Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Courage, Heartbreak, and Border Realities

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Two questions today that explore both individual challenges and broader societal concerns. First, a listener from California shares his mental and physical health struggles, along with an intense desire to confront danger head-on, stemming from recent upticks in violence. Next, we hear from a newly appointed police officer grappling with the heartbreak of a recent breakup while starting his dream job in a new city. To close out the episode we are going with a "Food for Thought" segment, where an email from a listener details troubling developments in Nicaragua's border policies and the potential ramifications for U.S. border security. The Speed of War Comic Series: https://www.thespeedofwar.com/ Check out the newest Cleared Hot Gear here: https://shop.clearedhotpodcast.com/  

Well, hello again. Regularly scheduled programming today. Two questions and an email that came in that I feel like I'll end with. Perhaps it's a good food for thought. I think it's something that is pertinent to what's going on in the world. I know it's going to become part of the election cycle debate in 2024. And I'll just leave us with that. But before that, some Q&A. Here we go. Okay, Kathy, west of the smoke. I'm looking at danger close now. I'm all winning, baby. Give it to me. I made it. All righty, like I mentioned, relatively straightforward today. Before I forget, though, I meant to bring this up a little while ago and I forgot. I need the help from you, the listeners. It is time for me to get back in the air again. And I don't mean skydiving, even though I enjoy skydiving.

I want to fly again. And specifically what I want to do is I want to add my helicopter license. So I need help from anybody out there who may be a helicopter pilot or know that of a school that would allow me to do some compressed training. I wish there was something locally where I live because I would just chip away at it every week, but I don't have that. So what I want, or what I'm looking for is a school that would allow me to come in and really compress some training. I'm hoping I could do it in a few weeks, not sequentially, but close enough that you don't lose a lot of that currency. For me, it would just be an add-on. I have over 3,000 flight

hours. I have all of my licenses up through ATP. So it wouldn't be there's, I'm not worried about like the aviation knowledge perspective. There's obviously currency, which I can work my way back into. If any of you out there, Nova school, I guess an additional bonus on top of the bonus would be if they take the GI bill. But if not, I don't really care. I need to learn how to fly helicopter. Yep. It's time. And then once I learn how to fly helicopter, then I'm not to figure out how to get one. And then after I get one, I need to figure out how you can either one of two things,

put a rocket launcher or cannon on the side of it, or a water balloon dropper. I feel like one of those might be more legal and reasonable than the other, but I'm interested in learning both. That's literally it. If you know of somebody who it maybe teaches flight instruction in a helicopter or of a school,

please reach out to me. A DM over social media if you want to or shoot me an email, Andy Stumpf 212 at gmail.com. I would really appreciate it because I got the chance to fly a helicopter for a little bit, not too long ago. And it was awesome. It was cool to be back in the air. And it's something new so I can continue to challenge myself. On to the questions for today.

Completely shifting gears. Hello, Andy, A&D Y, or Andy, A-N-D-I. Some people think your name should be spelled. I'm writing to you because I'm in search of some advice. I'm a 25-year-old male who currently resides in the drive-through state, in parentheses, that's right, California, the you hurt my feelings state. I'm experiencing a lot right now, failing physical health, poor mental health, trauma from my past and loneliness. I don't know what to make of something I have been experiencing for some time now. The recent uptick in shootings led me to begin training myself to be more self-aware and figure out how to act.

if confronted with a shooter. I have a desire to run towards gunfire and even want to be placed in a situation where I would see if I would react appropriately. I feel like I have been overseas and served multiple tours, but I haven't ever touched down onto foreign soil. I've never even served in the military. What do you make of everything that I have said? Be honest, maybe even add a little dark humor. Also, I hope that your pillow smothering services will be around in the event that I'm dying someday of an egregious disease and would like to go quickly. Yours truly name redacted. I didn't know that I had a pillow smothering service. And now that I think about that, I feel like it's a missed opportunity. And perhaps I'll go start a new LLC a little bit later today. If somebody needs to be

