also need somebody to slap on
a tourniquet, then to pack that wound and do
all those other things. And so this whole dynamic
of being the sheepdog, even after you retire,
carrying the life -saving tools of your profession
with you, wherever you go, whatever you do. Does
that make sense the way we've expanded the envelope
now? Oh, absolutely. I mean, literally, I have
a gun. I have a kind of go bag that has tourniquets
and trauma kits and even a lockout kit. So non
-emergent, you know, I can actually help people
get back in their car, you know, like we used
to do in the fire service. So that all makes
perfect sense. I'm glad that we're on the school
safety conversation. I don't know if you remember
the last time we recorded, I had to actually
say. Can we reschedule? Because we literally
had a code red in my son's school. It ended up
being the actual shooting was a neighboring high
school, Forest High. And I think that one was
a rare occasion of a cry for help. The kid fired
one time kind of the floor and then lay down
his weapon. But after an incredibly courageous
teacher kind of talked him down and then the
SRO that ran directly towards the gunfire. So
between those incredible people. It was stopped.
No one was actually hurt. One kid got hit in
the ankle, I think, from a ricochet. So they
were hurt. But as far as the massacre that we've
seen in other schools, conversely, I think about
four or five days ago now was the seven -year
anniversary of Parkland, which is the other side
of the spectrum. And I've got a firefighter friend.
His daughter went to Parkland. He responded to
Parkland. Her boyfriend was one of the ones that
was killed. And so, you know, I mean, you hear
about what went right, what went wrong. Um, talk
to me about your perception of that whole conversation.
And if you have any specific, um, lens on Uvalde,
because I waited and listened and try to wait
for that kind of middle of the road voice to
come through. And when it did, it appears that
yes, there was an absolute, you know, cowardice
obviously in the leadership that, that went down.
Not saying that everyone on the ground was, but
that allowed an environment where people didn't
go towards the gunfire on that particular day.
You know, in my presentations, you know, I use
a document camera. It's not death by PowerPoint.
You know, I put a document under there and Elmo,
the little Elmo does his thing. And I slapped
down there a photograph, an article side by side
in Prison Orange is the police chief from Uvalde,
the SRO from Uvalde. Standing in prison orange
with this deer -in -the -headlight look on their
face. They've faced over a dozen felonies for
not going in and for stopping people from going
in. I also show the prison orange picture of
the SRO at Parkland who didn't go in. And he
was acquitted. And I think the chief and Uvalde
in that SRO are probably going to go down. because
they didn't go in. But see, the chief was like
this roly -poly little guy. He was just a friendly
little guy. He'd just been elected to the city
council. But everybody says, no, we don't want
warriors. Don't use that evil word, warriors.
You know, we can't use that word on cops. Oh,
we talk about frontline warriors. We talk about
medical warriors. We talk about the warrior basketball
team. But you can't call cops warriors. And so
what do we call them? Oh, they're guardians.
Yeah, they were guardians all right. They sat
there and guarded the school while children were
slaughtered. But they got to understand, they
were told, we don't need warriors. We don't want
warriors. Like anything, there's danger on both
sides. You got to stay away from the extremes,
but we need our warriors. We need those who will
go in and take a bullet for a kid. We need everybody
who wears a uniform to know that your job is
to go take a bullet for a kid. And never lose
track of that. And titles are important. And
guardians don't do that. Warriors do. And so
we've got the external threat, the terrorist
threat to our schools. We've got the war on terror.
If you're in a war, you're a warrior. So again,
we've got to have a balance in there. We've got
to draw from both sides of that equation. But
the dynamics on Uvalde were really, really well
covered by the state of Texas. And what they
did was they passed a law. And they mandated
three things. Number one, every door in every
school will be shut and locked all the time.
Now, how much did that cost? You follow the exterior
door unlocked. There was like six months prior,
there had been a security check. And the guy
on the security check says, I don't know why
we do these checks. Every year, the north and
south doors were unlocked. I don't know why I
spend time even doing this. So the door's unlocked.
And then an interior door that couldn't be locked.
They had a work order in on the door, supposedly
from a couple of sources. So we had exterior
door unlocked, interior door unlocked. If either
of those two doors had been locked, it could
have been a totally different situation. I mean,
this is insane. How much money it costs to lock
the freaking doors. But here's the issue. And
you got to wrap your mind around this. Our enemy
is denial. At half the cost, a modern school
building goes in a fire code. The most expensive
thing in any modern school or modern building
is a fire sprinkler system under pressure for
the lifetime of the building. Half the cost of
the building goes in a fire code, but we won't
do a stinking thing to prepare for violence.
Now, if you told my mom to buckle up those five
kids, she said it wasn't possible. It became
the law, boom, we did it. Make it the law. I've
been telling people for 25 years, make them lock
the door of the safe for a day. Make it the law
of the safe from now on. But the reason why is
the fire code. Oh, it's fire code. Can't block
the fire. Boom. Make it the law and they'll do
it. Why did it take 25 years of school massacres
before somebody passed the law and said, keep
the doors locked? And it's the law and we'll
do it. Make it the law and we'll do it. So, number
one, keep the doors locked. Number two, laminate
film on the glass. Specifically, any glass on
the door beside the door, interior door, exterior
door. If I could shoot out the glass, reach in
and open the door, put that laminate film on
it. The Sandy Hook school massacre. Two classrooms
of first graders slaughtered. Your kids are safe.
We buzz people in. We keep the door locked. It
was glass. He shot out the glass. He opened the
door and walked in and murdered 24 people. A
couple hundred bucks of laminate film on the
front door. They don't be alive today. And as
we put the laminated film in, every now and then
the fire guys say, oh, you can't do that. And
now the city of Texas said, shove that back where
it came from, dude, because your kid's in this
school too. And with the fire code got in the
way, and not a single kid has been killed by
school fire since the 1950s. Oh, three quarters
of a century, almost three quarters of a century
since any kid was killed by school fire. How
many killed by school violence? Hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds. So three things. Keep
the stinking doors locked. Make it the law. It'll
get done. Put the laminate film on the glass.
Now, across Texas, a major corporation, we got
this hurricane glass. See, and we'll put this
hurricane glass on for you. It's not ballistic
glass. The best stuff, the hurricane glass, I
do a demo. I work with a corporation, a safe
haven defense. They do a demo. They say, okay,
here's your 30 -mil glass or whatever it is.
They throw a rock through it. They kick it. They
reach and open it and walk through. Here's our
glass. You beat it with a baseball bat. And sometimes
some bullets hit stop. Some doesn't. It doesn't
matter. What you can't do is you can't break
the glass or reach in and open the door. After
a couple hundred bucks, a lemonade film at the
front door, a candy hook, those kids don't realize
that it's our problem. It's not money. It's denial.
And here's the thing. Coming back to denial.
We could accept the fact that a fire would happen,
a tornado, hurricane. But the idea that somebody
is so evil that they will walk in that school
and slaughter our children is just too hard.
Their mind tilts. They go into denial mode. You've
got to make it the law or they'll slip back into
denial. And this is the heart of the matter in
so many ways. Interpersonal human aggression,
violent crime. is the single most psychologically
toxic, corrosive thing any human being will ever
face. Now, don't copy pity party here. The vast,
vast majority do not commit suicide. The vast,
vast majority do not get PTSD. They have post
-traumatic growth. But of all the things any
human being could ever face is violent interaction,
violent crime. The DSM, the Bible of psychiatry
and psychology is talking about PTSD. Whenever
the cause of your trauma is human in nature,
the degree of trauma is usually more severe and
long -lasting. So you tell me, honestly, you
tell me, is there a difference between these
two scenarios? Scenario one, a tornado hits a
house while you're gone and puts your family
in the hospital. How do you feel about that?
Oh, thank God they're alive. Scenario two, criminals
break into the house while you're gone and beat
your family in a hospital stay. How do you feel?
All the difference in the world. One's a random
act of nature. The other's an attentional and
malignant act. At 9 -11, the terrorists murdered
3 ,000 people. The stock market crashed. Our
way of life changed. We invaded two nations.
That same year, 30 ,000 people died in traffic
accidents. Didn't change nothing. They were accidents.
Do you understand? I want you to understand that
you think the firefighter prepares for the fire,
the diver prepares for the sea, the pilot prepares
for the sky, and much more so that we need to
prepare for that toxic realm called combat. And
all of us, all first responders and every other
sheepdog is going to go towards a bad man. Those
teachers, and I'll give you multiple examples
of teachers that tackled the bad guy, talked
him down. Their sheepdogs are going to put their
life on the line, and all of them need to understand.
that this can be a terribly toxic and corrosive
situation. And because of that, it's all the
more important that we prepare for it. If you're
in denial, well, we don't need warriors. We need
guardianship. That police chief and that SRO
in prison, Orange, they were in denial. Nobody
ever told them, your job is to go take a bullet
for a kid. No, no, no, I'm the guardianship.
