Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Episode 166 - Sean "Buck" Rogers

Episode Date: February 1, 2021

Sean was raised in Phelan, California. After what can only be described as a rough childhood, Sean decided to leave home and start a new life away from the childhood trauma and away from everything that weighed him down. Sean joined the military at the age of 21, assigned to a support unit, started a family, and later achieved the title of Green Beret. After leaving the service Sean joined the Denver Police Department earning a spot on the Citywide Impact Team. Sean left the department in order to pursue his passion to help others achieve their goals. Since then starting the FNG Academy, Podcast and writing his memoir. De Oppresso Liber! Audible Helix Sleep Better Help

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His name is Sean Rogers. Sean Buck Rogers, to be specific, and I'll let him unpack that in the episode. But wow, what a story of somebody who was able to accomplish a lot from a beginning that I'm going to describe as extremely rough. And I'll leave it at that because we get deeply into it in the podcast. Let's just say that his upbringing was challenging. But he joined the military. He became a green barrage. Ray, post serving in the military, he became a law enforcement officer. He is now an author. He's also the host and creator of the FNG Academy on YouTube. His book, Rising Above, comes out February 23rd. And I am now going to shut up and let Mr. Rogers speak for himself. Episode number 166 with Sean Buck Rogers. Enjoy.

Close now. All right, Mr. Sean Buck Rogers. What do you prefer to go? Sean, Buck, or Rogers? There you go. Dude, it's Sean. I fucking hated. I hated the nickname Buck, and it's so stupid how it came about, but... Well, obviously, you know what my question is going to be. Yeah, how to come about?

You might as well explain it. It's like we're on the same page, dude. So it was fucking dumb. It was, I just got into the teams, and I finally get my... We should specify teams, because I use that term often. I'm on the Navy side. ODA. ODA, the special forces.

Which many people confuse for the entire special operations community, but it is not. So when people say special forces, they mean the green berets. Green berets. Yeah. Well, and then you guys just get seals, dude. Seals or team guys, but that's what I'm saying, to clarify it. Just synonymous. You say seals and it's like, ooh, panties get wet.

They start dropping everywhere. And some dudes boxers do it too. I know. And all the green berys are like, fuck me, we do it too. I tell you what, the notoriety in the modern era, I've talked with quite a few guys about it, that nobody thinks it's a good thing. You know, the fact that that is, not that that is the reaction, but the fact that so many people know that term, they're familiar with it, it's not a good thing.

Okay. So. That makes sense. I mean, if you think about it, special operations in general, it's not you have to, like, work or operate in the shadows, but the silent professional, the quiet professional. And then it's, I can't confirm this, but I have heard now when you graduate buds, you get issued your book publisher. So it's, fuck.

I said that to someone in my video. I was like, a fucking movie deal and a book publisher is just like, and good for them, man. Third phase of training now. They start, like, are you more of a random house or a penguin type guy? What are you going to align with better? Fuck, yeah. It's not good, though.

I hope it will, I see almost everything kind of like a pendulum. Politics is an example, right? Left and right, when the seals were first created, you know, in the 60s, there was Vietnam that they talked about and then there was really a big dead zone because there wasn't much going on and then obviously a pendulum of 9-11 I think it'll go back to being the quiet professional

I hope it will I suspect I don't know I assume and suspect that most things are like that pendulum yeah I agree 100% so I don't think you I was gonna say I don't think you're getting away with not explaining where Buck comes from so I walk into the team room

and I finally get assigned a team and this is what I tell the guys on on YouTube is like don't expect any kind of fucking special treatment i walked in was like hey uh hey guys i'm i was all happy and shit i was like i'm the i'm the new bravo on the team you know and i was expecting like oh what's up dude how you doing and it was just fucking crickets dude like no one said anything to me and i was like because they hate you yeah you just you disgust them seriously so um so i walk up and i was like okay so i just stood there for what felt like

a fucking eternity and then finally someone was they didn't look up it was the delta on the team the medic and he just goes talk to him. And I was like, fuck me, this sucks, dude. Especially because you've made it through a pipeline where you're getting treated like that, I'd imagine. You're like, I've arrived. Yeah. Yeah, I got to my first SEAL team

and my first SEAL platoon and I forget what it was that I was talking about. But essentially from the older guys was like, shut the fuck up. When we're interested in your opinion, we'll give it to you. And just go sit over there and wait to be told to do something. It's like, Roger that.

Understood. Check, Roger. Clean the shitters. and fucking mop the floors, and you will go so far in life. There was a lot of that. There was people think you get through the pipeline and it's all bombs, bullets, and grenades.

I can work a mop, like a summer job. Dude, you give it that number. Twist it, the peppercracker technique, for those of you listening. Sean was going with the peppercracker, which is one left, one right. But I can work a mop. I've scrubbed, scrubbed some toilets.

Yeah. Swept. You know, the seal teams are at the beach. You have any idea how much sand I've tried to sweep back into the beach off concrete or asphalt. Really effective. It's not like it ever comes back. Yeah.

And people don't realize the value of someone's character comes through with a mop in their hand or with a fucking plunger in the toilet. And it's like the minute you get attitude about cleaning a toilet or sleeping a floor or you're above it. It's just a fucking test. You think we give a shit if we're a bunch of dudes in a room. You think we care if the fucking toilet's dirty? I can give two shits if I walk in there's a fucking shit hanging off the side of it. That might be a much for me.

That's a bit far. I was going to say you just, you went full retard right there. Yeah. You never do that. Sorry. I'm back. Because I've actually seen that scenario play out in real life. And it was more than I was personally going to handle.

I wouldn't found somebody slightly more junior than myself. Yeah. And told them to handle it. Or it just comes out the top because they shit on it for too long. Yeah. I mean, we've all been there. But I don't know. You and I.

might have been there. People listening to this right now might be curious where we've been in our lives. That's true. And what we've been up to. Yeah, that's true. It's a fucking normal thing to look in a toilet and be like, gosh, damn, that's a big, fucking look at the size of that thing. Or you need to chew more, buddy. We should get off this topic. Okay. Yeah. So Buck. So anyway, so he's like, talk to that guy. So I'm assuming it's the team daddy. So I assume it's the team sergeant. So I walk up to and I stand at parade rest trying to be respectful. And I was like, hey, Mass Sergeant, I'm the new Bravo on the team. I know he fucking heard my first spiel, but, you know, I'm giving a benefit that he's

going to ignore me a few times. And he's like, what's your name? And I was like, it's Sean Rogers, Mass. And he's like, Rogers, like Buck Rogers. And I was like, yeah, like Buck, right, exactly like Buck Rogers. Exactly like that. I guess the Rogers part is similar, but yeah, the Buck is your addition. So he was just like, he's like, and he looks over at me finally, and he's like,

don't fucking stand at parade rest for me. It's fucking weird. Go away. And I was like, okay, I'm going to go back in the team room where I came from and we'll try this again tomorrow. So that's how that came about and it fucking stuck. From then on I was book. That's usually how it works.

I would say most nicknames that I know people go by were, A, they didn't choose it. If you try to pick your nickname, it's like, get out of here. You're a loser. Yeah, you're never getting called that. Guys like, yeah, just call me bone crusher. It's like, that's not what I'm going to call you ever. Yeah, it's usually based off of a catastrophic error that hopefully didn't end in somebody's life being ruined. A mistake involving law enforcement.

Or just something insulting that can somehow apply to you. And the key for people listening is if you don't want to get a nickname that you hate, no emotional reaction. Yes. You have to be a deadpan and you have to make it seem as if you like the nickname. Because if you like it, they'll move on. Because the goal of the nickname er is to give the nickname E something they hate. Yep. It's to piss them off and make them fucking hate it every time you say it.

Correct. And just to watch them like cringe every time. That's the perfect nickname. That's how you know you nailed it. Correct. But if you can let it go off your back, water off a duck's back, you're going to be okay. Yeah. Team Master Sergeant.

So I hate the, so Navy and Coast Guard, obviously the two. Premier Forces in the military. They share the same rank structure. That's why I say that. Master Sergeant is an 8. Yes. Okay, so an E8. So that would be a senior chief in the Navy.

Interesting. So on the seal side of the house on the platoon, the senior enlisted guy is going to usually be an E7. Okay. So a chief or a chief petty officer. They'll usually pick up E8 at the end of that rotation and come back and sit in between two operational elements. There's a task unit, senior enlisted advisor.

Okay. Yeah, I'm always curious to see how the structures are. Yeah, within the team, it's like you got your team daddy, and obviously he's taking care of all the dudes, and he's responsible for all the guys, and then you got your officer who's ultimately in charge of the team. And then you have a warrant officer. You're supposed to have a warrant officer. Not a lot of teams do just because of Manning and how many of them there are, but they'll be the go-between between the officers and the team daddy because your warrant officer was enlisted. and is now officer. So he's supposed to.

Probably for about 10 years on average, I would say, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they're supposed to, you know, have a lot of experience, know both sides of the house and be able to kind of bring those together. Because your fucking captains a lot of time are super young, you know. And how long do they stay?

Only like a couple years. I was going to say, so that's a similarity on the seal side too. You're going to get 24 months. You'll do an AOIC tour, assistant officer in charge than an OIC. But each of those are a 24-monther, and you're gone. And they may not be with the same guys. You might do your AOC, even at one, like, Seal Team 3 and then bump to Seal Team 5. It's in and out.

Whereas the consistency, or not the consistency, the wealth of knowledge is going to ride with the platoon chief and down. Because those guys are doing back-to-back deployments with each other. It's a tough gap to bridge. Imagine being at 03, which is four to six years in the military and you're in charge of dudes who a decade, decade and a half, two decades, looking at you like, hey, fuck stick. Yeah, why don't you tell me about it? Like, I dare you to make a mistake. Go ahead. I will fucking chew you alive.

Yeah, there's a lot of pressure. Yeah, but ultimately they got a sign for everything and their ass is on the line, their name is online. So it's like you have the most responsibility and the least amount of experience. And those two things combined, I have to imagine, are pretty nerve-wracking and pretty stressful. That's a good spot for a warrant to sit actually right there. That was going to be my plan if I didn't get out. I was going to warrant. Did you choose to get out or did you not have a choice?

I did. I chose to get out. How many years did you do? So I did eight years total and then in group I only did one enlistment. So about two years for the pipeline and then three years in group and then I got out. What did you do before the pipeline? So actually, and there's a funny story, is I, well, so I got in a fight, decided to join the military the next day. And I walked in the recruiter's office and I was like, hey, I heard the Rangers really high speed.

What year is this? It's 2010. Okay. And I was like, or 2009. Yeah. And then I finally left 2010, February of 2010.

So it was like late 2009. And I was like, I heard Rangers of High Speed. I'd like to do that. And he was like, all right, come back tomorrow and we'll see what we could do.

So I come back in the morning and he was like, good news and bad news. I was like, oh, fuck. Well, I don't know anything about the military at this point. So I was like,

I don't really care. As long as you got me that Ranger deal, That sounds cool. You are a recruiter's wet dream. Dude, he was, he was like, drooling, and he was like, I'm going to fucking rape this guy. So, yeah, so I walk in the next morning. He's like, good news and bad news.

He's like, good news, I got you that Ranger contract, the option 40, you're going to get Ranger school. You're going to get airborne, and, you know, he's playing that up. He's like, bad news. He's like, they're full on infantry. He's like, so I'm going to send you in as a cook. Yes. So I obviously wasn't in the Army, but I'm already having some alarm bells go off that this isn't the best deal for you. Yeah, it's a horrible fucking deal. It's a horrible deal. And he's like bumping it up, you know, fist bumping the recruiter behind him. Because it was like, so the way Ranger Regiment works, which is actually really intelligent, is that they have their support guys go through their selection too.

That makes sense. Yeah, it's awesome. You know, we don't do that in groups. So we're kind of like fucking hit or miss with the people that we get. Some are the best and some fucking are terrible. Yeah. But with Rangers, it's like at least all of them know how to hump or ruck. They know how to shoot and have the basic fighter, you know, instincts and skills. So Ranger Regiment was just super hurting on all and all the support MOSs because a lot of, obviously, high PT scores from like infantry get contracts and stuff. So they're able to fill those spots pretty easily.

So he just fucking baited me. And I asked him, I was like, listen, well, I could do anything. for a short time. I was like, I want to be a ranger. I was like, I will clean shitters if you give me a ranger contract. But for fucking how long until I can go infantry? And he was like, dude, like two months. So he lied to you early? Yes, right out the gate. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a huge fucking, it was a shitty way to start. Please tell me you went in as a cook. I did. I took that contract, dude. How was that? Oh, it was a nightmare. It was a, fucking nightmare like to show up in like the whole time I'm like um so it started with my drill sergeant

coming up to me and he's like you're not going to be a ranger and I was like what do you mean dude it's in my contract like I got legit scared that I're talking about at boot camp at boot camp my drill sergeant was like you're not going to be a ranger and I was like what do you mean dude like I signed it and I got started like fucking panicking and he's like because of the MOS you chose you dumb ass he's like a fucking you know you're not going to be a real ranger real ranger's infantry And I was like, well, I'm just going to switch. And he's like, you're an idiot, dude. Can you imagine how many of those conversations,

those drill instructors probably had with every class or division that came through? Oh, yeah. I mean, you're not the only person who's ever been, probably the best way to describe this, been sold a Willy Wonka chocolate bar by a recruiter with the promise of a gold wrapper on the inside. Yeah, trust me, it's in there. We know it. This one's in there.

So you went to Army Boot Camp, and then you went to Army Cook School? Yeah. I need to know everything about this school. Dude, that, so that was the eye-opener that I made a huge mistake was when I got there.

Because at first, I was still under the impression like I could fucking, I could do anything like to get my goals and to accomplish my goals, I will do whatever I have to do. And if this fucking recruiter, who's the Army guy, because I didn't know,

I didn't even know that recruiters lied to people. I literally didn't know anything about the Army. I had no aspiration to join the army until the day before when I got in a fight and headbutted a guy in EMT school and got kicked out of EMT school. So it's like literally there's no internet research. There's no fucking Googling. I just showed up. So I'm trusting this dude. Sounds like you really thought it through.

Yeah, I did. I put a lot into this. Like since I was four, I was like, I'm going to be a green beret. And so when you rolled into to meet the army. Army guy. Had you had just heard Ranger before? Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. I just, I heard that those guys were like high speed and like if you want to go. Which is accurate.

Yeah. I don't know where the fuck I heard it from or what movie I was watching or whatever. But somebody is just out in the world that fucking, you know, even for guys that aren't interested in it, that Rangers are high speed dudes. I would agree with that statement. Yeah. So that part was accurate. But let's get back to cooking school. Yeah. What exactly is the Army, I'm going to call you a chef. is the Army Chef's course.

