Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 129 - Greg Anderson

Episode Date: May 25, 2020

Greg Anderson is a Law Enforcement Officer for the Port of Seattle Police Department. He is currently on administrative leave pending a likely termination for posting an 8-minute video to his personal Instagram page in which he called for his fellow Law Enforcement Officers to consider the impacts of their actions on public trust, and the legality/constitutionality of enforcing strict pandemic/quarantine measures. Greg is a veteran of the United States Army where he served as part of the 75th Ranger Regiment. Post military he worked overseas as a contractor for Triple Canopy before joining the US Marshal Service, then as a Police Officer in Los Angeles, and eventually as an officer at the Port of Seattle in Washington. He is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Black Belt and the owner of Checkmat Lake Stevens.

Ladies and gentlemen, today's episode of the podcast is brought to you by the C4 Foundation, which was established in the memory of a young man that I had the privilege to put through basic underwater demolition slash seal training and then also serve alongside with at Seal Team 3. And his name was Charles Humphrey Keating the 4th or Charlie or C4 because obviously that's all a mouthful. And he was killed in Iraq in a firefight engaging ISIS. His actions that day, and throughout that deployment, earned him multiple awards for Valor, to include the Navy Cross, which, if you're familiar with the U.S. military, that is the second highest award. The C4 Foundation, the core mission is to preserve and strengthen the SEAL family unit. just like everybody has likely felt during this pandemic time period, there's the connection

and importance of your loved ones. I'm not saying it's perfect, but you probably feel a deeper and more meaningful connection. The people who voluntarily go overseas and even maybe perhaps more importantly, their families have dealt with constant deployment and training cycles for the last 20 year. And this foundation is aimed at ensuring they maximize their time together in order to fortify their families to withstand the stressors of that occupation and lifestyle. Chuck was, I don't want to call him a kid, because he wasn't a kid. But, you know, I actually remember very few people that I put through training. And I do remember Chuck. And I looked at him, and I remember looking at him as a kid. And that, and he wasn't. He was,

every inch of man and people often will ask me why I consider my career to be average at best and it's because of people like this he was amazing at many levels and if you're interested in helping me honor his legacy and strengthening the seal community families head on over to chuck heavy.org that is a normal spelling of that chuck heavy dot org and you can learn more about how you can help their goal is to get people to donate four bucks a month and if you opt in and do the prepaid annual donation of forty eight dollars you're going to get one of these signature chuck heavy shirts which they are amazing i don't i'm just want you to go there and look at it for yourself it's a picture you won't see often let's just say it involves

a machine gun no sleeves and a cigar can't encourage people enough. People will often ask me what they can do to help. This is something you can directly do to help. And what a better, you know, there could not be a better day to talk about this than Memorial Day, which is the day that this episode will be released. In addition to the Chuck Heavy organization, being a great topic of conversation for Memorial Day, my guest today for episode number 129 is Greg Anderson. and I almost in the title put Officer Greg Anderson. And I erased it after I wrote that because he's a lot more than just a law enforcement officer. If you recognize his name, it's likely going to be from the notoriety that he has recently received from a nearly nine minute video that he initially posted to his Instagram account,

which autopulated it to his business Facebook page. it has now been viewed multiple tens of millions of times, shared hundreds of thousands of times. And I will describe it in my own terms and then terms that Greg described it in as well during the podcast. But it was a message to other law enforcement officers. And I would describe the message as a call to action for them to consider their actions and what they are being asked to do. in these very unique circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic. He goes into more detail in the podcast, obviously it's nearly three hours, and I'm going to let him speak for himself, but a little bit more about Greg, because he is a hell of a lot more than just a law enforcement officer.

Before being a law enforcement officer, he was a member of the United States Army, specifically the 75th Ranger Regiment. From there, he transitioned out and did some government contracting, specifically in the personal protection space with a company called Triple Canopy, tried his hand at being a U.S. Marshal in there found Jiu-Jitsu and eventually became a black belt, and then started working directly as a law enforcement officer or a cop, specifically as a cop, started in the L.A. area and then found his new home with the Port of Seattle Police Department, which should be no surprise that is in. Seattle. His video brings up really good points of conversation for today. And for reference today,

this video is being the day that I'm talking about is Memorial Day, a day that is dedicated to remembering those that paid the ultimate sacrifice and gave their life while wearing the uniform of the United States of America. I personally don't believe as a veteran that I did anything to provide anybody's freedom because it's the founding documents of this country that preserved and provided those freedoms, but protecting them is a different story. And that is what today is designed around, to honor those that gave everything to protect the freedoms that we have. Freedom is an interesting conversation. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness.

Where do our rights come from? What are there limitations? Who's responsible for enforcing them? All things that we talk about during this podcast and why I said at the beginning, I think this is a perfect episode for today. I'm not going to talk any more about it. I hope everybody enjoys it. Cleared Hot, episode 129 with Greg Anderson. Enjoy. looking at danger close now. Well, for one, I never thought in a million years that I would do anything like this. So the whole thing has been a journey that I have no explanation for whatsoever. So how has your week been?

It's been the most insane week of my life, as you can imagine. You know, went from just a normal dude, police officer, jihitsu guy, a thousand followers on Instagram, mostly people that I've known have been in the military with and now I'm at like almost 70 and just getting bombarded by everybody. News outlets,

podcasters, like it's seriously insane that eight minutes of just speak of my heart has completely changed my life. How long did it take from when you posted that video until you really noticed that you were on an on ramp that was,

I would probably describe it, it feels like it's uncontrollable at this point. Yeah, it's funny, man. Like I posted it May 5th that night. night. And by the next morning, you know, it was at a few thousand, which for just a normal dude, like, wow, this is gaining some traction. Yeah, it's a magnitude of order greater than what you're used to for sure. And a couple hours later, like I said, in my video, my work

called me. And they're like, hey, Greg, this thing's at 400,000 views. It's time to pull the plug. And that's when I was like, oh, wow, this is everybody that's seeing it is sharing it. And just on Facebook alone, it's at like 13 million views and 400,000 shares. And not to mention like every other, you know, it's been ripped and put on YouTube and Twitter and I don't even have accounts with those things. Yeah, it's, you know, the digital ecosystem is weird. Once you hit post, whether you own in air quotes the material or not, your ownership of that is gone.

Yeah. Yeah. I think the, you know, the smoke was coming out of the space shuttle rocket for you on that one and at some point it left an orbit you had control of. And it's funny too because my work even said that. They're like, listen, there's no pulling your message back. We understand that. That is out there in the world of the interwebs.

But just taking it down shows that you're in compliance with our policy and our request. Just you taking it down. Just me taking it down. That's what they said they needed to see from me. And I was like, you know. I like we were talking on the way here I think one of the things I love about the podcasting format is that we have

45 hours on this SD card which I'm going to be honest let's not fill up the whole 45 hours because I'm going to like need to go to the bathroom we're going to have to get some food but it's a long form medium and what what resonated with me with your video

was you're talking about the gap in trust between law enforcement and the civilian populace. And I think that's huge. I want to spend, I want to talk about whatever you want to, and I definitely want to talk about that. But I think we should start even long before this began and give some people some understanding or context

of just who you are and how you arrived as the officer in that car. I'm assuming you made it in your patrol car. I did. It looked like making that video. So let's go to the way back machine. All right. So, I mean, I've put some of this stuff out there, but we can go through it again.

I, right out of high school, I was like most young wild men that had no idea what I wanted to fucking do. Where'd you go to high school? It's Noamish, Washington, so it's just north of Seattle. Okay.

And, you know, it's funny because people thought, oh, he's going into the military, he must be a patriot and he must love his country. And it's like, that stuff developed through the process, but initially,

I hated school, I liked partying, and I didn't feel like going to college. So I would say you were a typical slash average, 18-year-old young man. Yeah, exactly. right? And so, and it's funny too because I was like, okay, if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do

the hardest route that I can take. I want to do the hardest thing that I can do for this four-year enlistment. And I don't even know where I looked into it or heard about it, but I was like, Navy SEAL or Army Ranger. That's it. I'm going to do one of those two things. And so it's funny, like my whole career got based off of meeting two recruiters. And I went into it. This is such a common narrative too. Unless you have lived, like if you've gone the military route, as soon as you said that, people are like, oh, I know where he's going with this. And everybody else is like, oh, interesting. How does this happen? Yeah. So I went into the Navy recruiting office first. That's not a good call. And like every other person that walks through their door says they want to be a Navy seal.

And then you talk to somebody who had no idea what a seal actually is. They had no information to give you. Yep. And he was just a goon too. and he was super pushing. He was like, well, you know, let's sit you down right now and have you take this practice as-bab. I want to see where you're at. And I'm like, okay, all right. So I took that.

And then he's like, all right, I want to schedule you your date for MEPs. And I was like, listen, bro, I'm just trying to figure this out, you know. And then I went right next door to the Army recruiter and said, hey, I'm interested in being an Army Ranger. And the dude was just chill, kicked back. And I just connected with that dude better. And I was like, you know what, Army guys are cool. I'm going to go to the Army.

And it was like it could have just as easily went the other way. As you were telling this and you said you went right next door, I was thinking back to the NAEP. So I was born and raised in Santa Cruz, which is pretty far to the left. And joining the military there is, it's not atypical, but it's probably not the normal path.

And I remember going to the Navy recruiter. And right next door was the Army recruiter as well. I wonder if there's some strategy there. It's like, you know, we'll get a cheaper lease, but also we'll just be right. over here for when you guys piss each other off. They can just make this little turn and be like, hey, what do you guys have to offer?

And it's like, hey, man, you know, whatever you want. Yeah. So that was in 99. I went through, I signed up. I didn't get a Ranger contract because they said they were all out, like they always say. And I was too dumb to fight for it at the time. And luckily it worked out for me. But I went to boot camp down at Fort Benning, Airborne School.

And then when I was at Airborne School, a guy from Ranger Regiment came down and said, hey, who would like to try out and go through the Ranger Indoc program? So I was like, yep, that's what I was waiting for. So I raised my hand and right there on the spot, they take you on a death run. They're like, fall out to the rear of the formation, right face, and just run you to the dirt.

That's going to shock a few people, I think. And it's funny too, because I found out later on some guys that told me they're like, you know they send the fastest dude from regiment to pick up the new Rangers. So every guy falls out, you know? That's your first five minutes in going into the RIP program. But yeah, it was peacetime army still.

So I went through RIP and then went up to Second Ranger Battalion out of Fort Lewis, Washington. And then they send you to Ranger School once you've been with the regiment for, you know, a period of time. And they realize that you're a good dude. We want to keep you. We want you to promote. So in the Ranger Regiment, you can't promote unless you have a Ranger tab. and so they send you. I went to Ranger School,

and then the craziest thing happened. It was my last day of Ranger School. And are you familiar with how Ranger School structured, how it works? I know that there's three phases. I know, well, I mean, my understanding is that it's a leadership course. It's broken down in three phases. It's heavy on physical exertion, land nav. I know one of them is jungle, right?

Is another one, I don't, swamp. I don't know if there's much of a difference between the swamp and a jungle, but. Yeah, so they have Darby, which is at Fort Benning, that's your first phase. Then mountains, which is in Delonaga, Georgia, and then you go down to Egglin Air Force Base for your swamp phase. You get your swamp on. Yeah, down in Florida. So I went through that and was doing pretty well. And on the last day, and like you said, it's leadership course.

So everything is graded and you get, if you pass your patrols, then you're going to graduate Ranger School. And I'd passed all my patrols already, so I knew I was good. and on the last day of Ranger School you rig up and you put your parachutes on down in Eglon Air Force Base you jump back into Benning, turn your gear in and you graduate. That's pretty cool.

Yeah, it's pretty cool. So we were on the tarmac, all rigged up, ready to get on the plane to jump, and the cadre came out and they're like, hey guys, everyone derrig right now. Coming to the auditorium, we've got to talk about something. Was this a month of September?

Yeah, it was. You were correct. Yeah, okay. And yeah, so it was 9-11. And fuck. You know, we've been so isolated from the world for the last 60 to however many days, depending on some guys do the extended tour at Ranger School. Yeah.

There's people who've been at Buds for a good 24 months solid. Same thing. They know all the instructors. Like, what's up, Bob? I'm like, isn't that kid a student? Yeah. We got a few of them. But, yeah, so we knew right there.

It's like your first contact with the real world after months is like, oh, we're fucking going to war. Yeah. And you know it. And it's exciting because, I mean, I mean, you know how it is. Everyone in the special ops community. You train, you train, you train, you train, you train. And you want to go and you want to fucking meet the enemy on the field of battle. That's what we do.

And a lot of people think that's weird when I say that. But it's like what person would want to dedicate years to a certain skill and never get to use it? Yeah. I actually, I think a lot about this, especially in the modern generations where there is an actual real world test. You know, the chessboard of your enemy, it's no longer hypothetical. It's legitimate and you're going to get tested. And I think about the generations before mine. Like, everybody who put me through buds, people that I put up on this pedestal,

I'm like, oh, my God, like, I want to be this guy. I never, those people never saw a single ounce of combat because they didn't get chance. You know, chance didn't throw them the opportunity. I'd have to imagine to some level that's frustrating. But I also think, and I talk with younger guys about this when they ask, I'm like, be very careful judging yourself and your career based off only your combat experience. Because the people who put me through training, I still aspire to be like them. And like I said, they saw no combat.

So if your only metric is, oh, that guy didn't see any combat, I'm like, yeah, but neither did three generation of team guys either. So let's be very careful. Well, in the litmus test. It's all luck of the draw. That's all combat is. I mean, how you react and how you perform, obviously that's based on who you are and your skill set and your connection with your team. but where you end up and when, it's just luck of the draw, you know?

And like in the Ranger Regiment, when I was a private, there was, you know, the Rangers had seen combat in Panama, in Grenada, and Somalia, but just real brief little pockets of combat here and there.

Same with the seal community. There was, and the numbers got smaller. But, you know, Somalia, there was four seals. When I say smaller, I mean like maybe two platoons

in Panama and Grenada, which is, you know, 30 some guys down to four. And after that, that was the combat experience, the real world experience that was being passed forward. And it's funny because all those guys that were deployed to those theaters were like gods walking around. You know, it's like, dude, do you know what first Sergeant Kennedy saw?

Like, he was in Panama. And it's like, I mean, not to take anything away from that now, but now literally every single person in the Ranger Regiment has multiple combat deployment. It's just a different military. The optic has shifted. I remember I was like 19 years old checking into SEAL Team 5. And then one of the guys there had served in Somalia. And he was in his khakis, arguably one of the most atrocious military uniforms,

don't man. And he had a BV. I was like, oh, my. I'd never seen one. You know, I had heard of this. And he was walking across the grinder one day. And I'm like, he might as well have been Moses parting the Red Sea. It was just unbelievable.

And now you go to a, you know, even the conventional seal teams and it's like, yeah, Silver Star. I don't know how many BVs you have because I don't understand the things you have on. It's unbelievable the difference in optics. Yeah. So, yeah, back to graduating Ranger School, I was deployed to the Middle East like less than a month later. Oh, wow. Yeah. And so Third Ranger Battalion and Second Ranger Battalion, it was all of Third Ranger Buitarying.

an Alpha Company, Second Ranger Battalion, we're going to invade Afghanistan on October 19th, 2001. It was my 21st birthday. Holy shit. And so we're going to jump in and seize, it was called Objective Rhino, a small airfield. And then once we seize that airfield, the Marines were going to land,

and then they were going to convoy up to Kandahar and seize the big Kandahar airfield. Yep, Kaff. And literally hours before the mission, we got word. They said, hey, the objective. objective is not a regimental plus size objective and we're cutting second battalion and third battalion's going to take it on their own literally one of the worst moments of your ranger career because it's like

even though they didn't meet resistance and kill a bunch of dudes and get to mix it up the historical context of that like being able to say i invaded afghanistan on my 21st birthday yeah i'm sure there was no animosity though between second and they're like i'm sure it was totally fine there was no good-natured or perhaps bad-natured living. Well, luckily for us, third Ranger battalion was in Qatar. Okay. And second battalion was in Amman Jordan.

So we were going to launch from different areas and then jump on the airfield. So we didn't have to hear any of the bullshit. You had to rib remotely. And watch them fly away, you know? It didn't happen. Try not to make eye contact as they're walking out to the airplane. Yeah, exactly.

Slowly go over and start pulling pins on parachute. Like, no, it's fine. man those guys all got mustard stains and just got to be part of something pretty awesome but yeah after that you know I ended up deploying twice Afghanistan with the range regiment and again it's funny like our first one I was QRF and I mean you know how QRF goes you just sit on the airfield with your kit waiting for fucked up shit to happen and sometimes it does you know that was your whole tasking was my whole time in Kandahar just QRF what year was that was oh two I believe

So we were just reading books and working out and going to downed aircrafts and shit like that. But it was a long, boring deployment because it's like you want to be doing DA stuff, you know. Especially when other people are out there doing DA stuff. Yeah. And so then our next deployment, we got to do safe house operations out of a village called Barry Cout, which is north of a Sadabad, way out in the middle of the Paki border. And that was a cool deployment. And again, it wasn't much combat. It was, or wasn't, I mean, I didn't fire my weapon that deployment.