This gun is really just kind of a symbol of my
authority. See, I don't have to use it. This
is not what we need. And here you are, you've
got your firefighting tools, you also have a
gun. In the state of Kansas, every first responder
vehicle, the people on every first responder
vehicle are allowed to carry a gun. You can carry
a gun off duty, carry a gun on duty. Why should
the rules change? So in the state of Utah, Utah
has never had a single homicide in the school.
They had a double homicide in the parking lot
one time after school hours. They had a suicide
one time. But there's not been a single homicide.
Nobody can keep track of all the solo homicides,
but they say it hasn't happened, and certainly
no multiple homicides. But in Utah, the teachers
are allowed to carry on the job. Why would the
law change? Why does the law change? I carry
a gun anywhere and everywhere. I walk into school,
I can't do it anymore. Why should the law change?
And Utah's been doing that for a quarter of a
century with 100 % success. Dr. John Lott is
a Harvard economist. He had an article just recently.
He says, now, 80 % of all the schools in all
the counties in Ohio have armed educators. After
the Parkland massacre, we got armed educators
in every school. How much did that cost them?
And John Lott says there has not been a single
homicide. in a school with armed educators. Again,
some in the parking lot after hours, a suicide,
but not one. And so here's what Texas did. Three
things. Keep the stinking doors locked. Make
it the law. Laminate film on the glass. And get
the real stuff that'll really do the job. And
number three, there will be somebody in every
school who can shoot back. And we ain't got enough
cops. Where do we find those people? Boom. There's
somebody in every school. And one of the great
programs pioneered in Ohio, it's called FASTER,
Faculty and Staff Training Emergency Response.
A reporter from the London Times came and took
the training. Now, you have to be nominated by
your fellow teachers. You have to be approved
by your chain, by your principals, chain of command.
And you've got to arrive with markmanship skills.
We're not going to teach you how to shoot. At
the end of this one -week class, you're going
to qualify, and you've got to qualify at the
minimum level for law enforcement, same level
as law enforcement. Now, hopefully, we're all
doing better than the minimal level. We're all
shooting for a lot better than that. But the
reporter from the London Times took the training.
He said, after having seen the people taking
this training, after having seen the training,
he said, I never thought I would say this. But
I now support armed educators in American schools.
New York, London Times, buried on page five and
never mentioned again. That the media will not
touch it. There's an answer. Arm the educators.
Give them one or two people in every school that
ought to be carrying a gun. I trained at a major
New England school district. They asked me not
even to mention what state they're in. The superintendent
is retired spec ops. with like half a dozen combat
tours. The elementary school principal is a reserve
military police officer with two combat tours,
and she's also a reserve cop. Now, the superintendent
said, I have the authority to authorize myself
and her to carry a gun. It's just a no -brainer.
But if they knew I was doing it, they would shut
me down in a heartbeat. Because that's the motive.
Oh, no, more guns don't make it better. We're
going to take away all the guns. How does that
work for Mexico? All those gun laws work for
Mexico. There's more involved in that. And all
the media would say of Uvalde, oh, we need gun
laws, we need gun laws. No, number one, keep
the doors locked. That's the law you need. Number
two, put the laminate film on the grass. Number
three, have somebody in every school that can
shoot back. And since they basically virtually
did that in Florida, and now they've locked it
in New Texas, and there has not been another
kid dead. since he made that the law. So this
is not rocket science. The same thing that made
us safe from fire can make us safe from violence.
But they don't want to be reminded that there's
somebody out there that's so evil they would
come and commit this terrible crime. And that's
why half the cost of middle goes to the fire
code. But they won't keep the damn doors locked.
And you've got to make it the law, and they'll
do it. What is your perspective? I think I asked
you last night, but I mean, obviously a few years
have gone by now. Your perspective on the kind
of cop that is assigned as an SRO, because I've
seen it with my own eyes. My son went through
something horrendous and the SRO and the principal
were at the bottom of that. And it was nauseating
because when I kind of went down all the chains
of command and showed them what happened. the
school blamed the police and the police blamed
the school. It was just a complete show of cowardice.
But the kind of person that I've seen at some
of these schools is not exactly the deterrent
that I would be thinking that I would want protecting
my children. So what is your perspective on that?
And where have you seen it applied in a good
way and where they're sending the right kind
of officers there? First, understand this. Of
all the multiple homicides in America, in the
school. I don't think anybody can keep track
of all the solo homicides. But two or above of
all the multiple homicides in America, only three
times did it happen when there was a cop in the
building. And all three times, the minute the
cop got there, not another kid died. So, you
know, I know, you know, we want... You know,
we want Arnold Schwarzenegger there. You know,
I want him there with my grandkids. You know,
we want Jared Swatdog. We want good people there.
And a lot of that is happening. A lot of that's
happening. But whoever it is, they seem to be
doing okay. Statistically speaking, just the
act of putting a cop in this court, absolutely,
almost completely eliminates the probability
of a multiple homicide. Now, we can do better
than that. We can find a good cop. We can find
somebody who's going to make that shot down that
corridor and who thrives for being ready. I was
talking with, just in that conference, just this
week, FOP, we had a police chief come up, and
he said, I put my rookies in the schools first.
He said, I put these kids right out of the academy.
And said, This is why you exist. Protecting these
children is why we're here. And your job, take
a bullet for that kid. And if you don't want
to do that, you're in the wrong business. Of
course, nobody's ever turned them down. They
accept it. I had a cop tell me one time, he's
a school resource officer. He said, I worked
on the bad side of our city, a night shift for
six years. He said, I thought everybody in our
city. were scum. He said, then they put me in
the school. He said, and the kids hugged me.
And they brought me cookies. And they waved at
me with all their fingers. And he said, I realized
this is why I do what I do. This is why I take
the bad guy off the streets. That's what it's
about. This is why I do what I do. You know,
I was at a Boston Police Academy 20 years ago.
And I turned to the Academy, and they said, how
can we communicate to these guys? They've got
to be officer -friendly one time and turn into
a robocop instantly. How do you? I said, you
know, they had a mascot. They had a mascot, the
dog. I said, there is your model. Most of us
had a dog. He sits on the front porch. We'll
pull his tail and poke his ribs. He won't bite.
But the madman shows up. He's all fur and fangs.
And that's our model. The sheepdog model has
just been embraced by so many people because
we like dogs, we love dogs, and that's a good
model to embrace. I've had several cases where
cops with the SRO were 10, 20 years, they retired,
and one became the mayor. Another one became
the sheriff because every single person knew
him. And he, you know, they had a unified school
district. They had one location and generally
a small county in the case of the sheriff. And
everybody knew him. And they all voted for him.
And he had the right mindset. He had his heart
right. He had his head right. But I know that,
you know, there's kind of this kind of a judgment
on the cop that's overweight. But I tell you,
we'll all grow old. And we'll all. grow fat.
But we still beat one hell of a shot. And I tell
people, I'm 68, don't feel superior because you're
not overweight. There's just too many things
that equation people can't control. You rolled
the dice and you got good and you're not overweight,
good for you. But don't feel superior. I said,
you have permission to grow old and you have
permission if your body is going to grow fat,
but you can not fail. That's what led on target.
We'll grow old, we'll grow fat, and we'll still
be one hell of a shot. And I've seen case after
case. I heard about a guy in Nevada. I mentioned
my book on combat. An amazing guy. Multiple gunfights,
held down a person and shooting over their head.
I had two partners killed and a dog killed. This
guy is like, the things he's done is incredible.
I met him one day. He's about five foot four,
a little overweight. And I thought, never judge
the warrior by the package. Never judge the warrior
by the package. But this is really a leadership
issue. You know, in Parkland, the sheriff was
an idiot. And the sheriff told his people, you
know, he was this woke left -wing idiot that
got elected because we don't want warriors, right?
And they got what they voted for. And the sheriff
in the Parkland school massacre was... was immediately
out. And once again, the leadership failure in
Uvalde. And when the troops fail, the leadership
is responsible. And there's so many things that
the leader can do to inspire, motivate, and to
drive our people. And the one thing we can do
is to provide a culture of marksmanship. In all
my presentations, I throw up a picture of Officer
Greg Stevens. With President Obama putting a
medal around his neck. The highest medal that
we can give outside the military. The highest
medal of valor. This is the medal of honor for
cops. And, you know, he's got a little extra
weight there. And he's, you know, he's not as
tall as I am. But I bring up everyone, when I
give an account, he speaks to my presentations.
And it was May of 2015. The FBI says this is
the first ISIS -directed attack on American soil.
These two idiots came up on the net and said,
we don't want to die for our faith. What should
we do? They said, go to Garland, Texas, major
suburb of Dallas. Just think Dallas. Go to Dallas.
Go to the Draw the Prophet Muhammad Art Festival.
Now, in the eyes of Islam, to draw the prophet
is a terrible crime. Go to the Draw the Prophet
Muhammad Art Festival outside of Dallas, Texas,
and kill them all. By May of 2015, they rolled
out of the vehicle. They had rifles. They had
body armor. They had the element of surprise.
