Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - 777 Expedition Highlight

Episode Date: January 20, 2023

There were an incredible amount of memorable moments and lessons learned over the past week while traveling to all 7 continents, but one stands out above them all for me. I will do a full debrief episode at some point, but for today, I will leave you with the most personally impactful experience. Enjoy

All right, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It's Friday yet again. Traditionally, we're going to be doing full out of Friday during these segments, but not today. Because I'm finishing up the Triple Seven Expedition. I just got myself to New York. We're going to be doing a bunch of media over the next few days. And I wanted to highlight one thing about the trip that surprised me. And that's what I'm going to do today. I'm going to keep it short, get everybody to their weekend, and then I'm going to get to bed. So I was just about to say Fall Out of Friday, whatever number it is. But it's not that. Let's just do a quick triple-s. Wave Top. Here we go. I'm looking at danger close now. All right, like I said, if you're watching this on any of the mediums, you can tell, guess what I'm in a hotel room? Right behind me is the cuck sofa. I don't have a cuck chair in this room. I have like a cuck Chase lounger. It's, it's bougie, quite frankly. But I'm in New York because we just finished the triple seven expedition and now we are going to be doing some media when this comes out Friday. I'll be on my way to Fox and Friends, then I think Newsmax, and then we have Good Morning America coming up tomorrow.

So pretty wild, the interest that was attracted through doing this. And I really hope that we were able to have an impact that we are looking for. We did it. We successfully made it to seven continents, did seven skydives, and it was in six days and six hours. And I think somebody said six minutes, but I'm not sure if that's a joke or not. So I'm going to have to double check on that. and have Glover run the math for me. Regardless, it was wild.

And I had to write down on my flight back from Sydney to LAX after the jump had already been done. I had to start writing down the flights that we had done. I'm going to lay this out just so everybody watching or listening to this has an idea of what we actually did from an air mile perspective. So my journey started in Calispo, to Denver, to Houston, to Santiago, Chile, to Punta Arenas, Chile, to the blue-eyes, runway in Antarctica, which was so wild and it was so cool to see other planes land there. And then from the blue ice runway in Antarctica after about six or seven days, that was actually the longest period of time that we spent in any one place. We went back to Puntaureneus, then flew to Santiago, jumped just outside of Santiago. Santiago to Miami jumped just outside of

Miami. Miami to Barcelona jumped just outside of Barcelona. Barcelona to Cairo. jumped over the pyramids. Cairo to Doha, Doha to UAE, jumped at a drop zone in UAE. UAE back to Doha. Doha to Perth, did our final jump in Perth, then had to go from the West Coast to the East Coast to get a more direct flight to LAX. So Perth to Sydney. Sydney to LAX, that was a 14-hour stretch.

LAX to Tampa, where we did our celebratory jump yesterday. Tampa to LaGuardia, which puts me in New York, where I am right now. Then we're going to depart out of JFK, JFK to Minneapolis, St. Paul, Minneapolis, St. Paul, to Callispell. And I think Jericho did the math on this, not including my travel back to Calispell, which I'll add a couple thousand miles for that. It puts us, it's over 40,000 miles, but under 50. And I think with my travel home, it's going to be right at 45,000. He did the math. It's like 1.5 to 1.6 times around planet Earth, all on a stretch of like six days.

by far, the easiest portion of this expedition was jumping out of an airplane. The hardest thing, and where we spent the most time, was jammed in economy seats. And I have got some great video and pictures of Glenn Cowan, who is a large human being with exactly zero free space from his knees, touching the seat in front of him. Spectacular. But that's for another time. And a couple things I wanted to cover before I get into the one thing that surprised me the most about this expedition. The first one is I just want to say thank you to everybody who followed along and everybody who helped us spread the word. It seems like in talking with the team that when we were in Cairo and the photographer was able to get the picture of four guys skydiving, so it was

Mike Sorrelli, Fred Williams, Glenn Cowan, and myself. And we were linked up in all three of the the pyramids were symmetrically aligned underneath us. Once that picture was released, the amount of attention that was paid to what we were doing and the amount of traction that we got, it really accelerated. And I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who was helping us spread the word, helping us try to drive attention towards Fold of Honor, which is really the whole purpose of doing this. It was unbelievable. And it was palpable. You could feel the acceleration once that picture hit. And it really hasn't even slowed down to this point. And I'm hoping that the follow on media that we do with these national outlets is going to do the same thing.