Yeah. And people think that's crazy because it was a six-month deployment. But Afghanistan was just a different culture than what I ended up seeing in Iraq. Like the people there, the overwhelming majority supported the mission. They were happy to see us. And it was more about just like setting in OPs and gathering intel than like kicking doors. What time of year was it? We got there in January.

and we're there until it was, I believe it was June. Yeah, because, you know, the winter months, especially up in the northeast, you know, A-Bad, J-Bad, all that stuff. Like, you're not, nobody's, you know, you're not walking around in, you know, you need a ton-ton, whatever those things are in Star Wars. Yeah. Well, and people don't understand. I can totally empathize with what you're saying because just because you go on deployment

doesn't mean you're actually, like, again, it goes back to chance or luck to have wherever you want to view it or bad luck, you know, depending on how you would, want to view it, but, you know, not all seals see combat, not all seals that go on deployment and fire their weapon. Not all seals in a firefight have the opportunity to align their sights with anything, to include a shadow or a bush and shoot their gun. There's so many things that happen. And then you hit Afghanistan in the winter months when the fighting lulls, and you may bring the whole Harry Potter series because you're going to have plenty of time to rip through it or whatever you're into Game of Thrones or Band of Brothers or all of those things, actually. Yeah, it's so funny,

man, because everybody thinks like deployments are just go, go, go. And sometimes they are, but a lot of times you're not doing shit. Yeah. And so, yeah, I didn't see, I mean, other than some IUDs and some indirect and stuff, Afghanistan was pretty slow. And I ended up getting out of the Ranger Regiment and going right into the contracting world. And I don't know if you're familiar with Triple Canopy. At a peripheral level, I know a bunch of guys that work there as well.

I actually don't know necessarily much about anything. of the contracts they did, though. So who they are now is vastly different than who they were in 2004. They were, Triple Canopy was established by a group of Cag guys. They wouldn't even accept your resume unless you came from a special operations unit. And then they also ran you through selection. No shit. Yeah, it was a three-week selection, PT, shooting.

And it was, they were also teaching you the, like, personal protection stuff as you're going through selection. But tons of dudes got cut from that. Was it design? You're talking about personal protection. Was it designed to have those type of contracts? Yes. Protection contracts.

It was protect. Yeah, they were bidding for State Department protection contracts. Gotcha. And so it was, you know, I was really fit at the time and I could shoot and I just knew how to keep my eyes open and my mouth shut. And I was 23 at the time. And I passed their selection. And I was put on a team and it was like, you know, five keg dudes, three seals, a couple force recon guys and me.

And so it was a pretty wild experience as a 23-year-old ranger to be put on this team. You had to have been the youngest guy. I was, yeah, yeah. Probably by a substantial margin. I was the youngest guy. A lot of them were career military guys. And so I showed up and I just tried to be the guy.

I mean, I knew when it came to experience, they all had vast amounts of experience. And I was just deployed to Afghanistan twice, you know. But I ran with that. I'd be the guy. I'd be the guy. Check the tire pressures in the car every day. Check the oil. Yeah. You know, and just like do all the shit work. That's the most valuable dude right there. And just show the guys like, hey, I'm happy to be here. It's not sexy work. Let's be honest up front about that. It sucks. And nobody wants to do it. But I tell you what, you look back on successful operations or teams. Dude, those guys are the linchpin that holds that stuff together. Absolutely. You know? And so it's funny. And they were also paying us like 30K a month. That doesn't suck.

No, that doesn't suck. But the funny thing is, like, I always tell people, I would have done my 0405 deployments for free. I would have paid to have done those deployments because I was working under retired Delta dudes that were just the most squared away guys you'd ever operate with. And it's funny, too, because it's,

people don't realize what the contracting world was back then. It was, yes, on its surface, it was protection. But, I mean, our team leader would be like, hey guys, we need to go to a route recie today. Let's go drive around downtown Ramadi, see what's going on down there. We all know what that means. I was going to say,

I could give you a rough guesstimate of what that's going to terminate in. And I saw tons of combat as a contractor for State Department. And it was, you know, like fighting from rooftops, like vehicle ambushes and just on and on and on. Who did you guys report to during that time period?

And I asked that because, Who was I having the conversation with? The guy whose podcast I put up today, his name is F. from Matos. He went through Buds, did some combat deployments, and at 24, got out, and while on terminal leave,

got on an airplane to Airbill, and linked up with and volunteered to provide medical coverage, fighting in Missoule. And I was like, and he's like rolling around with an AK. I was like, hey, who are you reporting to? He's like, that's a good question.

Who am like, who? Whose authority were you operating under? He's like, that's also a very good question. I was like, holy shit, man. That's funny. And I actually lived in Urbiel later on in 09 for a year. And it was, but it was all through U.S. contracts. But there are the guy, I mean, Urbiel International Airport.

You can buy a ticket to that right now. He went. Yeah, you can land there and link up with. A terminal fucking leave. And I asked him, like, did you tell the command? He was like, oh, no. No, I was just going back to wherever. I love hearing fucking stories like that, man.

Because it's like they didn't get enough of it in, and they're just going to go put themselves right in the middle of the shit. Oh, and he did. And, like, literally front lines dragging people to ambulances. Like, he just straight up clearing the streets of Missoule, not as like a direct fighter, but would engage when engaged. And I was like, at 24, like, God, I'm a bitch. That's a badass, man.

It's awesome. Yeah, our guy, I mean, it's no secret who I worked for is his name was, Keith Kidd, and he was a State Department ambassador, or a State Department diplomat, and he answered to the ambassador. So if you guys, anything that happened involving you guys, you would answer to him, and he would answer to him. Okay. Correct.

I'm always curious about the chain of command there, because in the military, it's very easy to articulate where things are going to go, but the contracting world, which I have zero experience with, and I don't know if it's by design, but I certainly don't know much about it, so I have to assume that most people know very little about the mechanisms that allow those things to happen. It was real weird too because in 2004, that's when that first kicked off. Yeah. And so trying to establish like who we fell under as far as like legality.

Yeah, who's authorities. And so yeah, it was like, okay, well, you can't be processed under UCMJ and you can't be processed under local authorities because we're not going to just let you guys fucking hang out to dry. Yeah. And obviously, State Department doesn't have like a like a disciplinary action like UCMJ or anything like that. So it's kind of a gray area.

And that's why a lot of fucked up shit happened with contractors. And I'll tell you this, man, because contracting got a bad name because a few shitheads did some stupid shit and killed innocent people and did exactly what everybody's seen on the news. And let's go level playing field. That shit happens to the military too. Oh, 100%. The difference is, I think, that the accountability is much more clear and concise because they have a route that can be followed for that. Yeah, absolutely. but it just kind of put a sour taste in everybody's mouth with civilian contractors.

But I can tell you, from my personal experience, you know, 95% of those guys are good dudes. They're a bunch of special operations veterans that are now just trying to cash in on some money and be able to set up their future, you know, and buy their house or whatever. And yeah, it kind of sucked how that all played out. But it also, I mean, it's a two-tiered approach. Not only were guys, like, becoming less and less cases. capable because they're hiring dudes from with lower resumes is that because they needed more because that yeah and so the company needs more billets filled and so they're lowering the standards yeah and

before you know it you got guys that somehow weasel their way on a contract never even been in the military it's like oh it was a cop in Arkansas for 10 years and it's like what the fuck are you doing here yeah soldier of fortune magazine in the back pocket yeah seriously we uh I right after selection at development group, they surges over early for the tail end of the car's ID tail. I got there after the assassination attempt.

And then we turned over with Dinacore. And I have nothing negative to say about Dinacore. I'll just say it was interesting. There was some handlebar moustaches, some leather vests. I was like, is this a fucking biker gang? Yeah, straight out. And again, I didn't say that with no judgment,

but I was just like, okay you guys have a you just have a different system to operate underneath yeah so that was a fun phase of my life man i really enjoyed contracting it was all the good aspects of the military without all the bullshit you know yeah and and the other thing is you could pull the plug whenever you want yeah what were you obligated to them for just one contract at a time it was you were under contract with them for i think triple canopy did it was your contracts 90 on 30 off so that's good money. Yeah, it was good money.

And, uh, but still, it's a civilian company. So if shit got stupid, you could walk. Yeah. Whatever, you know. I mean, you might not be welcome back. You might burn your name in the industry. But you're not tied by an enlistment. Yeah, you're not tied to anything.

So it was nice, man. Um, see, I did that until 2009. I got a, I got a Yahoo messenger pitcher when I was in Erbil. And it was from my wife. And it was a pregnancy test. She's like, hey, I think it's time to put this shit behind us. I'm like, all right. I mean, I figured I'd do it just run until it ran its course because where else could you make that kind of money and just have that kind of lifestyle, you know?

And then it ran its course. Yeah, it ran its course. And I was like, all right, I get it. So I came home and that's when I put in with the U.S. Marshal Service. And so... Did you have any idea that you were going to go? Had you been thinking about it before? You know, it's funny.

It was through Jiu-Jitsu. I started Jiu-Jitsu in 2004. I actually started Jiu-Jitsu. do. Maybe we'll circle back to this. Yeah, I'm curious how you started. Okay, you know, we'll go into it right now. Yeah, go for it. Like I said, we get 45 hours. Yeah, we have 45 hours.

I was in Ramadi. Were you deployed to Ramadi? We would pass through. Okay. We were always basing out of the green zone. Okay. So I was at a little, it was called Blue Diamond. There was a little camp right along the river there. And there was a couple seals that were on my team.

And one of them's like, hey, bro, you want to train tonight? I'm like, what do you mean? What do you do? such a broad, vague. What a dickbag move. Now that I'm down, we know what we're talking about. No, that is the best thing that ever happened to me. Yeah. And so I was like, in hindsight, but that night I bet it sucked. No, it was perfect for me because, you know, I was young, I was fit, I was strong. I'd never lost a fight. And so I thought I was like a tough guy, you know? Yeah. And then I realized quickly, the reason I never lost a fight is because I never fought anyone

that knew what the fuck they were doing. God, isn't that an powerful realization to have? It's insane. Yeah. It's, you know what? It's funny. too because everyone always says with Jiu-Jitsu and with MMA you know like hey check your ego at the door no man like your ego is what brings you here you know and and so yeah

this dude was a come to find out he was a Muay Thai fighter and a purple belt in Jiu that's a handful and he just beat the fucking breaks off me and he's a friend of mine he's a friend of mine this day I probably can't give him a shout out because he's a team guy right yeah if he's still active then just he's not active but still

it's up to you I don't care all right um no he's kind of a low-key guy so I'll leave it at that but just call him Bob yeah Bob dude that guy like he beat me so bad that in a moment I was like dude every single thing I've done in my life up until this moment is wrong what did he do did you guys just roll up to a set of mats and it's like yeah dude and we just did like full contact MMA has like leg kicks to the point where I couldn't even stand takedowns to mount knee on belly just beat the shit out of me and uh You know the percentage of people that respond positively to that versus negatively?

You're like, this is the best thing that ever happened. Most people are like, oh, my God. Well, don't get me wrong. I hated it. I mean, I literally remember limping around for days. Oh, yeah. And I was like, you know what? Like, I can't allow another man to be able to do that to me.

I can't allow that. That's like fucking everything that I thought that I was was just taken away from me. And so I started training with him every single day while we were deployed. and do we train together on and off for years because the contract world's weird. You'll bounce around. You'll be with guys for a while and then you'll part

and then you'll link back up. So every time I was on contract with him, training, training, training. But then when I got home, I signed up at a Jiu-Jitsu Academy and then like a full-contact MMA school too. They were separate? Yeah, separate.

Two separate academies. Just to geek out on both aspects of it. And I was training seven days a week just trying to get it in as much as I could. Yeah. So, and it's funny. talking to him years later, the reason he got into Jiu-Jitsu was he was doing a pool evolution. And I don't remember if he was in Buds or if he was already a team guy.

But he said he watched Jocko walk up to a dude and grab a cross-collar choke and put him to sleep with it. And, you know, this was like, I think this was still in the 90s where people didn't know what Jiu-Jitsu was. Yeah, Jocco was actually pretty goddamn early. Way ahead of everybody else, especially. Pishes me off. I tell him that every time I see him. And so it's funny. He's like, dude, I watched him just touch this guy's neck and he fell asleep and he passed out and he set him on the ground.

And he's like, I have to know what that is. And he goes, so that's what started me on the path. So I have a side story about Jocko. This is actually third hand, but after I tell the story, I think we can both agree it likely happened. He's up giving a brief. And I think one of the new guys was basically told, like, go try to sneak up behind Jock and just stand as close to you. as you can get and put your nose right up against him. And he just turned around, rear naked, choked him out,

dropped him on the floor, turned around and just continued to breathe. I was like, yeah, that sounds exactly like what Jocko would do. No factor. Oh, God. He makes you, do you follow him on Instagram? I do, of course. So he made this video this morning, and I already sassed off on his, made a comment, and he commented back.

I'm like, how far can I take this? Because there's a fine line. I don't actually want to piss him off because I have a ton of respect for him. But at the same time, he's, always does these Monday videos. And today's just like, get up and get after it. And I just want to do a video like,

it's 0.4.25 p.m. Just rolled out of bed. I was thinking about getting after it, but fuck that because hard work is hard. And I'm going to hit the racket. You know, I want to go to, I want to be the opposite,

Jocko. Yeah. Yeah, that's a rare dude, man. It is, and it's crazy, the platform that he has. It's like, I just think it's really cool that, well, there's pros and cons, obviously, to these goddamn devices and social media, but one of the really, the biggest pros, I think, is access to people to see that type of stuff

where you, I mean, otherwise, you and I might be the only people who understood that there's a unique, I'll call me a unique creature out there, like that wandering among us. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, Jocko, cross-collar choking somebody, I'm going to say that 100% happened. Yeah. So, yeah, and it's funny because, I mean, that changed the trajectory for the rest of my life. I've been chasing Jiu-Jitsu ever since. And so yeah, circle back around when I joined the Marshal Service. By this time, I was already a brown belt out of a Gracie Baja school out of Seattle,

which great guys, good training. Like, I got nothing bad to say about them. But Jiu-Jitsu in Los Angeles, California versus everywhere else in the world, it was just night and day different. Other than, I mean, and I don't know this, having never been there, but have heard about Brazil. I mean, other than that, would you say it's like the U.S. version of Brazil? Well, no, like my coaches, like Joa Aes and Bouchesha, like talking to them about it,

they say, you know what? The dudes that are good enough to make it and chase the dream and actually make money with Jiu-Jitsu, they all relocate to America. Really? That's where the money's at. So the dudes that are good enough out of Brazil end up coming to America anyways. So it might have started in real. originated there.

Yeah. Knowledge has now crossed that. And so, and then Brazilians hate, hate the snow and they hate the cold. So, like, you're,

you're going to see them just naturally congregate in Southern California and South Florida. And so, yeah, I went down there and just continued training, continue training. And, you noticed a difference from your Pacific Northwest school to the L.A.

school. Yeah, and I try and say this in the most respectful manner possible, because I don't want to take anything away from those schools in Seattle. And, but when I showed up, and I didn't even know who Bershisha was at the time because he hadn't won the world title yet. And I just looked at like what schools were convenient for me

based on my commute and my work schedule. Pure geography choice. Straight up. And it was this little school in Corona, California, checkmat Corona. And I walked in there and it was Marcus. And I'm like, hey, what's up, man? Like I'm looking for a new school, blah, blah, blah.

He's like, oh, let's train. And so I put a brown belt on and just got abbey. Absolutely eaten alive by some of those dudes down there. And I remember Telling Marcus afterwards, I was like, bro, like, I want to start back over as a white belt under you. Straight up. Like, I don't, I've only been doing jiu-jitsu. I don't remember how many years at that point. Let's see, it would have been five, six, six and a half, I think.

And I was already a brown belt. I felt like I kind of got fast-tracked. Yeah. And now he's like, you know what, man, you earn that. You just represent your belt as hard as you can, keep training. and don't worry about the color that's wrapped around your waist. And that's what I ended up doing. And I was with those guys for over five years before I got my black belt.

What did you think the difference was? Like when you said you got, you know, you got handled by them. Was it a difference in approach philosophy? I'll tell you. It's a difference in intensity. That's all. I mean, check mat is known. They have an aggressive approach to training.

Okay. And so it's not like. When you say that, do you just mean a harder role or? A faster role. I would say. When you say, I mean, I think people, and actually I'm, I'll hear people say intensity when it comes to rolling. And I guess I would apply, I would, when I hear that, I think there's going to be more pressure, more smashy. But are you talking about pace versus?

I would say pace. Okay. Yep. If you look at like, check mat's a big, like, we put a ton of energy into passing. Okay. Like, if you're in some type of, any type of guard, I don't care if it's, if you're on, the ground or if you're standing, if they have any type of control on you, you're actively trying to pass.

There's Tori Andos and backsteps and leg drags and just go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Constantly pressure. Constantly trying to advance to get the pass. And so if you're a guard player and someone's coming at you like that, I mean, watch Leander Lowe fight, right? Oh, yeah. That's a perfect example of a guy that just constant pressure on the pass. Just go, go, go, go.

And I realized like, okay, this isn't just Jiu-Jitsu. You have to be like a savage athlete to keep up with these guys. At that level? Yeah. Well, you even said you've slapped hands with some of these guys. And I can't even imagine. Yeah. It's like, oh, shit, we just let the tiger out of the cage.

Yeah. You know? And it's funny, too, because after training with them for years and years and years, when I go with them, when I go with those guys that are at the pinnacle, it still doesn't feel much different. You know, like I told you in the truck right here, my students now, because I own an academy north of Seattle, and they'll ask me like, hey, when you go with Joe Ow or Bouchetia, like, if you were to roll 10 times, does, they catch you like five and you'd catch them five, and I just have to laugh. Probably out loud. Yeah, straight out, man, because it's like, like I told you, it's 100 to zero.

