Veteran Chat Project
Veteran Chat Project
Ass First, Emotionally Charged Journey Ahead!
In this riveting episode, we embark on a journey through the life of a combat veteran who transformed trauma into triumph. The story begins in the wake of September 11, where the resolve to serve forged a path of dedication and sacrifice. Our guest shares their powerful decision to join the Army, delving into the intense training and the complex realities of life on the battlefield.
Listeners are taken through harrowing experiences during combat deployments, revealing both the adrenaline of action and the weight of psychological challenges soldiers face. A pivotal moment of the discussion focuses on a life-altering injury and the profound impact it had on personal life and outlook. The episode eloquently illustrates how trauma does not define one’s future, as our guest found new purpose in advocating for fellow veterans through the Adaptive Training Foundation.
This episode shines a spotlight on mental resilience, emphasizing the vital role of self-talk and mindset in overcoming adversity. With a focus on community and support, it provides invaluable insights into healing and growth.
Join us for this inspiring narrative that encourages individuals facing their own challenges to find hope and strength. Whether you are a veteran, know someone who has served, or are simply seeking motivation during tough times, this episode offers practical wisdom and heartfelt encouragement to keep moving forward. Don’t forget to subscribe, share, and leave a review!
All right, everybody. What is going on? I do not know if you can hear me. I hope you can. It is good to see you. It's good to be back in this chair and doing the show. I have with me a guest today that I'm very excited to get to talking to, but first I want to. What the fuck is that? Ah, we'll worry about it later. First I just want to say you know again, thanks you guys so much for continuing to listen and check in and all that stuff while I was not doing the show. It's more appreciated than you'll ever know. I want to get right back to it, though, so without further ado, I'll bring Randy on and we will get to chatting about why I brought him on the show.
Speaker 2:What is going on, my man? What is up, man? Thanks Kyle for having me on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man dude, I appreciate you being patient with me not having any headphones or anything last week.
Speaker 1:But it was good though, because it gave me a chance to talk on the phone, get to know you a little bit, and then we've been chatting a little bit now, so I think it'll actually lead to a better conversation and, ultimately, you know, a better show. So, yeah, I think, so. Yeah, man. So typically what we do is just you know, kind of start with, like you know what was your service like, when and where you serve that kind of stuff. So we'll just start with you know, when did you join?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was one of the September 11th guys. You know what I mean. I was working a crappy sales job that I was either going to get fired or quit soon, and September 11th happened. And I was either going to get fired or quit soon. And September 11th happened and I was 33 at the time and even though I had a very young family, you know, I had always wanted to go in the Army or the military, but nothing really went on. And even when Desert Storm happened, you know, everybody knew that wasn't going to be a big deal and of course it wasn't. So it wasn't until September 11th that something actually happened that made me think, you know, now's the time I need to go do my part, and that's kind of what happened. You know, I'd made some mistakes early on in life and kind of had not lived up to what my capability was, and it was time for me to gain some of that respect back for my family and the community and definitely was time for me to step up and do my part for my community, because I was just pissed off as anybody else right after it happened. You know, I mean, it's a big deal, it was a big deal for everybody and, uh, so that's kind of that's that prompted me to enlist.
Speaker 2:And, you know, going in at 33 there wasn't, you know, definitely the marines weren't an option. So the army, you know, and I didn't really want to be in the navy, I don't be on ships and I air force wasn't my gig. I mean, if I was gonna be a fighter pilot or maybe a pj, then okay, cool, I might go into the air force, but it just wasn't. Army was it was a good fit for me. Um, and originally, you know, I went to the recruiter's office. I wanted a r Ranger contract man, but I went down. No joke, it was only September 27th, it was only really a couple weeks later, and I went into the Dallas Meps, which is a four-story building in Dallas, and it was packed, it was standing room only they were kicking old dudes, like I am right now that are prime service, 40 and 50 years old, out the door.
Speaker 1:You know telling them no, you can't come back in like we don't but there was.
Speaker 2:It was literally packed. And I get to the job counselor and he gives me some act of you know, there's no, no, those slots left. Right now we don't even have any airborne slots because so many people come in. But you know, I've got a eighteen thousand dollar sign on bonus to go regular infantry and I'm like, oh, I like that.
Speaker 1:Yes, I definitely like that and they're like got him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's exactly that's exactly what he did. He was, he reeled me in and put the net out, just brought me right in the boat. I didn't even know it now.
Speaker 1:They got me too, fucking 19 grand yep end it.
Speaker 2:Well, they don't tell you how they are going to end up paying you out. That either. There, there's a whole lot to it you don't understand. And for those that you know, I didn't just join the army and all of a sudden $18,000 hit the bank. No, they paid me over the next five years after I got to my duty station, had to get all the basic training and everything else. So, anyway, uh, that's when I enlisted and I went into the regular army, you know.
Speaker 2:And then the guy didn't tell me about, he just said look, you don't want to go on a side with a family? So there's a place in Savannah, georgia. And then he hooks the line even better Like there's a place in Savannah, georgia, which it turns out to be Fort Stewart, third infantry division, the mechanized infantry, the farthest thing from the ranger battalion that you could ever get, the farthest thing from the ranger battalion that you could ever get. But he says but you know, there are some rangers in there in savannah, so you will be able to link up with those guys and they will hook you up, which as, yeah, you know as well as I do if I just showed up on the airfield broken tv patch on my shoulder.
Speaker 2:They would have shot me on sight. They would. They would have hooked me up, all right, that's for sure. But you know. So, as it turned out to be, you know, things just work out as they're supposed to, I suppose.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, I did go over the initial invasion with third id. Uh, we spent three months in kuwait. Then we rolled across the berm of march 19th and, wow, you know well, the first three days were very painful. We were, they were trying to move us across the desert and all these tracks and everything getting stuck and broke. So we eventually hit the, the paved road, the hardball and boom raced all the way to baghdad.
Speaker 2:Uh, you know, I was a private, so I didn't have a lot of responsibility. I did, you know, we saw a lot of different things, um, but like any other combat and this is a low intensity conflict there were plenty of times of boredom and just driving forever, you know, and just keep driving until the next fuel stop. But you know, my battalion or it was a task force at this point, you know, we, because we had engineers attached to us, we had a Fox. You ever seen one of those? It's a chemical vehicle. Supposedly it can detect nuclear radiation from five miles away. So we had one of those and that's why we were a task force. And then we also had one of our companies that were Bradley's went over to the armor division and two tanks that's what a company of tanks is. Two tanks Came over and we got those two tanks. So that's what made us a task force. Two tanks came over and we got those two tanks. So that's what made us a task force.
Speaker 2:And in the three weeks of combat when it was over, we had led the whole way. We had leapfrogged with three, seven cav. You know now the marines were west of us and coming in a little bit different direction, but on the army side, that's who? It was us and 3-7 Cav all the way to Baghdad and we had nine killed and 17 injured or 17 wounded, and that was the highest of any unit at that time. And it wasn't because we didn't know what we were doing, it was because we were out front and we were taking it to the enemy and we had quite a few engagements. You know, the first B b bid that went off, which made the news back here in the states, that was some of our guys from alpha company, I think it was, but they were on a blocking position up there because we knew they were using it to to move men, munitions and and money and other intelligence and all kinds of things. So but they ended up letting this guy call a cab and when the cab showed up it blew up and killed those four guys. So we lost our first.
Speaker 2:You know, really the first thing that happened, the first guy we had killed was one of the tankers and I was on guard at the top and I didn't really have any kind of a built-up position. I'm just kind of laying behind a rock in the middle of the desert where they said the position was, and I had a pair of binos because you could. There was a, there was a village, probably a click from us, and then there was an onion field, an onion farm, to our left. It was about 300 meters and those two tanks had pulled up to each other and we're talking and one of them hopped up on the ground and about two minutes later I hear what I know to be an AK. It was only one shot, it was very loud, and I look over and there's a swath of blood on the whole side of that tank. And that kid was PFC, sanders was his name, he was 22-year-old and they killed him right there. And that was the first guy we had killed. Then we had aley fall in the well, then another guy died of a head injury before medevac could get there and then the day after that we had those four guys killed in the v-bit. So at that point we were pretty salty, oh yeah, but we lost some more guys go headed to the airport.