And a 59 -year -old traffic cop with a pistol
killed them both. One of the greatest feats of
marksmanship and courage in American history.
Man, I'm honored to call a friend, a co -presenter,
and an invite to my presentation. Anytime. But,
you know, he's not Arnold Schwarzenegger, you
know. But he had marksmanship skills. Here's
what he said. He said, I've been a cop for 37
years. All I wanted to do was be a traffic cop.
You think, oh, he must be dumb. He couldn't make
it past traffic cop. That's all he wanted to
do. I love what I do. I rode a motorcycle this
summer. I drove a car around in the winter. And
I love to be with people. And every traffic stop
is an opportunity to. to be there for people
in their time of need and connect with them.
We said for 37 years, every time the range was
open, ammo available, I was there. On duty, off
duty, range is open, ammo is available, I was
there. Oh, go in the range your own time. Oh,
we go in the range your own time for it. They
don't even ban you. What do you wait for? Because
I'm a Texas cop, but I live on dirt. And the
range is open and the ammo is free. You don't
go there. There's nothing wrong with you. Grace
Stevens says for 37 years. I made a steady deposit
in a savings account. He said, in May of 2015,
I made a major withdrawal. How's your account
look? Are you pissing your time away? Are you
pissing your money away? Are you prepared for
a moment of truth? And it's all about marketorship.
We should nurture an environment of marketorship.
LAPD still has a bonus for qualifying expert.
It adds up a fair chunk of change over the year.
It's been in place since the 1950s. At last I
heard it's still in place to get a bonus for
qualifying expert. I tell every sheriff, every
chief, every leader, I said, develop a culture
of marketmanship. And there's two ways to do
that. Number one, lead by example. Lead by example.
If you had to go golfing, you need to go a golf
pro. And you have to teach how to do the thing.
Just get on the range. And you don't have to
be the best. But don't embarrass yourself, number
one. But number two. Roll the next pay raise
into a markmanship bonus. And if you qualify
expert, you get an extra, you know, even $50
a month adds up to a $600 check in December every
year. And that's a lot of money. Roll your next
pay raise into a markmanship bonus. And there's
people across the nation doing that, this culture
of markmanship. You know, are you Greg Stevens
or the police chief at Uvalde? Kind of similar
weight and height. But one had a lifetime of
preparation, a moment or two. And the other was
in denial. And he'll probably go to prison. And
there's probably every jury in Texas will put
him in prison. And he's stunned every step of
the way. But people, it's not his, in many ways,
it's not his fault. He was told, we don't want
warriors. I was told that during the Biden years,
that federal dollars. The law enforcement training
will not go to three of the major law enforcement
trainers. Now, I got this secondhand. I don't
have a solid confirmation, but somebody who knows
and got it. He said the caliber press is out.
They've been training cops for 50 years. For
Science Institute, one of the greatest organizations
doing scientific evidence and grossment, will
not receive federal funds for law enforcement
training. And it's all under the covers. We've
seen it shut down at places. But now there's
a new guy in charge. And it's all about balance.
Find that balance between the warrior and the
guardian. Be the sheepdog. Be that dog that kids
hug him and love him and pull his tail and he
won't bite. But the bad man comes, that dog is
all fur and fangs. And we need our sheep out.
We need our protectors. Does that make sense?
Can I answer the question on you, Baldy? Yeah,
no, absolutely. That was fantastic. Actually,
I want to circle around to the fat cop. And the
reason I say that is if you think about day one,
arguably pretty much all of our first responders
were in great shape. And when you look at the
way that some of them are worked, they're in
an environment that sets them up for disease,
for mental ill health, for weight gain. And the
massive thing that we've had, and you literally
touched on it earlier about. Before, in the fireside,
we used to have a great, great recruitment percentage
where we could hire 10 % off that list, take
the cream of the crop. And that's gone down to
almost nothing now, depending on the city. And
I agree, the conversation of imagine calling
911 and just getting a dial tone, that's not
too far away if we don't turn it around. But
one of the most beautiful things that's happening
here in Florida, and I hope my voice has been
part of this movement, is that we're seeing on
the fireside now, Fire departments going from
a 56 hour work week to a 42 hour work week. So
they get an extra 24 between their shifts. They're
seeing that the health, the mental health and
in recruitment and retention, people are staying
and people are flocking to those departments
now. I heard you on Conan's podcast talking about.
the the connection between sleep deprivation
and mental health now this is something i've
had many many guests on but i think it's it's
worth you know diving deeply into because if
you think about a 56 hour work week population
doesn't sleep every three days and then the mandatory
overtime now that's a fourth day with 48 72 96
hours and we have an absolute recruitment oh
sorry a suicide crisis at the moment obviously
that is a big part of the puzzle But as we've
alluded to in other areas of this conversation,
there are the most glaring of truths that the
people are afraid to actually address. So I think
dragging them into the spotlight is important.
Yeah. Again, I had an hour to talk to 300 FOP.
I said, guys, if I only had five minutes, this
is the key thing we'd cover. We talk about wellness.
We've got to begin with sleep. And we'll give
them time off, and they're doing a second job
when they should be resting. We got to monitor
off -time jobs, and we got to monitor to make
them sleep. Now, the Air Force has always had
a great model for sleep, right? You're flying
a quarter of a billion -dollar aircraft, get
some sleep, run around. So they've already had
crew rest, and pilots have the lowest suicide
rate. in that environment. In the Army, again,
our pilots and crew rest is being demanded and
has been locked in. And they have a much, much
lower suicide rate in that community. Right behind
the pilots are our truck drivers in the Army.
And the truck drivers have a culture of sleep.
You know, civilian truck drivers got to get to
sleep, got to be on the road tomorrow, get some
sleep, run around. But go back to the Air Force.
Look, we're given them crew rest. Are they using
it? Are they taking it? The Air Force is going
with this sleep monitor. The aura ring is what
they're going with. A lot of people go with the
aura. I like the Fitbit in many ways, but that
aura is tracking your sleep. And we'll make sure
that you're actually getting that sleep. And
if you're not getting that sleep, we're going
to fix that. Maybe it's a medical condition.
We need to physically track that. But when we
talk about sleep deprivation, 24 hours without
sleep is just like... being legally drunk. 0
.10 blood alcohol level above legally drunk.
24 hours and you're drunk. If somebody showed
up work drunk, you kick his ass. We're short
on people. Are you drunk? Put them on the street
anyway. But if you're work sleep deprived, we
don't think anything about it. And better no
cop than a bad cop. Look, bad things happen.
No cops there. Happens all the time. Bad things
happen and a bad cop's there. He does something
stupid. We all pay a terrible, terrible price
for it. And better no cop than a bad cop. Better
no cop than a sleep deprived cop. And here's
the crazy part. If you're drunk in a couple hours,
you'll be better. If you're sleep deprived in
a couple hours, you'll be that much worse. And
we've got to create this environment, a culture
in which we understand we've got to get that
sleep and we've got to allow that time. Across
America, cops want to be 12 -hour shifts. I want
to be like firefighters and work 12 -hour shifts.
Well, firefighters get to sleep on the job. Only
firefighters and prostitutes make money in bed.
Now, you know, we're saying that in jest. You
know, a lot of folks, they don't get that chance.
They work a 12 -hour shift and never get a chance
to sleep, going 100 miles an hour. Is that the
person you want to be there in your time of greatest
need for your loved ones? Culture madness. Somebody
said, oh, I drank all night long, and I had a
great party, and they showed up to work. You
say, that's not acceptable. Somebody said, oh,
I played the new video game all night long, dude.
It was awesome. I played it all night long. That's
not acceptable. You know, you show up drunk,
you get ass kicked. You played the stink of games
all night long. You need your deal kicked. One
of the books I recommend to everybody is Dr.
Matthew Walker's book, Why We Sleep. I don't
even have to buy the book. Look up Dr. Matthew
Walker online and go to his website. Because
he's received all kinds of attacks. Because when
you say get sleep, that means turn off the video
game. Turn off Netflix. Netflix says their competitor
is sleep. The corporate policy in Netflix is
to steal your sleep. They don't care about the
harm that's being done. They just want to sell
their product. And Dr. Walker is just posting
the research, just keeps posting the research
that shows. So just do an online search for sleep
deprivation and suicide. Boom. Study after study.
Not only is sleep deprivation a key factor in
suicide, it's the most remediable factor. But
we can't do much about your relationships, your
finances right now. We'll get you a good night's
sleep right stinking now. This is the most remediable
factor. There's a study I'd throw up that shows
that if you're sleep deprived, you're five times
more likely to get PTSD, nine times more likely
to have a major depressive disorder, six times
more likely. They have a suicidal ideation. If
you're already sleep deprived and the bad stuff
comes down, they amplify each other. Now, this
is not really a causal religion, not even a correlational
religion. It's a toxic, interactive relationship.
How do you get a handle on PTSD? How do you get
a handle on depression and suicide? Well, you
can get a handle right now on that fourth item
of sleep and reduce depression and reduce suicide.