That's disrespecting all the chefs. Like ever. So I show up to AIT, advanced individual training for cooks. And there was, I was single at the time, so there was a lot of women. So that was a plus. But then there was, I see him like walking around in formation. And they're in like all these fucking, like all white uniforms. I was like, what the hell?

hell is that and the guy was like dude that's what the cooks wear you're like like a apron or like a smock like dude it's like they call it dress white or not dress white it's um cook whites is what they call them but it's like a white button up top and white pants and i guess the idea is so you could you could like bleach your shit when they get food stains on them or something say white clothing for me is a single time use yeah like if i get a white t-shirt i will have one wear out of that right maybe half a day and that's how i look all the time. I was just like, what the fuck is wrong with you?

And I'm like, what do you mean? I don't want to be here, dude. Like, I'm sorry. I didn't, I don't want to be a cook. I'm just doing this to get to my ultimate goal. Did you wear a poofy chef's hat? No, there's no chef's hat, just the white top and the white bottom. Did you wear a white beret?

No. The fuck, man. I don't know. What did you wear on your head? What did you wear on your head? Did you wear a hair net? It's a black, it's a black beret for the regular army guys. But then when you're in,

What did you wear? Oh, you have that, like, when you're in the kit, you like those paper ones. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, dude. That's what I'm talking about. That was where it started for me. How long was the Army chef school? Don't call it Chef School, dude.

You're going to make them all pissed. All their chefs are going to be so pissed. They're like, fucking eggs isn't being a chef. How long was the Army Cook School? There you go. Yeah, I think it's like, if I remember, it was like six weeks or something, eight weeks, I don't know. How'd you guys fill that six weeks? I don't know.

You go to class. You go to class and you fucking... Like culinary? You're giving it way too much credit. Don't use the words culinary and chef. Right? Think of it more like... Now the cooks are going to be mad at me.

Think of it more like, you know, like a line cook at a fast food restaurant or something like that. So did you guys go in? You've eaten military food, right? I've tried to avoid it at all costs. Right. So you're going to call that guy a chef?

I might call the guy... Well, it depends. I don't want to have any special ingredients in my food. So I may call the person. a chef because the omelet at best might get dropped and at worst might have some additional flavoring that I'm not interested in. That might make you pregnant. Yeah, that's accurate. Yeah. So you guys would just go in and cook food all day? And then, well, I'm assuming you would eat it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's awful. What's the final exam? I don't even think you have one, dude.

Like, it's not a serious thing. It's serious to me. Yeah. No. Because my reference, for a chef. One of the most famous Navy chefs was Casey Ryback. I don't know if you've heard of him. He served on a battleship. He was a Navy seal first, but then he got in trouble and he would make pies in the oven. And then he saved the entire battleship himself because he, you've seen this movie of the undersea, Casey Ryback. He came back in the second movie as an officer, so somewhere in his career he was commissioned. But that's my standard for chef. Yeah, that's not accurate. Like Stephen Seagall is not a good representation of anything no yeah yeah fuck you Steve I'm not a fan of him people who know me know I'm not a fan I have a buddy who lives here locally

Brian Bishop worked directly with him the stories are legendary really take up what you think it would be like a description of a bad story and then multiply that by whatever number you want to and it still falls short of how bad it actually is the one story I've heard of that dude is you know I'm sure you know him. You're a jih Tjitsu guy. Gene LaBelle. Just like you say, don't call you a chef. I wouldn't call me a jiu-suit guy. I'm two years into it. I have heard this story of Gene LeBelle. Didn't he make him shit in his pants? It was like piss or shit or something like that. You know, and I've met dudes because I used to train it was years ago, but it was with Gokershevichian. Sounds like a very serious name. Yeah, so he's an Armenian and he's a hitter, dude. But he's got a school with Gene LeBelle. So a lot of guys they would love they would like get passed out by jean lebell and they get like he would put him to sleep and like give him a patch and shit but i heard that he like did that to stephen seagull and then he like pissed or pooped himself i have heard that story too i choose to believe that it's

true yeah even if there's evidence to the contrary yeah it fits it fits my feelings about him as a human being is what you're saying. I identify as a person who thinks that's true. Okay. So that makes sense. And in 2021 I can do that. You can do that. And nobody can say anything. Nobody. Nobody. Or all hell will break loose. Where'd you go after graduation from Army Cook School? Yeah. So from Army Cook School, I went to airborne school. And then from airborne school. Which is a slight transition in schooling, both topic physically and emotionally. Yes, yes. Finally, I was doing what I signed up to do. As soon as I got to airborne schools, I thank God.

I was like, this is where I plan on it. This is what I wanted. This is what I signed up for. Had a blast, did airborne school, and then went to Ranger Assessment Selection Program. Okay. RASP? RASP. RASP. Yeah.

So it had just transitioned from RIP to RASP, and then went from, because Rip was like three weeks of just smoke your balls off to RASP was eight weeks. So I got into RASP. And then they canceled our class because it was going to be like an August class, I think. And it was going to be too hot. People would have died. Yeah. Like legit. Just would have fucking.

Heat stroke. Heat casualties for sure. Yes. So they canceled that class, which sucked because now for like the next two months until the next one started, we're just getting our ball smoked off by Rangers every day. And they're good at that. I'm like, I don't know what they feed those dudes, but they could fucking run. And this is what I tell people all the time. You want to be a Ranger, you better start fucking running.

Like, what does a perfect Ranger look like? Like, soccer players. Yeah. Be fast. Maybe in the training environment. My experience with Rangers is they, it's almost, people will ask me about the average seal height weight. And it's about 5.9 to 510, 185 to 190.

And people's minds are blown. They're like, no, I thought it was all six foot three. Viking blonde hair, blue eyes. Like, not really. Right. There's a couple big dudes, and God help you if they go down. Right. Because it takes three people to carry that one person, but most of them are just, from a physical perspective, it's not overwhelming. You wouldn't look at them as if they were some physical powerhouse. They just look like a normal person, maybe slightly more athletic. I would agree. I agree with that 100%. And the same thing in Green Berets, SF.

Yeah. Just like probably the same as Seals. Every selection. for special operations, you fucking run. Oh, yeah. It was nine miles a day just for food at buds. Just to eat. Well, and I think they've changed it now because they've moved to Chow Hall. But when I went through, there's the ocean side of the naval amphibious base,

which is completely owned by Speck War, and that's where you sleep. But the Chow Hall is on the Bayside, NAB Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado. And they're not going to bus you there. So you're going to use what we call the LPCs, the leather personnel carriers. also known as your fucking boots. So you'd get up in the morning and you'd run a mile and a half to go get food and mile and a half back. So you're three in before your first evolution. Lunchtime, repeat.

Dinner time, repeat. That's nine miles a day. That's not counting conditioning runs. Like you say, getting your dick kicked in from the instructors having you do whatever it might be. You're putting miles in for sure. And I think that's probably why stress fractures, at least in buds, are one of the number one reasons that guys are going to get medical rolled or dropped. Rangers, it was the same way. dude like was just walking and he he like stepped down from a curb literally a curb and his foot

broke i know guys same thing in buds like i jumped out of my bed and fell to the ground because i heard two shotguns going off but it was just my femurs detonated they're like we're done well the mileage and stress on him is real yeah i i was talking about this the other day i had a 36 year old in my class by Bud's class. Good for him. At the time, I didn't appreciate or understand why he ate 800 milligram Motrin like Pez.

Yeah. Now I do. Yeah. And I look back now, I'm older now than he was when he went through. Buds would kill me right now. I think I could probably make it through, but at the end of it,

I would take 15 to 20 years off my life. Yeah. Yeah, I don't even want to think about doing downpilot again. Like, fuck that thing, dude. I legit thought that with each step, I was like, this is the one that my hip is going to fucking pop out the side. Because it was just so much ways. The ruck, I've ever heard of downpilot.

I haven't. It's a, obviously we all have rucks, which about 65, 70 pounds. But then you have to build that specific apparatus is four metal poles. And then you hang what's supposed to be a downpilot from the middle of the apparatus. But those metal poles, dude, it ends up what feels like fucking 1,500 pounds. And then the body, the body. is hanging from the center of the poles, but it's hanging from like this long piece of material,

so it sways back and forth. Oh, God. It's just the most, and then you're a bunch of dumbasses that tied it together, so it's never built very well. Oh, is this part of your pipeline? Yeah, this is selection. Okay.

One of the exercises they make you do? Yeah, and it's like infamous, you know, downpilot, and it's just so heavy. I literally, and then each step, I could feel that my hips, like, pushing, I feel like they were coming out of the socket and I was like, they're gonna pop. They're gonna pop. And I was like, fuck it.

You gotta think of the box. Take one of those pipes and beat the pilot to death. Collect his gear. Just get rid of them. Put it in your rucksack. Shallow grave, go. Yeah. Like how important is that pilot?

Seriously. He got caught. He lost control of his aircraft. I'm sorry. I'm not in charge of what happens to you. Look away if you want to. I mean, yeah. I didn't pick them.

No, that's He's not my pilot Can we get some details on this pot? Is he single? Was he an asshole? Is he well liked? Can I see his last five evaluations? Like, I want to know

is this dude worth it because maybe beating him to death with a pipe is a better call. You know what I mean? Let's track his criminal history. Anybody going through selection, please don't take anything I just said in the last minute or two.

Seriously, you're not going to become a green beret if you do anything that we're talking about. Could you imagine? They're like, Andy Stump said to ditch the fucking pilot in a whole, Just the sheer shock of the instructors watching somebody beat a medical mannequin with a pipe. And trying to bury it in a shallow grave on the side in the woods. Like why I take with us something that's already dead weight.

They're like, we want to mix all these guys, but we're kind of impressed right now. I can guarantee me the first time they ever saw it. Yeah, absolutely. The shock and awe would at least earn them their respect. Yeah, I agree. So when I was in, what happened, though, I went to Rangers Select. Ranger Assessment Selection, and then fucking Dick Couch decides he's going to do a book on that class. And I don't care who you are, like, or how tough your training is.

If somebody comes to shadow it to do a book on it, the shit's getting worse. Correct. So I was arm's length of the guy in front of me. And I was like, we're doing a ruck run for the morning. And I was like, I'm good. He said being arms length front of you, I'm like, I'm trucking. I'm trying to like conserve my energy. I'm feeling good.

and the cadre comes up to me and he looks at me and I could hear him fucking like breathing on my neck and he's like look in front of him and I look in front of the guy in front of me and he's got this huge gap in front of him so I'm just staring at his backpack thinking that we're all in a line and he's falling the fuck out

so he's like close the gap so I was like you got it and like a dumb little private that you know I don't know how to tie my boots right because they're brand new you know I got a rucksack on that's like fit like dogs ass because I don't know what I'm doing

but that guy told me to go I'm going 100% as fast as I can't so down a long steep bending hill I take off running as fast as I could I'm like heavily burdened yeah and then my rucks makes my stomach hurt just you describing this my rucks starts swinging and then I eat shit

my fucking ankle collapses I'm sliding down the fucking hill and I'm just and I feel like it took me like 10 minutes to stop sliding because I could feel the skin like just scraping off my knees or my elbows in my knees. And I get up and I'm just bleeding profusely because we're in shorts at the time. So like my knees just took it. And my ankle, like, you know, like that stuck pig kind of whine?

Like I stand up and it's like, you know, I don't know. Stuck pig is the right way. Like I don't know, someone getting beat or something. Just horrible pain. Stuck pig is pretty accurate. Is that pretty good? Yeah. And so Dick comes out to me and he's like, dude, you took a nasty fall.

And I was like, eh, no shit, asshole. I saw it. I was there. Yeah. And don't forget that this is partly your fucking fault. You know, because like, fuck your book. You know what I? Soi Sponte the fucking next class, dude.

So I get up and I'm just bleeding profusely. And the ranger tells me to shut up. So I bit my fucking tongue in my lip and I shut up. And I pushed back and finish the ruck. and I was like, I'm good. The whole time, that's all I could tell myself. Like, I'm good. If I keep going, it's not broken.

Like, so I'm good. Like, I could keep going. Because this is everything I signed up for was to be in that selection. Like, that's the only reason I was in the military or you've signed that contract was to be there. Yeah. And I get to the barracks and I start unlacing my boots and I can't get my boot off. And then so I had to take my laces completely out of the boots before it would finally slip off. and it was fucking like that big all the way down on my toes.

Watermelons. Huge. And then it turned black. So I like stumbled, you know, hobbled down the stairs and the caddry just looked at my foot. And he's like, oh, shit. He's like, you're done. And I'm not going to lie to you. I started fucking like welling up in tears and started punching the wall right in front of them.

I've seen it happen with students. One of the hardest things as an instructor is watching a student either fail or have a medical issue. and you know that they're an awesome person. But for one of those two reasons, the dream that they had is ending. And you have to sit there as the instructor while they're having a significant emotional event. Maybe their most emotional event in their life up to that point. And it's kind of like the water off a duck's back. You have to be in that role and be like, listen, this is the deal.

Check in with so and so. And boom, you're on your way. You can't get emotionally involved with that. But it's tough, man, to see dreams getting ruined. Yeah. And he just, he did that exactly to the tea. He just stood there, and I knew he was being cool about it because I'm in the Rangers' house punching their walls, and students are flowing past me to, because we're supposed to go upstairs, change, and then go back out,

and grab all our shit out of our lockers because they love to make you do that. And so they're flowing past me, and I'm having, like, this breakdown, just beating this wall in, and he's letting me do it, so I kind of felt, you know, that respect from him to just allow me to get it out. and so then I had a really good experience when the master sergeant in charge called me in and he told me he's like look dude you're the kind of guy we're looking for he's like so as soon as you heal up he's like come back and I was like that meant the world to me first of all like my dad was gone when I was one you know my childhood was a fucking nightmare and I needed I needed someone like him to tell me that I was good enough yeah you know and that's the only reason I was doing it was like I

pick something, you know, specifically hard so someone would, like, I could either fail and then they could look at me and be like, you fucking suck as a human being and like, you're not worthy and I could start going down that road or they could tell me I was good enough and I could, you know, start to see my own potential. So for him to call me in and say, hey, you know, the minute he said that, like, I almost started crying again because it was like, fuck, thank you, you know. And like, but now I knew, like, I had to get back to that capacity and see if, if I did have what it took. How long did it take for it to heal? A long time. What was the actual, what would it be prognosis or diagnosis? It was just like a severe sprain and they said I had Achilles tendinitis from it.

And then so like my, I had trouble like doing this motion with my foot. Pushing down? Pushing down. Pushing forward. That is plant. No, I don't fucking know. One of them's dorsiflexing. One of them's dorsiflexing. Yeah, I had a major issue with that. So like if any point, like if I stepped even on a pebble, and it flexed that way, my ankle would just give out. Yeah. So for a long time, like, stepping off of anything within that was taller than like an inch or two, I had to be extremely careful. That's rough, too, especially with boots.