smothered by a pillow, please do me a favor and find somebody else that you know in your personal life because I'm not interested in going to prison for murder. Okay? We'll start with that. All right. You wanted me to be honest. So I'm going to strap in here with me for a little bit. You are the last person that needs to be carrying a gun right now and running towards the sound of gunfire. The reason I say that are the words that you. You are the words that you. you used when you reached out to me. And I'll repeat them for you. Failing physical health, poor mental health, trauma from your past, and loneliness. I don't think the loneliness plays too much into it. But let's review those last three one more time. Failing physical health,

poor mental health, and trauma from your past. Instead of taking, well, and this is an assumption on my part, because again, this is a one-way exchange of information and you provided me what you did. So I'm going to have to make some assumptions here. My assumption is, though, you're ignoring those three things and focusing on this hypothetical situation where you get to run to the sound of the guns and be the hero in your own story. And I would not suggest continuing down that course of action. The last thing that I want from somebody responding to a crisis situation, which I'm going to call an active shooting event, is somebody that is in poor physical health, somebody who is in poor mental health, and haunted by trauma from their past. Any one of those three things

is not going to help the situation. All three of them, in combination, I don't know what you think the outcome is going to be. I'm worried that you think the outcome would be resolution of those things because you would perform well on game day when challenged to do so. The reality is this. You are going to fucking fall apart because right now you're a little bit more like Humpty Dumpty with the cracks in the egg. But the beautiful thing is this. You can be put back together again.

If you actually focus your energy and effort where it needs to go, which is on yourself, not some external existential situation that you are daydreaming about for reasons that a psychologist or psychiatrist would be better at explaining than I am. You want to place yourself in a situation where you would see what you would react like, whether or not you would react appropriately. Anybody who knows about this podcast knows that I enjoy doing jiu-jitsu. What I would recommend, if you really want to test yourself and figure out how capable you are as a person, I would go try a trial class at a jiu-jitsu gym. Now, there's nothing

wrong with Muay, boxing, whatever you want to do. Krov, do whatever you want to do. My point is this, go test yourself in a controlled environment that has rules and people that probably will care about you at least a little bit. And what you're going to be confronted with is your utter and overwhelmingly level of being unprepared. Being good in a violent situation takes practice. I do not believe, even though you'll hear people say this all the time, I don't need to train because I'll just see red and then the bodies you're going to hit the floor. I mean, maybe there's an edge case out there that would support that, but that edge case should not apply to the norm, which is everybody else outside of that edge case. and if you don't train, you're going to fall to the level of your training, not rise to the occasion.

And if your training is zero, your performance will probably be slightly above that. The recent uptick in shootings, I don't know where you're getting that data from. And I'm not going to sit here and pretend or portray myself as somebody who really in the moment keeps up with the shooting data. And it depends on what you consider to be a mass shooting. A couple of the databases differ between three people or four people. whatever it may be. I don't think there's been a vast uptick, especially in California. I am completely open to being wrong about that. But what I think you're doing is fixating on something external with all of your energy, as opposed to taking the actual hard steps that you need to take.

And that's going to start with looking in the mirror and addressing your failing physical health. Finding somebody and putting in the time to deal with your poor mental health. And I'll add to that, that same person is probably going to be able to help you with trauma from your past. Loneliness, that's a solvable problem. However, I wouldn't suggest engaging in a relationship with somebody else until you have a more holistic relationship with yourself. Don't drag somebody else into this fucking nightmare. My words, not yours, but I don't know how else to describe your situation based off your

description to me. I would work on yourself, and when you get to a place where you are a better version of yourself, then maybe share yourself with somebody else. Because what would suck even more than you dealing with this on your own is dragging somebody else into it who doesn't deserve it. And I don't want that for you, and I don't want that for the other person. Two broken people, you know, two negatives don't make a positive. Is that correct math? I think so.