I'm getting submitted every time. There's levels to this stuff, and whatever they got, I don't got. but I'm going to keep trying to get it, you know? How long did it take you to adapt to that different philosophy of the pressure and the higher level of intensity from where you came from? I'd say probably just a few months. So you had the framework. It was more applying or just maybe dropping your jih Tzu into a different gear.

Yep, for sure. And just kind of having a different psychological approach. Okay. Because if you look at a lot of academies, and again, this is nothing derogatory about them. Everybody trains how they, how best suits them. But you'll see guys like both sit down on their butts, slap and bump,

and then kind of like crawl into each other's guards and things like that. Like you would never see that at my academy. It's like 100% of the time you're trying to win, you know? And so, and then the other thing that was really different for me was at Joow's school, 100% of rolls start on your feet.

Regardless of the size discrepancy. It doesn't matter. Okay. It doesn't matter if you have a tournament. coming up. It doesn't matter if it's a guy and a girl. Like, I mean, obviously you're not going to double leg some girl you have 100 pounds on. And you know what I mean? You're going to be a responsible training partner. I know some people who would do that. Yeah. Well, hey, don't we all, right?

At full speed, just a blast double with the forehead and the sternum. And then that's when the coach has to go give it back to them. Yeah, they're like, when you see guys act like that. I got next. But, and it's funny too because starting on your feet, changes your entire game. People don't realize how different the game is starting on your feet. Yeah.

Because you have to learn to wrestle, and then you also have to learn to pull guard. And I know that that's blasphemy to say out loud. But guard pulling's an art. If you want to be a guard puller, you've got to practice guard pulling. Because if you don't, you get passed on the pole,

and now you're in a shit position right from the get-go, you know? Yeah, and somebody that you in real life are going to have an altercation with, they have a vote too. Exactly. You know, they could change your game. You might meet.

up to somebody who is who their game is the exact opposite of yours like it plays you know what I mean like it just really sinks in really well and you might have to you might have to modify it I look at my own game when you're saying this like for me I know for a fact that stand up is my weakest point because I will often start seated because I am heavier and taller than most of the people and the mat space can often be limited due to the number of people on like in an open mat. Yeah. And let's just say even if I'm trying to do good stand up I don't always stay in my square. it can get a little velocity and weight behind it and I don't want to hurt it.

Like I'm actually scared of hurting somebody else by being out of control because I'm fucking idiot and I don't know. You know what I'm like? There's an art to taking somebody down in a controlled manner as well and I'll tell you right now I don't have it.

But hearing you say that, yeah, I actually really need to I need to redouble my efforts in that front for sure because I can personally recognize that as a deficiency in my game. Well, and something that Joao said that stuck with me and I mean,

he's an ADC champion. He's a really good wrestler. He's like, man, how can you? you consider yourself a ground fighter if you don't know how to get the fight to the ground. Yeah. That pretty much sums it up, you know? Yeah.

And so he put a lot of emphasis on takedowns and poles and stuff, and it was cool, man. It's practical. I mean, there's a variety of reasons like I could just give you as to why I start seated, but I also am the only person that can stand myself up and force myself to work on that deficiency, which I will, and it's going to suck. Uh-huh. But I actually kind of enjoy, like, I don't mind because I've, you know, I'll stand up with certain people or there's less. And it's like, yeah, that didn't go my way.

And then I'm just fighting my way out of a shit position. And I kind of enjoy that exercise as well, too. Yeah. Like that was not a YouTube move that I just attempted. And now it's like, how do I defend myself again? Yeah. It's so funny talking, meeting jihitsu guys. Like, I met you an hour ago and we could talk for 10 hours about jih Tjitsu.

You know what I mean? It's like it instantly bonds you with this group of people that's just around the, world you know and I don't have a lot of experience outside of the SBG gym network so and that's why I'm curious about your experiences moving around and how long it took to you to adapt because I mean I would imagine the human body being what it is the fundamental principles are the fundamental principles and if you could apply what you're talking about that intensity and pace on top of that because you already had those that makes sense to me that you were able to integrate them into your game

yeah if you didn't have those fundamentals that would have probably just been a shit show in that style training is geared for competition. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I always tell people, you need to know what you want out of jiu-jitsu. And competing may be part of it, but it may also not be part of it. It just depends on what your path is and what you want out of it.

Yeah. So you kind of, I always tell people that write my academy saying, hey, we want to check you out and see what your academy is about. I'm like, you know what? Also check out the other academies in the area. Yeah. Because I want, if you end up joining my academy, I want that because we're a good fit for you. Not because I want your $100 a month, you know?

What do you tailor your academy towards? You know, it's funny. It's, it's kind of shifting. It's shifted over the last year because initially I moved up from California and I wanted just to make killers and, and keep that, that energy going and every round is fight to the death and, uh, but what I learned is, no way, dude. When you say we're going to go at 10%, that's what we mean. Yeah. Hey, do you want to warm up? It's like,

the reality of owning a Jiu-Satoo academy is, yeah, you want to make killers and you want to teach people good Jiu-Jitsu, but it's also a business too. And if you put all your energy into your killers, you're kind of shunning a lot of other people that deserve to have Jiu-ZU. Five killers aren't going to turn the lights on it off.

Exactly. Exactly. So instead, and me and Joao have talked about this in depth, it's like instead of tailoring to your handful of murderers, like you can still train those guys and have like after-hour sessions and stuff, but from a peer jiu-jitsu standpoint,

it's better to tailor your academy to, like we got moms that train now and older people that train now. And it's not just about the money, it's about sharing jiu-jitsu in a manner that people are able to train at. Because if we tried to train at that level with some of these other people,

it's something, they would just scare them away and we couldn't be able to give them anything, you know? So when I was explaining the lineage inside of SBG from Higin to, howder to Matt, I was actually having this conversation with Matt no more than I think a week ago. You know, and my coach was early on and they were talking about, they have stories like just beating the shit out of each other with sticks. Like it was full on. It kind of was like,

it sounds like I wasn't there, but it sounds like your first training session with your buddy overseas. And Matt was saying this really the same thing. Like, you know, he's like, I wonder how many thousands of people I turned away because of the, philosophy that we were, he's like, listen, the guys that stuck around, they're ride or die forever. But from a business perspective, if you want to grow and scale, I'd imagine that's a, at the teeter-tottering balance that you have to constantly manage. Yeah. And the other side of it that I think is important, though, is that, I mean, I'm not an MMA school and we don't teach full contact fighting and stuff like that. But I think intensity translates to self-defense.

better than just keeping it playful, you know? Well, your self-defense scenario is going to probably occur near maximum heart rate. Exactly. And whether that's an emotional or mental response or physiological, I personally think that you'd be better prepared if you train closer to that threshold. Yeah. And so, I mean, I'm grateful that when I started training, my jiu-jitsu was also based around MMA,

and I did a few fights and, like, trained for years and that stuff. And then I moved away from it because I realized, like, look, I'm not trying to be Chuck Liddell. I'm not trying to get a UFC. title. I'm just some dude that likes to train. And I was getting headaches all the time. I was like, this doesn't... I wonder where that's from. Yeah. This doesn't make sense, man. I get headaches and nosebleeds. It's super weird.

My nose was broken so many times. Remind me to show you a picture after this podcast. Because I got it fixed last year. All right. But yeah, I couldn't breathe for a decade through my nose. So you found Jiu-Jitsu prior to going into the marshals, but did it have any bearing on you deciding to go to the LEO world? Because you obviously, the marshals are, straight up, I mean, they're fall under the law enforcement

category, right? How did you decide to go from the contracting world to the law enforcement world? So two guys on my jihitsu team in Seattle were deputies with the marshal service out of the Seattle office. And they're like, hey, I think this would be a good fit for you. I think you'd love this agency. And

I ended up putting in for it and just got picked up. And it was a long process. Federal hiring process was like a year. So I just sat at home and did online school and burned through some of my GI Bill. and ended up getting picked up and went to the academy

and I got stationed in Los Angeles. And so... The mecca. Yeah. In Los Angeles, I mean, I'm real grateful that I got stationed there for jiu-jitsu, but also just all the friendships I made

and all the people that I know was a cool period of time. And a lot of guys got stationed in shit places like along the Mexican border and whatnot. So I feel like I kind of lucked out there. But the agency as a whole, and again, like I don't want to, to say a bunch of disparaging shit about them.

But the reality of the martial service, from my experience, it was a lot of courtroom stuff, a lot of prisoner transports, and kicking doors and going after fugitives was like five to 10% of what we did, you know? And you always see deputies on TV chasing dudes like Tommy Lee Jones going after Harrison Ford and like you're expecting like a running and gunning career.

Much like the movie Navy Seals. I don't know if you've seen it. Yeah. Or tears of the sun or fuck zero dark it's like yeah yeah you know and so like after a few years of that and I wasn't digging it I mean it wasn't a bad job but I just wasn't digging it I was like I can't I don't want to give 20 years to this you know what would your day to day look like I don't even know necessarily what Marshall's do oh I mean more often than not I'm sitting in a courtroom producing a federal prisoner for his court hearing meaning you're responsible for his transport I'm responsible for his transport and his physical security while he's at his court appearance. And so here's how it works. In the federal system, you know,

the ATF, FBI, D,EA, all these three-letter agencies when they're arresting people, once they're booked into jail, they're now remanded to the U.S. Marshal Service. Okay. And that agency is now responsible for that prisoner. So anytime his initial appearance,

his change of plea, his sentencing, literally any time that prisoner needs to go and stand in front of the judge, a deputy has to be standing next to him. I did not know that. Yeah. And that is 90% of what the Marshal Service does.

And so, I mean... Is there anybody in the Marshal Service, like Tommy Lee Jones running around chasing people? So, yeah, once... I mean, there's different positions that you can work yourself into, like, called IOD. Yeah, what is that? Investigative Operations Division, where now you are more focused on investigations and fugitive work. But sometimes, it's all luck of the draw. Yeah.

Sometimes it can take 10 years to get one of those positions. I was going to say, I bet you... like just about anything else where there's limited positions, I bet seniority plays in there. Exactly, you know. And so this, I was with them from 2011 until 2015. And then I got word that my dad was sick back in Seattle. And I said, I went to the Marshal Service. I said, hey, listen, this is the situation. I need to be with my father. Like the whole reason I left the military contracting world behind is because I thought in my head it was time to put more focus on my family, you know? And they said, hey, we can't, unfortunately, there's no positions open in Seattle.

We can't offer you any type of TDIY or any type of transfer. So you have to stay in Los Angeles. And I was like, yeah, I can't do that. I'm telling you guys, this is what it is. And I'm not trying to be a dick. I was always a good deputy, well respected on the force. But I was like, I'm putting family first. And if that means I separate from the agency, then that's what it means. And so I moved home. And yeah, my dad lived for five weeks after that. And it was, we got a lot of closure. It was really good. So I'm glad you got that time. Yeah, that's a, that's a

decision that I'll never regret. And I mean, it was stressful too because I had little kids and I was making, you know, enough to feed them. The martial service doesn't pay well, but I was comfortable, you know? Yeah. And that's when I was like, you know what?

I need to open my Jitza Academy and start this thing. Were you a black belt at that point? Yes. When did you get your black belt? I got my black belt in 2015 shortly before I moved home. Cool.

And so, yeah, and I never thought that I thought I was going to be a brown belt for the rest of my life. And so it was a surprise. And I didn't want my black belt. You know what I mean? Like, because now you have a target on your back. And especially with the guys that I was rolling that had black belts, I was like, yeah, that's not coming anytime soon. But no, Joao surprised me. I got my black belt shortly before moving home to Seattle and opened up the academy. And I mean, I love my academy. And we have a great group of guys. But the reality Jiu-Jitsu, it's hard to have that be your sole income. Yeah.

When you have a family five, you know. Well, and people don't understand the difference between being a coach and a business owner. Very, yeah, two different things for sure. And, you know, for people listening who have never coached, there's a performance aspect of that that is fucking exhausting. Yep. Like, you want to be on for your students, right? You're there.

You're presenting your academy. And then they get to leave, but there's another set rolling in and you're just in the back, like, How many more of these do I have to be? Straight up, man. And it's funny, too, because, like, and I never give myself, like, I feel like enough credit. Because all of my students, like, no, dude,

we love it when the classes you teach and your energy and your technique. But if you ever are in Huntington Beach, take, go to a class that's led by Joe Aesis. Like, the dude is one of the most technical guys you'll ever meet, but his energy, it's palpable, man. That's awesome. Like, he makes you want to train.

He makes you want to grind. And he makes it fun even though it's exhausting and you're getting your ass kicked. And like that's the environment you're trying to build. There's few people out there who have the ability to do that. Yeah. There's a lot of people who will try to create that artificially. Yep. But you can see through that veneer.

Exactly. I've met very few people that you truly get around. You're like, oh shit, this dude makes me want to be a better person in like every way. Yep. Yeah. And I know exactly what you're talking about. It's very rare to find, though. The fact that you found that just based off a job.

geography is awesome. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, it's funny, too, because, and I tell people this all the time, because once you find someone that you click with, you should probably go out of your way to make that your jih Tjitsu coach, you know? For sure. Like, when I was with Marcus, that was at a convenience that I met him there.

But then when I met Joao through Marcus, because they're friends, dude, I had to drive like 50 miles out of my way to train with him, and I would do it every night. Yeah. Because it's like, okay, that's my guy. that's the guy that I want to be under for the rest of my life. I want that to be part of my lineage. I live an hour out of town and an hour and 15 to the northern location, five days a week. Yep.

See, I mean, that's just part of the grind. You've got to understand if you ever want to truly pursue this and become proficient at it, that's just part of the grind. Well, I see the value in it for me as a person, too. It's like I was telling you in the car, I, it's just like, you need to do this. I'm like, you need to go fuck yourself. Jiu-jitsu is awesome. I'm like, you're gay. And then I started, I was like,

God, damn it, where have I been for the last 20 years? But then I see the value, and it's like, yeah, it's, I mean, an hour-long car ride, who cares? It's worth it. I get to think about it on the way there and then decompress on the way back. And I know it sounds cliche, but like, it's the truth.

The lessons you learn on the mat apply to so many other aspects of your life. Yeah. You know, it just helps you become grounded in a bunch of different areas that are hard to become grounded in. Let's face it, dude. Like, we're ego-driven people. And I feel like always being put in check on the mats

kind of transfers over to a lot of other aspects. And I think, again, like we were saying on the way over, it gives you a better optic. You watch people who you see and you're like, oh, my God, that guy's Superman. But then you watch Superman get ragdawed. And you're like, wait a minute. That dude looks like he's an accountant.

I don't want to talk shit to anybody ever. No. So it changes your behavior. It changes your optic. It changes your appreciation. And I've found in the short time I've been doing it, the more capable these people are, the less likely they are to ever actually engage in any type of violence.

Yeah, because I think a lot of people, especially the younger guys, because when I was younger, like, I loved fighting, like at bars and just being fucking stupid, you know? And I bet if I had an outlet, I bet if I was training,

that shit would have never happened. Or if you were a black, think about if you had been a black belt back in those days, you'd be like, this is not worth my time. Yeah, exactly. Like, why do I want to risk some random cold cock and get a concussion? Like, obviously I could tool you up,

but I'm going to go have a cocktail. No, it's, I kind of think I fell into Jiu-Jitza at the right time because, yeah, it would have been beneficial for me when I was younger in some aspects, but it might have been fucking dangerous too. Yeah. And how to fuck people up when you're like 18 years old

and getting in fights at parties and stuff. Well, you hear it all the time, right? You know, and this is probably true of, of law enforcement as well. Badge doesn't make you a good person. Yeah. You could use a badge for evil just like you could use it for good.

Just like a black belt. Very true, you know. A black belt could be used for good. And I have to imagine that, you know, it could also be a tool for people who want to use it to oppress others. Yeah. You know what I mean?

I don't want to talk about that aspect of it too much because I have to imagine, there's just fucking weird people in the world and I wouldn't want to empower them and give them more tools. You know what I'm trying to? Yeah. Yeah, and I'm going to imagine you guys probably encounter that as coaches or owners occasionally, too.

Like, maybe this person's a touch off. Like, you don't need this skill. You hear it in the jih Tijuana community, not all the time, but it's not uncommon to hear, like, this professor sexually assaulted a student. Yeah. Or this professor raped somebody. You know what I mean? So it's like, just because you have a black belt, you're not a good person. Yeah.

You know, I think it's a key to becoming a good person if that's a path that you're already trying to obtain and you're on. But they're shitheads that are real good fighters. We all know that. Yeah, and unfortunately, you know, it's a tool. Like I said, it could be used for good or evil. So you were up there, you were doing your Jiu-Jitsu Academy, realized that the theory of gym ownership and the concept, you know, the practicality of gym ownership were different.

And it was funny, too, because I ended up doing, I was doing some work at the Washington State Police Academy teaching Jiu-Jitsu up there. And I got approached by a guy. It's like, hey, are you looking to come back into law enforcement? I'm like, I don't know, maybe, you know. what do you got and ended up talking to him. And he talked to me about the port of Seattle. And it just made sense.

It was like they work three days a week as a police officer. That's almost a firefighter schedule. Yeah. So three days on, four days off, which would allow me to still keep a lot of energy with my gym. And it was good pay, good benefits. And I just got along with all the people there that I met. And I was like, you know what?