Yeah. You know, you'd think that have great ankle support. And some of them do, but they have that lifted soul, which is going to give you, I've rolled my ankle. Some of the worst rolls I've ever had were jungle boots, like old jungle boots. Yeah. That felt great on your foot, but it had that big soul and just snapping that thing straight over. Yeah.

Not awesome. No, it sucks. And so it's like, yeah, so you keep like fucking re-injuring it. But so I was on crutches probably for like three weeks to a month. And then I finally got off crutches. They sent me to Germany. And then it probably was about six months before I felt like confident running again. And then so that time, so this is another kind of funny story is like, so now I failed ranger

selection, right? So I was like, I'm not going to be a fucking cook. You know, the Army might want you to be a cook? Yeah, yeah, they did. I'm assuming that's what you were doing in Germany. So I got out of that. And here's, so I went, they sent me to Germany and I was going to be a cook for a regular army. And I was like, fuck my life, dude.

Like now I felt the full impact of that recruiters, you know, I mean, fuck it. I signed it. It's my responsibility. But I was feeling at that point. So I think it was like a month or two in. I'm hating my life. I'm button heads with like everybody in the kitchen because I just don't feel like we're, you know, we have the same goals in the military. and I'm pretty vocal about it because I'm, you know, like I have no fucking filter and I basically just raised myself.

So it was like, I'm not like a good adult. You know what I mean? So I was like getting in fights with people and stuff. And finally an opportunity I found came up. And the Sartre Major's personal security attachment, his driver was PCSing. Which means permanent change of station. meaning leaving Germany going somewhere else. Yes.

And so I was like, that's an opportunity. I was like, I could fucking do that. And so I see my opportunity. I'm in the D-Fact line, and the Sartre major is coming by with the first sergeant. And I was like, fuck it. I'm going to do it now, dude. I'm just going to ask this dude. I was like, I'm going to get it.

And I was all excited. And he comes in. And he comes by and I was like, Sergeant Major. And he was expecting the normal like, good morning, Sergeant Major. How you doing? And I was like, I heard your personal security guy just quit. And we were gearing up to go to Afghanistan. So I was like, it's an important role right now, you know, like compared to, you know, infantry or something, it doesn't touch it.

But compared to flipping eggs, this will get me out of the wire. Yeah, it's a different universe. Yeah. So I was like, I heard you needed a, I heard your PSD quit and you needed a new guy. And he was like, we don't fucking take cooks as personal security. That's me, bro. And I was like, I was like, Sar Major, listen. And meanwhile, my first sergeant's fucking beaming at me, dude.

He's like, you don't, because you don't, I'm a private. Yeah. Let's just, for people listening or watching, what you are talking about is well outside of the normal channels that a request like this would be made. Absolutely. Absolutely. How this would normally go was a private would approach his first line supervisor, his either a corporal or an E5 sergeant. His E5 sergeant went to go fuck himself, and then it would stop right there. I skipped E5, E6, E7, E8, and went to the fucking E9 himself and was like, I want that spot.

Side note, all of those people that he skipped are now pissed at you. Yes. The one that was pissed the most, obviously, was his number two man as the first sergeant. And he's standing there watching the whole thing and he can't do anything because we're already engaged in this conversation. So he's just fucking, he's turning bright red. He is livid And I told the Sarm Major I was like Sarm Major

I will out fucking P-T and out-shoot anybody else you have going for that spot I was like we're about to go to war I was like do you want someone that could have your back or do you want to pick someone

just because their fucking MOS fits it And he looks at me He's like This motherfuckers got some balls So he looks at the first Sart And he's like He's right

All right You got the job And I was like Fuck yeah dude I was like yeah I'm out Yes, I'm out And I was getting ready I would throw the fucking

Cook Whites I'm going to run out this bitch And But of course That's not how it worked That first sergeant Wasn't going to just let that happen So we went on a field rotation

And that dude had me Digging a hole For like It was either a week or two weeks He had me digging a foxhole That entire He just was like Hey, you're not doing anything

This field rotation Except going in that Spot in the Woods Right there And you're going to dig a fucking foxhole and every single day until the day that we leave here you're going to make it a little bit better. And so I lived in a hole for two weeks

as a punishment for talking to the Sartre Major. That sounds about right. Yeah. And I sat there digging it and digging it. And I was turning it into a grave basically because he just he wouldn't let me do anything else. He was providing you with a teachable moment. Oh, yeah.

And the doctrine, that's what it would be called. A teachable moment. A task that has. no purpose and no end. Yeah. And from the outside is so utterly ridiculous that people would say, well, how did you learn anything by doing that? And the answer is, you didn't.

No. That was the only way he could punish you. Yep. Yeah. He had me for that two weeks, and he knew it. And then he even stopped. He wouldn't let me go. And then so I had to wait again to the sergeant major,

no shit came through the chow hall again after the digging a hole for two weeks, and the first sergeant's right there with him. because he's not going to let that Sarm Major go in the defect by himself because he knows I'm going to fucking... Oh, for sure. Yeah. So right there again with him, and I was like, he thinks I'm done? Like, this guy has no idea what I've been through. I do not give a shit about digging a hole for two weeks, and I'll dig another fucking hole for two weeks.

I'm not doing this job anymore. And Sartre Major walked up, and I was like, Sartre major, I thought I was PSD. And he looks at the first Sart and he's like, what the fuck? and the first sergeant just looks at me he's like so for clarity people first sergeant is now immediately having a nuclear bomb going off inside but he's containing it because he just got called out by his boss full shotgun full ambush by a private because of a private

by a private so there might be another digging evolution in here somewhere so that that was it and then I once he said that It was like he didn't want to fuck around with him anymore. So I went over and started doing that job. And the SARM major switched. But I, dude, I loved it. I went on deployment with that dude. And we had an absolute blast.

Like we were getting, you know, mortared every day. So like, and we're going, actually getting to go out on mission. I wasn't doing missions, nothing like I did in SF. But I was outside the wire. Yeah. And like, thank God. Like, I was not supposed to be outside the wire. And it's a different experience.

I have nothing but respect for everybody. who serves in every capacity in the military. And there are people who will go to a fob or a firebase and they will operate inside of the wire because that's their duties. And they do it incredibly well. And again, nothing but respect for them. It's a different optic and experience

once you transition outside of the wire. Or off of the base or the fob or whatever it may be. It's just, you know, you can get shot at while you're inside of the fob, but you're probably going to have, you know, bulletproof heskos or a shelter for mortars and stuff like that. I mean, I guess, well, there's been a couple places where that have been overrun. That's going to be a little bit of a spicier experience.

Yeah, yeah. But that stuff is generally going to happen more outside of the base. So it's different for sure. Yeah. And it was crazy because the first mission we got out, the fucking FOB gets attacked. And they, dude, the dude drove. So the best time to do it, actually. Yeah.

Yeah. So the, they, he blew up like a huge, huge V bit and it leveled half the fob. And so we spent the next like week and a half cleaning up piss. bottles that fucking got slung out from the explosion and the only one he killed was himself and but like if if guys weren't out on mission and they were out at that shopping area because he blew up the shopping area clack at a bizarre yeah so it was a um it was a v bid so they i guess they've been watching it on the p tids the the balloon that hangs over with the i know you know that but it's a balloon with a sensor on it that allows you know perfect think of it CCTV or you know

You're looking at a camera image, essentially. Right. So they were watching it on that, and they were watching them just stuff it with shit for, like, weeks. But they didn't know what was stuffing with. For some reason, we didn't do an operation on it. And then he just, he drove it right up, and then boom. And it just, like, it was huge, and it leveled half the fob. And so we get a call and we're like, hey, I know you're out on mission, like being cool guys, but we got blown up.

And luckily, no one got hurt and stuff like that. So where were you guys in Afghanistan when that happened? So that was in Favshank. Shank. What province was that in? So I'd have to check, dude, it's been a while. And I was horrible with my locations and stuff. Was it up in the north, the south? It was like central.

Okay. Was it Nangahar? Where am I here? My boy died in Nangahar. Okay. So we were in Aachen in Nangahar. So Nangahar. Yeah, I think it is actually kind of in between.

It's like in the middle, right? If I'm saying it right. Yeah, most people will think of, you know, Bogram as Nora and Moore in Candahara, Southern, I think you're talking about somewhere in between those two. Dude, I'm so bad with it. Like, I've literally had to, like, text my Fox and be like, hey, man, where were we at again? Yeah. It's like, I didn't pay attention to, dude. I was a Bravo. It's like, we're going to a valley over here. Here's the map. Here's the breakdown of that valley. It's like, cool. Let's get that valley and shwax some dudes. Yeah, it's faded for me over the years, too. I can remember some of the experiences, but I'll start, like, where province was that? Or something? somebody will talk, like, what are you talking about?

We were never there. And you're like, hey, dumb, dumb. We were there for two months. I'm like, okay. Yeah. I remember what we did. Right. Sorry.

I remember being there. Yeah. And a lot of the times you're moving at night anyway. Like, it's funny. Tim Kennedy made a post. I guess people were losing their mind because there was pictures of the National Guardsmen sleeping all over the place. I saw him post that. And I don't know how many times that I've used a rock as a pillow or under a car or, you know, like, fill in the blank.

If those army guys had woken up, the next thing that would happen is that they would start throwing rocks because you have a rock throwing contest. You know, like, it's just such normal behavior. And you get to the point where you don't have any idea when you're going to need to work. So when it's time to sleep, lay down. Yeah.

So I see those National Guards, and I'm like, yeah, right on. Other people like, those lazy sons of bitches. Is that what people were saying? People were pissed that they were, like, sleeping at the Capitol and just lay it about. Because I know Tim posted that and I was like. That was why he posted because people were having a little, I'm not going to say it.

uproar, but there was a reaction to, you know, why are soldiers sleeping on the floor? It's like, listen, because they don't know when they're going to have to do soldier shit. And when you have time off, you lay down. Yeah. And you go to sleep. I mean, they're in the capital because it could potentially turn into a really serious situation. And they need to be rested and ready to go. Yeah. So why wouldn't you rack out for a couple minutes if you can? That's ridiculous. You do soldiering enough. I'm sure you'd agree with this, that your field of fucks just gets very barren. Yeah. And you just lay down wherever you want to. Yeah. It's sleepy time. Whenever you can get the sleepy time, you've got to take advantage of it.

But that's part of being mentally and physically prepared. What's the alternative? You want me to sit there and stress about the possible outcomes? Yeah. What is that going to do? Hey, when you don't know when the game is, you take the time you can to rest and recover. I used to, it's amazing how good I got it, literally shutting my brain off, wherever we were. I don't know how many times I've slept in helicopters that were just idling on the ground.

You know, you're a QRF or a quick reaction for us. So you're sitting there spinning just in case out, sleeping. because you could sit there and be worried about what you're going to do or be rested when you get there. Or get off the helo and literally just sleeping on the gravel of the helo pads as rotor washes. Like, who cares? Yeah.

Be ready for game time. Yeah. I remember, what was it, J-bad? We were about to go on mission and the next morning. And, dude, I shit you not. For that week prior up to that mission, this is after I got into special operations or became Greenbrae. The intel just kept flowing in.

and the intel was bad dude it was like hey guys another intel brief the fox is just constantly coming in with intel briefs like hey there's a discrep position suspected discus position here and here and here and here and then they have a thousand fighters coming in now it's 1500 fighters coming in and it's like by the time that night came around it's like we're going against fucking russia in this valley and it's like somehow we have to just like block that out and get some sleep Because what happens if we don't sleep tonight? Oh, you're a mess. You're going to be a fucking mess.

And then if there's any kind of validity to any of that, which it wasn't even close to that, you know, we got a lot of ticks in there, but nothing like what they were projecting. Tick stands for troops in contact, essentially an engagement with the enemy where you're going to call back over the radio. You're really good at that. I get hit up all the time with not explaining military acronyms. You and I will forget how much of a different language it is. Trust me, I've already missed like six and people like, fuck you. man. So I'm doing the best. I'm hitting

him as they come up. It's so flowy though. You're like, there are troops in contact. I'm just like, damn, that's nice. Well, and it's a radio call, and I've been there at a jock, which is like a joint operation center that controls a lot of assets. When somebody comes back over the radio and they report troops in contact, it's the equivalent of like a red

signal flare going up. People start paying attention. Shit starts moving, and they'll push assets and attention towards you. Yeah. It means you're engaged with the enemy. Right. And sometimes you get engaged with the enemy, and you don't have to make that call because it might be like a 1 Z2 Z type. It's just not worth the radio call. You can make it later in an administrative setting. Right. So, yep, sleep when you can, I guess we're going with that. Where are we before? Just talking about getting outside of the

the Fob. You were off doing PSD stuff. Oh, yeah. So get outside of the Fob and anyway, so I just loved that deployment. And then I had a blast. I got along really well to start major. And it was just, it was like hanging out with your boy, the whole deployment. And it was like, hey, man, you get my back. I'll get your back. And we'll go do what we got to do. And, you know, there was a time fucking incoming, they were started to, like, shoot the Willie Peets. Yeah, white phosphorus. That didn't, crushing it.

I love when you do that. I'm going to start using more terminology so you do it more. I don't know if I know them all, but. It's so flowy and nice. So they shot one of those into the hooch, the house, if you will, of the Mortuary Affairs guy. Oh, shit. Yeah, so we're like, fuck.

So I told us to our major, I was like, I was like, listen, I'm going to jump in the car because we had that little high lux. And it was only like 50 meters from where we're at, the rounds were hitting. And I was like, get in the car. I jump in. I drive him to a barrier so he doesn't get hit. And I was like, sorry, Major, there's your barrier. Jump in there.

I got to go. And then I take off running because I want to go pull to get the more trade affairs guy out. And I'm like, he's taking care of. I've done my job. He's in a safe spot. I'm hopping up on the connexes, jumping over the T walls. I run in. And immediately because the building's on fire from that round.

I can't breathe. And it feels like I have like glass in my lungs. And that's immediately as I got in. And about halfway in, some dude, he's got balls of steel or he doesn't need oxygen. Like you can't even see anymore. Or both. Or both. He's just that cool.

It's a classic pairing. Yeah. The non-oxygen needing steel ballers. They're out there. They're out there. They are out there. Bad dudes. Yep.

And he comes running out and he's just like, there's no one. and he had already done the sweep. I was like, thank God, because I was already hurting. But the point of that was I turned around and the fucking Sarm Major is right at my back. So I was like, he was that guy, you know? He's not going to fucking go sit in a little safe spot while I go look for his dudes.

