This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran
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founder, Ernie Colling. or go to transcendcompany
.com. Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.
As always, my name is James Geering, and this
week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the
show Air Force veteran and special agent Jared
Bonville. Now, in this conversation, we discuss
a host of topics, from his journey into the military,
Air Force law enforcement, his role as a special
agent, deployments in Afghanistan, mental health,
medical cannabis, 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 ,100 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 introduce
to you, Jared Bonvel. Enjoy. Well, Jared, I want
to start by saying two things. Firstly, thank
you to our mutual friend Hunter for making this
connection. And secondly, to welcome you onto
the Behind the Shield podcast today. Thank you
very much, James. Pleasure being here. Hunter's
a great guy that brought us together. Absolutely.
So very first question, where on planet Earth
are we finding you this afternoon? I'm in a little
small town in northern Kentucky, out in the country.
Well, I'm not great with accents, but it sounds
like that's probably where you've been for a
while. So tell me where you were born and tell
me a little bit about your family dynamic, what
your parents did, how many siblings. Absolutely.
Childhood was pretty normal in my book, but it
was a small family. Mom and dad got divorced
when I was young, so moved around a little bit.
Raised by my grandma quite a bit with my mom.
And then I was about 11. I moved down to Florida
and went through school there. My mom met a guy
and he was still my stepfather and a really good
man. He was a law enforcement officer for over
30 years down in Florida. So a lot of my growing
up, I kind of followed his lead, got interested
in law enforcement. And initially, that's what
I wanted to do. But, you know, when it came time
to go in the military, I had a few different
options. And I ended up being an aircraft armament
systems technician, which put me on the B -2
program right out of tech school, which is pretty
neat. So that first half of my career was on
the B -2 program and then comes into where I
met Hunter. The Air Force has a program called
the Air Force Office of Special Investigations
that are federally trained investigators that
do law enforcement and overseas counterintelligence
missions, identifying threats and neutralizing
those situations. And that's what I did the second
half of my career is that. So that's in and of
a nutshell, a couple of deployments in there,
a lot of ups and downs. Very good family values.
My dad was always in my life, stepdad. So I had
a couple of dads to bounce things off of. But
I had only child, but we had a lot of cousins.
So all the cousins are kind of like my brothers
and sisters. You said you moved to Florida. Where
were you originally? Was it in Kentucky or somewhere
else? Yeah, that's where I was in northern Kentucky.
And that's kind of where I came back full circle
eventually. So I had this conversation with Hunter,
so many other people, and I always credit Jake
Clark for opening my eyes. He's the guy that
created Safer Warrior, another great mental health
organization. The prevalence of mental health
struggles, challenges, trauma, whatever you want
to call it, in our early years in people in uniform.
I think it sends a lot of us to, whether it's
filling the void, be the protector, all the things,
build the armor around ourselves. You mentioned
that there was good family values, there was
divorce, but you're still in contact with both
your father and then your stepfather. When you
reflect back, were there elements that were struggles
that you would have carried with into the job?
Oh, absolutely. You know, I think as we grow
older, we look back at things and we see them
in a completely different light in a lot of ways.
The things that I didn't look at struggles then,
I just looked at normal life. I look back on
it, I'm like. Man, that really sucked. Like it
didn't have to be that hard. And I think that's
kind of why that's led me to where I'm at today.
The amount of, I guess, nonprofit involvement,
helping veterans directly. I try to stay out
of the paid nonprofits. So, you know, just makes
it a little bit easier for me. I like giving
money away to people that need it. But growing
up, I saw. that we needed certain things sometimes
and we didn't have it. I mean, I was pretty poor.
Um, I still shop out of Goodwill a lot of times.
Um, just the way I grew up. Um, I think I didn't
even, you know, 12, 11, 12 years old going to
school. You see everybody wearing the sponsored
clothes with Nike and Adidas and all that. And
I was excited when Kmart sold a pair of Nikes
finally, cause I can get it. a pair of shoes
with the swoosh on, you know? So pretty humble
beginnings, but the military just, I liked that
tribe type mentality. And as you know, you know,
that's, that comes and goes depending on where
you're at. Absolutely. What about sports? What
were you playing when you were in the school
age? I was absolutely the most non -athletic
individual you've ever met in your life. Mom
and dad, they tried to keep me in sports, doing
baseball, soccer. But to be honest, I was horrible
at it. Like, you know, I like shooting, fishing,
hunting, building stuff, making things. You know,
I take apart my mom's calculator and hide it
because I couldn't figure out how to put it back
together. Or I'd take the LEDs out of it and
wire it up and make a flashlight. I was doing
that at like five or six. So running around a
field didn't really. interest me so i got into
the more technological side of things did you
find an element of catharsis of healing when
you were out in the woods hunting and fishing
oh absolutely and it's weird because you know
when i went through everything i went through
i lost that it sucks to even think about what
that was back then because um Before the wars,
had a bass boat, 20 fishing rods, no issues,
going out for days, enjoying it. Second you come
back, no enjoyment of anything, really. The one
thing that I can't get over is the emotional
connection to those events. It hurt that bad.
And these aren't tears. It's weird. It's not
tears of sadness. It's tears of like, thank God
I'm not there anymore. And it's more of a sadness
that I know so many of my buddies that are in
a dark place. But they just keep getting medicated.
And doping themselves up. And because they don't
want to feel the emotion. So now I get emotional
when I think like. There are still folks out
here that are feeling this way that don't have
to. And there's so many opportunities that we
can provide or that they can get to, but they're
being sheltered, being lied to in a lot of ways.
And, you know, with the work that I've done legislatively,
speaking to the decision makers makes you even
sicker. It's horrible because it's not a conversation
of right and wrong or. what can help people.
It's always about a quid pro quo or a power or
money issue. And, you know, to feel this strongly
about recovery and helping people and seeing
that makes it so much more difficult. Everybody
could just get on the same page and say, hey,
let's try to work together. And I think we're
seeing that now. I truly believe that. 90 years,
right? Well, I think, I mean, it has, it's taken
us to get to, you know, what I would term as
idiocracy. And if you've ever seen that film,
like we are there now. And it was so funny. A
few times, like the costume designer of idiocracy
was looking for a shoe for this fictional world
that no one would ever wear in real life. And
bearing in mind, this was made, I think it was
the end of the nineties and they chose Crocs.
So, like, we are there in every shape or form.
Like, our president is at the WWE wrestling all
the time. You know, I mean, it's to a T. I told
somebody that the other day. If I woke up tomorrow
and saw Terry Crews as president and we were
watering our crops with Brondo, I'd be like,
yep. Seems right. I get it. But I think just
like you were saying, though, you know, I stepped
on you for a second. I apologize. But I agree
100 percent. I am incurably yet angry, optimistic.
You know, I mean, truly, some people need to
be punched in the face. So that's where the anger
is still there. And it's legitimate. But I think
that we are now having an awakening as a society
that have been set against each other. You know,
whether it was a Democrat per Republican thing,
whether it was a pro or anti mask thing, whatever
the thing was at that moment, you know, the police.
But I think now the curtain has been pulled back
and I'm extremely optimistic. And this conversation
we're going to have today is one of those examples.
I mean, another one, if you want to talk about,
you know, just complete mismanagement and government
overreach. If you look at COVID, which began
on one political party, then carried on another.
And the very thing that you said was cathartic
was withheld from everyone during that. Oh, don't
go outside. Don't go fishing. Don't go hunting.
You know, don't eat real food. Don't talk to
your neighbors. Don't see your family. The world's
greatest psychological operation ever seen. Absolutely.
And so now we need to reflect and figure out,
okay, who were the good leaders? There were some
out there. Who were the people that were doing
things right? And where was the complete fallacy?
And to say that was about the people's health
when you did nothing about the obesity crisis,
for example. that was really what was killing
people through COVID, then it was never about
health. And I think people are finally starting
to realize that there are some incredible humans
that care about this country. And there are some
people that are just simply, you know, carrying,
that are just picking this country apart for
their own benefit. My buddy posted a meme yesterday,
or posted a little comment yesterday. It says,
if your doctor isn't talking to you about your
diet and lifestyle before he gives you a pill,
you don't have a doctor, you've got a dealer.
100%. And that it's legal, though. That's what
everybody goes to. I saw another one that said
the future doctors are using AI to do their classwork.
So you better start exercising and eating right.
That was just as true. Exactly. All right. Well,
then. So that was kind of the the activity side
then. And that was, you know, a very powerful
moment. And I'd love to hear, you know, if you
circle around to that as we progress through
this conversation. You mentioned about being
inspired as far as the law enforcement side through
your stepfather as you were kind of getting to
the end of high school. What were your career
aspirations at that point? You know, initially
I was actually in Navy ROTC down in Florida for
a few years. But being on a boat did not interest
me at all. I was like, no, not going to do it
in the Air Force. It was just they really came
after me pretty hard because of my test scores.
And initially I was going to go EOD because I
had the test scores to make it, which is a very
small career field. But I would have had to wait
another six months to get into a class. I just
I wanted to go. I didn't have a real desire to
go to college. So there was nothing in my little
town of Dade City, Florida, that was keeping
me there. So I decided to move on. And the quickest
class I could get to was an aircraft armament
class. So I think a month after I graduated,
I was at basic training at Lackland. And that's
where it all started. Now, educate me. The B
-2 bomber, is that what we know as a stealth
bomber? Yes. So the one that looks like a big
bat wing? Yeah. And that was an intense job.
I mean, you're working on a $2 billion piece
of equipment, you know. And this was in the late
90s where there was only 10 of them in existence
when I got there. They didn't have the full fleet.
And we were part of, you know, the development
of a lot of the weapon systems that went into
that plane. And we were also the career group
that was the first use of that combat plane,
whether it be Kosovo, Afghanistan, we were there.
So 9 -11, we were all on the flight line during
a big exercise. And within 24 hours of that.
We were reloaded up, ready to go overseas and
handle business. So talk to me, expand on that
a little bit more. That day, you've been in,
what, a couple years, three years by that point?
How did that day unfold through your eyes, and
then how did that shift as far as operationally
for you? Oh, that was intense. A lot of people
don't even want to talk about that back then.
