Veteran Chat Project
Veteran Chat Project
Guiding the Next Generation Amidst Military Memories
Navigating fatherhood and military service can often feel like operating in two different battlefields, and this episode brings these worlds together with Scott, the_mustached_vet from the Tar & Feather Podcast. We tackle the laughter and challenges that come with guiding a tiny human while drawing lines to the solidarity found in military life. From sleepless nights to the profound impact deployment stories have on us as parents, the conversation is a rich tapestry of insights from the front lines of parenting and service.
Remember the first time you listened to a '90s hit and got transported back to a different era? That's the kind of nostalgia we hit when sharing our military memories, stirred by the music of our deployments and the camaraderie forged in the heat of shared service. But it's not all past tense; we also look at how these experiences shape our present, finding tranquility in places like North Dakota and the unique community that baseball stadiums offer. Scott's perspective on life with a young family and the importance of maintaining connections beyond the uniform keeps the dialogue grounded and relatable for veterans and non-veterans alike.
Wrapping up, I get candid about the personal mountains I've had to climb post-military life, from undertaking a culinary journey to finding love and stability in the most unexpected places. Through laughter and earnest reflection, we explore the universal truth of overcoming adversity and the power of reaching out. Every anecdote, from military recruitment capers to the touching support of our podcast community, captures the essence of life's unpredictability and the strength found in camaraderie. Join us in this heartfelt sign-off where we thank our listeners and reaffirm the bonds that continue to shape our stories long after the uniforms are hung up.
What is going on. Everybody we are live, and Tonight I have with me Scott, aka the mustache vet from the Tarn feather podcast. I reached out to him Last week after the show. As for, I started kind of picking around the old Facebook and seeing that there's the new kid on the block. So I want to do a feeling, invite him on and then just basically say, hey, you know, we share the same ideas, we share the same concept, so there's no reason we shouldn't be together and Sharing our ideas to the world. So, without further ado, thank you guys for being here, thank you guys for choosing to make it through these last two weeks, and just you know. Again, thanks for listening. All that shit, we'll get right into it, scott. How you doing, brother? I'm doing good man. How are you doing good? Man doing good. Just put the kids to bed. The wife can hang out for a little bit.
Speaker 2:So there we go, my wife. My wife said the same thing.
Speaker 1:They go. Go have fun with your friends. I'm like all right, baby.
Speaker 2:Yep, the newborn, or the two month old, is fast asleep right now and wife's fast asleep already there, so I got all evening, man.
Speaker 1:I had to wake. I had to wake my wife up. She had passed out with toddler and I was like, babe, someone's gonna watch the baby. You know, someone's gonna watch the baby. She's a car. I just switch rooms and fell asleep in the other room. Yeah but that's how it is around here the. And so well too, and it's, it's tough. You know she, he's attached to that to my wife like 24-7 right now. Yep, how does he he's? I think he's a little over three months now.
Speaker 2:Okay, so yeah, ours are about the same age.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we have a almost three-year-old. It'll be three, right? 26. Right on man, right on crazy all up in that dad life right now, dude fatherhood loving it the best concept for me.
Speaker 2:You've. You've been doing it for three years now, new to me, man I was a stay at home dad.
Speaker 1:So when we first moved up here, I was telling you, we moved up here not too long ago, we didn't have daycare, we didn't think it was gonna be like an issue to find. So my wife she's a pharmacy manager for a major company, mm-hmm. Yeah, not 13 weeks. No, my, my, my, my. My three-year-old is 36 weeks. He's gonna be 36 weeks. Sorry, I get the. I always forget that the comments aren't right there.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's yeah yeah, my wife said our, our baby was nine weeks. The other day I was like this two months, yeah, it's just two months, police, two months we're at we're, we're at church. And one lady was my wife's aunt's sister, so ants, yeah, yeah, I guess on her married, married, whatever on that side of the family. And she was about I knew she was about say nine month or nine weeks, and I stopped her said two months, let's not go into weeks because we'll be in like 37 weeks.
Speaker 1:I was like no, Like no, let's not start this habit. Now it's yeah, you get into that habit, you're after yeah which first month? Yeah, it's a month old.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, now we can start going by months, weeks, month old, her two months, her two month checkup, her three month checkup, stuff like that. Yeah, six months, not not happy. We're not calling it half a year, are we? No half year old. No, no, we're just doing months and then after a year, now it's a year old. I'm fine with one and a half and then two, two years old, but 14 months, 13, 13 weeks.
Speaker 1:So is this your day to get your first kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, first kid. How's the kid?
Speaker 1:daughter. Tell her what I mean. I know we weren't gonna go right into that, but let you tell everybody. Yeah tell everybody who's maybe expecting fatherhood or you know, like you do, what's that first two months like as a dad?
Speaker 2:Well, the first, the first two weeks, it's. It's a lot of you don't know what to do because the baby, like you're just saying, she's attached to the hip or the boot the T, right the T.
Speaker 2:So she's attached 24, seven and a little, a little bit less. Now. She takes naps on me, we do some playtime when I get home and but I mean, besides that, the first, first month is, you don't know what to do. You don't know how to help your wife's tired. You just try and pick up around the house, try and do things that that you see her out of place, I guess maybe start doing stuff that you normally wouldn't do, which is hard for me because I'm very repetitious. Yeah, if, if it's not within my repetition for the day, my normal how I just go about things, it gets missed. Yeah, that's one thing.
Speaker 1:I had to really adjust to. Man is Is kind of like fitting that into your new normal, you know. But like once you get into it, like I'm sure by now, like if you would look back at yourself two months ago, you'd like, dude, you're doing a fucking great job, like we could you, yeah, into your new routine. Yeah, I understand, like it's to me this day still, and I got the two of them, I was like, damn, I just figured out how to have one. Yeah, I gotta split up man-to-man defense.
Speaker 1:We can't do shit about it like one's crying right over there, the other one's crying, but yeah, you're just out there playing.
Speaker 2:You're playing zone. Yeah, you're playing covered. You're playing covered to at this moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, baby is always so stressful though You're just like you. This thing I get right Why'd you guys let me leave the hospital with this little thing like yeah, tiny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can't keep up. I can't keep a plan alive in the house, right I?
Speaker 1:have to keep this human. Yes, baby, I am pretty good, we got all.
Speaker 2:I'll say, I'll say I'm pretty good, dad, I think I'm crushing it, and that's another thing is like, the first month or two, don't be too hard on yourself. I mean especially first one. I'm sure even even second one, man Just don't be too hard on yourself, and sometimes, at the end of the day, affirm to yourself that you are, that you're the man that you're doing, that you're doing your job, and then Just practice. Practice what you say in the mirror to yourself. If that's what you do, so just be there.
Speaker 1:I think being there's half the battle, you know right.
Speaker 1:I didn't get the get the chance to grow up with the father, or a lot of people that you know Don't get the chance to grow up Well, to raise their children, you know, and some unfortunate circumstances and yeah, it's just, I get just every day. Anytime I get frustrated, I got to like calm myself down and just tell myself I do this, it's an absolute blessing to be able to just be here, right, something I posted a while back. It's, like you know, worthy of the life I earned nice.
Speaker 1:I'm not myself, on a daily basis. It's like my written on the mirror and Dry erase markers, so I could see it every day. What are you doing? You're uh, I don't know. It's like the mental health thing. It's like your, your mantra, uh-huh. I am worthy of the life I earned.
Speaker 2:Yeah, firming, affirming yourself.
Speaker 1:Right, oh man. So, dude, what made you join the service and when did you join? And all that tell us a little bit about your, your service, history.