Just going to keep that momentum and keep building on the fundraising. We had an incredible amount of support. The dropsons that we were at, to say that they rolled out the red carpet, that's not the right expression, but I don't actually know what the right expression is. They were there standing by with waivers and paperwork and rigging staff to check our rigs. And we had Packers for the people who needed it and an aircraft that was dedicated to us. And it allowed us to get there, get set, brief, go up and execute a jump and then move on to the next. Barcelona was by far the fastest execution. I think we were at the drop zone for a few minutes over an hour. And by that, I mean from when the bus pulled up to us being back on the bus heading back out, which is just,

that's just unheard of. And in that was a wavering process, a rigor check, a DZ brief from the owner, the airplane getting spun up and waiting for the engine to, you know, get to a temperature where they could throttle up a little bit and do the test, the taxi takeoff. It was insane, getting all of that stuff done. So none of this would have been happening or have been possible to even happen without that support. And I just want to make sure that I take the time to thank broadly. And I am going to do a podcast with all the guys, I think, here in New York. and we're all going to get a chance to talk about our experience and what surprised us and the things that we had to deal with. And we'll get into depth on specific places and people that we need to thank.

But for now, just a blanket thank you. And then the last thing that I think is essential to recognize is that we got super lucky. We could have had the best plan in the world, which I think we had a great plan. We had a team of people supporting us behind the scenes back in the States, whether that be the – administrative team at Legacy Expeditions that was managing and changing flights to Black Rifle Coffee, putting out daily updates in their coffee or die magazine to continue to gather support and awareness. All of that was great. We got so lucky.

We got so ridiculously lucky. And it started in Antarctica. We were able to jump mere hours before we got on the 757 that took off from the Blue Ice runway and took us back to Punta Aureneous. And if the weather window had not done that, it hadn't held for that day and we weren't able to jump that day, we would have, I mean, imagine the cascading effects of that. We would have had to change flights and hotels and all of the things that made this possible, but we didn't have to. And not a single bag got lost until Nick's tandem system got lost in Australia, but I'm sure it'll make its way to him at some point in time. But no problems in customs. Nobody had any issues with us carrying parachutes through security. And there were definitely people who were seeing them for the first time, but it wasn't an issue.

And I've had bad luck in experiences where it becomes an issue. And they want to open your reserve and they don't understand what it is that they're seeing on an x-ray. But, you know, everything was on time. The weather supported us at every single location. And we had no control over any of that. We had a great plan. But that luck portion, it was what it was. I don't know if we could repeat the trip and have that level of luck again.

I just, I don't. So that's what made it possible. I'd love to say it was the guys, but it really was the people behind the scene and a massive amount of luck that made it possible. So moving past that, and to keep this short, there was one thing that has stood out to me

and it is going to, it's going to be an anchoring, I would say principle or philosophy, I'm not sure which word is correct, but moving forward in my life, and I think it can have impact in other people's lives. And this is a lesson that I understood,

but this was reinforced for me over the last seven days that we were on this trip, which shocked me the most about this trip. The flights were what I thought they were going to be. The sleep deprivation was what I thought it was going to be. The jumps were what I thought they were going to be. I will say this.

I declared before we left that I thought in Antarctica was going to be the most amazing junk, and it was super unique. But I, in 24 years of jumping, exiting an aircraft over the pyramids of Giza and seeing that underneath us in freefall and deploying my parachute and being able to fly around near the pyramids, like, I'm sorry. That topped it for me, and I don't even know, I don't even know how you would begin to try to top that. So the jumps were what I thought, the travel was what I thought it was going to be.