One thing a lot of people don't know is all the
bombers in the United States and globally were
part of an exercise that day called Global Guardian.
And these nuclear exercises, when they happen,
they're very precise. And there's a lot of secret
stuff that goes on and how it's done. But a lot
of it's regulatory based on the START treaties
and how everything has to happen. The pilots
had just responded out to their aircraft for
the mock exercise. And my load crew was actually
in the, we had a little kitchen on the flight
line where you could go in and get a hot meal
if you couldn't make it to the chow hall. And
we're standing in line when we saw the planes
hit. And we thought it was kind of a joke. Like,
what is this? Like, this can't be real. And then
all of a sudden, all the sirens went off. And
by that time, the pilots were actually on their
way back in to finish the exercise. And it was
the first time, I think, since the Cold War that
the planes were fired up and ready to move. It
was scary because we all heard codes and words
and things that had never been spoken in public.
And you see a six pack. Four -wheel drive truck
spinning out, driving about 80 miles an hour
to a bay. You're like, this is serious. This
ain't no exercise. Within 24 hours, we were downloaded,
re -uploaded, and ready to go strike targets.
Interesting story about that is General Tibbetts.
I served with his grandson. you know you got
general paul w tibbets that was involved in uh
the bomber back in the day and now i'm working
on the b2 bomber with his grandson so it was
being part of history you don't really realize
it when it's happening that's crazy so did that
involve you actually deploying to the middle
east to be alongside the bombers not at all no
see they don't they don't land overseas it's
a 34 -hour mission round trip so and it's It's
intense because you're just waiting. There's
a lot of communication that goes back and forth,
but you go to work, you come home, you go to
work another day, you come home, go back to work,
and you catch that plane that left two days before.
You can't even wrap your mind around these guys
have been stuck in that little cockpit for 34
hours accomplishing this mission. Are they rotating
crew? you know you're getting some crew rest
yeah so it was uh it's an interesting time early
on in my career absolutely so you mentioned that
was kind of like half of your career and then
obviously the second half was in the special
investigations what was kind of the rest of that
like for you as far as you know the the the war
has begun now obviously there's a there's a shift
in op tempo kind of you know walk me through
the through line for the rest of the aviation
side After the B -2 program, I went to Korea
and I was supposed to work on F -16s, on all
the equipment like the bomb racks and the missile
launchers, the gun systems. But they had a position
open for a security manager for the maintenance
squadron. It's kind of like a back office job.
And Korea is kind of like one of those places
you come off the plane, you get plucked, you
do what you got to do. but i had a lot of fun
there too um because i got down into the weeds
worked with the security forces quite a bit on
the anti -terrorism force protection side of
things i actually got to drive one of the last
armored personal personnel carriers in the air
force wrm inventory while i was there so that's
something that was in like world war ii you know
we're still messing with it on an island in korea
or on a peninsula korea um A lot of, you know,
with anti -terrorism force protection, started
seeing the political and danger side of things
and the threats that we were facing. You know,
when you live on a base and you do certain things
on a base, you're worried about what you're doing.
The guys that are outside worry about what's
going on to keep you protected inside. So you
never have to worry about anything really bad
going down on a military installation. until
recently, unfortunately. But being able to see
how all that kind of worked together in the investigative
side of things, I started getting exposed more
to the counterintelligence world and identifying
the threats before they became a threat, for
the most part. What about your time in Korea,
the Korean people? Talk to me about, it's so
interesting hearing elements of culture some
that may be you know really progressive and have
elements that we should be using here and then
vice versa obviously there might be some that
are maybe behind in some areas you know the biggest
thing I could say because I went from Korea to
Italy and that was a polar opposite because you
know a Korean will work eight days a week 25
hours a day for very little money and just to
make you happy like If you're buying a blanket
or something on the street from them, two shop
owners will start bickering back and forth until
you're paying maybe a tenth of the price for
one of them. And there's no way they can make
money like that. A lot of times it's a show,
but they really enjoy the American people. And
if you treat them right, they treat you right.
But then I went to Italy and tried to set up
a house and an Italian. Italian told me this.
He said, look, you Americans, you live to work.
We work to live. Figure that out, right? I'm
like, okay. So, you know, in Italian, they want
to work four days a week, seven hours a day.
And if it gets done, it gets done. So very, very
laissez -faire, right? It's awesome. Like it's
the European style of things. Like you shouldn't
have to work yourself to the bone. every single
day to be able to scrape by a meager existence
um you know and that can go a lot of different
ways i think it's the families that support that
you know you see family values everywhere but
it seems to be a little bit stronger in some
areas in europe um more protected i guess you
could say um there's just so much division here
everything's getting ripped apart It's interesting
if you look at, obviously, a lot of Hispanic
cultures, as you said, Italian, Portuguese. My
mom and my brother both moved there from the
UK. You have that community. You have, again,
yes, they work, but the tempo is a lot less.
And then you have multi -generational households.
Rather than, oh, I kicked my son out at 18. Now
he's got to pay for his own apartment. And then
grandma's living in another place over there.
it makes a lot more sense to have one, you know,
and having everyone together. And obviously if
the son gets married and then they get their
own home, but there's a lot of things that we
do, you know, I think that totally missed the
boat. And we have people now that have to work
two jobs so they can pay for daycare for their
children when the village used to take care of
everyone's kids, you know? So I think we've,
we would do well to kind of circle around to
the way we used to do it a long time ago. Well,
speaking of that. we had a reunion of uh some
afghanistan buddies um last year and uh we were
blessed to have our interpreter back here um
and somebody asked him what's the biggest difference
between our cultures and he thought for a second
and he said you know when your parents get old
you kick them out and you put them in a home
he said i don't care if everybody in our family
hates each other At least one person will stay
in the home with the parents and take care of
them. That is their duty, their honor duty. And
that blew me away. Like you ain't wrong, buddy.
Like everybody's just putting folks in homes
instead of actually caring for themselves. It's
become a business, an expensive business. You
start going down that route and see how many
hundreds of thousands of dollars get sucked up,
taken away from families. Cultures are different.
Going back to Italy for a second, it's interesting.
As you said, we are the kind of capitalistic
idealism that was sold to us, this chasing the
mighty dollar, the monopoly. You look at the
progressive businesses now, they're actually
going to a four -day workweek, a four, nine -hour
workweek, a three -day weekend for these people.
They've done it in Iceland, they've done it in
the UK, huge success. I know it's taken off here.
And it's kind of ridiculed by some people, like
you said, you know, I'll sleep when I'm dead.
But you're missing the point. The point is your
family. You don't owe it to a corporation that
doesn't care. You know, the moment you leave,
another person will be there. Same with the fire
department, same with the military. When that
line is crossed where it goes from, of course,
we've got to work. But now you're putting the
job ahead of your family. As a culture, I think
we've become skewed at that point. Well, I mean,
isn't that what? Every time we talk, we bring
up another rabbit hole. When we talk about how
mothers were taken out of the household so that
the government could get a second tax base. Now
they expect both mommy and daddy to work. Who's
going to take care of the kid? And then teachers
wonder, well, why are you not raising your kids?
We're both at work. Yeah. A number of people
I've had on this show that have said the phrase,
I was a latchkey kid. And that's, you know, both
parents that care, but they've got to pay the
mortgage. They got to pay for food. They got
to pay for the clothing and the schooling costs
and all these other things. So, you know, I think
what I've realized and all these people have
had on the show, including people from Afghanistan,
is there are elements of every single culture,
every single country around the world that are
doing things better than anyone else. And if
we can just have the humility as a global, you
know, international community. to learn from
each other is that the rising tide lifts all
ships you know if we look at norway's prisons
we look at finland's education system you know
the uk's healthcare before they it up the nhs
at its core you know there are such great great
um models that everyone else could use and obviously
the states we have many many areas that are fantastic
but you know if you just arrogantly beat your
chest and say we're the greatest country in the
world well we have you know just countless school
shootings and 70 % of the country is obese and
we consume 75 % of the world's opioids and 25
% of the world's incarcerated population, you
can't run around saying you're the greatest country
in the world. It's just, that's not, it doesn't
work that way. But if you're humble and you ask
other countries, how did you do that? We're struggling
with that. What did you do? Imagine the changes
that we'd work, you know, make us an entire planet.
you know if everyone just you know knowledge
shared and was just humble you know i find it
hard to find people that have been out of their
county or state though sometimes so there's so
many people with a very very narrow mindset and
they're not willing to ex accept any outside
changes at all levels you know whether it's somebody's
never left their county or somebody that's in
a position of power in the legislative branch
they're these processes and procedures and legislative
rules like it's it's all seen to stifle all of
that like it doesn't matter if you've got the
absolute best idea that could solve problem x
i guarantee you there's five out of ten people
that you got to get through that are just gonna
say no without even considering it and that's
what's disappointing you know you can't make
any progress like that it's funny you say that
because and people listen to this podcast have
heard me talk about this so much but firefighters
in america on average work 56 hours a week and
As they have got sicker and as we lose more,
you know, and these working conditions get worse
because fewer people want to work and now there's
more vacancies, so people are forced to work
more overtime. I have been saying for a long
time, not the only voice, but certainly one of
them, that we have to change the way we work
our firefighters. And the solution is what they
call a 24 -72, so a 42 -hour work week. If people
could see the resistance that I got, especially
at the beginning. From the very people, even
that you're trying to help, that'll never happen.
They'll never go for it. There's not the money.
All the reasons why not to and not even a breath
was taken to ask, well, how can we make this
work? But here we are now in 2025 and in Florida,
I just actually was told of a North Carolina
one that went to it. But Florida, we've had,
I think, 11 departments change in the last two
years. And it's happening. It's a revolution.
It's dying. But that's because. We managed to
finally circumnavigate the red tape, the apathy,
the cowardice, all the barriers that were there,
because the end result is you're going to save
money. You're going to save lives. You're going
to save families, period. There is it's irrefutable.
And I hope that then kind of push the conversation,
realize that that can be applied to other areas
to all these areas where you said, oh, that will
never happen. You've got to ask yourself, well,
why not? Why would that not happen? You know,
what are the barriers and how can we start smashing
through them? Well, see, again, when you're changing
a process in the capitalist society, you're you're
not just affecting that process. You're affecting
everybody else involved in that process. So there's
such a resistance to change because people are
going to be worried that their businesses are
going to be undercut in some level of fashion.