Speaker 2:All right, well, well, growing up parent, my parents split and we lived right outside of Fort Sill, oklahoma, and my mom ended up remarrying my ex-stepdad. He was, he was in the army, he's military police. So If you know, yeah, about the MPs, it's exactly what he was so.
Speaker 2:But I don't want to shit on him too much, I really don't like the guy. But anyways, we're moving on yeah, it really is, and moving around, moved to Germany, lived in Garmish there there's a kid and I like the, I like the lifestyle of moving around, see new things, see in the world. You know I got to see France, egypt, italy, all All over Germany, austria. So I got to see those those cool, those cool countries, all everything that they had offered, that the architecture was amazing and in every country all different, the people were different. They're always very kind to me, even though I was American and, you know, 12, 13 years old, you know I spoke a little bit of German, so I would try and speak German to the, to the, the old guys at the ski resort and whatnot, as we're going up the list to be like hello Vigates, and then they'll be like yeah, just speak English.
Speaker 1:Oh, like, all right, I was trying. You know I have to, it sounds good.
Speaker 2:So Once I got out of high school, ended up joining the army back in 2007, the beginning of 2007, and then went to Basic training, fort Knox, did my a it at Aberdeen. I was a mechanic in the army 63 Bravo turned a 91 Bravo, so wheeled wheeled mechanic. We did have a tank. We did have an 88 in Iraq. So that was pretty cool and I will tell that story on how we got that tank because it's cool and not cool at the same time, because something unfortunate happened to me. But it's cool, we got tank anyways. I Think you know where this is going. So, anyways, we went to Iraq.
Speaker 2:I was in 10th Mountain Division, so fourth brigade, 10th Mountain, in Fort Polk, not Fort Drum. So, and Then my co-host Corey he was in the 10th Mountain Division with me. He also did Basic in a it at the same place and we are also roommates at Fort Polk. So our entire service career we are best buds Did almost everything together. We were inseparable. So that is the co-host of tar and feather podcast. Manifest your destiny is what we say. Find. Find your purpose. That's what we're trying to drive. Find your purpose we're talking to. We're trying to talk to people about what makes it? What either makes them successful or the hardships that they went through. You know, after the army, we talked a little bit or after the military, because we've had an Air Force vet too on right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was pretty cool and so that's what we're doing. I don't want to interrupt, I know the biggest thing for me, since that's he just I. I do that sometimes, but Like being able to talk to the different service members has been huge for me, like you because you you don't really get to sit down and have real conversations with other service members. So that's been one of the coolest things about doing our this show, I'm sure well.
Speaker 2:I. I feel like, even though we've never met in person, it's easy to talk to you. You're just you, it's like you were, it's like you were over there with me, but you weren't like. You have similar. You probably have similar experiences to me, probably more so because you, you were a tanker, so you were probably out there a little bit more than I was. I went on recovery missions and such, but that's about all I did. I didn't shoot my weapon outside of the wire. I didn't do any of that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean kick down doors. Alder that commented here he was in. Uh, dude was in basic, was Alder? You were in basic and when 9-11 happened and he was a tanker, so he's been cheese. You lived on his tank for some time. That's a rough time to be in, I bet yeah, but you know it's like one of those things you know the unfortunate either that or during the Persian Persian Gulf War.
Speaker 2:Before us Desert Storm. Yeah, I'm going in going in when there was no infrastructure for us. We're just blowing stuff up and staying in the blow up buildings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he said look, and then it's funny because you said I never shot my weapon and he was in basic in 9-11, never shot, but he was deployed like he was out there and that's crazy. They're just like the circumstances and how random that whole life is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can you imagine being in basic training and that happens and your butthole looks like this halfway through basic? You're like going in the shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like what the fuck is that?
Speaker 2:even like I mean, I was like there's like there's no other response at in.
Speaker 1:at that time there was no other response For, so he was over there four times and I met him on his fourth deployment Well before he we were allowed in our his fourth deployment, my second deployment together have you come to me, one shot won't kill baby. We're Third ACR brave rivals.
Speaker 2:Okay, we had, we had second. We had second ACR turned into fourth brigade, 10th Mountain down in Fort Polk. I think they disbanded second ACR, so I got there right after they did that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they disbanded third eight. Well, they turned third ACR and the third CR, so they got rid of the armor and they just turned into a cavalry regiment. When I was getting out, and that was in, I joined about the same time you did. I was in a way.
Speaker 2:Oh, wait okay.
Speaker 1:I was the four years myself. Yeah, me too. So how'd you get that tank, you guys? I don't know you want so about that tank.
Speaker 2:So we were. We were over in Iraq. Right, this is about two weeks before I went out on R&R, so we're about halfway, like I said, halfway through the deployment. And Well, I was on a recovery mission. One one one MRAP rolled over into a ditch. The other one got blown up. I think it was just disabled. I don't think anybody got hurt on that one. And then in E6 or somebody rolled, rolled one into a ditch, and so I was. I was going down a road that we hadn't been down in a while, because my hem. It was taken down. Every Internet cable possible, everything was drooping over line. It looked like a back, a back road or a back alley.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this truck's barely squeezing through.
Speaker 2:I mean, yeah, yeah, my antenna is just taking everything down and we even had that thing down. We had it down but it was getting under and then getting caught and I was just ripping everything off. So Can you imagine the military going going in front of your house and just tearing up your power lines and your internet cable? I'd be so pissed too. I'm making a right hand turn and all of a sudden I see a spark shoot out from underneath my truck and then, before you knew it, my head was in the roof of the vehicle, so ran over a Pretty tasty IED. Luckily it went behind the cab. If nobody knows what a hem it is, it's a, it's a four axle truck. The cab is in front of the, in front of the wheels, in front of the steering wheels. So so went behind the cabin, into the engine block and took out the drivetrain. So about a hole about that size?
Speaker 1:Was in the block. Do you have bottom deep buried coming from the bottom, or I?
Speaker 2:guess. Yeah, I mean there was a giant crater in the yeah in the ground. The two guys that came out to get me, Nelson and Dean they couldn't find the tire.
Speaker 2:Yeah they're gone that they don't know what happened to the tire, so it may have been in somebody else's house about two blocks away, yeah, landed. So we waited out there. So it was two Humvees me and then two other Humvees, and Right before that they tried to blow up the first Humvee. So we cleared that one and then they had a second one all the way up there and we're pretty sure that they were trying to get. They were trying to get my truck yeah, obviously, get the bigger truck. So once you disable me, you get a bigger truck to come out there, you get them bigger truck to come out and you just keep tagging the bigger trucks and you just make a mess. So they tried doing that with the next group of people that came out and luckily it went off in between the two trucks. So they missed.
Speaker 2:They replanted that first one, they went out there and replanted it in the same. So but we over, yeah, we overheard on the radio that they had gotten the guy. So I think they they hit him with the hellfire missile or something. Fuck yeah, missed, beat, mist. That's all we were hearing. I mean, we were hearing missiles and everything and we weren't sure if it was a indirect fire or whatever it was Coming in. So anyways, we lost that, hem it, and you know you're welcome. We got a tank as as a replacement.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's pretty tight, yeah, so we had 50 cal.
Speaker 2:We had a 50 cal on top and you know that giant boom that that 88 has.
Speaker 1:Yeah dude, we had the, we had the. We even our first deployment. We had them. My, I mean, we were rolling out on the Abrams of one time M1 a1 there in one, a twos Mm-hmm. My second deployment, fucking, we actually actually went to.
