Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 151 - Bill Rapier

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

Bill Rapier is Amtac Shooting's owner and lead instructor. He retired after twenty years in the Navy, where his duty assignments included several years at SEAL Team 3 and over 14 years at Naval Special Warfare Development Group. Positions held include assaulter, breacher, sniper, team leader, troop chief, and military working dog department senior enlisted adviser. He has always been an avid shooter and is heavily involved in combatives. Since retiring from the Teams six years ago, Bill has been teaching professionally while developing new courses to make good Americans more capable. He also owns and operates Amtac Blades. He lives in the mountains of Idaho with his wife and six children.

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Listeners are going to get 10% off your first month. Don't go to loan, people. Life is hard enough as it is. And that's it on the old business side of the house. My guest today is Bill Rapier, a man that I have known for quite some time and we had what I would call a pretty damn big gap in our experiences together.

I left the East Coast. He stayed on the East Coast. and we actually didn't link up again until we were both out of the military. He now owns a company called Amtack Shooting. He is the lead instructor and like I said, the owner. He retired after 20 years in the Navy, several years at CLE Team 3, and then over 14 years at Naval Special Warfare Development Group. He was an assaulter, a breacher, a sniper, a team leader, a troop chief, and a military working dog senior enlisted advisor. He has always been an avid shooter.

And I can say that from the time that we work together. He was always at the range. He heavily involved in combatives, man, he likes to grapple. He's always loved to grapple. Since he left the military, he's been teaching professionally. New courses, you know, edged weapons. He has a new company or a newer company, Amtack Blades, where he sells those edged weapons and has found his home in the mountains of Montana,

I almost said Montana, Idaho. I live in Montana, okay? Montana's mine, Idaho's bills. But he lives there with his six children and his wife. I'm going to shut up, let Bill speak for himself. Episode 151 with Bill Rapier. Enjoy. Smoke.

I'm looking at danger close now. So here's a question for you as I was thinking about this. And it's been a minute since you and I actually had some time to sit down and catch up. Long time. 2003, I remember like in the damn armory. I forget what we were doing, but we were in there for hours. And I bet if we had written down a list of 100 things that you thought we would never do sitting down today for podcast, wouldn't even have made the list. 100%.

Because it wasn't even fathomable. Oh, how things have changed. Yeah. Yeah, just like we were talking about right before we started, just our ages. And in, so 2003, yeah, I was 26. I'm not the same person I was when I was 26. I thought I had it dialed. I didn't.

I'm 43. As of three days ago, I think I have it dialed, but I don't. Yeah, I just turned 44 three days ago as well. Your birthday's 10-10? Yes, it is. No, it's not. Yeah. How did we not know this about each other?

You didn't know it either. I saw it in your eyes. You also didn't know. I feel like maybe we did. We have to have because we did work with each other for a couple of years. But it was back a long time ago. Long, long time ago. Did you know that you are the,

the single person responsible for me drinking coffee. Really? Yeah. I remember making a lot of coffee in, uh, in 03 sitting in the hangar there. But I didn't have my first cup of coffee until I was sitting down with you playing chess in Uzbekistan at the green bean on one of those. How much of a blast in the past is that I had never. So I used to, and I think that was.

Oh four. Yeah. because I had no, dude, I had no coffee in 03. I was just water only. I don't know what was wrong with me, but I remember watching people hover around this mythical pot and it was like their life couldn't begin until they had some. Yeah.

And you and I were up there doing that stupid jump dress. The same trip, but I broke that poor dude's Tibfib. Remember that? Which I'm going to say was completely his fault because as the tandem passenger, I tell you to pick your feet up and my feet need to hit the ground first.

It was the classic passenger leg hits, rotate over the top of the leg, mid-rotation you hear what sounds like a shotgun going off, and then you just hold onto them and whisper, it's going to be okay. I did that to myself a few years later. Did you really?

I did. On a tandem? No, just me, 6,000 foot DZ. Actually, release point was over. The Grand Canyon was pretty awesome. One of the coolest jumps I've done. you guys do it a day or night. Hey, ho, it was day jump.

It was great. I was coming in right next to Lee jumper, smiling the whole time, and then just went to slide it out and hit a little berm and just did a little flipped over, heard something pop, and then tried to move my leg, and I would move my knee

and my foot kept moving. That's probably about the point I think I would pass out. Eh, it wasn't so bad. I'm not, I don't mind blood and guts or any of the other stuff as long as it's not happening to me. But when it happens to me and I look down, I'm like,

oh, I'd take a break over here in the corner. Like, I'm not one of those guys who can go on YouTube and Google skateboard accidents. If I know it's coming, it makes me sick to my stomach. But if I, like, happen upon it, I'm totally fine. And I don't know what that is. But I remember watching people around those coffee pots and not understanding. I had tried a sip of my mother's coffee when I was younger. tasted like mud filtered through a used jockstrap that hadn't been washed for a long time.

And that was it. That killed me on coffee. And then I got, because we played a lot of chess on that particular rotation. And I don't know why. I don't know if you started that or I started that, but I remember we played quite a bit. And you're like, hey, man, let me just get you a drink. And I bet you don't remember what you got me because it was a gateway drug of all gateway drugs. I don't remember. What was it? An iced mocha. because you were going full heater coffee and you're like yeah let me just absolutely I always go hot coffee yeah you're like let me get you something it won't it's not it won't be like coffee and I remember having that thing and not being able to sleep that night

of course we weren't doing any jumping out I was just like hey guys you guys want to go walk around hey you guys do you want to read a book what do you want to do anything you guys should wake up and then it went from iced mocas every time we were there to the transition to regular coffee and then to I could probably pour espresso down my throat at point. But it all became with you, Mr. Rapier. Cheers. Many, many years ago. Cheers.

As I'm enjoying my pumpkin spice latte. Don't laugh at that. It's super manly. The drink is determined by on who's holding it, not the actual title of it. But that's where it all started. That's where it all started. And I remember that because I really hadn't had to have caffeine up until that point. And then, yeah, I don't think I slept for 48 hours after that drink.

Yeah, it's pretty much the first thing I do now. Did you, have you read it all about K2? There was some, uh, yeah. I was just thinking about that when you brought that up. I read an article about it. It was a seepage of, I want to say nuclear material. Nuclear and chemical materials. And I guess a bunch of guys that served there for a while died and a bunch of people that filled the initial hescos had problems.

Yeah. And sandbags and all that stuff. I think in the end we were probably, because on that particular deployment, I think this was either, it had to be late 04. Yeah. That was after they had already done that. So, and I mean, we were in those hangers for just a little bit. I was going to say, we were in and out. Not, not, not.

Yeah. I didn't sleep there for long term. So. Yeah, that, uh, I have those memories that will flood back. Because I saw that K2. I was like, no way. K2 where you can get fake, North Face, North Fars. You remember those jackets?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I, there was, how do you, how do you even describe that for people who haven't been around? It was a It was a Serreal place Was it even a structure though?

The North Forrest store? There was a store. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. That's an actual store. But was it brick and mortar or was it a tent? I think it was a tent.

I think so too. And for what I'm describing, everybody, it literally looks like a North Face jacket, feels like a North Face jacket, but it's not a North Face jacket. That's why I say North Forrest. It's close.

It was like two rupees or something like that. Whatever is cheap. We can afford it even on what we were making back. We could afford it, but I don't know. know if I trust your life on the, no, the temperature controlling properties of that particular jacket. No. Yeah. It's been a long time. What have you been up to? Man, well, uh, got married for one. Yeah. Many years ago, though, right? Yeah, back in 07, 08, something like that. So 12, 13 years.

So, okay, I'm going to give you some advice on somebody who's at the tail end of a divorce. Okay. Send it. When you describe how long you've been married, you need to know the year. Okay, and you need to know the month. And it's really going to help you in the long term if you know the day precisely. And don't search for that information. If you need to, have you ever seen people who get the tattoo of the little mustache on the inside of their finger? No. You've never seen that?

No. Sometimes people do that and they hold it up for pictures so they have a mustache. You, if you need to, could get some dates tattooed right there. And at any time, you just be like, okay, we're good. It's inscribed on the inside of my ring. Hard to see. When I do forget, I pull it off and look. No, no. Your wife's going to bust you when you do that. I'm giving you gold here. Okay. You're going to get a tattoo on the inside of your finger. And it's going to be just a series of numbers that she doesn't have to know about. I am telling you, don't fumble for those dates. There's, I mean, I've met your wife many, many years ago before you were married. I don't know how well she would tolerate the, I don't know. We got married in 11 or 12. You need to know those things.

Oh shit. Yeah, so got married. I had a bunch of kids. Retired six years ago now. Really enjoying civilian life. How'd you land in Idaho? I did my homework. But you're not from Idaho.

I mean, your background actually... I'm from all over. I was going to say, you have one of the more fascinating to me backgrounds of just where you grew up and the experience you came into the SEAL community with. So I was born in Portland, Oregon. Don't normally bring that up with all the craziness going on there now. Is there some weird things going on? What have you heard about? I'm joking.

Throwing fireworks at people. I'm joking. It's the dumpster fire of the Northwest currently. So born there, I only lived there maybe two years. Then was in SoCal for a couple, moved to Germany when I was five, I believe, lived two different places in Germany, did all German schools K through sixth grade, moved to San Jose Jose for maybe six or eight months or so. That was my first time going to an English speaking school. San Jose, California. San Jose, California. Yep. Which is actually...

I went to a school in Las Cadiz. 30 minutes from where I grew up in Santa Cruz. That is hilarious. Yeah, I remember we used to go to Santa Cruz. Yep. Then moved to Swaziland, Southern Africa. I loved it there. It was a great, great time. I lived there for a little over two years and then moved to Colorado Springs and finished up the last three years of high school there and then joined the service right after that. Why is so much moving? My folks were missionaries. So we lived all over because of that. So a very interesting way to come up and just kind of definitely had a different worldview than the rest of the kids in high school.

school. Different optic for sure. Yeah. More life experience, some more context. A little bit bigger picture, yeah, but definitely wanted really badly to be an American. Like, it's kind of funny story when I was, sometime when we were living in Germany, I remember thinking to myself, wow, I've lived in Germany now longer than I've lived in America. And being an American was very much a part of my identity. And coming to that realization, coupled with the fact that all my friends were German, I spoke German 95% of the time. I was thinking in German.

Really? Oh, yeah. Everything. What a trip. Yeah, everything in German. And I came to a conscious decision. I said to myself, you know what? I'm an American.

I'm going to start speaking English at home. And I'm going to start thinking in English whenever I'm home, at least. How old were you when you came to this realization? Probably 10 or 11. Something like that. Okay. I at the age of 10 decided I liked cereal. So you were a little bit ahead of me.

And I decided that I could eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So we were on a different trajectory. But yet, we ended up at the same place. Yeah, so finished high school and joined. I was in the Navy the day after I graduated high school. Did you, so you probably went through the delayed entry program as well? I wasn't, yes, I was in depth for a while. and then did not know about the whole you can get buds a shot at buds guaranteed to you so i came in

as a corman uh that's right you were yes so went through and then you know had to screen every every other week i believe we had to screen while i was going through a korman a school and then got orders to go to buds your parents as missionaries did they come from religious families how did they land in that particular trade? My dad, he grew up in a broken home and did not, he did not know his dad. And he became a Christian sometime, I think he was a young teenager when he became a believer. And my mom grew up in a Christian household and he met at, I think they were going, or no, they met at some Christian function. And then the rest is history? Yeah, and then they just felt like that's what God wanted them to do.

Go, go, you know, great commission. Go spread the gospel. Did they get to, if you, and I know, I mean, shit, you and I talked years ago about religion. I've never been an incredibly religious person in my life. And I always knew that you had been because we would talk about it quite often. Did they have any choice in where they went or are there other people who set that up? So like landing in Swaziland, was that their choice or was that more random? So they were working for an organization at the time?

time called OC International. And I don't know exactly how they, they basically expressed their desire to become missionaries. And then I don't remember if they really felt like that's where they were supposed to go or if they kind of got linked up with the organization and then they were encouraged to go there. I know when they did, when we moved to Africa is because my dad was taking over as the team leader for that region. And so that was, yeah, that was, that was, was a they were told, hey, we, we feel like you need to go here. Yeah. Okay. I, you are the only person that I know that comes or even peripheral to that background. So it's fascinating to me. There's a couple guys in the teams. You were the only one that I think I knew at a closeness

level that we would talk about it, though, for sure. So when you were with them, how were you in, you were in Swaziland? 13, 14. So were you involved in what they were doing or you just happened to be there while they were doing? happened to be there. Yeah. And when you were doing all this traveling, and I have to ask this question to all ex-team guys, like how did you find, like, why teams?

Why the SEAL community? Honestly, I believe that this is what God designed me to do. But how'd you hear about it? Reading books. I mean, so I had, I had wanted to do something in the military from the time I was probably five or six years old. As long as I can remember, I've wanted to be in the military.

Any military history on either of your parents' side of the house? Yes. Okay, so there's a little bit of legacy. Yeah, dad served for a few years. And then on my mom's side, actually had a lot of service on my mom's side. Okay. So it wasn't a foreign concept. No, it was not a foreign concept.

They didn't discourage me. There's no pacifism or anything like that in our beliefs. And so my dad had always encouraged me. You should go to West Point. If you want to be a professional soldier, you should go to West Point. And so I thought that was a good idea until probably about my junior year. And I started wrestling and drinking and... Rassling and drinking, Bill?

Yes. Kind of strayed from the path a little bit, not with the wrestling, but with the booze. I'm actually shocked that you said that that's what you were up to. Because having known you, that's the opposite of who I know you to be. Yeah, well, it's... You wild man, Bill. I had a little wild streak there for a while. And basically, I just decided I did not want to continue doing school for another four years.

And so when I came to the conclusion that I was going to enlist, it was just a matter doing research and looking at what was the hardest organization to get into with the highest likelihood of seeing an action. And this was in a time where, let's just call it a drive spell. Very dry spell. Yeah. Do you remember what books? piqued your interest about the SEAL community?

I probably read all of them. Men with green faces. Oh, yeah. It's like the traditional. Patches, watch, lots in the up, and, you know, demo dick stuff. About Rogue Warrior. Oh, yeah. Of course.

Son of a bitch, Dick Marsenko. Of course. We'll get to the lack of accuracy of the Rogue Warrior series at a later time, perhaps when we discuss later in your military career. Yeah, so I basically just, I did my research and then it was, you know, the teams looked like the, definitely the hardest organization to get into. And it looked like, well, if we, if the country does go to war, there's a higher chance of seeing action. And I think I didn't always think I made the right decision during my time in, but in retrospect, definitely I feel like I made the right decision. Does that split between feeling you made the right versus wrong decision come pre post 9-11 era?

Yeah, post-9-11. Just seeing some of the, some of the, what our counterparts were getting for work and what we were getting for work. And I had some dissatisfaction there. And then obviously the table completely turned, you know, years later. And it was kind of estranged going from being. the red-headed stepchildren to, you know, to getting more, more of the calls first. It is an interesting evolution. And I think you have to separate that command from the rest of the community when it comes to that evolution as well.

Because there's still, it may be rightfully so. I even look back, you know, reading men with green faces, we're talking Vietnam, jungle warfare, extremely heavily maritime based. And then Iraq, Afghanistan, obviously bodies of water, but extremely heavily landborn based. And that particular command going to the place, like you said, but it's like, we don't know to pick up the phone and let's do this. Yeah.

It's a shift for sure. Definitely. There was some good, one of the things I really think the headshed, you know, big, big headshed did right was just lobbying properly and getting us in there, getting us work. I wonder what would have happened if they had not done that. That's an interesting. I don't think any of the umbrella inside of J-Soc we're talking about. I think it would have crushed anyone command.

I think they would have had to come asking for help at some point due to the demands on manpower. Yeah. But if they had done that and excluded one element, they would have had a difference in experiencing capability. So who knows though? So you're history now. It is history now. So you go to boot camp. How would you describe Navy boot camp to people?

A massive disappointment. I got out of shape and boot camp. I used to PT on my own after lights out. I was just thought it was a, you know, oh my gosh, have I made a horrible mistake? You know, if I could have done any of the other services boot camp and then still gone to Buds. I would have done that. But that is not an option. Well, it is not.

But how many people in your boot camp class were going on the Bud's pipeline? A handful, maybe? Yeah, just a handful. So in full disclosure, in fairness to the Navy, they are bringing in people who are going to have a job title that is very, very different.