You know, with the medical marijuana legalization
legislation that I've dealt with, as we spoke
with before, law enforcement is a huge. barrier
in a lot of these conversations but that's their
charge to be right like they're supposed to be
if you have a chief of police that says they
support against you know going against the law
then that's not what their charge is so um it's
difficult for a lot of these entities to change
because they're they're responsible to somebody
and they don't want to get knocked off or whatever
I think that one of the great things that Kentucky
did is the Kentucky Association of Chiefs of
Police stayed neutral on this situation and allowed
Kentucky to pass the medical cannabis issue.
And, you know, the biggest hurdle I saw there
is the eradication efforts that the different
task forces deal with. A lot of local departments
get so much funding from having a member on some
of the drug war task forces that if they lose
that money, they can't afford to have that officer
anymore. So they think that any legalization
is going to lead to less enforcement actions,
which it may, which it should. But we're seeing
positive change. I was talking to someone the
other day and I made the statement, which I've
said many, many times when it comes to the pharmaceutical
company, there's no money in healthy people.
There's no money in dead people. There's only
money in sick people. And I was corrected and
they said, well, no, there's a lot of money in
healthy people. That's where the prevention medicine
come. And I was like, you know what? You're absolutely
right. I mean, it's still that that phrase still
makes sense. But if we're really kind of digging
a little deeper and I think this is what has
to be understood. is, for example, you have this
revolution, you change the way we do schools,
you serve real food, you get the soda machines
out, you put PE programs in, now the nation becomes
healthy. Yeah, as far as treating disease with
medication, there will be a loss, but there's
a great opportunity now for the prevention side.
The same with supermarkets. Look at all the healthier
food that's now in local publics and all the
other places around. And I think with law enforcement,
you know, rather than looking as like, oh, no,
we're going to lose this budget. It's like, all
right, well, then where can we reallocate those
funds? We don't need to be kicking in doors anymore.
Well, we still are because we're chasing the
dealers and the smugglers. But, you know, the
addicts that were being chased, you know. That's
gone away. But now we can go into the proactive
policing, the one that everyone talks about,
the community policing, interacting with the
agencies, putting two people in a vehicle rather
than one, which never made any sense to me. So
there's absolutely a way of reallocating manpower
that continues, you know, creating a much healthier,
safer society rather than looking at it as if,
well, if the war on drugs fails, then we're going
to lose all our, you know, whatever bonus stipend.
Let's allocate that. And it shouldn't be. It's
just like, OK, we tried reactive. Reactive doesn't
work. Let's try proactive instead. Yeah. And
that's part of my story. How many pharmaceuticals
I was on. Way too many for way too long. And
I had I really had no idea. It was the doctor
that medically retired me finally told me, he
said, bro, if you don't stop like. you need to
retire. Like you, you might have three to five
years left. I'm like, Ooh, that hit pretty good.
That stings. But it wasn't about the meds. It
was just stopping the job. And yeah, it was disappointing
to look back and be like, there were so many
different ways to have handled this thing. But
I guess it had to be my journey, which is, you
know, kind of why I came out. In support of this,
when Kentucky started legalizing it or started
the discussion of it, the governor actually created
a commission that would go around to different
areas in the state and set up an event for anybody
that wanted to speak. So I went to one of those
events and it was the first time I'd ever told
my story in public. And afterwards. one of the
drug task force officers actually came up and
shook my hand like thank you because he's you
see it inside all the time while you're there
but you don't really get it i i didn't comprehend
it until i've been out for a while then you're
looking in on folks and you're looking with a
different lens now and it's it's uh worrisome
absolutely Well, before we get to that part of
your story, let's kind of go to the journey into
law enforcement. So how did you actually find
yourself into that side and then kind of walk
me through the special investigation side? It's
kind of complicated to get into OSI as an enlisted
guy. You have to wait a certain time. And then
I was overseas, so you can't disrupt an overseas
cycle. So you got to wait until. that cycles
over. So I knew in around Korea timeframe, I
wanted to go into OSI, but I had a follow on
to Italy. So I was on the F -16 program there
for a few more years. And as I was transitioning
out, that's when I started the training to go
into OSI. So left Italy in 05 and then went directly
to Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. in
Georgia and then did all that training and then
stationed in Little Rock, Arkansas for my first
place. Worked a lot of drug cases back then too.
It's funny how it comes full circle. You got
some idiot selling a little nugget of weed on
base and OSI gets excited like, oh, we've got
a dealer on base. That's a big deal on the military
installation. It's interesting because a lot
of those deals would end up to a cartel buy eventually.
I knew guys out west that we'd end up with a
small drug bust on base, and I mean small. Two
more people up, we're selling meth for machine
guns down the street. All within a day and a
half, so you never know where that stuff's going
to lead. But again, I was always taught. that
everything was bad and you know these are laws
you got to follow this stuff's horrible for you
um but uh we'll get to that in a little bit um
so first spot was a little rock and uh unfortunately
most of the cases out there were um sex assaults
or uh sexual exploitation cases or cyber cases
um this is against our own military by our military
No, actually it was a combination. It was OSI
has jurisdiction over the person, not the crime
really. So if a military member does something
in a certain place, I know any OSI entity could
investigate them, write a report and present
that to whether it be a military judge, a federal
judge or local prosecuting authority. So we have
victims that are civilians. We had victims that
were military, some with connections in the military,
some with no connections. But really the key
was what did the person do? And if they did it,
then we have jurisdiction over it if it's felony
level and above. One really good thing I'll say
about OSI is they're one of the most thorough
investigative agencies to an annoyance. Like
even if an investigative step doesn't make sense,
a lot of times they'll do it just to prevent
somebody from saying, well, why didn't you do
this? And that's not just for the law enforcement
side of things. It's more for the legislative
side of things. When mom or dad has a situation
that their child was involved in the military,
now they're going to be calling their congressman
saying. Hey, this is this happened and I wanted
investigated. So then a congressional inquiry
gets started and all those records have to get
back. And you have to basically look at, OK,
what is the craziest question you're ever going
to get about this case and investigate it? You
know, a local PD suicide case might be three,
four pages. Ours might be four to five hundred.
Oh, wow. Because you're trying to find root causes
and ways to change processes, support the entire
process and be as open as you can about it. I've
had quite a few people on here. Some were victims
of sexual abuse when they were serving. Others
were, again, law enforcement side. And this seemed
to be a kind of running theme. that a lot of
them were surprised by the prevalence of sexual
assault in the military. Was that something you
experienced too? I wouldn't say that was the
weirdest thing. I would say the manipulation
of the system was the weirdest thing I saw. And
not as early on, but as the laws started to change
and the terminology started to change, things
became blurred. It almost weaponized part of
the justice system. And I don't say this just
for victims, but even people that are defending
against it have been caught up in this before.
I've had several cases that were actually disproven
where somebody created this story to better themselves.
The Air Force had a program called expedited
transfer. So if you were sexually assaulted and
you reported it, the command had 72 hours to
make a decision whether you were moved or not.
And I'd never seen one denied, but it didn't
allow for any investigative steps to be taken,
really. The investigators weren't involved. And
I saw that weaponized. We actually had one case
where somebody came in and said I was. It was
actually a female on female said, I was raped
by this girl. We didn't know that a phone call
took place a couple months prior from her friend
to the so -called suspect saying, if you don't
stop telling people that y 'all slept together,
we're going to claim you raped her. And this
was a sexual event that actually occurred in
public in front of other people. But nobody would
say anything. So the person that was the suspect
was actually the victim because it was a false
accusation. And they were so scared to say anything
that it took five months of investigation to
open up some of those things. And nothing ever
happened to the person that lied. So, you know,
I've seen the worst of the worst, but then I've
seen. the system manipulated just as much. It's
disappointing to see. I will say that the federal
government, every case that I submitted to them
was prosecuted to absolute perfection. I think
this is what's so angering about the false outcries
is it's a spit in the face for everyone who's
truly assaulted because for every cry wolf example,
it casts more and more doubt on the real assault.
Unfortunately, yeah. And it's interesting, though,
because the military has done so much to support
any type of victim. Like a sex assault victim
now gets a counselor, an advocate and a lawyer,
all three. And they don't ever have to talk to
an investigator if they really don't want to.
That hampers things, but. The government or the
military has bent over backwards to help folks
in those times of crisis. And to see some of
those situations where it's abused is very disappointing.
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's just a societal
issue. If there's something somebody can take
advantage of, they're going to at some point.
I've made this observation a lot recently. What
I've seen is also the danger is then people focus
on the abusers to disprove the system. So perfect
example, you know, we in law enforcement and,
you know, fire and EMS, we see the abuse of food
stamps, government housing, etc. But there'll
be an escalate on the front front driveway and
then the kids are in rags, barely any food around.
But so that will be used as an example. This
is, you know, the welfare abusers and all this
stuff. But no one ever talks about. the other
90, 95 % of people that use that to get back
on their feet. The success stories of, you know,
welfare, for example. So same with, you know,
the kind of half -assed attempt to not even decriminalization,
but not arresting addicts in Seattle and some
of those places without putting the tools you
need to start healing people in place at the
same time. So I feel like sometimes people weaponize
those bad case examples so they can go see it
doesn't work. and ignore the massive majority
where it does work absolutely and that you know
that's it's hey watch over here what i'm doing
what's over here you know like oh see that doesn't
work okay that's one instance right there but
you don't have any of the support structure it's
just the sound bites it's the social media you
know if it's longer than 10 seconds nobody's
going to pay attention absolutely Well, you said
that was in Arkansas. So how did you find yourself
deploying to the Middle East then? Within a couple
of years, most agents end up going somewhere.
So I went through the training pipeline and then
I knew, OK, well, my time's coming up and we
go through the training classes. And what they
try to do is everybody trains together, goes
to a place together. I can't remember really
how my first one went. I didn't train with too
many of the folks that I ended up working with.