Speaker 1:I Was a different base for a while and I was teaching, so I guess the military had just sold the Iraqi army a bunch of Old M1s Originals and so basically they needed someone to drive them out to the range while the Iraqi army learned on them and then drive them back to our base. I did that for like three months and then Went back to my unit and was like there was only one tank for the whole company and then the fucking one platoon they had the gin blossoms came for like a you know, like a USO little show yeah, we'll base. And they had to like they had the fucking paint, gin blossoms on the gun tube and shit. It was just like we had to like we were just there for like a dog and pony show, the second deployment. It just felt so Forced and fake, right. It was like you know, for stuff to happen like that You're saying like, you just like why, though, you know right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it almost seems like it's a yeah when you're when your mission Doesn't, when your mission doesn't seem like it has a purpose. And that's just been talking about life. You know, yeah, your, your life is your mission. But what's what's? What's your purpose, man? What, what road are you gonna take? What do you? What do you have to do?
Speaker 1:I'm pushing all the Jim blossoms I. Don't even know a song from the Jim blossom good to tell you, I mean, I early 90s, early was that the same time as a Sarah McLaughlin.
Speaker 2:And what's that? I'm sure what's that one singer that was just constantly depressed. I want us more set. Oh, is that the same same same era? Yeah, I think so the goo, goo dolls the.
Speaker 1:Google dolls are decent, though the other one that came out. Should we had a millionaire come out? We had to teach and he's slam the fucking breaks, dude, and I hit my face. You are on the, on the gunners like the.
Speaker 2:Periscope. Yeah, I don't know what they're called.
Speaker 1:It's a problem with tanks, cuz like they'll hit the brakes doing that. Front slope is just yeah. And we're telling him, like you, when we come to stop, you know, don't fucking slam the brakes. He's like right, yeah, I got it Right, he's like.
Speaker 2:He's like he hits it with his let. He hits it with his left foot. Yeah doesn't know the amount of pressure he's putting. I drive left-footed. Easy equal amount of pressure.
Speaker 1:Man, it was just a 92 ton paperweight for fucking six months.
Speaker 2:That's cool, though Did you guys have a senior tank?
Speaker 1:No, they were. I mean, there is oh, basically like so you can use the NBC system, okay, the Because get the fan moving always an NBC threat. You can. It has like a hose, so you can. Max is like the zipper. Yeah you can in your little area here and just. But you got to be careful with that because some people actually pissing those. Yeah, if you take a tank in your life, yeah. No, you'd be scared to actually use the NBC system.
Speaker 2:You just give it a quick sniff, real quick.
Speaker 1:I mean you can't really tell because it's in there. He was for the targeting computer because you didn't want it to go overheat. So there wasn't a conditioner, but it was only, yeah, the computer because, like right on the newer tanks, the B2s, they had that thing you could literally like if I track you and I'm like boop and you're moving, like my turret staying with you, yeah, we can be. That's pretty sick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just they float, right, they float with the tank. Yeah this is going as well. It stays level, yep. So, instead going with the tank, it stays perpendicular, parallel to the ground as long as you're not, you know, fucking way up here.
Speaker 1:You're right, right, right. But yeah, man, I missed that shit quite a bit, but that was again a long time ago and it probably wouldn't even be the same if it was.
Speaker 2:Oh, it doesn't seem. It doesn't seem that way, with everything going on the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got a buddy that just got out. That was with us then and he's Went straight overseas after he got out. He's like I'm out, yeah, so you know, like after 20 years of the army and your first move was like I'm moving to Germany and fucking being gone Like he knows something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so he's. He's doing the civilian life over in Germany.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he did I mean for yeah.
Speaker 2:Hmm, is he in Kaiser Slaughter and or on that side of Germany, or?
Speaker 1:I haven't talked to him since he got settled back down but I had military contracting work. He was over. He was over there pretty much the last six, seven years of his tour or of his career. So I do his posts and pictures of skiing and snowboarding. All right, fucking country out there. I'm sick. They're all over the continent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm gonna go yeah but now he's out there.
Speaker 1:This is a billion and I probably can go once you know the kids are settled and I can leave for a week. Right, I'm gonna go skiing in Germany.
Speaker 2:I'll let you know it was awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just lived in the board when I was like 34.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we lived in a Garmish part, in Kierken, and that was a southern part of the Bavaria with the German Alps, so that was my backyard, was seeing those Alps every day. It was awesome. Yeah, we got out of school every Wednesday in the winter time for our 10 week straight. We got out of school at noon and we got the snowboarder ski for about three hours up there dude.
Speaker 1:I got out on life. It was wild.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it was. It was tough though, because we were there for three years, never came back to, my dad, was still living in Arizona and, of course, I was living with my stepdad mom out there and my two brothers. So and they, they've both. They were both in the army to one was commissioned officer and the other one was an MP. I give him shit for that, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2:Damn, but he did he did some cool stuff. He did a. He has a bomb sniffing dog and Bomb and drug sniffing dog, but he started out with the bomb sniffer. So I was like I don't know if I like that man, you being around ordinance and stuff, how about no? So luckily, neither of the neither of them deployed. I was the only one that went over there.
Speaker 1:So yeah, there's no mountains in North Dakota, yeah so flat, yeah, you good but yeah, dude, so let's get a. So you got it.
Speaker 2:you did four years yourself to yep yeah, I've got a from the from the IED, my sciatica on my left side mostly my left side, sometimes it happens on my right that that nerve down the whole left side hurts. And I tried to do some rehab in the army and they it wasn't fixing anything. Two miles into a run man I was, I was on my knees, I was falling down or limping or something. So it was hard to do a full eight hour day, nine hour, ten hour day whenever we decided to leave, because they were getting ready to go back to Afghanistan. So they were doing the pre-deployment stuff and I just couldn't take it after a year of getting back from Iraq and so I put in my papers to get out.
Speaker 2:I ended up getting medically discharged, probably for the best, I'll say, because I just there's no way at that time I was gonna be able to carry my weight and Not and let somebody else carry my stuff right, like my ruck, my ruck sack, all of all of my gear, just me, just Barely. Even doing my job as a mechanic was difficult. So you know, I didn't want to be a paper pusher, I didn't want to sit down all the time and be on the fob. I didn't want to be one of those, even though as mechanics for fobbit I get it.
Speaker 1:We're pokes, but I've got. I got some mechanics that will fucking probably out roll any some. I won't say any, but I'll say some basic infantry units. Yeah, our mechanics could have fucking out. Did them any day of the week, right? I mean, don't just when someone's like awesome, can't. That might not have been all they did, especially Right.
Speaker 2:We're pretty crazy.
Speaker 1:We're pretty crazy to you right now, do what? There's some people. They were short on people and they were like hey, mechanic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were pulling cooks out for the with MPs. They're pulling cooks out and they were doing patrols with the MPs.
Speaker 1:They're getting the biggest.
Speaker 2:They're getting the biggest, the Bertoliest chef set that we had and pulling them out there. So it's pretty cool. I mean I'd rather do that than then be in the defect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no doubt yeah, especially because I know them. I mean it gets old. It got old sitting around a bit. I mean even though, the food's not fancy sucks.
Speaker 2:Food's not fancy. They're boiling steak, yeah, boiling wings. Everything, pretty much everything, I mean I'm not gonna complain, though, because a lot of people had to. You know, beyond fobs and cops, that that didn't have Food, right. Right, that had the, they had the cooks out there, but yet it was just all the boiled regular stuff, or, mres, right?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, they had them platoon sized MREs to. Yeah, we had those for a couple spots that we stayed at the first appointment.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Those weren't great, but they made a pretty sweet MRE bomb because the heater was a lot bigger. But no, what I wanted to ask, so like when you were getting out, and he I think all they're actually mentioning it here in the comments to Something along the lines of what I wanted to ask like how did, how were you treated?