Speaker 2:And then you may have heard of this guy. He's named sergeant first class paul smith. He was got the first medal of honor out of g watt, whether it be afghanistan or iraq. He was killed in the airport. He was the platoon sergeant of the platoon of engineer combat engineers that were assigned to my task force. So he was literally we uh, they had given him some epws that he was going to hold and he was less than a mile from me when all that went down and we heard all the firing. So that's kind of what happened in my first deployment. But somewhere, certainly coming into the airport and then into Baghdad, there were ODAs that were leading us in and they had kind of channeled the bad guys in a couple of places. So we just you know when they're cleaned up, and I saw those guys and it didn't take a rocket scientist looking at those SF guys and looking at me and my ragtag privates and third ID I was like that is where I need to go.
Speaker 2:So, literally as soon as I got back from that first deployment, eight months later, it was well. We left in January. I came back in August, december, I went down and took the PT test. Then I went to selection in January of 2004 and then graduated in March of 2006, which was probably the best time of my life. You know what I mean. If you had told me five years before that that I would have been a green beret, I would have laughed in your face. It just would have seemed so far out there and impossible that I would have. There's no way I would have been able to dream or conceive of that, you know. But of course I didn't know september 11th was going to happen and everything that followed on after that. But uh, you know. So I I reported to fifth group and, uh, and we were there for four months when we deployed in august of 2006. To go back now I'm. I'm in at this end of oaf three going into oaf four and you know this is late of six.
Speaker 2:Man, what a different scene it was when I got back to Iraq. You know what I mean, because when I was there during the initial invasion, when that ended like even Sadr City when we first took over, sadr City was part of our sector. When we first got to Baghdad and all of Baghdad was like the wild, wild west. They were shooting every night all over the place. Within two weeks weeks we had that place locked down, the whole place. But, as you know, units switch out and I think it was not first ad, I think it was first acr, third acr and then some of first ad were the next to come in and their roe was completely different. So iraq start changing right.
Speaker 2:Then I got back in 06. I'm not gonna lie, it was like the smell of defeat was in the air. You know I mean there was nobody out at night, but the bad guys and us and when I say us I mean the special operations guys. Now, sure, there were some convoys that would run at night, but generally, if you, if you were there during that time, you know I'm talking, there was nobody out at night, they just like the route clearance guys, the engineers out there looking for the bombs and the guys that have the suckiest jobs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right, guys that used to be coming in in the morning, you're just like oh, dude, yeah here's, you know.
Speaker 2:And so it was a bad time, man, and we were very, very busy. I think we had done 19 hits by the time I got injured. And so December 22nd came along and we had a big package coming up in 48 hours. We had 23 bad guys on the tip, and the tip is the plan that ODAs build right. It's everything, it's all the intelligence from the different sources and who the bad guys are, what they've been doing, and then everybody, you know, from the engineer, the weapons guy, the commo guy, the medic officers or the commander and the team sergeant Everybody has this big part of the plan. Then it comes together and you run that up and 23 bad guys is an enormous package, you know usually yeah, a big package of six or seven.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. That's a pretty decent package, but 23 is huge. But these guys were right off, fairly close to route senators, and they were just lighting the place up with ieds and efps. And not only were they killing americans, as you well know, they were killing plenty of Iraqis too. These people were just very, very bad people, and so we went into their neighborhood 48 hours in advance, because two weeks before that we missed a high value target by two minutes, because now that the conventional unit switched out, it was no longer we did have fourth ID when we first got there. Then first cab came in and these guys didn't know their way around. They don't know who the bad guys are anymore. You have to learn all that.
Speaker 1:So they ended up. Yeah, we had to replace first cab a couple of times. So yeah, there's.
Speaker 2:Well, you know when you get there and somebody's been there a year they know the area, they know all the bad guys, they know where their houses are, they know everything. But when they first get there, certainly your conventional units now, some of those guys served there before, but no one's been there in at least a year, maybe two year and a half, so these guys didn't know their way around. And then the commander wanted to go blackout. Well, you're not going to sneak anybody in anywhere in the middle of baghdad with like a hundred or 200 vehicle stick, I don't care how slow you go, you're not sneaking in anywhere. You know what I mean. And then all the Iraqi police checkpoints, which there were numerous, they were everywhere. They were all just an early warning system for the bad guys at this point. So you definitely, what we found is if you did not go blackout and I'm sure these guys learned that lesson later If you just went white light and you 60 miles an hour, screeching to stop outside the door, everybody hops out, put the charge on the door, everybody gets back, blow the door, then the phones are ringing when you're inside the door and you've got the bad guys. But when you don't do that and you go in with blackout. By the time you get in the house it's just women and children. All the men are gone. They done fled. So that was part of the problem. But they also drove around the block. That was the two minutes we missed that guy.
Speaker 2:So we went this time to go make sure we knew the exact clean route in and clean route out so that we could put that in the plan. So when we went with said conventional forces we could tell them exactly what streets. You know what I mean. Like I said, when it was 4th ID, we didn't have to tell them We'd say this is who we're looking at. Oh yeah, we know exactly who that is and where they live. So we didn't have to tell them nothing. But you know it is what it is.
Speaker 2:So we had missed that high value target. So we went in 48 hours in advance to get that clean route in and out and and then it got hit by a uh, efp and explosively formed projectile. So basically this is a shape charge for those that don't know, and all the energy is focused in one direction. It's a very powerful weapon system. It uh it's. You know, no one wants to get blown up by an ied. But I think people feared efps because they were just so deadly they would cut you in half in a split second.
Speaker 1:When they briefed us after. This was shortly after, because I went in at eight was when I met up. So yeah, when we got our briefs on them, they were really heavy on the EFPs. You know, like you said, like you know, ieds are out there, they're scary, but you know the EFPs, they're flat out terrifying. They're like coffee can size yes, full of copper that melts.
Speaker 2:And nothing can stop it. We don't have. None of our vehicles, not the RGs, not the tanks. Not one vehicle we have will stop this round. And he's right. They use copper. The reason they use copper versus in a concave position and when the weapon fires it inverts that cone. But they use copper because it heats up so fast and when that explosion goes off, it heats it up to a gas. So basically it's a gas bullet, if you will right that.
Speaker 2:No, we don't have that just doesn't stop it goes in one side and out the other side and keeps right on going, and so I was extremely lucky that it just barely grazed me and it took half of both cheeks of my rear end, you know. And the funny thing I always tell veterans, you know now I'm not only a legitimate half-ass and no one can argue the point, but the VA actually gave me 50% for each cheek, bro, 50% for each cheek, gave me 50% for each cheek bro, 50% for each cheek, which tells you how important your butt is.
Speaker 2:But I never realized exactly how important it was until I was missing half of it. It really was when I got on a mountain bike and started trying to ride up inclines and then I was like, oh, Nothing blocking my ass, that's well, you have a lot of muscle tissue.
Speaker 2:You have a lot of strength in your butt for walking, running or when you're pedaling and you're doing this, man, you think it's all your legs, but it's a lot. Your butt. Your butt does an extremely crap. A lot of stuff for you, not just the pads. You're sitting down and make things comfortable.
Speaker 2:So yeah, man, so the the good thing is I did survive it. You know what I mean. I see it as the hand of God because, as you know, these EFPs are no joke man. They probably I think they're responsible for somewhere around 973 deaths for service members and somewhere around 2,500 injured, and then most of those are amputees in some form, a lot of them with no legs. That's a fact. So the good thing is it led me on a journey that led me to where I am today, even though you know when it happened, and certainly it took me off a team and effectively ended my military career. So much good has happened.
Speaker 2:You, you know, certainly, being at that, at that level, I'm a green brand and oda there's only a couple steps above me and I'm going there. You know you're like on the pinnacle of life and you are at the tip. You are really at the tip of the spear and you're doing really important shit and then just to get ripped right out of that and then, by the way, you're not going to get to do that anymore, most likely. You know what I mean. It changes your outlook and aspect and I thought you know certainly probably not in the beginning because I was on a lot of medication. But several years later I think probably five or six, seven years later I had the first thought of you know what, man, the best years of my life may already be behind me, which was a scary thought to me, because when you're young, you never have that thought. You have plenty of time to make up for whatever you've already screwed up, which is the truth most of the time?
Speaker 2:No, yeah for sure. But you know it was a thought that occurred to me, so it led me to this thing called the adaptive training foundation. Right, and um, this is really one of the things that started catalyst me to try to take my life back in the way that I used to have it when I was a green beret, because now, you know, I'm disabled. I I did have an amputation, I actually had four, so I've got a prosthetic and you know I can't do some of the same things that I always did then. Mostly I can, but you know it definitely changed things. And and then when I got out of the military, then I thought, even though I was working for a really cool foundation that worked with green gray, specifically called the green gray foundation, you know you just feel like you're part of such a smaller element now and and not not in a good way right, when you get to a group, or like if you went to CAG or even in Ranger Battalion, you are in a very small group, but it's an elite group. You know we're not talking about something you get stuck with. You know you had to work for that, you had to get picked. So I don't know it.