Yes. And I think they have corrected that. I don't know anything about the new pipeline, but I think they go through entire divisions of people who are going to go to that pipeline. Yeah, that's my understanding as well. And then the pre-training pipeline, line and then they compete for spots and then they go to buds.

The most stressful thing I did in boot camp was fold clothes. Can you still cut paper with the edge on your tidy white is if you fold them, that knife cutting edge that they taught us? Negative. I forget if it was the left side or the right side. I remember it was like t-shirt underwear, t-shirt underwear and the edge, like the edge was so sharp it could cut glass, you know, like grass at a glance or stentsling, all of the stentsling on the waistband.

of the tidy whiteies had to be identical. I threw all that stuff out. I did too. When I made it through Hell Week, I took all of my, including some of the stuff, I'm like, I probably shouldn't have thrown away

the next peak coat. Oh my God. That pico? I threw all that stuff away. You could buy a fine firearm with the value of that pico. You could have traded that thing in for... It all went in the dumpster.

Behind the... It went in the dumpster behind 618. I think we waited... I probably get in trouble for this, but yeah, we just burned all of ours. We made a bonfire on the beach and everybody brought there, And actuallys, I remember seeing full sea bags being thrown onto the fire and just doesn't surprise me.

It doesn't. But I think that like the, I don't think you're supposed to do that with the boots and stuff. Steel toad. Oh, man. A toxic smoke. One of the things that sticks out for me from Navy boot camp time was, and this is, God, it's such a pointless evolution that had no bearing on my life, but I can't forget it, was laundry days. when you would just walk around the perimeter of,

you'd get one article of clothing, and all you had to do is match the stupid stencil with a stencil on somebody's locker, and you'd throw it on their bed. But we would walk around for hours. And still, you'd be missing stuff. You're like, what's going on? Like, I don't know.

And then straight to buds. Actually, you know, Corman A school, which is in Great Lakes, correct? San Diego. Oh, man. They had multiple locations when I went through. Oh, okay. I got to go in San Diego. So you went boot camp and Corps.

A school in San Diego? No, so boot camp in Chicago. Okay. Great Lakes and then to San Diego for Corman A school. Got it. God damn. I forgot to turn off the AC bill. Why didn't you remind me? Turn off the AC. AC's too loud. You can hear it a little bit in the back.

Not anymore, though. It's going off. So Corman A school did that, got orders out of there in, I don't know, I guess towards the end of A school and then went to buds. I think I checked in on Thanksgiving day. Very depressing. That is a relatively depressing day. Yeah. They make you hit the surf. No. I checked in. They're like, what are you doing? It's Thanksgiving. You should be on week. They're like go and it was early. And they said go. You don't have to be back until Monday. I checked in in January. And I think it was on a Friday. You want to talk about some stress and anxiety the first time walking up to that quarter deck door,

which is in plain English. the front door for you civilian folk. But I had never, when you were in San Diego, did you ever cruise by Coronado and take a look at the facility? Oh, yeah. So here's a funny story. So one of my buddies who I had just reconnected with

maybe two, three years ago now, went through boot camp with them and then we went to A school together. So the day, so we checked into Corman A school, I think on a Friday night. And they said, oh, you know, you don't have to be, anywhere until Monday. So Saturday morning,

like, hey, let's walk to Coronado. Because we can just walk across the bridge and walk to Coronado, right? From Balboa Park in San Diego. You cannot walk across that bridge. You can't. Well, he didn't know that. I'm 17 years old.

My buddy was a few years older than me. And so we walk and, you know, Balboa is somewhat sketchy. And then you like definitely go down into the hood, especially back then. And so me and him are walking totally, I mean, just epitomize someone right out of boot camp.

We're still wearing dog tags, brand new clothes, you know, from the Navy exchange. Probably walking in step. Probably. We get down, we get close to the bridge and someone tells us you can't walk across the Coronado Bridge. So we get on a bus, go over the bridge, and then immediately get off the bus, which for anyone that goes, no, there's another four or five miles before you get to where. Good old Orange Avenue.

Yes. So then we continue walking And you know This is pre pre 9-11 This was sort of a 94 So you could just walk right on To the to the amphib Or the opposite side there

Oh my God, that's right There was no guard shack Yeah, you could just walk right in So we walk in We're like wow, this is where Buds is And my buddy's like You want to go for a swim? I'm like, yeah, let's swim

And there's a there's a buoy I don't know, 100 yards or so offshore. I think I know where this is going. So we swim out and we start getting close to the buoy and my buddy's like, hey, Bill, I'm getting all tired. Let's take a little rest when we get to the buoy. And I'm like, okay. Well, we get to the buoy.

He grabs onto the thing and it just goes down because it's a lap swimming buoy. And so I end up doing a swimmer rescue on my buddy day one out of boot camp. Did he end up? making it through the program. He ended up becoming a Navy diver. All right. Like later on.

That's a hell of a job in and of itself too. It is. Absolutely. To have spent far more time in the water than I ever want to. Ever want to. Absolutely. That's when people are, oh yeah, you want to go dive?

And I'm like, no. Not really. I do have some, I will dive under certain criteria. World-class location. Crystal clear water. 80 to 120-foot Viz. About 80, degree temperature and free.

If it meets all those criteria, I'm down. Yeah. So you're not diving a lot in Idaho. Not a whole lot of diving going on there. Imagine. There are people who dive up here. I guess it's one of the qualls, a high altitude diving certification,

which basically is the opposite of every criteria you just described. Yeah. Three to six foot visibility. Yeah. Freezing cold water. Dive charts that include high altitude, probably decompression and not free. Yeah.

No, I have a buddy who's a river guide or a part-time river guide. And he's incredibly generous. And he always asks me to go. And I almost always say no. I will say yes one or two times a year. And people are like, why don't you want to go? And I walk out there and I look at these rafts and all I see is an IBS. It's the only thing that I see is an IBS.

You're waiting for somebody to yell at you, pick it up. And so I'm here. Inflatable boat small. Just put into Google images, Navy SEAL training or Buds. And I guarantee you most of the images are people running with those things on their head. And I just don't enjoy small craft in the water, whether it be motorized on a zodiac or hand-powered on an IBS. I'm just, I'm not into it. I hear you.

Yeah, man. So how was Buds? What was your experience like? It took me longer than most to get through. Oh, yeah. So I had a weird. So first off, my hell week class got secured Thursday evening because we had. had the flesh-eating virus in our class.

From the, what do they call it? Down south and Tijuana? Tijuana. Flats. Yes, we had a bunch of guys almost died in our class. One of our ensigns lost all of the skin on his leg from like thigh to calf. Did it come back? No.

No, he got dropped from the program. He probably got dropped from the Navy. No, he ended up being a swell. I ran into him a few years later on a deployment. Was his leg still jacked? Oh, yeah. Oh, fuck. Yeah.

No, he was mess. up. We had another guy got it in his belly, I think. A bunch of guys almost died. And so this was probably from the mudflats evolution. We should describe that because it's a that's a tasty little treat of an evolution.

Fun in games in basically open, not quite open sewage, but well that, I mean, that's where the open sewage from Mexico drains into. Oh, and you know what, and you were a winter class. Yeah. Rain. And I think that's the biggest.

year. That's the biggest determination is how much water flushes that stuff in. So the mud flats, this was an interesting one to go back. I went back as a Bud's instructor when I left the East Coast. So I got to see this stuff from a completely different perspective, man. And let's just say it's easier and more fun to watch the mud flats with an awesome cup of coffee. And it's just like this, like, why are you guys? Warm blue sweatshirt on?

Like, why are you guys cold? I'm sweating in this, sweating in this jacket. My hands like, ah, it's burning on my coffee. The mud flats, there's almost no, it's late in Hell Week. It is Thursday in Hell Week. Or no, it's Wednesday night. I don't know when it is, Bill. Correct me if you know.

I don't remember. It's an evening. It all blurs together. It's an evening evolution. You run the boats from the ocean. There's actually a tunnel that goes underneath and you get into the bay. I'm pretty sure they time it with a low tide to get more mud. And you're basically caterpillar crawling through mud, a variety of games, and you're just caked.

Head to toe. Continuously. Oh, God. It's in your eyes. in your nose mouth, it's all over you. So yeah, if there was a bacteria in that, stand by. And you're already totally chafed from, you know, multiple days of running around with life jackets on and helmets bouncing on boats bouncing on your head and the hell week shuffle where every, every appendage is as far away as humanly possible. If you hunch over enough,

the wet clothing won't touch you. Did you know they changed out the life jackets? Really. So you and I had K-pox. Yes. Which everything in Buds has a secondary or tertiary way to get hammered as a student. K-Pox rig for C, rig for land. You have to store your straps appropriately. You have to route them under. Attention to detail.

Yeah. And it's also fun for the instructors because it's very monotonous. And you have to route it properly, three-finger release, and now it's all quick disconnect. Snaps. And it looks like a traditional life jacket. And I mean, to be fair, K-Pox, they are like 60 years old now. I was going to go. Or maybe older than that.

I believe that if you look closely at the painting of George Washington, there's one stuffed in the back of the boat. He's rolling across the Delaware. They're not cutting edge, but they sucked. And I think that was kind of the purpose. They did. Some of them actually probably were not life-sustaining pieces of equipment because they were so waterlogged. but they floated okay yeah but it's been changed so they secured you Thursday Thursday night wow yeah how many people started your class I think we so we had the

the pre-training was like a part of the initial thing and I think we had like probably close to 170 180 people in pre-training and then they dropped probably 50 people in pre-training so I think we classed up with 120 or 130 something like that How many did you have Thursday when they secured you? Do you remember? I don't remember exactly. I know when we graduated, when I graduated two classes later with 201, we had 21 guys. Yeah, we had 18 original guys left in my class from when we first started. Did it surprise you how many people quit the first day? Yeah, it's, yeah, strange, I thought.

Yeah, like, what did you think you were actually getting into? Yeah. I think we made it 30 minutes on our first day of first phase before I heard. that bell ring. And at the moment, I mean, I was just glad that it wasn't me, but it still stuck with me as somebody was probably showering my face with a garden hose from two inches a wave. Thirty minutes? Like, that's it. It hasn't been that bad yet. Like, that's as, what, why did you just do this? I mean, it's not like it's a shiatsu massage leading up to day one in anyway. Why put that effort in just to, yeah, I don't know. I digress. So they rolled you, I'm assuming,

med roll after how week? No. So, coming out, so pre-Hell week, never fell behind on a run, never failed a run. Post-Hel week, I couldn't keep a 12-minute pace to save my life. Like, still don't know, you know, they obviously, they did all the exams and stuff on me, couldn't find anything, you know, I've had doctors afterwards say, well, maybe you were anemic or whatever. I don't know, maybe it was in my head. Was it cardio limitation or?

Yeah, I just felt like I had no, no gas, just like. super, super low energy. And so I was way far behind. And so the guys coming out of first phase, all the instructors were like, okay, we know this guy's a good dude. And he was putting out. And then now something's wrong with him because he's not doing that anymore. And then I go into dive phase.

And it's all new instructors. And they're like, who is this dirt bag that is just sandbagging on all of his runs? And so I got a lot of extra special treatment. at the beginning of dive phase. And then so we go through dive physics, right? And for guys that don't know, dive physics is basically just a fancy way of, you need to remember that gas expands when you go up.

And if you hold your breath, bad things happen to you. And so I had done all through high school, I had used a calculator. So the physics part of, of the die physics was not a problem for me. The long division without a calculator was a huge problem for me.

So it's shameful to say, but I had forgotten how to do long division. And so I failed the die physics test because I could not do long division. And so they rolled me for that. And my mind is slightly blown right now. In retrospect, it was pretty funny because they put us, me and probably eight other guys

failed the test. Most of them failed because they couldn't do the physics part of it. And so they put us in a remedial math class. And literally day one, this lady got up and she goes, on the whiteboard, she goes, this is how you add. So that was a little bit embarrassing. But I class back up with class 200, aced my die physics exam. but still had not learned to run.

So I ended up, after I got, You were still feeling like shit. Still feeling horrible. I got rolled on day one of Drager dives. So past pool comp, day one of Drager, and I got sent in front of the basic training officer. I just remember him looking at him, he can rape here.

You get two choices and they're both bad. One's cleaning bedpans at Balboa. The other is. joining class 201 right now. And I'm like, where was 201? Life saving test that day. I'll take it. I'm like, I'll take class 201, sir. So I remember I had to say they go, go get your white t-shirt and go rejoin. Oh my God, I forgot. That's right. That's pre-Hell week. Big, big deal when you graduate, when you finish Hellweek, you get a brown t-shirt. And pretty much that was way more important to me than probably any other piece of

uniform that I ever got was getting a brown t-shirt post-Helweek. And so I had to go to supply and get a white t-shirt, put it on, and then joined up with the class. And oh my. Yeah. So I got to do everything over again. They did not make me do Hull-week again, which was good. And it actually, I mean, it worked out well because they were running slow enough still. to where I was able to keep up and ended up finishing as one of the stronger runners in the class. Did they test you for mono? I don't know.

I mean, it's a long time ago, obviously, but it either, to me, it sounded like it could be mono or even like you got a really bad case of rhabdo. Because it takes a long time

if you get rabdo to be able to build back up into that. All I know is it messed me up pretty good. I had a hard time, you know, very hard time keeping up. Huh. And I've never had that sense. Yeah,

you're always a freaking animal out there working out. Oh, now I've got this mental thing. It's, it's taken me years and years now. If I'm running with someone else, not to have to be one step ahead. Oh, is it two steps ahead now? Yeah, it was just, and that was a mental thing. I was like so scarred from falling behind.

It was just like, I got it. Yeah. It's all non-competitive guys. Wow. Okay. So you finally graduated. So graduate buds. And then I had hang out for a while.

I went to dive med tech school. What team did you get assigned to? So I had to go to 18 Delta first. Oh, man. I forgot about your pipeline. Yeah. Yes. So did maybe two weeks of direct support for the leapfrogs, which was fun.

And then went out to, went to jump school and then reported in 14. Sam Houston for the last class, the last so med class in Texas. Went to Bragg after that, right? Nope. Did not have to. No, I mean, the school went to Bragg after that. It moved to Bragg right after that. So anyone that got rolled or, you know, failed out our class, had to do it at Bragg.

And so I was very blessed to not have to go to Fort Bragg to do that training. Yeah, I feel like Texas is a better call. So much better. Texas, yeah, good time. How was that school? it was challenging it was uh i mean they they they were constantly saying oh yeah we're teaching all this like as much stuff as doctors learn and i was like yeah whatever well it's a six month course right six month course yeah maybe they should back off that description just a touch

considering that medical school is nearly a decade yes the funny thing was the uh few months after i checked into seal team three they made me do a two-week rotation at mercy hospital And I got to hang out with the trauma doctors. And the first code that came in, the guy starts rattling through this stuff. And I'm like, I know everything that he's saying. No kidding. I did not actually. Well, and this is the interesting, you know, like the difference between being book smart and actually knowing stuff.

I knew everything he was saying. I couldn't actually identify it. But I could do the verbal verbal judo, right? Really? Oh, yeah. I mean, so it was, you know, it's really. Definitely. They crammed a lot of stuff into your head. I never got into the medical side of things to me. That was the only reason I chose me in a corpsman was it was my backup plan. I mean, just looking at it realistically, most guys don't make it through buds. I did not want to be on a ship. And if you're a corpsman, you have the option or the opportunity to go with the Marines. Yeah. And it's a skill that you could have transitioned out into health care or medical practice, a medical practice afterwards. 18 Delta, describe a little bit what it's like because I obviously, wasn't a corn because they don't you do an ambulance rotation now that was after after my time they

kind of went down the paramedic road uh so you did not get your paramedic circuit i did not okay i got emtb out of it which is nothing you know uh basically the first month was all uh just a mp which was funny because i had uh one of my buddies took around uh took a jacket copper jacket we're shooting heavily pitted steel up close, did not know any better. What year was this? This was 95? Okay. Okay.

Late 95 or early 96. I was just trying to determine how much you didn't know better. Because if you would have said in the 2000s, I'd been like, Bill, you knew better. After this, I knew better. Yeah. But he ended up taking a jacket through stomach, liver, and spleen. I drove him to the hospital. and I knew nothing about it.