Speaker 1:Because I know there are some people I even myself, and I tried to tell people and I was having back issues, I was having this. I mean even probably a little better for you, since you could say, like dude, I was hit with a fucking ID. But right, I mean like even the people that don't know that they would probably be like Look at this dirt bag. Or like you know, right Did, did you get a lot of that mentality from people? Yeah, we're getting out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was um You're. You're the black duck, you're the black duckling, you were the one that that can't hack it anymore. And All of the leadership that we had in Iraq was we had amazing leadership. I love those guys. I loved our motor sergeant, I loved Our platoon sergeant. Everybody from the majority of E6 on up was awesome, right and so, and even even E5, my former squad leader, sergeant OB. He was awesome. But when we got back they all left, they all went their separate ways, either to Carson or to Korea or wherever right or Fort Hood, and so it's all newbies that did that, didn't know me, that didn't know what I did in Iraq, that didn't know. You know that I am for the mission but I'm not for the bullshit. Right, like, I've seen what, what people can do without the bullshit. You know getting the mission done without you know having to To unpack a conic six times in one night, and then somebody loses the key to a lock and we got to walk around the motor pool looking for a key.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no cut that lock, put a new lock on. Let's move on. Let's go home. People have families and stuff to go to. This isn't that big of a deal, even in Iraq. Guess what we're doing in our rec. We're cutting the lock. We don't have time for that nonsense. If we need something in that context, we're cutting the lock. Stop bullshitting, just give a new lock and so and Falling out of runs. It was. I would try and keep up, and then about the two mile, two and a half mile mark, I Was. I just couldn't. I couldn't do the choppy steps anymore. Yes, it's the airborne shovel.
Speaker 1:Yep, when you do like a they would, they would put, they would put the they would put the shortest female Up front.
Speaker 2:And then I can't. I can't stride out. So I would try and fall back a little bit in formation and stride it out a little bit, but then I look goofy Because one of us doesn't look like the other right. So I look goofy back there striding it out, and everybody's doing this Bobbing and weaving their head.
Speaker 1:You say you know squad, like we had a regimental runs do once once a year, like once every time Between deployments, and it was like third Armored Cav was you know four squadrons of I mean seven, eight hundred people, I guess, depending on and there's all those people running down Fort Hood Street at the same time. Dude, that shit is the most annoying thing. It's probably the main reason why I can't go in traffic. If you're walking slow in the fucking grocery store, I'm probably gonna fucking zoom past you and be like Mm-hmm, I'll give you like a, not like a angry, but like why did I have to pass you? Like oh, wait.
Speaker 2:Why am I mad at you?
Speaker 1:right now oh. Then they'd like here we all get to wear these shirts and then like, made us the regimental run shirts, but they got print on the back to where it's just like sticking to your back for 13 miles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, yeah, I know how it goes. I half my job is driving to job sites to to work on generators. So it's today coming back from From one of the job sites. It was an hour and a half drive home, so there was a part of the highway that it was the slinky effect or the accordion all the way, all the way down for about 15 minutes and that just drives me nuts. I just I try and give a buffer between me in the car in front of me and then just Slow creep up instead of slamming my brakes behind people and then speeding up, slamming my brakes, what everybody else is doing.
Speaker 1:I'm just gradually going but then I get people just Just cut me off jumping in front of me but like you did in the convoy yeah, I'm a wife that like babe, they're supposed to be gaffes. She's like they don't make, you know, they don't know that, I don't know that. Right, in case you know, you know, in case you have to make that last minute swerve off the lane or whatever. And then, yeah, someone's like yeah.
Speaker 2:I never really thought about that. But yeah, yeah, combat gap, at least I leave, I try and leave at least two cars. Yeah, I'm in there.
Speaker 1:And you see, like you count, like a sign, one, two, like okay, I'm good. Obviously you want to be at least three to five. But yeah, two's good. Yeah, attention, who's not bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah two's better than most. Yeah, some people be. I can't. On my big truck, on my truck I got. I have a box, well, a giant box, on the back of my truck, right, cuz that's where all my tools and stuff go and I Sometimes I can't see the car behind me. They're, they're that far up my ass, like dude. Just hang out in my tailpipe while you're at it right, you want to just jump in the maxi and let me drive guy like we can.
Speaker 1:Yeah you wanna hurry? Yeah, I don't have to worry about it as much anymore, though North Dakota is vacant. There's, they said, my town doesn't even have stoplight. We barely finds that's 20 miles to Fargo and that that whole 20 miles is to lane highway, like state highway, so it's straight road. Yeah, I get on there, hit 75 and just fucking go.
Speaker 2:It's like that road on Dumb and Dumber, we're on the moped.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They're freezing cold with no mountain view. Yeah, you're just like. They're in the mountains, yeah shit man.
Speaker 2:They're in Kansas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's pretty much Kansas, but less.
Speaker 1:I'm not, I've never been to Kansas, the big spot about where I'm at here. There's a lot of farming here. So, like mm-hmm and I just learned this, apparently and I need to relook it up the lake was called, but there's, like you know, millions of years ago, before you know, pangea, before all the shifts and everything, there was a giant lake here. Mm-hmm basically covered up the entire like area where I'm at, this valley and it's like the glacier from that like pushed all the way through this valley and carved this valley out, so it's got like these minerals and shit that's not found anywhere else, because it was like a melt off from this like Million-year-old glaciers of shit. I'll have to take the facts on that Right again and bring it up, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm on, but it's like it's just like.
Speaker 2:It's just like dirt.
Speaker 1:It has layers mm-hmm and then over time it froze a certain way with some of the minerals and stuff that you don't find anywhere else in the country because of that, apparently just so right. Because I drove recently. We drove to Akron, ohio, from here Monday night and back Mm-hmm. So that was rough, but I did learn about that, so it was worth it sounds rough.
Speaker 2:You went to Ohio.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and back without sleeping.
Speaker 2:No, what I'm saying is you went to Ohio. Yeah, you chose to go to Ohio.
Speaker 1:I don't know why you did that. Yeah, I got the knock another. I'd never had to go back now, but yeah, right off we drove through what's saying dusky and I was like dude, I hope I've wanted. There's a Callahan auto parts here and I go oh. Parts there and I was like, can we pull over? Like no dude, because it was a hot shot.
Speaker 2:We ran out there to I just, I just want to sign flag something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can sure, but I bought from there, right, but we just want to go pick up some cabinets for the, the convenience store that you, the guys, building. I went there with the owner to pick up. Sweet yeah, he, yeah. Alder grew up in Toledo. We went to Akron, which is the greatest place and I was surprised here. I lost to bet because I was, like I figured, pulling into Akron Ohio, I Was like over under over five times We'll see LeBron James's name or picture in this city. Yeah, dude, not once, not once.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I lost why? And we didn't bet money, but you know, I was like five times at least we left Cleveland twice, so it makes sense. But it was born and raised in Akron, home of LeBron James. You wouldn't put that on right? Fine, like you would think, like in the little giants where the dudes, like you know, the guy won the Heisman's or like, put his name on the sign.
Speaker 1:You would think they're tall, as three-story building would have a mural of LeBron James right, he's all over a lot of Los Angeles and he didn't grow up there right Now now being being LeBron James and having that legacy, why would you go to the Lakers?
Speaker 2:Yeah especially just after Kobe. Yeah, you know, you have Kobe Shaq, you have Cream magic. I you think I'm not big on the NBA, but there's more Lakers. Right, there's more Bill Walton that played for the Lakers. Why would you go there? You were your Arguably the the best NBA player. Why would you go there?