Speaker 2:Just that's what I was talking about earlier, uh, before we started recording. You know, I kind of lost my purpose and direction when I lost that Cause. You know I was at, uh, I was in the military for 11 years. You know I pretty much wrapped my, my identity up in that uniform and certainly that beret in a, in a short second, uh. But it takes a whole lot longer to unravel that and to get over that and to get past that and to think. You know what I mean. I can still do things that are just as great. They're just not going to be in that way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially, I mean like in the situation that you were, in which we may have kind of grazed over a little bit. So if you want to go back to kind of like I know you kind of you grazed over kind of getting hit with that EFP, maybe tell listeners what you went through after that and then what led you to that adaptive training program.
Speaker 2:You want me to tell you about what happened basically. Yeah, like I said, we had a big tip coming up and we needed to get a clean route in and out, and for those that don't know what that means is, we need a separate, everything different. A route that went in one way to the objective that we were going to, to where we were going to take down these 23 individuals, and then a whole separate route all the way back out of the neighborhood, not going down any of the same roads that we came in. I know that sounds some people say well, that sounds, you know common sense. But here's reality. At this time in Iraq, if you did that and and this was a tactic they used if you drove in to where you went, made a hit when, as as anybody that's done these, you know as soon as that door blows or however you get into that house, now the whole neighborhood knows you're there. It's like anything else. They all come out to watch. Many of them come out to shoot. So you know, if you try to do that and then drive back out the same way that you came in, they would put out more IEDs on that road hoping you would come back, and you're generally there for 30 or 45 minutes easily. So they have time to do that. So you have to make sure and ensure that that route are both clean and separate routes so that it lessens the likelihood that that's going to happen.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately for us, it didn't matter. When we pulled into the neighborhood, we no sooner called the B team and let them know that we were there and that we were fixing to go through the neighborhood. And this is probably at 10 o'clock at night, it's a little after curfew, so no one should be out. Not anybody in the public should be outside at this point, and so. But we weren't inside the fence 30 seconds. And to me, in the beginning I didn't know what happened. The Humvee rocked a little bit, you know, but it was. I did have liberators on right. I had some very good hearing protection on. That was also plugged into our radios. So I'm talking to our, I have radios with my team and I also have radio contact with the conventional forces that were now. Well, that night I did not. I'm sorry, but normally.
Speaker 2:I would. So I I've got that on and I the funny thing was I saw a roadblock right to my left that they had made Right At this time. For those that don't know, the Americans all of us conventional forces and all of the military there had put out miles and miles of HESCOs, miles and miles of cement barriers. We did block some roads and we, of course, going into the green zone, there had to be switchbacks with all these cement barriers so you couldn't just come charging in. But this was not one of those. This was like a broken, this was a tore up car. It was trash, it was rock, it was all kinds of. I could tell that the Iraqis built it is my point. So I knew that we didn't know that that was trash, it was rock, it was all kinds of. I could tell that the Iraqis built it, as my point. So I knew that we didn't know that that was there. So I I'm looking at my map and I'm looking at the FPCB two that I had and I am marking exactly on the road where I see that roadblocks. We'll now have this information.
Speaker 2:And in the middle of doing that, all of a sudden it was like a little rush of wind and the map was gone. My pen was gone. I had clear lenses on because it was at night. Those were gone and I was just sitting there kind of looking at my gloves, thinking what just happened, you know, and then I hear the call over my team net. And now my teammates are calling out ied drill. Ied drill, because at this point everybody it didn't matter what unit you were, whether you were a team, squad or a platoon or company, and everybody had practiced these ied drills in case you get hit by an explosive and route wherever you're going. So we had the same sops and I hear them call that out and I thought to myself was that us? You know, I mean, was it us?
Speaker 2:And uh, there, shortly after there became some ak fire and then a couple of our other, the 250 cows that were still operable opened up and of course they had started an ambush and they squashed that ambush and effectively those guys probably said, oh, these aren't the guys we want to fight. And really they waited, they were smart, they pulled back. So we were there for a few minutes and, as I tell people all the time that our radios wouldn't work, we could not get in contact with the B team and we needed to give them our coordinates so they would know where this vehicle is. Now. The EFP, as I said, also went through the fuel tank, so it was already burning, because that's how I got set on fire. You know, I'm sitting there once the map was gone and I'm going to myself what's going on? I hear them called out and I think to myself was that us?
Speaker 2:The next thing that happens, I remember, was a whoosh and instantly my legs were on fire and instantly my legs were on fire like a matchstick. It just got lit and you threw it on your charcoal that you had your lighter fluid. On One second I'm not on fire and the next second both legs are fully involved and the flames are up here. I had inhalation wounds from it. I had burns on my face from that and then, even though I'd worked on an ambulance right out of high school for my first six years out of high school, and I know you can't put yourself out by fire that's why we came up with the stop, drop and roll. The adrenaline kicked in and you have no control for three or four seconds and I'm sitting there trying to put myself out, even though I know you can't, and I still remember to this day, thinking to myself why are you doing this? You?
Speaker 1:shouldn't be doing this.
Speaker 2:My gloves caught on fire, so now most of my fingerprints on the ends of my fingers are gone. So when I got out and had to get a concealed handgun license, I had to submit them more than once to the FBI. And if I had to listen, I know those aren't the same prints that you have. I got burned. They're not the same anymore.
Speaker 1:They men in black me up, they burn them off, took me care of me.
Speaker 2:I don't leave proof anymore, so so yeah, that's what happened the night. It happened, you know what I mean, but when I was fully involved, you know. Next thing, I know the door opened. One of my medics was at the door screaming for me to get out, as he's saying, saying stop, drop and roll. That's all I'm thinking. So I got out and rolled. It was very hard because of all the shit you have on, you can't really get a good, tight roll. So it took a few minutes. Then they padded me out the rest of the way.
Speaker 2:The good thing is they packaged me up quick and even though it took a few minutes to get the radios to work hey, just know people, it's just Murphy's Law. It doesn't matter how high speed we get and how good technology gets, it will fail you in the moment that you need it the most. And it's what happened. We couldn't call. It took us about three or four minutes literally to finally get the B team back on the radio, tell them the coordinates and then we hauled butt. The good thing for me was this was in Baghdad, jeddah, so literally it was only about a 15 minute very fast drive to the green zone and I got to the cash or the hospital in the green zone within 45 minutes of it happening, in that golden hour, and I was losing a lot of plasma and blood, you know, because we didn't even know what all my injuries were. And on the ride back, you know I still remember my left foot, all my injuries were. And on the ride back, you know I still remember my left foot was asleep and I should have known. That tells me.
Speaker 2:Now the nerve damage was already done by the fire, although I thought it was because we were stopped into this humby. Now, there were too many of us. You're not supposed to have this many people in there, but we're less than a vehicle now. We dropped four thermites on that thing but it uh and it burned to the ground, but they still went back and tried to get it anyway.
Speaker 2:I get, you know, as we're driving, something just said you should probably check your ass. It was like you hear people say there's a voice, there was a voice, check your butt. And I'm like I didn't know why. So I just reached back and I and instantly I knew, because it was very slick and there was a there was a huge deficit. When I pulled my glove back out, all this plasma and blood and other stuff was all over. I was like so the funny thing is, I'm sitting there, you know, and the nomadic is now trying to talk to me. He's like hey man, I know we didn't really get to check you out. I know you got burned, but do you think you have any broken bones? Are you hurting anywhere else? And I say yeah, man, I think my ass is gone. And old boy says I won't say the exact words, I say he says motherfucker, I'm serious right now, right like dude fucking me too.
Speaker 1:He said no dude, I'm serious.
Speaker 2:I just reached back, so I think he thought I was telling him I think I'm going to die, right, that my ass is gone, I'm leaving, and that's why he said that no, I'm serious right now. Is there anything? I said, dude, no, I'm serious, I just reached back and I'm pretty sure my ass is gone. He's like oh well, let me look, so like I house is gone. He's like oh well, let me look, so we're like I said, we're packed in there. So I have to help him. I have to work my way this way and he's grabbing two handfuls of my acu pants and pulling. And I remember once I finally tilted up and I could tell he's leaned over. Look, he goes, and he just puts me back.