It's there. And then we got the link between
sleep deprivation and mental illness. Do an online
search, sleep deprivation, mental illness. Oh,
on the third day without sleep, you are hearing
things and seeing things that are not there.
At Ranger School, in Sears School, on that third
day, you are hallucinating. You're seeing things
that are not there. You're flat psychotic. On
the third day without sleep, you are psychotic.
And you need to understand that. So the link
between sleep deprivation and mental illness,
sleep deprivation and obesity. You want to lose
weight? Watch your sleep. The link between sleep
deprivation and traffic deaths. Traffic deaths,
decade after decade, have gone down. Airbags,
seatbelts, medical tech are now worldwide. For
the last decade, traffic deaths have exploded.
By the way, worldwide suicides have exploded.
Twin -eaters, 10, 11, 12 -year -olds, teenage
girls' suicide rate has tripled. across just
a decade. And that was pre -pandemic. All of
those data went back up. We all think, oh, it's
true. We lose more cops to suicide than every
other line of duty death put together. But the
same thing is true for veterinarians and dentists.
Oh, dentists have the highest suicide rate. No,
they don't. It went up. You just don't have,
you're all siloed. We don't understand that everywhere
suicide's exploding. So here's parenting 101
for the 21st century. When you send your kid
to bed at night, take the cell phone away from
them. No laptop in the room, no cell phone in
the room, they got into the room and sleep. Well,
a cop came up to me during one of my presentations.
He said, I had one of those tweenators. And great
term, you know, 10, 11, 12 years. He said, I
had one of those teenage girls. He said, she
was an A student. She was a good kid. And she
said, Dad, it's embarrassing. You don't have
to take my cell phone every night. You can trust
me. Family policy, step on the charger, go to
bed. It's embarrassing. You don't have to take
my phone every night. You can trust me. He said,
okay, I trust you. Keep your phone. A little
while later, she took her life. He said, my little
girl took her life. He said we never knew the
hell she was living in until we looked at the
text messages on her cell phone. Night after
night of ceaseless, relentless, vicious bullying.
And you can't just ignore that. We're not wired
that way. He said it was heart -rending to see
her all night long, night after night, trying
to defend herself, trying to find somebody to
stand for. He said, I immediately knew my little
girl was bullied to death. What I didn't understand
until now. She was sleep -deprived, tormented,
and bullied to death in front of my eyes. And
I let it happen. He said, I can't ignore that
text message in the middle of the night. How
can we expect our kids to? He said, the one thing
Earth could do for my little girl, we take her
phone every night, let her turn off all the bad
stuff in this world. Who's going to be your mommy?
Who's going to make you get that sleep? I tell
people, friends do not text friends at 2 o 'clock
in the morning. They are not your friends if
they do that. Unless it's a life and death emergency,
they are not your friends. We have to respect
each other's sleep. We have to create an environment
of sleep management. So the link between sleep
deprivation and the opiate epidemic. Let's stay
with this. Sleep deprivation creates chronic
pain. Do an online search. Sleep deprivation,
chronic pain. Irrefutable. We've all had bad
night's sleep. We'll wake up feeling like hell.
And sleep deprivation creates chronic pain. So
fentanyl. The opiate epidemic, fentanyl is just
one aspect of the opiates. Fentanyl is an opiate.
Fentanyl kills 70 ,000 to 80 ,000 Americans a
year. We lost a little shy of 50 ,000 in all
of Vietnam, over 20 years of Vietnam, about 50
,000. We lose more than that every year to fentanyl.
And prescription opiates have always been there.
Why are prescription opiates a drug? Why not
crack? Why not meth? Why is opiate the drug of
choice? Because sleep deprivation creates chronic
pain. This global epidemic of sleep deprivation
is killing us. Suicides, mental health, traffic
deaths, obesity. And so I trained at East Texas
School Safety Consortium a little while back.
One or two people in charge of safety for every
school in East Texas. I said, we're going to
talk about protecting your school from violence.
Ought to be pretty good. Never had a homicide
in your school. I bet you had some suicides.
I bet you had traffic deaths. I bet you had a
problem with mental illness. You want to walk
out that door and save a kid's life? Sleep. What
can we do about suicide? Sleep. What can we do
about traffic deaths? Sleep. What can we do about
all this mental illness? Sleep. This is the one
thing you walk out the door and they didn't know
this. Number one, you got to get X number of
sleep depending on your age. And kids will do
that. My second grade teacher told me cigarettes
kill people. I went home and hid my dad's cigarettes.
When your elementary teacher tells you this is
how much sleep you need, here's the way to figure
it out. Number one, how much sleep you need at
that age. Number two, you've got to sleep in
total darkness. Our bodies are designed to sleep
in total darkness. Of course, I'm a big fan of
the sleep mask, and it really, really works.
It will rock your world. I tell people, you know,
you may not get one more minute of sleep. You
get quality sleep if you use the sleep mask.
Make the room as dark as you can. I don't care
how good your blackout curtains are. If you can
tell us daylight outside, it's too much light.
Number one, how much sleep you need. Number two,
sleep in total darkness. Number three, cut off
caffeine shortly after lunch. It's that first
hour after lunch, get rid of caffeine, then shut
it down. That caffeine is making us have bad
quality sleep. Another area that Dr. Walker talked
about that's irrefutable is a link between sleep
deprivation and dementia. Alzheimer's is the
most common form of dementia. He goes, I'll sleep
when I'm dead. You have to take it off Alzheimer's
first, you idiot. And that's just getting the
hell out of all of us. And when we talk with
adults, we talk about sleep apnea and getting
treatment for sleep apnea. And I had a Navy SEAL
E9. Navy SEAL. a master chief, nine combat tours,
amazing human being, killed more bad guys than
the flu vaccine. And he said, I want to talk
to you about that CPAP and sleep apnea. He said,
I had nine years of bad sleep. Everybody on the
team complained about my snoring. He said, finally,
I was ordered to go to the sleep apnea. Partway
through the night, they woke me up. Master Chief,
you have sleep apnea. You have it bad. Wear this
CPAP, go back to sleep. He said, I woke up that
next morning after a good night's sleep for the
first time in nine years. He said, I cannot communicate
to you what it felt like to get a good night's
sleep after nine years. He said, no meal I've
ever eaten, no sex I've ever had, nothing has
ever been as good as that sweet, whole. Beautiful,
healthy night's sleep after nine years of bad
sleep. Now, some of you out there want to say,
oh, if it's better than sex, you're not doing
it right. Oh, you go to him and look him in the
eyes. You tell him that. So these are the things
we've got to know. And it's got to be taught
in elementary school. And then we're through
this whole dynamic of video games. A video game
will never say, I'm going to play this game for
48 hours, get some sleep now. Facebook will never
say, you've been online for 36 hours, we're going
to shut you down. They will never do that. Your
time is their money. And all they want to do
is steal your time and steal your sleep. I don't
care that there's a global epidemic of sleep
deprivation that's killing people. They don't
care that they're part of the problem. They just
want to make money. And that's the dynamic that
we have challenged with right now is these corporate
entities that are trying to steal our sleep.
It's so interesting. There's a local department
here that have had four firefighter suicides
in four years, a fifth one at the same time period
that survived his attempt. And then a sixth one
who had worked for this agency for a long time
went to a different agency and shortly after
took his own life. And there's a complete resistance
to acknowledging. this exactly what we're talking
about. And they work 56 that growth grossly understaffed
because of that. I mean, no one wants to work
for them. They pay poorly. They treat their people
poorly. And, and, you know, and so this kind
of apathy is what I'm fighting against. But like
I said, conversely, I'm being asked to all over
the country to, Hey, can you come and help us
talk about this, this new schedule, which is
beautiful. One thing that when I think of sleep,
and I've quoted you so many times on this, when
people talk about video games and the connection
with school violence, you know, I think I told
you this in the last one, I rolled my eyes when
I first heard that. Like, oh, come on, you know,
Pac -Man's not going to make you want to go and
shoot at school. But when you unpacked everything
from the operant conditioning, you know, all
the actual technical elements, the kind of desensitization,
the gaming against previous shooters, those all
made sense. But then coming from the experience
that I really know, when you underlined, and
by the way, when these kids are up playing all
night, there's a form of psychosis through sleep
deprivation. That was, you know, mind blowing
to me. So let's kind of revisit that because
I think that's important when we're talking,
like you said, the road deaths, but especially
the actual, you know, the psychotic events. Now
you're planning to go into an elementary school
and execute children. You know, one irrefutable
fact is that video games are linked to sleep
deprivation. They spend vast amounts of money.
You can't imagine how much money this industry
has. One video game, Grand Theft Auto V, the
year it came out, one game made more money than
the entire global music industry. One game made
more money every rock concert on the planet,
every musician, every CD, every download on the
planet. They have vast amounts of money. And
they use that money for two things. Number one,
to be able to sell this stuff to children, fighting
anybody who tries to restrict them. In 2005,
the state of California overwhelmingly voted
to regulate children's access to violent video
games. 2005, California. Silicon Valley said,
we're good with this. Hollywood said, yeah, we're
good with this. Arnold Schwarzenegger was governor.