I don't know. I'm not a math expert. I'd have to check with Glover on that one. He'll be up here shortly and I'll ask him if I remember. But if you're not in good spot, I don't think you have any business dragging somebody else into your life. The work you need to do is right in front of you every day. It's not a statistically anomalous event. It's not something that you need to go out searching for being prepared to react to. It's staring you in the face every single day. hopefully when you brush your teeth in the morning and you look up into the mirror. That's where your energy and effort needs to be put. If you want to go test yourself in an environment that is physical to see what you're made of, I've already given you the recipe for doing that. Go find a discipline that is either grappling-based or ballistic-based, and by that I mean strikes or kicks. And square off of somebody who knows what they're doing,

it's going to recalibrate what you think of your own capacity. The last piece of advice I'm going to leave you with. You began to train yourself, to be more self-aware and figure out how to act if confronted with a shooter. I hope that that doesn't mean you're carrying a gun. You mentioned California. It's not that guns are illegal in California. The laws are a little bit different. But my suggestion to you, my last piece of advice is this.

Don't go anywhere near a firearm right now. you are not in the right headspace to protect other people. Your, what is the right word for this? I was going to say your thought process, but that doesn't, that doesn't encapsulate what I'm trying to say. It's not that your thought process is flawed right now. I'd say the way that you are viewing the world is muddied. You have some dirt on the lenses of your glasses that you are looking through. and you need to clean that off before you can make appropriate decisions in environments like this.

If you are in the time between now and whatever amount of work you're willing to put into yourself and to develop yourself into the person that I feel like you want to be, if you are encountered with one of these situations where there is gunfire, if you find yourself in one of these statistically anomalous events, my advice to you, unless this individual is right in front of your face, go the other direction, and let people deal with it. I do not think you are in a place right now to make decisions in the best interest of yourself and in the best interest of others. So you ask me to be honest? There it is. That's my honest answer. Stop looking externally for threats and start looking internally for the answers that you need. Question two.

Thank you in advance for any information or food for thought that you can offer. I'll start off a little backstory first, since this will be a question probably broken down into 40 different segments. I wanted to join the military as a child, and it destroyed me when I learned because of a minor birth defect, I couldn't join. I was heartbroken and then soon learned I couldn't be a police officer or firefighter either. As a teenager full of hormones, it destroyed me because down to my core, all I want to do is help people. I worked on a drop zone as an AFF instructor. For those of you not familiar, those are the people who teach others who want to. want to learn how to skydive. They put them through the accelerated free fall program. I think it's

still eight jumps. At the end of that, you are able and clear to go jump on your own. Not that you're an expert skydiver, but you've met the minimum criteria to start your skydiving journey. So you're an AFF instructor. Where we had? Because that's something I thought I could be happy doing. However, I consistently looked at departments as it's never left my mind. There was a new surgery that hadn't been okay by my insurance company yet, but as I was going through the process of seeing if that surgery could help me, it was revealed I had a fighting chance. Turns out the surgery worked and my insurance cleared and my insurance cleared and it allows me to be an officer. I just got a job with the department, and as I'm writing this, I just moved and start tomorrow for the department's pre-academy workup internship thing that they do. However, I had a girl that I met and I moved only two hours away from her because this is where she's doing her internship.

I was going to propose to her, and we ended up breaking up. I was at the drop zone and saw she already had a new man, and we broke up two months ago, and I am still destroyed over it. So starting a career that I've always dreamed of, losing someone I thought was going to spend the rest of my life with, all while being alone in a new city where my family is 10 hours away, and I have no one I know or anything here. I've been going to the local jiu-jitsu place to help with my stress since I've been doing jiu-jitsu for years. However, I'm at a loss and I'm feeling a lot of weight. So how do I move on from her and focus on my career and my life?

I know it'll take time, but for now I feel like my walls are crashing in, and I know I have things to look forward to. It's just incredibly difficult to stay positive. Thanks for any advice. I'm going to start with this. I'm going to reframe the sentence. How do I move on from her and focus on my career in my life? I'm going to move the her to the tail end of that.

How do I move, I'm sorry, how do I focus on my career and my life and move on from her? That is the order that I would suggest putting this in because I'm going to tell you right now, you dodged a bullet. There's no right or wrong answer to the velocity of finding somebody after a relationship ends. But if she's already pretty happy with somebody two months after you already broke up and you thought this to the person you were going to spend the rest of your life with and you were going to propose, I think you dodged a bullet. And all that really says is maybe there's somebody else out there that was better suited for her and she found that person. the cool side of that is there's somebody out there for you too and you can find that person as well. I would put her completely out of your mind. Fucker.