Speaker 2:he says man you went through some shit back there, didn't you? I was like, yeah, man, yep, and so I've, like, I said I've worked on an ambulance, so what does he do? He starts doing some small talk. Right, because this is what you do when somebody certainly when you've had this much trauma right, you want to keep them conscious, right?
Speaker 2:and you want to keep them talking, that's right, and you don't want them to fall asleep. So, because he doesn't know if I have a head injury or not which I did, I had a severe concussion and so he starts that small talk and I say his name's Matt. I was like Matt, look, I know what you're doing and I know why you're doing. I said so. If I feel anything, if anything changes, heck. If I don't feel anything at all, I will let you know. But right now I'm really fucking pissed off and I don't feel like talking and the funny thing is I still cause it's dark. You know we're in and he's in front of me, so I could see the silhouette of his helmet through the windshield and I've got blurry vision, but I can still that and I see his head.
Speaker 2:He starts doing this. He goes you know what? I'm gonna take that from you right now. Yeah, man, so that was really cool.
Speaker 2:So then you know, he didn't really bother me again, it didn't take us long. We weren't far away and you know, as we started getting up towards the, the switchbacks, I was telling everybody there was two or three levels of them that you went through to get all the way into the green zone, out from the carrata peninsula, and uh, and that was the way we were coming in, and he gets out the morphine and he pops me one right and he goes how was that? I said I didn't even feel it. He goes well, let me get another one. I said no, don't bother. I said we're almost there. They let me get another one. I said no, don't bother. I said we're almost there, they will give me something. You keep that. You guys might need that later, more than I'm going to need it right now. And he's like, okay, and you know, basically they dropped me off and everything was fine up until they put me under, you know.
Speaker 2:And then I don't remember much, and apparently my team did. I got stuck there for a couple of days in Baghdad. They actually shipped me to Balad, which is where they put a colostomy bag in, because it turns out, when you're missing half your butt, you're not going to be able to take, you're not going to be able to go to the bathroom, naturally, because you'll get infections that will kill you and they wouldn't even be. That's what they told. There would be no way for us to keep you alive. So you end up with a colostomy bag. But my team did come back and told them they said you were speaking gibberish, man. You made no sense when we came back and saw it. So, after they gave me all the medication that put me in surgery and I came back out, I was speaking gibberish.
Speaker 2:I don't remember anything for five days and then, literally I woke up in the burn ICU unit in San Antonio, texas, at Brookharing Medical Center, and I will tell you I didn't feel anything through that event. I wasn't in pain, I didn't scream out, I was. I'm sure I was in shock, but I was really pissed off too, because I knew I wasn't finishing the mission right. I knew that I was about to leave these guys short, and certainly I was the guy that was running all the commo, and so it was going to be a big deal. I hadn't thought it all the way through that, you know, I'd be off the team and then I'd end up back in the United States and effectively this was going to end my career. But I knew it wasn't good and I wasn't happy about it and I, you know I was glad I was alive, obviously. But, as you all might know, I was just pissed, just mad, and it was nothing, it was anybody's fault or what anybody could do about it. You know just, there's no rhyme or reason to it, you know. So that's kind of how that went.
Speaker 2:And then when I woke up, you know I did not. I was in so much pain when I woke up there was never any question in my mind if I was still alive or not. You know, some people will say that they woke up and they didn't know if they were alive. Not me. I knew right away that I was still alive because I was in a significant the burns, you know the chunk I was missing off my rear end. All that was an extreme amount of pain and it's all turned into good because I look at the blessings I was talking about earlier. You know all the milestones my kids have went through, graduating high school, college or trade school. You know my daughter's engaged, they both are in their careers and doing well and I, you know I would have missed all that. But I've received a lot of blessings from this too. You know, not just being on the show.
Speaker 2:I've met a lot of different from this too, you know, not just being on the show. I've met a lot of different people. I've been to meet a lot of veterans and I've been able to help a lot of people in a lot of different ways. One, you know, one of the jobs when they, when I got back to fifth group, you know they didn't, they didn't know what to do with me and then they promptly shipped me to Tampa, florida, mcdeal Air Force Base as Special Operations Command and there I worked for the CARE Coalition for the next five years and then I was with anybody under Special Operations, the MARSOC, marines, rangers, you know, even all the way up to Delta, tier One, element dudes, anything under Special Operations. All come under SOCOM. So we service all of those and SEALs, afsoc folks and I think I said the Rangers, all those are under special operations. So any of those get injured or wounded, then we would follow their cases and take them.
Speaker 2:But I also did a lot of benevolence out of that, and that's where I came across benevolent organizations and what nonprofits actually do, because one of the things I did for SOCOM was all these organizations. As we know now, like from September 11th to 2020, like 50 or 60,000 military veteran charities started up. You know what I mean. It was ridiculous the amount, and not all of those are legitimate. You know. There's some unscrupulous people out there pulling some shams. So I went around to certainly all the major ones and some of those that had come up and offered they wanted to provide services to SOCOM's service members. So you know they don't do that today for you, but back then that's what we did. So we had an old part of that office.
Speaker 2:I would go out and meet with all these organizations, first in the beginning to fill them out, to make sure that they were doing the right thing, you know. And then we started having conferences every year where we invited all these nonprofits to Tampa where they would come in, and then we'd have a big kumbaya meeting, basically, and we would, in the beginning, let them all sit down and talk about who they are, so each of them could start collaborating, and then we would have relevant speakers and classes for wounded veterans and every type of topic you know what I mean from PTSD to sexual stuff, when people have issues with that after service or after their injuries, and, uh, everything in between, and so we would have those professionals come in and speak on those two or three days. So that kind of started that ball and um. And then when I got, when I actually actually finally medically retired out in November 2012 as an E7, I went to work for a nonprofit which was the Green Beret Foundation and worked for them for four years and I was able to help over 2,000 Green Beret family during my tenure there and somewhere in the neighborhood of $2.5 million or something like that. Yeah, and so that was very rewarding because both jobs really were. You know what I mean? Because one of the things, uh, you know I've learned is that I do have a heart of service. You know I was kind of a mean kid when I was younger, but I was very hyper. You know I had some issues, but one of my first jobs real job besides I had a job at Dairy Queen when I was in high school. But after high school, you know, I got, I went to work on an ambulance. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:And a green beret is not different from that. A green beret the the biggest difference. They are the only special forces. You hear that on the news all the time. Special forces uh, people did this, but generally they're talking about special operations. Folks, green berets are the only special forces, they're the only one with the tab and it's the only soldier on the planet. No other military has like what the Green Beret does and the only one that does is the United States military. And the Green Beret is trained in the 360 degrees of combat. So it's not all just about fighting and combat and force multiplication.
Speaker 2:You know, if we got to go do humanitarian efforts, we do that. We have to dig, help dig a well or build a waterway, we do that. We have to build a church, a school, a hospital. You know when we go into all steer environments, like when these guys first showed up in Afghanistan after September 11th, you know that medic, you know what they did was they went out and started working with the local indigenous folks. All the team did Right and you had your little area so you brought them in, you trained them, you fed them and you know you try to help turn their lives around. We even armed them because these folks, back when we showed up they didn't have weapons, they had hoes and shovels. You know, now the Taliban and some of the other folks there had weapons, had AKs, but not most of your average citizens. So certainly the people that are there trying to work and just live their lives, they don't care about any of the rest of it. But when those guys hit the town, right, they not only had to help feed, they had to get food for them. But the team medic now just became the village OBGYN, right, he became the village doctor. He became the village dentist. He became the village obgyn right, he came the village doctor, he became the village dentist. He became the village veterinarian. No joke, he has light skills and all those things. Uh, and that's kind of what we do.
Speaker 2:So again, it's not just combat. But the green beret is the only soldier that's trained in all 360 degrees of the battlefield and thereof, you know, like even your tier one elements, right, they're all high speed and everything, but they really only do direct action, right, and they don't even really they don't plan. They get the plan from an ODA. Because the way it works is, you know, the CIA and other Green Berets are all out there in all these countries probably in a hundred right now and they're just gathering all intelligence and they send all these intelligence and these plans up, and so the best ones get cherry picked by your tier one elements. So they really don't have to plan. It's already given to them. But that's kind of what they do. You know what I mean. And they're still very professional.
Speaker 2:I would have loved to go on there and had I got past this deployment and nothing like this happened, I definitely would have went and tried out for sure. Um, so I'm not, I'm not, uh, ditching them by any means, but they're not trained to do everything the green beret is trained to do by any stretch of the imagination. Now, some of them were green berets. So, that being said, you know I mean, those have the same training and there certainly have been more mission creep from the tier one elements on green berets missions because of which. But they're never going to be able to do the whole ball of wax, and even your infantry soldier is not able to do that.