Arnold signed the bill. And the video game industry
fought. all the way to the Supreme Court to sell
any game to any kid at any age. What the gamers
will agree on is enforcing the rating system.
We don't realize it. We're not trying to take
your video game. We're just saying kids shouldn't
be playing this game. They've got a rating system.
I was at the White House at the President's Roundtable
on violent video games. They told me the day
before, you want to go to the White House? Yeah,
sure. I'm out on the road. I'm wearing my little
bolo tie and my little leather vest in the White
House. On the other side of the table, we had
Rubio there, some good people there, got to shake
their hand, the president, Trump, very impressive
and gracious man in person. And they said, oh,
we have a rating system. The guy's in there,
you know, their $10 ,000 suits over there. We've
got a rating system. I said, why did you fight
all the way to the Supreme Court? That's all
any game to any kid at any age. I slid my book
across the table with the president. I said,
sir, it's all in my book. My book, Assassination
General, it's all there. It's a great book. They
fought all the way to the Supreme Court to sell
any game to any industry. So I want you to wrap
your mind around that. Look, if just one in a
million, you know, those who are capable of committing
homicide, we've got kindergartners who murdered
people in the school. Kindergarteners walk in
and shot a kid. If we just take, you know, we'll
take away 30 million. or the 330 million in our
population, take away 30 million, the remaining
300 million, if just one in a million is tipped
over the top, you have 300 a day. Just one in
a million on any given day gives you 300 murders
a day. Now remember, we only have about 50 murders
per day. If one in a million is put over the
top, and again, the place where we all agree
is when it comes to kids. When one in a million
are put over the top, then doggone it, we need
to think about it. Because the one thing we can
accept is children. They don't have sex. They
don't have drugs. They don't have pornography.
They don't get guns. They don't drive automobiles.
There are all kinds of things we say adults can
do this, but kids can't. Alcohol, pornography,
tobacco, sex, guns, gang. There's so many things.
And this is one more thing that we need to protect
our children from. And, you know, the whole sleep
management thing. is huge. And we're monitoring
and tracking people. I love this on all of our
sports teams. This is their secret weapon. If
you're a college football team, basketball team,
don't matter, and your folks are getting enough
sleep, and the other team isn't, you're going
to kick their tail. And this has become their
secret weapon. And what the coach does, make
everybody wear an aura ring. And they track the
data. And so what they do, coach said, this happens
every year. He said, one of them wears 10 rings
and goes to bed. His buddies all go party. The
coach figures that one out real fast. I'll get
up all night long. What are we up for? Oh, I
was playing video games, coach. Well, that stuff
stops right now. The games are so addictive.
You know, I trained an infantry battalion under
1st Airborne Division, Campbell, headed out to
Iraq. And the command sergeant major told me,
he said, on the previous deployment with this
unit, he said we were in a barracks environment
at night and combat patrols during the day. And
I told my folks, it's lights out after 2200.
He said, if I catch you playing video games after
10 p .m., I will take your video game. He said,
these are good troops. They said they wouldn't
disband order. We said a week later, I had a
closet overflowing with video games. He said,
they cannot not play those games. We had a Marine
battalion deployed to Syria. They fired some
fire missions, but it was a Marine artillery
battalion. They fired cannons for a while. Off
and on, they came home. All kinds of PTSD, all
kinds of suicides. Oh, he was firing those missions.
No, it wasn't. In World War I and World War II.
hundreds of thousands of people, fired artillery
for years on end, for years. And they didn't
have this response. What was happening was you
were not sleeping. You rolled out of bed for
a fire mission, and then you played video games,
and you watched movies. I was in Ukraine, and
I had the chance to talk to all these different,
mostly company -level leaders, and I talked about
the sleep. And one of them, one... commander.
He's probably captain level, major level commander.
He said, well, you never know when the Russians
are going to bomb us. And then they get air attacks.
So you can't sleep. So I play video games because
you can't sleep anyway. The French all look at
him like, dude, do you hear yourself right now?
And by the way, we have learned throughout World
War I and World War II, you can sleep through
anything. If you're tight enough, you will sleep
through anything. Another guy, another group
of audience said, well, I have terrible nightmares,
terrible nightmares. So I watch movies, so I
don't have sleep, I don't have nightmares. And
Fred John said, dude, and look at it, do you
ever understand what that sounds like? It was.
And see, they come up with those things. Oh,
you can't sleep anyway, you have nightmares.
That's just the most dysfunctional, pathological
thing you could do is not get that sleep. And
this is the wild card that's just crept into
the equation everywhere. children. And it's a
defining challenge of our generation that we've
got the data showing the link between sleep deprivation
and all these other pathologies. What we do not
have, but I believe is here, we have 200 years
and 10 ,000 studies showing the link between
alcohol and violent behavior. We do not have
that data on sleep deprivation and violent behavior.
But I believe it's there. And I think we can
spot it. I think we can find it. Being drunk
and sleep deprived are exactly the same in all
these different ways. And this other way you
can bet on it. The irrational behavior, the anger,
the inhibitions that have been repressed. Alcohol
and sleep deprivation doing the exact same thing.
And this global epidemic of sleep deprivation
is eating us alive. I believe it is the single
greatest threat to the survival of our civilization.
We have vast numbers of people out there that
are dysfunctional and irrational. And here's
the thing, sleep is a biological blind spot.
Your body knows how to make you get enough air
or water or food, but your body doesn't know
how to make you get enough sleep because it always
happened naturally. Throughout the history of
our species, uncounted numbers of years, every
night without fail, it got dark and there was
nothing to do. A little sex, a little talking,
went to sleep. You didn't have to make yourself
sleep, it happened naturally. They were invited
to the electric light bulb and the television
and the video game and binge watching Netflix.
And the body doesn't know how to make us get
enough sleep. There's nothing macho, there's
nothing tough about going to sleep. Any 10 -year
-old girl in a slumber party can do it. The professional
thing is to manage your sleep. And so the aura,
the Fitbit is where you should begin. And there's
one trend of sleep maxing. There's a couple of
articles on how the big thing is to sleep max,
and it's good. It's one of the very good things
happening out there. And they all get all these
little sleep tests, and they're wearing their
aura, and they're tracking their sleep, and they're
using a sleep mask, and they're doing little
doses of melatonin, seeing what works in this
whole community out there. They're doing that.
It's the trend. It's sleep max, and it's a good
thing. It's something we desperately, desperately
need across our entire civilization. Absolutely.
Well, I'm going to use that as a segue to therapy
dogs. But my wife's just about to graduate optometry
school, but she's been an optician for years
before that. And I was visiting her because she's
doing some work on the weekends at the moment.
And I think it was Ray Bans. I might be wrong,
but they've actually got these new glasses now.
that have hearing aids built in. So they're obviously
not going to be quite as good as the ones that
are actually in your ears. But I thought that
was kind of interesting. So I'm assuming there's
a mic on the front and then it amplifies it on
the arm so that you don't have to always wear
the hearing aids. So I don't know if you've seen
that before we go to the dog. I thought that
was an interesting thing to put in there. My
hearing aids are making them work. Hey, you know
what? Here's the thing. One of the best things
we could possibly do is get somebody a service
dog. The thing about the service dog, You are
never alone. Dogs are a pack animal. Dogs are
not meant to be alone. And we're not meant to
be alone. Look, one person in prison alone is
torture. It's torture. Two people in prison are
normal. They can do that indefinitely. And one
dog alone is solitary confinement. You are torturing
that dog. If you leave one dog at home, it's
torture. It's terrible. You got two dogs leaving
at home, hey, they're good to go. But we're the
same way. We're not meant to be alone. And that
dog is always with you. They go to the bathroom
with you. They go to the restaurant with you.
They get on the plane with you. So I want to
introduce you, my little service dog here. Hey,
Charlie. He's been sitting here for the last
hour and a half. And little Charlie here. Hey,
say hi to everybody, Charlie. Charlie's got a
white streak down the front, see? Turn him upside
down, he's just gone. But he's nine pounds. He's
a little shy, and he's my little service dog.
You saw him sit in my lap quietly for the last
hour and a half. We got this sling, and Charlie
travels with me, and he's kind of chill. He walks
around. He's got one arm hanging out there and
chill. We go on the airport. We go on the airplane.
Here's what Charlie does for me. Charlie is what's
called a hearing dog. I've got pretty significant
hearing loss and you can't sleep with your hearing
aids on. So Charlie lets them know when the alarm
goes off in the morning. He lets them know somebody's
knocking on the door. Recently I was in the shower
and the phone goes off and Charlie's barking
and he barks, let me know something's happening.
Now he's not quite, he'll be two years old in
a month or two. So he's still pretty young and
he's equivalent of a 14 year old kid, right?