He's fucking going with me. So I had a blast. I loved it. And then he sent me home a couple weeks early to go to Selection, which is another huge hookup, for me. Did you have to restart the entire process for selection? Yes. Okay. Yeah, so I didn't go to Ranger after that. Okay. After that, I went to Special Forces. Gotcha. Okay, different selection. Different selection. Yeah. Substantially longer. Yes. Selection. Yeah. That two years on average to get through that?

Yeah, so we'll do three weeks for the SFAS and then you'll go back to your home station, pick up your family and PCS or move permanently to Bragg. Yep. And then if you pass everything the first time, it's about two years. I think they've shortened some things. It's changed quite a bit, but guys hit me up all the time. Like, how do you feel about these changes? And it's like, dude, it's not a big deal, man.

Like being SF was hard. Being a seal is hard. I don't care if they let fucking women do it. It's always, or they let fucking shorten this phase. Dude, people lose their shit, right? Yeah. I get hit up about the women one constantly. Constantly.

Would you serve with a woman? Can a women make it through buds? Would it change the team? And the reality is I don't have the answer. My personal opinion and suspicion is it wouldn't change it at all. My only concern, and the thing that I say every time is as long as they don't modify the standard to get a result that they want for an other than what I would say virtuous reason, meaning they just want to say, oh, look, this just happened. If they move shit around to make that happen, it's a problem. If the standard is the standard in somebody, anybody, which it should be a blind standard, so it gives a shit.

shit about the gender of the person attempting it. If you pass, you pass. I can give two shits. Could there potentially be some conflict of men and women in close and confined spaces with long periods of time? Sure, maybe. But guess what? The community can learn to deal with that if that comes to be.

Right. It's not an insurmountable problem. Right. And well, so I kind of had my reservations about it, obviously when they first brought it out, but it's like, and then I went to the police department and then I had this partner, I got to a small team in the police department. It was a citywide impact team. And it was an amazing team.

And then my partner was a gay female. And she was fucking amazing. And she was, she had my back. And she was always my down drive. She'd always be there for me. She'd take a bullet. And I was like, dude, you guys are over exaggerating. But it's not the hill to die on.

No. And a lot of people will, for whatever reason, position it as the hill to die on. And I think it might just be their own personal insecurity. Yes. As long as the standards. Like I said, the standards of the standards, meet them. Guess what? High five, welcome aboard.

And if other issues come from that, we'll figure it out. Pick a different hill. Right. But just like you said, things are pendulums, right? So let's say even they do lower the standards for a particular person to get in, regardless of what it is or for what reasons. That is going to have a pendulum effect on the operational capacity of special operations. So all of a sudden you see that dropping because you've lowered the standards,

now you're quality of person. So then you have to swing back. the other way and tighten it back up. Yep, a correction will be made. The correction will be made. So I just, anyway, I don't see any issues with that. But what is the, I think I might have asked Evan about this Hafer, but what is that two-year pipeline?

What does it look like from soup to nuts when you start? So you'll go to, and again, this is before they made some changes. I think they shortened SUT, which it does hurt my feelings a little bit that they shortened SUT because SUT was. Is that small unit training? Small unit tactics. See, it was close. I didn't know that one, but I guessed.

But you guessed it. You were almost there. It's not what you say, it's how you say it. Yeah. It's very, it's good. Sell it. Yeah. Even when you're wrong, just go.

Yeah, you sell the shit out of it. So small unit tactics, I think they shortened a little bit, which, again, it sucks. But so you go, when I did it, it was, they call IUW. And IUW is like a few weeks of just doing, like, retesting. So you do a physical fitness test. You'll do land nav again, which I think they took that out, which. which sucks because that was really hard. You took land nav out, or anyway, you do land nav,

you do, what else was it, history training, like SF history. Really? Is in there. Yeah. Interesting. It'll kind of break down some of that for us. And then from there you go to Small Unit Tactics.

Small Unite Tactics was like eight weeks, and then that was a ball smoker. That one sucked because it was like, what people don't realize is it, like if a dude quits, you don't just get to like put his ruck back in the barracks you know yeah the required equipment is the required equipment I don't give a shit you got eight people to carry it or you got six you know you're carrying that shit yeah that can suck and add up fast so then you go small new tactics

and then that's where you're learning small unit tactics I mean you learn how to do ambushes and things like that and how to move shoot move and communicate at a basic infantry level but that's what special operations does best right we do the basics so yep that's that's a That's where they really beat it into your head. I think the difference is that we do the basics just so much. Like 24 hours straight of just one type of linear ambush you'll do in Smiley and Tactics. Really? Yeah.

And then they'll tell you. That's the shit that'll save your life though. Absolutely. Again, another misconception. This is probably from Hollywood on little screen TV and big screen movie. I often see the things that they will do. I'm like, nice combat role. You know, like crazy maneuver, onesie.

Tuesdays, he's doing just ballsy slash insane things. And the reality is, it's, hey, I'm going to shoot, you move. When you get to where you're going to be, you shoot and I'll move. And we'll all do this together. It's not, it's forward back, left and right, and maybe some oblique. I mean, that's, that's really it. It's way less high speed than maybe people would want it to be, but that is the reality. Yeah. I mean, the more complicated you make it, the more chance for error. For sure. And then air could cost you life.

So it's not worth it to have anything overly complicated. And I think things just start to look complicated when people get good at them. Well, complicated can only, you can do complicated, but only if you have that solid fundamentals. Absolutely.

Every training block, you know, the life of a seal is about 24 months on the listed side at a non-J-Soc element. And you'll get people ending a 24-month cycle and they're on their like six, seven, eighth, fill in the blank. And then they'll start another one where it's a guy on there first.

So every training block is crawl, walk, run. Regardless of how many times you've been through it, guess what? Here is individual, you know, fire and maneuver. We're going to start with two people, then to four, then to eight or six, depending on the side of your squad. And then a month from now, we'll get complicated. But every single training block, diving, jumping, land have, cold weather. It starts at the fundamental level and then builds to complexity once you have that

competency and currency. Yeah, agreed. And it's the same with the ODA, constantly having a new guy that's coming in. You got to train them up. You've got to train to that person's knowledge and standard. Otherwise, when this shit does hit the fan, you're like, God, damn it, Bob doesn't know what to do.

Fucking Bob. Get over here, Bob. And that's why, dude, like, the way I kind of look at it, if I had to tell somebody about a new guy, it's like, you're a fucking burden to that first team that you get. Like, they have all the responsibility of, like, training you up. You'll never be a burden to another team again. Yeah.

Because you'll always go to the next team with the fundamentals down and how to do things. Even if that team does it differently, you still know how to clear room and flow with an ODA. I look back now, my first, thankfully it was pre-9-11, my first platoon, that 24-month cycle. If I'm being totally honest, I was more of a danger and threat to myself and the other people that I worked with than anybody else. Oh, yeah. I had what I thought was a ton of knowledge and almost no experience. thankfully we fought an imaginary enemy as opposed to a real one and uh you know just in our training evolutions but man i look back they take that young man and then where i left not that i was

an expert by any stretch of the imagination was like whew glad you made it through it made it through that one by the skin of my teeth seriously it's real the lack of knowledge and experience is real yeah dude i mean there like i don't know if you've heard it but like my first one of my first war experiences was fucking bad dude i have not heard it is it was really bad is this post pSD now you're into the s f world no this is as s f as an brbara vo first deployment first deployment stage is yours fire away yeah so um so actually the very first was like not really a tick it was like a one-way range we we go up um a sister team is in contact and i was like where are they at and they're like that way and i just start fucking

ripping it and i'm just having the time of life and it made me all cocky, you know, because like, like, oh, this war stuff's great. The enemy's that way, you shoot that way. What was your weapon of choice that day? M4. It's okay. Yeah. You could have done better.

I was hoping for something belt-fed. Yeah, no. So, well, he was ripping it with the mini gun, like right over my head. So he's a, man, dude, he even mowing it down here. And it fucking, it pissed me off, though, because I was, you know, I went to the certification course for the, what is it, the mini guns called the, the Gallo. The Dillon Arrow. Oh, the Dillon Arrow course.

Yeah, the Dillan Arrow course. I went down to that one. And so, you know, I know how long to hold that thing and you could still rip those barrels out. And my dudes up here, you're just like, mah, and I'm just like, motherfucker. And so he actually, like, split one barrel open and then I couldn't get it out because, you know, they slide into the holders, all the barrels do. So I'm like, I can't even get it out.

I had to cut the barrel in half. because he was just ripping him so much with that thing. But anyway, so that first experience was just like awesome. I was on cloud nine. I was like, I finally got to shoot back. You know, my first appointment I just got shot at. I never got to shoot back. Did you see the people you were shooting at?

No. No. Fuck no. Fuck no, dude. So you're like, that bush is dead. Yeah, oh yeah. I just fucked that tree right up. Yeah.

Yeah, I did. I like- Have plenty of experiences like that where you have a general idea and concept? You know, I cut all their lawns, dude. I was just ripping it. And there's a funny story because I carried a bandolier around my waist of 320 rounds. This will get into the bad story. And there's a fucking dude. And he's got like long hair down on his like shoulders.

And he's got this like slick like 9 millimeter proof vest on. I don't know what agency he was with. I don't know who the hell this guy was. But he's just sitting there and he's got a 320 and he's like laying down. And I run up. and I'm like trying to get eyes on the dudes. And he goes like, hey man, let me get one of those rounds. And I was like, where's your rounds?

Who the fuck is this guy? Jason Bourne, dude. And he's got a 320 in his hand. And he's got like a pistol and a 320. And dude, I'm telling you, his hair's down to like his shoulders. That's an interesting pairing. Yeah. It's, dude, it made no sense.

Apparently he was the only thing that I got off this was that he was an E8 Green Beret and now he works for somebody else. Okay. Like I say, it's Jason Bored. Yeah. So there's actually four of those guys that were there, like three days before we got there, just like living by themselves. Again, I'm not sure which unit was or which government thing it was.

Alphabet soup agency, if you will. Exactly. So he looks at me, he's just all calm, cool, and collected. He's there on my bad story, too, so he ties in. He ties in. And he looks at him. He's like, hey, man, can I get one of those? And I was like, okay.

And I pop a round out, and I hand it to him. and he's like, don't. Okay, can get another one, dude? I'm just like, what the fuck? Like, I'm not here just to supply you with fucking rounds, dude. You got to bring your rounds to the fight.

I mean, I'd give him one or two, but like, just in a curiosity, where's your band-a-ear of ammo? What a shit show, dude. But he, I mean, in reality, he was just that. He was just fucking amazing. Like, he was an awesome dude. But I wish I could meet him one day and be like, the fuck were you doing yeah um so anyway the bad story so i had the how close in proximity are these

stories uh within like a couple days okay so as a matter of fact yeah probably like the next day i think we're still in the same valley at this point so i had that i liked that having that 320 because i had you know such diversity with the rounds you had the h e round the hedp and then i had gas so i liked using the gas because if i couldn't see the dude i throw some gas and try to drive them out and then tag them. Yep. So I loved having it, but I didn't have at the time a holster to attach the 320 to my side. And I had it completely stripped down.

No optics, no front grip, none of that. So it's just a tube. Straight grenade launcher. Yeah. And so I ran a 550 cord through the trigger guard. And my senior at the time, he comes up to me. He's like, hey, man, is that a good idea? And I was like, no, it's not a good idea.

But I was like, I don't have any other way to attach it that it'll stay on my side. I want to have it with me. and then like as you would unclick it from that clip that I put on it, it would drop down and it had a lanyard attached to my shoulder, so it would just hang. So it was a great setup, but it was stupid to run it through the trigger guard. But I told them, I was like, listen, I'm not going to have rounds in it until I'm ready to fire them, and it's got a safety, so I'll leave it on safe.

I was like, but the idea is that, you know, tunk and then click it back up with no round in it. So I didn't have a round, and he's like, okay, that makes sense. And we start taking contact, so I load it up. And that dude with the long hair is like, I'm about to shoot. He goes, hey, man, there's a better spot over here. I'll show you. And I was like, cool. So I load it back up with the round in it.

And then I put it on safe. And mind you, at this time, like, I'm a fucking soup sandwich because right before we go to move, to go maneuver on the enemy because we start taking contact, my team sergeant or somebody, one of the guys on the team, either my senior or the team sergeant, gets a hair of pizzast that. It would be a great idea to take a fucking. 50 Cal with us and set up an

Overwatch position. Do you mean hand carry a 50 Cal? Yes. Okay. Yes. So I mean, they're not light, but I wouldn't necessarily volunteer to do that unless it made complete absolute sense and you weren't going to maneuver further. Right. Or it would be like a static support firing

position. Which I think that the idea was that it would be like a static support firing position. But like we don't even know, we still have to move to the end of the valley. So it can't be, yeah, it can't be static for, it could only be static temporarily. Yeah, it's going to have to move multiple times. It's going to have to move multiple times. So it was a horrible, horrible decision, but now I have, and for some reason, someone's like, hey, grab an AT4. So I got an AT4 slung around my shoulder, and now we're picking up a tripod, the 50 cow, and fucking cases of ammo for this support fire position. And the guys that we were

with, it was like their Afghan tier one element. It was, um, I, um, I was, um, I was, um, I think like seven of them. These guys are fucking combat vets, dude. Yeah. Like, they're no joke. I posted one video, and the guy's like, oh, I can't believe Commandos like, shoot so shitty. I'm like, listen, there's some hitters there, and they're fighting year in and year out. Yeah, they live there all the time.

All the time. Yeah. We get to come in all gung-ho, getting a few gunfights and go home. Their asses are fighting day in and day out. So these hitters, they know what they're doing. So the minute I tell them, like, hey, guys, we're taking this 50 cow, and we're going to go put it on a roof. they're like you're a fucking idiot so out the gate we just lost

and that was our first mission with these guys because we usually just trained with their special forces of the commandos not their tier one guys and so we just lost a lot of credibility right out the gate and so they finally own up they pick up all the shit we're running across fields taking contact and we're not shooting back because all of our hands are full fuck yeah so we get to one of the buildings

and these guys are like, they put down the ammo to like, we're leaving you now, goodbye. And we're like, whoa, what do you mean you're leaving us? And they're like, not that we like needed their support,

but like we're supposed to be working together. You don't just fucking go do whatever you want. You don't even have cons with our leadership. And they're like, we're not doing this. We're going to go, we have a mission and we thought you were going along with us to do our mission,

but you have some fucking other idea. Bye. and then the last straw the guy and he was like, we'll talk to our commander and we'll be cleared through our command. So, bye. It's like, fuck me, dude.

So that... You guys got fired by your partner force. Yeah, yeah. Usually that goes the other way around. Yeah, it was bad. So we convinced him to stay. We told him like, okay, you're right. This is fucking stupid.