I mean, I had, you know, Corman A school behind me, and I had like a month A&P behind me, and I was still like, drink some water. So you stay hydrated, which is like absolutely what you're not supposed to do with the gut injury. So, yeah, so first month was all A&P, and then you did these workups for, you know,

the big tests for trauma one, two, and three. Trauma one was a field setting, trauma two, surgical set, or, you know, a field surgical setting, and then trauma three was like a mass cas thing. And then the big thing at the time was being able to get two large poor IVs going along with your ABCs in six minutes.

So we all looked like heroin addicts because we were constantly doing IVs on ourselves and on each other. It was encouraged, hey, take this stuff home. I mean, literally, our instructors would say, here's cases of IV fluids, take it home so you can practice. I feel like they've probably changed that guidance.

Probably the culture is a little bit different now. That was my least favorite block of training when we would go through as the teams. Because you would see people and they're totally fine until they get the needle right by your arm and then it starts shaking. Like, stop, stop. Get away from me. Yeah, it's interesting. I had built it up in my mind that that was, you know, you could be a big, big tough guy and be scared of needles. I'm scared of needles.

I hate them. I'm, but again. I had to work on it. I had to overcome it and go, okay, you know what? This is, you know, by the end of it, I was starting lines on myself. That I can't do. I have no problem jabbing other people, but I can't sit there and watch somebody jab me. It's just, nope.

So I'm convinced you can be a big tough guy, which I'm not saying that I am and be afraid of needles. Because that shit's real. And so is spiders. Yeah. So then the other two big, big trauma test blocks. And then, you know, you had written tests all the time as well. It was a challenging, challenging course. And basically graduated from there.

And we had heard through the Crapevine that an STT class had just started on the West Coast. Seal Tactical Training. So what year is this now? 96. Would have been summer 96. So we were getting close to overlap because I was finishing up Buds, the tail. And I finished in fall of 96. Okay.

Yeah. So, okay, yeah, we were pretty close then. You came in obviously much earlier, but your pipeline was longer than mine. Yeah, it took me two years, two plus years. So I didn't have a life at the time. So I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to drive out and check in right away. Everyone else was going home on leave and whatever, visiting girlfriends or whatever.

And it's like, you know what? I'm just going to go in and check in. So I go check in. They send me to go talk to the, you know, the, it's the chief in charge of training. And I check in and he's like, oh, yeah, we just started STT, but all we've been doing is medical stuff. So you're not behind on anything. Why don't you join us? So that ended up being great.

Fortunous choice that you made. Almost put me a year ahead of my peers as far as, you know, platoons and all that stuff. So I went right through STT and then, you know, did a platoon, did my first platoon, deployed to the Middle East. How was that? Lame. Was it an ARG alpha? Yes.

What is the, ARG is amphibious ready group? What's the alpha part mean? I don't know. I don't either. Because I've heard of ARG Bravo's as well. They were going to a different place. Okay.

But essentially the big chips in those days was non-permissive boardings, right? Yeah. Did you guys get some of that action? I think we did one. It was lame. I mean, when we, so our... Well, hold on.

You are looking through this, through the lens of comparatively. At the time, I thought it was super cool. I mean, at the time it was cool. I mean, shoot, at the time, it was 98. And our ARG left like a week early, which is really very rare. And we steamed straight, didn't resupply in Hawaii,

steamed straight to Bahrain, 34 days, I think, straight underway. Because it was so important that we get there right away. And by the time we got there, like, things had calmed down. I know this was back when, you know, every year so Saddam would act up and we'd flex and then he'd back down again. So, yeah, overall, not a great, not a great deployment. Screened for the command after that deployment.

How'd you hear about the command? Whispers. I mean, literally it was, yeah. The struggle was real if you were a West Coast guy because people who left, whether they made it or not, they just was like, poof. they disappeared into this ether. So almost no information came back other than hey, this is the place that you want to be. But if they didn't make it, it's like, what happened to Bob?

Or like, nobody knows where Bob is. But Bob's not back on the West Coast. So was this roomint, the rumor intelligence mill. Yes. Yeah, we had a, our AOC assistant officer in charge had been at the command for a short period of time before he picked up a commission. Oh, I was going to say he had to be prior enlisted.

Yeah. So he would give us some stories and that was like, yeah, I think that's where I want to be. I heard about it, I think the most, I don't know if you'll recognize this name, but his name was Mike Mayer. Oh, yes. Yes. One of my buds instructors. He was one of mine too. And if I'm being totally honest, the most savage beating I've ever taken in my life.

And that's the term that was appropriately used for what is now called remediation in the PC world was from Mike Yeah, nightmare was his, uh, that was my first name platoon chief for a short period of time. And when I heard that, I considered handing my trident in and going to do anything. Because he, man, I was still in, what would they call it when I went through? I think they still called it fourth phase before it became PTRR. And I mean, I might have just gotten issued my greens. And he had his jaw wired shut. I don't know why.

It might have been a... I think he got it in a fight with someone. It might have been. He might still hunt me down and beat the crap out of me if I'm wrong about this. So let's just say it was wired and I don't know why. But his daughter was there. And he unmercelessly pounded the shit out of us for hours. And now I haven't gone back as a Bud's instructor.

There is guidance on how long you can do that stuff. He threw that three ring binder into the ocean. His daughter was walking through the ranks of students. and like laughing and pointing, kicking sand on people. Two people, the beating was so bad. This was over at 618. I don't know why we were in the court year out of 618 because that's the post-Hel Week barracks.

Two people got up and ran to the first phase grinder in search of the bell. They just bailed. And he's just like, with his dog, that's how bad it was. Two dudes literally got up and ran. And I will remember, I couldn't walk for a week.

Lunges, squats, lunges. It was mountain climbers. Do you get really good at just pretending to do the exercises, I think, as you, the longer you, it's one of the things that I really think is sets the teams apart. It's that the unofficial motto has always been, if you're not cheating, you're not trying. if you get caught cheating, you weren't trying hard enough, which is phenomenal for warfare and fighting, horrible way to live your life.

I couldn't agree more. Team guys screw that one up all the time. Yeah. I think a lot of that is instilled, and to give the beating example, right, getting hammered, you get hammered for, you know, an hour or two hours after some sort of a room inspection or whatever, some inspection,

and then it's getting to be where they're going to secure, you and they go okay you know pays to be a winner go hit the surf get wet and sandy and come back and you're on the stopwatch and they go okay that took you 45 seconds if you can do it in 30 seconds we'll secure the evolution and of course you just put out as hard as you can there's it's impossible for you to knock 15 seconds off of your time but you put that little nugget away and then the next time this happens and they say you know go hit the surf takes a minute 30 you it takes you twice as long. And then when they say, now if you can beat that time, then you can beat it. You know, and that's one of those things. You just, you start looking at everything as a game and,

hey, how can I, how can I make sure that I, I win this? How can I make sure I've got a little bit left in the tank for me? And as an instructor, you actually put those hooks out there for them to it's intentional. Yeah. Because you will do exactly that. Like, you have 15 seconds to hit the surf. you're standing in the first phase grinder. It'll take you 15 seconds to get to, you know, out of the fence line. Yeah, to the fence line. So it's impossible. Or you'll, I would use to negotiate with the OICs when I was there.

It was awesome. I'd be like, sir, how much time do you need to, this is from the second phase grinder now. How much time do you need for your entire class, wet and sandy? And also, I want a mouthful of seawater in everybody's mouth when they come back. He'd be like, instructor stuff. We can do it in 30 seconds. I'm like, yeah, you can. Go get some.

And then they would come back two minutes later because he's out there like inspecting people being wet and sandy. I'm like, okay, so we're going to have a little lesson now. And you just screwed your entire class. So you stand here while I punish your class. You don't get to participate. And I'd say, sir, how much time do you need to be like seven minutes? I'm like, I'll give you two. Get out of here.

But we learned those lessons. It's a good lesson to learn right there. The most valuable tool for those OICs of those classes was to not let them participate in the punishment that their men got. that left a searing mark, which I wish it left on more people that, you know, your actions might have consequences on those that look up to you. Yes, to your men.

Yeah. Yeah, it was a crazy, crazy tour as a Budz instructor. But Mike Mayer, fuck you. And you did that right after you left, right? Correct. Yeah, I went from when we were working together on the East Coast to Buds. As a second phase instructor. And full disclosure, Mike Mayer's awesome. He and I, he was really cool as the platoon chief.

He came in as Mike, not instructor mayor, which, let me just tell you, we're two different people. And that's why I first heard about the command and two guys from that platoon screened. One made it. One did not. The one that made it, I think he still might be there. I'll tell you his name afterwards just in case he's still active. And then the other one stayed in the J-Soc world, but went to a different color. never heard any got never got any good info from them though I'm like hey what to look forward to

to and yeah in selection because I screened in the platoon after that and the word we had gotten was oh dude God you're gonna run like 15 miles a day you just got to be able to run so I was doing 80 miles a week I think I checked in my first badge I look like I'm chasing a food truck like I needed to eat it was like 185 pounds and for me it's six foot 185 and then we get to Green Team they had just, I think it was Art Tolkien, was the notorious. He was the big runner. Yes, that was my error. And I heard it be dip in the mouth.

And if he put a dip in, you're like, oh, son of a bitch. It was when the chaa came out was when you had to pay attention. Because the straw was like the governor. And we'd pass the word. Dips out, right? And everyone would pass that down because then you knew he was going to, he was serious about picking up the pace. How far were the runs you guys would go on? Go on, you know, eight to ten milers.

That's a pretty long run. Yeah. I don't, the best thing about getting shot was the necessity to not run anymore. Like, no, I can't do that evolution. I don't want to run. I really enjoy it now. I ran nine miles in the mountains yesterday. You're on your own terms.

Yeah. You are running for you. I run slow. I enjoy it. You know, it helps, helps keep the weight off. It helps keep me strong. Yeah, I agree. I like to do almost anything when I have the choice onto the boundaries,

timeline. I don't like to do anything when there's a bullhorn involved and I'm not the one talking into it. I definitely did not enjoy those runs going through selection. I had heard horror stories. I legitimately was researching

like try out. I had a running log. I was figuring out like I need to be at 80 miles per week. So I get there and Tolkien had just left. We ran three times in selection. Three times. The pendulum had swung the other way.

I spent so many hours. And mores and days of my life running up and down. I would stay after work and be running like in dark. Like state park. Like no problem. Let's just get after it three times. Unbelievable. Yeah, I'd heard horror stories about Tolkien.

Like he would just, because he was a distance runner, right? Yeah. And he would just go and go and go. Yes. Pass. I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore. Oh, man.

So he screened for selection. How was that experience? I was, it was good. I was actually I had run into some guys at Danny's I think the night before or maybe two days before the actual It was during that week. So it was it was like a full week of you know taking tests and You know written tests and sitting down with the head shrinker and you know doing all this and then and then a board and a PT test and I think it was before the PT test Like I'm sitting with these guys at Danes and they're team guys, but but they're kind of a longer hair.

And it was funny because they were, they were asking me some leading questions. Like, hey, what, you know, you'll laugh at this. They're like, do you want to be an officer? And I was like, I'm like, no. Like, I want to go to the command. And that's the correct answer in that situation. And, and then they were like, yeah.

And they start telling me all these stories. That was a cool, cool experience. the uh so during my during my board so so i did the pt test i think i was puking within like a hundred yards of the finish line so they love that uh i'm at the board and they're like you know they know i'm open about my faith i'm a christian and the the psychologist goes now you say you're a Christian, but in the Bible it says, thou shalt not kill, and you are trying to go to a command where you might have to do that. How do you reconcile that? Damn. I just look at it. I'm like, well, David was a man after God's own heart, and they wrote songs about him, right? Saul is slain

thousands, and David is tens of thousands. So I don't think God will mind if I do the same thing, you know, in a righteous manner. And how did the shrink respond to that? He didn't like it, But you could see all the Trident Wairs were like, yeah. Like they liked it. It's interesting he took that tact with you. I wonder what, huh. Well, it's, you know, I'm sure there are guys that haven't thought through their willingness properly. I'd never looked at it in those terms.

But I was grounded enough to know, okay, there's a difference between murder and between killing and battle. Yeah, but I would think somebody in the seal community, you know, you don't, you don't end up there accidentally. And even in the pre-9-11 era that we both came in, there still was the kinetic. I mean, it's designed, I mean, I would say it's probably differently now, just based off the past 20 years now. 20-19 years of activity has reshaped probably the foundation of what the job is. But even pre-9-11, it was still, I mean, if you go into that job,

you have to go in it with the understanding that you might score up with another human being. Yeah. Fucking psychologist, man, or psychiatrists. They're always trying. You know, the first question. the very first question he looked at me, he goes, have you ever broken the law? And I looked right at him.

I was like, yeah, today. He was like, what? I'm like, yeah, I was definitely speeding on the way to work. And I jaywalk all the time and I drank underage. And he was just like, oh, okay. Rule breaker. No, then I asked him, I said, does anybody ever tell you no?

And he said, yes, sometimes they do. And those people don't do very well. Because it's, you have to be comfortable saying I'm not perfect, I think, is what he was going for. I don't know. I inherently distrust it, I mean, especially of that particular guy. Yeah, the screening process was an interesting one. That oral board at the end where you're on the inside of the horseshoe-shaped table set.

I remember that, yeah. As you sit there in your dress, I was in my dress blues, just like, do you guys, do you guys see my nam? Look at that. I have one. They called me out on shooting, too. They go, because you fill out the questionnaire and you always shoot in, competitively at the time. Like, you know, I'm like, I'm a, you know, they said rate yourself.

And like, I rated myself as high as you could rate yourself on the shooting. And then they look at my ribbons and I've got a, whatever, a Marksman pistol on there, which is like the lowest, the lowest pistol ribbon. And they're like, you rate yourself as an expert. But you're wearing marksman ribbons. I'm like, yeah, like I'm shooting competitively now. the last time I shot a quall was I think in buds a pistol quall so the old buds pistol qual that's awesome like yes I'm an expert marksman of every kind just hold your hand up and cover your ribbons

there's a couple people there's a master chief whose name will remain nameless but even in his CMC picture he's not rocking two E's got an E and an S an expert ribbon and then a sharpshooter ribbon. It's like, hey, man. Probably on the pistol side. It was 100% on the pistol side. But it's like, go put the work in an asshole. Yeah. It's not that hard. It's not that hard. It's like, front side, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. You're really accepting second place here, buddy. And we need better from you if you're going to expect better from your people. Like, go get the double ease on the old uniform. Yeah. Yeah, I had, I didn't know how it was going to go for me on that board because I had gotten in trouble in my first platoon at a bar in Tucson, drinking underage.

There was a knife involved running from the cops. And it was the very first question they asked me in the board. It was actually Aaron Ball when he goes, so tell us about Tucson. I was like, oh, God. And again, I just was totally honest. I was like, listen, this was the situation. This is who I was. This is why I made the decisions that I did.

And this is what I had learned from it. And then there was some master chiefs there. We're like, well, what if you were I, you and I are at a bar? Would you tell me to stop? And I'm sat there. I'm like, yeah, I would because I don't care anymore what your rank is. Like, if you're doing something wrong, I'm going to tell you. And they're like, hmm, okay.

But I figured it would be a coin toss going out of it. I had no idea how it was going to be. And then got a message. What is it? Like a month later? Yeah. Something month, month and a half later. And I, for me, I thought it was a double win because they said, hey, you screen positive.

And by the way, they don't want you to remain a corpsman. They want you to cross-rate because the way the Navy details, Corman was different. So I signed a blank piece of paper with the career counselor. That sounds legal. Yeah, I'm sure it was. Four months later, OIC comes up to me and goes, oh yeah, you're a radium in now. I'm like, check.

And then two months after that, he comes up to me, he goes, oh, yeah, you're not a radium anymore. Now you're an IT because they merged it. Okay. I end up making chief as an IT, which is hilarious because. I didn't know anything about. I had to take the OSC chief's test twice. That's even worse.

I passed it both times on BMRs, which is basic military requirements, which is an understanding of basically the rules of all branches of the military. And then when it came to the radar scope stuff, I was like, B, B, C, A, C, A, C, B, C, A, C, B. C, A, C, B. Multiple choices, your friend.

Oh, man, I was crushing time on completion of that test, though. I would really take my time on the BMRs, and then just zzz or make a reasonable approach. I mean, I couldn't even understand. You know you're in trouble when you don't even understand a single word in the question. I might as well have taken it in German. So I don't know.