I'm going to do this. I'm going to go back in. And I had to redo a police academy because the state of Washington doesn't recognize, recognize federal police academies. They didn't recognize Fletsey? No, they didn't recognize Fletsey. And so I had to go to,

theirs is called BLEA, the basic law enforcement, uh, whatever it stands for. And I had to go through that and, uh, and then I became a police officer up in Seattle. And I was a police officer there,

you know, for three years. And it's a good agency. I work for good people. I like my chain of command. I like my sergeants. Like it's weird how this whole deal played out. It's probably good.

We're going into this now. Everyone's listening for an hour. Just listen to. and us talk about jihad. Dude, we get to talk about what we want to talk about. My goddamn podcast. That's right, man. I brought you here to talk about jihitsu.

And so I never had anything bad to say about that department. And to tell you the truth, I still don't. Like, they, that department has, like, had my back and has supported me. And they take care of their people. Like, everything that I wanted in an agency, I found it that agency. And I was like, this is fucking awesome. And again, not to be disparaging about the Marshal Service, but I saw a lot of the opposite there. A lot of cutthroat shit.

A lot of people. At the Marshall. Yeah. Backdoring, like backstabbing you and stuff. It's the federal system because in the federal system, you're a number, man. And the numbers there have got to be massive in comparison to the port. Yeah. The port, yeah. And so I was enjoying being an officer there. And

dude, it wasn't until all this shit kicked off a couple months ago. And it just started eating away at me. Every day I would turn the news on and I would see like a surfer being hauled away handcuffs. And I'm like, paddleboarder.

Same thing I saw that. Yeah. And like boats surrounding him. And like they went on and on and on. And the ladies, the lady at the park or the guy playing catch with his daughter. And it was becoming frustrating because it's like as a law enforcement officer, it's up to us to police our own. Like if you know what it's like in the teams or in the battalion. Like if someone's doing something fucked up, you grab that person, you pull him back. He's, hey, bro, that's not how we roll.

That's not what we do. here okay yeah and the earlier that that happens the better the better right and so this is the most interesting part about this whole deal it's not like a 70 30 percentage or a 80 20 it's 100% of police officers that i've talked to about this say man that is so fucked up i cannot believe people are getting arrested for walking their dog or opening their business i can't believe it every single person I talked to. And I have friends all over the country from being a federal law enforcement as well. Nobody could believe what was going on, but yet no one says a fucking word. It doesn't make any sense to me, you know? So I have a question for you on that too, because I have no background

in law enforcement at all. So how are those people able to be arrested? Like I understand that law enforcement can detain people if they have like a reasonable suspicion or probable cause, but to arrest somebody, don't they have to be actually violating a law or breaking a law? Well, that's what's ironic about this, because you and I both are confused about how that works. Because in the state of Washington, for me to put handcuffs on somebody and deprive them of their freedom, I have to have reasonable, articulable facts that this is the law that they broke. When you are improvising someone into prison, it literally says RCW, blah, blah, blah, you know, theft in the third degree.

and that's what they're booked and charged with. So I'm sure that there was some blanket order in these states that, hey, well, we're going to be booking under this law and the governor or the mayor says, hey, people doing these things fall under this law. That's what I would assume. Do they have the power to do that or the authority to do that? That's where this whole deal is just becoming a shitstorm

because I don't believe that they do. Laws have to be legislated. if one man can just decide, hey, you know what? I don't want hair salons open today. And like I said in the car ride, let's put the science aside because I'm not a doctor. I'm not an epidemiologist. Like, let's put the science aside. It's still one man deciding the fate of other human beings.

And that is not how our society works. And that's why it's becoming so frustrating for me, seeing all of these people having their liberties trampled on. and also having 100% of officers I talked to about it in agreement with me. Did you have any of those issues happening inside of the Port of Seattle? Were you guys being asked to? No. No. And I talked about that in my first video.

I said, luckily, I'm part of an agency that is not enforcing what I consider tyrannical orders. So it was largely a message to other people with your occupation. Yes. And so, you know, it's funny because I was starting to get frustrated about this. Like, I'm in the lunchroom watching the news and I'm like, are you fucking kidding me, dude? Like, if that was my mom, I'd be taking that fucking cop down and putting him in his own handcuffs, you know? Like, they are going to make criminals out of people that are not criminals. Because if you're detaining me and you're putting me in handcuffs when I didn't commit a crime,

I have the right to defend myself. Why the fuck should I just happily go to jail because some mayor decided that I need to have a mask on my face? And that's what started getting me fired up. And I'm like, this is going to go bad. This is going to go bad at some point because people are, going to get fed up with this shit. And that's where you started, like I said, it really resonated with me when you started talking about the gap in public trust because it's, you know, for better or worse, you know,

some of my closest friends here in the valley, not for better or worse, it's for better. They're law enforcement. For better or worse, law enforcement here is judged by the actions of things that happen elsewhere. And I was actually having a conversation with a buddy mine yesterday, you know, and kind of just talking about that bridge in public trust. like there was a video of an LAPD cop just beating the piss out of a homeless dude. That impacts how people think when an officer stops them and walks up to their car. And that has to be like I don't ever want that to get lost because it's important.

And it shapes the dynamic in the relationship between the populace and the officers and in those interactions. And I think if you look at a lot of the things that have gone south, it's because things either tried to get hidden. you know, or that gap got so wide that the trust was completely lost. And then I'm sure in some areas, it's probably never going to come back. And a lot of times officers will just blindly support like, oh, well, you didn't know what happened before the camera was turned on. And it's like, dude, if an officer's doing something wrong, he needs to be called out on it. And I can tell you that that gap was frustrating to me because when I'm in civilian clothes

or I'm in my ghee, if I'm in any attire other than a police uniform, people are friendly to me. like I can conversate with people and shoot the shit and like tell stories and stuff like I have no problem getting along with with random people on a daily basis. They'll engage with you at will without having what I would imagine you see often either a suspicious or a fear based mindset. And as soon as I'm in uniform, people fucking steer clear of me. And dude, that like hurts my heart because it's like all of these people have this misconceived notion of who I am as a man because of the uniform I'm in. And that is a result from years and years and years of the public trust constantly eroding when it comes to law enforcement. And so I saw that happening to me. Like on a daily basis, I'm walking around and I see people just like avoid eye contact with me or move to the other side of the sidewalk. And it's like, dude, I'm just a fucking dude like you are.

Like we could shoot this shit and have a beer and probably get along. Yeah. You probably have more in common than you have. But yeah. But because I'm in a uniform, there's this distrust. And that would always kind of bother me. Did you feel that right from putting a uniform on? Yep.

Because as a deputy with the martial service, we weren't uniformed. Yeah. So I never had that experience until I was a patrol level officer. And that's something that I never could get over, man. It always bothered me because it's like... It seems like it's palpable. Yeah, it is. Straight up.

And so I had that going on on one aspect. And then the thing that started to bother me is as I'm being vocal about these officers, in my opinion, trampling on people's liberty and treating people poorly across the country. The other officers in my department would say that like, Greg, we're not being forced to do that here. So why is it such a big deal to you? For every reason we just talked about. Every fucking reason we just talked about. They're Americans. And it's like, dude, as soon as you start to say like over here versus over there, like, that's just shifting blame. You know what? Like if a cop sees a cop doing something wrong, I feel like it's our duty to step up

and be like, hey, this is how I fucking think you should be acting as a professor. and this is how I feel like you're violating people's rights. And if nothing else, it's at least going to make them look at themselves and be like, hey, you know, maybe I have to look inward and ask myself, what am I doing as an officer, you know? And that was kind of the message that I wanted to get out to people.

I wanted other cops to look at themselves and be like, hey, I know I'm getting a biweekly deposited into my Chase account and that's cool, but is it worth it? Is it worth to pull a fucking mom away from her kid in handcuffs? because she's at a swing on a park. You know what I mean? Like I wanted officers to take that step back and be like, let's take my career out of it and let's look at who I am as a person.

And so that's why I knew I needed to do it in uniform. You know, my agency's told me 100 times since then. Like, Greg, if you just did that in your backyard with a t-shirt and shorts on, we would have had no issues with it. Yeah, and it wouldn't have had the impact either. It wouldn't have the impact because that message had to come from a uniformed officer speaking to uniformed officers. What got you over the edge when you finally were like, fuck it, I'm going to do this?

You know, I don't remember like a specific incident. It was just every day that I would look online or look on the news. More people's liberties are being trampled on and more people are being treated like shit. And I felt like as law enforcement, that's not our job. That's not our job to tell you you have to wear a mask on, you know, a mask or not. Well, that's an interesting point too, right? And again, talking with my buddy yesterday, people will often see on the side of,

and again, I say all this being not any background in law enforcement, but you'll see on the side of a car protect and serve. And people think that that's the job of law enforcement, but that's actually a motto. The job of law enforcement is to enforce laws. Yeah. So what, and again, like the woman on the swing, what's motivating that officer to go try to arrest her

and what law has that person broken? I mean, I think nothing more is motivating them other than a mayor has said, hey, in this, in this jurisdiction, these parks are closed. So maybe it's criminal trespass now. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know what nexus they connected to to a crime. Yeah. Do you think that most officers at a deep level have an understanding of the legalities of this guidance that the government or the governors and their actual? Because my concern would be, my concern would be they, an officer goes to maybe the park scenario is not.

a good one because maybe that is criminal trespassing but a surfer yeah um they try to arrest him the guy start you know it it goes south it and let's say we're talking again about a guy who doesn't have maybe a lot of skills to protect himself and he encounters a goddamn nerd assassin who also has a penchant for surfing uh-huh and he starts getting his ass beat and he goes to his batman belt and blasts the guy i that cop is going to get sued for everything that happens and he was driven to that point, or I'm concerned that he's driven to that point with a very hazy understanding of the authorities with which he is operating under. Yeah, I think that the majority of cops out enforcing these things probably have a hazy understanding. You know, like I went to my chain

of command and asked like, what authority do we have to enforce these rules? And nobody really quite understands, you know, I can tell you that doesn't seem to be a great answer from the chain of command. No, because it's new for everybody. But so, That is true. That is a fair, like it's in an unprecedented time, but that also shouldn't be a long-term excuse to not have precision and clarity. I think we're going to see so much litigation. The aftermath of this is going to be litigation for years on end because...

Well, you feel it. You feel people like, no, I'm not going to stay in my house anymore. And it's going to get worse, you know? Yeah. And so, I mean, another big motivation for me bringing that to light and making that video was that it is going to get pushed to that point. And it is going to be people fucking cops up on the street. The article I was telling you that I was reading,

waiting for at the airport, one of the police had a glass bottle thrown at him, popped him in the side of the head with it. Just in there, you know, it had been like this escalation of escalation. And it's like, I feel bad for both sides of the coin. Yeah. No, and it's the majority of cops,

are pretty good-hearted people. Like I think that's a misconception. A lot of people think cops are like these power-hungry dicks. Most cops I work with are pretty good people. But I also think there's probably the majority of cops that don't want to push back because they are afraid about their livelihood being taken away. I mean, I pushed back just a little bit.

Yeah. And I'm done now, you know? And it was, I mean, I'll walk you through that. I mean, I talked about it in my video. So when so you finally crossed the threshold. You're like, I'm going to record this. Yep. You are, I'm obviously assuming you were on duty.

Yep. Or you had an awesome movie set. You drove the patrol car home. Yeah. You did the, just put my top on, but I don't have any pants on it. Yeah, exactly. Recorded it, obviously. And did you originally just release it on your personal Instagram?

Dude, so here's the fucked up thing about it is my Instagram is my Instagram is connected to my Facebook. So it auto populates over. But what I didn't, I don't do Instagram. TV very often. I just do pictures and like short posts. For whatever reason

I post it to my Instagram and the video, I guess IGTV needs like a business account or something. For whatever reason, it went to my Jiu-Jitsu Academy's account. Yeah, exactly what I wanted, right?

And so... To further muddy the water. Yeah, exactly. And so it's been seen 13 million times or whatever and that's attached to my Jiu-Acadami. And the worst part about that is my phone number is right on there.

Personal phone number. Personal phone number. That's not awesome. Yeah. So my phone has been blowing up for the last week. Like I'm telling everybody that I talk to about doing podcasts or media appearance. I'm like, send me a text first. Say, hey, this is who I am.

Yeah. So I know to answer, you know. But yeah, I made the video and the next day it started gaining traction. Do you remember what time you posted it? I posted it like, I think it was like 4 p.m. Okay, so towards the tail end of the day. Yeah, yeah, and I didn't pay much attention to it. I had to commute home and then went to bed.

And then the next day, I was off work and I got contacted by my agency. And they're like, hey, your video's at 400,000 views. It's time to pull the plug on this. And so. Weren't you contacted first, though? I got a text message before that. Saying, hey, essentially a positive. Yeah, and it said, wow, like, I don't remember verbatim,

but it was like powerful message, well done. I support this 100%. And I was like, oh, cool, you know? Yeah. And a few hours later, and I don't know the details of who got wind of this or where the orders came down. Like some people think it may have come all the way

from the governor. But I'm under the impression that somebody got wind of it. It was like, hey, your officer needs to pull that down right now. I think my agency was directed. But again, I'm not sure, you know. Just kind of seeing how this all played out. It kind of leads me to believe that. But I got contacted and was told that it needed to come down. And it's funny because like, like, dude, I was just a cop talking about respecting

people's constitutional rights. Like, there was nothing outrageous. There was nothing like, there's no ulterior motives. It's, it's actually fucking bizarre to me that a cop just talking about respecting people's liberties is a viral message now. Do you mind if I put the video into the podcast so people can hear it. No, yeah. No, please do. Okay. It's funny.

I got a buddy, I got a message from my buddy of mine yesterday, Andy, uh, Ficella from First Foreign Fitness. And he goes, bro, I can't fucking believe that a cop talking about liberty and respecting rights is something that goes viral. Like it's, it's such a fucking obscure message now that it resonates across the entire country. It's because of what we're dealing with. Yeah. You know, I'm nobody.

And I don't think I'm unique by any stretch, but I've been enough places, as have you, to see, you know, people right now talking about how terrible the restrictions are on us. And I'm not going to put any value judgment as to whether they're right or wrong. But we've been to places where, like, this is their normal. You don't have freedom of movement. You certainly don't have freedom of speech. No.

Second Amendment, it's not really, it's just generationally handed down. Here's your AK when you're four years old. You get a birthday cake and a Kalishnikov. It's a classic pairing. You know, there are no grocery stores. You know, it's just you, I have a different perspective, I think, and a different appreciation of how fucking fortunate we are to have what we have. And I think a lot of people go through their day to day,

and they don't think about their freedoms until they're pressed on a little bit. And, you know, until they feel like they're pushed into a corner because we're so goddamn lucky with what we have. And because of people feeling pressed right now, I think it created the perfect Tinder box for that message to go, you know, towards Saturn like it is. And not only fortunate, but I think a lot of people probably don't understand how fragile it is as well. There's a very, yeah, thin line. And guys like us that have seen combat. I mean, I remember there's countless stories of, you know, Ramadi as soon as Saddam was overthrown, you'd think it'd be like, oh, time to rejoice and party.

Like, oh, no, it's like, hey, my neighbor that lives four blocks down the street, I've always fucking hated that guy. I'm going to gun down his whole family. Like, that shit happened all the time. Yeah. And the tribal warfare just started blowing up. And it's like, the human psyche, once the gloves are taken off and you don't have the restrictions of law, people go fucking.

bananas. I hear, you know, you hear people like, it's going to be revolution in the street. Every time I hear somebody say that, I'm like, you don't want that. You don't want that. No, and that drives me nuts, dude. And I literally said that in my video. I said, if we push people to where they push back and it becomes actual armed conflict, I promise you, like, the majority of officers that are out there and kind of infringing on what I consider infringing on people's rights, you are not emotionally and physically ready for what combat looks like. To be emotionally and physically ready for combat, it's a full-time job, as you know.

And like, all these fucking cops that are just there for a paycheck, once that switch gets turned, it could be fucking terrible, dude. That was another motivating factor for that video is like, dude, people need to realize what's at stake here. Yeah. And I think the fact, I mean, it's been shared like 500,000 times. the fact that that message resonated with people proves that this is something that people are thinking about. I have received hundreds of messages from law enforcement officers, and the vast majority of them will start with,

hey, I am an officer at fill in the blank. I agree with this message 110%. You got a contact. Like, that's how I originally reached out. And like I said, I was so hesitant to reach out because the only thing that I didn't want to do was make what you were going through worse. Yeah. Because there's, you know, at a certain point, it's like, you know, you can see the finality of it. But there's also a certain point where, like, I don't know how big this podcast will be.

I suspect given it, we're still talking about the same things that caused that video that will be well received. The last thing I want to be like for it to go, you know, fucking stage five nuclear, because they're like, that's it. Yeah. He's at it again. No, you know what? I mean, it's definitely been overwhelming with emails and calls. and like I even had a fucking news reporter knock on my door and I'm just sitting there in Ranger Panys like,

come on, man, you know? Ranger Panthers are a real thing. Yeah, they're a real thing in my house. Although I'll tell you what, I just got, I just got in contact with the Suna Life guy. He's an ex-team guy, isn't it? Yeah, he's X-Team guy. That's my new thing, man.

Are you going to go with the short version or the speedover? Do you want to hear something funny? Is I was just talking shit on Instagram and I said, hey, hopefully they come out with a shorter version of these. bro, he writes me an email and he goes, do you want a shorter version?

And he goes, because my friend Rudy Reyes, I don't know if you know who Rudy Reyes. I know Rudy Reyes, and he is out of his fucking mind. He goes, my friend Rudy Reyes gets custom extra short ones so we can hook you up. And I was like, all right, bro, let's do it. Rudy Reyes is essentially wearing an eye patch over his sack. I know, it's hilarious.