We're going to break our instructions and we're going to take this shit back, drop it back off of the trucks, and we'll go get in this gunfight. Good? And they're like, okay, if you're willing to do that, because this is a fucking stupid idea, we'll go with you. And so one of my teammate, you know, finally talked to him into that.

So that dude with the long hair calls me up. He's like, hey, man, I got a spot up here. You could try to hit him from. And I was like, cool. So there's no, like, staircase to get to this, like, second floor roof. So he's got, like, a pole leaned up to the wall, and he just shimmied up it because he doesn't fucking wear any kit. And he's like, he reaches down.

I go and I jump up and grab his hand. And as he's pulling me up, the wall slides down. Oh, no. Took it off safe, didn't it? Took it off safe and pulled that fucking... Oh, fuck. And it goes, dunk. And I get to the top and I could see the smoke coming out of the 320.

And luckily it's, you know, minimum arming distance. So it just stuck in the floor. But I was like, my leg was shaking from the concussion of the round going past my leg. I almost blew my fucking leg off. And like, this is. is this is my introduction to war so like honestly it's it was like a moment of you're not good enough you don't deserve to be here you need to fucking you need to pack your shit and just walk your own ass off the battlefield because you fucked up and i look at the guy that's you know the ex aren't major

and i was like dude i'm so sorry bro and he looks at me he's like man this is war he's like if you're going to keep playing this game stupid shit's going to happen yeah he's like dude i fucking grenade my own dudes before. He's like, so get over it and let's fucking drive on. That's a sobering moment and it's a tough one. And for people listening, so that most of the time we were using 40 mic mic, but essentially they're all the same. It has to spin enough times for it to have an arming distance. And usually it's about 33 yards. So inside of that, if you fire one of these suckers off like a gold egg, like a 40 millimeter, hopefully it won't go off. It's a safety mechanism. What did I say? Did I say 30? You said 320.

Yeah, a 320 grenade launcher. Yeah, still shooting 40 millimeter. 40 millimeter. So they all, well, actually, I don't know. Did the gas ones have that same? I'm pretty sure it's a little 40s, yeah. Yeah, because it's got to, it's basically a piezoelectric fuse in the end, right? It's got to spin enough that it has enough pressure to go off.

And plus or minus 33 yards. Yeah. I'm not sure what that plus or minus might be because I've never intentionally tried to shoot one closer than that. Right. I tested it. Well, good. Yeah. And that's why it exists.

It works. Yeah. But that's rough, man. On your intro to that, that's rough for sure. It sucked, man. And it was like, it was sobering. And like I said, at that moment, I just wanted to walk off the battlefield. Like, I'm supposed to be a Green Beret. I'm supposed to be a Bravo. And here I am just making stupid, stupid, stupid fucking mistakes. And I almost blew my fucking leg off. And then now what are, what does that do to the entire fucking battlefield when now they have to have an Evac plan for me?

Because I'm a dumb ass. So honestly, like even just talking about it, like I'm okay now, but I, this like, I dreamt about this for probably a solid year of the what-ifs. And they just kept replaying over in my head. You know, what if it hit somebody? What if it would have went off? What if it hit my fucking leg? And like I had some serious trauma from that dumbassery, you know, and that's kind of what I tell people is like my personal experience with PTSD is not always like what the enemy does. because that's what their job is to fucking get you.

So like if you get hit by them, you know, it is what it is. That's life. But for me, my issues come when from mistakes that I made that were avoidable because now all the what ifs to just fucking go through my head like a replay reel. And it just makes me sick to my stomach. It's a lot to carry, man. I can imagine being in that situation. That's a heavy one for sure.

How did the rest of that day go for you? Dude, from there, it was like a 180 turn. Like, if the, I finally, like, sucked it up and just fucking drove on. And we got after it. And I had a, like, things really turned around. So it was almost like I needed that, like, gut check and kicking the nuts. Yeah. Right out the gate.

And then from there, it was, like, things started working. Things started grooving. Like, I mean, I used that 320. Our EOD guy saw a road or a car. and we were funneled like a whole company of dudes and we're funneled through this alley and he's like Travis dude

shit don't look right shit don't look right so he was like dude I'm not feeling it buck let's hit it and you know took me a couple rounds to hit it but I hit it with some HEDP and that thing went off like a jet

and he looked at me I've never forget looking at because everyone else is like fuck this I'm out and they all like back way up and it's just me and him standing there at this point and he's like dude you might want to take some cover. I was like, fuck that, dude. As you get knocked on your ass. Yeah. I was like, well, he's not doing it. I was like, if you're going to stand here,

I'm fucking going to stand here. And I told him, like, if you want to take cover, we will take cover. But you're not standing out here by yourself while I fucking shoot around at this thing. I'm not going to be responsible for you getting fucked up. And I shot that. You're my boy, blue. So like, I'm sticking with you. So anyway, so I shot it. And yeah, I was just like, and just like flames take off out of this. thing and shoot up like 12 feet in the air and an eOD guy explained it to me later i think Travis explained it but it was something about the two ways that around could or uh iED can go off

and oh probably just low ordered and burned as opposed to clacking itself off going high order yeah that's probably it i mean you can burn c4 you know yeah so it might have just initiated the burning process on whatever was in there yeah imagine if that thing had clacked off I've been in more than my share of situations where you're walking and like this seems to be really bizarre. We're not only naturally channeled by the terrain, but we're also man-made channeled by these other things. Let's go the other direction.

Yeah. I'll tell you what, EOD is a special breed in my mind. Those guys and gals that are willing to go forward and investigate that stuff, no thank you. Yeah, they got huge balls. I don't care if you're a woman or not. Your ball is hanging to the floor. You might even need a wheelbarrow.

Yeah. Yeah, it's not really. How long were you guys there on that deployment? It was like seven months. What year was it? What was that one? 2016-2017. So through the wintertime, probably?

No, we were definitely there through the summer. So 2016 then. Summer of 16. Oh, I thought you made you there as the calendar flipped over. No, yeah. So I think it was 2016. because it was hot as shit. It was like 110 degree days and stuff.

That would not be the winter. Yeah, not the winter. That would not be the winter in Afghanistan. Yeah. And then after that deployment, or actually I should say, how did the rest of that deployment go for you? So that deployment kind of like, it went to shit, basically. So we started having some, my team started just got, he got weird.

Like something happened to him. I don't know what the fuck happened to him. It was kind of his last go at combat. And he just kind of went nuts a little bit. And, you know, and, like, started acting fucking crazy. We were doing wild shit. We're doing cowboy shit, for sure. Unnecessarily.

Unnecessarily. Deaf and 100% unnecessarily. You know, I almost got killed. Me and him almost got killed. He took around to the leg because of, you know, we went to go swack two dudes. And he's like, he's like, he just calls it up, like, right then and there. The aircraft sees, like, we're trying to go. down this valley. Over here is two guys bedded down like hiding with two Aks. Aircraft has

been swacking dudes around us all night long. Why are we stopping mission to go mess with two guys? To personally assault the position? Yes, to personally assaults him. And we went to, dude, we hit that same door three times. And each time we went in, we were getting fucking lit up. I watched a dude get shot in the head, bap. And then the commando step center gets shot in the head. He falls to his back. And I'm like, he's fucking dead. He jumps back up. They had a helmet on? He had a helmet on and it bounced right off his fucking helmet.

God, he might need a neck adjustment after that. Seek chiropractic help. And so he falls flat on his back and I was like, well, that one's dead. But this was after the area had already been saturated by the aircraft or the 30 mic mic mic, they were doing the strafing runs on him to kill the dudes. So we kept going back thinking they were dead and then we get fucking lit up again. And then the guy posted a video on it because I actually had the video, but the dudes he takes a knee and we didn't see this till after but as we're running like the rounds were

hitting by our feet he once we got home we saw the video he took a knee and he just starts fucking letting us have it and i grace the god that none of us got hit yeah because i mean we're fumble fucking through the dark trying to run you know running and nods sucks um so shit like that started happening and then it just got weird man it was like this weird vibes where you could tell There's a lot of hostility. And I had a five-year enlistment in my inbox that I was going to sign like the next day. And it literally, if I would have saw it sooner in my inbox, I would have signed it. If I would have saw it in that day, if I would have checked my email that day, I would have signed another five-year enlistment.

And then so he makes me bravo one. And then we're sitting inside the team room and I hear like screaming. And I was like, what the hell is going on? So I go outside and he's outside like cussing out or Charlie, like, trying to fight him. And he's like chest bumping him and shit. This is the senior enlisted guy. Yep. It's chest bumping and trying to fight one of our junior charlies. Not a good sign. No. So I get in the way and I was like, dude, what are you doing? And he gives me that like angry scowl and he goes, get the fuck out of my way. And I was like, no, dude. Like you're not going to fucking fight Tino.

Like this is stupid. Like what the fuck? You're the team sergeant, bro. And so at that point, like three or four of us, I think it was three of us, Tom, Tino and me were like, we're done. We're done with this team. We're not dealing with that bullshit because Tino was going to leave because of that. So Tom and I were like, well, we'll go with you. We'll go to Bagram and, you know, command could shove it up our asses for leaving the base, but fuck it, whatever, dude. Yeah. And then the captain comes up to us and plays political and he's like, you guys, you know, you get to make all the decisions and we really need you.

and like, like, this will ruin the team, the reputation and all the stuff. And he's like, just give me one more chance. Like, let me talk to Jason and see if we can't get this figured out. And we'll take it from there. And so we're like, all right, dude, we'll give you one more shot at it. But if this keeps going down this way, like, we're done. And it kept going down that way. It kept going that way until the day we left.

And so the next day I saw my enlistment papers in my inbox and I just hit that delete button. Wow, is that powerful enough to change the course of your decision? decision-making to stay in the military. Absolutely. Have you, do you have any idea what happened with that guy after that deployment? Do you have any idea what transpired in his life? So, from what I heard, he ended up getting kicked off the team once we got back. And then my buddy took over the team.

And then from there, he kind of got, like, from what I heard, he got, like, promoted to, you know, office position downstairs as an acting CSM for the next deploymenter. something and then he retired shortly after how many combat rotations did he have under his belt um he had a lot of trips i think he i think that was the only combat he may i think he had like one tick in another place and he this is the most i've ever talked about him so i'm probably going to hit up later with fucking death threats but i think he had like one thing in like africa like one little tick in africa yeah but we had we basically left with the same amount of combat experience Me doing three years and him doing like 18 or something.

I could see him being in a place where he was trying to jam it all into one deployment, and that's super dangerous. I know a lot of guys, it was more earlier on in 9-11. I called it Chasing the Dragon. They would see a team that had a deployment that was legendary from a kinetic perspective, so they're like, I got to get to that team. But what would happen is that that team's next deployment rotation was not legendary. So this person's like, fuck.

So then they say, okay, I've got to go back to this other coast. And it gets them into a place. And I don't know if it's, they're measuring themselves against their peers or I know plenty of people, and I'm sure you do too, who would gauge their success in special operations based off of how many people have I killed, how many targets. And it's irrelevant, but it's a metric of their value. And I hope that people can get outside of that because I do know people who, basically rate themselves against those things. So I can imagine and see somebody at the tail under her career trying to jam all that in. But it sounds like he essentially from the inside destroyed the network and the cohesiveness of your team. 100%. Yeah, chasing the dragon is

dangerous. And almost always. And I just will not say always because I'm not positive, but almost always I find those people to be the least satisfied and have the most actual regret. Yeah, I could see that for sure And I don't want to just bash him the whole time What he was great at was training And like he ran the mountain training course He was phenomenal And like our train up getting for this deployment

With all his experience and stuff was phenomenal But like I said I think he was just trying to cram everything Into that last trip to justify his entire career Which he brought so much more to the table Than a gunfight Yeah, chasing two dudes with AKs when you have an asset that can handle that issue.

I mean, that's a risk mitigation and just assessments. Like, it's not worth our, it's not that it's not worth our time, but why take that risk when a multi-million dollar asset can handle that from tens of thousands of feet away? Right. And the same thing happened, another two dudes. And we're about to bed down after pushing the whole day. And he was, he's like, team meeting, let's go.

And it was me and my boy, Tom, and a couple of dudes. And he's like, hey, they're like fucking right there sleeping. And the aircraft sees the AKs in their hand. And I was like, And he's- Is the aircraft armed? Yeah. And so I was like, I was like, hey, why don't we fucking let the aircraft shwack these dudes? We've been in gunfights all day long.

Let's catch some sleep so we could be ready to go for the next all-day push that we have tomorrow. And so, but what I said was, I was like, hey, why don't we have the aircraft swack them? They already confirmed that they have a case. And he pauses and he doesn't say anything and he just looks at me. And he fucking yelled at me about something. He was like, he's like, they can't. We need to confirm that they're hostile or something like that. And it's like, did we been swacking dudes all fucking day for less than this?

Do we now need to confirm? Yeah. So then what happens, we run up and I don't mean to take this all down story time. We fucking, my boy Tom looks at me. He's like, dude, it's a good plan. Let's go fuck him up. I'm like, all right, fine. Let's do it.

Like, I'm not against getting in gun fights. I'm like, just let's not be unnecessary. I'm against getting in stupid gun fights. Right. Because, exactly. And then we go up and we line. line up in this line and the bird is flickering them. Yeah.

And so we're like, all right. And so he throws a grenade thinking that he's going to fuck him up. Like, good plan, right? If you had the reach in the fucking distance to get them. How far away were they? Dude, like 50 meters. Not happening with a grenade people. Not happening.

Probably going to come in about 25 short. Yes. And that is what happened. So not only did, so he throws a grenade, it goes fucking halfway. it blows up. So now you just alerted them to our position, but the worst thing is he just dust clouded the whole thing. I was going to say,

probably obscured your guy's vision. We couldn't see shit. All we had was the flicker cutting through the dust because the aircraft could still see it. So we start lighting them up, and the whole road just starts fucking sending it. And it's like there's no way these dudes are alive. Except they are.

Because why wouldn't they be? They were probably in some little defilate, you know, just sitting in a ditch. Because they're not stupid. Yeah. Right. So those guys end up going to do the BDA. Battle damage assessment. Yes, I felt good about that one. I set that one for you a little bit. So they go to do the BDA, they take the dog guy with them, and then while they're moving up, I think it was while they're moving up. And anyway, the bird starts flickering another one. No, it wasn't. Okay, sorry. So they go to do the BDA, and as they're like cresting with the dog, they start getting lit the fuck up.

and so the dog almost gets killed the dog handler almost gets killed and then as he starts lighting him up that's when another one starts running across but everyone's so focused on this one um it was just me watching this guy run so i just let him have it yeah and i just fucking hula hooped him with my laser until he dropped and then i was like fuck this i'm not staying here because they're in a gunfight over here and that guy's dead so we run up to go with them and we start getting lit up again and then that's when my Jerry the fucking Fox on the team so I'm laying in a ditch trying to be as small as I can and old fucking Jerbert decides that he's

going to throw a grenade over the wall which Jerry's got like more combat than anyone I think he's like eight seven or eight fucking deployments and then comes back and he's been over there so long he gets cancer so he like he's standing over top of me and I'm trying to like

make a small target and I could see him under my nods like pulling the grain. I was like, okay, you're going to throw a grenade? It's cool. It's party time. It's that kind of party. I was like, here we go, dude. And so he pops the pin and then I see the fucking spoon. No.