How was a selection for you? It was good. Honestly, it was not, I did not have as hard a time with it. I mean, obviously it was challenging and stressful, but I thought sniper school was way harder. And there's guys, and that's just me. There's guys that are 180 that aced sniper school and couldn't make it through selection. Sniper school was hard, man.

I failed sniper school the first time. You did? For stalking, yeah. That is actually what got more people in my class as well. The shooting part. I did really well in the shooting. But the whole 200 yards plus or minus 20 off a mill was, I, I, I, played it much more like I actually had to make the shot, then, hey, this is a game. Like,

you don't, you don't set yourself up for, I have to stalk within 200 yards of my target while under, under observation, like you're setting yourself up to lose by doing that. So the second time I went through, I just looked at as a game and I crushed it the second time. It's hide and seek is basically what it is. Yeah. I screwed my entire class on the first talk that we did because I'm sure you saw this happen. One person will shoot and you kind of see where they are and you're like, okay, that must be 200. I took my shot from 280. And all but one person in the class matched my distance. So they all got zeros. You're welcome. My second time through, I got walked on once and the guy told me afterwards he goes, I couldn't see you.

But we're in the desert out in an island and you're the only bush there. I'm like, how does this, how is this even fair? Yeah. I remember the first week of stalking in sniper school. I could barely stand up because of the drag bag attached to my foot and the ab crunch that is crawling face down in the deserts of Nile. You know what I'm talking about? So you have, you have this gilly suit on, which. is a suit that's designed to keep warmth in.

It's just like crawling in a wetsuit. Yeah. Because it's got, what's the padding on the, it's like canvas? The whole thing, it's got the. Cordura. I think I made my own. Like this was before we got them issued.

So even the ones that were issued though. I mean, they were super thick on your belly side because you're crawling. And you're not, you don't really have your gun in your hands. You will at some point, but you're dragging it behind you. So it's looped through one of your boots.

So you do like this ab crunch and then you bring it up and for hours. Yeah. To which I realized it's a good thing to switch legs on a regular interval. I don't think I did a whole lot of,

I don't think I ever attached it to my leg. I think I attached it to my belt. I just had a loop. I would push it in front of me. Yeah, I didn't think about that one. I probably would have been better off pushing it in front of me. I remember watching some epic implosions

of people on stocks who were running out of time or they would make a bad decision. and get caught and just stand up and just start throwing shit when they got caught. Oh, yeah. Guys, loser. I mean, that's when I failed, man, that was a, that was a rough time in my life. Yeah.

I mean, that's like, you know, especially as, I mean, no one likes to fail, but then especially team guys, you know, it was a big deal getting to go as a first, you know, one platoon, or not, I wasn't even one platoon wonder. Those were my first platoon. Oh, wow. I got to go. And then I have to call, call the chief up and be like, sorry, chief, I failed. It's a tough course

Humbling, yeah I think I was a calm guy first in my first platoon And then I was sent to sniper school In between my first and second And became appointment after that If I look back, I didn't learn way more about fieldcraft In sniper school, just that understanding Of reading the terrain, moving through terrain, concealment

Cover wasn't really an issue Because obviously we weren't getting shot at Nor would you be able to take a shot through cover But then on the shooting side, man, to this day the understanding that that definitely set the foundation for me. There was a dude in my class who will remain nameless. But I went through class with some pretty cool dude. Like OB was in my class.

Okay. Yeah. Awesome. There was a dude who, oh, we have to lay it out. So when you go stalking, they would drop you off in a car or a truck, not a car. And an instructor would stand out with his hands and say, in this direction, I mean, sometimes it was a pretty good clip, too. Like out to say the stocks were 1,200, meters and then the uh or and then what was the the concealment was like 600 meters something

yeah and so they would point in a general direction and they'd say your time starts now and first you need to locate the observers so you know where you can move and so that'd be the first move but it's a desk with two people on it and there was a dude in my class who would wait until each one of the observers was trying to walk on like you know so you take a shot and the way it works is you take a shot and they'd move a walk or to within 10 yards right yeah and so that is occupying the attention of one person with binos. And this dude would wait until another shot was taken. And both dudes were on binoes.

And he'd have like this range fan on the front of his gun. He would just stand up and walk directly at the table. Because they were both looking through the narrow field of view of their binoes. And he would just wait until there was split. He'd do a full back dive straight up the middle and just plop down at like 200. Learned to be sneaky. There was more than one occasion where I'm just like crawling an inch at a time. And I hear footsteps and it's this asshole.

sprinting past me. Just like, no. But that was such a, that was such a key thing, though, that you would learn is that you've got to know, like this whole, I'm just going to stay on my belly and low crawl the whole time. Does not work. Like, you have to know where it is. I mean, I remember the first, the time where I was not successful at it,

you know, I'd have my, I would have built my, you know, onto my bipot, a giant, you know, bush, basically. And I'd be standing up behind. that thing looking one direction and then I'd look off to the side and be like, oh, there it is. And I have to turn. You know, and that's like total rookie move. You learn afterwards, like, it's worth, it's worth the risk. You've got to know where, you know, your enemy or your prey is at all times as you're moving on them. Otherwise, you can't make good decisions as to what terrain you're going to take, what, you know, dead space you're going to use to move in, all those things you can't do unless

you know where they are. I had that happen to me a few times. And it's because I was following the natural fall line of like a ravine. Yeah. And I just like, I feel like, and you'd pop over the edge with your binos. And I actually got busted on a stock like this. I was just sitting there with my binos and like, all right, maybe they're over that hillside. And they were like 50 yards off. They didn't even bother calling it a walker.

They're just like, hey, stumph, head back to the truck. And I remember putting the binoes down and looking over and be like, shame. Shame. Can we not tell anybody else that this just, they're just like dying laughing at me. Like in tears as I'm looking just off into the chocolate mountains like, where'd that desk go? The trials and tribulations of Sniper School. Yeah. I don't know if I would say Green Team was easier for me than Stuyper.

It was a challenge. I mean, it was different training that I had ever gone through. It was, so I went through in 2002. What year did you go through? 2000. Okay. So yeah, you were about two years ahead. me. Yeah, because they surged us a little bit early. And I don't know, maybe they didn't change

the training at all, but it was just different than the training I had gotten at Team 5. The training was good at Team 5, but it was definitely, I could tell, even upon first checking in there, it's like, oh, okay, this is a different animal for sure. Yeah, no, it was good. I mean, the training was, was excellent. It was just, I just think naturally I was more wired for that than, you're, or just came to me faster. You know, I also had the advantage of we had a guy that had just left the command that took over at our training cell at Steel Team 3. That's definitely going to help.

And had run all the CQB. So, like, so I had learned it, you know, what I would say correctly right from the get-go. So it wasn't, I mean, there was a few verbiage things that were slightly different. But like the overarching concepts were all the same. So there was some differences for me. And this is back in the time where team five had their own trade at or not even, they wasn't even trained. It was training cell.

Yeah. They all had the right. Yeah. Which, and you look back at hindsight, like so stupid. So much better now what they've got going on. Yeah. Aggregate all the knowledge and experience and everybody is the same product. But that was another one where I took to the clearance stuff.

That wasn't that big of an issue. But then I watched people where. it was just the geometry. You know, if you break it down, a lot of it's just geometry. It just unwound them. And then you added that stress. Yeah. And then people started getting ejected from the course.

I was like, God damn, man, this is for real. We had, I was just thinking, we had a guy that did not speak English very well that was going through our selection. Great guy. And we're doing clearance. And for all of us in the room, you know, for three of us in the room, it appears that there's a hostage start. target there. And this guy starts hammering what to us appears to be the hostage target. And he starts yelling at the same time, shoot the hostage, shoot the hostage. And all of us are just like, negative, do not shoot the hostage. And so in the debrief, so the guy, it was an actual

shoot target. But in the debrief after, I mean, aside from it just being absolutely hilarious, they're like, and I'm not going to mention his name. They're like, did you? was that a hostage? Do we shoot hostages here? No. Was that a hostage? No. Then why were you saying? What was his answer? You know, I mean, he barely spoke English. You actually, you know, we have to describe a little bit, though, the clearance problems in selection. Because it's not just four dudes going into a room. There's four dudes above you, one-to-one ratio of people watching your each and every movement. Yeah. And yelling continuously and cursing and...

And nothing is missed. Yeah. I mean, the guys are good at doing that, watching for every procedure that you're making sure that you're doing it right. Yeah. Yeah, I got to go back and do some for our direct support class. So I got to be an instructor role for that. It was hilarious because, you know,

I mean, we within the teams, we're very, we don't yell at people. I mean, like outside of a selection process, like debriefs are conversation. Yeah. Yeah, yelling doesn't add anything. You know, yelling, yelling serves a purpose if you're trying to pressurize something, right? If, okay, so you're going through a selection process, we're teaching you something, and now we want to see that you can do this under pressure, yelling at people is a way to increase the pressure. And there's one other great way, and that's a stopwatch.

stopwatch pain. There's a lot of other training modifiers that we can do. But, you know, peers or guys that are not, your instructors yelling at you is a huge way to increase that pressure. So having those guys just continuously, you know, yelling at you, absolutely can raise the pressure. But it's a good, it's a good model if you use it specifically for that. If you teach by just yelling at people the whole time,

like it really does nothing. would be, I look at that much more like hazing. Well, they turn you. You just shut off. I mean, people yelled me, I'm like next. Like, I'm not even, their information might be good, but I'm not even absorbing it. Yeah. Because it doesn't, it, one, it's just not, uh, if the information has not been installed,

you cannot add training modifiers because you're not, you're not actually helping them. Right. I mean, it's like, okay, you learn some new sweep when you're rolling. And, but you don't know the sweep yet. but now we're going to pepper spray you and try and tase you and try and throw tennis balls at you while you're doing this move that you don't even know yet. So far I like everything you've laid out. I think it.

This actually fits right into the bill, Rape your training program. I can imagine you actually doing precisely everything you just said. Oh, it can be of great value if the people already know that, if the information's already installed. Yeah, prior to that, it's completely important. Otherwise, it's hazing. Otherwise, you're not really, you're just pepper spraying and tasing and throwing tennis balls of people. Which can all be fun.

Which, yeah, exactly. I mean, it can have its own value. Correct. And more for the person doing that to somebody else. Exactly. Not really for the recipient. The recipient gets nothing out of it at that point. Yeah.

No, it's a fine line. I really enjoyed going back being a Bud's instructor and figuring out that role of being able to hold the standard but actually try to teach as opposed to just. And I'm sure you had this. We all had there was, it almost seemed like there was roles in the instructors. Asshole instructor in middle of the road. The Joker. Yeah, Joker. Too nice guy that makes you super suspect.

And I think back to like, almost anybody, anybody at any time that has yelled at me, I'm just kind of like, what did you say? I'm just, I turn it off. Yeah. And yet, finding that role that you can serve and actually teach people, I found it to be the most rewarding tour that I did was going back and actually interfacing with the students and trying to at least I mean they would be the ones who could accurately judge whether or not I taught them anything but at least trying to teach as opposed to

just being that authoritative figure so when uh what was your experience like up there in the squadrons when he first got there because you got there probably right before the first post 9-11 deployment no I got there pre 9-11 so let's say a two thousand yeah I went upstairs I think 9-11 happened our second or second cycle through. Okay. So what was the cycle like before the wartime deployment? I mean, obviously, I mean, lots of training.

So you would do standby, a workup, but there was no deployment. So what was that deployment block filled with? It was the individual training. Okay. So it's time to go to schools and all that stuff. Yeah, individual skill advancement. So, yeah, I mean, it was, it was, yeah,

I mean, not, not a, a lot going on pre-war. I remember sitting on the quarterdeck during 9-11. You had watched that day? Yeah. Well, actually, no, I didn't, but I had to fill in, you know, swimmer dude, right? Yeah. Yeah, so I'm good friends with him.

So he was there that week, and it was like, hey, you have, it was mandatory. You have to go and do this week-long class. My buddy plug him, Jeff Litch, he teaches. Navy SEALs how to swim better. He swims marathons. He's a good, good dude. His name is swimmer dude. His nickname is Swimmer dude.

Yeah, everyone, most guys don't know what his real name is. Which is how you know you have a badass nickname. Yeah. So he was there for the week. And so we had to go there because it obviously was not the most, I mean, team guys hate the water, period. And so then to be forced to swim, you know, for like three or four hours every day. It was not the most popular class. Yeah.

And so I had to fill in for this other guy who had the watch in the morning. And so I saw the first tower hit and then the phone just started ringing like crazy. And then I think he came back or someone else filled in for me. And I think I saw the second plane hit up in the team space. But yeah, what a... How quickly did things roll into action after that? Because I watched... There's all sorts of crazy ideas afterwards.

words like get the stingers out. I mean, like crazy. Fuck yes. Why don't we have the stingers out every day? Go up on the roof with the stinger. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. But I mean, the CMC the next day, like in the gym, he's like, you guys aren't going anywhere.

Really? Yeah. Way to rally and motivate the men. Yeah. And then, you know, and then we thought it would go the way that kind of we had, what we had trained for, which I think, you know, at the time was all just training for the next, you know, Operation Eagle Claw, like one, one big push in someplace and then it'll be done. So everyone was worried that we're going to, you know, you're going to miss out on the first one. And then, you know, it very quickly turned into the, you know, sustained combat operations model that, um, that you, that you saw. Oh, IF one became OIF 15 or whatever became. Same thing with OEF. Yeah. It just kept kept going. So our first OEF deployment was we didn't go over there until July of 2002. So it was politics within the command.

We were on alert, but we didn't end up going first. So we ended up being the very last rotation of all the guys that went over there. Very, I mean, you know, it was cool for what it was at the time. You know, we got shot at a little bit and got to do a couple hits. you know, did a lot of driving around the countryside. But really, you know, like Big Picture didn't really know what we were doing yet. We were still doing the, you know, land on the Y or land on the X and go go storm chirping. Which is a time and place for that.

But it needs to be justified via the risk. But we were still doing that for stuff that we shouldn't have been doing that on. Well, I linked up with you after that rotation because I remember you guys had just gotten back. and then, yeah, we worked together until 06 when I left. Yep. And our first tour together was initial invasion. Correct. Yeah.

So that helicopter ride to the agricultural school. Yes. Mop level four. Get some of that ride. That is one of the stories that I have talked about and people are like, what? The number one Kempio Target was an agricultural school. I was like, yeah, 100%. Do you remember the Intel briefs they used to give us?

Oh, yeah. Like we were like, oh yeah, this is definitely there's sarin, sarin gas everywhere. And that little stupid ass greenhouse that they wanted soil samples from. I think we blew it up. Of course we blew it up. No, I think it was not intentional. I think one of the breaches. No, I'm pretty sure a Havarsack charge was put next to that structure and it was vaporized into the neps, you know, stratosphere.

I'm pretty sure I saw you, because I think we were on the same helicopter. That was the one where, yes, you saved that dude's life, right? I'm not going to claim saving anybody's life. You did. But I remember you running off that helicopter with a quickie saw. Yes, I remember that. It was choking me because it was, I had it on, I had a 60 sling attached to the Alice pack that was holding the thing. And it kept going, it kept cutting off my blower hose.

I had the same thing happening to me, but it was just my M4 sling. I ripped my gas mask off right after initial entry on that building. I remember going through the thought process of I would rather die from whatever chemicals in this room that is obviously stacked with textbooks for agriculture than suffocate because my fucking eyeballs were touching the lens of the gas mask. I was sucking it to my face. It was pretty cool, though, flying in, well, aside from getting... It's not for getting shot at for the last minute. Getting shot at the whole time. Once we actually landed and we're running and the little birds were...

Gunfight going on everywhere. Yeah, that was pretty awesome. Remember, I mean, we flew directly in front of the burning transformer station. Because they didn't get permission to drop the infrastructure until we were on short final. I know. And then it totally backlit us. Which, for anybody... I've got pictures of us standing in front of that helicopter right the next day.

Yeah, and I was looking out of that right rear window, and there's bullet holes all around. Did you know we were getting shot at? Yes. I did not. I was seeing sparks inside of the aircraft. I was too. I just thought that was part of the normal process inside of that helicopter. I was sitting there, and I remember getting the one minute.

I didn't know that things had gone totally south until that dude's head exploded in front of me. And then I said, oh, shit. because again, mop level four through nods, which are already a soda straw. So then you're looking through a soda straw, through a soda straw. And I'm just sitting there and just like, well, that's a little light show going on here.