It's about enough fabric to make a cocktail napkin. And he's just like out there doing lunges. I'm just like, God damn it, Rudy. I don't want to see that. I don't know who does want to see that. Apparently somebody does, but knock it the fuck off. Yeah, I love it though, man. But yeah, so to take it back to the video,

my agency said, hey, you got to take it down. Did they say that to you in framing it? Because I'm assuming it violates the social media policy. That's what they framed it as. Okay. And that's where this is kind of strange because I said, well, past practice, every officer in the department has all kinds of shit on social media.

That's not something that's enforced or really looked at, you know? Did you think about the social media policy before you recorded it? Like, was it in your mind? I did. I did. And that's why I turned my hat around. That's why my hat's backwards, so you can't see my agency. And my badge is out of view of the shot, which says my agency on it. Okay.

So the policy states, you can't have anything that would suggest that you're a port of Seattle police officer. I said, okay, I felt like I did that. You could genericize what you were wearing. But they felt like I didn't do that. And so that's kind of one of the things we're hung up on right now. And we'll see how it all shakes out. But they told me it needed to come down.

And I said, I said, I'm in a real bad position right here, sir, because the entire tone of my video was if you feel something is right, you got to fucking put your neck out there and you've got to stand behind it. No matter what it costs. Like that was the fucking tone of my video. So if I, if I'm preaching that to officers and imploring them to be that person, and then as soon as I get my hand slapped and say, hey, we don't want you out there talking to people like that. Take that shit down. Oh, okay. Sorry. Like, I wouldn't, I would feel like a bitch for the rest of my life. Like, everybody that saw that video and then saw that I pulled it down, like, my integrity is shot, you know? It's one of the toughest things to recover from. If there's a divergence between your words and your actions, Exactly.

People can cut through that bullshit like a knife. They're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. And so I'm like, I'm not trying to be a martyr or go out on my shield or like say, you know what? I told, I told the man to fuck off. Like, that wasn't my motivation on any of this. My motivation was simply like, hey, this is a message that I stand behind as a man and as an officer. And I can't recant those words.

I can't do it. And I was very respectful to them. Like in both both the people in my chain of command that I talked to, were nice to me and we had a good conversation, but I said, if you guys have to fire me for this, then you're going to, then do it because that's where this is at. In my heart, this is, this is a hill that I have to die on. And I think that's another reason. I don't think this thing would have caught as much steam if people didn't see like, oh, okay, I'm literally going to lose my job over this because that's how much I believe in this message, you know? Yeah, if it had just

been a statement that had been, you know, like a paper tiger statement, it had no teeth to it, for sure. I think it would have been different. I was surprised to hear, again, from a perspective of not knowing much about law enforcement, that the police union, from my understanding, which is there to advocate for the officers, was in agreeance swiftly with firing you. That one, I was like, what the fuck? What's going on with that? And this is weird, man, because, I mean, my union is Teamsters 117. And they're always like, I mean, we joke that they're like part of the mob, that they're straight up gangsters. That they make. shit happen, you know? And I talked to the president, and she's a great lady. And I mean, her husband's actually second battalion. So, like, we had a connection, you know, it was good. And we had a long, good conversation.

And she's like, Greg, I'm in agreeance with your message. But the reality of this is they're going to pin you on an insubordination charge because they told you to do something and you told them, no, I'm not going to do it. And she goes in the law enforcement world, that's about as black and white as it gets. And termination is going to be inevitable. on this one. And so... It's interesting they can have that level

of finality and clarity on that, but such an incredible level of haziness and ambiguity on these authorities to infringe on the rights. And so, I mean, I think part of it,

I mean, it's legitimate. They are moving forward with the insubordination charge. And I feel like this is a hill I have to die on. But I also feel like it probably is for the agency too. Because if they were to say,

you know what, Greg, let's just let bygons be bygones and come back to work, maybe they feel like they would lose, like, their teeth as an authority figure over their officers, you know? Oh, you think they feel backed into a corner as well? Yeah. Which I find also a little bit interesting because you weren't actually speaking about your department. No, no.

I wasn't speaking about the port at all. Yeah, you said nothing pejorative or even really specific about that department. So I wonder why they would think that that's their hill to die on as well. Yeah, it would be interesting to see how how this all shows. shakes out, but man, I tell you what, like, I never thought that this would rise to the level that it has risen to. And because of, because of the stance that the port took, I mean, officers get fired all the time for insubordination charges, right? But based on this being a result from the video, they are getting hammered. I saw one of your follow-ups saying that the 911

call centers were getting flooded. 800 calls a day of people voicing their displeasure on how that this situation's playing out. So you have to assume that that's probably going to the government. You know what I mean? There's probably other cascading effects or other organizations that are. Have you heard anything about that from people that work outside of just the port or how the state is, there are thoughts on it?

No, I haven't heard any details on it. I just know that the amount of support that's been coming in has been overwhelming. And it's a lot of it's appreciated, but some of it's like, I got chill, guys. You know what I mean? We're getting the tanks. Yeah, keeping nine, The 911 line plugged up for hours and hours at a time.

That's probably not a solid. Not a good plan, you know? What's the response been from officers? Like the guys that you, I mean, obviously we can keep it. I don't want any specifics from departments or anything like that, but in general, the officers that are reaching out to. So officers nationwide have been hitting me up. And it's been incredible.

Like so much positive feedback from them. And, you know, there's a couple that's like, hey, dumbass, that's what you get for violating policy, but you know what I mean? It's like, I put right and wrong before policy. You know, it's just, I think that that's how you should operate as a man. But, you know, like, I had a guy from NYPD hit me up and he's like, hey, bro, I want to let you know that every officer in my beat or my section, whatever, has watched your video. And it resonated with us. It's made us reflect, and it's literally changed the culture on the streets. It goes, one eight-minute video has changed the culture. And it's like, I never thought anything like that. I'd ever receive anything like

that, you know? Yeah, that's a powerful statement. It's real powerful. And it's, uh, and it seems like that was the intended and expressed point of the video. That was the whole point of it. So it's like, you know what? If I end up losing my job over this, if, if I did in fact make some changes and make officers look inward and change some ways, some ways that they're approaching these problems, that's a fucking win, you know? Yeah. How much leeway do officers have? Let's say New York City is an example. I mean, they're pretty restrictive in their lockdown. It seems externally, I mean, obviously, we're not there. An officer is told, you know, to keep people out of public spaces. Do they have any choice in whether or not they actually go and action that?

I would think that they would. But if they didn't, so like if they didn't go action, wouldn't that also fall back under insubordination? Maybe. because they're being told to do something and it depends. It depends on how their chain of command interprets it and how they want you to move forward with it and what orders you're operating under. But in law enforcement, you have something called discretion. And discretion is a powerful tool as a police officer.

And in Washington State, there is only a couple laws. It's like domestic violence assault, okay, you shall arrest that person. Because we can't allow that person. We can't walk away from that incident and allow that abusive person to still be with that victim because it's been proven time and time again that that's a super dangerous volatile situation, right?

So you shall arrest that person. Also, it's like your second DUI offense, you shall. It's like you can't walk away from something that's going to put the public at risk at an inherent risk. But 99% of the other laws, you have what's called discretion. And if someone's like, hey, this is why this happened,

okay, let me explain the circumstances to you. And there's a lot of shit that happens that where like, okay, on its surface, yes, a crime was committed. And I could arrest you for that. But if I listen to you, explain everything that's happening, okay, as a person, I don't feel comfortable citing this person. Like, let's say, and I don't run fucking speed traps because I hate that. I've always hated running traffic. It's not my bag. But let's say I stop someone going 90 miles an hour down I-5, right?

Okay. well, he broke, you know, that's an infraction. It's not, it happened. It's not up for debate whether it happened or not. But I pull him over, I walk up to his car and he's like, my fucking son just fell out of his treehouse. He has a compound fracture and he's bleeding and I'm trying to get him to harbor for you. Get the fuck out of here.

I'll run code for you. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, so even though someone may be violating something, sometimes there's a reason for that and that's why we're afforded discretion, you know? How do they articulate that discretion? I mean, I'm assuming they start talking about that in the academy because fuck, I mean, people could apply discretion in a very unequal manner.

Yeah. Across 10 people, right? Like, how do you... Well, and that is where it comes into hiring the right people. Because you learn very quickly that you do have a lot of power. And you have the ability that can literally change people's lives. Yeah. based on the choice that I make as an officer.

Or what you write down. Yeah, or what I write down. And it's kind of scary sometimes. Because I remember like, so I got a call. A guy was flying in from Vietnam. And they found some oxycodone in his bag, right? And only a few pills of it. Not a big, not like some,

he obviously wasn't trying to run drugs or distribute or sell, none of that stuff. And I start talking to him and I'm like, so what's the situation here? He was in his 70s. He had all these medical conditions. He had like diabetes and gout. And he's like,

yeah, yeah. And he was coming from Vietnam. And he's like, I just go to the pharmacy. I can just buy this in Vietnam. This is what I used to manage the pain. And this was when I was like a brand new officer. And I was like, okay, well, oxycodone's illegal here. Yeah.

What do I? You know, this is definitely a crime. What do you do? But come on. It's pretty apparent. what's going on here. And so I called my sergeant and I said, I don't feel comfortable like trying to go after this guy

or get him in trouble or arrest him. But at the same time, if I just let a dude walk out with oxycodone, is that on me now? Am I going to get in trouble? And the sergeant said to me, he goes, Greg, what do you want to do? He goes, what feels right in your heart?

And I said, what feels right in my heart is to let this old sick man go, explain to him the law, and I can confiscate those whatever amount of pills and put them in for destruction, but I don't feel like anyone should be getting in trouble for this. And he goes, that's exactly how I feel. And he goes, that's why we afford you discretion.

Because you need to take the, they call it the totality of the circumstances in law enforcement and then make a decision on what's the right thing to do. And that certainly hemming that guy up. And my partner that was with me, he's like, we got to make this arrest, man. That's illegal. And I was like, slow down, dude.

Sounds like a very black and white partner. And like they call it in the military and law enforcement like the sniff test. Like, yeah, it doesn't, something doesn't smell right here. And so you have to dig a little deeper. And most situations, you're allowed to use your discretion as a law enforcement officer.

That sounds like an awesome sergeant that you called. Yeah, it was good, man. And that was a good learning point for me. Yeah. I've used my discretion a lot, you know? The friends that I have, you know, it's probably one of my best friends here in the valley, he's got the most disarming personality,

and he has the ability to talk to people. And I think because of that, he can get people to open up, and it allows him to be more powerful with that discretion. Yeah. Because you do have to break through that barrier of like, you know, I'm like, everybody's like white knuckling, straight ahead. They're just like, ha, how fast are you?

I don't know. Ha! You know, like, they're... No, it's funny, man. I got a few tools that I use when I'm interacting with people, when I have to interview them or when I pull them over. I introduce myself by my first name. I say,

hey, my name's Greg. I'm a police officer for the Port of Seattle. Instead of like coming at them as an authority figure, my name's Officer Anderson. Like,

what the fuck? I'm not an off, like, that's not me. My officer is a title that pays my bills. That's my job. That's my professional title.

But when I'm talking to you as a human being, I'm Greg. And I think that it's important for officers to remember like, dude, don't take the humanity out of your job. because as soon as you connect with someone,

and even if it's a criminal case, even if it's someone that you're arresting, like if you come at someone like some hard ass, he might be a bigger hard ass than you. And now you have a fucking problem. Whereas if you give them a little bit of respect, like it goes a long ways. And I mean,

I worked as a deputy in L.A. for a long time. So I got to see the gang culture. And bro, I tell you what, man, like you treat those guys like human beings. You're literally kicking their door in at fucking six in the morning and dragging them out of their house and cuffs. But if you just give them a little dignity,

your job's a hundred times easier. Yeah, and I bet the way with which they react to you is completely opposite as well. Yep. Straight up, man. It's, uh, the gang culture and the criminal culture as a whole. Like,

it's a lot of people. Their whole life is just a revolving door of jail. They don't have a lot of shit to their name. So the thing that they do have is their dignity and their respect. And so you give them that. unless they put you in a situation where you should take it. Yeah, they're not deserving of it. Yeah, and then you have to know when and where, just like anything, you know.

Yeah, I don't know. Fuck, man, the job you have is so, from an outsider's perspective, it seems almost and often as if it's a no win. It is a no win. There's a lot of times that, like, and again, like working at the port, I don't deal with a lot, like, we don't deal with a lot of residential stuff. What does that mean working at the point? What's the difference between that?

The port of Seattle is a corporation, right? It's a for-profit corporation. It's not a municipality. And so they have like the cruise ship terminals. They have the airport. They have the waterfront properties. Is this all down by C-TAC? Yeah, C-TAC and around the Seattle area, right?

And they have marinas. And so we don't typically deal with the type of patrol-level officer calls that say like Seattle PD would, where it's like drunk asshole in his house that wants to fight you. You know what I mean? It is a lot. I mean, it's dramatically less than a municipality. And I'm grateful for that because the truth is,

dude, it's exactly what you said. I think patrol officers are put in no-win situations very often because you're presented with a problem that you have to come up with a solution in in real time and then you're going to be scrutinized for it afterwards. And that's a daily occurrence. and talk about stress, man.

And that's why you hear, like, I mean, I don't know if this is well known outside of law enforcement, but it's commonly understood in the law enforcement world that you will fucking die within five years of retirement. I have heard that stat actually.

It's heart disease. You have had cortisol pumping through your veins for 20 years. You know, it's like... Well, you're responding to people's worst moments all day long. Yeah. I say this relatively often.

You know, you guys aren't... Nobody calls 911 to be like, dude, I have got to tell you. Yeah, you're fucking amazing. I just won the lottery. I just won the lottery. Get your ass over here. We got a keg. We're getting ready to tap it.

Yeah. It's the opposite. It's like there's somebody breaking into my house. I'm in a violent confrontation with fill in the blank. Yep. Murder, you know, like, suicide. You know, like all of those things. Like that's.

So, yeah, it's a lot of dark shit. Yeah. And then it's also a lot of bullshit. Like, you know, I got a call, like a call that comes to mine as a girl's like, someone broke into my car. and stole all my oxycodone. And I said, I said, yeah, okay. So, well, luckily there's a camera right there,

and I'm going to look and see who broke into your car. Did it look like her? And if nobody fucking showed up, we're going to have a different conversation. And she's like, oh, it was actually on my boat. I think it was on my boat. And I'm like, God, dude. So we're put in a position where I know exactly what's going on.

but I also don't get to make medical calls on what prescriptions should be refilled versus what shouldn't be refilled, you know? Yeah. So I called her doctor and just said, hey, this is a situation. I don't believe her at all. And because he told her, I can't refill your prescription without a police report saying that it was stolen. So yeah, you're putting a weird situation, you know? That whole thing, what you just described sounds very weird to me. Yeah.

But police officers get calls like that all the time, all day, all day, all. day, every day. People want a police, oh, because they're probably burning through it a fast rate rate. They're burning through it. Yeah, exactly. Or selling, I would imagine. Yeah. Or selling. Or we get police reports all the time for stolen items. Oh, my insurance company said I needed to

make a report on my stolen laptop. Yeah, okay, explain the circumstances to me. And you just know it's all bullshit. Yeah. And so, I mean, that's not what people, that's not what cops signed up to do. It's just to help fucking criminals continue to scam the system. Yeah. But if you can't prove it,

Guess what you got to do? You got to take their theft report and you've got to write it up and you got to put all the shit in the system. Regardless of how you feel about it. Yeah. And it takes you an hour and a half and it's just a bunch of bullshit. And so like the law enforcement as a career, it's a weird career. Are you glad you went down that path? I'm happy that I went down it for sure.

But as I'm seeing how this all plays out, it's going to be time to move on. You know, like I told you on the ride over here, I've been hit up by. tens of departments in Washington State and hundreds around the country that are like, hey, if you end up getting terminated, you can come to work with us for the next day. Would you want to? No. To tell you the truth, no. Well, I mean, I don't want to close any doors yet. I got to see where I find myself.

But I'm hopeful that an opportunity will arise from this where I can chase something that's a little more, just a little more meaningful to me and a little more like, a less stressful lifestyle, I would say. You know, like guys like us that lived high stress for a long time, like I'm happy to be hanging out with my kids and playing guitar and doing jiu-jitsu, you know? And if I could find some source of income that was based in positivity and having positive interactions with people, I think that would just be a fucking game changer for just life overall, you know? Yeah. What do you think people right now,

Specifically to the bizarre environment or the challenging environment that changes by state. Like Montana is, I believe, in phase two of reopening. New York, I think, is still complete lockdown. L.A., I think they're extending until August. What can people, the civilian population, what can they do to help law enforcement? Man, that's a tough one because, obviously, if they just obeyed 100%, they wouldn't have any run-ins with law enforcement, right? Yeah. But the other side of that coin is

they're obeying something potentially infringing on their constitutional rights. People like that, like the lady that owns a salon in Texas, she's like, I literally have kids that I need to feed. That's why I'm here, you know?

And so I feel like if you're put in a situation where on one hand you're asked to obey an order, on the other hand, I got kids to take care of. We know what route people are going to take. Yeah.