Speaker 1:Same and your legacy in the LA. In LA I would show him tiny, go to the Dodgers. Everyone else was gonna pay him that money.
Speaker 2:I'm a diamond back fan. I'm. It is what it is. He's not pitching this year, so I don't care. Pretty good man.
Speaker 1:Diamondbacks. I was happy to see them make that run, though, dude okay.
Speaker 2:So we're gonna get off topic real fast. Because, because, because I went to the diamondbacks Phillies game in Philly, game two, when the diamondbacks lost 10-0, and I'll tell you that is not the place. Well, it kind of is the place to be. You might as well get whooped in Philly, rather than it be super close because I had some people coming up to be, but most people said I'm sorry, yeah, I'm sorry that we had to do this to you, and then, and then they go back and they end up winning that series. I'm like I wasted. I spent $1,200 on two tickets.
Speaker 2:Yeah to go to that game. It's my first ever MLB playoff game. My team is playing in Philly. I'm I live only an hour away from Philly, so why not go oh?
Speaker 1:yeah, I have to go so 1200 bucks.
Speaker 2:We went and we ended up leaving, I think, in the middle of the eighth inning, when it was already like eight to nothing and and we beat traffic and got home before me the one game You're like I don't care if we beat traffic or not, I'm staying the whole game.
Speaker 1:It's eight. Nothing like I'm fucking leaving, leaving, dude.
Speaker 2:It was bad. So I left. After we got out of our seats, after there's infill pop-up, that hit the ground and I said, alright, I'm done. Two guys, two guys ran into each other. I was like, oh, this is gonna be bad.
Speaker 1:I got lucky. Do like right when I got out of the army the Cardinals were on a pretty good run. I got to see some. I got to see a pretty magical Colton Wong home run that.
Speaker 1:Landed pretty much like we were in the center field bar. Mm-hmm, I'm shit. I almost said we were doing illegal things, been doing it. And then, dude, hit a home run and roll like and it's like right down in front of us like the section down because we're like concourse level, but, like you know, there's the center field, like left center.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Oh, cuz center field has that fucking big field at Bush Stadium at Bush.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the new bus or the bush before it was Bush to those, the new bush to. I love that bush. That's such a nice both bushes were really nice, the the first one, I mean, the seats went almost straight up. Yeah on that upper deck, that upper bowl.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was a little nuts, because I went to the end is now yeah, there's goes fucking straight up. Um but yeah, but new bush is awesome. I love that stadium.
Speaker 2:I like also uh that village park that they have now all that, that that area is awesome.
Speaker 1:That's where they actually do the pre and post game show. They'll actually go in there.
Speaker 2:That's where they like record the St Louis is huge baseball town, yeah.
Speaker 1:Baseball hockey always have been yeah, but yeah, baseball dude. That's why our, not I, went there. That's why I was kind of hoping we would sign another pitcher this year.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I like money gray.
Speaker 1:Um, I Don't like what happened to him the last time he started, but obviously it went against Houston. He got bombed. Yeah, that was me and my son's second game. Well, we went. I'm trying to take my kids to all the stadiums, so we've right, my oldest have been to bush stadium and we've been to Kaufman field. What's the one in Minnesota of a city field? Target field, I think now, yeah, so we went there, that's cool.
Speaker 2:How's target one?
Speaker 1:But they were playing it in Houston, so we got to go to the game and and Minnesota for free and sit in the stadium and watch Nice. So that was cool, so so we've already knocked out two of them.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:Griffin got to see Albert Pujols and Cardinals uniform playing first base for the first time since he got came back to the Cardinals in In my right arm cool and we were sitting, yeah, behind first base I got. It was pretty cool seeing.
Speaker 2:Pujols go back. Yeah, he shouldn't have left.
Speaker 1:No, I shouldn't have left. But another one of those things like why is what is for $20 million more? He left like we would have gave Right.
Speaker 2:Oh, we yeah, or or win a championship, instead playing for the eight angels and never making the playoffs. Idiot man.
Speaker 1:I said we could have kept winning so many championships with him, wayne Wright and Molina on the same team like coaching Prospectively while they were playing. Nobody was stopping that, dude. Just imagine that they would if Wayne Wright and Molina had Pujols at first every time they started.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a good. That was a good core guys and you guys had Wayne Wright and Molina for quite a while. What 70 years all-time leading batteries.
Speaker 1:You know they've started more games together than anybody in MLB history. Now, yeah, they both on. It's an even era right now, like it's a real weird time at st Louis baseball.
Speaker 2:Yeah like even towards Molina's the end of Molina's career. Nobody was stealing on him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, you can't. Eating he wasn't very productive with a bat towards the end of the year but our to the ends of it nobody played defense. He was goddamn. His defense was irreplaceable and just him being on the cow or being on the bench in general, you know that's was damn. That dude ran that team. I guarantee he'll be the coach that team in the next 10 years, guaranteed.
Speaker 2:Molina, coach and the Cardinals.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, come back and be on the squad this year, but he's like a special manager, not on the bench, he's like he'll be there sometimes, basically, but catchers, catchers, coach. Yeah, something like that just to have. I mean, it's just like the smartest, like the Molina's or like the smartest baseball family and probably the history of baseball, like they're all grinders, they all know, you know, they all know the game inside now. Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 2:We're getting carried away.
Speaker 1:That's all good. I could talk baseball all day I wonder how they've seen Ben.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just, I just got new. I Was gonna put this. I just bought this one. Hell. Yeah, dude, I was yeah, I have a. I have a friend in Phoenix. I was supposed to get me a, an nl champ pennant, but she hasn't melded it to me yet, so I don't know where it is. She just hasn't melded it yet. So, hell yeah, I'm kind of bummed about it, like hurry up with that shit.
Speaker 2:I don't want to just keep reminding her, because I was like, hey, here's my address, and then haven't heard from her son.
Speaker 1:So right back there. Yeah, exactly so man, I wanted, before we got carried away on baseball, which I mean again, yeah, fucking any day of the week. So what, what, what leans you in towards? First of all, how'd you pick tar and feather? I love man. Okay, yeah that we like to say, or I like to say, is is you're never alone. I'm right, and on the other podcast that did for a little bit is just like Passion in the purpose. So the same idea.
Speaker 1:You know, like, just what take these days. You know so how, how did you come to Be a podcast? Really what? What made you decide to go that route?
Speaker 2:Well, so my buddy, dan Kyle we had him on our second episode. He does a lot of audio and editing. That's what he does. That's that's his job, essentially for the company that he works for, so I knew that we had some that. So he's. He started YouTube channel, basically it's called veterans post tour and what they do is they go around and interview different VFWs and American legions and see how each Legion and VFW are different. They mostly stay within the Detroit area Up there in Michigan. They did do one in Texas Back work, where Kyle's from, so they did go out there. He's really awesome. Those videos are very well put together and edited. He also Did our intro For tar and feather podcast. So that is his voice Introducing us. I was like I don't want my voice introducing me, you do it. So he made the video and we just sent him a couple of clips with us doing some of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah you know, introducing ourselves, my co-host came up with the manifest your destiny Came up with tar and feather because of well, I'm a big fan of the whiskey rebellion. So back in the early stages, right after the revolution, we had to pay back our war bonds, and the only way to do that was with Taxes. The reason why we fought the damn war, right. The reason why we kicked Britain's ass, right. You know, we gave, we gave them two L's in cancel or whatever that word is, right through their fucking tea in the harbor anyways. So they put, they put a tax on spirits. And so in Western Pennsylvania, west Virginia, I believe, they had a revolt and what they were doing was the. The tax collectors were coming over, they wanted their money and they, these people, were tarring and feathering them. So they're a tarring and feathering tyrants. So that's what we're for.