I had no idea. That's right. Because you, okay, I got it mixed up a little bit. It was your jacket that was used to save his life. Correct. It was one of our EOD guys. Who never got off the helicopter. Who got stuck.

He had such a heavy pack on. that he was like a turtle on his back and couldn't get up. And then the helo took off and he is like, man, I missed the big one. And then he looks over and this dude was shot in the head one of the doorgunners. Correct. And I remember he was listed as expectant, which is probably not going to make it. And he survived. I think he got some loss of vision.

The other guy that was shot on that mission was a ranger. Which is how we met Pat Tillman. Yeah. He was a sawgunner. And that guy was gut shot and he died. I think a few months after that. Did he really? God damn.

That's what I heard. Yeah. And then Tillman took, because Tillman was too junior to roll with us at the time. And then when that guy got shot, he ended up running the saw for us. Yeah. And that's how we ended up meeting Pat and Kevin. Yeah. Kevin came up and stayed at our house for four or five days.

Cool. He's cool. I mean, they're from San Jose as well. So that connection to SoCal. what a absolute travesty and tragedy with his brother. And I mean, I had some really good time to talk. I'm not even going to go into any details. I'd love one day to sit down and get his experience,

but he's just quite frankly not ready. I mean, that whole thing. That was just devastating. Yeah. For sure. But yeah, that target, I didn't realize how Swiss, how would it be Swiss cheesed? Swiss chosed our helicopter got until the next morning when we walked out there.

and I'm sitting there like, I was standing right there. I mean, bullet holes all around. I feel like people were like reaching up to like scratch their ass and be like, piero and they would just sit back down. They're like, oh, it's a little breezy in here. Yep. I mean, how many, we had 30 people in that bird.

Yeah, it was packed. 28 holes in it, zero impacts. One guy. Yeah, the door gunner. Like how, I don't even know. And if you sat there and we stuffed everybody in there, everybody. It's amazing, yeah. Yeah, it was crazy.

I remember having coffee the next morning. No, OB was having coffee because I wasn't having my coffee yet. I rolled out of bed and OB was sitting there like rubbing his eyes. And I remember saying to him, hey man, I don't think we're going to live if we keep doing shit like this. It was God's providence right there. I mean, yeah, it would be hard to recreate that and not have more guys shot. I don't think it would be, it had to have been hitting and deflecting. I mean, I don't know.

The number I have I found the because I remember I took some of those cameras that you had to afford with. Yeah. I took some pictures and I found those and the sides of those 47s are just reddled. Yeah. It almost looks like shotgun just like, just spackled. Yeah. And then didn't we do Jessica Lynch number two? I don't think it was either two or three.

I think Tharthar was three. Good old Lake Tharthar. I wasn't like running around in a completely abandoned structure. I thought the key takeaway there. I mean, other than the fact that it was just awesome with, what do we have 50-some aircraft supporting us that night. And the door gunners were just... Intel ween had, like, drawn a red line and said,

when you pass this line, Saddam's definitely going to use chem bio stuff, or he's going to use chem stuff. So we had our JS-less suits on, no masks on. And we thought this was going to be, you know, bad. And I remember the Rangers had briefed, or we'd asked them for covering fire on this. So by the time our helo got there, I mean, the doorgunners just won, whammering down these castle towers. We land. The Rangers are just hammering with 240s and golden egg, just kak, go, go, boom.

And I'm just going, wow, this is awesome. As you goes, I'm running in, we had primary entry. I was right behind. Yeah, and we get in, and it's like, where's everyone? Why is all the shooting going on? And then in the debrief afterwards, we're asking the Rangers, we're like, why were you guys shooting?

And I'd nothing but respect for Rangers. Like those guys, I had some great, they're good, good Americans. You know, it's just a classic example of speaking the same language, but miscommunicating. Generally, well, now I would be more careful with my word, my verbiage. But at the time when we said we wanted covering fire,

what we really meant was we wanted the threat. of covering fire. They're like, but they're like, hey, you said you wanted covering fire. Like this, you know, Lance Corporal so-and-so

brought an extra 300 rounds for covering fire. Yeah. And yeah, that was a fun. It was a fun, fun hit. That debrief should have gone like,

so there we were. 15,000 rounds expended. Nobody was on target. Put a dollar number on that one. Like how many blade hours and, you know, I think we did get Seanette in our helo as we were leaving We did yeah I remember we got lit up

And the door gunner just longest mini gun burst ever Yeah just I'm just watching this freaking red beam of death I was like just fully appreciating it too Like you get somebody You get some of that action Yep and then to Jessica Lynch And then to what can only be called

The Bird Shit Hanger Yes Yeah that was Wow I mean just just talk about a paradigm shift. I remember when I first checked in at at Sail Team 3, I looked at some of the guys that were, you know, the season guys, senior chief that was, you know, running training cell at the time and he'd never done anything for real.

Yeah. And I remember being horrified that that would be me. And just thinking to myself, man, if I just get to do one thing for real. And then we fast forward a little bit to. Wasn't it crazy? In the hangar and it's like, man, this is lame. Like it's been, you know, we've done two hits and now we've been sitting around for the last eight hours and haven't done anything. Like, we've been here for a fortnight and have done nothing. It's like, Bill, we were out all night last night banging targets.

Like, oh, yeah, okay. I remember, yeah, when I first got to Team Five, Mike Day was at Team Five. And he was one of the snipers that was in Somalia. Yeah. And he had a BV. And it was just like, dude. Big deal. It was a huge deal.

I didn't know anybody else who had ever actually done anything for real. And like you said, fast forward. Not to, that BV is awesome. And I'm sure he got it for things that were totally deserved. But then you fast forward 20 years. And there's people that just have racks of that stuff. And it's amazing how much people were worried like, I'm going to miss it. I'm going to miss the whole thing.

And in the end, it was like, be careful what you wish for. Because you might get what you want and then a whole heaping. And a huge dose on top of it. of it. You were already rolling back in like 2002, 2003. What discipline were you doing? I started doing jih Tzu in 2001. Okay.

Because I could remember that you rolled, but I never rolled with you for the life of me. I could not remember. Yeah. So how did you find Jitsu? So I had, I mean, I'd wrestled in high school,

and then I'd done various other martial arts, you know, as a kid. early in the teams. And honestly, I kind of wanted to do blade stuff. And so I went to Frank's place first. Okay. And did a trial class there. And it was a lot of yes or no, sir.

And was Frank a team guy? Yeah. Okay, that's what I thought. And so I was kind of like, you know what, this probably isn't a good fit for me. It was very militarized? Yes. Very, like, kind of more what kids kind of need. Almost a traditional martial arts protocol.

Yes. Okay. And then I went to Gestav. I think a week later and walked in and it was just this dank mat room. You know, it was still a canvas, canvas covered mat, no heater AC.

I think the actual location was like under a bridge. I just walk in and just like, this looks like home. Yep. And, you know, jumped in and, you know, had no,

no girlfriend, no, you know, I didn't drink. really no life outside of the teams and training. So when I started rolling, it was I rolled every night and Saturday mornings. And I did that for years until I met my wife. That was just if I was home, that's what I was doing.

If I was on the road, I was walking into play. In fact, when I went through the tandem course, I'm like three weeks, you know, and tandem course is pretty brutal on your body, but I'm like, I can't not roll for three weeks. And so I'm in Tucson. I look up and find this little jiu-jitsu school close to the Marriott there. And I remember walking in. And this guy, Demetrius, is running the school. And we start talking a little bit. He's like, so, what are you, a blue belt? And I'm like, actually, I just got my purple belt. You know, I'm like, hey, you know, I introduced myself. I'm a respectful. So are you a blue belt? I'm like, I just got. Just got.

got my purple belt. He immediately stands up and starts putting his gie on. He's like, let's roll. Let's take this new purple belt for a spin. So we roll. He was a brown belt at the time. We roll for probably 10, 15 minutes. He caught me with a knee bar.

And afterwards, he shakes my hands. He goes, you are a true purple belt. You are welcome at my school anytime. That's awesome. It was so cool. And I just feel like jujitsu has kind of been that way for me. It's opened so many doors. I feel like I would get punked so much in what I do now in teaching

if I didn't have that baseline of jiu-jitsu. Why do you feel like you'd get punked? Because, I mean, so when I, with Amtack shooting, that's my primary business now. And I teach shooting and fighting. Yeah. And overwhelmingly, it's not just shooting. You know, there's a lot of guys that can teach how to shoot well.

There's not a whole lot of guys that can teach you how to shoot and fight in the middle of it, right? So going from grappling to pulling either a blade or a pistol out and just be able to flow in between those things. And so while you're, right, I don't travel with my, you use a Japanese of the Uke, right? Your assistant that allows you to throw him, right? Like, I don't have one of those.

So it's just, hey, you're in my class. Come out here. Like, so you're demo and stuff. And generally the guys that take classes like this are all, they're all type A guys. They want to learn. Some guys truly the only way they learn is by experience. Like they don't get it until you apply some force.

And they're like, wait a minute. Like I'm actually trying to do something and it's not working for me. Other guys will actually try and like get stuff on you. And so just having that grappling base is just like, as soon as you feel and do something else, So you just change into something else and be like, okay, yeah. So I would just transition to this if that was what was going on. But that's not what I'm trying to teach right now.

So don't do that. Yeah. Do you still roll? So we do a thing called Father's Son Ministry where we do about an hour of jihitsu or something fighting. And then we do about a 15-minute Bible lesson. And then we do another 30, 40 minutes of life skill, everything from shooting to dress and pigs to start fires like basic man stuff uh so i've been doing that almost since i've been there now so i actually

have some some of the they were boys when they started and they're men now so i'll roll with those guys uh we've got a couple guys that have moved in that roll um but no like i don't have a school you don't have a coach yourself i don't have a coach myself i mean i like i'm still under Gustavo in Virginia Beach but I don't really ever make it out there anymore I need to like so it's really like sometimes on the road like they'll be good dudes and I'll all train with them when I'm there and it's always you know huge breath of fresh air when I get to roll with dudes that are better than me. We've been added for a long time man in 01 I mean that's pretty early on if you look at the grand scheme of at least most especially in the seal teams yeah

like I said I knew you were wrong I had no idea what it was Yeah, so yeah, under Gustavo Machado and Virginia Beach. How far did you make it through the Belt Tree? One stripe, black. Awesome. Yeah. Awesome. I'm glad that I don't have time to roll with you after this.

I was really hoping, Andy, that... We could roll tomorrow morning. Since you're training now. I train usually six days a week. That's awesome. But I always started two years ago. Yeah. And full disclosure, I did because my buddy wouldn't shut up about it.

And I said, if you will just stop talking about Jiu-Jitsu, I will go to a class. And then I went, I'm like, oh, this is. is awesome. That's great. I was almost, you know, it happens in the teams more often than not. I think you get somebody super fired up about something and they almost turn you off to it because they're so fired up about it. CrossFit. That would be actually a good example. That's actually a very good example. Man, talk about something that's polarizing. Well, that's killer that you got your black belt in jujitsu. Yeah. That's been a great, you know, just so really enjoy it. Really, you know, love

teaching our local kids and, you know, it's something I do with my boys. My boys are wrestling now and then and then also roll in and just cool to... I like watching women get into it and then getting to a place where they realize, oh, I'm going to be just fine.

And they can control angles, you know, and leverage and it's... I mean, I think about it for my daughter. Like, the one thing I just don't ever want for hers to be in a place where she feels physically threatened and I can't think of a better skill than those particular tools. In addition to others, obviously it's not a magic wand.

It doesn't solve all problems, but it's a great foundation. What it does is it allows you to solve violence with a lower level of violence. It allows you to solve it with a lower level. If you choose to. It's a martial art for sure. Oh, for sure.

And it can get as martial. And my theory on this is, is it will get as martial. as you force me to make it. But you will choose the person, the other participant in a true violent encounter will determine that.

I will try to go with the lowest common denominator. It lets you choke out your drunk friends without hurting them. When it comes to actually, like if I have, you know,

this is something I've spent a ton of time thinking through, like if I have 20 minutes before bad people are coming through this door and, you know, we don't have purpose built tools

with us. Like we're not doing jiu-jitsu, right? So there's a certain point, if I have two days, we're still not doing jiu-jitsu. If I have two weeks, we might talk about staying on your feet. Yeah. If I have 20 years to teach someone, we're starting with jiu-jitsu.

For sure. Because I have that time. So, like, that's the approach I take with our local kids is, like, here's a skill that takes a long time, right? I mean, when I started doing jiu-jitsu, I had already wrestled. I was 23 years old. I had been, you know, it was in phenomenal shape. and it still took me probably two months before I caught someone ever with an arm bar that didn't want to get caught.

Yeah. If not longer. For most people, yeah. Yeah, for most people, it probably, you know, like, I was pretty fast at it because I did have a history of grappling and, you know. Well, and you'll always been athletic too, and that stuff. I mean, you either kind of win the genetic lottery with that or you don't. But yeah, yeah, I wish I had started a long time ago, but it's helped. The past two years going there and just kind of just shutting your brain off.

So good. Yeah. I mean, just to be able to get in there and go hard and, you know, be challenged and, you know, have to do that mental, mental chess, you know, well-winded is, it's great. It does have to go on the record, though, that I have been on target with you when you called for a PC assist. I did. And I bet you that's the only time that's happened in your career. I stopped doing it after that. Well, I look back on it now and it's like, you know, like after that, it became, you know, before that, it was, that was SOP. like you were supposed to do that. Call PC assist. After that, it was like,

it turned into like this shameful, like, don't call for PC assist thing. But yes, Andy Stomp, saved my life. I didn't save your life. There was no round in the chamber.

Let's go ahead and, let's tell the story on that one. I will tell it from my perspective. All I remember seeing is a dude, you chime in. All I remember seeing as a dude jump up in a mosquito net and you said,

I'm pretty sure I got him. And that's the last I saw and I went over the wall. So to set the stage, we'd walked into that target. I had carried a ladder because I remember the mission before that. You were jumping on my back trying.

Remember us laughing like schoolgirls on the side of the wall because you ran and double knee dropped me trying to like, trying to climb up my back to get on the, on the roof of that building. So we did that and Andy made it up. I did not make it up on that particular one. So the next time we're like, hey, let's bring ladders with us. So hump this ladder in.

I'm senior to you. So I get to go up. You demanded that you went up first. Hugely. Yes. I'm like, I'm going up first. Because there was like there was a, you know, enemy sentry on the roof like with a flashlight. I'm like, I'm getting up there first.

Like, I'm going to be able to shoot. Get up there. There's a dude sleeping with a single barrel shotgun next to him. I start talking to him and the local, you know, in Pashto, giving him commands. Andy looks like, okay, you know, and moves past me to go cover. You appear to have this handle. Oh, yeah. Because this was not the actual objective roof.

It was not. It was the adjoining one. Yeah. So I am, I'm giving this guy commands. I have him stand up, I have him come over, and I'm going to turn the guy around and cuff him, and he grabs onto them to my suppressor. Reed Knight and on the end of my 10-5-inch, right?

He grabs onto the thing, and I just remember, I'm like, oh, okay, just go, I grab tie clinch on the guy, and I just start dropping knees on him. Would have been with an ROE to shoot the guy when he was laying there, right, sleeping century. Yep. So he grabbed my gun. Would have been with an R.O.E.

but at the time it was just like you know we didn't have the fidelity of the intel that we had later on in the war and so it was just like yeah i don't need to uh in as i've thought about this a lot since then like like that was a weakness of mine of of being maybe a little bit too comfortable we were having we were hesitant at that point though too yeah so i grab this guy i drop a bunch of knees onto his face i throw him now on the ground. And this dude is, you know, shaved head, big beard, you know, kind of looks like the essential moge. And he keeps bringing his arms into his armpits, which we dealt with guys or some of our friends had dealt with guys that had rigged grenades in their armpits that were hanging from the pins and, or from the rings, rather. And basically all they had to do was just pull and let go.

And so I'm trying to isolate his hands and I'm calling for a PC assist. And this guy's screaming bloody murder while this is going on. PC assist means send more bodies. Yeah, give me a hand. Yep. Basically. Give me a hand to help control this too. And so while this is going on, Andy's covering into the courtyard where the assault is fixing to take place.