They don't actually have a choice. They don't have a choice. And so I think it's incumbent on law enforcement officers to realize that, like, these people aren't being defiant. These people aren't trying to shit on your mayor or your governor. Half of these people are literally living their life the best way that they know how to. And you can't shit on them for that. You can't trample on their liberties. And I think government as a whole, I think it's our job to educate and give people the opportunity to do the right thing.

if you, whatever you believe that to be. But I don't think that we have the right to take enforcement on this. So if officers want to be like, hey, like, it's a citywide ordinance to have a mask on, we'd appreciate it, and go out and with kindness and be like, you know what,

we'll even provide one. And I'm not here telling you what to do. I'm not going to deprive you of your freedoms if you don't do it. But as a community, this is what we're, this is kind of the path that we've determined to be the safest and most effective.

We'd really appreciate it if you'd put a mask on. I would like to see how much more often that would work than put your fucking mask on where you're going to jail. Like that girl in the New York subway last week. I don't know if you saw that. I didn't. What happened?

It's the worst one I've seen yet, man. She's walking, holding her hand of like a three or four year old child and they're like, hey, where's your mask? And like, this is the police service? Yeah. It's like seven or eight officers surround her. And she's like, tries to walk away. And then they push her back.

and then they dogpile her because she was trying to walk away without putting a mask on. And it's like, you can't do that to someone. You assaulted a young mother where a whole child watched. Like, it's disgusting to me. And I...

How does that happen? Like, explain that to me... I think it's mob mentality. If one of those officers was like a guy like us that could just step up and be like, hey, guys, relax, okay? This is a 22-year-old woman

with a young child. Everyone fucking relax. We don't need to be. be screaming at her. We don't need to be putting our hands on her. If she doesn't want to obey the city ordinance, everybody's going to be a lot better off. If she just walks away than if we get in a fucking physical altercation with eight officers, someone needs to step up and be willing to say that. But I think a lot of officers are reluctant. I just can't imagine with that many people there that it would be allowed to escalate. I don't understand that, I guess I would describe it as a non-linear

escalation. Like what threat is that? And there's no threat. In the use of force continuum that we are taught as officers, you have to be able to articulate a threat. I can't tase you unless I'm in fear of some type of harm. I can't shoot you. What if you just enjoy tasing people? Those people exist. I can't shoot you unless I'm in fear of loss of life or grave bodily injury.

Like there's things I have to articulate. I can't put my hands on someone because they don't want to listen to the words of the mayor. You know what I mean? Like that's not how this. country's legal system is structured, but it just happened overnight. And I'll tell you, I mean, like, I got a retired cag buddy. I shouldn't even put this out here, but whatever, he watched that video and he goes, bro, if I was standing there, there'd have been five dead cops.

And that's a guy that is highly capable. And has respect for those officers, too. And has respect for officers. But when he watched a young woman getting assaulted, he's like, that's, he goes, as a man, there's lines that I draw. And that line was crossed. And I couldn't have stood by and let that happen. And I'm telling you, man, that's a situation that's going to happen.

And I'm actually fucking shocked that it hasn't happened yet, you know? How do you change that inside of an organization? How do you change that mentality inside a group of, well, first off, what the fuck were eight officers doing right next to each other like that? Yeah, I know. That seems like a drastic overuse of individuals in one little location. but is that an institutional thing? Is that an issue of that people are wearing a badge

so that they therefore demand compliance? Is it a lack of training? I think I was going to say, I think it's a combination of everything. A lot of officers think that people should listen to them because they're officers. But what people want to listen to is well articulated, well thought out, messages that come from the heart.

And if they would just talk to them, people like you talk to your kids or like to you talk to your sister like address people with my sister and i don't always get one yeah you know what mine either i love her but yeah we go we go out of sometimes we might have the dog pile when we go that direction but i think that's what the public deserves and i think there needs to be a two-tiered approach to this i think people in high positions and you've been seeing it this last week and i don't want to take credit for it but there is a movement happening where sheriffs of entire counties are like, I will not ask my deputies to enforce orders. Right here. See? That's a conversation I have with my buddy yesterday. And it's happened

in some counties in Washington. And I think these messages need to start from the top. Because if you as a sheriff or chief put that out, that holds a lot of weight. That takes a lot of stress off of your guys because it's like, okay. They're back stopped. I'm good now. Okay. Yeah, you got me. But the other side of the coin is, you don't get to rely on that. If you're an individual officer and you don't have support from your chain of command, you still got to do the right thing. You still have to. Yeah. And that's where people are starting to find themselves in weird situations where they're having to balance, hey, this is my career versus this is what I feels right in my heart. But I, I would say that you don't, if something doesn't feel right in your heart, you don't have, you don't even

get to weigh that and look at that from two different perspectives. The answer is crystal clear, and it's right in front of you, you know? And, you know, not to go off on a tangent about like the political aspect of this, but I can tell you, at least in Washington State, I close my Jitsu Gym down on March 13th, a week before it was mandated. You know what? I think you might have just named the exact date that the one here closed as well. They did before it was shut down. And I did that because I felt like people that were smarter than me were saying, hey, this is serious shit. Yeah. Right.

This could be potentially a cause of tens of millions of deaths. That's right. The March numbers were going to be piling bodies in the streets. Yeah. And so I was like, okay, like I told my jihitsu team, I said, listen, guys, we're going to take 10 days off just to kind of analyze the facts as they come in. 10 days off of jihitsu, it will be a fucking blessing in disguise. All your aches and pains can heal up for a week and a half, right? The best jiu-jitsu meme I've ever seen, it was as a sunset, and there was a wheelchair that was empty and a man standing there.

And he's like, two weeks off. Yeah, that's exactly right. But in order for your chain of command, and this is military, law enforcement, government officials, in order for your chain of commands requests or orders to resonate with you, they have to have credibility, right? And it wasn't a week into this thing when I looked at what Washington. Washington State declared essential versus non-essential. And you can just go down the list. Liquor stores, essential.

Marijuana, essential. And I'm pro all of that stuff. You do whatever you want to do, right? Is marijuana legal? It is. Okay, Washington. Vehicle auto licensing, essential. The lottery, essential.

Target. Walmart. Yes. Government contracted construction, essential. Private contracted construction. non-essential. Small businesses. So, yeah, you started to see, it was crystal clear that anything that padded the government's

pockets was conveniently deemed essential. And as soon as you understand like, okay, they're keeping everything open that makes them money. Now, you're not looking out for people's safety. You could give a shit about people's safety. And that was one of the first things that started to make me look at this kind of cross-eyed and be like, what's really going on here? because if this is as contagious and as dangerous as you're saying it is,

then there's one or two things happening. Either it's not or you have a disregard for people's safety in businesses that make you money. Either one of those things is fucking despicable. And so I just think people are looking at the big picture of everything that's happening with the coronavirus thing and they're losing more and more faith in their government and government officials, their credibility is starting to become shot with this. And that's why people are like, you know what? I'm not fucking sitting in my house anymore.

I'm going to go surfing. And I think a lot of people looked at government officials at a shaky foundation to begin with. Absolutely. And that's something that they've earned over the years. Yeah, for sure. You know? Like, government's become a weird thing because on its surface, it was supposed to be about public service. But let's face it, it's not about public service anymore.

It's about power. And I feel like as soon as you look at your service in a method that's going to gain you personal power, you're in it for the wrong reasons. Like in the military, how often do we talk about, like, the guys that should be promoted and the guys that should be fucking leading teams and leading platoons, a lot of times they're guys that don't want that. Yeah. You know?

It's the opposite of what they want. It's the opposite of what they want. Yeah. I fucking didn't take the sergeant's board when I was in second battalion. I'm like, I don't want to fucking promote. And as soon as we landed in Afghanistan, my platoon sergeant called me in his office. he says, guess what, Greg? I was just approved a combat promotion to Sergeant.

There's nothing you can say about it. You're getting Alpha 3-1, that's your team. Go. And I was like, damn it, you got me. Son of a bitch. And that's to a point where, I'm like, my whole life I've always felt like stepping up and taking that next step to where I'm in charge of other human beings, it's always been kind of weird for me.

But when I've been forced to be in leadership positions, it's something that I've always enjoyed, too. So, but I mean, we can go off on a leadership tangent for another hour, but the... It's important. We can go wherever we want to go. Yeah. It's my favorite, well, when I was an E5 shooter, I thought that there was no other job on earth for me. I was like, this is unbelievable.

I have a gun and a shotgun to get in any door that I want to in breaching charges and grenades and a lot of bullets, and this is amazing. And then, you know, my last deployment I did in 2010, I was in a little bit of, leadership position. I was more stressed out than I've ever been because I was so concerned with making a decision that was going to hurt somebody else. I think if I were to reduce all of my worry down to one thing, it was really that, that I would not be prepared or capable and I would say or do something stupid and somebody else would suffer for it. But it was so rewarding to see the growth in the people that were underneath me. Yeah. That it actually exceeds the enjoyment of being the E5

shooter. If you would have told me that when I was an E5 shooter, I'd have been like, Like, go pack sand and get the fuck out of my way. But, yeah, I mean, leadership is tough, man. It's, and that's why I asked you, like, what can people do to help? It's, you know, a lot of the times people will phrase it like, well, you know, what can the cops do to help us? It's like, no, well, what can we do is this, you know, it's, people forget, you take the badge off. Uh-huh. You know, like, you were three on, four off.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Just a dude, you know? It's, I mean, the difference being that I have no. doubt that most cops, even on their off days, if something were to happen, they're going to dive in and try to do the right thing as they should, as I think actually everybody should, regardless if you have, I tell you what, though, that's not the culture that I see. Here's what I see when shit's going down. Yeah, I know. It's gross. It's gross. I have only one time involved myself with

police. And it was to help a guy who made a terrible tactical decision to get an open door. He was trying to get an incredibly hammered woman out of a car. So open door so he couldn't escape on the far side. Drunk woman. Massive drunk dude. He was the delicious center of an Oreo. They were both hammered. And I ended up getting to a scuffling match.

This was before I started doing jujitsu, but I still was able to get a nice guillotine in. It was good. Just didn't know what I was doing. I went with the full. It was more of a crank than a choke. There you go. Sometimes those are worse. Yeah, I love that.

It's more of a crank than a choke. I'm like, did you tap motherfucker? That's, hey, that's their last little. jab to try and maintain some dignity. Oh, I say it too, though. I try to, people would be like, was it a crank or a chug? I'm like, a little bit of neither. It's like, yeah, I mean, you got to have some fun.

But as that was happening, I looked up and there were people there holding their phones. And it's like, what? Like, I can't, I don't, I just don't understand that. I feel 100% compelled to step in in that environment. And I'll be honest with you, if I was there in those cars, just like your buddy, I would be feel compelled to help that person too because the cops were in the wrong. Yeah. No.

And I think I think you should feel compelled to stand up for what's right as a man. I think two huge things that need to be addressed. And we could do a whole other podcast on this. But like sound leadership has the potential to change the culture of organizations and corporations and so on. And like obviously look at Jocco. He's killing it. teaching people sound leadership principles. That is generations old.

The stuff that he is talking about was taught to me through the generation before me, which was taught to them through the generation. It's not like... It's not rocket science. It's not. I think it goes all the way back to the time that people picked up sticks and stones.

And another thing is, you know, people think that there's military leadership and outside of the military leadership and there's not. No, nope, there's not. There's good leadership, which is effective, and bad leadership, which is ineffective. And I say this when I talk at organizations

about leadership. I've been fortunate to see and be around the most powerful ordinance on the face of the earth. And I loved it. But leadership trumps that firepower by a magnitude of order. And it's generational. And it can change organizations. And you just see people just turning a blind eye or going the other direction. And I just, I don't understand it.

I think, and now I think the other aspect that the American culture needs right now is to learn to manage fear. I think everybody is afraid. And it's exactly like what you just said, you're watching somebody get assaulted and people are filming it instead of getting involved. And they're filming it because they know something's going on that is noteworthy. Exactly.

Yeah. Whether or not they can determine which one they, yeah. And why don't they want to get involved? They're scared. Because they're scared. It's as simple as that. They're scared for their own personal safety

or they're scared they're going to get in trouble or they're scared they're going to get hurt. And I think, and I touched on this in one of my videos is like, I came to terms as a very young man that my belief system may cost me everything up into my life. Like when you're deploying to Afghanistan or Iraq,

like, it's, I would commonly think, like, there's a good chance. This is the last time I see American soil. Yeah. You know? And you have to learn to overcome that fear. And as soon as you do, it's like you're fucking set free.

It's like the stress of, fear can just tear you apart. Yeah. And I've seen it in myself overseas to where it's like, once you come to terms with like, okay, listen, I'm not going to make stupid decisions, I'm not going to be reckless, I'm going to try and stay alive. But if they fucking get me, they get me. And I have to understand that.

That's a reality of the game that I'm playing. And you actually have no control over that. Exactly. And detach, and this is easier said than done, but detaching yourself and realizing that you can't control the outcome. and the only thing that you can control is yourself. That's actually what's going to keep you alive. Fear of death, I try to explain this to people.

Fear of death is not what keeps you alive. It actually could shorten your life faster than anything. Because you're getting shot at so you take a knee behind cover and you're like, fuck, I know I need to move, but I'm scared. Yep. And while you're sitting there paralyzed, your enemy is button-hooking around you. And next you know, you're in a complicated ambush instead of a linear one and you're fucksville.

And the thing that I always say about when I'm talking about combat with people, it's like if someone's shooting at you, the only way to shoot back is to be able to identify where they're at and get in a position where you can see them and engage them. And if you can engage them, guess what? They can engage you. But that's part of the game.

But if you just hunker behind a wall and cower exactly what you say. You're going to get maneuvered on. You're going to get destroyed. And it's fear, though, that keeps you behind that wall. Absolutely. And I'll be the first to tell you. Like it's easier said than done.

It is. And it's funny too because it's a, it's a trained skilled. It's something that you maintain because when I was in Ramadi for those two years, it got to the point, RPG shot at you. It didn't even register. Like, oh, that one didn't hit the vehicle. Cool, man. Which is probably also not a safe headspace.

You're right. You know? And then we got attacked in Baghdad like years later. year that I was in Erbil, right? And dude, you don't even hear a gunshot in Arbiel. I've heard that. I mean, it's pretty far up north. It's way up north in the Kurdish area. You can go to the mall. You can go out to dinner and stuff. It's not even Iraq. It's bizarre. There's an Instagram count from Erbil, and it's got like, it shows like luxury pool. It's pretty crazy, actually. A buddy of mine showed it to me. I wish I could remember the name, but there's an Instagram influencer in Erbil, Iraq.

I wonder if it's the Sheridan. That's like the big fancy place there. But, uh, so we were in Beal for like a year. And then I shot down to Baghdad for just a couple days for some detail. I don't remember what we were doing. And dude, a mortar hit right outside of my bedroom and shattered the windows and all the glass flew in. And I fucking hit the ground and got that huge adrenaline dump and was like, and I was like, oh, you fucking lost it. Because that shit didn't, you didn't even use to register when that kind of stuff happened, you know? So like facing your fear and managing it, it's an ongoing process. For sure.

I think if I had to throw out a hypothesis, I think that is probably why you and I enjoy Jiu-Jitsu the way that we do. It's a huge tool. And I know we're always going to circle the conversation back to J-Git-Soo. But there's a reason why I kick myself in the ass for not starting it and being so resistant. I literally was resistant because my friends told me that it was awesome. And fuck you because you don't get to, you're not the boss of me. You don't get to tell me how to have fun.

But then I think about it, I'm like, why do I like it? There's a huge essence of unknown. Both parties have a vote. There's a skill component. There's a physical component, a mental component, a ton of variables. You have to face, you know, how are you going to act when you lose? How are you going to act when you win? And the long term, and it's all this incremental exposure that adds up over time,

which is the same thing about learning how to control fear. And the biggest point I try to make to people is it's okay to be afraid, but don't let fear drive your decision-making process. Yeah, you have to manage it. You have to manage it. If it's managing you, then you need to stand by because you're on a ship to I don't know where. Well, I mean, in Jiu-Jitsu, you can see that taking place in real time. Like I always tell my students, part of training is learning to find comfort in uncomfortable situations.

Of which there seems to be a lot. Yeah. So, I mean, you got a guy that has neon face or neon belly. So you're in pain. Your shirt is probably more painful, but like neon eye socket. Yeah. You can't breathe. You can't move.

So your primitive responses start firing up and it's fight or flight, right? And it's like, okay, well, now I can't get away from this guy and I can't beat him in a fight. So all the bells and whistles are going off saying this is death. And even though it's your friend and you're in a training environment, that can cause fucking straight panic. Oh, yeah. Then maybe they want to do like a low neon belly where they're a ghee to start smothering your face. So now you're choking to death or suffocating to death. And so if you can train yourself out of allowing yourself to be afraid or feel that like uncomfortableness or that anxious response, like when I'm at my top and I'm not there anymore because I'm not rolling with guys that are kicking the shit out of me all the time.