Speaker 1:Fuck yeah, dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're for time. Feathering tyrants, I put a tax on spirits.
Speaker 1:I put it up there just in time, like as soon as you there yeah aren't feather tyrants like boom turn? Yeah that's motherfuckers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so 90 99% of our government is filled with tyrants. So, just gonna go out there and say there's two guys that the three guys that I that I like is a ram Paul, justin Amash and Thomas Massey. Those are the three guys that that I would, that that I would follow, but besides them I don't care about anybody else. You know who I follow, I'd suck in my crock right here.
Speaker 1:There you go I know the depths of hell, right on like a band brother. If a you need to reach out and they get you guys. You want a fucking badass podcast, guys? Dude, that's your guy right there, right on. That is that. That dude will have you sitting there just like, especially as a new father bro.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:My man. See, he knows, he knows he's a superhero. Shout out to Mike Joe to coming out soon. We did an episode and recorded a little. I did a little 20 second little clip it for one of his movies.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:It's a sequel to Tahoe Joe, which is on to be pretty good movie if you, if you, got time to watch it. But, um, yeah, yeah, dude, he just sent me a message with that with that title again, and then I'll look it up. Yeah, man, I'll have him. I'll send you his name just to shoot him a message. But Mike is a he's cool dude. He works for one of those three letter Company, you know, and the alphabet agencies there you go, that's a hilltay, he'll tell you right there. Greenberry petal hunter okay.
Speaker 1:And that's a legit dude that I can't wait to turn into that episode of my damn self, because I've had him on twice and I'm already ready to have him on again right on. So what made you like? What was the ultimate? Like, like you know, like you figured out, like I want to do podcast, right, but like right ultimate drive like what was so Like. I need to get this message out there.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm up here in PA, my wife's from from this area, her family's all here. My family is in Arizona, texas, florida, all over the place. So I'm up here. You know I have friends, but they're bowling buddies in the bowling alley I go to is about 40 minutes away, so it's kind of hard to keep in touch with them, especially with the crazy life that I have now with the, with the newborn, and Well, I've known my buddy Corey for 17, 18 years now, 18 years now. So I Said why not, man, let's, let's hang out, let's we? We already text every day, so why not once every two weeks have like a one-hour show and talk and have people on and talk about our successes after the army and how, maybe the difficult struggles that we had, or we talk about anything? I'm just just an open conversation for an hour hour and a half and so far it's been pretty good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, I notice you guys. I mean you guys already got more followers than us. I mean also, I mean that's great. Do you know it's this on how you play the game. I mean I mean we've been pretty Out of it. We, we switched.
Speaker 1:I mean we did all the wrong things in the beginning to like just stay with your same Hmm hosts, your podcast hosts. Like don't switch, yes, it at all, because you'll lose everything. Yeah, I'll try to chase down, like oh, we get, like I got what was like really fucking locked on the numbers at first. Right, I don't give, I could give two shits about the numbers anymore. Right, because I enjoy it. Right, because it really does Open up a part of me that never was there in the beginning. Yeah, likes to talk about the feelings, right, and that likes to talk to strangers about their feelings, and like I mean I felt that I was open. I'm very easy to talk to you with people and it's funny that you said that earlier. It's like, yeah, I like to listen. I mean I'm not here to judge and we've all gone through shit.
Speaker 2:We've all gone yeah it's like, it's like we were friends back in a, you know, back in elementary school or middle school and I'm like just Reconnecting with you has it been going?
Speaker 2:That's that's the same thing and I feel like with the veteran community for the most part some people are dorks, but lack of a better term, but for the most part, you know you and I can have this conversation, we have a Mutual of understanding of what it took, you know, after we got out, you know, to be here right now, to not be six feet underground right, so what it?
Speaker 1:still takes. I mean, I don't know about you, I mean, and I'm not it Not gonna say, like you know, we got to worry about Kyle over here, but I mean, like, sometimes do that's a life is hard, bro, and especially like something that you didn't know, I didn't know, like as being a father, like bro, it's gonna get harder that, get way harder on you than it ever did. But right is you if you know it, you know and you attack it head-on and you fucking take it like we were talking about dude. Take it like the blessing that it is every single fucking day to be alive. And and that is why I do this show, because if, if somebody heard me say that right there and they're like you know I'm fucking that dude spit in some serious truth, you know what I'm gonna. I don't even care if I'm gonna listen to this show again, but if I listen, right seconds of his show one time and they liked that and they went on.
Speaker 1:It did something. They manifested their own destiny. Yep pursued their own passion and made it their purpose. They fucking talked to somebody. That's my biggest thing. I have people messaging me. Tell me that like dude I'm, I'm talking to a therapist because I hear you was working fucking heart out into this show and this is my therapy. I'm not right there. I talked to people who I know right me, the three or four people that been, you know, inter off the show, or the people that will listen to it Because they hold me accountable more than any VA therapist I've talked to.
Speaker 2:Right, you know, bounce around from here to that one, you get it for six months and they're like oh, we got to switch you to a different coverage, or you know man, if you, if you ended up calling me or messaging me, I'd I'd be on my phone in a heartbeat going hey man, let's let's either FaceTime or I'll text you through this, or you can text me off Ledge, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah so I like. That's why I think the, the you're not alone is the one thing that really hit us is like, bro, like you're not, like Fucking, the email lines are open, the message lines are open and you can message me on any app and then I'll fucking yeah, like he's like you message me right away and I'm like all is like let's get this, or I message you and then we're just Mm-hmm, you know, we're connected. Now we're getting this, and I'm sure this won't be our last show, right? I mean, I'm interested in doing a bunch more. I can't wait to talk about baseball.
Speaker 1:I will talk about baseball. We got to get Ben. I had another guy up in Washington. He's a baseball coach. He coaches, he's a Marine, bet, I think he. Well, I'm sorry there, he's a Marine, because you know there's no X Marines, no, they're always a devil dog, yeah, and he's, he's like a baseball coach. He's those foundations baseball up there in Washington and like coach, coaches kids and like a private trainer for baseball. So that's pretty cool. But so he's a huge Mariners fan, obviously right on. Well, that sucks. But so yeah, man, that's so um question, well, I was.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say something about how you know being a father. It's something new and exciting every day, right Now, whether or not you think you're doing a good job or not, it's, it's something new every day. It gives you, it gives you that purpose, it gives you that drive. Then that's something that kind of. The reason why I wanted to start the podcast, too, is because I Know nothing about this. I don't, we don't edit our videos, except for our buddy, dan. He did the beginning, he did our intro and our Our ending card. I don't know what you call it, but you know the logo at the end for like eight seconds, right?
Speaker 1:I got a remake, so he did ours and I feel bad using it you know, yeah, mine and his voice in it, and I just gotta re-edit a little bit. But I'm working on damn.
Speaker 2:Next show, I'm excited. Oh, it's like a couple's. What was it back in the day when you had a landline the? It wasn't voicemail, but it was, uh, a Recorder with your like hey, this is such and such, leave a message at the beep. Yeah, answering machine. That's what it was called. Damn, it's been too long.
Speaker 1:Yeah, stupid answering machine.
Speaker 2:So, and you had like the couple's voice, you got the, you got the husband and wife going hey, it's the. Anderson's. We have a message, we've a message at the beep, and then they divorce and you gotta get rid of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah pretty much it's like oh, I miss you KZ.
Speaker 2:Babe, babe, babe, come back, babe babe.