I think I was out of cycle for it. There was
like a middle cycle in there where a few folks
went to a class and deployed and there were some
delays. But that's when things started getting
rough because it was November. I was supposed
to deploy November 11th, 2007. And I had actually
been trying to get over there a little bit early
because. There was just like a 12 -day gap that
I didn't want to deal with. But because of the
SOFA agreement, I couldn't get there until the
two weeks into November because of how many people
were on the ground already. And unfortunately,
on November 1st, 2007, the folks where I was
going to were attacked with a triple -stacked
anti -tank mine at Balad, Iraq. So Tom, Nate,
and Dave were all... killed in that event um
and after that you know you're going through
a recovery process but everybody's prepping to
go catch the bad guys too so osi is pretty robust
they uh bring in a team of ast guys which was
the anti -terrorism support team kind of like
a flyaway group guys that are really trained
to the hilt they can come into any mission and
jump in with you and start executing it So I
got there 10 days after the attack. And the commander
I had, awesome dude. Great guy. To see how he
was treated after that event was pretty disappointing.
I think that's where I got a lot of my fire inside
of, okay, I really don't care what your opinion
is anymore. We're going to do what we need to
do, how we need to do it. I'll call them Major
G. Major G said, by the end of your deployment,
I expect you to crawl on that plane. And that's
what I did. It was weird, though, because like
I had during the missions, it was all go, go,
go, go, go. There wasn't a single sad thought
in my mind like it's catch these guys, take them
out, keep our folks safe. These emotions didn't
exist back then. So six months goes by, catch
a lot of them. That's a whole other story. It
didn't go too well. But within that six months,
the folks that you met and the folks that you
went on missions with, that's your family. That's
the brotherhood. To this day, I call some of
them up right now and I know they'll answer.
And at that point, I wasn't on any type of medication.
But then. The coming back process is weird. The
Air Force has a program where you go somewhere
for a few days and then to supposedly relax,
they make sure you're not going to lose your
mind or anything. And then you have to be back
at work for the next two days. So you go from
a combat environment, three days of relaxation,
two days in an office stateside. And the only
really thing anybody's worried about is you sitting
behind a computer doing computer -based training.
I mean, literally, it's fire extinguisher safety,
how not to respond to phishing emails. You go
from a combat environment to that. So I had 16
hours of computer -based training. I was ready
to throw the computer to the wall. Sure. You
can't do that and then come right back to that.
It just didn't make sense. So I go on vacation
a couple of weeks, come back and I'm sitting
at a conference room table and there's a young
lady across the table from me talking about something
that was, you know, in the environment, it was
the right discussion to have. She wasn't doing
anything wrong. Nothing derogatory at all, but
to me, it was so minuscule that I was so angry.
this has nothing of importance to it. Why are
we wasting time when we could be out saving lives?
And I had to get up and walk out. My commander
then walks out. I said, what's going on? I was
like, I don't freaking know. And then that's
when the dope started. It's like, I go to a doc.
Here's some effects for XR. This will work. And
it did. It really worked great. Brought everything
back to normal. I wasn't as angry. I was a little
bit calmer. But there was a lot of ups and downs.
So then it started with the clonazepam. And then
I hurt my back a little bit over there. So then
I started getting on muscle relaxers. So I'm
on a ton of stuff. I ended up having to have...
I had compartment syndrome in both my lower legs.
So after Iraq, I actually had to have surgery,
um, departmental release on both. Um, and then,
you know, that's a pretty big surgery and you're
supposed to like just barely walk for six months
with that. Um, but the military wanted me to
do a PT test after three. So I did it. um made
it through it because at that time if you didn't
even if you were on a profile for a medical condition
if you did not meet this they were going to start
processing you for separation didn't matter how
good of a worker or person you were if you were
on a waiver they were going to separate you so
looking back i probably should have said the
heck with it um Because that's eventually what
I was told. They said, you should never even
went to Afghanistan in the condition you were.
Because I deployed to Afghanistan on all those
medications and more. I mean, so bad that my
wife's shipping them to me because I can't get
them overseas. At any rate, man, I did a great
job. I did what I was supposed to, but I shouldn't
have been on all that. Absolutely. was that the
same kind of job description as far as the terrorism
side when you went to afghanistan as well um
yeah for the most part uh it was a weird afghanistan
was a weird gig um especially how i met hunter
actually stole his bed one night i rolled it
up like dude i have no place to sleep he's like
take my bed i'm like you're the commander giving
your commander giving his bed away Like, dude,
thank you. But I was part of a, it was actually
a SOCOM mission out on the border of Pakistan
in the Khyber Pass. So for folks that are familiar
with that place, it's a joint coordination center
in the Khyber border coordination center at FAB
Torkham. And you can still Google Earth that
and see right where it's at. So that whole area
around the gate, Torkham Gate, That was my playground
for a little while. And the specific mission
was just protecting the mission that I was on
and the people that I was with. But there was
a lot of intricacies back and forth with that
and a lot of multinational involvement. And most
people think counterintelligence is all like,
you know, running through the mountains, searching
people out. Now, sometimes I could just be having
tea with a guy on the side of the road. getting
a little bit of information. So we had a special
individual that was really important to us. And
his son was in a car wreck. I think he was about
six or seven and fractured his pelvis and severed
his urethra. And the medical care that was available
then. Could not really take care of the kid.
The guy even took his kid to Syria and Syria
couldn't do it. Well, I was able to kind of sneak
this family on to a certain military installation
and an army surgeon fixed this kid. And that
that that process blew my mind because I'm just,
you know, a guy trying to help somebody like,
hey, look, you're helping us. Let me help you.
But the only way he would let it happen is if
I was in the operating room with the boy. So
I didn't have time to talk to the surgeon prior
to him going into another surgery. So he invited
me into a surgery before and it was an IED victim
that he's working on. I'm just an information
gatherer, man. And now I'm in the middle of an
operating room. So that was pretty intense. And
then, you know, being there with the kid. um
to be welcomed into that family because you know
typically in afghanistan you only deal with like
the man it's a very hierarchy type process but
when we saved this little boy he actually brought
his wife in and we took a picture together so
to have a picture with the wife there like that's
unheard of so That's the good stuff. It's funny
that you tell that story because I always ask
a two -part question. I'll start with dovetailing
on what you just said. When we at home get fed
news, I'm using that term very loosely, about
the war, the last 20 years at least, it's usually
completely politicized. all the way one way,
kill them all, let God sort them out, or it's
all the other. They're all baby killers. And
in the middle are our men and women that are
out there with the flag on the shoulder, protecting
the people in the indigenous population, the
people overseas, obviously. And we never hear
about the atrocities that they do witness, which
we'll get to in a second. But then more importantly...
The kindness and compassion, whether it's from
our own military or whether it is the indigenous
population. So you've just talked about one beautiful
example, whether it was Iraq or Afghanistan.
What are other moments of humanity that you remember?
I think the first one that really blew my mind
in Iraq was we were along this canal and we walked
into this village and the kids got so excited
and they wanted this. take us to show us their
animals that they had been raising like the parents
had turned over the um little bricked off area
to the kids and the kids were raising animals
and like i'm in full kit and this kid walks up
to me with a lamb and just hands it to me like
it's cool like uh just it's There's so much humanity
all over the place. You know, every person I
met that was not extreme, or what's the word,
had not been exposed to extremism was the most
kindest person I ever met. I mean, folks with
nearly absolutely nothing would stop and start
making us tea. You know, they tell you there's
two things you don't want to talk about, and
that's politics and religion. And all they want
to do is talk about kind of politics and their
religion. But if they hadn't been exposed to
a lot of extremism, it was such a simple understanding
of God and a higher power. Now, whether you call
that Allah, God, or whatever, Yahweh, it doesn't
matter. It's a higher power to them. And that
needs to be respected. But if you meet somebody
that says, I want you to change to be a Muslim.
And if you don't, you need to respect our religion.
Well, that tells me right there that you're the
extremist in this situation. And that can be,
you know, just within a few different villages.
You can get that polar opposite idea. And a lot
of it has to do with the tribe. You know, people
don't realize that if you took a picture of Iraq,
Afghanistan and Cincinnati, Ohio in mid 70s,
you probably wouldn't have been able to tell
them apart. Their architecture, their people,
their clothing, all the same. But then when all
the extremist ideology started getting pushed
and the Sharia law and the Iranian influences,
people forgot. where they came from and they
allowed this horrendous activity to occur um
you know one of the other side of things where
i was telling about that guy bringing his wife
into the hospital room on the polar opposite
side of that one of the first guys i talked to
in iraq were in his living room just started
talking and his wife walked in and he yelled
at her told her to get her ass out and said a
lot of derogatory things about her and basically
said she belongs in the kitchen, in the ground,
or producing the children. That was his extreme
view. Us as military members, we have to utilize
this individual if they're in a political power
leader. We can't change their thoughts, so we
have to be around that and accept it. And I think
that's why you saw a lot of women making a lot
of progress in some of those roles. You know,
there's one side of the fence that says women
shouldn't be in combat. One side says you should.
It's up to the person. I had a lot of women on
my teams and they did great. They met the standards.
No issues. And they got a lot of information
out of the ladies in the kitchen. Because when
old men aren't around, The lady may say something.
That could be the difference of us getting a
huge piece of information or not. It's funny
when you're talking about the extremism and then
you look at the way, and I'll pick on Christianity
because that's what I grew up around, the way
that some of that is pushed on us here in the
States. I personally believe that it is an individual
conversation with a higher power, individual,
that person's relationship with God or whatever
they want to call it. And I truly think that
you could take the universal doctrines of all
these different religions and whittle it down
to a page that just says, don't be a dick. That's
it. That's actually our house rule. There we
go. So, you know, whether you're talking because,
again, that that kind of chauvinism, you could
absolutely hear from an American or a British
and Australian man saying women belong in the
kitchen or making kids. Go get me a sandwich.
You know, we've heard that. So that transcends
cultures as well. The kindness, compassion, you
know, the humanity and the other side. And, you
know, hearing, for example, the extremism, one
of the things I know that's really. created like
moral injury on a lot of our warfighters is as
you said when they have to respect the local
laws and they've seen The abuse of women, the
abuse of children, you know, the special needs,
you know, family member that's chained up in
the backyard and they're not able to intervene.