And I knew that each one of the locations that we were jumping at was going to be dedicated to an individual that had lost their life. And I knew that each location before we jumped, the person that was jumping in honor of, of that individual was going to speak to the group about who the person was, how they died, and what they meant to the person jumping in their honor. But what I didn't expect and what surprised me the most was the emotional impact of listening to the people that I was doing this expedition with talking about the men that either gave their lives or chose to take their life. They either died in combat or they died from their own hand, the struggles that they were having in their post-military career.

But I knew that the stories were powerful. I didn't think it would have the impact on me that it did. And every time that somebody would get up and talk, not only would I think about the individual that they were talking about, but then we had a plane ride of usually between 15 to 20 minutes of course. climbing up to altitude and you have time to think. You know, you're wearing a helmet and you're kind of in your own head. And I thought more deeply and more meaningfully about the man I was jumping for, Dave Hall, than I think I ever have in my life.

And I thought about the other people that we were memorializing and jumping for as well. And all I'll say is this. I'm really glad that I was wearing mirrored sunglasses because I was choking back and trying to hold back tears on almost every single one of those plane flights. And the reason that this surprised me, and I hate to say this, but I think it's true, especially in the community that we all come from, I think we're kind of used to our friends dying. We know it's a risk associated with the job and it's a risk that everybody in that community accepts. And I think we're used to our friends killing themselves, which to even mutter those words, or mutter, to utter those words is just ridiculous. And I wish it wasn't the case.

But I think we have become a little bit desensitized to it because of how many times we have been close to it. And I knew that people were going to be getting up and talking about those that we were jumping for. And I knew that I was going to get up. And I was going to talk about Dave and what he meant to me. And I'm glad that it shook me out of the, again, I don't know the right word for it. I'm glad that it shook me out of the desensitized state and drew me back into how I really feel about it. And how I really feel about it is there's a whole, there's a hole in my life that I'll never be able to fill up, regardless of the size of the shovel or the backo or whatever implement that you would

used to try to fill it up. And I think it's important to stay connected to that. This trip for me, yes, it was physically tiring, but more than anything, I think it actually brought me, it brought me closer to Dave, the person that I was jumping for, and again, had me thinking about him in a more meaningful way than I thought was possible. And I'll never forget it. That's what I'm going to remember the most from this trip. The jumps were great. But that connection, and that reconnection to that, I guess, that level of grief or that level of awareness or understanding of what they gave up is something that I think I was desensitized to a little bit. Fuck, it was powerful.

Like I said, I'm really glad I was wearing mirrored sunglasses. So what can I take away from this? Because I know we're going to get asked next few days, you know, what's next for you guys? And the reality is I don't know what I want to do next, but I do know, based off the experience I just had, that I want to continue to find things that are really difficult and that they're really hard to accomplish and that they have a high likelihood or percentage of not being successful. Because to me, that's how I know I'm looking in the right place for something that's going to be challenging. And I want to do those things for me. But it needs to be more than that. I want to find a way to take those things that are difficult for me and figure out a way for them to serve others.

And that's exactly what we were doing on the Triple Seven Expedition. We were doing something that was very challenging. The previous record for the Triple Seven was seven months. So I think we did a little bit better than that, you know, at six days and six hours. But it wasn't about us and the jumps. And the records, I could give two shits about having a world record. What I care deeply about is honoring the legacy of those that sacrificed everything that they will ever have so I could do something dumb, like jump out of an airplane.

With the goal, though, of trying to take what they left behind and do everything I can to be a good shepherd and caretaker, specifically of their kids to try to elevate them, to try to give them an opportunity. I mean, I can't even imagine what it would be like to not have a mother or a father or a brother or a sister. especially at a young age growing up. I mean, you're missing a coach and a mentor. And it's important, I think, for people to remember that these people that gave their life, they're not superhuman.