Speaker 1:And I don't know. I said you know you rub people the wrong way, especially when you start opening up cans of worms. So, I weren't necessarily ready to open up those worms and they thought they were, and no. I mean also, he's got three kids that are homeschooling and a full-time job and right. This added to some stress instead of taking it away from them, but whatever yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so courteous to you. Homeschools his two boys, and so I don't put any pressure on him. I don't make him open up like I do. I open up a little bit more. I talked about, you know, what happened to me over in Iraq. He doesn't really talk about that, but yet we still have that. I Feel like we have that, that good mesh. He's a little bit quieter than I am. I'm the loud one, I'm the one that's you know, I'm the one standing up. He's sitting down, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean me and KZ. We definitely had a really good, really good vibe going like that. But yeah, I do have that same kind of it's. It's the presence dude, it's what it's. It's it's hard to do a show by yourself. Um yeah, like last week. I mean I did 40 minutes by myself and I, I had stuff and I'm back and listen to the whole thing, but like yeah, I know, I struggle with that too, you know. But my first one. I can make 10 minutes and I'm like Like how am I doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, because you really can't judge. I feel like it's hard to judge how you're doing. Right, you need some, but it's like grading your own paper. You're grading your own English paper. I, I know what point I'm trying to make, but, as the reader Did, did that point make it to you right? Did you read that? Did you visualize that concept that I just put out on paper? Right? You know I'm saying a bunch of stuff, but a lot of people don't quite understand. They don't know what a hem it is. They don't know what an 88 tank is, or it's a recovery tank. Yeah, so we'll talk. So to clarify for people that were confused in the beginning yeah, it's got a time, boom on it, it can pick, so that tank can pick up a tank the same size.
Speaker 1:Yes, wild physics, which shouldn't happen.
Speaker 2:Shouldn't happen something the same poundage should not be able to pick up something else. That's the same poundage, but with a win they make it happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why the biggest ever seen in your life. Shits crazy. That's pretty cool, so I'm that shit. You're just like you look at that shit and just like, man, this aren't like I get tank. You know I get tank is so fucking cool dude. Yeah, like Like this is the Spent brass of a tank basically, oh sick as the af cap of 120 millimeter training here, and I got my my Calvary spurs hanging off of it. Did you know that's pretty dope Did you did.
Speaker 2:You have a Stetson too. Yeah, I did.
Speaker 1:It got lost. Well, I didn't get lost so I don't know. You probably haven't heard and I'll go into it, since we're opening up, so I got out.
Speaker 1:I got out because I smoked, weed on my after my second deployment and I got kicked out for having Two nanograms over the limit, my unit and disbanded, like you, every every bit of my leadership was gone, yep, and they basically threw the book at me and fried me for it. I went through serious depression. I got divorced and kicked out of the army and about the set the span of 48 days, divorced first, kicked out seven. Well, like I was doing, I was like lowest of the low I've probably ever been. Yeah, well, at that point it got worse.
Speaker 1:I went back home, got into some party and, you know, did all that shit again and just kind of just realize, like you know, you got to get the fuck out of here, this isn't what you're supposed to be doing. So I went to culinary school, moved to Colorado, long story short, wound up meeting my wife and we moved back here to North Dakota, now where she's from. So I mean like being able to pick yourself up. Being able to pick yourself up Right, it's hard, and what's it's even harder is like is how easy you can feel that again, you know what I mean. Like how easy it is to just remember like, oh shit, you know you can be mad at the world because you were in that situation, right. All you can ultimately say is like if I hadn't smoked that joint At the bar randomly because I like some dudes, like bro, I ain't seen you forever and I'm like yeah, yeah right.
Speaker 1:I just you know it's my second deployment, of course I'm a fucking smoke. I mean, kiss my ass. People did way worse and they just didn't get caught. You know what I mean? Yeah, I got caught. I tried to take it head on. The SART major at the time didn't like that. I was just basically unapologetic Because I wasn't apologetic. I got didn't right. I accepted that I did something wrong.
Speaker 2:Well, did it hurt? Did it hurt anybody?
Speaker 1:No, it didn't but it hurt me because they put me on extra duty and kicked me out the army, yeah. So then, yes, like it's been hard for me to kind of even claim my Better-in-ship because like I'm not proud of how it ended. And before I got to this point, the house that I grew up in that had all my like class A's and like all my shit, except, yeah, I'm on my metals maybe, but I didn't have much. I just like the dudes that were moving a shit out of my house when they got basically Vacant, we just sold it and we're just like had a moving company come just take all the shit out and fucking split the cash and Call it a day, but I just like gave away all my ACU's, like all my leftover uniforms and shit. I'm like now I'm kind of sad about it because I won't have nothing to get my kid, but that's the spurs man, I was done with it for a reason.
Speaker 1:I took that uniform off. I gave it away. Somebody wanted to. You know, I'm like whatever. Here it is, you know oh, it's so great fucking. No, it's not. It's a bunch of. It's a bunch of shit, bunch of ACUs and ugly. It's fucking yeah, or every fucking design.
Speaker 2:It really was. I thought I was getting the Lord's flannel. When I joined, I Thought I was getting BDUs little, little did I know.
Speaker 2:So when I went to the recruiting station, you know my recruiter was Was a civilian, so he's wearing a black polo and khakis mine was. He looks, he looks like every FBI agent and and he screwed me over like one two. He said I was gonna be E3 when I got out of basic. My recruiter lied to me or when you got out of basic, yeah, he said I was gonna get promoted to E3 when I got out of basic or a it.
Speaker 2:That's the same thing, my stepdad said too, because he was a recruiter at the end of his career. So this is like he was like a year removed from being a recruiter, like he got out because he got medically discharged after 17 years and but he was a recruiter at the end and he was telling me that I was supposed to get E3 when I got out and I'm still. I'll still an E2 until like the middle of Iraq.
Speaker 1:Yeah, finally got my E3 Iraq. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Your fuzzy patch for a little bit. You're just running around with open Velcro.
Speaker 1:Yeah, dude, and I woke is when touch me in my fuzzy spot 19 kilos was a oh sit. So we went. Hmm, I went to Knox as well. Right, I stayed at Knox for a right afterwards. Well, it's the same. I had the same drill sergeant, everything it was. We got a weekend off and then you got to come right back. That's close. It was four phases.
Speaker 2:You had like but at least you're, at least you're getting it done.
Speaker 1:So yeah, and then by then the drill sergeant had already kind of had you and the way they wanted you Mm-hmm, like you didn't have that free, like you were still in the not freedom of Like a a it as I mean, like you can actually like go out on the weekends and a it. I heard, yeah, there wasn't.
Speaker 2:I think after four after four weeks we're allowed to three or four weeks we're allowed to go to Baltimore and Towson and you know all that stuff. So it was training until the end got to go to Hooters. We always went to Hooters.
Speaker 1:We were on like week 16 and they decided they want to fuck a play, fuck around games. But everybody's back in red phase and we're like whoa, there's no phone calls, know this, and that's, that's before. They could actually say that they can't say that shit now. Now they have fucking cell phones and basic and yeah little.
Speaker 2:Did you know that was preparing you for deployment?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was good I go. By. The time I got the deployment I was like I'm not fucking calling nobody because yeah it's really hard for me to like call home when I was deployed, because it was like Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:I'm not there, I'm very like well, you miss it, you're.
Speaker 2:You feel like you're missing out on everything, like if I don't know at that time I was, I was over in Iraq, my girlfriend at the time she was in her first year at University of Illinois, and so you know, I just, I just wanted, I wanted to be down there. I wanted to. You know I I wasn't gonna go to college right away, I Wasn't gonna do that. So that's most, that's part of the reason why I joined was to get that a GI bill. But I knew I wasn't gonna go into college right away.