And I think, you know, this it's so interesting
hearing, as I said, the boots on the ground conversation,
the men and women that were actually there, not
Fox News, not CNN, not Trump or Biden, but the
people that we sent over there. And what you
end up getting is. yeah over there most of the
people were beautiful people you know the dad
would be fixing the car and the mum would be
with the kids or whatever it was and then you've
got the horrible people just like we have in
america so when you humanize our air quotes enemy
all of a sudden you realize that it's not a black
and white conversation absolutely yeah definitely
um it really is a you know in those countries
there's such a huge gap between the people and
the leaders too um you know humans are a commodity
in those environments yeah and i think they are
here it's just it's different absolutely not
in not as as violent but it's more insidious
i mean again not if 70 of the population is obese
how many of them are on drugs how many of them
buy fast foods and sodas You know what I mean?
How many in the failed war on drugs are incarcerated
that are now free labor for industry that's using
prisoners for their labor? You know, it's the
same kind of thing, but disguised of democracy.
Self -licking ice cream cone. Well, so you're
in Afghanistan, you're on all these, you know,
psych meds now. Walk me through the transition,
the homecoming element from that deployment.
Homecoming was interesting because I didn't drink
too much while I was over there. Everybody sneaks
a little bit here and there. But as I got back
or as I was flying back because of who I was
and when I was flying, I ended up getting put
on a Delta flight the last part of the trip.
You know the stewardess and the pilots they know
if you're a military guy coming from a Mission
or something and they take really good carry
and this plane was half empty. They put me up
in first class and I mean, I think I still had
my beard on and I had a big Afghani blanket my
Afghani hat like I looked like Um, you know some
dude walking down Kabul Avenue And the stewardess
just kept bringing me vodka and cranberries.
And when you haven't drank a whole lot in a year
and you slam four or five of those, you're pretty
wasted. I don't remember the flight, but coming
home, a couple of my buddies who were Little
Rock cops showed up. And I remember walking to
them and over the speaker, he said, if you see
anything suspicious, please notify local law
enforcement. And I couldn't, they got me and
one in each arm keeping me up, like, because
I could barely stand up. My wife and daughter
there, they were pissed off because I'm shit
-faced. Like, and I had no comprehension. Like,
daddy's been gone for a year. Yeah, let's show
up shit -faced coming home. And, yeah, that was
not a good. I woke up the next morning laying
across the bed and looked around and realized
I was home. And my wife and daughter were in
the living room asleep on the couch. So I'm like,
oh, I screwed that up, didn't I? So drinking
pills just got worse from there. So then right
after that, we are. like two weeks after i got
back from afghanistan i got sent to montana and
i was in as a superintendent of the detachment
out there so i was in charge of uh operations
basically for the entire state of montana and
alberta canada until my retirement so what was
what was that kind of downward spiral for you
that was it kind of post um transition or was
it kind of did it straddle both No, it was definitely
when I got back from Afghanistan because I still
had that energy of, you know, we've got to go,
go, go, go, go. So I'm still working 10, 12 hours
a day every day minimum. And then there's nights
where we're not coming home or I'm sleeping on
the couch at the office. My wife's bringing me
changed clothes because we got called out on
a suicide or something. And you only got a handful
of people to. handle the entire state when something
pops off everybody's on deck um but you know
i was still on all those pills and it was just
continuation i think at the height of it i was
on 13 or 14. so i was in montana for let's see
i got back in 11. yeah so i was in montana for
right about three years and uh the only thing
that changed was my weight and my liquor intake
um i when i retired i was 230 pounds so um on
a cane um there wasn't much that wasn't wrong
with me back then um and i it's a quick process
when they medically retire you if everything's
in the pro in you know correct so it was like
four four and a half five months later i'm retired
and uh we went back to arkansas to try to pick
up where we had left off before because in my
mind you know i just left a law enforcement entity
and know a bunch of law enforcement entities
out there so that's probably what i should go
back to but i wasn't medically capable of it
um mentally or physically more both Every time
I tried to kind of veer back towards it, something
else always led me away, which I'm glad because
it got me to where I am today. But it was about
2015, 2016 when I started getting off the pills
and booze. Was there like a low point or was
it just a gradual kind of upswinging from that
point? You know, I was dealing with a lot more.
Well, when I came back from Afghanistan, I right
before I left for Afghanistan, I married my wife
and she had a 10 year old daughter. So as soon
as I get back, I start the process to adopt my
daughter. So now we're family and all that. And
I didn't comprehend how. certain things would
affect me after I had a daughter. So before when
I could go into an interview room and talk to
a pedophile for three or four days straight,
not straight, but like, you know, talk to him
on a Monday, bring him back in, talk to him on
a Tuesday and get statements from him, be perfectly
fine. I went from being able to do that to walking
out and needing to puke almost every time. Because
there's a process about it and you've got to
do it the right way if you want to get the right
information. And it's not like it's on TV. You're
not an asshole. You're not being mean. You're
not yelling and screaming. And that takes a lot
of suppression of emotions, I guess you could
say. You know, when you're talking to a guy that's
been talking to 10, 11, 12 -year -old girls and
he's in his 30s, it's kind of tough to deal with.
Did I answer that or done it? No, that did, but
I was talking about the low point. Obviously,
you had your daughter at that point. Now, obviously,
it's reframed the job. We hear this all the time,
police and fire, when we respond to child deaths,
etc. When you become a parent, it's a whole different
ballgame then. Absolutely. Now, I'm out of the
military. The environment's a little different.
My daughter's going to a public school in Arkansas.
she's behaving differently and i'm not really
knowing how to deal with it because i'm i'm a
newer dad i don't know how to raise a 16 year
old girl like what you know so um i guess the
loss of control um not being able to fix anything
because i was in an environment where when if
somebody said oh we can't do that. No, that doesn't
exist. We can do anything with the amount of
resources that we have. Like there is no limitations.
So when somebody says, I don't worry about that.
No, we can do it. Like, um, seeing her go through
what she went through, started having, um, I
felt more like this is horrible. Um, you know,
but part of that was the medications. Um, so
I remember one night, um something had happened
and i went out back and i grabbed a pipe and
i was beating the ever -loving out of a stump
um my mom told me i used to hammer nails in a
stump when i got mad at one i was i ended up
bending this pipe hitting it so hard and then
i punched the side of the building steel building
didn't break my hand luckily um but that's when
i started thinking like this has got to freaking
change and I went to work the next day and was
just kind of crappy. And the dude that I was
working with looked at me, said, dude, you need
to smoke some weed. I'm like, what? You're out
of your mind. You're crazy. Like, I'm telling
you, I ain't been a doctor in 27 years. You can
stay there being your miserable ass self or you
can go take a toke. Don't give a fuck about me.
I'm like, he was just so dismissive of like factual,
like, look, dumbass, you need to do this and
chill the hell out. So it was several days before
I even thought about it again. And then it was
a low point. But again, I was on these SSRIs
and I didn't realize how the ups and downs after
you're on them for a long time would do that.
So took a puff, man. Within 10 minutes, I was
like, all right, I don't want to shoot myself
anymore. Let's get back to work. When I started
going doing what I was doing and the rest of
the day I was fine I didn't have a negative thought
in my head. I wasn't really high per se But I
was down to a level like Okay, I can function
I can do this that I can do everything perfectly.
I'm not Drunk and slobbering like this is cool.
Like what I did that a few times and I was like
now I know why it's illegal Because within a
few weeks, man, I was dropping meds left and
right and stopping drinking. I'm like, I used
to drink a half a gallon of Wild Turkey 101 every
three days and all the meds. And I'm just dropping
them, dropping, dropping. Don't need this shit
anymore. Within a couple months, I go to the
VA. And the doctor that I had at the time had,
I think, 1 ,200 to 1 ,400 patients that he had
to see every year. Really cool dude. But, you
know, as you as soon as you start talking to
him, he's typing and putting in med refills and
doing all the worksheets and everything. And
you've got maybe five or 10 minutes with him
and he's out. So he's doing all that. And I was
like, hey, I don't need the meds. And he stops
and he looks at what? I don't know how to say
this, but I just smoked a bunch of weed and I'm
good. And he says. Oh, damn. I wish more of my
patients would do that shit. And he goes back
to typing. And I'm like, what? I said, what the
shit, doc? What the hell do you mean by that?
He's like, well, we're not allowed to tell you
that. He's like, look, I'll lose my license.
I was like, you've got to be kidding me. I said,
everything I've been told. He's like, yeah, it's
bullshit. And then I started opening my mind
and started reading and started seeing all the
interconnections. The biggest problem I had was
the effector. And that's where the psilocybin
mushrooms really came in handy. I had a coach
that I worked through with that. And it was nothing
like I was ever told. It was nothing like I ever
even assumed because of how it was used and how
it was presented and what I was going through
at the time. Which going back to the research
of what these medications do to you, Effexor
XR sits on the same receptors in your brain that
the psilocybin tries to work on. And the withdrawals
from the Effexor XR were so bad that it didn't
allow the psilocybin to truly give the, I guess
what you call the psychedelic effect, but it
took away all the side effects. brought things
back to a normal level so instead of what some
people call a trip it was just normalcy and that
blew my mind too i was like again this is why
it's illegal because it works but you know i'm
not just trying these things willy -nilly i'm
talking to folks that have years in the profession
and have helped numerous people overcome addiction
and issues in their life um traumatic events
and Up until then, this is a society that doesn't
speak out loud because they're targeted. It's
like, oh, OK, you guys aren't the bad guys. You're
the healers. Cool. How did you make that shift?
As I alluded to earlier, your community is such
an important voice when it comes to. What we're
seeing now as far as the therapeutic elements
of, you know, ayahuasca, whether it's psilocybin
or 5 -amil DMT or MDMA that we're seeing having
incredible results. But these are the drugs that
if you watch the 90s cops television show that
we would, you know, we they were chasing people
down for a bag of weed, you know, a mushroom,
whatever it was, and hooking them up after it.