The one thing Charlie, he rides on planes, he's
chill, he just hangs around, he loves what he's
doing. And Charlie is just rolling with it out
there. Now, here's the thing. Most service dogs
are a Rolex. It costs $10 ,000, $20 ,000, $30
,000. And there's nothing wrong with having a
Rolex, nothing wrong with selling a Rolex, but
Charlie is a Timex. And what's wrong with that?
You don't need to have some amazing, you know,
school and $30 ,000 qualification. I mean, look,
if you just have, you got a hearing loss and
you have trouble getting up in the morning, you
need a charter. A little eight pounds of awesome
dude. And there's no federal regulation. He rides
in the planes with me all the time. Now, he cannot
sit quietly while I teach. Now, you can't sit
there. He's still a kid. Give him another year
or so, and we'll get him to that level, and then
he can really travel with me and really come
with me. I spent the last 26 years on the road,
hotel rooms alone every night, straight arrow,
in the room every night, and we're not meant
to be alone. So it's really, really cool when
Charlie can travel with me. It's really a good
thing. And everybody loves him, and they say
hi. Most service dogs, they're working, and they
don't want you to panic. Charlie's different.
He wakes me up in the morning and then he goofs
off for the rest of the day. And so we got him
a service dog, asked to pet. Now, the only form
ever needed to fill out is to get on an airplane.
And it is U .S. Department of Transportation
service animal form. And there's no requirement
to download it from the internet. Fill it out.
Who did the training? I did. Can you assure us
he's not going to pee on me? Yes, I've trained
this puppy. Can you assure us he won't bother
people? Yes, I can guarantee you. He sat here
for the last hour and a half, and you barely
knew he was there. I carry him around in a little
sling. Everybody loves him. They know him, and
he likes them, and it's a win -win in every way.
So I guess the whole service dog thing in some
ways is broken, because people need to understand
that there's really a resource out there you
can tap right into. There's many ways to go.
I think keeping the dog small, doing what I do.
And there's other dynamics. Think about where
you need help and what the dog can do for you.
But I'm 68 years old. My prayer is I can do it
for another 20 years. And Charlie's one of the
tools that can keep me going and keep my spirit
up and get me out in the morning. Right now,
I just set like three or four or five alarms.
You know, when we talk about sleep, I tell people
never touch that snooze button. You know, that
snooze button instrument of torture. You know,
hit the snooze, hit it again, hit it a third
time. You just threw away 30 minutes of the day.
You threw away 30 minutes of the day. The snooze
button is an evil little button that makes you
relive the worst part of every day over and over
again. And seriously, just set the alarm. 601,
602, 603, 604, 605. By the time you turn them
off, you're up. And it comes back to self -discipline.
Am I in charge of my body? Is my body in charge
of me? The first thing I do is surrender my body,
hit the snooze alarm. The first thing I do is
take the hell charge of my life, roll out of
bed, and rock and roll. I set that alarm, and
I'm going to get out of the bed. But the guy
that puts you to sleep at night is the same guy
who gets you out of bed in the morning. And that
snooze alarm is not our friend. And Charlie,
he's no mercy. When the alarm goes off, hey,
buddy, come on, 10 more minutes. No way, dude.
I got to shove my tongue in your ear again. Come
on, get out the hole. No tongue, no tongue in
the ear. So just everybody understand. Fill out
the form yourself. Go to the airlines, go online,
get the Department of Transportation Service
Animal Air Transportation form. We've got American
Airlines, and I've got an ID number. I'm telling
him the ID number, and he's set and ready to
rock. There's not some big magic. There's no
reason why you have to spend $10 ,000, $20 ,000,
$30 ,000. Now, good for you if you've got a Rolex,
and good for you if you train and sell a Rolex.
And don't have a dog that will embarrass us.
They've got to have self -control. You've seen
Charlie sit here for the last almost two hours
now, just chilled out, hanging out. That's what
he is on airplanes, you know. But that's my service
dog shtick, if you will. And if I could give
everybody in the world a gift, I'd give them
a Charlie. They care around everywhere. And you're
never alone. And it's a good world. It's a good
thing. And there's some good trends happening
out there. You know, it's the worst of times.
It's the best of times. In the midst of these
terrible times, we've got medical technology
saving lives. And we have wellness technology.
One area of the wellness that I think should
be expanded on. can be the idea that the circus
dog doesn't have to be a Rolex. I bought this
puppy for $1 ,000. Don't tell him, but he's a
Timex. He thinks he's a Belgian Malinois. But
he's a great little guy. Quick story about Charlie,
right? I've got three dogs. Got an old, mellow
chocolate lab who had... had five litters of
pups, all of them screened to be service dogs.
And then she became my wife's service dog. And
she's just an old gray muzzled gal, sweet little
lab. We've got another poodle, who's this guy's
older sister, and Charlie. I'm walking down the
street, got three dogs on the leash, and we're
all just rolling along. And out of nowhere, around
the corner, the Sherman Shepherd comes and locks
onto Charlie's shoulder. And Charlie was like,
and I had pepper spray, never without, you know,
the basic tools. And, you know, I have a gun,
I have pepper spray, I have quick clot, I have
a tourniquet. Pulled out pepper spray, gave this
guy a shot in the eyes, and boom, he's out of
there. Charlie, yeah. And then two other dogs
right behind him, these two medium -sized dogs,
gave them a spray of pepper spray. Charlie, yeah,
come on, I'll give you some more. So about a
week later. Walking past the same place in the
same street, these three dogs, they got out the
back door. They were able to bust through the
back door and come to get Charlie, right? Walking
by, and here's these three dogs thumping on the
glass and screaming and barking their life out.
Now, his sister, called Gracie, and she's just
like at a 45 -degree angle, get out of here.
And the lab is like, so what? And Charlie's like,
yeah, come on. We'll give you some more. Come
on. Charlie's not a French poodle. He's a Belgian
Malinois. But here's the thing, you know, one
of the last part of the whole ingredient, for
what it's worth, like, you know, I've got several
books on the faith aspect of what we do. And
one of the pillars of resiliency around the world
is faith. And be able to hand things over to
higher power, just respect it as one of the great
dynamics. And I tell this every class, it's not
about any religion. It's an existential question
that every first responder is going to ask. Your
job. is to go to every bad thing that happens.
The worst thing that happens, you're going to
be there. That's your job. And you can't help
but ask the question. I think it's so terribly
important. How could a loving God allow these
terrible things to happen? And the answer is
really, really important. Have you ever heard,
if you really love something, let it go, it comes
back at yours? That's how much God loves us.
Every faith will tell you we're not God's puppets.
He's not a helicopter parent that hangs over
your head every minute of every day. He does
answer prayer. He does intercede. But God lets
us make our own decisions. He loves us enough
to let us make our own decisions. A lot of people
make really bad decisions. A lot of bad things
happen. You say, God, why don't you do something?
He said, I did. I sent you. And so a couple of
my books, my book on spiritual combat. Got like
500 five -star reviews on Amazon, touched a lot
of lives with it. And the other one that's really
pretty cool is this Bulletproof Marriage, 90
-day devotional, 10 minutes a day, sheepdog and
spouse, for all of our responders. And both of
these are great, cool. Now, this was a Christian
Book Award finalist. So all the thousands of
books came out this year. This thing kind of,
the Bulletproof Marriage, kind of floated to
the top as a finalist. But, you know, when things
go well, His tendency to take the credit for
it. And Charlie might think he can take those
dogs on again, but he can't do it without me
standing behind him with the pepper spray. And
in the end, we can't do it without God behind
there giving us that extra boost, that extra
bonus. And we give him the honor and the glory.
And he gives us love and joy and peace and all
the good things come with it. So that's kind
of closing the loop. Charlie thinks he's a Balmoine.
He needs to realize who it was that was really
there and made it possible. Because he tries
that without dad there with the pepper spray,
it's going to be a bad day. And we all got to
realize at some point or another, we got to understand
that, you know, we're all going to die. Does
that mean God failed? In the end, everyone dies
physically. In the end, every nation falls over
my dead body. In the end, our son will go out.
But eternity continues. And God's greatest gift
is not a few more years on this weary world.
but not less suffering. His greatest gift is
eternity in heaven. And we get ourselves focused
in that direction. It can change things a lot.
And the one thing that God tells us to do, our
mission, is to love. What's the opposite of people
love? How do we fight evil with love? Jesus said,
a new commandment I give you, love others as
I have loved you. And Jesus loved enough to die
for us. Jesus said, greater love is no one than
this, that they lay down their life for their
friends. What manner of love is this? Probably
he's got his nose in there getting a big drink.
What manner of love is this? That men and women
will die for strangers. What manner of love is
this? That our first responders walk out the
door every day and put their life on the line
for people they never even met. Hear that verse
one more time. Greater love is no one than this.
That they lay down their life for their friends.
But there are many ways to lay down your life.
There are many ways to lay down your life. Because
sometimes the greatest love is not to sacrifice
your life, but to live a life of sacrifice. Do
a dirty, dangerous, thankless job every day of
your life to the utmost of your ability, because
you know, if no one did, our civilization would
no longer exist. So for you, James, who are leading
the sheepdogs and the responders, and congratulations
on the great podcast and the neat things you're
doing. So good to be back on board with you.