And then he happens to look at what all this commotion is. and lo and behold, there's a dude sneaking up behind me with an AK. And so Andy Hammers the guy. I believe he did a backflip down the stairs after you shot him. And in my mind, I still remember this just like it was, you know, like it just happened. In my mind, I'm going, that son of a bitch, Andy. I was first up the wall. I'm supposed to be shooting people.

And so that's what's going through my mind. And then I'm doing the mental math. I'm like, I can stand up and try and get in on the shooting as well. And then this dude's going to grab that shotgun and kill me. So I'm like, now can't do that. I have to keep controlling him. Oh, this was early on. Early, yes, early, early in the war before we knew what we were doing.

So thank you. Andy. I don't think he had a round chambered. Well, which is actually a poor move to grab an AK and start climbing up a set of stairs. Poor move. Like if you're going to come to the party, bring you party favor ready to go. No, I remember so I had hopped over and heard the scuffle ensuing, wasn't paying attention to it because I was just covering the movement

until the assault force made it to their entry points. And then turned around and that dude was like three stairs up and moving rapidly. And yeah, somewhere in there you called for PC assist. And while you were thinking, oh, Andy, you son of the bitch, you're shooting, I was thinking, did fucking Bill Rapier just call for PC assist? I will never, ever forget that that happened. And now everyone knows. I know.

Because I remember you just, I was like rolling and grappling. I'm like, oh, log one for me. Because now I have something. What a shit show. Yeah,

that was. Yeah. My knees were bruised the next day. I remember, I remember like walking going, wow, why do my knees hurt? And then I'm looking at it.

I'm like, why do I have blood all over my knee pads? That's what happens when you... I bruised my knees on his head. Yeah, when you put somebody's nose from, the front of their face to the side of their face. Yeah.

What did we end up doing with that guy? Because didn't we detain him or did we leave him? No, we took him up. We took him with. Who knows? Catch and release just like we did. I was going to say. Probably.

Oh, man. Yeah. How the hell did we get on that? I was rolling and the fact that you had to call for PC assist. Grappling. Yeah. Yeah. And then I think that was actually the last appointment you and I did together because the next one I did was

with the A squadron guys. That's right. I was very jealous. You got to go over there and do more cool stuff. I think your career turned out okay, Bill, and the aggregate. It did. So how long did you end up staying there? Until I retired.

How many total years? Like 15? 14 and a half. That's a long stretch. Yeah. When did you switch squadrons and why did you make that choice? They told me that's where you're going to go. Okay.

So you were Vaughn told. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is interesting. Lou wanted to go back to that particular squadron really badly and like did not want to go to our old squadron. I was kind of more like I would have rather gone back to our old squadron but didn't care as much. Yeah, you're still at the right place. Interesting how, you know, how that ended up working out.

I mean, there's times when I was just like jealous of Lou. Like, man, like he's with my old guys. know fate has a you know or whatever however you'd want to look at it i mean lou uh died on extortion 17 with i mean a helicopter full of people we both knew yeah bunch of good friends yeah i mean if we had both stayed if you had stayed or gone back to that i mean that was too true it likely would have been us in those helicopters as well yeah yeah think about that um not incredibly often but when i do think about that particular incident what a what a travesty it actually infuriate to me i was on Facebook, which is the really bad opening to any sentence.

I think we could agree upon. Horrible. But every once in a while, like every year, there's this article that floats around of how Obama sold out the command. And like somehow the downing of the helicopter was an inside job. Or even an inside job at all. Yeah. And I want to just get on there and just type some things that I generally avoid trying to do

or behave that way. And it's just, it's futile. The things that people will latch on to. too. It just frustrates me because I know it's so many people. It's sad because they're, you know, it's, they're dealing with grief and they're, you know, they're trying to, they're trying to, to, I think sometimes, and this gets into a lot of the conspiracy stuff. They, people want to think that like, there's people controlling every aspect of it instead of just going, you know what? We'd all talked about that. Hey, one of these days,

we're going to lose a bird. And, and now was just part of the deal. It's like, hey, this is like, it's known. I mean, I was shocked the. didn't happen before. When I heard about that incident, I actually, I mean, even in OIF 1, when we were on the refueler going into that chem biotarget, the missiles, the surface air missiles went underneath the refuel and they detached and left. Yeah. And it, I mean, those were, if it would have hit, it wouldn't have been because of some crazy

technological advance. It would have been by pure random happenstance. And they got a lucky shot off. I mean, that's, that's what happened. I mean, it's war. Like, people die in war. And like, that's just the way it is. I just can't imagine being a family member or somebody who knew those people and then seeing.

And because it's this stupid conspiracy article comes up and then it starts getting spread light wildfire. Every time it's like, come on. Like, you really think that the president had some back channels to some Taliban dickface with an RPG and a Bush? Yeah. The best RPG shooter in the world was called in for, you know, I mean, it was it was. was a lucky shot. It was. And thankfully, they don't even fly straight. You know, I've watched those things corks through or take 90 degree turns. I mean, it's just, I don't know. I had to think, I spent a lot of time thinking about what happened to me on Target. And my initial thought was,

okay, I did something wrong. And I went through that night over and over and over again. Like, what did I do wrong? Where should I have been? And where I landed after talking to other people who were there is that nothing. Somebody saw me before I saw them and raised it. How it goes sometimes. raised a gun up, absent aiming it, full Somali style, just raised a gun up and went full auto. I mean, what can you do about that? That's kind of the risk we inherit when you, you know. You train as hard as you possibly can. You know, you try and not make mistakes.

And then at the end of the day, like, you can, you can do everything perfectly and still die. Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, and that's something like you need to, if you're going to be in that profession, like, that as part of the, like, that's what you're volunteering for. you're volunteering for getting wounded, getting killed. Like, you're volunteering for all of that. You don't want any of that stuff to happen. Yeah. But as part of your willingness, you have to recognize and go,

hey, all these bad things can happen to me by doing this job. And yet I'm still going to volunteer and do this job. Yeah, it's a, what a bizarre occupation. When did you get married? 07. When did you start having kids? 08. So at the height, I would say, of probably the kinetic nature of at least OIF. I think Afghanistan had probably been on the decline for a while. Did that change anything about how you viewed the job or how you trained or prepared? The first deployment post-marriage was definitely different. Like it was harder for me mentally. Just because I'm married. I had a stronger desire to not get killed than. before.

You know, there's Old Testament stuff that talks about, like the young men when they get married, they shouldn't go to war for the first year. And I see a lot of wisdom in that. Like, at the time, I, you know, I wasn't thinking about that. And, you know, obviously within our occupation, we don't, we don't get the luxury of just saying, I just got married. I get to take a year off now. You could try, but you're still going to be on the same airplane.

You're still going to be on the same airplane. Exactly. Like noted, Bill. Good on the bird. But it's, you know, it was a little bit different for me that that first appointment post, post marriage. How'd you manage it? I prayed a lot. Yeah.

I mean. How about with the, how many children do you have now? Six. You're going to have more? We'll see. Okay. Ongoing negotiations. Ongoing negotiations.

So you have, I think, a basketball team. Isn't that how many people are out there? I don't know. Not a team, but you have like. one side. I don't play that game. Okay. Or maybe Waterpola.

I don't know. You're fielded in quite a sporting team. How did, uh... We could run three wrestling matches simultaneously. Perfectly. Or jiu jitsu matches. Or jihitsu match. For sure.

As you started having kids, did that change your... Your headspace at all? Not as much as getting married. Really? Yeah. I mean, and so, and, uh, so I, we were still on a nine-month cycle when When I got back, I basically had six months before I was going down range again. So I had two months to get a ring and ask her dad.

And then pop the question, two months to plan our wedding. And then two months of being married and then deploy. Yeah. I found out she was pregnant about a week and a half or two weeks into that first deployment. We were in J-Bad at the time. So I remember sitting in a tent on the little Panasonic tough book. Yeah. I, so my oldest son Riley turned 17 on Sunday. Wow. Wow. I got the ultrasound when we were in Birdshed Hanger on the only package that we received. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It's a trip. I for myself personally had to find a way to and I, and this is not, it's not, I don't know how to describe it. It's not malicious. I had to find a way to not think about my wife. wife or kids or to detach them from my thought process. And I would usually do it at like the five

minute outmark. I would make a conscious effort to think about each of my kids and about my wife and then kind of have my moment with that and then move past it and try not to think. But I actually systematically had to create a way to do that. And then I felt like I could pack my brain and then be way more effective. Super important to be able to compartmentalize. Right. So one of the things we talk about is having, right, you have different personas, right? You, at the time, you know, one of your personas was you're an assaulter. Also, another persona is husband, father, you know, and down the line. You have to be able to compartmentalize those.

So as I look at my, so my persona is Christian, number one, I'm a husband next, father number two, and then I do a bunch of other stuff. But I have to be able to, if I mix those up and go, okay, man, I'm really thinking about wife things right now. And I need to be thinking about shooter things right now. You might not be able to go back to the wife because of that. So it's super important that you're able to. I mean, it's one of the things I tell the cops I teach.

It's like, hey, when you put that patrol belt on, like, it's go time. Right? You put on the mask and it's like, hey, this is, I'm no longer, like, I cannot think about the fight that I had with my wife last night. Like, that is done. Right now I'm thinking about my job because if I don't do, that. I sell them, like I cheat them because I might not make it back to finish that conversation and to make it right. So super important to be able to compartmentalize that stuff. I think the risk in

it is that some people get lost in that compartmentalization and they never deal with the after effect or they can never law enforcement, man, I feel for them because even when the belt is off, like the actual Batman belt, they're still on. You know, because they work and live. I think we had a benefit of getting on a bird and having that transition and coming back and realizing I don't really have to worry about any of the shit I was just worrying about for the last 90, 180, 12, whatever it may be. But yeah, I think that compartmentalization is a, as a knife that will cut both ways. You cannot, you can't compartmentalize for too long. I think that's where some guys would be like, they compartmentalize for 90 days and just

be like, I'm not going to think about the whole deployment or, you know, back in the day, you know, six month or. right like i'm just like i'm not married anymore you know like that causes a huge set of problems which is why you have to organize them and go okay what is my primary identity what's my secondary you know what what is the order of importance for me within these identities and then never allow a lower identity to cause problems with a higher one or or or when they do cause problems sometimes with a higher priority identity you need to be able to rein it in and look at it and go okay wait a minute, I'm actually a little bit off mission right now.

Like if my, whatever, if my family's falling apart because I'm too much on job, right, then I need to, I need to rein that in. It's a tenuous balance. And I would say totally anecdotally, I would say a lot of people in the community fail at that balance. Yeah. I did for a bit. I mean, the divorce that I'm going through is a lot of it is from not dealing with shit that happened in the past. And you put enough time and space and resentment in between there.

it becomes a difficult task. Yeah. Not impossible, but, but difficult for sure. So I was, I'm going to assume that zero dark 30 is your favorite movie. Tell me how accurate it is, Bill. From everything I've read,

uh, it sounds, sounds, uh, well, I mean, sounds like there's probably still some mistakes in it. I think so too.

That was more towards the tail end of your career, I'm assuming. Yeah, I believe that. happened in 12. Okay. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I'm just curious about there's so much mystique that has always built into things like that. I think I was still, I was still in the military, but pretty far detached. I was already working through the medical retirement product. Like I already knew that that was going to be the end state. I just had to hit so

many wickets along the way. And I think that probably one of the biggest dangers to the seal community is defining it by that one evening in and of itself. And I, I guess what I'll ask is this. Was it as big of a deal as everybody makes it out to be, or was it another day at work? Again, from everything that I've read. Yeah. It was a big deal. Okay.

Because you knew some of the guys who might have been there, did they treat it like that? Or was it just another objective? I mean, I guess you wouldn't have known it was a big deal until the end result. But, I mean, even when I was over there, like they would talk about, Sometimes I could do, the big Mish is coming. I think if you were at that command for a period of time, you've been on at least four to seven big Mishes. There was, I mean, there was a bunch of times when, hey, the big Mish is coming up, right?

You know, so in a way, you know, it's just another. It's the big, the big Mish. Yeah. What are your thoughts on the people who have written books about that evening? Actually, I'm not going to ask you about the individuals. What are your thoughts on the books? I haven't read a book about the SEAL teams since, I mean, I've read Jack Kars. Jack Ketty.

Yes. Which is fiction tied into a lot of like accuracy at the same time. I've really enjoyed his books. I haven't read an actual like like historical book about the teams since I was in high school. Probably won't just because I do know all the guys. Yeah. And it's. it has hurt the teams by doing what they're what they're doing.

I agree with you. And I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to name it. We can talk about it at a super broad level. But I think, I think you're correct as well. I mean, I think now the,

you know, the part of the, what has to be going through the decision makers, you know, mental calculus is, yeah, here's a group of guys that will get the work done. But then they're going to talk.

talk about it a lot afterwards. You know, people are getting kicked out of buds due to social media posts. Really? I mean, think about it. I remember giving guys thumbs down to come to the command because they had MySpace accounts. What an asshole, Bill. I don't think I ever logged on to my space.

You know, it was, I remember it was in that little building. It was like medical stuff. And then it was MWR for a while in Bath. And there was some internet computers there. Yeah. Well, I remember being in there. And the guy's like, come over here, check this out. This guy's like, he wants to screen.

Look at he's got a MySpace account. And like everyone immediately is like, thumbs down. You know, like. But, you know, it's just, it's interesting how the whole social media, you know, I was completely off social media until I retired. And now I'm on social media. It's free marketing. I really don't like it.

But it is something that, like at the end of the day like it helps me feed my family and therefore I participate with it you know to some to some degree yeah I guess my concern was asking you about that particular objective and then I guess the meteoric rise and fame of certain individuals who took certain paths to what's the correct word I don't I mean maybe it was promotion It brought a lot of attention to something that I think we probably both agree that probably would be better for the community if left alone. 100%. Yeah.

It's, I don't know. There's been a lot of press about the SEAL community in the past five years and a lot of it negative. I was going to say, not a lot of it. It's so good. And that has, I mean, yeah, I agree with you. I think the headshed people at a strategic level looking at it saying, hey, this is the unit that we want to have. But can we really trust them to, you know. I think it's going to hurt us for the next 15, 20 years.

I agree. And I have no data to support that, but that's what I suspect as well. And I also worry that it would bring in people who would seek fame as opposed to the job itself. And I have no data for that either, but that would be my concern. So why did you decide to get out?

I feel like I had done enough or kind of reached my, you know, we talked about earlier where when I first came in, I was like, man, I'm terrified. I will never get to do anything for real. And then, you know, 10 combat deployments later, it's like I had done a lot of really cool stuff. You got to be a part of a lot of really cool things. And then I was married. And I think I had three, I had four kids when we left Virginia. And it was like, we weren't really serious about fighting.

It was the previous administration and... You mean as a country when you say that? Yeah, as a country. Not as a unit, but as a country, I didn't feel like we were really serious about it from a policy level. Like to be able to go, you know what? Radical Islam has a problem with us. And well, Islam has a problem with us.

Radical Islam has a problem with everybody that's not radically Islamic. Exactly. But we won't even say that. And it's like if we as a nation can't say that we have a, that we're fighting a certain ideology, like during the Cold War, we said that this is what the communists say they want to do. And we'll take them at face value there.

And we're going to actively work to beat that. Within what we have going on now is we have all these people saying, you know, all the jihadis that they want to create a caliphate. They want one world under Islam. And, and then we have, all sorts of people in leadership standing up and going, well, actually Islam is

a religion of peace. No, it's not. Like, it has nothing to do with peace. It has to do with submission. And, you know, and so how are we going to even fight something if we can't even doctrinally define it? If we can't even say this is actually what we're fighting.

I mean, one of the things that really turned me off right when the previous administration came in, we stopped going after what was the... the verbiage at the time. Basically we were going after radical Islamic terrorists or something along those lines and they changed it to VEOs,

violent extremist organizations. And I'm like, you know what? We're fighting Muslims. We're fighting, you know, violent extremist Muslims. That's who we're fighting. Like, we're not fighting the communists. Not yet. We weren't at the time.