Five mile car chase. So how were you able to
make that shift from I have been told that these
are bad. I have had to enforce these laws to
questioning the very origin of that law in the
first place. Well, you know, like I said, I was
always looking for the root cause or trying to
find how this began because I was trying to educate
people what I went through. But I needed to have
factual data to put along with it, in my opinion,
because. If I took a case to a federal prosecutor
and I didn't have, you know, evidence and facts
and data to back all that up, they were going
to laugh at me. I figured if I'm going to talk
to these legislators, I need this information
to back this up. So I started researching it
and what I found just kind of blew my mind. Starting
all the way back into the 30s, Mayor LaGuardia.
created a committee to figure out what was going
on with cannabis after Anslinger's created the
Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. So that whole research
said, yeah, there's nothing wrong with cannabis.
I'm paraphrasing. There's none of these issues
that you've presented as to why it's now prohibitive
exist. Like it's all been debunked. It's garbage.
But that lasted until I think 69 until the case
was Marijuana Tax Act of 37 was ruled unconstitutional.
But then that's when the controlled substances
list started in the 1970s. And what most people
don't know is that there was another commission
on top of that under Nixon. The Schaefer Commission
had 76 members and it was to identify the issues
with cannabis. 3 ,700 pages, and they come out
and basically say, yep, everything's been debunked.
There's no issues. It shouldn't be on a scheduled
list at all. And Nixon's mad and says, nope,
we're going to do it anyway. And he talks a little
trash about the Jews. He even calls, he's like,
those bastards are trying to legalize it. What
in the Christ are they thinking? That's a quote
from Nixon from the 70s. You're like, you're
not fighting fact with fact. You're fighting
this. I saw that there's no reason other than
a political gain and a monetary gain that any
of this stuff was illegal. You know, the racial
issues, the control of the people, of course,
all that. But ultimately, it's money and power.
And it still is. You know, the big fight now
is taking marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule
3 so that they can do a bunch of research and
it actually has a medicinal use. But I see that
as a double edged sword. As soon as you make
it a schedule three, now big pharma is going
to capitalize on it, manipulate it, do whatever
they want. And now they're going to charge you
an arm and a leg for something that you could
literally grow in your backyard for five bucks.
You know, so it's that hypocrisy that still boggles
my mind. But going from, you know, having to
enforce these laws and standards to seeing now
like, OK, there's nothing wrong with this at
all. When used in the right, anything can be
abused, but when used in the right way, this
is going to be fine. We need to get back to some
personal responsibility instead of letting some
scientist or politician behind the desk make
the calls for us. We were told to trust the science
with the COVID vaccine, which ended up being
a flip of the coin. We were told to trust the
FDA when they put OxyContin out into the world.
And Kentucky is one of the states that's struggling
with opioid addiction to this day. We were told
to trust the FDA, but they then refused to allow
MDMA led therapy recently. So these people that
we were told to trust over and over again have
shown us that they're not trustworthy. Absolutely.
And, you know, that's that is why there are so
many nonprofits and good organizations out there
doing the work that the VA. Can't or won't. You
know, there are in the last few years have been
a lot of changes. You know, the ketamine treatments
that I've seen locally, that's impressive. But
they still got a long way to go. The nonprofits
that I've seen, most of or a lot of them, you
know, you got to be careful. There's always somebody
trying to make a buck and just take advantage
of folks. I understand that the MDA. um therapy
issue was actually part of some of the research
that was going on one of the providers in that
ended up having a uh i think a relationship with
one of the um people that were involved in the
study so that kind of skewed some of the numbers
because you know with any of these natural medications
they can be euphoric and just the fact that you're
going from such a a traumatic state to something
better Whenever you're with somebody experiencing
that, it can be emotional and you don't want
somebody to take advantage of that. Whether male
or female, I've seen both happen. So it is not
just a male on female issue. It's all the way
around. Absolutely. Well, expanding on that,
I've told this story many times on here, but
it needs to be told to preface this whole concept.
As I mentioned, my brother and mother moved out
to Portugal about 25 years ago. And when I started
this podcast a year or so in, my mom said, did
you know what they did about drug prohibition
in Portugal? I was like, no. And she said they
had a horrendous addiction problem here. One
of the worst. And I say this every time. I got
to look it up one day. Either Europe or the world.
One of the two. But even if it's just Europe,
that's huge. Portugal is a very truly democratic
country. They actually listen to their people.
And what they did is like, look, we've tried
this American war on drugs model. It is not working.
So we are considering trying something different.
And I sat down with the guy who spearheaded this,
Zhao Gulao, when I was in Lisbon. And they said,
what we're going to do is we're going to treat
addicts with the medical community, not the law
enforcement community. they put the money and
this is the important thing they took the money
from the war on drugs some of it and they put
it into addiction counseling mental health counseling
job creation housing and their whole thing was
let's help that these people deal with whatever
it is that they're trying to fill the void with
drugs and in less than 10 years they went from
the worst addiction to the lowest in europe eight
years it was so When I kind of heard this, and
obviously you've got decriminalization and you've
got legalization, but in that model, what they
do is if you are caught with a user's amount,
like in cops, instead of being chased around
and televised, you are brought into an interview.
It's not even an arrest. And you're basically
educated on all the resources that are available
to you. Now you've got these people that were
in the shadows, that were in the clutch of the
underworld, that are now told, look, you're not
going to have... you know, an arrest record.
And we're going to give you the resources that
you need. And so most people do want to get better.
So when that stigma and that fear of arrest is
taken away, most of them came out and said, put
their hand up and said, yeah, I do want help
with this. And you have, again, as we alluded
to earlier, that small group that sadly are still
addicted to this day. But even them, they've
got safe injection sites and clinics where they'll
take their opioid, they'll be watched until they
know it's safe, and then they go about their
day. But hearing that, we've sat down with Zhao
twice, and then so many other people that are
kind of from your community that are leaning
into the same thing. Understanding that the prohibition
of drugs came on the back end of the failure
of the prohibition of alcohol and became job
justification and basically racism through Harry
Anslinger, in my opinion, having pulled yellow
sheets over so many victims of this addiction
crisis, I feel like the answer is to follow Portugal
and some of these other countries. stop arresting
addicts, give them all the resources that we
can to heal them, which in turn frees up law
enforcement and the court system to actually
come down with an iron fist on the dealers and
the smugglers. But that's my perspective. So
I'm going to give you the microphone now. It's
not wrong. It's a great perspective. And some
of what you said is actually putting the practice
here in Kentucky to some level. It's kind of
disappointing to see how it works. But in theory,
we have that. But with some caveats, they only
accept. So I ran the Northern Kentucky Veterans
Treatment Court for about almost two years before
I was just done with it. But it was a post conviction
court that could wipe off the crime. If you completed
it all the way. Because Kentucky lawmakers didn't
want to put the money into somebody unless they
had something to hang over their head. So they
want that conviction, say, if you don't do this,
you're going to go to prison. But an addict doesn't
give a shit. I'll get fed and clothed in there
and I can still get dope like it's OK. But the
process that we had, I could do all of that.
The difficult thing was the resources. So I had
to rely on the VA. There was what they call a
wrap provider, wraparound services. So I would
call these people up and they could get them
a job. They could get them clothing. They could
get, you know, training on certain aspects. The
resources were there to give out for the most
part. But then like housing, it was easy to get
a homeless veteran housing. What was difficult
is get them to not do the drugs in the housing
so that they didn't get kicked out of the housing.
But if I needed certain things here and there
for these folks, there were a lot of difficult
things. A lot of times it had to deal with medical
insurance. Okay, well, your insurance is only
good. You're on Medicaid. You only get 90 days
in this treatment facility. Well, this facility
doesn't take TRICARE West or TRICARE East or
whatever, so you can't go there. But somebody
right off the street could, but a veteran can't
because they've got Medicaid or TRICARE. So you
just want to send them to the VA. Well, in my
opinion, the VA treats a lot of... things the
same exact way so you got ptsd from a sexual
assault it's treated this way well you get ptsd
from warts treated the exact same way well you
can't treat those two people the same they're
not going to respond the same um and that's what
the system does it's not as tailored as it should
be um so you know from my experience a lot of
the non -profit veteran specific recovery and
rehabilitation programs that have a dual diagnosis,
you know, whether it be substance abuse and mental
health conditions that are outside of, I mean,
it's still a clinical setting, but it's for veterans,
um, that have come, you know, a lot of them are
vets and first responders, um, because it's so
similar in a lot of ways. I think first responders
are more traumatized on a regular than, um, military
folks because you do it every day. Like military
folks really only do it when they deploy. You
know, there's some hard times other places, but
it's not every single day like law enforcement
or firefighting. Yeah, absolutely. And even with
that wraparound thing, I had a guy on Rob Banghart,
who was a homeless addict, and he lived, and
I didn't even know this exists, underneath Las
Vegas is an entire network of sewers. And there
is a huge homeless population that lives under
there. And Rob ended up, again, through finding
the right kind of people, through counseling
and everything, ended up getting clean. And now
he spearheads a nonprofit. That's exactly what
you're talking about. Not just getting someone
clean, but looking at the housing, the job creation,
building the community, all the things that will
empower someone. You know, their environment
encourages them to thrive rather than fall into
addiction. But like you said, I mean, prison,
perfect example. I've had so many people from
the correction side, from the prisoners themselves
that have all said, Oh shit. Yeah. I can get
drugs so much easier in prison than I could out
of prison. So we're sending these addicts to
prison who are then, you know, ultimately getting
deeper into addiction because you've taken their
freedom from him. You've taken their community
and they still have access to drugs, but now
those drugs are also currency from predators
as well. So there you've got even more trauma.
Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's nonstop. Like it just
continues and continues and continues. And I've
seen a lot of good folks make it through the
rehabilitation processes through the court systems.
It's really a mind over matter thing. You know,
I had folks, you could see both the opposite
ends of the spectrum, right? You could have a
retiree that would come in that wasn't very respectful.