But when I was, I remember like no matter how bad I was getting my ass kicked, no matter how bad it was, I was like, I could calmly think, okay, this sucks. I fucking hate this. what do I have to do next to get out of this position? And you could calmly and rationally go through the problem solving process. Whereas you do that to a brand new guy, he starts flopping around like a fish, burns through all his energy, his heart rate spikes,

and he's going to be combat ineffective in about 20 seconds. And think of, though, the power of being able to get to that point that regardless of the external pressure or pain that's being applied to you, you can think rationally. There is a direct, in my opinion, at least overlay into the business world, into, that helps your decision-making ability regardless of what it is that you do. It's got to be able to help in a law enforcement environment, right? Because it's, you know, things suck, but that's okay,

because I can still use my brain the way that it was designed to, which, in my opinion, is objective reasoned thought. I think, I think Jiu-Jitsu plays a huge role in the professional world, the business world, not only for the, the reasons that you just stated, but also just your confidence as a man when you're dealing with another man. Because now, like,

if my supervisor's pissed off of me about something, okay, what are you pissed off about? How far do you want to take this with the verbal argument? I'm not intimidated by you at all. So let's just, and it was funny during my investigation for this video, they told me several times during the, when we were talking about it, they're like,

you know, we don't want to be like intimidating or scare you. And I was like, let's just get something out of the way right now. There's no one in this room that can fucking scare me. And I'm not saying that to be tough guy. I'm just saying these are the facts, okay? We'll discuss what happened, but I'm not intimidated by anybody in this room. And I feel like once you don't allow other men to intimidate you in a professional career, dude, the sky's the limit.

Because I would see like bully supervisors talking to people a certain way. Guess what? They don't talk to me that way. And why is that? Because they know. Because they fucking know. Yeah. And why?

In my experience, the most vocal bullies are the ones who are generally the least capable. Yep, of course. And they're like that because they're trying to buffer and buttress the lack of actual capacity. Exactly right. That they don't have. And so, Jiu-Jitsu is definitely a big fear mechanism that I use to constantly hone that skill. The other thing that I do is my ice tub, man. I'm big into that thing.

You probably never want to go in cold water again. No, I hate water. The only ice that is acceptable or the only form of water, that is acceptable to me is ice and a cocktail glass. That's hilarious. My other team guy buddies are like, I'm never getting your fucking tub. You're an idiot.

I've done it and it just sucks. And I'm like, I'll go find a different way to do my daily suffering or suck. Like, I'll just, like, I need to eat 12 donuts. That sucks. I'll just do that instead of.

Just fucking. Oh, no, they had those, they totally redid the gym on the West Coast. It was great. And they had contrast baths. They had the ice tubs. And then the hot one. And I'm like,

yeah, I'm going to get in both. Nah, I'm just going to get in the hot one. Just go and spend 20 minutes in the hot one instead. It was, yeah, I'm not a fan of that. You know, I'm not a fan of it, really, either while I'm in there. But that's why I do it. Like, it's a big part of my life is getting in the ice water consistently. Because you look at it and you're like, everything in your mind's like,

I really don't want to do this. But sometimes just forcing yourself to do shit you don't want to do is what it's all about. Did you just buy it like a big freezer at Costco? Yeah, I went to Lowe's. And I actually got in the different ones. I got a picture of it, bro. I'm sitting in the different freezer. Oh, God.

Yeah, what's this guy? What do you need to fit a body in your freezer for? And I calked all the seams with silicone. Yeah. And then put flex seal tape over it. So the whole thing was waterproofed. Okay. And then I put like two or three bags of Epsom salt in it.

So now you can get the temperature down to like 29 degrees. Which is, there's no need to do that. So do you actually have it plugged in and that sucker's just cranking? Yeah, I plug it in and I'll leave it plugged in until I get like two or three inches of ice on the surface and then just break it up with a sledgehammer. I fucked up a couple times though and forgot it was plugged in. The whole thing just turns into a solid block. Oh, no, yeah, that's going to be a few days. Yeah.

It's like a few weeks. Oh, is it really? Because it's insulated, you know? Pour some hot water in there. Yeah. Yeah. Damn. So what does it look like next for you, man?

it's hard to say it's really hard to say any estimation on timeline and when it will take for this to solidify or finalize no i mean i was told because it's an insubordination charge and that it's pretty black and white that the investigation will go quickly

quicker than most you know because a lot of times when cops get in trouble there's a lot of moving parts and whatnot this whole investigation boils down to me saying no i'm not fucking doing that so it's pretty cut and dry but as far as the timeline i haven't been told exactly when to expect what other than it's going to be termination. I was told that.

And, you know, it's, and this is crazy to say, but there's a part of me that's almost like, all right, I get to choose a new adventure now. Like, I get that for sure. Like maybe, maybe, I mean, I don't know, I'm not one of those big, everything happens for a reason, guys, but this has kind of felt like it, you know? I've had so many opportunities opened up to me in the last week that I don't think I'm to have any problems finding something in the private sector that can support my family. What would you do if they came to you and they're like, you know what, Greg, we fucked up

and we're actually, we're not going to pursue an insubordination charge. What would, and the choice became yours at this point as to whether or not to continue or to leave on your own. You know, and I've said this openly. If they were to do that, they could count on me being at work on Sunday morning. Like, that's when my shift starts, you know? Yeah. And, you know, you know, even if that were to happen and other opportunities did open up through this, would I end up leaving law enforcement? I'm not sure. I'm not sure how that would shake out.

But, no, I wanted to keep that, like, I wanted to keep that in the open that, yeah, if they would just say, hey, you know what, it's all good and put it behind us, I'm good with that too. And I'm not going to hold grudges or be like, oh, my, this person's a dick and I can't believe you did that. Like, because as you know, man, like in any type of operational setting, you can't have that stuff. And if there were grudges held and they were pissed off at me, like, it's going to be time to go. Regardless if I'm fired or not. If there's any of that energy, it's time to go.

It would be an insidious, cancerous relationship. It would be bad. At the end of the day, as a law enforcement officer, you always have to think worst case scenario. And I don't dwell on worst case scenario, but there's always a possibility of being in a questionable shoot or questionable use. of force, a dude pulls a phone out and you thought it was a gun and you shot him. Like, that shit happens a lot, right? Yeah. And so you, in order to do this job, and I don't know how people do it with agencies that they don't, they don't 100% believe, have your back, but that's, that's mandatory for me. I need to know that my chain of command's in my corner,

you know? How often does the chain of command rotate out in those organizations? You know, the chief's position can be like a three, five-year position. And then sergeants can be indefinite. There's guys that have been sergeants for 10 years. Yeah. And the sergeant level is your, that's who you're interacting with on a regular basis as your boss. Like if you're dealing with a commander, so it goes sergeant, commander, and then to a chief. Yeah. And you're not really interacting with commanders on much, you know. So, but it's very common to work for the same sergeant. Like I've been with the same one for two years now. What was your favorite thing or what is your favorite thing?

about being a cop. You know, it's funny. It's like my favorite thing about being a cop is when something fucked up happens and you get that big adrenaline dump and you get to go do what most people think is police work, you know? Like, I say we had a guy drop from a heart attack who was dead and I was able to revive him. And like, that's pretty cool feeling.

That's awesome. I was at the right place at the right time and had the training. And I literally met him and his family. like a couple months later, like that kind of stuff is cool, you know? Or I had a guy that was like high on meth or no, high on PCP, which I didn't even know there were still, Seattle is meth and heroin.

That's the drug of choice up there. That's the only time I've seen PCP. I think that might be the same. Apparently Seattle is one of the source cities for where we're sitting right now. Yes. Yeah. It's a shit show up there. Yeah.

But he was driving around on PCP and like rammed into a pregnant lady and like, fuck. Some of my partner tried to bury. barricade him in and he blew through the police barricade, like ram their vehicles. And so I got to yard that guy out and tune him up and arrest him. And it's like, this, yeah, fuck yeah, you know. But those things happen, that's the exception, not the rule. And not, dude, I'm almost 40.

I don't want to be fighting dudes all the time anyways. Yeah. But when it does happen, it's a good time. How was the Jiu-Jitsu versus PCP solid? It's funny you say that because it's funny you say that because I've always told people, I'm like, listen PCP and being high it may give you

superhuman strength and superhuman will does it actually though because I don't know if I've ever encountered anything else but it doesn't give you superhuman skill

oh for sure yeah you're not gonna smoke you know what I mean yeah you're not gonna turn into a blackout dude this guy was a 265 pounds Samoan and I fucking tuned his ass up like nothing but I'm a trained fighter

you know what I mean so that but no he didn't feel like not even for one second was it like oh no. He didn't go pick up a squad card and smash you over the head with it.

Yeah. You hear these goddamn urban legends like, we tased him 37 times and he kept coming and it's like fuck man, what is this stuff? Yeah,

I haven't seen that stuff. You know, like... That's awesome. You were able to tune them up though. That's a pretty big weight disadvantage too. Yeah, it was.

What'd you go with for your opening move? Just a right cross. I'm a jiu-jitsu guy, but when it's go time, it's go time, you know? Nice. Did you guys transition to the ground

shortly after that? Yep. Yep. Nice. So, and it was funny, too, because, like, and it was good on my department because I tuned that guy up. Like, to the point where, I mean, I broke his orbital and broke his nose in a couple spots. And I was like, oh, man, that was my first big use of force with this agency. Yeah, how are they going to respond?

My last agency would have been, like, trying to, whoa, whoa, whoa, Anderson, what's going on here? Even given the circumstances of. You never know. Yeah. Because they, a lot of these agencies have to start weighing, like, liability. you know and I got called in the chief's room and the first thing he says like our department's grateful that you were the officer that responded because you were able to stop this psycho and I was like okay good I got a buddy lives on the outskirts of Chicago so he is a law enforcement officer well

black belt in jiu jihitsu he was like you know narcotics a bunch of time on SWAT and kind of the same thing like they get certain calls and they're like deploy the machine and he would come over and tune it up and be like, what else? You guys have anything else for me? Like, you know, you guys could also learn how to do these things yourself. Do you want to hear the most assonine thing about this case is that this dude fought,

I think it was seven cops the night before. Oh, man. The night before. And King County is notorious for Chis. You book people in on charges and they release them. And so he got booked on four. fighting police officers the night before, they released him, then he goes and gets high and gets in another fight with police officers.

They release him the same day after I fought him, too. Really? Yep. You fucking believe that. And see, what that does for us as cops, it's like, dude, we're literally out there, like, risking your lives to detain this fucking psychopath that is wreaking havoc on a community. And then you just let him go the next day.

There's a huge disconnect there, and I don't see how you couldn't get tainted, because I'd imagine you have a high percentage of what I'll call repeat offenders. Oh, dude. And if you're constantly interfacing with it, how could that not taint you to the next interaction that you're going to come to? Yeah, because it makes you ask yourself, like, again, like, I've put, like, war and fucking violence, like, behind me for the most part, you know? And so when I find myself in a situation where I have to go back to that,

like, okay, you go back to it, you handle business, and then you want it, and then it's over, right? And then you see that you went through what you went through, and then the prosecuting office doesn't give a shit. They're like, nope, we're going to send this guy back out. And knowing that another cop's going to have to do that. Yeah. And another cop's going to have to do that.

And it may not go well for that other cop. Or it may not go well for that individual either. I mean, it's... No, you're absolutely right. Yeah. You know? So it's, law enforcement's a weird thing, man, because you're trying to balance, obviously, the people's rights.

You're trying to balance your own safety. in your own morality. And then you're also trying to balance what your prosecutor is willing to prosecute. And I can tell you, 90% of our arrests, the prosecutors kick them and say, we're not taking that. We don't have the manpower

and we're not interested. In Seattle, it's like three grams of heroin or under. They kick them and drop the charges. Is that a large amount or a small amount? I mean, it's a large enough amount that it's not, you know, that's not just like one personal use thing. Okay.

But at the same time, they say that there's so much heroin in Seattle that they can't prosecute on amounts that are under that because the whole system would get clogged up with drug charges. And I don't know if you've ever, have you spent any time in Seattle? Very briefly, and it was a long time ago. Okay, so if you were to go there today,

literally in the last three years, it's turned into an absolute shithole. There's drugs and homelessness and, like, petty thefts, and vandalism and uh malmish car prowls the and in the shit on the sidewalks it's it's ab the city is rotting from the inside is that because they are so permissive with those people there's because they yeah they won't enforce any uh any of the ordinances the city ordinances of that you're not allowed to camp on the street yeah like if you or i went camped on the street in seattle we'd get cited and told you can't fucking do that because we're normal like

responsible citizens that if the law enforcement came up and told us that, we'd be like, okay, I understand. And if we got a fine, we'd probably pay it, you know? They know these people are just so drugged out that nothing that they can say or do is going to resonate with them. So they've just decided to go to a hands-off approach and bro. I don't feel like that solves much. It doesn't solve anything. Like, it's so troublesome because they're like, well, we don't have any answers. But I'd ask, I ask people this, when in societies, when in the history of mankind, have we allowed an absolute tiny minority of the population to just absolutely rot and destroy and decay our cities from the inside? Like, never. And what's the, what would you say,

I mean, you, again, your profession is down there interfacing with that. You know, I saw, I was up in Vancouver. And a buddy mine took me to Skid Row. Okay, so yeah, same thing. Fuck me. I just stood there. Mind you, I was on a corner of a street. Directly across the street from me was a pair of police officers. So they were watching the same thing that I was.

And I watched a man who had a rubber syringe. It was the rubber tubing around his arm with a needle hanging out of his arm, just get up and decide to go finish shooting up across the street. People, you know, smoking and like, I, I don't know a whole lot about drug culture, but I saw more things there than I was able to describe. And it was completely in the open, completely permissive. And how does this city like that, or how does Seattle,

how do you get out of that trench? How do you fill that trench up? I mean, and again, like, there's people a lot smarter than me that are looking into this that haven't been able to come up with a solution. But you have to enforce drug laws and you have to put these people into treatment. And like, yeah. I'm sure it would be an overwhelming amount of money to do that. But if you look at the amount of money that's being sucked out of that city,

dealing with what they're doing, I mean, I don't see why they're not doing it. My brother-in-law is a captain in the San Diego City Fire Department, and they were having to move homeless encampments on bridges to hose them down with the truck because of Hep A. Yeah, yeah, they're bringing back the plague. Like, it's just, the shit that you see as a police officer with these people,

you realize it's not like, it's funny when people talk about homelessness. Like, it's not a guy that got laid off at Boeing and got evicted because he couldn't afford his mortgage. That person does not exist on the streets. The people that exist on the streets are people that have fucked over

every single person in their life. They've burned every single bridge they've ever had. And the only thing that they care about is methamphetamine or heroin. And half of them, they've used so much that their brains are shot. I've seen shit that's like the walking dead. Like they'll pull their pants down and shit all over and then pick it up and put it in their pockets.

Like stuff like that. I do that sometimes though too. I mean, we don't have to judge. Sometimes you don't have a baggie. And pockets are portable baggies on your pants. You left your little blue baggies at home that day. Well, what percentage of that is, you know, does mental health play into that as well, too? I have to imagine that you're seeing some very, some people who are.

We're in the largest struggle of mental health that they're ever going to encounter. And it's like the chicken or the egg thing. It's like, who knows if they had mental health problems that led them to drugs? Or if drugs just rotted to their brain to the point where it doesn't function properly anymore. It seems like the converge.

There's probably both of those scenarios taking place. I can't. I could not be a police officer. I could tell you that much, Greg. It's, I don't know how you guys do it. To be honest. The overwhelming majority of what we deal with on a daily basis as a patrol level officer is methamphetamine and heroin. And the thefts and the vandalism and the car prowls that are a direct result of that.

It's absolutely nonstop in Seattle. That's what I've heard described about this area too. So they will break in and find things. Firearms are one of the things that they like is basically a currency. Right. So they'll take it out of the city, trade it for a drug, and then the drug becomes the commerce back here. It's, I mean, I don't know.

I mean, if you were, if you could change anything about the world that you're coming from that law enforcement world, what would you change? If you were king for a day, you could make one sweeping change. I mean, I think the biggest sweeping change that needs to happen right now. And even though we deal with, like I was just saying, like the majority of our calls are related to drugs and that drug culture, I think right now what needs to happen is for law enforcement officers

to regain the trust of the average American citizen. And I think that needs to happen through how they interact with people and then their actions. I think if you could change the culture of law enforcement and put law enforcement in the light that it used to be in, like people used to respect police officers.

That used to be an admirable profession. And now... I think a lot of people still do. I think often the anonymous, Paints the norm like the shitty New York situation. Yeah. I mean how many police interactions do you think there are per day? There's got to be millions. You're right. But that New York one, overwhelming majority are positive. But that damn New York incident that you're talking about, which I haven't seen, but I guarantee you somebody in Wyoming watching that. Is saying fuck the cops. Well, if they get pulled over later in that day, whether they're consciously thinking about it or not, it's going to impact how they view the individual getting ready to walk up to. to their call. Yeah, 100%. There's a lot of fear attached to officers now. And, you know, like, I think a big thing that we need to do is, like, if you're in a bad shoot, if you made a bad decision and it cost someone in their life, you need to be called out on that. And you need to own

yourself. And if that means you getting prosecuted, like, we don't get to just have bad shoots. If you and I walk down the street right now and had an AD and fucking shot someone in 7-Eleven, oh, no, it was an accident or... That's on me. Like, you got to ride that one to the end. You're going to get fucking arrested for that. And you should. And you should. And you should ride that one to the end. And I think that just police officers as a whole, if they own their mistakes more and speak out against officers that are the ones that are misbehaving, the ones that I do believe are the minority, and then just approach your communities with like an open heart and kindness and try and make your interactions with people positive and set a negative.

Like I pull people over and I don't write tickets either because I think. think I hate fucking writing tickets. So no speed taps. Yeah, no tickets from Greg. No, that's not my bag. Everybody knows my bag.

They want Officer Anderson there if you're in a shooting or a fight. But that's funny. My co-workers joke about that. But when you pull someone over and you approach them, literally the tone of your voice can change that entire interaction.

Or your posture. Your posture. Body language. All of that. And that doesn't mean that you're conceding to them. or you're not ready or like all the tough guy talk. It's like, no, you give people respect

until they give you a reason not to. And if you're not willing to do that because you're so afraid, you probably don't have the right constitution to be a police officer. That's a tough thing for people to hear, I think, but I think it's important. It's a true statement.