This all makes sense from your perspective now.
Yeah, no, it does. But firstly, outside the door
is a 60 pound German shepherd who I want to travel
with. I've got to do the paperwork, but she needs
a little bit more training to make sure that
she is going to behave herself. She's an absolute
sweetheart. I wanted to ask you this when I was
listening to you on Conan's podcast. When we
talk about the evolution of man, we always focus
on technology. the wheel, you know, fire. I mean,
obviously, as we progress through the industrial
revolution, computers, I really feel like the
evolution of man as a species is towards kindness
and compassion. If you look at the old school,
you know, human interaction, it wasn't very New
Testament at all. What is your perception of
that? I think there's great evidence to support
that. You know, there's a kind of, and he got
me a little sideways on that, but he's right.
We do archaeological work. on skeletons. And
we can tell you what racial people died from
violence. And we can go back and look at the
skeletons 5 ,000 years ago and tell you that
interpersonal human aggression was really, really
high. The ratio of people who died from violence
are really, really high. And we kind of brought
that down. It's hard to wrap your mind around
it. The terrible loss of life in World War I
and World War II and all the other wars. But,
you know, those were terrible. interludes. We
had peace, and then we had war, and then more
peace. It was really pretty good. And the great
achievement is not understand that .001 who committed
a murder today. I tell people, look at the 99
.999999 who didn't kill anybody today. Explain
that. Divorce, infidelity, layoff, traffic accidents,
lifetime of provocation, less than one in 10
,000 will even seriously attempt to take a life.
Explain that. So my follow -up book, we wrote
the book on spiritual combat, and then the sequel
is on spiritual warfare. And it was really kind
of a cool book they put together. And on spiritual
warfare, we talk about the evolution and the
rules of rescue. Now, all the way throughout
history, when a ship wrecks, it's called Every
Man for Himself and the Devil Take the Hindmost.
And then... It developed to men and women first.
Now, that's a big deal. I'm sorry, women and
children first. And there's actually, it was
a British ship headed to India going down. And
there was a British military unit who stood at
attention and stood by while the women and kids
were evacuated from the ship. And the ship went
down and they died. And this was an amazing model.
And again, this book, starting with non -spiritual
combat and moving on to spiritual warfare, this
amazing model of transitioning to women and children
first. That's a big deal. But then it went further.
It was called The Current Rules of Rescue. It
says, it is the responsibility of the strong
to protect the weak. It is the responsibility
of the strong to protect. the weak. Now, that's
a beautiful evolution of our civilization. And
we transition from, you know, every man for himself,
and devil take the hindmost, women and children
first, and then this fundamental, powerful rule.
It's almost like the golden rule, you know, you
want others, you'd have them go on to you. It
is the solemn, sacred responsibility of this
strong, protective witch. And that's our first
responders. That's who they are. That's what
they do. And that's a beautiful thing. So on
the other side of that conversation, because
I agree 100%, I really feel like that is where
we are trying to go as a species, as a humanity.
The opposite of that, the threat to that, and
we've seen it over and over and over again in
history, which has created World War I, World
War II, etc., is when the tyrannical few... rise
and are allowed to divide the people start setting
themselves against each other create a common
enemy and then you know it doesn't matter whether
it's covid or the defund movement or you know
whatever it is we've seen it happen over and
over again this is also happening in police and
fire where tyrannical leaders are refusing to
advocate for their people and there's a lot of
cowardice and a lot of bullying how do we start
making the shift away from that so that we collectively
come together and can identify those people early
so they don't rise to a position where they actually
can negatively influence. That's the fundamental
question for our civilization. It's the most
important thing any human being will ever explore.
How do we leave a better world for our children?
How do we create a better world for our grandchildren?
A lot of people trying out there, but you're
right, tyrannical leadership. Those who oppress
information, those who try to control the narrative.
We've got the greatest level of freedom of information
we've ever had. And we had to fight to get that.
There was a fight to get freedom of information.
And we wanted to control what people... We don't
know how bad their narrative was twisted throughout
history. Because... the losers never got to put
their message across. Do you understand? But
now, through the internet and podcasts, I think
the podcast revolution is one of the greatest
movements forward in our civilization. The people
provide it, the people listen for it. You know,
when I was a kid, there would be like three television
networks, one or two newspapers in every town,
maybe six national magazines. And if you didn't
get on that, your story never got told. Well,
today, we have all these podcasts. And rather
than a five -minute blurb, you know, or a three
-minute soundbite, you got the opportunity to
sink deep, not just that the podcasts are given,
but that people are seeking them. And they're
seeking greater depth of information and wider
bit of knowledge. We can look at Wikipedia, you
know, with, you know, we're trying to, we're
going to censor these people. And then, oh, no,
we got this idea of, well, we'll let it be known
how many people in the community said this is
baloney. And get that whole dynamic in place.
That's a major movement forward. And not just
the information, but the feedback on the information.
And this podcast and the great people listening
to it. That's part of the equation right there.
So hopefully that kind of answers the question.
This guy here is Charlie. He's so mellow. He's
so cool. His big sifter is having a little fit
somewhere on the other side of the house. That
little chirping noise, that's not a bird. That's
a dog. That's not much of a dog. Here's a dog.
Charlie, it's a Malmo, ready to go play. But
don't worry about that sound. Go to that man
behind the curtain. And so this evolution can
be seen in so many ways, just to control the
narrative. Who controls the narrative? The people
control the narrative. Amazing. We have no idea
how much the story has been pushed and manipulated
across the centuries. Because it wasn't recorded.
It wasn't captured. A hundred years from now,
people will watch this podcast. The newspaper
was the next day's garbage. But these podcasts
stay there and are touched and influence lives
for generations to come. It's a beautiful thing.
It really is. It really is. I mean, that's what
I always tell people. It's the gift that keeps
on giving. I mean, you know, your first one was
episode 27 and that's still available and you
can listen to it today. So I think that's so
incredible. And then you can watch. each of these
guests as we go through the years you know how
some of them were you know drowning in addiction
in the first episode and now they're you know
sober and i mean it's just you see these beautiful
lines as well but the uh the overlapping and
and the ability to go back and say yeah in 2016
this was how i thought but now we've learned
you know sleep deprivation is real i've changed
the way i think slightly on certain things so
i think that that you know that layering of these
conversations and the ability to say, all right,
there's an evolution now of the way we think.
You're not wishy -washy. You're not contradicting
what you said eight years ago. You can actually
watch how this whole thought process changed.
I think that's very healthy. And movement in
this community is frustrating. We talk about
50 laboratories of democracy, but we have well
over 1 ,000, like 1 ,500. police chiefs, 1 ,500
sheriffs who only answer to the voters once every
four years. And then we have like 15 ,000 police
chiefs who only answer to the locally elected
leadership. We're not 50 leverage force of democracy
when we talk about fire and EMS and cops. We're
20 ,000. laboratories for democracy. And progress
is two steps forward and one step back. That's
progress. And we've disseminated it. We let the
local population decide. And it can be terribly
frustrating, and yet it works. You know, I was
in England a while back, and the English divided
into like 40 different constabularies. And that's
all there is. That's all there is. You know,
that's it. That's the local cop, the county cop,
everything. And even with the number one and
number two guys at lunch one time, great guys.
And he said, are you Americans? You elect your
law enforcement leaders. I got to find some guy
and elect him to be my dentist. That's pretty
good. You got a point. I can respect that. But
I said, you know, the truth is it works. You
got to respect the voters. Are they children
who have to be manipulated? Are they adults who
can make their own decision and get the law enforcement
that they want to have? And rather than, you
know, 40 constabularies all marching in footsteps,
I like having 20 ,000 laboratories of democracy.
And it's frustrating. Churchill said democracy
is the worst form of government except for all
the others. Democracy, as we look at it, or a
public like ours, is the least worst option.
And it's terribly frustrating, but it's progress.
And for every department doing something stupid,
there are two out there doing something right.
The problem is, when that stupid cop gets caught
on camera, and the world looks at it, everything
changes. The George Floyd incident should have
taught us, better no cop than a bad cop. We saw
the Memphis incident. in which six black cops
just beat that kid to death and left him to die
as he begged for help. Now, somehow in this weird
twisted world we're in, because of black cops
beating a black kid to death, somehow they didn't
push the same button as George Floyd. But that
was a disaster at every level. That was a leadership
issue, a recruiting issue, and a training issue.
It was a total failure. And one incident like
that with the wrong dynamics, and we could pay
a tragic, terrible price. Better no cop than
a bad cop. We've got to hold our cops to the
highest standard, and we've got to pay them to
the highest level. The great challenge before
us is to let people know how bad it is. The crime
rate is, the murder rate's being held down by
medical technology. It's a lie. We've got to
know how bad it is, and then we'll start throwing
money at it. We're a rich nation. Think wrong,
we throw money at it. In World War II, we're
the arsenal of democracy. Russia beat the Germans,
but half their equipment came from us. We're
the arsenal of democracy. In the Cold War, we
outspent the Russians. In the pandemic, we threw
trillions of dollars at it. When the American
public begins to understand how stinking bad
it really is, we'll start throwing money at this
problem. And you'll see people doing this job,
making the kind of money we could have never
imagined, and they deserve it. My dad started
in the beat in Cheyenne, Wyoming, 1962. No academy.