You could have somebody that did two years, never
deployed, that was absolutely respectful. You're
like, well, that should be opposite, shouldn't
you? So with the Veterans Treatment Court, it
really allowed folks to, you know, have that
tribe. Like I'd say, yes, sir. No, sir. Yes,
ma 'am. No, ma 'am. You would talk about your
service very direct, but it was there was a level
of respect amongst each other. Like, hey, look,
you're part of this program. We want to help
you. It's not we're not going to do the work
for you. But it's an opportunity. I think one
of the biggest things I did with the court program
is we had a guy that came in and he told a judge,
he's like, I'm sorry. I think he had gotten a
DUI and it was very minor, but he wouldn't talk
to him. And the judge was kind of odd or kind
of piqued his interest. He says, well, what's
going on? He's like, well, it's classified. I
can't talk to you about it. So they sent him
to the mental health court because they thought
he was crazy. And he talks to the judge at the
mental health court. I'm sorry, ma 'am. I cannot
talk to you about this. It's it's classified.
I signed paper stating that I cannot talk about
this. So they're like, well, Jared's military.
Let's go talk to him. So this kid comes into
my office and I say, kid, he's probably mid late
20s or something. And he's visibly shaken. He's
nervous. I was like, what's going on? He's like,
I don't know what I'm allowed to say. Like, I
know I've got these issues and I did this, but
they want me to talk about this. And to me, it
was like God playing chess. Like, okay, you need
to talk to this dude and tell him what's up.
Because I said, well, where'd you go? And he
tells me and I said, what unit number? And he
tells me, I'm like, oh, you're with these guys
doing this, this and this. He's like, how did
you know that? Like, yeah, I was with them, man.
Like I was, I know about them boys. Like I went
on missions with them. Like, it's cool. Like,
all you got to do is take out this piece of information
and it's no longer classified. I said, go talk
to the therapist. He's like, that's it? Like
instant relief on this dude, right? So he goes
back to the court and he says, I got it. I'll
handle it. If I go through all this process,
will you throw it out? The judge is like, absolutely.
One conversation, man. from somebody that actually
knew what the la were talking about like but
how many people really truly understand uh like
original classification authority with classified
documents they just know that if i sign this
document saying if i talk about it for 25 years
i'm going to prison yeah exactly and even with
the counseling side you know what they call the
culturally competent clinician You know, we the
number of horror stories I've heard, you know,
the EAP Russian roulette, basically, where these
poor first responders in this case get sent to
what ends up being, you know, a lot of these
counselors are like, oh, yeah, we deal with first
responders and they don't. And then they sit
in front of this person and they either burst
into tears or they tell them to get out. They
can't help them. And I've said this on the on
here a few times. Imagine how many first responders
or veterans. that aren't here anymore because
it was all they had left to say, I'm going to
go and find help. They get sent to the wrong
person and that ends up being the final nail
in the coffin. They walk out saying, yeah, I
am a piece of shit. And then they go end it.
So that was the path I went on. The first therapist
I spoke to in the military, I walked in, waited
for him to come in. As soon as he comes in, he's
probably in his mid or early 20s. He had just
graduated. And I come back from Iraq already
doing six months chasing all these shitheads.
So I'm pretty angry. And he's setting up a video
camera. And I'm like, I've been fighting a war
for six months and you want to videotape this
shit? He says, well, it's part of my certification
process. I'm like, uh -uh. He's like, well, what
do you want to talk about? I felt like I was
talking to a child. And I'm supposed to discuss
war trauma with you? Dude, I'm going to have
you in the corner crying here in about 10 minutes.
We ain't going to talk about the heavy shit.
So that was my first, okay, what the hell with
therapists? Yeah. And this was so dangerous with
the wrong people. And again, like you said, when
so much of this is coming from the wrong place,
whether it's just... death by red tape or whether
it is you know jogs justification power greed
etc i mean these are human lives and if we put
them in the wrong person in front of the wrong
person or give them the wrong drug i mean how
many you know antidepressants have those drug
warnings at the end of the commercial saying
you know might cause suicide ideation well isn't
that the very thing that we're trying to stop
and this is this is allowed So, you know, I mean,
it is it's so irresponsible. And what's exciting
now is what we're talking about. Hopefully, we're
going to look back one day and go, you never
guess what we used to do. So I woke up one night
after getting a new med and we were in Montana
and there's Lyrica. And I woke up in the middle
of the night and I would have bet you my paycheck
that demons were coming out of the wall. I was
like, I know this ain't real. But I'm seeing
it. I know it ain't real. And I call the doctor
the next morning. You know what they say? Well,
try it one more night. You try it one more night.
I'm like, oh, hell no. I'm supposed to be getting
better. Seeing demons ain't going to make me
feel better. Like, no. And that's where I just
had to stop. Listen to the hippie. Use the natural
meds. And then the more you learn about that.
um most people don't even know that you have
cannabinoid receptors in your brain there's cb1
and cb2 receptors that are specifically for cannabinoids
and it's it's crazy you know we saw a lot of
change in 2018 with the farm bill which is another
interesting story um most people don't know that
they changed the word hemp to an actual definition
So hemp, according to the federal government,
is now known as cannabis Steva L with a THC of
0 .3 % or less. I don't know how you can change
a word to a definition, but okay. But that's
what's even more interesting because, and this
came from the ATF by chance, because I'm in the
gun community. And they gave me two letters.
Three letters. Two of them said medical cannabis
or any type of marijuana is horrible. You can't
buy guns or do anything with them while you're
on it. But because of the 2018 Farm Bill, anything
that comes from cannabis, Teval, with a THC of
0 .3 % or less is no longer on the controlled
substances list to include THC. So it's a very
fine delineation, but that's why you've seen
a downtick in... simple marijuana crimes because
they can't really prove whether it's hemp or
marijuana unless you make a comment about it
so people are getting themselves into trouble
but in reality it's legal because most marijuana
doesn't have thc in it until you fire it up it's
thca so like one little letter makes a huge difference
in a legal doc document so In essence, it's all
legal. It's interesting because even if you look
at CBD, I've had numerous guests on here. I actually
had Dr. Bonnie Goldstein on who actually uses
cannabis specifically, THC, to treat all kinds
of things, seizures and many other areas, cancer.
But Paige Figge. was the mother of Charlotte.
So when you hear Charlotte's web attached to
CBD, that's her child. And she was, long story
short, basically dying. She was a twin. I think
she was like toddler age and tried all the things,
you know, new drugs, everything, nothing was
working. And because she was diving into any
solution she could find, she stumbled across
hemp. And so she had a company that she found
that made her basically a CBD formula. They put
it down the NG tube and the child started getting
better. And that was actually these horrendous
seizures that she would get to. And she ended
up living till I think it was nine or 10. And
ultimately, sadly, it was COVID when she got
febrile from COVID. She had seizures during the
night and she'd passed away. But she was given,
you know, eight years lifespan because of CBD.
And if you look what's happening to the CBD world
now, it's, you know, so, so hard for these people
to sell online, to market, to do anything. And
again, you know, but you can get all these antidepressants,
all these painkillers. Just go to your doctor,
ask your doctor for. But God forbid that you
get the, you know. the essence from a hemp plant
not even a marijuana plant a hemp plant that
is you know demonized by the fda when i started
getting involved with the legislative work um
i was actually i went the first meeting i had
with the uh one of the senior members of the
kentucky republican uh senate um i was with the
kentucky moms for medical cannabis and they all
had children that had severe issues and seizures
um to hear them speak about what it would take
to stop those seizures in public prior to any
type of cannabis oil was horrendous like you
you would never put your loved one through what
they had to do because of the way the laws were
and now these children can live somewhat of a
independent okay life seizure free because of
something that is absolutely all natural like
and you know if you're a believer in god in the
bible like genesis 1 11 starts talking about
seeds and plants and um that they're there for
our use so like you can't you can't preach out
of it and not support it right like so again
there's that hypocrisy there how many folks that
say they completely support the bible but will
not focus on that like well you can't have it
both ways yeah well i've said this on here before
how many people that walk out of a church and
say that um narcan is a waste on addicts that
the homeless need to be ushered over to someone
else's community you know that's not christianity
and it goes back to are you being a dick or not
yeah and but see here's the weird thing you know
i could get anybody that met the standard free
mat which is medically assisted treatment suboxone
methadone things like that but coming off suboxone
is harder than coming off heroin like i only
know a few people that have ever come off suboxone
but they don't tell you that when you're getting
put on it and it's absolutely free any addict
in kentucky can go get it for free but guess
what if you've got a felony conviction for certain
things you cannot get a medical marijuana card
in kentucky it's crazy but you can stay on your
suboxone well even with that ibogaine i mean
you know that's the other you know drug that
was seeing so much success i mean especially
in the the seal community that was the one that
seemed to have really kind of leaned into this
first but you know from a mental health point
of view it's phenomenal but especially addiction
alcoholism you know opioids etc they're they're
walking out not wanting it anymore and as you
said some of these you know um uh manufactured
substitutes opiates they they're not getting
off it it's just you know they're taking that
instead of the other thing but these people that
are going and doing ibogaine and 5 -meo dmt you
know are coming out with their receptors completely
reset now of course there is work to do because
you've still got to get to the thing beneath
the thing why do you even take it in the first
place i think that's where there's a misnomer
it's not a magic bullet but if you want to take
that pull of addiction away from someone and
then give them the ability to heal it sounds
like ibogaine is going to be one of the most
incredible plant medicines that was actually
one of the first ones i heard about because i'm
very blessed to have had one of the coaches that
started that special forces work with ibogaine
back in the day that's who kind of guided me
with the psilocybin But he gave me an example.
He said, so the way the process worked is you
prep for a few months, talk about intention,
what you want to do. It's a very guided process.
Then you go for a few days and then there's a
few months of follow up, possibly, you know,
a refresh in a year or so, depending on what
you're processing. And he said, and this guy
had the most extreme everything like treatment
resistant, medication resistance, absolutely
no progress on anything. He did all the prep
work. He goes in there first time, walks out,
says, like, I'm good, guys. I just had a six
-hour conversation with God. Ready to roll. So
they didn't have any follow -up with him, but
the guy's still good to this day from my understanding.
But literally, right after, like, okay, you tell
me any of the efficacy rates for any of the SSRIs,
effects or opiates. If you can give me above
50, I might even think about it. But I guarantee
you they ain't there. No. No, it's really exciting.