Speaker 2:So, that being said, you know that's kind of what a Green Beret does, but they have the caring side to them as well is what my point was. You know what I mean? We're always serving someone else, you know, and that's kind of what we do. We're advisors, we're force multipliers, but we're also that glue, that kind of has to keep everything and everybody together and moving in the right direction, everything and everybody together and moving in the right direction. So that's kind of you know it just kind of fit my personality.
Speaker 2:So afterwards, you know, now I can't be a Green Beret anymore and with my injuries and these burns I'm not going to go contracting and carry a rifle. And I also honestly believe there's a huge difference than you know volunteering to serve and being under orders in uniform, and you have no choice, you're going, whereas then you're going to get paid to go as kind of like a mercenary. I think that's too, it's a big difference, right, big difference. And so I don't. You know it's not something I'm going to do, but the way I found to serve was walking through the Adaptive Training Foundation's doors, and what the Adaptive Training Foundation's doors and what the Adaptive Training Foundation is, it's another nonprofit that's in Carrollton but you have to be disabled to get in the club. There's no public membership right and it could be congenital, you could be born with it, but you have to have a disability in some form or fashion.
Speaker 2:And you know, as those come, we help them basically take their lives back. You know they come in for nine weeks to train them very hard physically, three days a week like they're a professional athlete, and it really is no joke. I've went through the class three times. It doesn't matter what physical condition you're in if you give a hundred percent of every rep. That nine weeks is very difficult to get through. It's a big push. So one of the things because of that, because that's really why we did the physical training you know why we become such good friends in the military, become family, because you went through a lot of suck together too. That's the reality. You went through a lot of suck together and then you've been through different circumstances that normal people aren't going to be put in very stressful ones at times. So it just builds that bond Right, because you know who that person is, don't you? For a large degree.
Speaker 2:But the biggest part of it is like anything, every single thing is 70 percent mental and 30 percent physical, from the time you had to learn to put the fork to your mouth to feed yourself. That is still 70 mental. And if you don't believe me, look at anybody that has a serious head injury. What do they have to do? They have to learn how to do everything again. They have to learn how to talk, to learn how to eat, to learn how to walk. They have to learn how to do everything again. And that's why because everything, everything is 70% mental. So the biggest thing of the adaptive training foundation and I've heard this somewhat my whole life, but I didn't really grasp and take it in and absorb it until I got to the adaptive training foundation but it's the mental side of it, right.
Speaker 2:So we work on mindfulness, we work on breath work before and after each training session, but one of the biggest pieces we work on breath work before and after the each training session. But one of the biggest pieces we work on is the self-talk. Yeah, because, oh, it's huge. So, for those of you don't know or haven't heard, the most important conversation you're going to have every day is the one you have in your, with yourself, in your head. That's going to be the most important conversation, because the old saying is either way, if you believe you can or can't, is true, it's because you believe it. If you can believe, if you believe you can do something, you go out and do it. But if you believe you cannot or you don't believe you can do it, guess what you can't?
Speaker 1:a lot of people don't understand how powerful like the mind really can be. You know, until you're't. A lot of people don't understand how powerful like the mind really can be. You know, until you're pushed to a situation like you have been, or you see people but yeah, dude, the mind it's, it's crazy, dude, like it really is it's that significant.
Speaker 2:It's that significant and I've had to learn because I grew up in a different era, like I said, but but I learned this from other adults, certainly in my family. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just human nature. But that being said, even though I became a green beret and that takes a lot of mental, mental fortitude and mental strength, because the physical attributes are not going to get you all the way through the course into that beret it's a fact and you'll see people some of the biggest, strongest dudes don't make it because once they get to the point in the course where your physical strength and your physical attributes can no longer get you where you need to go, people that can't get their mentally full and that's it. Once their body gives out and they don't think they can do anymore, they believe that that's it, they're done. I watched it happen many times. I saw grown men cry real tears like babies, more than I ever saw in that two years of the course. I've never seen that before in my life and probably never will again. But I have to admit, if my dream would have ended like theirs did at any point in that course, I probably would have cried real tears myself because you put a lot into it. You put everything you have into getting through that and being the best that you can be, and when, I would imagine when that fails, it would have had to been a huge letdown, but it's, it's the mental piece, and so I could cuss myself as bad as anybody in 30 seconds or less in my own head just for the smallest of mistakes. I've learned how detrimental that is and I think, ah, you know, if I became a green beret, like, imagine what I could have done had I had a better mental game the entire time.
Speaker 2:Certainly, because here's one of the things people and you, we all hear it right. Somebody go oh, I'm a dumb ass. And when they really mean it, sometimes we all laugh. Right, yeah, you are. But there are times people say it and you go man, don't say that about yourself, right? Everybody says then what do they say? What's was just kidding? Yeah, I didn't mean, I was just kidding. Here's the problem with that. Your subconscious, that's right, and your subconscious doesn't know the difference. That's why, when you're dreaming, or if somebody has ptsd, why do you think they're freaking out? Because their brain actually sees it. You know what I'm saying? Yes, and it believes it. It doesn't know that you're not being shot at right now, that you're sitting in your.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, but it's still firing off all the sensors that it's supposed to be firing off, but then your body's not working, it doesn't know the difference. What the fuck are we doing? Sitting here and then yeah.
Speaker 2:So you should, you know.
Speaker 1:We just explained it all right here, folks. That's the chat project.
Speaker 2:So where that led me to was what I'm doing now, and I still am a head trainer at the Adaptive Training Foundation, although this year has been a little different because I've taken on a couple of other projects. It first started with writing my own autobiography, and I don't think I'm so important that I need to do that. But I've been told for the last 15 or 20 years that I should write a book and I always laugh it off. I'm like dude, no one is going to buy my book. I mean, I'd be writing a book just for myself.
Speaker 1:That would be it. Well, it's like we said, man, that one person could reach one person.
Speaker 2:That's right. I finally came to that and I've had enough people tell me that. And then I thought about the drug addiction and the abuse that I had back in the day and then to where I was able to come after that. And then the injury you know there were. So many times I had to reinvent myself and be. You know what I mean, actually change directions. And so I thought, you know I do have a relevant story and honestly I thought about kids.
Speaker 2:Right, because if someone would have came to my high school and said, certainly in my freshman or sophomore year, and said you know, if you keep your nose clean you can get out, you can graduate high school, go into the army, go to ranger battalion for three or four years and then you can go try out Delta Force it's called CAG but and go out and hunt and kill. Go out, hunt, capture or kill the most dangerous criminals on the planet yourself, I would have been all in, I wouldn't have done anything. That would have been my life's mission. But I just didn't know that was a possibility. I didn't know anybody from Ranger Battalion, I didn't know any former CAG operators, you know.
Speaker 2:I didn't know any veterans period. The only veteran we knew worked with my dad at his work and he was a Vietnam veteran that was a recon Marine that had, I want to say, 17 pieces of metal still in him from his he went to. He did three different tours. Yeah, so he probably wasn't very chatty. I never met him. My dad knew him and his dad told us stories. But yeah, apparently he was, he was, he was quite the character apparently liked him, but nobody messed with him.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, yeah, not at all but you know.
Speaker 2:So what that led me to was talking to a guy that's helping me with my own autobiography and he was like you know, I've always had this thought that maybe if we got like 25 of you adaptive athletes right, and each book, each chapter was a different author and all 25 would be 25 different stories.
Speaker 2:What do you think about that? And I said, man, you know what? That sounds like a really good idea to me, and I'll tell you why. Because what I've learned in the adaptive community is no different than what I learned in the Green Beret community. Right, in the Green Beret community you have high standards. Why? Because they're important. That's why and the other part of it is, you know, no matter how high we make those standards, it's human nature. No matter how high we make those standards, it's human nature With our mind, heart and soul, we will find a way to reach and many times exceed that standard. We've been doing it since the beginning of time. So it's kind of the way things go.
Speaker 2:But I learned that in the adaptive community because so many people, after this happens, they think their life's over, and then some people, in the worst case scenarios, everybody, they just their family members, their friends. They start doing everything for them. They don't hold them to any standard and the next thing, you know, these people can't do anything on their own. It's the worst thing you could do to somebody. It's literally the worst thing you could do to somebody. You have to keep holding them to high standards, you know.