We're not fighting violent Buddhists. We're not fighting, you know, violent Hindus. We're fighting violent Islamists. And if we can't even say that on our mission, statement. Like we're not serious about fighting. So that had something to do with it. But bigger picture for me was just like I, well, it was that coupled with the fact that, hey, I'm married now. And this is, we're not going to kill our way out of this, out of this war. And the where I can make a difference is by raising, you know, raising my children and know and love Jesus. Right. To be, you know,

to be able to follow in my footsteps, right? That's where I can make a difference. And then now in the community that I'm in, right? That I can, that I can be, that I can encourage the young men and the young women in our community. Like that's, that is the, like, that's the force multiplier right there,

being able to do that. And then all, you know, traveling around the country now as well, teaching guys, teaching good, you know, good Americans to protect themselves and their families better. or like that's, that's something where I can have an impact right now. Not saying that, you know, doing the job didn't have an impact because it definitely did. Yeah.

But I think everyone has a finite amount of time that they're willing to put up with those circumstances. I mean, for basically my entire adult life, there was no, no planning anything outside of a cycle, of a deployment cycle. I mean, the first time where I scheduled something as a civilian, a year and a half, in advance. I was talking with a student and he's like, can we do something, you know, not this January, but a year from January. I'm like, let me check my calendar. Yes, we can. I'm currently available during this time period. It's crazy to hear me say, for me to hear you say that we can't kill our way out of this coming from an occupation where that was largely the end state. At some point, you're crossing the, I mean, if you look at everything that we did,

at some point it generally ends in crossing the threshold of a door somewhere in engaging with the people that you're describing. Well, let me think that back. But coming to the realization, well, I understand what you were saying, but then coming to the realization like,

shit, we're doing the best that we can and it's not having the result that we're looking for. I came to that same conclusion as well, and I think it's a healthy one to come to. And I do, I want to back up a little bit.

We could kill our way out of it, but I don't think it would be morally correct. I mean, like, we could, we could do what we did to Japan and Germany to all of those lands and win. But I think it would actually create more problems. Morally wrong, though. Morally wrong, and I think it would create more problems. I think we would, we would create other enemies that would come at us with. It would definitely cause another set of problems.

But, like, we could, I think we could win kinetically. It's just whether or not there's. Ideology. Ideologies aren't boundary by, you know, geography. You could, you could protect or you could. You could wipe off the face of the planet the places where like the origin, but I think it's spread and the information in this world that is spread so digitally and interconnected. I think it'd be tough.

And again, I'm not advocating that position. I'm just saying like I think it, I think it is possible to do it kinetically. I don't think it would be the right option to do. Yeah. It would cause some other problems. You know, but it's just we're, you know, we're not, we're not looking at it like full scale.

We're not looking at it like we did with, against, you know, Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan where we had full on, like we had our own, I mean, everything geared towards defeating that. And we don't have, it's, it's very low scale. The majority of the country is just vaguely aware that, that anything is even going on. And I wonder if that's because they don't have a uniform or a nation that they necessarily are behind. You know what I mean?

It's the ideology versus the actual Third Reich. Yeah. You know, or Japan itself. I don't have the end. I'm not smart enough either, but yeah, I don't know. A lot of time spent in our formative years to come to the reason. I agree with you. Like it did, it had to be done.

The things that we did, it had an impact. But there has to be other layers to the solution for it to have, I think, the full impact that we want to see. Well, I mean, I think the way we win as a nation is by being serious about about America, you know, and not, not fracturing. I mean, we're going to, we're, I mean, we're, I mean, we're current. destroying ourselves as a nation with the way we're fractured and I mean you you you cannot have a nation if if what some people think is right other people are violently opposed to and think it is completely wrong like you you have a nation because people are homogenous not in sometimes in skin color but that that matters way way less it's

homogenous in in belief system of hey what you think is inherently right like your core belief of what right and wrong is, I agree with you on that. If we have people that like their core belief of what they believe right is, you and I look at and we're like, no, like, that's wrong. It's really hard to have a country when you have that. And we're, you know, we're fracturing apart right now because we have that. And so, you know, and when you build walls around those core beliefs, and remove any any space for middle ground or discussion or conversation.

Yeah, to be able to talk with people and not devolve into a shouting match and just, hey, man, like this is, you know, and I'm like, you know, you can always have, you know, there's some things that you can compromise on within, you know, within a belief system. But then there's other things that are like, you know what, you're never going to convince me

that that's right. Like I believe this. Like I'll die for this. You know, but that's as long as they are, as long as the two are not diametrically opposed to each other, we can still be neighbors. If they're diametrically opposed to each other, we can't be neighbors anymore.

Because now things that you think are good, I'm violently opposed to. And that, you know, which is why it's so important to put the time and effort into your family and into your community and, you know, do this stuff. put the effort in where you can actually make a difference. Yeah, I agree with you.

How was you are, I would describe, at least in my experience when I was in the community, one of the more faithful people that I was ever around. You were always open about it. You would engage in conversation with people. I don't think I ever once saw you argue. But you have a very deep level of faith. And I actually have no idea if people were to ask what percentage of the SEAL community is religious.

what would you say? I would say less than half, and I don't know why that I, but that feels right to me. Yeah, I was going to throw out a lower number than that. Well, yeah, I mean, I mean, I guess my question being, how did that,

did that impact your service at all? Your openness with your faith, did you ever bounce up against any obstacles or have issues because of it? Yeah, there was some, well, yeah, definitely. There was, there was some things that were, you know, when I tried to fit it,

You know, my first platoon, I drank. My second platoon, I really didn't a whole lot. You know, so there is some, hey, if you're not one of the boys, you're not out drinking with the boys. Like, you're not part of the inner circle. And that is very, like, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow, that's deep right there. It's very, fucking accurate. Yeah, it is very, very accurate. You know, so there was a lot. little bit of that. But for the most part, like guys are, guys are good with, hey, you know, you believe maybe differently than me. It allowed for some good, good conversation with, with guys. You know, there's some guys that I like that, you know, talk about regrets, like not having more of some of those conversations with some of my friends that aren't around anymore.

Yeah. Do you think your faith helped you do your job? Yes. I will, I would say yes, but then I would also say like I don't know it's kind of hard for me to answer that because it is such a when we talk about core beliefs like that is my primary identity like you know follower of Christ you know and I'm definitely more serious now than you know than I was five years ago or 15 years ago and hopefully 10 years from now like I will be even more serious about it than I am now. So on the one hand yes absolutely like I mean just knowing that you know as a Christian as a false follower of Christ, I have assurance of salvation, not because of anything that I've done, but because of what Christ did on the cross for me.

So I know where I'm going to go when I die. Like that is hugely comforting when you're in a profession where, you know, every night, you're like, I mean, I look at guys that don't have that faith and I'm like, man, how, like, how do you get after it with the same level? I mean, and there's, you know, very brave men that did not believe. and I'm like, man, how, how do you get after it with that same, like, mission, you know, reckless abandoned might not, may or may not be the correct word sometimes. From time to time.

From time to time. But, you know, like, without that, you know, at the core of my being, like, I know who I am in light of being a Christian. So it's really hard to go, did it help you? like it's like it's a like it's like it's a sliver of my life for whereas it's like everything is looked at through the prism of my faith. I might have, it might have been a clumsy way to ask it because I think you did answer it.

It was you were sure of yourself and I think, I mean, I wouldn't want to speak for you, but it provided you that comfort of knowing that versus the uncertainty. And I'm not, I don't want to speak for anybody else. So if they felt uncertain or not. but I was always curious about that because it was,

it was less than 50% of the guys who I would say, were at least overtly religious. I'd say, I'm going to throw out 15%. I think that's probably a good number. Yeah. Yeah, and believe me, I'm not a religious scholar by any stretch. But I was curious. And you're probably the only person that I know from that world

that would be willing to have that conversation and talk about it. So what was the highlight of your career? If you look back, you did what, 20 in a wake up? 20 in a month, just to make sure they got the numbers right. Smart man, so you know the military well. Yes. Let's cross the T's dot the eyes. There's so many cool things.

It's hard to pick just one. I would say probably the most rewarding thing was just being the quality of guys. to be around like so many I mean we think about like the teams themselves full of solid guys and then the command you know weeds out another 40%

of guys of already like solid dudes yep so just the quality of guys I mean we're just dudes that are naturally talented and well and some guys that just work really really hard but just phenomenally good guys, you know, extremely gifted, extremely, you know, patriots, men that, that are, you know, willing to lay it all in the line and, you know, in service of their country and, you know,

and for their, for their brothers, you know, I mean, it's just, it's humbling. An incredibly unique I have found in my life post-military. It's, I see, and maybe probably in myself, you try to find to replicate that. And I've come to the place that I don't know if that level of what you just described as possible outside of that environment. Yeah. I mean, I think like guys that, you know,

early on in the war got out to go to go do other supposedly cooler things. And within two years, all of them were like, don't leave. You're at the coolest spot. Like, there is nothing, like,

it's not any better anywhere else. The grass is always greener symptom. Yeah. The team guys are horrible with that. They really are, actually, especially if you miss like a six-month window. That's it.

I'm out of, here guys. Yeah. How much do you stay in contact with the guys you used to work with? Hardly at all. I am exactly the same way. And is that intentional on your part? No,

I mean, it's just kind of, there's friends that I, that I talk to still. Generally, there are guys that I was friends with, like earlier. Yeah.

Earlier in the teams. you know, I'll get, I'll get texts from guys or, you know, every once in a while phone calls with other guys. But, I mean, it's just, it was a phenomenal time in my life. Like, I feel very blessed and, you know, honored to have been a part of that, but I'm doing other stuff now. And I mean, like, within my training business, I always say, like, if you come to a class with me because, you know, I was a seal. like that's great. Like I will absolutely, if like if that, if that gets you to sign up for a class,

that's awesome. But I don't want you to come back because I was a seal. Like, I want you to come back because this was the best training that you've received. Like, and I don't,

you know, being a seal shaped me. And, you know, it was hard work. So it's like, so I'll take the, if, you know, if you'll come to a class

because that, I'll take it all day long. But if that's what opens the door, I totally agree. with you. Then I'm fine with that, but it shouldn't keep you in the room. I want you, I want you to come back and train because of the quality of training you received, not because of war stories that you heard. Yeah. And I asked, I asked you that question about whether or not you stay in contact with the guys because it's been a, it's been a topic that I've been kicking around in my own

head. And I can't, I can't find a concrete answer as to why I don't stay in touch with the guys either. because I, like I just said, a community of people with like the shared belief, an amazing level of camaraderie, but yet I don't talk with any of them. And I'm, you know, yesterday morning finding out that probably one of my biggest mentors in the SEAL teams, who I did my first platoon with, taught me more about, I think, becoming the SEAL that I became. And not that I became, I mean, I, to this day, would fucking tell people I would average it best. But I learned a lot. Not true. Incredibly true. But I learned so much of that from this particular individual who took his own life yesterday.

Yeah. And I realized that I had fallen out of touch with him. And I can't figure out why. I don't have an answer to why I fell out of touch with him or why you and I went like five or six years without talking before we bumped into each other at the shot show. Yeah. I was like, what's up, rapes? And you're like, oh, hey, dude, what's going on? And I don't know if that's a difference in guys that we communicate differently,

but I've never been able to replicate that environment of people. I think in part it's the mission, right? You had all those guys together because you were on a mission. Whether it's, whether it was a pre-war, hey, our mission is we're part of this platoon and we're going to do a workup and then we're going to go to a place and place. Or whether it was in the middle of, you know, the thick of things, hey, and, you know, four months from now, we're going to be back over getting it on.

Like, we better train. And therefore we're always, we're constantly pushing and shaping each other like that. I think that's why. I mean, but you also see like when you, when you do run into those guys, it's not like you're any less friends with them.

Like you run back into them and you're like, what's up, bro? I mean, it's almost like you pick up right where you left off. Unless you don't get the chance to. And I guess maybe that's what I've been kicking around in my head more is the uncertainty.

I don't, you know, which is not like the job we had was certain. I mean, we were operating an environment that was probably defined by its uncertainty. I don't know. I just, they were some of the most amazing people that I've ever, if not the most amazing people that I've ever been around. And it's just, I don't know, I bounce back and forth between I've moved on to different things, which is not, and I'm not trying to ignore them. And then it's like, oh, I'm just an asshole, you know, and I'm too self-centered and thinking

about myself as opposed to reaching out. I don't know. It's a conversation I've been having with myself. I mean, it's also just numbers-wise. Like, it's a lot of guys. I mean, if you think about all the guys you served with, like, to try and stay in touch with every one of them would be, I mean, that would almost be a full-time job right there. I don't want to stay in touch with all of them. Some of them sucked, Bill. I could give you the name of a troop chief that sucked really bad.

You know them, too. But we're going to leave that name out of this until we hit the record button again, which turns it off. Oh, man. So now tell me about Idaho and what you got going on. So we moved up to Idaho right after we retired. We'd sold our house. We'd been living at one of my guys that was working for me at the time. We were living behind his barn in a 32-foot bumper pole RV with four kids at the time.

So we did that for about 10 months. And we worked our way across the country. and we had looked at some spots here. Actually, this is one of the spots that we'd look at. Really? Yeah, basically what I did was I drew range rings around major ski resorts in states that I would like to live in. I like your priorities already. Oh, yes.

You know, and then I just went down the line and started looking at, okay, what about everything else of the state? And so we ended up in Idaho. I started Amtack shooting, you know, the day after, you know, technically the day. after that I retired. And then that took me or took us probably a year and a half, two years before that was actually to the point where I was too busy to go work for other guys, which I really enjoy working for myself now. Yeah, it's amazing, right? It's great. So now that's, that is our primary business. And the mission statement is to teach good Americans to be able to protect themselves and their families.

So it's not a, if you're looking for a class where you're going to put on a battle belt, that's like, well, with the cops, that's what I teach. So I got to ask a question the day. Literally, the question was phrased, did I miss the memo? Why are people wearing battle belts at the range? Are we talking about just a range belt with, like, magazines on it and all that stuff? Yeah, external. Like a belt that you would put on.

Yeah. It's a range belt. It's hilarious. Yeah, you're asking the question because we never wore the stuff. No. Like you never had shit on my hips. Exactly. Exactly. So it's a, but it's huge within the firearms industry is guys put on battle belts and, you know, they've got their exposed holster and they've got their mags, you know, and their blowout kit, all this stuff. So we're just talking a pistol range belt. Exactly. Okay. But guys go and that's what they train with. And you know what? If, if, if, If that gets you to the range and you have fun doing that, that's awesome. But if you come and do a two-day class with me, that's going to be a lot, you're going to get a ton of reps in.

You're probably not going to put on a battle belt when the moment arises. So why not rep with the stuff that you actually carry? Because you're going to get a ton of reps in. And so that's kind of been the focus is, hey, well, let's, you know, we don't, I don't get guys that show up with, with multisely. TCAM, everything on. And, you know, guys, I'm so blessed my students are, they're good dudes. Like, I'm a ton of those guys I'm good friends with now. Like, I probably a third to half of the locations that I teach at.

Like, I get picked up at the airport and I stay at dudes' houses because we're friends. And they're just guys that are serious about protecting themselves and their families. They, a lot of them shoot their pistols better than most team guys do because they're into it. Yeah. Well, you were more into it than most. It doesn't surprise me at all that you have landed in the sector that you did because you were always at the extreme high end of currency and competency when it came to rifle pistol. Yeah.

So I liked it. And then now, you know, so I teach the pistol stuff. I'll teach carbine stuff. But probably, you know, what I enjoy teaching the most is the integrated piece where we're talking, being able to deal with things just with your hands. Yeah. Or if your strong hand is tied up, being able to pull blade out. If your other strong hands tied up, being able to pull your pistol out.

And then not, you're getting to that unconscious competence level where you're just, you know what, if my right hand's busy and lethal force is appropriate, it just blade will appear. And it will start doing work. And then the same thing on your strong side. So I really enjoy doing that. And that's also why I was saying that the grappling piece helps because you're constantly in. Yeah. You know, when your demo and stuff, you're constantly putting hands on students.

You have to be able to manage your ranges. That's one thing, it's not a critique of jiu-jitsu. I think it would be a critique of people who call jiu-jitsu a, they call it magic. I've literally like, oh, man, it's magic. You can do whatever you want to to people. Assuming they touch you, why wait until the problem actually has its hands on, you know what I mean? If you have a competency and currency in a variety of ranges from AR range to pistol range to knife range, like jiu jitsu is amazing for sure i've been out of for two years and it's it can seem like magic

when you're rolling with somebody who doesn't know anything but i don't want to use it as a first resort i have all these other like you said purpose-driven tools that can help me manage my distance and guess what people distance and safety are pretty tied together well i mean if you think about jiu jitsu is one of my friends uh justin garcia when he started doing blade and gun stuff people would come up to him and go, hey, you, you're this big MMA guy, like, why do you need to learn

gun and knife stuff? He's like, you're with your kids, two guys in a parking lot. One guy's got a knife, one guy's got a pipe. Like, what's the jih Tzu move for that? It's step offline and shoot them both in the face. It's running double front kick to the chest. It's my favorite takedown.