Dude. He's going to cook the fucking grenade off in his hand? Yes. This person is immediately not my friend anymore if you're in close proximity to me. This would be an example of some movie shit people. Dude. When you hold a grenade, you put the spoon into the webbing of your hand. so that shit doesn't happen.

Yep. So you can pull the pin because when the spoon goes, your timer's a ticking. Yep. You don't do it the other way and then intentionally let that thing fly off. That's some Vietnam shit. Yeah, dude. Because the fuse is, what are they, like three and a half to five seconds? Yep.

What if it's more like three and a half than five? Right. I'm not into that shit. No, me either. Me either. And I'm laying in this, I can't even fucking get away from them because I'm like trying to make a small target because they're shooting. and he just standing over me and he's like, fuck it, we're all gonna down go, fuck.

So he pops, and I see the spoon fly off and I'm like, oh my God, throw it, oh my God, throw it, please throw it, and he goes like this, I do it, I shit you not, this is what he does. And that wall is probably like 10 feet tall. And he goes, he jumps and he fucking lays up. Like a layup? He does a layup with the grenade. Can you imagine if that thing came in short? Dude, oh, we're dead, we're dead. We're dead.

Like he 100, percent said, I'm doing this. Yeah. Like, you're my life and my life was like, he's like, fucking I'm doing it. He was all eggs in the basket of that maneuver. And dude, no joke. He fucking, he does a layup. And I'm just watching that grenade in slow motion just fucking peek over the fucking wall.

And then drop back down. And I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. I might need a training time out after that. Just give me a minute. Yeah, I want to just tell the bad guys, like, dude, sit the fuck down for a minute. Like, let's take five. Yeah, that's not awesome.

No, so that whole thing and, you know, it's just crazy because, you know, he's being smart. I wish he'd throw it a little harder, but cooking it because they were right there. They could have thrown him back at us, and I love Jeremy. He's a fucking amazing dude. But we didn't need to be in that at all. Yeah. So all those stories of those gun fights, yeah, they're fun stories now, but that's because no one got hit. Yeah, it could be a different story that you'd have to be telling.

a family member or loved one. And what kills me when you're talking about this, you know, you're talking about, for people listening, they might not have understood having an aircraft flickering on the target or sparkle is another word that we use. So these aircraft have infrared lasers, and they have, you know, it could have been an AC130 or an A10, whatever it is.

So they have all these sensors. They're looking down, and they can basically put a laser beam that you can only see under night vision goggles on these people to show you exactly where they are. And when they maneuver, and their sensors are, you know, If they can identify an AK, I mean, hostile act, hostile intent, like, you're good.

To disregard all that technological advantage and to try to do that with physical horsepower. Yeah. I'm not going to Monday morning quarterback anybody, but there probably were options that were far less risky. Right. So that's, I think you're, I think you're spot on, dude. I just think he's just trying to get it in. Which is dangerous. It's dangerous, man. Like, and, you know, I have a wife and kid to go home to. And like, I signed up to get after it, but responsibly and intelligently. You know, so, and things just kept fucking happening like that.

There were so many of those experiences. And then finally, yeah, it was enough. And then to go back real quick, I know, you know, we covered like my childhood stuff, but because you asked, you're like, that was enough for you to make you feel that strongly. And it's like, my mom was a drug addict and my dad was gone and, like, she, it was, it was the child abuse was so immense. Like I had this feeling like I was back in that.

But like the way that this guy was like being. You almost conditioned to it. Yeah. So it brought up like childhood PTSD to be in a position with another person acting like possessive and fucking manipulating. Because he was doing like shady shit. And it was like this makes me feel like I'm fucking a kid again with a drug addict. You know?

And it's like I can't I can't stomach this kind of environment. Like I signed up for this. shit to be around adults and this is stressing me the fuck out to like a max i was like so i'm not going to sign a five-year contract when i could potentially be putting myself back in the same team room with a dude like that so time to move on it's crazy the power that one person in a leadership position can have i mean i would imagine i'll obviously well not obviously but i would assume your background is different than the peers you were working with because it was definitely extreme and trust me we'll talk about it for sure but

I bet you weren't the only person having those thoughts, even though the backgrounds were different. And if you switched that leader out with somebody who was amazing and empowered their people and made right decisions, it could have taken, let's call it, three people who were changing their mind because of that. You switch out that leader, and that leader could have inspired those three people

to become something fucking amazing. They could have changed the course of the Green Berets. Or they would have, you know what I mean? Like evolved and innovated and done something with the community. It's leadership is a bitch, man. It's the single most powerful, tool that I think human beings have access to, but it cuts both ways. People always want to talk about, oh, good leadership. I'm like, yeah, let's talk about something bad. Yeah. And the impact

that that can have the secondary and tertiary cascading effects of that shit, too. Shit cuts deep. It cuts very deep. And it's not something that you forget either. Like, we're still talking about it right now. And it's, I mean, it's real for sure. So how long after that did you depart the green machine? So what was that? I had about six months left on my contractor, months left on my contract once we got home from deployment. So I got home and we're sitting in the team room and I was like, most of us are fucking absolutely miserable at this time. One guy's getting ready to go to Delta selection so he's not going to buck the system and he made it to Delta so that was a smart move on his part. He knew where he wanted to go and he knew that this guy could

fuck that up for him. And then the other three of us were two of us got kicked off the team, which was blessing, right? He brought me in and he's like, hey man. The same dude? Yeah. He brought me in when we got back and was like, you're going to 2-1 because you got some kind of fucking relationship with that commander over there. I was like, it's my friend. He's a good fucking dude, Lance and he ended up getting shot and he's just a fucking hero. But he's a buddy of mine. We were in the Q-course together. He's a great dude. So he was going to take me over on his team. But then he called me and he's like, are you getting out or what? And I was like, dude, I'm sticking this out, man. I was like, Like, I would love to be on 2-1.

You guys are a phenomenal team. But I'm going to get out. And he's like, okay. He's like, well, Andrew, he's a bravo over there. He's like, he's still deciding whether or not he's going to get out or whatever. So I was like, okay. So they technically fired me. I went to the B team with my boy.

He got fired. The one guy that started the whole thing, like getting in the fight, he's the only one that couldn't get off the team. Just trapped. Yeah. And he was like, dude, this sucks. What the fuck? He's like, I started all that. Like, this is all because of the fight with me, and I can't get off this team.

So he got out of the military, too. He went to law school. And then luckily my NCR was already done. So, and it was, like, phenomenal. So because if he had to redo my NCR, so it's a non-commissioned officer review, he would have destroyed me. And that's what he did with Tom. He, like, destroyed his NCR. Which has long-term effect on your military career.

Yes. Yes. And that this is, and that's what happened to Tom is he tried to go to the unit and he didn't get picked up for selection because they're like, what the fuck is up with this NCR? It's so bad. Yeah. And like, so hopefully he gets picked up on the next go around. He's waiting to hear back now. But it's like.

It takes time though. And it can derail you because something might happen. The needs of the army. Hey, you're gone with the next. You know what I mean? That sucks. And again, that's the power of one person. One person.

That dude might eject and move on with his life feeling satisfied. but the frags that he pulled the pin on and left behind, that could ruin people's career. Yeah. Yeah, it's a gnarly one, man. So after that, I just started applying for jobs, you know, the FBI. I finished my bachelor's degree between the time that we got back and the time I got out. So I was applying for the FBI, the CIA, Denver Police Department, you know, just anything along that wheelhouse.

Because, right, we feel so pigeonholed getting out of these jobs that's like, well, what are you going to do when you get out? So fucking law enforcement or our feds. A lot of guys fall into that for sure. Yeah. You know, and I literally, I couldn't think of anything else. And like, so I went law enforcement and, you know, that had its ups and downs. How long did you serve as a law enforcement officer? So I did that.

I think it was like three and a half years before I moved on from that. Three years, three and a half years. How was your experience there? So that was a ton of ups and downs. I had a blast. I got lucky and I got onto a special team really quickly, which was, was that citywide impact team. So it's like throughout the city,

instead of being borders, wherever the issues were, we had the freedom of movement to go to those issues, whether it's like, you know, the gang shootings are rising up in this spot. We can go to that spot.

And it was a small team. I was finally back on a small team, and it felt great. And then George Floyd happened. You know, we all came to work the next morning. And my buddy showed me that video, and I was like, fuck. Fuck.

as soon as we saw that my whole team was just sitting there like this that fucking sucks i think that was going on in law enforcement organizations nationwide potentially worldwide i would say i'd say it even obviously happened in the u.s but i bet you that same conversation was happening worldwide it's crazy that people don't realize that it's like when we saw as the police officers when we saw george floyd our heads went in our hands and we our our stomach sank because we knew that this guy just fucked up and that was bad. I have yet to meet a single officer who has attempted to defend in any way the actions that day. No. You shouldn't find one. I hope that you don't because I mean the guy was just flat out wrong. He let his ego get the best of them. The one thing and you know,

this could be a landmine I'm stepping on, but the one thing I will say is I don't believe it was a race issue. I believe that it's an ego issue. I think that and I'm on my last class in my master degree right now and I'm right wrote a paper on it was um you know police burnout and police PTSD is astronomically high and it's completely just ignored on the you know law enforcement level because people don't want to acknowledge that here's a bunch of law enforcement officers with guns out there dealing with people and they have all these issues and it's like but unfortunately you're there's no way around it because you're not going to put a human being in that position and have them not develop PTSD or burnout in yeah because people fucking suck

to deal with dude it's so and nobody calls 911 to say happy birthday right it's the worst of the worst and it's it's it's insane situations dude like my my buddy call me the other day just to talk because he went to a call where like a three-year-old was dead and they found out that he was molested by the boyfriend to death and left in a tub and both parents left. See, I have a solution for that, but it nets me in prison too. Yeah, me too. I mean, to be honest, like, I would be, it's like, I'll volunteer. Yeah.

Do you guys, you guys, you don't have somebody to fill that role? Because I'll fucking do it. Yeah. And that's why I couldn't be a police officer. No, I'd be like that guy? That guy right there did that. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, seriously. Seriously. And so law enforcement is walking around with this hanging over their heads and it's in their minds all the time. And we're always like doing what, you know, same military and law enforcement does. You push it aside and you try to do the best you can. It pushes back. Fuck, yeah, it does. So on Fridays I do episodes where I'll answer questions.

I just had a buddy of mine come in. And one of the questions that I was answering was, or I posed to him and we answered it together, was about a cop who reached out. It's like, listen, I'm burned out. I'm like barely able to control my emotions. I used to be able to sit there and nothing would bother me. And now it's like I'm fucking barely holding it together. And it's like, of course. And even just in the email, some of the stuff that was described is, they're not all, but most of the messages have the theme of, I don't know who to talk to you because their biggest fear is losing their gun and badge.

if they talk to somebody inside of their organization. But it sucks. You have to deal with those issues or those issues will push back on you. I've dealt with it in my own life. And it's not, the biggest thing I hope people, I hope we can get to a place at some point in time where people just understand that that's okay.

That's actually what's supposed to happen. If those issues don't push back, you might be wearing a skin leotard. You might be a serial cat. Yeah, you might be a serial killer. That's what like, seriously. It's not normal shit to have to deal with that stuff. I mean, even in that email that this one particular guy, it was just like every version of a kid fucker.

Like, oh my God, of course you're going to have some residual stuff. I just. Because you care about other human beings. Yeah. And watching them suffer is always going to be difficult and it's going to have its scars. But we have to fix this. Like we have to start helping law enforcement. so they could, you know, deal with those issues and not just be ignored and just be like,

keep hitting the streets, keep hitting the streets, keep being this perfect human that doesn't exist. And don't let anything bother you. As somebody who came from that world, how would you, what would you recommend or can you think of any suggestions that would help? I think that the departments need to not be afraid to acknowledge that their officers are dealing with PTSD and they're dealing with burnout and start giving them treatment and not just saying, because this is what the department does, hey, we have this guy. he's in charge of your wellness and he'll send out an email, hey, come talk to me.

No, no one's going to go talk to you because they're afraid if they do, they're going to lose their badge, or because they have a fucking job to do and they got to go get it done. They don't have time to like go seek out help. And I don't care if, like, if you, well, it's for the greater good. Like, okay, you can keep saying that it's not going to happen though. What they need to do in my recommendation is that they need to, just like they do on the teams, cycle people off the streets. you should not be hitting the streets for fucking 10 years straight, 15 years straight. Look at that dude that held his knee on George Floyd's neck.

How long has that dude been on the streets? I don't know. I think it was like 17 years. And I would agree with you. I don't think the color of that person's skin or that gender or sex would have made a difference. No. I think his actions would have been the same regardless. Yeah.

It was his ego because someone else was in this. I think they were like telling him like, hey man stop doing that and he's like don't fucking tell me what to do is my job yeah he was their training officer so so i think his ego got in the way i think that he's suffering from fucking burnout he's already had issues with george floyd as a person he knows him and he's he's tired of his shit and he's lashing out and he's just being a dick yeah he's a fucking dick but there's a lot of like ways we could help people to not get to that point and we can't just be like well he's racist. Listen, I acknowledge. Which he might be. I'm not saying he's not. Yeah, I just don't

personally think that that was going to happen with that individual. Man, women, pick the race, religion, fill in the blank. Right. I agree. And I'm not in, I think it's important as, you know, white straight males that we acknowledge racism exist. Why did you just assume that I'm straight? That's a good, that's a good point. You didn't see that coming. I'm just joking. but you know what I mean like like for the just personally like talking to my friends you know a lot of them because I was somebody that you want to go on the racism tangent real fast go for it so I was someone as a white straight Christian male I've never experienced racism obviously you know obviously who's going to be racist towards me I think it's I mean it's very possible and it depends on how you

define racism yeah because I've heard versions where people say you can't You can't have experienced racism if you are white because you don't come from a place where somebody has, I don't remember the exact word, power or leverage or authority over you. But to me, I mean, that seems to be, I think, cherry picking a little bit. Wouldn't racism just be anybody of any skin color making decisions based off the color of your skin, your race? I mean, to me, that's like, that is racism. Right. So it's 100% possible that people have, where you have experienced. or been on the other side of racism. Right.