Speaker 2:And so the gym part that brought it in, and what I've learned was everybody always comes in broken and with this long list of things that they can't do anymore. Right, however, that's not true. You may have a couple additional challenges now to be able to do whatever it is. You did before what you want to do, but you can still do it if you really want to. You're going to have to work at it and you're going to have to do whatever it is. You did before what you want to do, but you can still do it if you really want to. You're going to have to work at it. You're going to have to work for it, you know. And so I learned when they come in and they can take, I'm burned. I don't wear pants ever because this prosthetic with the sleeve it's like a heater. I'm sweating all the time. You know, I live in Texas, so I don't put on pants until it's like in the 30s.
Speaker 2:So, they see what I look like, right, and they know. And when I tell them I'm not going to feel sorry for them, they know that I'm not going to. And then but I will say, hey, listen, we're not going to, I'm going to do it all with you. Hey, whatever you want to do, we'll gladly do with you, but you're going to do it yourself and and we're going to show you how to do that. And then the other biggest part is we don't have a bunch of adaptive equipment, right, it's all regular gym equipment, because we have people come on from all over the nation. There's only one, it's in Carrollton, texas, and we have people come from all over the nation. So if we brought them in and had all this special adapt-alized equipment and trained them for nine weeks and then sent them home to Wisconsin or wherever they go, they're not going to be able to walk in a gym and find this equipment. So we show them how to adapt to the equipment. And so what I've learned when you give people that hope and then you show them, it's impossible, you would not believe the miracles we have happened every nine weeks in that class, because man, to see people now, like I said, take back their lives is a big deal. So what I learned? You know what you get for people that have been disabled and then come back. So when it came to this book, I didn't just call anybody that went through the adaptive training foundation or any injured person. I knew you had to be somebody that went through some serious, difficult shit and some dark days. But you came back, fought for and now you're thriving at life in spite of, and you are absolutely killing it. And so those are the all-stars that I picked. And now we're at 33, we're going to cap it at 40 and I think it's going to be the world's greatest mindset book. And mental, you know, because awareness, mental issues are now becoming a big deal and or finally, people are giving it the credit it should. You know what I'm saying For sure, and it's not just for mental health but even brain injuries and stuff.
Speaker 2:And I go back to the reporter that was from ABC. It's not Bob Woodward, it's Bob Wood something. But either way, this guy got injured in Afghanistan. If you look when he came back from that blast, he's one of those that wore the helmet and was drooling on himself. He had to learn how to talk, walk and every single thing all over again. But he worked for ABC so he got the best medical care that money could buy and if you look at him today, the only way you would know is by the scars on his face. He's still working at ABC right now and he's on TV probably every night, or at least several times a week, because he's one of their main field reporters. But if you look at the guys in the military that me and you served with and ended up like that, where are they today? They're still looking the same way in the bed. Lights are on nobody's home. Yeah, they did not get the best medical care on the planet.
Speaker 1:And then people were walking past them in the streets because they're asking for money and they're like, oh, look at this nasty homeless dude, or you know, and people really need to consider that man.
Speaker 2:they have no idea what that person's probably been through, and certainly if they have any kind of a head injury. Here's the big problem. Head injuries aren't like like if. If me and you were out in the middle of nowhere. We're trapped on an Island and one of us breaks our arm, and we said it. It might not be right, right, but it will heal over time, as long as we don't get an infection or something. But let's just say for great generally it's going to heal. And it may not be right, it may not work exactly right for the rest of your life, but it will heal over time even though you never went to the hospital. A brain injury is not that way, it's exactly the opposite. So the problem with TBI certainly, once you get to a certain level, if it's left untreated, it does not get better. With time it continues to degrade and to get worse. You know what I mean and so you know it's still. I don't know why.
Speaker 2:I kind of got off on that mental health piece, but I think you know that's what this big book is going to be a mindset and what I've learned about the adaptive community is just like the infantry, because even in special operations. At the end of the day, when you've got to take that objective, it comes down to basic infantry tactics, right, and basic infantry tactics are just like baseball and football. You learn lessons on those fields that apply to life. Your most basic infantry that apply to life, your most basic infantry tactic applies to life, and the most basic one is always keep moving forward, regardless of the challenges. Why? Because to stop is to die. So you must always keep moving forward, and so I use that. You know, in this, certainly with even regular people, but certainly people end up with disabilities and you think about it.
Speaker 2:So then, all these different chapters, some of the questions that I ask and what we're really pulling out of these athletes are what were the physical and mental struggles you had to go through through, what happened to you and afterwards, right, and then what are the techniques that you learned, how you overcame them? And there again, those apply to life and each person is different. So that's why we're going to have 40 athletes, because not everybody's going to connect with my story, right, there'll be other people that they will connect with their story or something they should. We'll snap a light on in their light and go. Oh, that's how you do it, and so that's why we're doing the chapter book.
Speaker 2:You know, it's the same reason I'm doing my autobiography, because I think there's some lessons in my life that certainly the youth and even other adults if you're having some sort of addiction or any kind of trouble at this point, because getting through hardship is always the same and it doesn't matter which hardship it is, it's going to take. You know, you, uh, you relying on some mental strength and and and using some good, positive role models and some positive metrics on and goals of how you're going to get out of that. And so it's one of the things that I really enjoy about listening to each person's story, because then I learned another little tidbits of how they conquered this or that, and certainly the mental ones, because their physical ones are hard enough, but the mental hurdles are always the hardest.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they're constant. Yes, you know they're, they're, they're constant. Yes, you know they're ever-evolving. I feel like, too, it's like your brain knows like oh, you beat this one, that's right.
Speaker 2:Let me give you another one to work with. Oh yeah, and then it's like that could beat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like that could really beat someone down too, especially if you don't really know. Like that's kind of how you grow past things. You know, like that's where you, that's where the true growth is.
Speaker 2:Oh, it is, and that's another saying I have. Now you know what, if you feel uncomfortable, that's good Cause. That means you're growing. Anytime we're comfortable, you're not growing, and that could apply to anything in any aspect of your life. When you're doing something new that makes you uncomfortable, you are growing in that moment. So sometimes that's where you need to be yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know it's it's kind of unrelated, but it is related. It's like that's why I started fishing, picked it up recently and I'm like every move I make will be because it's.
Speaker 2:I don't know, it's, it's just meditation, something different it's meditation, whether you believe, whether you understand that or believe it or not. It's no. No, I do praying. Praying is a meditation. But sitting in silence, uh, fishing, you know you're sitting there, whether you're talking or not. Man you are, I don't know. I love to fish too, for that very same reason, man I just, I don't know I will. I will keep throwing that line out there till they tell me it's time to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah bought myself a little fishing boat. Dude, I'll just get out there on the road and fucking just put around, and mainly like so I'm up in uh north dakota, basically in uh like the north dakota minnesota border.
Speaker 2:So river river. Yeah, I'm up. No kidding, the red river goes all the way up there.
Speaker 1:No, kidding, yeah, it runs from here. You can run well, on the other side, I believe on the other side of fargo, you can run it pretty much all the way up to vancouver. Wow, winnipeg, I want to say. But yeah, it's only like. It's like 130, 140 miles to canada from where I'm at maybe less.
Speaker 2:So it gets cold there, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, dude, yeah, like what's funny? Because you said 30 degrees. I'm like mother, fuck, that's dude, it's 30 degrees outside right now.
Speaker 2:Oh, I wish it was man. I don't mind. You know, the older I get, the more I don't like the heat. You know I don't like the cold cold either but what I've learned skiing, is it?
Speaker 1:I don't know, it's different now I get cold here, it gets nice. It's nice skiing, especially unless you get on the morning like really bad days, like, um, I was living in colorado before I moved here so we would ski like ride a snowboard ski, keystone wreck and all that shit and like you know, way up in the mountains. But you get a day where it's like really nice out, it's so good.
Speaker 2:It's great, doesn't it? About the same year You're sweating your ass off.
Speaker 1:Same year. Ice fishing man. Like you'll go out in the morning, it'll ice fishing man. Like you'll go out in the morning, it'll be 20 degrees and then, like you know, 30, 40 degrees in the middle of the day on the lake, like it's actually warm because all the all the snows are fucking light. I mean, if it's not windy it's not too bad. Yeah, but we do ice fishing, all that shit. Man, I did that. I was doing that last year, more or not last year. We didn't. It didn't get cold enough up here until like the end of the year so it never got thick enough for to drive out on. I'm not like walking out there yet.
Speaker 2:I'm not that dedicated well, as I was saying it's, it's kind of a part of a meditation and, believe me, I'm not. I don't go around tired.
Speaker 1:You need to do meditation hey, mine, mine just call that's right. Some people are less less they don't know.