Not literally, metaphorically. And I don't mean that negatively, but in the grand scheme of things, it's clear that it wasn't going to work out. You got to see the test results before you took the test and leave it at that. And why do I say that? Because you're finally getting to go down the path that you've always wanted to go down. And I would put all of your energy and effort into that. Your family is 10 hours away. Okay. That could present. You can look at this two ways. Well, that's horrible and I'm not going to get to see them and I don't know what I'm going to do with my time and I feel like I'm alone. Or you could view it. I get to rewrite my story from zero in a new place doing the one thing that I always wanted to do. And I tell you what you're going to be able to find in your academy. people that feel exactly the same way. And you're going to get the opportunity to develop relationships with those people. And because you're not distracted by anything and not that having your family nearby is a negative distraction, let's just call it a time distraction. Because you don't have that time distraction, you can 100% immerse yourself in your academy. Instead of thinking about getting

through the academy, why don't you be the owner man of the academy? Devote every ounce of energy that you have to becoming the best officer possible. I bet you will find a whole new community of people, a whole different social circle of friends inside of that community. And the beauty is, because you have no ties anywhere else from a time perspective, you can devote your time to them. I think this could be viewed as incredibly positive. It doesn't mean that it's necessarily always going to be easy.

And of course, you're going to miss your family. But you know what? Academies don't last forever. So get through the academy. focus on that and become the officer that you've always wanted to be. Don't let the fact that you just had a breakup with somebody who clearly was not the one, ruin the fact or ruin any opportunities that you have moving forward. You will have, I think 51% of the population on earth is women.

There's going to be more. I know it doesn't feel like it in this movement. And I'm not trying to, by in any way, shape, or form demean anybody. Like, oh, she wasn't worth your time. I'm not saying that. if that one didn't work out, you will have the opportunity to meet other people. I think it's a really beautiful thing that you can go into this as a blank and clean slate. And if you can shift your headspace a little bit, like I said in that sentence,

how do I focus on my career, my life, and move on from her? Worry about her last. Career first and life, tie those things together. Obviously, self-care is important. I'm not saying let that slip either. But man, if you've been dreaming about this forever, fucking dive in, man, and enjoy it and make it exactly what you want it to be. And that's the best advice I can give you.

Said the last one was going to be just a little bit of a food for thought. And this is just something I'm going to read. And we'll leave it on that because I think it highlights points and maybe brings up questions that all Americans should be thinking about, especially as we go into an election year. Not necessarily a Friday Q&A message, but just experienced a few things while traveling that I unfortunately felt obligated to share.

If not for any other purpose, then, posterity. Unfortunately, this type of story would only elicit a that's nuts in air quotes response from friends and family, and they'd be off to the next nonsensical story or topic. A bit of background. My wife was born and raised in Nicaragua to an American mother and a Nicaraguan father.

I've been visiting every other year, give or take since 2009. It's a beautiful country with much of the same culture, landscape, charm, as Costa Rica, with a bit darker of a history. In 2018, unbeknownst to most Americans, the former communist dictator turned president amended the retirement age and benefits. This led to mass protest on college campuses and a harsh response by the government. Dozens of deaths and unknown arrests followed. Since that time, an extreme level of paranoia has set in and right have continually been stripped from the local population. For example, several priests have been arrested and their churches destroyed for anti-government rhetoric. Gun stores have been closed and

their inventory confiscated and the education system has been amended accordingly. Welcome to the third world is probably your response. That actually is not my response. But a series of events and anecdotal stories have led me to generally be concerned for the U.S. The first was an abnormally slow customs process here. It's obviously not a technological. advanced country, nor a prime tourist destination. But it was noticeable, noticeably different to myself and my wife, who has been through the process countless times over nearly 40 years of traveling. When talking with friends and family, there apparently has been a push from the government to hire individuals sympathetic to the cause, typically from rural, undereducated area.

Her translations for me were mostly along the lines of they're easier to control and do what they're told. Now, in 2018, those with means just flew to the U.S. Those that disagreed, but didn't have the means, fled. Upwards of one million people, nearly 20% of the population, has left. I feel for them and understand their reason. However, this has resulted in strained border protection between Nicaragua and Honduras and El Salvador. It has also opened up all forms of human trafficking. Now, on to the scary part. To enter Nicaragua, you need $10 and the patience to make it through customs, and that's about it. It's one of the most lax countries to enter in Latin America.