Wyatt Earp didn't go to no stinking academy.
Up until the 1970s, right up to the 1970s, the
majority of American cops didn't go to an academy.
During the 1970s, the majority of cops started
going to an academy. Think of that. We came and
got them bad and cut them loose. Imagine we still
did that. Yeah, there's some kind of... I'm very,
my dad got a walk. He was, my dad had been a
military policeman. Oh, you ought to know the
job. And, you know, he spent two years in the
army as an MP, right? And then he walked with
an experienced cop. Yeah, this is your beat.
This is where you go. We'll catch you. And that
was it. But we got so much better training. It's
so much better. And if you'd have told my dad,
my dad was basically making minimum wage. I'm
proud to get it. If you'd have told my dad that
cops would make the kind of money they make today,
allowing for inflation, he wouldn't have believed
it. I'm telling you. In the years to come, the
guy who decides whether or not to shoot your
kid should be the best trained, best qualified
person on the planet. And it's coming. And this
job is just like a medical professional receiving
that same level of training and respect and money.
And that's the solution. It's coming down the
road. It's the only answer. Throw money at the
problem. But the people have to know. In the
meanwhile, the media is covering up. They're
lying. New York Times got an amazing chart. What
happened in 2020 has no precedent. And then they
buried it in a Sunday supplement, never mentioned
again. They said, oops, that points a finger
back at us. That's the George Floyd effect. Notice
how the media has had this change. They're not
showing George Floyd out there every day because
the kids see it as real every day. They've changed
their tune. Oh, we're going to defund the police.
Might be a mistake. What do you know? Oh, wait,
that's not working. Oh, that points a finger
right back at us. So we'll censor that. But they've
got blood on their hands. We're going to come
out the other end. And I just have great faith.
I'm 68. I'm going to stay in the fight for another
20 years. Charlie's good for another 20 years.
Little dogs live longer. He's good to go. So
that's the plan. Have faith in our nation. Have
faith in our way of life. Have faith in 20 ,000
laboratories of democracy slowly, painfully dragging
us to a better place in a better way. And you,
my brother, and the people listening to this
are part of the solution. I couldn't agree more.
I'll end with this one kind of other thing to
throw in there. To me, because we're a crisis,
I am an incurable yet angry optimist. And I think
there's no better time. to make change than now
and i think with that 20 000 you could argue
it's pretty similar with the fire yeah so what
we can do as professions is actually start talking
to each other we've we've waited for certain
governing bodies and large organizations to be
the communication tool And let's just say that
some have done it okay, some have failed miserably.
So when we come together, there's departments
that already do things really well. You just
have to have the humility to ask each other,
what do you do well? What didn't work? But then
even with the money side, if you actually proactively
invest in your police departments, your fire
departments, your EMS. the downstream savings
are immense because now you're not paying the
lawsuits. You're not paying the workman's comp
claims and the overtime that's filling all these
vacancies. So this is a beautiful thing. Invest
now, even fiscally, it is sound when you have
the best, that 10 % of that list wearing the
uniform once again. And better no cop than a
bad cop. Hey, you know, when we talk about wellness,
one of the things you asked me to mention, I'm
so happy. Yes. Please. I wrote on combat, on
killing, on hunting. And then we had on spiritual
combat. And those are four sides that all interact
and reinforce each other. One of the healthiest
things we can do. And one of the movements, you
know, during the pandemic, hunting really took
off. Hunting is increasing. And we talk about
it. If you've got any questions, any thoughts
whatsoever, if you're a hunter, listen to the
audio. All three authors are in the audio. The
audio has a, the audio book for this, the audio
has an outtake reel. It's the funniest thing
you'll ever hear. And, you know, sit in your
deer stand, wherever you are, sit in that duck
line, listen to the audio of on hunting and you'll
have a great time. This is another dynamic forward.
What we really understand, if we, as a species,
existed for 24 hours, right up until the last
six minutes, all we did was hunt. We were hunter
-gatherers. What we're wired to do, it's what
we're made to do. And the peace of the wilderness,
the quiet, the interlude, putting yourself in
the food cycle dynamics, all the wellness that
comes out. This is a revolutionary book. And
we've gotten great response, but we cannot get
the word out at the national level. Once again,
they're not going to talk about that. So it tells
you that hunt, I believe the single best way
to prepare for combat is hunting. If you don't
hunt, try it. Go with your friends or two, see
what it's about. So many things, you know, like
my grandson. went to deer camp with us. Now,
he's in the Army, the political weight right
now. He was seven years old. He went to deer
camp, came home a week later, got out of school
for a week, dropped me in dirty. His mom said,
what'd you like the best? He said, gutting the
deer. For a seven -year -old boy, what was inside
that deer was fascinating. Hey, look, this is
the heart. It's the liver. It's the kidneys.
There's the lungs. You got the same stuff inside.
You smell the same inside. When we took the back
strap off, we slapped on the grill. put some
barbecue sauce on it. And that critter was food
in your stomach right now. And you understood
that for you to live, things have to die. And
we harvest them at the end of the life cycle.
We're the biggest rack and the biggest. We harvest
them at the end of the life cycle. And we protect
the game and we protect the wild land. And then
the only other place, what happens in combat
is auditory exclusion. You don't hear the shot.
Ears don't ring. The only other place where that
happens is when you're hunting. You know, cops,
they got a deer that's been hit and suffering
on the side of the road. Cop goes to shoot that
deer, their ears rent. They're not hunting. You're
hunting, and the hunting neurons are fired up,
and it's what we're built to do. It's what we're
designed to do. You don't hear the shot. You
are still getting hearing loss. The shutouts
in the nervous system. Wearing protection when
you hunt, you'd be a devil. These little kids
are a pain in the butt. But I appreciate the
mention up front. Hey, let's mention On Hunting,
Dave, because it's one of the best wellness dynamics
possible. Just the peace of the wild of sitting
and waiting and doing what we were designed to
do and touching base on all that. You want to
defend it, want to learn about it. My book On
Hunting. What was it after all these years that
made you dive into that subject? I've always
wanted to do that one. And I had a great co -author.
who was wired to work it with me, and then her
husband. Really, Linda Miller is just an amazing
lady. They run one of the biggest range and training
facilities in Canada. And it's the MILCON, M
-I -L -C -U -N. So first three letters are both
in it. It's the MILCON Training Center, M -I
-L -C -U -N, Training Center in... Northern Canada,
amazing things going on. We wrote this book together.
She's incredible. So I had the right people.
I had the right time. I got a publisher who's
willing to support us. I kind of let the publisher
down. We didn't get the sales we were hoping
to get, but I still think that there's enormous
potential to take off. I still want to get in
Joe Rogan someday. He's a hunter. Any of y 'all
know Joe Rogan? Let him know, hey, Grossman's
read all these amazing books. Needs to be on
your show. But in the meanwhile, I think I've
written the definitive book on the subject. truly
and it's a great satisfaction and it's a along
with killing can't understand killing with unrest
and they're hunting and combat they all work
together and then the spiritual aspect brings
them all together who we are and what we do and
i think i may have left the world a little bit
better a little bit wiser place by virtually
leaving those books behind you know down the
road have you been on jocko's podcast jocko willing
no see that would be a good one and then cameron
haynes another one that i think he's got a big
podcast I love doing them. We keep pinging people
like that, but they get people pinging them,
you know, thousands every day. You get an inside
track, let them know Grossman's here. It'll be
a lot of fun. And if they want Charlie, Charlie
will be on board or not. He just chilled out.
And we'll be on board if you need him. And meanwhile,
God bless you. God bless America. Beautiful.
Well, just before I let you go, for people listening,
where are the best places to find all the books,
learn about you, or maybe get you to speak? I'm
a terrible salesman. I always forget. My website
is GrossmanOnTruth .com. Everything's on one
place. You've got the books there. You can go
to Amazon and get them too if you like, but we'll
personalize them for you. GrossmanOnTruth .com.
The truth on killing, the truth on hunting, Grossman
on Truth. lay me on to speak. It's so good to
be able to train with school districts and EMS
and cops. I was just able to bring them all a
piece of the puzzle and to leave them all better
and stronger and better prepared. It's a good
feeling. I want to keep doing it for another
20 years. Beautiful. Well, I want to thank you
so much. It's been another incredible conversation.
We went to some new and interesting places and
I'm excited to read on hunting because I'm not
a hunter, but I grew up on a farm. So I came
from that background before. But I mean, the
psychological, you know, spiritual side of that,
I think will be fascinating too. So thank you
so much for coming on the show. My pleasure.
It's iron sharpens iron. It's a two way street.
God bless you, buddy. God bless you.