It's possible. Yeah. But from my experience, I have not personally experienced it. So I was under the impression, and this is that racism was like going away. Like we were doing great as a country in that this is like moving on. So that was kind of my viewpoint of it is like, yeah, we're developing phenomenally. We're doing great. Racism is a thing of the past, and it doesn't, it just gets perpetuated by the media mostly.

is kind of our biggest issue right now. And then I just started, so I had a, my partner, one of my partners during the riots was black. And I started asking, I'm like, like, seriously, dude, do you experience? Have you experienced racism as a young black male? And he's like, yeah, dude. Like, yeah. So I was like, fuck. So then I went to another black friend.

I was like, hey, man, have you experienced racism? And they're like, he's like, dude, I could, I got us some stories. Like, are you asking me? Do you want to know? And I was like, crack open that bottle of whiskey and let's, Let's talk. We're not as far down the road as a country as I think a lot of people would like it to be. Right.

And it's so fucking hard to see the world from somebody else's eyes. I mean, it's, I'm not a perfect human being by any stretch, but I can't think of anything that turns my skin more than people still thinking that, because there are people out there, like, racist is fuck. They still think it's okay. Yeah. It's one of the things that turns my stomach. the most, but if I'm being honest about where I think we are as a country, we're, we got a long way to go. We do. We do. And so that, I think that's just important to say for me personally is because I started going down this path of having these conversations. And these are friends

with someone I've been for years. And we've never talked together about racism. And so that is something that could be a powerful experience for people, is to just start asking about it. You know, acknowledge that? It's tough to have the conversation because it gets, it gets contentious very quickly. Like to me, I feel totally comfortable saying that as a country, we have a lot farther to go. Because what I'm not saying is as a country, we're just a flaming pile of dog shit. No, of course. But a lot of people will make that leap.

I think it's okay to address issues, to address places where you can make substantial improvement and focus on that and still believe you live in a amazing. Like I hope both of those beliefs concurrently. Me too. It's not like that one is a flame that is burning brighter than the other one, but god damn, dude, you want to have a shitty Thanksgiving dinner, be like, pass the potatoes, you racist. And here's the thing, too. I've also seen that word weaponized to shut down conversations. Obviously what I just said about Thanksgiving is a fucking joke. Right. But I will listen. I've been part of conversations where, somebody will get to a place where maybe intellectually they haven't thought out their position or they want to shut it down or they want to make it a conversation or they want to ensure

that the conversation doesn't go to a direction that they don't want it to. They'll throw that word out there and it's not magic. You know, it's like, but it has this, it's just like, whoop, we got to stop. Yeah. And I would, let me rephrase, like, go out and have these conversations. When I say have these conversations, I'm saying, like, over a glass of whiskey or a drink with your good, good friends. You know what I mean? I'm not saying go to a bar and by all means start having conversing with, but maybe, maybe if you're intellectually, um, if you can do that, if you're willing to do that and not have that end in an escalating argument with physical confrontation, I'd be okay with that. But yeah, maybe start with your friends. Start with your friends. Because people need to know

that you are as a white person, like you're, you're, you're acknowledging that you haven't experienced instead as a white person and that you are genuinely interested in their experiences so you could see, you know, what life has been like for them. I do have a half-sister who's half-black, and I have watched her experience racism from some of my own family members growing up. You know, she was treated differently sometimes, and I would always wonder like, well, obviously they don't like her as much because she's a girl, you know, and she's a sister, which is really annoying. But that turns out in our adult lives that that wasn't the reason. But that still doesn't qualify me as understanding what she felt like because I wasn't in her shoes. I didn't wake up that morning and get treated differently. But going back to, you know, that's just kind of my stance on just where I am in my life is just finding out.

Yeah. There's another side of the coin too. And that coin, you know, nothing that you and I do will ever put ourselves in somebody's shoes like that. But I also think it needs to be said that just because that isn't the case that we can't experience that doesn't mean that we have any less empathy. And it also doesn't mean that every person who is not a person of color or is also a racist. You know what I mean? Like it doesn't, it shouldn't be the baseline default. not everybody who is white is a fucking racist.

And I'm not saying that everybody says that, but I've heard that more often than I would care to admit. Absolutely. We're all spectrums in between. Like, to myself, I think, I mean, I don't even consider the color of the skin. You know, but there's every variation and version of that.

I can never experience what they have experienced, if they have experienced that. And at the same time, I hope that they afford me at least the opportunity to just be judged as a human being. And again, not because I'm white. It doesn't mean that I don't understand. But I also may not be a fucking racist either. Right.

Agreed. So, you know, that going back to Floyd and the riots, it was like, that was tough. So obviously, we're all sitting in there, you know, we watched the video and we're just like, fuck. But we don't know how bad it's going to get. We know it's going to be bad, right? Because it's fucking terrible. what happened, but, and then all hell breaks loose.

And Denver just turns into a giant shithole. So the riots were kind of crazy, though, because the riots were profound and amazing, not the rights, but the protests. Dude, like sitting as a cop, being able to just watch peaceful protests when they were having them, you know, during, during the day, dude, it was so powerful. It was so powerful to watch all these people just walk in and hand to hand and, you know, and then like people coming up to my partner because, you know, being like,

shaking hands with them and hugging the cops and be like, listen, we got to do better as a country. And it, like, the movement was powerful. But then the minute the sun went down and the Molotov cocktails started coming out and they're trying to hit us with their cars. That's a different story. Yeah.

I couldn't have more, I would give my life in support of one and I have no fucking time for the other. And what they don't realize, and it's the same fucking people, that were vandalizing the capital as you think you you think and from somebody that was you know in the middle of it and watching it and feeling it and that's where people get it wrong is they don't they have you know you may not have felt the feeling of true power from a movement right and to be able to stand there as a cop even even though like I'm there to just

maintain safety but the power from those peaceful movements was it was palpable you can feel it's in your heart it's in your like it feels good you can you can you try try to like think of what Martin Luther King was felt like when he's out there walking these people. And then the minute those rocks start going, the message just crumbles. And the fucking power dissipates completely. And everything turns into a shit show.

It gets hijacked. Completely hijacked. So question for you, and this would be based off of just what you saw with your own eyes. Was it completely separate groups of people from the daytime to the nighttime? or was there an overlay or an exchange? There's an overlay for sure, but mostly, I would say,

the majority were separate groups. You could see the ones, you know, flowing through the day crowd. Yeah. Because they're there. You know, the night ones are there all day, but they're not doing, they're not the ones holding hands and marching together and doing all the stuff. You know, they're the ones, they're walking different lines.

They're walking against the crowd. They're walking weird. And you could, they stand out as a cop. You can see them. They're moving funny. And all of a sudden, you can see them stacking bricks and stacking piles of rocks off to the side. And they got their masks on, you know, waiting in backpacks. They all had backpacks full of milk and eye covers.

What was the milk for? The milk is to pour on their eyes when they get maced. Okay. I thought maybe they were just thirsty and were worried about the calcium in their bones. Right. Actually, yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So they carried around milk to pour on their eyes.

It helps get rid of the OC. Okay. And then they carried goggles and all this. So they had their little riot kits. But they had to stage all their equipment, right? Because they can't carry around rocks all day. But people don't realize we're finding guns, knives, machetes. Like these dudes were ready.

Like that could have easily turned into mass casualty situations. You know, so. But like I said, so they were mixed out throughout the day. And then as soon as the night, the curfew happened, like the crowds of peaceful protesters were jumping their cars and they'd go. And then, you know, some of them would stay because it is mixed a little bit. And then it's game on. It's a completely different world at that point. How tied were your hands in dealing with those people?

The latter crowd. Terribly, terribly. And this is why I got out of the department. So the department sends us, they call us down and like, do what you got to do. All hell's breaking loose. trying to take over the fucking precincts. Yeah. Like they're destroying precincts.

They're destroying our cop cars. They're throwing Molotov cocktails at us. They're fucking hitting cops riding on the RDVs, the rapid deployment vehicles. Yeah. We'll stand on the side of them. They're hitting them with their cars. This is war. Like all hell is breaking loose.

Get down there and stop it. I mean, everything you just described is breaking a law of some kind. 100%. Yeah. So at least detainable, arrestable, on the fucking spot. Yes. So we're, but there's. So many of them.

And it's like, what can you do? So we can't just go around to rest in them because we can't, they keep, they'll throw the rocks, they'll throw the mottops cocktails, they'll throw the stuff, and then they'll take off running. So we're basically just playing this cat and mouse game all fucking night long. And we're doing like 15 hour days going home, sleep for a couple hours, and then coming back to do it all over again. So what pissed me off about the department was there at first they're like, save us, all hands on deck, like do what you got to do.

And so we go out. And not that we were like being cowboys, but, you know, we were doing what we had to do, you know, shooting them with pepper balls and all the stuff we were authorized to do, but it doesn't look nice. Or you hit someone in a spot, like one of my teammates hit someone's cell phone.

And it looked bad or something. And so now the chief started coming out and was like, we need an open investigation on that guy. Well, I saw this on the news. We need to investigate that guy. It's like he's your cop. he's out there trying to save your city from being demolished and you just watch the news you don't call him

you don't call his leadership and say hey what happened there because if you did he would have told you flat out he's shooting at the guy behind throwing the rock and I'm sorry that with one hand moving on an RDV he doesn't have the best accuracy but no you're going to call him out and start appeasing the media over your own police officers

and that's where I was like I'm not doing this this. Like you guys cross the line with me. This is ridiculous. You do not have our backs. And how pervasive would you say that feeling is in law enforcement right now? People starting to feel like their own departments don't even have their back. 100%. At least in- That's a long-term problem. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Dude, like, I forget who it was. I don't know. It's the governor. There's either the governor or someone called us criminals. They're like police, the Denver police officers are acting like a bunch of criminals.

To the fucking media, you're calling your own officers, like the people that are there to protect you and protect your city. You're calling them criminals. And then we're like, what the hell just happened? Here we are, mind your own fucking business, trying to go to work every day.

Some asshole does this thing with George Floyd. We're all pissed about it too. But now the fucking city's getting demolished and were the criminals? Like, I have no idea Like, none of this makes any sense to me. For the people who were demolishing the city, what is it that you think they actually wanted? They wanted to have some fun.

It was just for anarchy. It was just for fun. How many of them were actually from the Denver area? Because this is something I found to be interesting, the tourism involved in this. Oh, yeah, not many. Like, probably the majority were not from Denver. A lot of them were kids. Tons and tons of just, like, 17, 16-year-old kids.

What would they say? I mean, did they have any explanation? Because I'm assuming you wrap some of them up. Yeah, we arrested quite a few. They all got let go. All their charges got dropped by the city. What do they say? Like, what's their justification?

They just wanted to have some fun. Really? Like, they'll verbalize that? They would tell you just, yeah, I would want to have fun. Dude, I was having kids. Have some fun? Go play fucking tick-tac-toe. Right.

Throwing a Molotov cocktail burning down a city is not. Right. Well, I mean, I guess everybody has a different definition of fun, but God, damn. We arrested this group of kids and we're like, they're like, Well, because what you cops, what you racist cops are doing to the black community. And we're like, to who? And I looked at him. I was like, wait a minute.

You don't even know his name. And I was like, who? What happened to the guy? Who was the guy's name that you're out here? Why are you out here protesting? Tell me his name. And he's like, I don't know his name, man. He's like, but it was messed up what you guys did to him.

As if you guys in Denver, you guys in air quotes, had anything to do with what happened. there. Right. I was like, first of all, I would never have done that. And no cop I know would have ever done that. And we will, you know, every one of us will say it was a fucked up thing to do. Second of all, you don't even know the dude's name that you're out here destroying buildings for. And like... In the name of fun. Just for fun, man. Yeah. How did Denver eventually shut it down? They didn't. Is it still ongoing? Well, I mean, it's dissipated, but at this point it's just, I imagine that people had to go home and it just got boring. Because it would do to win for weeks. They're out protesting for weeks and weeks. It may have, dude, it may have been months

that they were out there. And it's just like all the, all the windows are broken. And here's the thing. It's going to happen again. Somebody's going to lose their life in police custody in a way that they shouldn't because we're talking about human beings. By definition, a totally flawed and imperfect vehicle. And that shit will kick off again. And, oh, man. Somebody smarter than me, I hope can figure out a way to separate that reaction from that action that, you know, is the tender for that fire. Right. But I don't care what type of reform you put into place.

One, the reform is going to take a very long period of time. And two, it's unavoidable. Well, and look at the capital. You think those guys like, what did you accomplish by doing that? Well, and I think it's important to separate the capital into two groups. The people that were there, same thing. The people that were there because they either didn't like the outcome or felt that the outcome was arrived at in a manner that was illegitimate. And then the fuckwits.

Yeah. Who were like walking off with the lectern or whatever it is. Because they want to have fun. They're just, they're uneducated probably. You know, they see an opportunity. Actually, I shouldn't say they're uneducated. I think some educated people got caught walking out of there. Education and intelligence are two very different things.

That's true. And I'm not saying they are or aren't, but I, again, I had a buddy of mine on, and we actually did a small episode on just this. The only thing that changed from that is they're going to increase security at the capital building. Yep. I mean, they didn't, I mean, I don't know. There's so many reasons why I guess somebody would want to go there. And again, if you wanted to go to the Capitol and voice your First Amendment, right?

You should. Couldn't be more supportive. I don't care if I agree with you or not. I'll still completely and utterly support your ability to do that. Storming the Capitol building as if you're going to interact or interrupt the functioning of the government. Like, what are we talking about? No. You know it's not.

That's the problem. But then the bigger issue with that is how much you distract from the actual, like, reason that they're there. Nobody's talking about the people who are there peacefully. Right. Everybody's talking about. And it's just I can totally. understand what you're saying about an incredibly powerful movement in cities probably all over the United States. But when it flips to Molotov cocktails and one message starts getting

conflated with the other. And of course, somebody, I mean, it doesn't take a lot of brains, be like, oh, well, we could basically just say that we're expressing this group's same ideology when they have no attachment to it whatsoever. And it just, it's like an axe chopping it away at the legitimacy of that message they're actually trying to get across. Exactly. It's fucked. They ruin it. Yeah, it is fucked. So, and the only reason I put those two in the same group, it's not like I'm trying to compare, obviously, but it's just from, you know, writers to, you know, peaceful protests. That they were both attempting to get their message, regardless of how different that message was, to be heard.