Recently, planes from Honduras, Venezuela, and all points Latin America are landing in Nicaragua full of African and Middle Eastern Muslims as well as Chinese. They're entering the country and reaching out to the established migrant human trafficking connections formed in 2018 to move them north, final destination, Texas, and the southern border. I live in PA, which I believe is Philadelphia, Pittsburgh. God damn it, my geography fails me. He lives in PA. I'm not great with the state abbreviations, Montana's MT.

But also, okay, I live in PA and have seen the images, but also knew how difficult parts of this world could be. I was sympathetic to those trying to flee totalitarian governments and consider the invasion narrative overblown. but to hear these stories from people who are family friends or family friends and who are often critical of the U.S. international policies, warning me how bad it is and how bad they think it could get for the U.S. was quite honestly terrifying. Locally, they are viewing it entirely as an invasion of the U.S. by enemies of the country. Perhaps this message will be copied and pasted to my congressman and senator. Like I said, it was shocking to hear and just need someone to listen. who somewhat understood and didn't think like me previously. Appreciate your time.

Why did I read this? What does this have to do with the U.S.? Well, I'm fortunate to know people in a lot of industries and sectors. And I'm fortunate to know people who are working directly with border protection, border of security at varying levels from an agent on the ground, whether that be a border patrol, bore star, Bortak, people in the ice pipeline, you know, the regulatory and doctrinal things that happen beyond once somebody is contacted at the border. And what I'll say is this. What they say, and tell me is the exact opposite of what I'm being told by the mainstream media. What I'm being

told by the mainstream media is that the border is secure and the people who are working there. I am yet to have a conversation with one of them. And I'm not saying that it's not possible that this would happen, but I am yet to have a conversation with one of them where they don't tell me that things are trending towards being out of control. And I, like I said, at the beginning of this, this is more of like a food for thought. I don't like telling people what to think. I don't think I have any right to tell people what to think. but I feel like at times perhaps I have an obligation to point a spotlight at what should we think about. Again, I'm stealing that quote from Sebastian Younger.

The role of the media is not to tell you what to think. It's to tell you what to think about or to highlight what you could think about. Our border, the southern border, specifically right now, is an issue. If we don't do something about it, what is the border? the impact that it is going to have on this country. People in other countries, if they are watching the influx of individuals landing in those countries with the sole intent and purpose of being moved north and, I don't want to say trafficked, I don't know the exact word, coyote, I don't know, shuttled across that border. And they're clearly using these other countries as staging points.

If they're viewing it as an assault on the United States border, why, are we not? I have no issue with immigration in any way, shape, or form. Legal immigration. We are a nation of immigrants. I actually think diversity is an amazing thing, but not for the sake of just saying we are diverse. I like diversity of thoughts. I like diversity of beliefs. I like diversity of conversation and communication. And I think all of these things should be brought into the light in the sound and good ideas will rise to the surface, and the ones that fail that crucible of scrutiny should be swept to the side. The border issue, I believe, is going to be one of the main issues of the 2024 election. And I just think before people are asked to make a decision and

vote about it, that they should put some time and effort into determining what they believe when it comes to the policy of the United States. I do believe that as a nation, we have the capacity, whether that be from a technology perspective, an infrastructure perspective, and a personnel perspective to close our border if we wanted to. I do believe that based off of the people that I know and what they have told me about what they could do. I guess the question is, why are they not? And that's what I'll leave people with. Is it a benefit or a detriment to our country to have the border situation the way that it is. If it's a benefit to have it the way that it is, who is it benefiting?

If it's a detriment to having it the way that it is, but it is still allowed to do so, even when you recognize it is a detriment, why would somebody make that decision? Why would they instill policies that act against the best interest of our country? I don't have the answers to those. Maybe none of us do. But I think we should start talking about them now before it becomes a ballot issue that we vote on later in the year. And that's it. That's the food for thought that I'll end you with on this Friday. See you guys all on Monday.