Speaker 2:That's right, because when I grew up, I made fun of people that meditated I mean I did for most of my you know. That's right, cause when I grew up, I made fun of people that meditated I mean I did for most of my life, you know. It wasn't until I got to the adaptive training foundation that I finally saw some value in it, and one of it is because, you know, no matter what, as we mentioned earlier, your brain is constantly working and going and it's good to be able to slow that down and almost stop it for five or 10, even five or 10 minutes makes a huge difference in your day, and it it's hard for me to relay that to folks, because most people are like oh yeah, no, no, no, no. As for me, it's only because you don't know yet. That's really you haven't.
Speaker 1:You haven't still turn off all your shit, that's right. Take whatever, however long it takes to take 20 deep not even deep like you got a 20 oh yeah breaths and just be present and mindful that your breaths are there. You don't have to be 20. Do 10 and call me. Let me know how you feel. Boom, like god damn it he was right.
Speaker 2:How does this guy know that?
Speaker 1:I have to do it fucking 10 times a day Cause I'm just full of rage all the time. But you know that's just me.
Speaker 2:Well, and when I was younger it's it's slowed down a little bit now, but I think I've intentionally slowed it down, but my brain would never stop, and certain I was one of those. If I was thinking about something, I'm never going to sleep. You know what I mean, cause I just couldn't turn it off, and once I learned the value of like even a moment's rest from, that made a huge difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because then you got to get to look at it with a second set of eyes. Almost you know, sleep on it would be a big thing. My wife likes to teach me right now, sleep on it. Don't make the decision right now and I'm like I fucked that.
Speaker 2:I already made it Well it's one of the things I found in fishing. I found it in golf, Hell, I even found it in long-distance running in the Army when I had to run all those miles. You know, when you get to that runner's high but certainly skiing, fishing, playing you get in those moments where there's like this peace, right, or being out in the middle of the country where there's no noises, no nothing, it's just so peaceful and it brings a calmness to you and no nothing, it's just so peaceful and it brings a calmness to you and that's what we're talking about right, there is that peace and that calmness.
Speaker 1:You know, I had uh like back to my little fishing boat and it was like last week I want to say, but oh no, two weeks ago when I got it, I dropped in putting down the river. I look up, fucking bald eagle swoops down and it's like the red river here is not super wide, you know. So it's like he's just kind of doing this little number down the river and I'm like putting five miles an hour behind him and like bro, I'm not like that far away from civilization, but like just where I was was like there's nothing around me except for me and this fucking beautiful bird.
Speaker 2:Like I could feel like you were 100 miles out in the desert right or the middle of nowhere yeah, just like man. And then, like, all I could think about was just like man, like you know, man, I hate to destroy the peace, but did you get your phone out and get a little video of it? I?
Speaker 1:tried to man, but by the time I did, it was fucking. I was like I got, like I'm still learning how to drive the little tiller you know, so I was like I was like I'm like oh yeah, almost went swimming over.
Speaker 2:Well, sometimes those yeah things like that you got to get lucky and already kind of be recording when it just drops in there so you can catch it or like when I'm sitting there, like rigging up my hook, and I look up and there's like three deer just sitting there sipping water out of the river.
Speaker 1:I'm just like, oh hey, buddy, I know. Yeah, see you in a couple weeks. You're real. Oh man, I can't wait to eat you.
Speaker 1:That's right, but yeah, man, so we'll go ahead and wrap it up here shortly. But I do want to ask just what we like to do, kind of like a, like a last thought from you. Like you know, I know we talked about like that mindset and all that but just like just kind of that last thought, like just if that one person you're trying to reach right now like tell them what you want them to know on, just like not quitting, not giving up, whatever, you know, die first, then quit.
Speaker 2:That's kind of my motto. You know what I'm saying, but you know here's reality. You know we'll go for somebody that's having a tough time, or maybe somebody that's out there thinking about you know, maybe that the world would be, or their family would be, or whoever would be, better without you. Listen, you need to talk to somebody, right, and I know there's the 1-800 number line and that's all you have. Then please use it. But if not, you need to really call somebody that you trust and then just maybe tell them that you don't. You know, kind of like women tell us now, right, they just want to come vent. I don't want you to solve my problem for me, I just want to be able to vent to you. I want you to listen, because I had to learn.
Speaker 1:I always wanted to fix it right like oh well, let me help you. Let let me help you, let me do this, let me do that.
Speaker 2:I know you need to do that and it would go away. No, so you need to tell them. Listen, I don't need you to say anything, I just need you to listen. Just listen to what I need to get off my chest, you know, and start there, man, start there because, you know, I, I just had a buddy.
Speaker 2:This guy didn't commit suicide, but one of the guys was on my team two days ago got shot dead by an Alabama cop, and we're all trying to figure out what happened, because he was dropping his kid off on the school line where this all developed and started. And nobody knows all the details yet. But basically they try to say he's coming in the wrong direction on the road. Now, I don't. I mean, I, I guess that could be possible, but most of us have delivered our kids to school more than once. You know the patterns right, so, but either way, he got into a verbal altercation with the staff. Then it turned into a? Uh, apparently the, the. They called the cops to de-escalate it, which I'm not sure why, but then it's.
Speaker 2:It's maybe uh, rumored that the principal tried to block him in from leaving a little bit and the police showed up. They had a verbal altercation. He left, the police officer followed him all the way to his house and apparently, when they got out of the cars they exchanged gunfire and our buddy was killed, you know? And so, even in those kinds of moments, man, we all just have to stop and take a moment. You know what I'm saying? Uh, you're dropping your kid off in line, whether it's him getting mad or them and the staff going back and forth hey, listen, it's only words, man. Let those people go and get out of there and go about their business, you know? I mean, avoid to turn it into something like this it ain't worth.
Speaker 1:It gets you know, and that's what's fucked up about the world as it is Everyone's so fucking wound tight that something that simple and you're not knowing all the details, but I mean something that simple turns into a fucking death, a shooting death, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you're right, it was simple he was dropping his kid off at school. So how that turns into the cops following him all the way to his house.
Speaker 1:Right Like hey, you came in the wrong way, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Over a verbal altercation. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Right, like I'm sorry, like that can't be enough, like now you got to block me here and then, like now I feel like I'm stuck here, so like, naturally I and agitated.
Speaker 2:You know well what you're going to be embarrassed for sure, this is.
Speaker 2:You know now, everybody, every parent, is coming behind every kid right now, your kids are going to be pissed at you because you're embarrassed, that's right then, no dude, that's yeah, it's terrible man, you know, but but we also in the last, not this year, I believe it were both last year, you know, I mean. But we did have two huge pillars in the special operations community. One was a ranger. He wrote a book. It's called Back in the Fight. His name was Kapuscinski, cho Kapuscinski, and everybody called him Joe Cap, I think he was from 3rd Battalion. He was shot a little bit before me and I guess it severed the nerve so he was a below-the-knee amputee. He got, and he had he, I guess it severed the nerve so he was below the knee amputee. He got to go back as ranger battalion. He got to go become he was a team leader when it happened. He got to go back as an amputee and become a squad leader, then a platoon sergeant and they were going to make him first sergeant. When then they put him over the Thor 3 program, which is the rehab program that they made for special operations, and you know did 11 deployments, then worked with the cia for a few years, was going through a divorce, didn't say a word, just went out to his shed and pow shot himself. You know, and this guy was, I say he wrote a book back in the fight. Y'all can look it up.
Speaker 2:Joe cat really great dude. I knew him personally. I met him throughC. I still can't believe it.
Speaker 2:You know another guy I met when I was at SOCOM 2010 or 2011,. Me and him got to bring 20 special operations soldiers and their wife or whoever guest to the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia, and we got. You know, the Lincoln Financial is their stadium and they have a box, just like the owners have a box, and we got to use their. They invited us to bring all these folks in their box to watch the army navy game and his name was mike day and he was the seal that people have heard of because he's the guy that got shot 27 times and lived and killed the three or four bad guys in the room with him that shot him up, yeah, and he lived through that thing, but literally three or four months, or at least easily within six months, of Joe cap killing himself, mike day shot himself. So it's two guys you know and we all know there's a bunch of veterans. These are just two guys that I know that were huge pillars in the special operations community that everybody looked up to and didn't matter.
Speaker 1:I could think of. I mean, just off the top of my head, the guys I served with in four years. I mean at least four or five in the last 10, dude, and it's. It's always the same shit you're like. You know, it's like the guys that you didn't expect it to do, or the guys that, like you, you almost went to to vent about these things because you thought they were the guy. They were solid, that's right, you know.