And as I said before, I think that we are on
a revolution in so many areas. Like there's a
revolution in my profession when it comes to
the work week, which is then going to lead to
fitness standards and access to more mental health
counseling and all things. And we're going to
switch from trying not to die to forging performance
in the fire service. That'll be the next step.
And I think nationally, there's an awakening
where people are realizing, no, we're not. doing
well there's a lot of areas where we do need
to fix there's a lot of people that made a lot
of money on the deaths of americans you know
tobacco big pharma you know sugar etc etc so
i find it really exciting that this conversation
now the plant medicine conversation not just
for mental health for so many other things like
one of my guests that did ibogaine she had you
know horrendous autoimmune disorders and that
went away after she started doing it so People
don't realize how your mind can affect your body
without you even knowing it. And it's like your
body is a process. It's trying to work on all
these little systems and processes. And if something's
out of whack, it's not going to function right.
The second I started getting off the meds and
started really researching everything. Everything
made more sense. I went TDY to Spain back in
the day and I'd forgotten my antiperspirant.
I'd always been told you got to use antiperspirant
so you don't sweat through your uniform, right?
And I walk into a pharmacy in Zaragoza, Spain,
and I asked the pharmacist, you got antiperspirant?
And he looks at me, he's like, oh, you stupid
American. He's like, deodorant's right there.
He's like, that shit's called your cancer. What?
He's like, yeah, the aluminum. You're stupid
putting that on you. Blew my mind. Like, that's
all on the shelves here in the U .S. Like, nobody
ever told me. And I used to get those lumps in
my pits. Well, as soon as I stopped using the
aluminum, they went away. Like, how the hell
is that affecting us? Exactly. And it's everything.
So then you start looking at what you drink and
what you eat. Now I don't even want to go out
to restaurants half the time because I don't
know what the hell they're putting in it. This
is what's exciting is that you can start identifying
it. It's overwhelming when you look at all the
things, but you can just begin. Do you use plastic
Tupperware? There's glass ones now in all the
stores. Like you said, the food, the types of
water that you're drinking, you can just chip
away. I use the Tom's antiperspirant. It actually
smells so much better than any of the cheap ones
I used to get. That has none of the parabens
and aluminium and all the other Things that we
now know are bad for us. But, you know, people
won't be able to remove those if they don't know
about them. So as this kind of health revolution
is, you know, gaining legs, firstly, people are
going to be empowered to change the way they
do things. And then hopefully the next step will
be all the healthier stuff will actually become
cheaper in the stores because you vote with your
dollar supply and demand. Dude, when I'm in a
hurry or was broke. You know, it's easy to go
get the $2 .99 cheeseburgers and power through
versus the $5 .99 or $6 .99 mini salad that you
can get. Like, well, I'm a broke airman. I'm
going to buy the two burgers. Yep. People vote
with their wallet, just like you said. Absolutely.
Well, I want to throw some closing questions
at you before I let you go, if you've got time.
Yeah. All right. The first one I love to ask,
is there a book or other books that you love
to recommend? It can be related to our discussion
today or completely unrelated. Yes, actually,
you know, I got a lot of buddies that have written
war books, but the most significant book that
actually helped me was a series by Lieutenant
Colonel Dave Grossman. There's a lot of. back
and forth on him, but if you've ever been in
his presence and listened to one of his talks,
it's pretty powerful. Um, after I read his books,
it had such an impact on me that I actually was
able to, um, obtain funding to send all my agents
in Montana to one of his, um, um, seminars prior
to them deploying. So I know that they had that
tool in their toolbox, um, to figure out, you
know, How is your mind going to behave before,
during, and after? A little bit more deeper than
anybody wants you to know right off the bat.
But by knowing that stuff, you can prepare. And
it's not for the faint of heart. He's got a lot
of research in there to back up his theories,
and it works. We just did, I think it was our
fourth conversation, literally about two months
ago. But I think he's fantastic. I mean, obviously
on combat, on killing, those are very prevalent,
but that's not... my area my profession specifically
where yeah that one and but then the assassination
generation I thought that was so well written
on this violence in schools that we're seeing
and he was the one of the first ones talking
about violent video games and I would admit I
was one of the ones going ah it can't be that
bad but then when you listen to the psychology
of the operant conditioning and the sleep deprivation
and all these things that are you know feed into
this and then the side effects of psych meds
and then you look at these school shooters over
and over and over again they're the same exact
quality so i mean he he hit the nail on the head
and i wish people would take that book as a kind
of bible to be like all right how do we start
reverse engineering all these issues so that
we don't create these lone wolf you know psychotic
episodes in these children you know his uh briefing
about that with the school shootings and how
the kids are behaving you know he does all the
um research about the beslan school massacre
how everybody behaved in that and how all the
multiple failures in it but i think the most
profound what he talks about is the phones in
schools and He had that study where a few schools
agreed to take the phones out and scores just
went skyrocketed. 30, 40 percent changes in classes,
less bullying, less problems on social media.
And Kentucky just did that. They made it a law
this coming year that they're not supposed to
generally have phones out during class. There's
going to be some exceptions. Kentucky went even
further, though, and they limited. student -teacher
communication. You can't text between student
and teacher anymore here in Kentucky, which is
good. I got a friend, Doug Orchard, who became
a friend again through this show, but he made
a documentary called The Motivation Factor, and
it was the PE program in California. um la sierra
high school back in the 60s and it was modeled
actually on on a russian model they were inspired
by this russian group and what they did is they
had mandatory pe that the whole school did every
single day they put the kids into groups and
i'm sure they you know initially tested them
to find out that they were you know similar ability
and it was almost like a martial arts belt system
there were different colored shorts i think there
was four um and so what happened was the entire
school got fair now the the top tier you know
they look like freaking men's health cover models
i mean you watch the videos and so if you wanted
to have a baseball player a football player whatever
well they just learned how to play the sport
they're already conditioned for the sport but
even you know let's say the you know the math
class um or you know the clarinet player that
wasn't really into the sport they were still
really really healthy but it was the same thing
you know that you just alluded to also the test
scores went up the bullying went down So you
take away phones, you put in real food, you put
in mandatory P .E. I mean, you would revolutionize
the health in this country. And that's exactly
the conversation that should have happened after
the pandemic. The fact that nothing happened
again circling around to the beginning of this
conversation underlines that it was actually
there was no intent to make this nation healthier.
but the answers are there. And I hope that that
program and, you know, Jamie Oliver's push for
real food in schools, like all these people that
have been fighting the fight that we will turn,
you know, go full circle and go back to that.
Because again, if you want to be a threat to
other nations that maybe see us as the enemy,
do you want what you see in Walmart today? Or
do you want La Sierra high school in the sixties?
I know which one I want. Yeah. Well, I mean,
it's a 1 % grub, you know, there's only, I think
one or two percent of people that even meet a
military standard right now. It's the same for
law enforcement and first responders. You know,
you guys have a hard time recruiting, too, and
getting people that are healthy to come into
it because you're dealing with 20 years of improper
upbringing. Not on purpose in a lot of ways because
people didn't know. Yeah. Product of the environment.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, then that was a
great rabbit hole, you know, segue from the book
question. What about films and documentaries
that you love? Films and documentaries. You know,
I've really kind of diverted from anything realistic
anymore. I love the ancient alien explorations
now. So the dude with the crazy hair. And then,
you know, researching a lot of that odd history,
you know, doing everything that I did throughout
the years and all the training that led up to
that and all the reading and knowledge, a lot
of leadership and details. I tried to push a
lot of that out of my head now and kind of just
live for the moment. And, you know, I know all
the bad stuff that happened, but I try not to
read about it anymore. try to focus on, okay,
what do I need to do? Where do I need to be at
this moment to do whatever the universe or God
wants me to do today? Love it. Well, speaking
of amazing people, is there a person that you
recommend to come on this podcast as a guest
to speak to the first responders, military, and
associated professions of the world? Hmm. You
know, I really can't because everybody's so tight
lipped in my world. You know, there's very few
people that really want to be put their name
out there, even if they support all this stuff.
It's because of where their involvement still
is or what their clearances are. Because if you
say the wrong thing, now you're getting investigated
and you could potentially lose a pretty good
chunk of change on employment. So I can't really
say I would right now. I'll tell you what, though.
I guarantee you some of my buddies are going
to reach out after seeing this. And if they're
interested, I'll definitely point them your way.
Perfect. Perfect. I appreciate it. All right.
Well, the last question before we make sure everyone
knows where to find you. What do you do to decompress?
I do a lot of welding. i'm actually a teacher
now part -time i'm finishing up a few certifications
but uh i took an adjunct professional professor
role with the kentucky technical college system
gateway university up in boone county so i'm
enjoying that and then when i'm not teaching
i'm making stuff here whether it be shop equipment
fixing trailers one of the projects right now
is uh building our vfw memorial day trailer and
putting railings on it and a step system so that
the older guys don't have to climb up you know
a ladder or something to get in there trying
to make things more user friendly and then really
just a lot of involvement with the vfw and veterans
around the local area we're always getting phone
calls say hey can we help this person do this
this and this and Within a few minutes, we've
got answers. And within a couple hours, checks
are getting cut and helping folks. Amazing. It's
nice to see it when it works right. Absolutely.
Brilliant. Well, for people listening, if they
want to reach out to you, learn more, where are
the best places online or social media? Probably
Facebook, just under my name, Jared Bonville.
I don't accept too many friend requests. I got
to really know you in real life, but I do accept
messages. Takes me a while to get back to them
sometimes but You know, it's probably the best
bet brilliant Well, Jared, I want to thank you
so much. It's been such an interesting conversation.
I mean, you're, you know, I always say this,
the courage to be vulnerable in itself, you know,
is so empowering. But then when it comes to this
discussion on, you know, the plant medicine that's
helped you, especially with a law enforcement
background, I think it's such a powerful and
important voice. So I want to thank you so, so
much for being so generous with your time and
coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.
I thank you so much, James. I appreciate it.
You know, I just I try to it's tough to have
these discussions when it's got to be so hidden
in a lot of ways. But folks need to understand
that there are different avenues to get some
help and not have to suffer as much as you think
you do. It's not that difficult. You just have
to change your way of thinking a little bit.