And I tell you what, from my side of the coin being a civilian, I don't expect police to be perfect because we're talking about human beings. I know that there's going to be bad shoots. And because I know that, I don't judge the entire profession of the anomaly. Yeah. I get very weary when people will point at one incident and say, because of this, all of that.

Because it's not, I mean, there's going to be bad shoots. There's going to be bad arrests. There's going to be criminals who have a badge. I expect that. I don't want that to happen, but I know we're dealing with human beings and we're fucking retards at the end of the day. I actually don't think you can say that word, but I'm not going to go back and I'm not going to go back and edit it because we're so imperfect.

But if you can find it in yourself, and I'm not saying those things are justified because you feel that way, but if you can find it in yourself to think of that other person as a human being, instead of just some autonomous robot, it'll give you a little bit more understanding. Absolutely, man.

And I mean, that applied overseas too, because as we both know, they were subhuman pieces of vermin. Like, you shoot a dude and it wouldn't even, your heart rate wouldn't even raise. Because the things I saw people do, over there, the things I have seen human beings do to other human beings exceeds my vocabulary and my ability to describe them. And I, and that's just the act. I can't even begin to describe

the motivation or the belief or the value system that drove towards, I'm so, I'm just like, what the fuck just happened? Yeah, like you're in a fucking simulation or something. Yeah, I don't, I don't understand it. You know, the last thing I'll say about cops is, uh, everybody thinks that they're on a fucking, like a Navy SEAL level of shooting and moving and communicating. You know who's not often on a Navy SEAL level of shooting? Navy SEALs. You go through peaks and valleys.

But, dude, literally, fuck. I would say literally, you know, like one day at a shoot house where your squad runs through the shoot house, I don't know, fucking 120 times. Just first squad go, second squad, and just rotate through, rotate through. I bet in one day in a live fire shoot house, you probably get more rounds on target

than you do in an entire career as a police officer. I've heard that, you know, that number of training rounds or training opportunities. We're talking about, again, defensive tactics for an organization that kind of by definition and design is going to interface at a very close

tactile hands on level. It's baffling to me. It's absolute insanity. And it shouldn't surprise anyone. when cops have bad shoots or bad uses of force because how can you train two days a year? Yeah. And then expect to maintain any kind of proficiency. And having said that at the apex of J-Soc communities, there's bad shoots.

Yep, exactly. And there's bad use of force. Those are dudes shooting three days a week or whatever, you know? Fuck, seven days a week. I remember when I was at the command, I could have a thousand rounds of every type of ammo in my cage, 24-7 access to my guns in the range. I could go blast as much as I wanted to. And we're talking about human beings.

And so there's going to be errors. And there's going to be, you know, and I described selection processes. You know, there's weeds in every lawn. Regardless of how awesome your selection process is, there's the sociopath that's going to navigate his way through. And you'd be like, oh, that guy's awesome. He did what?

Yeah. It's so, would you do it again? Oh, yeah. The video. Would you change anything about how you did it? Nope. I wouldn't have changed a damn thing. And again,

I'm falling back on the fact that I've had so many opportunities presented to me that I believe the result of that video is going to lead to good things in my life. I mean, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now, you know? Yeah, I'm glad you are. Thank you for making the trip out. And it's fucking awesome that just,

hey, you just made a new friend and you're traveling and you're talking to however many millions of people that are going to listen to this. But no, it's cool, man. I'm just seeing a lot of doors opening up and maybe it was just the right timing for this to happen in my life, you know? Yeah, I'm not a, I don't think I'm a believer

of, you know, things happen for a reason either, but I do think opportunities present themselves and even more so if you're in the right head space to recognize it. Because I've certainly recognized some after the opportunity is past. I'm like, oh, I should have. I messed that up. It was funny, too, because when the commander called me,

and I was talking to my wife, we were driving, and I said, I can't take that video down, and she looks at me, and she's like, I know where this goes, and I was like, yep, you know where it goes. What are her thoughts on it? She knows that I'm crazy. Like, she's been through a pretty wild ride with me as far as, like, contracting and the Marshal Service and stuff. she supports me and she's happy that

I stand by my convictions, but it's also exhausting to her sometimes. Well, it's going to be exhausting to you at times too. Yeah, she knows that I'll change my entire life on a moment's notice on principle, you know? And that's just something that was ingrained to me from a fucking, as a kid. My dad was big into that too, so.

Yeah. My dad was also very firm on standing your ground. Mm-hmm. And he would always, and still has always had my back when I stand my ground on my convictions. And my parents set by moral compass for me very well. And then I just got incredibly lucky to be around a community of men that helped refine that true north for me. Yeah. Because I'm in that I feel that way as well.

Like there's things, there's certain things that I'm like, oh, whatever, this is irritating. I'm not going to make my line in the sand. But there are some topics where it's like, no. We're not going to cross this line and I'll die on that hill too. And if you don't have some of those lines drawn in the sand as a man or as a human being, I should say, you should probably go look in the mirror because you need those. Or do a little bit of a reflection on how much you're paying attention or how well do you actually know yourself or gauge the depth of your convictions and your beliefs. It's what I think that's maybe one one benefit from our previous career is, you know, you're getting on airplanes to go over to countries that you could have avoided for the rest of your life. life willingly, you know, but you're voluntarily going over there multiple time on a rotation

cycle because you want to go there because I don't want my kids to ever have to walk in the sand that I did. And I don't want your kids to or anybody else's kids to, but you get plenty of time on the way there and on the way back and on helicopters and on vehicles to consider your depth of conviction on your beliefs. And that for me has stuck with me well beyond that occupation. No, 100% man. I remember some of those. And not only flying off of the, the objective, but flying into it, too. Oh, yeah. Because it's like, you know, they're not sure if they have anti-aircraft or whatever,

and you're like, hey, this is, this is probably it. I got 10 minutes left on this world, and I'm just stuck in my own thoughts. So are you happy with who you are, you know? It's a tough place to be to take an objective look at yourself like that. I oftentimes would find that I fell short in Marriars. Dude, don't we all, right? Oh, fuck. But that's part of the process is the first step is being able to have that look, senior deficiencies, and then what's next to work on those deficiencies?

Yeah. You know? How have you talked about this with your kids? I've been 100% open and honest with them. How old are they? Probably should ask that first. They're 5, 8 and 11. Okay.

So the 8 and the 11 year old. Varying degrees of understanding what's happening. The 8 and the 11 year old kind of understand it. It's funny. My 8 year old's like, well, what are you going to do now if you're not? a cop and I'm like, what is that supposed to mean? She's like, that's the only job you'd ever be good at. I love slash hate the things that come out of kids mouth. I know. It's just brutal honesty. You don't know a goddamn thing, but you were also 100% correct and it cut me to the bone.

Yeah, just that brutal honesty. Yeah. It's hilarious sometimes. It's an amazing opportunity you have to reinforce to them right now, the value of integrity and standing. holding the ground of your convictions. And I, yeah, I'm hopeful that they'll look back on this period and be like, yeah,

my dad did what he believed was right, you know? And that's like what I'm preaching to, to everybody that'll listen to me. It's like, I'm not here to necessarily say what the right path is. Yeah.

Because who the fuck am I? I'm just some punk from Second Ranger Battalion. Like, but if you look inside yourself, most people I feel like can come to terms with what is right,

versus what is wrong. I often think that people don't have any question as to whether or not, you know what I mean? Like, I think we come out of the box with an inherent understanding. I think people choose to find way to either ignore it or explain it away because it's more convenient.

No, you're absolutely right. Because, I mean, to me, there's very few things where you could say, okay, A or B, right or right or wrong and they had a stammer, like, no, that's wrong. You know, there might be some gray area in there, but at the end of the day, like the concepts, they're pretty crystal clear, to me.

Well, I mean, that's literally a lesson that's taught to you in basic training in the Army. It's like... Not in the Navy. They teach you out of March and like, the leadership acronym in the Army, you know? What is it? Loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service,

honor, integrity, and personal courage. Listen, that's far too much. I can't believe I fucking was able to pull that out of my ass. I believe the Navy on the walls that said honor, courage, and commitment. Which, you know what, that looks great on a Hallmark card, and it doesn't mean shit unless you live it. But if you preach that to 18-year-old kids that are just starting to come into manhood and make them think about that and make them analyze that, that's the first step, you know? Yeah.

And it's going to be up to the individual if they toss that out. Well, and hopefully that's not the first time they've heard it. I look back at my own parents. My dad was a masonry contractor. I grew up around some pretty interesting work environments of hard men working, working, hard and he would tell me to do something he expected it. When I told him, I was going to do something he expected me to live up to him of those words. You know, first time of hearing honor, courage, and commitment, like, it wasn't when I got

to boot camp. It was a good reinforcement, and it was a different optic to view the world. Because, again, you know, organized sports is another great example. Everything you learned in Army basic training, absent the firearm type stuff, you actually learn a lot of those lessons in organized sports, which is another reason I think, like, get your kids out into sports, bending themselves. dealing with things that are difficult because you'll learn those lessons. And absent that, yeah, then the military hopefully is a great launching point, but they'll get farther if it's a

reinforcement as opposed to an initial lesson. For sure. It's funny you say that because I don't think a lot of people make that connection between sports and service. The lessons are almost identical. So I wrestled and did track like as a kid through middle school and as a freshman. And then I got caught up. I found girls and alcohol. Yep. And just... Classic pairing, really. Completely let all of that shit.

Like, I threw it out the window, you know? What was your favorite booze in high school? Well, dude, I was from St. Homish, Washington, so we just drank Schmidt Ice. I was going to say, or like, old E. Yeah. But no, but like, to this day, I regret the fact that I walked away from athletics because once I got into the Ranger Regiment, I saw that the dudes that took sports very seriously, they had an edge on the guys that didn't.

Well, they were just changing one uniform for another. Yeah. So I had to... In concept. Yeah, and I felt that, and I saw that, that I had to play catch up to get to where those guys were at, you know? If you, I mean, if you think about it, on a football team, and my mother wouldn't let me play a football because she thought it was too dangerous. So I was like, yeah, Roger that. You know, checkmate.

Yeah. But, I mean, think about it. There's a variety of positions. Some of them get the limelight. Others don't. They all have to work together. There's a, you know, potential value on one position over the other. but service above yourself, hard work, integrity.

Like you got what you need to do on the play. Like the play is not going to be successful unless you go, all those lessons that, you know, you get into buds and it's the same thing. It's like, this is your swim buddy. You have to care more about him than you do yourself, which is a reinforcement of a concept. They just have different reinforcing tools in buds than they did in high school. But it's all the same stuff.

And then just also learning to work with a bunch of different personalities. That's one that's tough to explain to people. They think that the SEAL teams is this utopia of one type of person. Oh my God. I served with, and I'm sure you had exactly the same experience, every belief structure that I think is possible.

From religious belief, I served with a guy who was still a virgin in his mid-30s. He was raised by missionaries. Like, his parents were missionaries. Savage. Loved Jiu-Jitsu. All he wanted to do was just murder people. That's the only thing he was trying to...

That doesn't... I've seen those guys too. We're killing for the Lord. Oh, for sure. We're either going to out-breed them or out-shoot them. And, but then there was, you know, the functioning alcoholics. There were people who, um, incredibly, they joined the military because they wanted to escape an economic system.

Other people wanted to come in. Originally, they thought, I want the educational benefits. Guys who literally went to Ivy League schools were like, fuck this shit. I'm not even going to go become an officer. I have, you know, I'm a graduate of Wharton's business school. Yeah, I want to be a shooter. E2, let's go party and do this. You know, he's like going through Buds at 27.

I'm like, well, how do you know all these things? Yeah, it's bizarre, man. And I never had a team that was full of people that all liked each other. No. There was always a personal, professional conflict. There was always a belief structure conflict. Let's just say that alcohol was a part of our working environment. And there was always one or two guys that would not participate because they just didn't want to drink.

So it was never just everybody all on board heading in the same direction. So you learn how to communicate to work with physically, mentally, and manage all of that stuff. I don't think people have any idea of how rampant alcoholism is in the special operations community. When I joined, I don't think you could get advanced to E7 until you at least had one D.U. I mean, it was keggers on Friday. there was booze everywhere. And then now the fastest way out of the SEAL teams is an alcohol-related incident.

Oh, really? Oh, they will eject you so fast. And I think it was just a whole paradigm shift inside of the military. But yeah, I mean, think about it. The communities, they work hard and they play hard. Yeah. But I tell you what, for better or worse,

I'm not abdicating the use of alcohol, but in those environments and the off times as well, the camaraderie that was built during those times. Of course. It's hard to describe how tightly it bonded. Would it have been the same without alcohol? Nope. Yeah, I don't think so.

I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I don't know because I'm not smart enough, but I'm also going to lean directly towards what you just said. Yeah, it's crazy. And then at the end of the day, you're capable of doing incredible things with a group of people that don't believe the same thing. They are on board with the commander's intent, but at a personal level, they might have a variety of different beliefs. Yep.

And it's amazing. No, it's truly incredible to see, like, the machine actually work. Because when you break it down like that, you'd think, there's no fucking way. Yeah. You know? Well, and like we were saying on the car over two, it's, if people could really see on target, there's moments of greatness and moments of like, how are we going to get ourselves out of this, guys? Because we suck. We really, really are sucking right now.

And let's just go ahead and make something up on the fly. Yeah, but they can't put those scenes in the movies. That wouldn't be fun to watch. I'm trying to get a movie made where it's just, it's a 72-hour movie and it's all PowerPoint. It's just mission planning and nothing actually happens because at the end of that, the mission gets canceled due to weather. Yeah, dude. And I don't think, I don't think anybody will watch it.

You know, there was a scene in Black Hawk Down, and I was in the Ranger Regiment when Black Hawk Down was released. And so they opened up a theater and they gave a private screening to Second Battalion. Yeah. And, I mean, you know how every movie, all the Hollywood shit. But there was one scene where, like, a guy was trying to bound across a street. and he tripped over a rock and went ass over tea kettle. Accurate. His gear was fucking flopping all over the place.

And he dropped his shit. And I was like, that's the most realistic portrayal of a ranger you'll ever see. Indeed. Just a yard sale of shit everywhere. And then you're like trying to pick stuff up. And you're like, yeah, fuck it. Oh, yeah.

Occasionally, I have a buddy mine's named Brian Callan and we will sit down and I'll play movies for him. And he knows nothing about tactics. But I'm going to try to get him a job as like a J-Soc consultant because the ideas he has are truly revelatory. If you can wrap your head around the fact he doesn't know anything about tactics. But once a quarter, I sit down

and we just watch movies. I call it tactical asshole. I just heard him talking about that on the Joe Rogan podcast, but I haven't seen any of them yet. I'm sure they're fucking hilarious. I've only done two. I have another one in the can already.

Mostly we were watching Steven Seagall Lawman, though, making fun of that pontificating ass hat. And now he's the best. He's the best, man. shit we've been out for most three hours i'll let you close man what do you want to close with i mean it's i can't thank you enough for taking the time to make the travel out here no this was fun man like i was i was happy to come out here and shoot the shit with you uh i guess i mean i already kind of

beat a dead horse on where i stand with cops and following their heart and listening to their intuition and all that i guess i'll leave it with uh the amount of support that we've got from people has been fucking incredible like not only like from the go fund me everybody's been rallying and sending money to my family, which I never in a thousand years imagined would happen. But just all the emails, people are sharing their story with me. And I'll tell you, like I said, there's probably tens of thousands. I haven't even been able to begin to get into those emails. But the ones that I have seen is people sharing their thoughts and their stories and talking about how they support me and how they think that that message was needed to be heard.

And it's just cool to see, like, something as small as point. in your phone at you for eight minutes, turning into something that is garnishing support from millions and millions of people. So I'm really appreciative of that. I just want to say thank you to anybody that's in my corner that's listening. Let's circle back up again in like 12 months and do it again. Just as like a recap to see what has happened, give it a year to, because I mean, we'll be out of the, well, fuck, we better be out of God.

We'll be into the COVID-20 pandemic, which is going to be very different than the COVID-19 one. but it should give you a chance to figure out where North is going to point for you. Yeah, I look forward to it, man. I'll bring my ghee next time too. Only if we're out of the pandemic. Right on, man. Thank you. All right.

That is it for this week, everybody. Thank you, as always, for taking the time to tune in. If you really want to help me out, there's two things that I would ask of you. One, if you listen to this on your phone or are you on Apple Podcasts or I think I can't even remember. It's iTunes or Apple Podcasts. the hell you find this thing on the Apple portal. If you haven't given it a rating yet, do me a favor. If you're on your phone, it's super easy.

Scroll down and just rate it. Or if you're on your computer or any other device, just find where you have the number of stars and click on whatever number of the stars you think is appropriate. If you think one is appropriate, fire away. If you think five is appropriate, fireway. Obviously, everything in between. And secondly, if you like the podcast,

if it's impactful for you, if you find it to be entertaining, do me favor. Tell somebody about it. Those are the two things. And if you want to fly the flag and I had somebody reach out and ask me if they could buy one of the flags, it's not an actual flag. The fly the metaphorical flag, go over to clearedhotpodcast.com. Click on the shop tag. There's a couple shirts.

They say cleared hot on them. The design is not complex because I am not. I prefer to keep it simple. And you can wear them around town. And then when people ask you about what cleared hot means, you can tell them about the podcast. And that is it. See you all next week.