Speaker 1:But then's, you know you got to. The biggest thing I think I struggle with on that is like feeling guilty that I didn't know or I'd never reach out, or like you know, stuff like that, and it's not like it's not, you know, my fault, it's not your fault, it's not anybody's fault, it's just one of those things that happens. It's as random, as is you, you know, it's just nobody, and that's why I hope that this show uh, gets a bigger audience down the road and I hope that more people get the message and I hope more people like you want to come spread the message of just like dude, like there's so many more people out there that are talking about mental health these days and that are willing to sit with you and listen.
Speaker 2:For sure it's gotten serious.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. It's not just the 1-800 numbers anymore. Like dude, my messenger is always open. I've emailed people. I've had people call.
Speaker 2:Hey, this is the veteran chat project. So all you veterans out there, man, if we all think that we're going to depend on civilians to save us and to curb this suicide and the VA to do that, politicians, no, it's going to be up to us. It's going to be up to us to reach out to your battle buddies and to make sure that they're okay. That's the only way that we're going to curb it. We're never going to stop at all and just like these guys we've talked about, just like yours, these aren't people that went out and threatened it or said they were going to do it. It wasn't any warning like that. There was no. So we all feel the same way after it happens. Was there something more I could have done? But the truth of the matter is, maybe you could have called but it's done.
Speaker 1:So you don't make especially. You know, if that guy was in a shitty mood that day, he might have just said hell, yeah, bro, I'm good, you know I love you, or something. You know just something like that. And to us a lot of that time it's not even a big deal. To you know, just hear someone say like, hey, bro, I love you and it's like I love you too, and then all of a sudden, you know, or like what's really bad is, you know, having a missed call, or like a missed text. Oh yeah, that kind of just stories to your man. Yeah, you're like, you know, was that like, was that like a cry out, or was that just like, uh, you know, going through my rolodex on my way out, kind of thing, or I don't know yeah, those are tough because it's so final.
Speaker 2:You'll you never know. I mean, you're not going to get that answer and you'll always wish you had been available or, you know, picked it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, that's just where, like you said in that video that I shared. You know, like that's what you said, like you know there is, there is something else out there afterwards, I believe, the world's dimension.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I believe you know whatever happens after this, we transcend to a different dimension. Whatever that may be, that's right energy can't be destroyed.
Speaker 2:It can be transferred, but it cannot be destroyed.
Speaker 1:And and we have energy, life is energy like our body is like a whole electrical system of energy oh, it is, we're, we're all frequencies really when it comes around to it and water 75 and we live on a planet that is only three percent of the oxygen or the of the air that we can breathe.
Speaker 2:That's right you know, and then even 75 percent water, so you're definitely conductive. Yeah, again, it comes down to. It's like electricity, we're frequencies, it's how everything really works so, and that's vibes dude.
Speaker 1:That's why, when people tell you they get vibes, I mean that's a real thing.
Speaker 2:And then that's you really need to check those vibes anybody that's ever been in a situation with a hair on the back of their neck stands up, knows that what we're talking about, because that is your spirituality sensing something that's come here, what's there, you know, just like an ambush or any other trouble that you may be getting in. You get that. So a lot of people say listen why? People say listen to your gut.
Speaker 1:Always listen to your gut, because that instinct usually is right. I can't tell you how many times I was like I like talk myself out of a gut decision and just been like I have no regret and then, like you don't get older, you just think that it's just like fuck that, like no, like that's actually you're, you're who you are is trying to tell you through that voice is like don't do it. Yeah, like, yeah, it's crazy. Though you know you don't get it, you get it.
Speaker 1:And then, once you get it, you're like now, I'm never not listening to it again but what's hard is getting people to do it like you said, like walk it like you know, you know you could. You could show people the light, you could show people the door, all that stuff. But like until you let, until you actually get them to sit down and take those 10 breaths for a week, you know you know why the the hardest thing for us to do is to hold our own self accountable.
Speaker 2:That is the hardest thing to do because having an adult inside you just stands up and says no, we can, or this has to be this way. You have to be able to hold yourself accountable, or if you're not able to hold yourself accountable, that's when you're gonna run into a lot of problems.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah, and that's why I really like doing the show and I'm really glad I'm doing it again, because when I start doing the show consistently, I feel like, as I'm saying these things, I'm more apt to like live, like how I want to be and who I want to be, as I'm like holding myself accountable through these conversations weekly where I'm like, fuck, I said I was going to do this last week and I didn't, so then I'll go fucking do it, because I ain't no fucking, I don't lie, you know because it also stays in your subconscious.
Speaker 2:You know you didn't do it right. And there there is something you know they're endorphins that are released when you check that list off and you go do the things you know you're supposed to do.
Speaker 1:It's just the way it works. So, yeah, like like this show feels like it's something that it's. Anytime I pick it up to go, like I'm gonna start doing it again. Like the things line up, you know the guests, you know they present themselves, so I'm like you know it's, it's gonna, it's gonna just progressively roll into. You know me not even being a part of it and just veterans just coming on and talking is like what I would love it to be well, don't fight it and then just keep it on the tracks.
Speaker 2:That's all you gotta do and keep it.
Speaker 1:That's that's my plan stay consistent. I think I like this Saturday night thing because we're not fighting with the NFL for ratings no, that's right.
Speaker 1:But yeah, man, I do appreciate your time brother a lot. Yeah, definitely we'll. We'll definitely have you back on in the future and definitely I know there's there's more that we want to get into, but I like to keep them to an hour, hour and a half that way. Yeah, I know that's right, and then it always gives me opportunity to say we have you back and and get another show going. So, yeah, um again, man, I appreciate you uh, are you gonna post it out?
Speaker 2:I know it's live right now, but I don't know if we have anybody on, but certainly what we can do is I can share it, you know. I mean, yeah, get it out on social media and somebody will watch it yeah, absolutely no, I'll uh.
Speaker 1:So it's. It's going to the youtube channel right now, which I'll send you all the links and everything. And you know, what I'll also do is take the audio and turn it into a podcast and upload that either tomorrow or monday, perfect, so that way you can share just the, the audio, uh, so people can listen to it. Yeah, just have them if they can think about it.
Speaker 2:I don't care, you know?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, skip the word out there yeah, the podcast is on all the major apple podcasts, all that stuff. So I mean it's a chat project. We're out there, you know we've. We took about a year hiatus and I say we, we used. I used to have a partner that did it with me. He's doesn't want to do it anymore, so it kind of took me a while to want to do it by myself and I'm back. I'm not going nowhere. I'm gonna start doing some live streaming, like I was telling you the other day where I'm out fishing and just basically set up the camera and fucking chat.
Speaker 1:You know someone I like to post the link to get on to. Sometimes, when we have more visits, like when I used to, we're doing it more consistently. We would have more viewers in. So I would like post the link and right now would be a time where we would stop recording. But if anybody had questions or wanted to talk to you, they could just jump in.
Speaker 1:I know Alder. He's in Texas. James Alder commented Dallas when you were talking about Dallas Meps. Oh yeah, he's one of them and it was funny. So he was actually I think. He said he was in basic training during 9-11. So you, and then there's another guy he served with that has been on our show a couple times mike rock. That actually got me on one of his movies. A quick shout out to mike rock, tahoe joe 2 on tubi yeah, there's a quick little 20 second cameo of veteran chat project talking about it's a pretty cool movie. It's uh, he makes his own movies. It's a little it's like a what's the word Bigfoot kind of movie where he's like he's not into Bigfoot but his buddy is, so like his buddy goes missing looking for Bigfoot, so him and his other buddy go searching for his boy and he's like he's an SF guy too, so I'll have to send you the link to his episode so you can listen to it.
Speaker 2:That guy's fucking awesome. We might get you some Fleer man. You'll find out if he's really out there or not. Yeah.
Speaker 1:No, but it's a cool little movie man. They made it like an independent little thing man. It's pretty cool. It's got to be like 10, like I said, 10, 15 seconds in it. Nice, we're on the movies now we. But nice movies, now we're big time awesome. Yeah, buddy. All right brother. Well, I'm gonna go upstairs, I think my hair man here, my kid's still running around, so I'm gonna go try to get some, uh some daddy snuggles in before he goes to sleep. Absolutely all right brother.
Speaker 2:All right brother good talking to you. Yeah, man all right guys.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you guys for listening for those who listened or those who about to listen. Uh, god bless and thank you all so much for being here yeah, god bless you guys and thanks, peace, peace, all right.