Speaker 2:I needed more time to develop and mature and of course, you know, I Was the one always arguing on the phone, going um, always, always come up with some silly argument with her and we ended up breaking up halfway through to the deployment. But you know, it's just, yeah, some of the the best times, most peaceful times, were we're on those Cops and fobs that you didn't have access to a phone or the internet. So or you had to make a you know, a half mile walk to the cat, to the internet cafe. That I didn't want to do. I wanted to go to sleep after my 12 hours.
Speaker 1:We really start kind of like thinking about like what's more important, like making a phone call, mm-hmm, or Maybe going to the shower and rubbing one out. You know it's always the ladder. By the way, folks, you didn't get a phone call for me. That's why sorry to blursh, wasn't cuz I was sleeping a little busy. I was a little bit with that, nevermind the pocket control Mix, mix mix and macaroni.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, shit, man, that's uh, that's really all I got to talk about. I usually like to I used to whenever I had a lot of guests on. I like to Ask one final question. The guests can say, like if you were, if you were gonna leave one, yeah, help me, pause, leave. Like yeah, I helped everybody pause leave. So, yeah, man, if you want to leave us like like a?
Speaker 2:little inspirational.
Speaker 1:You know like a little. Leave us your inspirational quote. I mean Manifest your destiny, find your, find your purpose, whether or not it's through, whether or not it's through the Lord or through whatever, whatever path you take.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm not sure if you're gonna be able to do that, but I'm sure, through whatever, whatever path you take, find hope, find some resilience, strength, whether it's in friends, family. You need, you need other people. We are humans, we. We thrive when we're Surrounded by people who love us. So surround yourself with loved ones, always stay connected and if you haven't seen your boys that you deployed with in over like a couple years, go visit them.
Speaker 2:If you got the shackles, you got the money, go visit your boys. If you can make a road trip four or five, eight hour, ten, twelve hour road trip to go see your boys, go visit your boys. It'll be like it'll be like the day that you both got out of the army. You'll be able to drink and and Talk and shoot the shit you know, relive all those good memories. Don't have to rehash all the trauma. Yes, you can. But, like I said, have fun with your boys, go and go. Go and visit them. I've been trying to connect with well. We have been hanging out every Couple years. A bunch of them came to my wedding in July.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for my buddies. Yes, awesome, all my guests. And why like my mom, my dad and all my army buddies and my brother?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my, my dad got to meet some the guys for the first time, because you know they never got to meet them. They're like, hey, it's Finally nice to meet. You put a put a face to a name.
Speaker 2:It's so cool, yeah. And then, um, you know, I did feel a little guilty because you know, throughout the wedding the grooms and brides sometimes split and go and talk to their own families and friends. I felt like I may have spent a little bit too much time with my bros smoking cigars and and throwing back shooters and playing Playing bags and whatnot cornhole, but you know we did spend a lot of time with each other.
Speaker 1:So over here, babe, you're my bags partner. Now let's what's yeah you know, we got mashed at our wedding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so, like every two weeks, I get to have my, I get to have my army bro on my, my brother. Essentially, we've known each other for 18 years now, so Tar and Feather podcast yo Come check us out. We're on Twitch, we're on Instagram, we're on. We got our first four episodes on rumble. We mostly post on YouTube and we go live on Facebook, youtube and Twitch.
Speaker 1:So Tar Tar and.
Speaker 2:Feather podcast. You can type it in like that into YouTube, or if you put tar and feather Spell out and it should populate. So it's awesome.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, dude, how do you like doing it on Twitch? Because I do it on my. I have my third. One is on my personal one. I was thinking about starting to do it on Twitch.
Speaker 2:Well, we only have two followers on Twitch and one is Corey's wife. Oh, that's where she, that's where she comments from. So, yeah, go to go to our twitch be be one of our first five subscribers.
Speaker 1:We'll follow each other on there, dude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ever if you ever download a world of tanks.
Speaker 1:Bro, We'll fucking. Okay, the world of tanks together.
Speaker 2:I'm about to get into sim racing. So I just bought a steering wheel and some paddle. So don't I'm about to get into some sim racing. My wife knows goddamn well.
Speaker 1:I can't, I can't get into any new habits, or any new, any new spending habits right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I'll Use this plastic behind me, yeah. Yeah, I got like like we were talking about before, before we went live.
Speaker 2:I got 12 bowling balls, two motorcycles, a kayak and A suff gets used, but now with the baby, yep, those things are gonna get used a little bit less, but once she gets big enough she'll be on the tank with me and we'll be right back. Yeah, hell, yeah Well this man.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate your time. I appreciate you. Yes, sharing with me and just getting this was fucking awesome show. I will do this again. Yeah, we're gonna do this again. This is too much fun, yeah, man.
Speaker 2:I would love that people are gonna love this episode. I think you guys do your. You do your show every Friday.
Speaker 1:I get every other Friday right. We try we record on Mondays, usually because it's Corey Sunday.
Speaker 2:Cuz he starts work on Tuesdays, so we normally record on Mondays. We try and get the episode out before midnight on Monday. So then people see it first thing Tuesday morning and if they're, if you're working Throughout the week, you can just pop that on while you're driving and you can just listen to it. You don't? We share memes too. We share memes on our podcast. So if it's just Corey and I will share memes. If we have a guest, we share their opinion. We'll share memes. If we have a guest, we share their pictures. So, oh yeah, with the Air Force vet we had, with Dean, we had some blue angel pictures. We had some of him on a boat, him an attractor, or we just find the dumbest memes. We don't get too raunchy with the memes, but we do put put out some pretty dumb memes.
Speaker 2:So one thing and, and they're different than the ones that we post on Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 1:So nice dude, one thing I used to do before we jump off, and I'm thinking about bringing it back again. You guys might even think about this too. We do what I would call turret talks. Okay and that was like once a month. What we do is like get all your listeners and you give them the stream yard link. And you just literally, just let him come on and it is okay.
Speaker 1:You can host up to 12 people or whatever on right and just hang out and just fucking literally just shoot the shit. It might get annoying for the listeners but it's a lot of fun, like our first, I think. At the most we had seven people on it once. It was pretty cool Just to kind of have everyone. That was like all former guests and friends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah, send me that link, dog.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I'm gonna be on that one of these days, once we get once I get more consistency going. Right now I'm doing every two weeks every family a live show and then, if I feel like it, I'll sprinkle like a 20 minute podcast in there as well, but they're on all the every one of the links we I post through buzz sprout, so it goes you can call it.
Speaker 2:You you can call bomb fires, except like a bomb fire, like you're sitting around a bomb fire, bomb fire.
Speaker 1:That was the idea. That was honestly the idea behind it was like, say, like, like just sitting around a campfire drinking beers with the boys. Yeah Well, yeah man, thanks again. I mean, I'm sure we probably bored them the last 10 minutes, but that's fine, nah thank you so much dude, I will see you soon and do not hesitate to reach out to Mike Michael rock.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm one of the openers, and Tahoe Joe to, and I steal the show. So if you're wanting to see your boy a better in chat project, I think I'm wearing this exact same hoodie For about 20 seconds. Tahoe Joe is real man. Mike, he's out there and Mike wouldn't be, he wouldn't, he wouldn't lie to you, it's a sad to watch movie, bro, you got to watch it.
Speaker 1:All right, I'll look it up. All right, thanks again. Good night. I'm gonna jump off here and thank you guys for listening. James Alder is again, as always, my man. Thank you, mike, thank you for those that will listen, thank you for those that will be on. I love you guys so much. This means the world to me. It means the world that you join me and I just I'm so thankful. You guys have a good night. God bless the industry. Hell fucking. Yeah, dude, I.