You know, they experience pain. They experience fear, but they also experience at such a deep level love. And everything that they loved is now left behind. And they also have a hole that's never going to be filled, regardless of how much sand is pushed into dirt is pushed into that hole. It's never going to be filled.

And these children are, missing a parent and a mentor and a coach. And I want to do everything I can to make sure, you know, in this, I'm talking specifically through educational opportunities, that we can expose them to other people that could hopefully fill a small percentage of that role, not replace it, but fill a percentage of that role and the hopes that it'll elevate their life to something that hopefully that their father, in this case, because we were jumping for all male service members, that their father could never even imagine. I can't think of a better way to pay forward their legacy, because at the end of the day, that's what this is about.

I don't think most people could actually name somebody who was killed in Iraq or Afghanistan, let alone if you start going backwards in time, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, Panama, Grenada, World War II, World War I mean, I know people realize that there was life that was lost, but for most people, it's not personal. And the men that we were speaking about on this expedition, for their families, it's always going to be personal. It has a face. It has a name and a legacy that has to be continued, that it has to be continued by elevating the next generation and making sure their stories are continued to be told. And so what does this have to do with people listening and talking? Because this was an experience

that was powerful for me. I think it has a direct impact for anybody listening to this because you can go out and you can find really difficult things to do as well. And I can't recommend and advocate for that enough. You need to go out and scare the shit out of your yourself. But don't do it just for you. Figure out a way that you can involve other people and it doesn't have to be raising money. Maybe it can be something that you know how to do that can challenge other people and you can just mentor and pass on that knowledge and then just cascading down the hill. It's an impact for them and then it can impact other people. But find things that are difficult and then find a way to get those things that are difficult for you

to serve others. Like I said, I understood that lesson. I've talked about it before in the podcast, but the experience of the last seven days could not have solidified it more. And I really look forward to doing it again. And I don't know what it's going to be. But I enjoyed it. I enjoyed a lot of aspects of that process. And hopefully me talking about this can motivate somebody to go out there and put a flag on the ground and be like, you know what, I'm going to do this and this is what I'm going to do with it. That's what my hope would be. What else? Another thing I discovered about myself is I actually really enjoyed doing the vlog type stuff.

I actually enjoyed the content creation piece and messing around with it. It helped that I was there with Jericho and Logan, who are content monsters and have a great understanding of this stuff. So I definitely leveraged their experience. But it was fantastic. And I'm going to put up a few more videos to kind of highlight our journey. And in talking with both of them, Logan and Jericho, they made a recommendation to me. and I'm going to close this episode out with that recommendation. And it was to separate the podcast content from anything else that I'm doing.

Because people who are interested in the podcast may not give a shit about the other things that I have planned for 2023 and beyond, which is going to be a bunch of outdoor stuff, some overlanding, actually quite a bit of overlanding with Glover, some jiu-jitsu travel stuff. So my point in saying all that is, is I have already created a separate YouTube channel. So if you're watching this on YouTube and you want to continue to, consume the podcast content on YouTube, nothing's going to change. But if you want to see any of the other stuff that I'm up to and kind of follow along on the way, I created a new channel, which should be live right about the time this video launches. So it's called, you're never going to guess,

called Andy Stumpf. And I needed to add a little title to that. So what I chose was kind of the way that I feel about my life at this point. And so it's Andy Stumpf, the path less traveled. Or is it the road less traveled? I'm not even sure. I think it's the road. less traveled yeah it's Andy Stumpf the road less traveled and you'll know you found it because the icon is a picture of me wearing my skydiving helmet from this trip that's got uh some stars on the chin and i got my gold lens gators on there you know they're in the right place and if you're interested in tag it along for the rest of my life journeys that's where i'm going to post this stuff because i don't want to pastor people who aren't interested in it and that way they can

pick and choose so that's it that's all the updates i have i'll be in new york over the weekend doing media stuff and then back to regularly Scheduled programming on Monday. Thanks, y'all.