You know, so you have to go, okay, what is your, you know, it doesn't matter if you're doing the cleanest arm bar on the planet. Well, if you're doing that in that situation, you suck. Exactly. Like there's, so there's, so we have to understand like there's, that's why I say it's, it's a great way of controlling people and being able to use less violence. But we need to be able to go with a higher level of violence, which is where our tools come in.

And it's also where, you know, you're bringing up the, the, the girl example. Like, I, for, I don't do a whole lot of women's, just because the market really isn't there for the way I like to teach. The women's market, I think, honestly, is probably better served by female instructors. There's going to be that level of comfort there. Yeah. And I just don't want to, you know, I started doing it because I had my normal students say, hey, would you do something for our wives and girlfriends?

Yep. And on that level, I love doing it because it's like it makes their little tribe stronger. But from a, it's not something that I'm that I'm focusing on. But I changed from going primarily gun stuff with like 15 minutes of intro to combatives and a mindset talk. That was my, that was version one of women's class. And my current version is I spend the first 20 minutes talking about your need for tools. You know, if my daughter's 12, if she knew all of the, if she had all the software that every teacher of mine ever had, I still beat her. 100% every time until we put a tool on her hand until she palms a blade and I don't see it

and you're like where's the hydro why is there yes why am I getting sleepy right so so there's a so that's where I start is hey you need you need to carry tools like the people that say kick them in the groin and run away like they're lying to you like serious or pepper spray them or tase them or any of these things like serious dudes are going to fight through all that stuff and here's like Like it might work, but the emphasis is on might. And if you're going to put your survival as a human being on a might, I'm going to tell you, in my opinion, your head is in the wrong space. Yeah. Not if it's my wife or my daughter.

Like, no, we're not going to mess with that. So I do that. And then I do blade stuff with them because that is the biggest bang for their buck. And it's something that I can get the girls to carry blades where I can't always get them to carry pistols. Like there's something about a blade that is, is, it fits with the yoga pants or whatever else they're wearing. They can conceal it where, you know, if we're telling them, hey, put a pistol on, that, that requires putting a gun belt on, which now requires changing the way they dress, which a lot of women are not. You're going to lose the outfit conversation. Exactly. And you're probably not going to win that one.

Right. So, you know, so making it relevant form. Yeah. So did you just. Jiu-Jitsu phenomenal, but we need to know, like, we need to know how to do some of those other things because it, I mean, and the other thing is just willingness and time. Like, how long does it take to make someone proficient at not getting taken down? Being able to do just some basic stand-up grappling, be able to, you know, move people around a little bit, not get crushed. How long does it take on us to give someone that level of competency in Jiu-Zitsu versus...

Longer than most people will want to devote to it. Absolutely. and in two hours, I can have people stabbing people to death, like, very confidently, like, because it's not hard. I've cut myself with every knife that I've ever owned. It happens. I, like, I love folders and just like, shh, shh, ah, damn it, I'm bleeding again. Every knife I've ever owned, I cut myself with eventually. If you extend the timeline long enough.

But that's just me. Now, I think all tools have their optimal use, and they all have limitations, and you have to understand that. And why not layer them on top of each other? I think the most dangerous person is one that's comfortable at any range. For sure. You want to engage me to 1,000 yards? Okay. You're screwed.

I've got the answer for that, right? Or you ambush me in my car and my car doors open behind me and now it's grappling because you chose to put your hands on me. No problem. Because concrete is less forgiving than Matt's. A lot. God. I look at some of the stuff we do and in the back of my head, I'm thinking, oh, like a gravelly, rocky ass. fault parking lot, this would be, ugh, it would be bad.

Yeah. But know how to control that as opposed to somebody. Yeah. I mean, so an interesting, just while we're on the jih Tzu topic, like one of the, the things that I'm really trying to instill in our boys, you know, kind of our local, local crew. And then also anytime I do teach ground stuff now when I'm on the road is neon stomach position. Yep. Like, it's one of those that is less used, I think, within jiu jitsu because who are you, rolling against when you're doing jiu jih Tzu.

People who know Jiu Jitsu guys. Yeah. And I always say like I can do if I'm better than you, I'll do neon stomach all day long. If we're equal, I'll probably get it for a while. If you're better than me, I can't hold Neon's stomach for very long. Yeah. So because we're always rolling with guys that are better than us, we end up not doing it a whole lot. Plus there's a whole like, not to go down a whole other road, but the whole keep it playful, bro.

attitude in jujitsu. I'm not a big proponent of. So there's there's some of that too. And when you do knee on stomach properly, right? We bending the bro of bronze and it's, you know, you're trying to stick your knee through their spine. And so it's not a nice thing to do. It's not a comfortable submission. It's not. But there's also defenses that you can execute that will prevent somebody from being able to do that. For sure. So it's so for one, who are we fighting in the street? Usually, even though grappling is proliferating, usually we're not fighting serious jiu-jitsu guys or, you know, good,

and any kind of good grappler. Generally, we're not fighting those guys. And Neon's stomach is a powerful position. When we talk about, like, fighting for real, like the number one thing that I'm concerned with when I'm grappling now is controlling tools. They have tools in hand, like I need to control that. And if they don't have tools in hand, I need to control their waistline because that's where most people have tools.

Or I'm tracking on their hands to when, when I see their hand move quickly towards something to be able to stop it. And so neon stomach, you just go a little bit lower, knee across the waistline. And now we're controlling tools right there. As people are reaching, we can control hands. And then posture-wise, we are in an upright posture. And it allows us to see, right, 360 awareness. Right?

That's another thing that as I'm teaching the kids now, it's every time, right, that we establish a new position. The first thing we do is situational awareness can. So you get side control on someone, situational awareness scan. Because, again, like, I want our guys thinking about it's not just, I mean, it's cool to be able to crush people at, you know, at the school. But it's better to be able to win. The school is a controlled setting that has rules that both parties agree to. Yes. The bar or the parking lot is not.

And I, yeah, all you get this dominating side control position and your face gets soccer kicked. into the next century, like, you lose. Yeah. I've actually seen the knee on belly position or flip them over knee on low back with a gift wrap is awesome. Oh, yeah. Awesome for law enforcement too, because they're totally upright. They're scanning around and see what's going on. Easy to break contact as well. Like from any of the positions, that's the easiest one to disengage. You see it in additional threat someplace. You pop over or you see now it's coming up behind you, being able to transition from one knee to the other knee and then disengage going the opposite direction. I mean, it's huge.

And the reality is for people who don't know how to escape from that bottom position and you add alcohol, they're not getting out of that. If you gift wrapped somebody and go knee on their low back, like they're not getting up here. Yeah. And then again, and then it allows you. And it's relatively gentle, actually. I mean, it's, you could of course introduce their forehead to the concrete if you needed to. But you could also be like, hey, man, here's your opportunity. Like, you need to calm down.

I'll let you up when I want to, but you need to leave. Yeah. It allows you to solve problems with a lower level of violence. then if all you know how to do is elbow people in the face and stab them in the throat, which is good. Like you should know how to do that stuff. Potentially, you should know how to do that stuff before. Like if you're an adult, you should probably learn that stuff first because you don't have time to learn how to do neon back and gift wrap someone.

Yeah. But having that ability, which is why it's so important for cops to have this, because then they don't have to go lethal. Right. Oh, the guy's just a drunk idiot. Okay. If you know what you're doing, you can control. the guy and it's not, it's just, this guy's pathetic. Like, I roll with guys all the time that would crush me, that are like so much better. Like, this is nothing to me. Yeah. Right. And that's what we want. That

should be the mindset is that this is like, this is easy. Like as I'm doing it, I like, I mean, I can't wait to tell my guys that, you know, a jih Tzu about, about how I, you know, how I dealt with this guy, because it is so easy. If you don't have that, then all of a sudden, the guy just rushes you and you're on your back and you're getting pummeled. And then we end up shooting the guy off of us because of maybe, you know, if we could have just hook swept the guy as we're falling, which, I mean, a super basic move for anyone that rolls. Then we get dominant position.

And now we can analyze and see, hey, what's going on? But if we don't, if we don't train, then we don't have that. You have limited tools. You are driven into limited options. I look at law enforcement. And I just, I think of it from the perspective of who, would I want to show up for my oldest son who's having maybe he's having a mental snap or an emotional crisis or maybe he's hammered or maybe a combination of all three of those things.

What's the cop that I want to show up? I want at a minimum blue level jiu jihitsu because he is going to understand, you know what I mean like I want that level of tool and I want somebody who can think always situationally where somebody who can try to verbally de-escalate and appropriately it goes through that use of force paradigm. But it's the biggest, strongest, best guy, right? Which is unfortunately not what we, we as a nation are looking for within cops and firefighters anymore. They're looking specifically at a cross section of society, which sounds good until it's your kid.

That's being an idiot. It's an academic principle. And, you know, like, do you want your kid to overpower this guy because he's being an idiot? and then the guy uses lethal force because that's all he knows. No, I don't want that. Or do you want the guy that is like the captain of the football team

that's been rolling for the last two years and he's just like, sees what it is, you're being a punk, oh, you're going to swing at me? This is bad for you. Wraps him up, you know, and then, you know. Or sees the previolent indicators

and you can tell all these loaded and does a simple arm drag and just gets to behind, grabs the other inside arm, pins everything to their waist and pushes them up against the car, cuffs my son and then I can, you know, done before it starts.

That's what I want. Yes. I don't want a fist fight. I actually don't want cops to ever have to go to their Batman belt. Yeah. Except to get their cuffs. It's, yeah. You got to invest the time and energy and effort.

You got to train. Yeah. I mean, when I see guys that are, this is your profession and you're incompetent with your tools. Like, I don't care if your department says that the qual is 25 rounds twice a year and you got to hit a full-sized silhouette at 25 yards like that's not a qual

like that might be checking the box for your department but that is not proficiency with your tools. Yeah you're not qualified. Like you need to like if this is your chosen profession again it goes back to the personas like if you're part of your personas is I carry a gun for a living

then whether you're a cop or a just a responsible armed citizen like you better take that seriously that better be a serious part of your persona where you train, you put the time, you invest in the right tools, you put the time into researching, hey, what is the best, what's the holster that I should be wearing?

What's the blade that I should, you know. How many holsters do you on? I don't even know. I think I have hundreds. We have a, I actually have my own holster now. Okay.

Through Blackpoint. But I mean, seriously, have you ever stopped looking for like the, constantly looking? Yes. Constantly, well, less so recently since probably about three years. So I've been running Black Point Tactical Holsters for since I was a civilian. I met the guys during a class.

And then about three years ago, I was like, hey, man, I think we could make your holster better doing this. And they're like, just want to do your own line? And I'm like, sure. So we have the F.O.3, 4 to 3 o'clock, which is where I like to carry. It's optimized for the way. forward of three o'clock are you just talking about an appendix carry bill no so we've got one noon the the times that i'm actually appendix carrying which now is only when rucking with a waistband i go very very like completely centerline like almost 12th yeah like full on 12 o'clock okay um no so i just if three o'clock's right here

yeah forward slightly slightly forward of it basically uh top of the slide even with the leading edge of your hip bone Oh, that's kind of where I mean, I call it an appendix carrier, but that's largely where I carry you. It's just, to me, it's the best compromise between speed, security, and combative ability. I watched the guy the other day. There's a sandwich shop, a block from here. It's right across the street from where I do jiu-jitsu. And my man was open carried, six o'clock, and then just got into his car. I'm like, you're telling me, A, that that's comfortable or B, you're going to get to that ever.

While in a seated position, I was like, what are you doing? Living where we live. Hold on. I forgot to add one thing. It did say Mullen Lobby on the back of his car. Yes. I'm not joking about that. Come and take it. So living where we live, there's a lot of open carry.

And culturally, I like it because it normalizes people carrying. I mean, it's difficult for me to walk into a Walmart without seeing people open carry where I live. What I tell all of my. students and all of my tribe is it's a great political statement. It's a horrible tactical decision. Right? Speed, surprise and violence of action. I'm glad that you said that because I see people who doing that. I'm like, you're kind of an idiot. It's a horrible decision. Yeah. No. I respect their right to do so. But like you just said, tactical advantage has been lost completely. Why would you do that? Why would, you know, speed, surprise and violence of action? Why would you give up any of those to make a statement,

like you said? I mean, I had our guys down range concealed carrying to the chow hall because if if someone's going to go big, you have to look at it, okay, we have to assume they're going to attack it logically, which means you're going to shoot the people closest to you that are armed first. And then you can shoot everyone else

that's not armed. So I want my guys to not get shot first. Therefore, we get concealed carry rigs for everyone so that they can be, you know, concealed even at the Chowall. Yeah, smart. Yeah, open carry is a huge one in Montana. Yeah.

Usually accompanied by the mole and law, or the one that says take it from my cold dead hands. And I just, oh, I'm like, oh boy. The thing is that the guys have not, the guys that are doing that haven't thought it through. They're thinking, they're thinking in terms of I'm a gun, right, their paradigm is wrong. They're thinking in terms of I'm a gun guy. And I'm going to see the problem at 15 yards. And at 15 yards, I can pull that pistol out.

They're not thinking about it in terms of maybe there's actually teams of bad guys that are going to be working against you, and you're going to start this whole thing with them bumping you and then not going to have a pistol anymore. Or maybe this thing started with you getting punched in the face and then driven backwards against a vehicle, right, and getting stabbed. Like, completely different paradigms. Yeah. So it's all... And they might select you for the person to stab based off their going off the highest threat and you have your exposed weapon. Yeah. Correct. I would rather be... Do you want to be the gray man? The gray man? I mean, it's overused right now with an industry, but that's why I say the great white shark. You want to be the great white shark,

the man in the gray suit. Correct. Slightly under the water. You don't have to, you don't have to swim around with your fin out of the water. Deep. It's shallow for me. I don't go deep. As a human being, I'm not capable of deep. Where, so if people are interested in your training philosophy, where can they, what's the best way to find you? Amtechshuting.com is our website. That's all of our upcoming courses are on there. I've got a bunch of articles on there as well. Like, want to go deeper in some of the mindset stuff. It's all there. Our other businesses, Amtack Blades.

That's relatively new, right? Within 24 months? Yeah, this Thanksgiving will be our third year. So we launched on Thanksgiving Day, and now we do a Thanksgiving Day sale every year. I remember seeing it when he first started launching the blade stuff. I like it. Been cool.

Closing thoughts by Bill Rapier. What do you want to close with? First, let's take a guess. How long do you think we've been at it? two and a half hours almost three so you know it's a good conversation close so you know it's a good conversation close uh parting parting parting parting shot uh go out and train training is uh training is the way it's i'm not the first guy to say that a bunch of guys have said that before but it the longer i do this professionally the more it it really is you know get out there and

and get the reps in because you you will not do more amazing stuff than then you think, you know, you fall to your lowest level of training, right? You don't rise to the occasion. I'm going to say it this way. An objective person in their first violent encounter, you might be embarrassing and shamed of your performance. Yeah. I mean, and this shouldn't be something that you're worried about.

It should just be like you have car insurance because, well, in part because you're forced to buy car insurance. and in part because, well, you don't think you're going to get into a wreck. Same thing with like fire insurance on your house. But if you do. You should know how to do it, right? And I would also just say as a man,

you should be capable of violence, right? Not, you shouldn't be immoral in your application of violence, but you should be capable of violence because you should be able to protect yourself and your family. That's, I mean, that's a fundamental thing that we are supposed to be able to do as men. And so whatever form that looks like, go out and get some training so that you have, you know, the first time you're confronted with violence should not be the first time you're thinking about it.

Because then you're just, you're hoping that you win. So train and then be right with God because ultimately you can, I mean, we've had on this multiple times. You can do everything right and still lose. So therefore being right with God is very, very important. We have control over far less than I think we give ourselves the illusion of. We want to have control because it seems like there's order in that, but, man, I think anything but. All right, brother. Awesome.

Andy, thanks for having me on, man. Thank you. Marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now, and it's great. You love the host.

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