And unfortunately, once you start breaking windows, all the media shows up, all the news crews show up. Now it's the headline, so you mistake that is something that is working. reality you just degraded your whole message but whatever I'm sure it's it there's a lot of you know I've heard you talk about there's a lot of intelligent people that have broken down all this stuff and it's like we could talk about it so we're blue in the face man like we're unfortunately you know common sense is not like common virtue yeah it doesn't flow through as much as I wish it would you know Joe Rogans said some amazing things you know pro police and stay and when he talked to jaco and they were talking about all this stuff

and they said some amazing things. And people probably just went pause or mute until it's done and then hit that play button. It's like, I mean, we keep trying, but I don't know, man. I don't know if I was listening. What do you think it looks like in two or three years down the road or five or ten? Does you think the gap gets wider,

or do you think it gets come closer together? As far as? I would say, I mean, start with the view of law enforcement and people, you know, how they're viewing the law enforcement enforcement profession. I hope, again, going back to what you said, I hope it's going to be a pendulum. I hope, you know, that unfortunately

there's going to be some people that have to pay the ultimate price for that, right? Through crime. There's some stats that are not awesome. Right. The gym I train is straight blast gym. The founder lives in Portland and he'll post sometimes like X number of shootings, violent crime, and

the curve is not heading in the direction you would want to for year over year. And it's precipitously higher in 20, 2020 and trending higher in 2021. That pendulum, other people bear the pain of that pendulum. Or what will get where it needs to go before it's pushed back in the other direction. That's the scary part. I agree.

Yeah. That's how far that goes. I hope that one day, you know, in our one day sooner rather than later that police get that reputation that they deserve back because they're out there serving the communities and bustling their asses, man. They're putting their lives on the line. And we just, we're just so, we're so good about it with the military. It's like disgusting how we just do it over the military.

and them putting their lives on the line. And we just shit on people doing the same thing, 365 days a year, instead of fucking six months out of the year. It's like they're, anyway, they're fucking heroes. And I guess all we could say is that they're fucking heroes. And hopefully, you know, the rest of society will start listening at one point and changing their minds.

Yeah, the people who I know personally who hate bad cops the most are good cops. Nobody's out there like, like, oh, yeah, we got to. this dude, he sucks. We just really got to get him public facing. They're like, no, we've got to get this dude out of here. Yeah. I don't know, man. But I couldn't stomach it, so I moved on.

With my shit I got going on, I was going to be a statistic where it was like, why did you punch that guy? I was like, well, I got tired of him fucking spitting in my face or talking shit to me. Are you talking about the people you're interfacing with on the day to day? Yeah, and it literally has nothing to do with race. People are just shit. sometimes. Yeah. Racism is the easy button.

It's easier to say that. But again, I often, I mean, I'll see people now. They say it to shut it down. Okay, I've reached the point of my intellectual, what I'm willing to invest in this conversation. So boom, here's the comment and that's it. It's like, no. It's, I don't know.

Did, was it challenging for you working as a law enforcement officer seeing children treated the way that you were growing up? Yes. I figured that that might have had something to do with you, losing your taste for the profession as well. Yes. I mean, there was, like you talked about there, like when you have those kind of like close calls,

there was a dude and he had, I saw the van. It was like a, you know, a trailer, whatever, RV, like one of those little shitty older ones. And it was parked in my area and I was like, that's weird. It's an out of state. It just looked off. And then come to find out,

and I'm pretty sure it was that one, but come to find out this dude like kidnapped his niece or something and molested her all the way across the country on this like road trip and then he parked it right there and that's that hit me because I was like if I find that guy like I heard about it because he got picked up I was pretty sure but yeah like I stopped at one point and I was like hey man because his brother like lived next to there and I was like where's that where's your brother at and he's like oh I think they picked him up I knew. I knew if I saw him.

I was going to do something stupid. And I started, I was like, it's, yeah, it's just not worth it, man, it's not worth,

like, having to see it and, and just be okay with it. And then, like, trying to have to put on this Captain America, I'm a perfect person,

yeah, mentality. And it's like, that's not me. Well, it's tough when you live through it yourself. I mean, I can't,

I don't know at what level you want to talk about your childhood, but, I mean, I think it's interesting that you found the military post what you went through as a child, and then those experiences with that one individual basically brought you right back to what you were dealing with. That is crazy. I never put that together, but that's, yeah, it went full circle. I was the one showing up.

Dude, I've had so many conversations with, like, younger kids, like my age, like, especially boys my age. and I would just like I would see what their parents were doing and how they're acting and I saw my mom in their mom and I would pull them aside and be like dude I'm sorry man like you're talking about when you were a cop yeah when it was a cop yeah and like this one kid his mom was just psycho and it was like she's acting just like my fucking mom was

and he's like dude it's I'm trying to tell you guys but you cops never fucking listen to me he's like it's her it she does this this and this and I pulled him aside like dude I know exactly what you're going through I went through it myself and I can't help you. I can't fucking help you. Like the law binds me to not be able to do anything for you. And there's the same reason I was stuck in your place,

and no one was ever able to help me. And I had to run away and run away and run away and run away and just keep getting brought back by fucking cops. I hated cops. And I told him, I was like, all I could tell you, dude, is that 18 will come. And that's your best bet, my dude. Like waiting for 18 is your best bet.

And I'm sorry that you've got two more years of this. That's a tough pill to swallow, living through that as a 16-year-old. When did it start with your mom? So my mom, she got into a car accident, and I was in the car with her, and I remember waking up in the hospital. I don't remember any of the car accident. And then from that point, man, I think I was probably like eight.

And that's when maybe younger, maybe like six. But either way, they started just the opioid, just pumping her full of pills. Oh, your back hurts. Take these, take these, take these. these. So after that first car accident, she became an opioid addict and just completely just lost her shit. Was she a single parent at the time? Yeah, my dad left when I was one. And yeah, she she was like on a downward path on her own. But then the boyfriend started. And that's when shit really got tough because it was just like a revolving door of boyfriends and fucking some of the

worst human beings on the planet. And it's just like each one, their own drama and abuse and different type of abuse and things like that. Luckily, thank God, never anything sexual or anything, but... Were they tied into kind of that addiction world? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, so like... I would assume that addicts generally gravitate towards each other.

Yeah. So the first, one of the first guys I remember getting with, and I changed his name in the book, because I don't know what kind of drama that'll bring, but... Call him Bob. Yeah, so... Fuck you, Bob. Fuck you, Bob. Bob's a piece of shit.

So we moved into his house. and he had two boys about the same age as me and my brother and my sister was living there but she stayed out of it mostly because it was all the tension on all the boys so she moved into his house and then or we all did and she stopped coming out of like couldn't come out of her bed anymore as soon as we moved in and she didn't come out of her bed for like two days three days and then it's two weeks and then it's a month and then it's like fucking three months as she hasn't got out of bed and i'm like what the fuck dude like she's dying She's like she's got to be dying.

Like something, like we were, she was fine, ish, you know? And then now a sudden she's completely bedridden and doesn't get out of bed at all ever. And so I just remember one day just breaking down crying and I was like, is she dying? And I asked him fucking dickhead Bob. And I was like, is my mom dying? How old were you at this point? I think I was like eight at that for that one. And I was like, is my mom dying, dude?

And he's like, he gives me this like weird, like cold like shoulder pat. And he's like, she'll be fine. And then he just walked away. And so I knew at that point that he had, like, something felt off. And I was like, that motherfucker's got something to do with it. And so I didn't find out till later that I think what was going on was she was going to leave him. And he was collecting her welfare money. So he was just keeping her in this drug-induced, like, coma.

So she couldn't get out of bed. She couldn't leave him so he could just keep collecting her checks. And so, like, with that situation, I started to realize I was changing in, like, the anger. I remember one time his little boy just said something about my mom he's talking some shit and I'm only like eight and I grab him by the hair

like a handful of all his hair and I just start fucking slamming his head into the ground and I can remember I couldn't stop slamming his head and the only reason I stopped is because on one of the hits the whole chunk of hair came out

and it was all in my hand and he's just left with this just skin bald spot of that chunk and it's like that situation like looking at his hair in my hands I started to realize like this is I'm changing like this is I'm you know what I mean like this isn't how that's a hell of a realization at eight years old yeah I was like this isn't how kids are supposed to fight is kind of like the the moment I had how I mean shit at eight years old what were the next 10 years like before you're able to get out of the house so it was just like one boyfriend after another and it was just multiple drama then she met this one dude he was an alcoholic real bad before they met. He actually was coming home one day

and before they met and he saw a car accident and he went to the car accident and the lady in the front her face was like, like she was dead. So he pulled her back to look at her and it was his sister.

Fuck! Yeah, so he went home and he put a shotgun in his mouth and he fucking went to pull the trigger and it came out of his mouth and he blew his bicep off. So that's the kind of like that's the kind of drum

drama he was like the the trauma sorry not drama but the trauma he was dealing with was that so he just became like a full blown alcoholic so like the minute he woke up straight into the bottle right into the right into the booth so my mom met him and then again we moved in with him and that's when dude shit got wild because they like she added alcohol from his alcoholism to her pill addiction both a depressant yeah and so that's that's when shit got nuts I'm talking about like like once one time I came home and her car was in the house. You're talking about in a non-garage setting? Yes.

It was in the living room. The front bumper. Controversial move? Yeah. For sure. So she just got hammered and was like punching it because every time she got drunk. Because we're out in the desert. You could drive however you want.

Like cops don't care. Yeah. She would just drive like a maniac and she just drove it right into the house. And so I'm walking home in, I'm having like a decent day I'm not completely stressed in that moment and then the normal thing you see your house and then your gut just sinks

and you're just like fuck like it looks like the cars in the house I hope to God that's not the case I'm like because at some point this alcoholic is going to come home and what is he going to do when he finds out that you just ruin his fucking house and so I go inside and she's like passed out drunk and I'm looking at

front bumper in the living room and I'm like this is too much this is too fucking much like I shouldn't have to stress about this she can care less she's passed out now I have to wait to watch to see if he's going to come home and kill her me my brother my sister everybody everybody is he just going to fly off the fucking handle and you know I've seen him like one time they got into it she was going to leave and to stop her from leaving he just fucking took her and threw her into the wall. And her head slammed into a wall harder than I've ever seen a human's, like, head. And like once she, because I'm looking at her what's happening, as her head bounces off, her fucking, her life is gone out of her eyes.

And then she just hits the floor. And she's just staring like that. And he starts fucking shaking her. Or no, he's, he didn't move. He just stood at looking at her, like almost like he wanted her to be dead. And she's just like got this fucking dead look on him. me and my brother start crying, and we go up and we start shaking her, and we thought she was dead. So, and then it just kept going, dude.

It was always like that, you know, and then one time we came home, and he's got the shotgun, and he's just fucking blasting it into the front door because he felt like she disrespected him or she disrespected his house, and no one's going to disrespect his house but him. So I will shoot the front door to make that point. Yeah. Yeah. So that kind of shit. Controversial leap and logic there? Yeah.

Fuck. Yeah. So when did you actually get out of the house and get out on your own? So I had a plan. And it was, I think it was like 15. And she finally told me who my dad was and what he did. So I looked him up and I was like, dude, he owns a restaurant in New York. I was like, how bad could this dude be? You know, like, it's got to be better than this.

So I hit him up And he was like He's like yeah He's like if you guys want to come out here You can come out here So she let us go visit And they dude He was like a business owner

He owned a bar He was like a normal person And I was like Yes I'm coming back here And so I was like Listen I'm gonna come back I was like I don't know how I'm gonna do it

But I was like I need you to be ready To buy me a ticket And I'm gonna come back Because I knew my mom was gonna let me leave Because to me were her paychecks You know She's not gonna let me let us go away. So he's like, all right, just call me. I'll have, I don't know, buy a plane ticket

as soon as you call me. So I went home and I called the Ferdonia where he was at, is in Ferdonia, New York. And I called the police, or I called him and was like, I'm just going to come. And he's like, no, you can't do that. He's like, so just call the cops and bring you back. So they're like, what do I do? And he's like, call the Ferdonia Police Department and ask them, like what they would need to not take you back. And the cop told me, he's like, he's like, listen, write a document that says this and I wrote exactly what he said. How old are you at this time? 15. Jesus Christ. Yeah. So he was like, if you write exactly how I tell you and she signs that, he's like, I'll be good with that. And I was like, okay, all right, I'll do that. I don't know how.

I'm going to get her to sign this, but I'll do it. So for like three weeks, I started like slowly packing my stuff and hiding it in the closet. Like I kept enough stuff to where my room looked like a mess, like I lived in it. And then I called my cousins. I was like, hey, I need a place to go once she signs this to hide out. I was like, and then I got to call Joe, have him buy me a ticket, and then I need a ride to the airport. And she's like, okay, let me know when to pick you up. So the first thing I tried was putting like a permission slip for school,

and then I cut out the section. Strong. Fieldcraft at a young age. I like it. It's fucking stupid. It's a valiant effort. at the age of 15. Thank you.

And so she looks at it, immediately, he's like, the fuck it's this. And she lived. Filed me again. Yeah, I was like, oh, my master plan. So she sees it and she reads it, and she starts just laughing. She's like, this is so stupid. She's like, I'll never sign this. She's like, you idiot.

And I was like, plan B, you know, got to work on the fly now. So I just started pissing her off. And I was like, terrible mom. I hate living with you. Dad's right. leaving you and all this stuff and she just like loses her shit she starts throwing things at me and stuff and i was like she's like just fucking leave and then i was like sign the document i'll leave and she's like you know what fine it's a piece of paper no one's gonna give a shit about this and signs

and throws it at me i was like boop grab that piece of paper and start making the calls joe need a flight cousin please come get me in the middle of the night so my mom can't see you and then um that was it so got to New York Joe told me he's like Cops are here dude and he's like Gigs up already No shit I was like damn

So I went in My mom I could hear yelling at the cop Like he kidnapped my son I don't know no no I was missing person And the cops like Listen dude you're gonna have to go back And I was like I can't Like I can't

I cannot go back to that place I shit you not I'm going to jail I've already like been in the cop car multiple times throughout that first 15 years. And if I go back as like an adult, I'm getting in some gangs

and I'm going to start doing shit my fucking way because you guys have failed me enough. This is what I'm thinking as you're talking about this. This is a perfect example of how the system can fail people. It's just, I mean, the cops were handcuffed, you know, metaphorically. It's not like they had a choice. No, they don't. Yeah.

But, yeah, for me, it's like, you know, kids can only take so much. and they start going to the games because at least there is some like consistency. Yeah. And that's the thing. Like even if you're going to suck as a parent, suck consistently, you know? Like, okay, you don't feed us very much.

Only, I could deal with that. You know, I went weeks with eating French fries, frozen French fries from restaurants because that was all she had because she spent all her money on pills. Like I could do the non-eating thing. I could do the beat my ass thing. You know, but stop fucking.

changing it up because every time I get used to one you come in hot with another one and that is really like breaking me down yeah so if I was going to join a gang which I probably would have a lot of my friends did then that's what I would been looking for is like some kind of consistency in my life like even if we're doing bad things at least we're fucking doing it and this is the the feelings I could expect from you guys and this is the treatment I could expect and I don't have to have my stomach sink in every time I walk in the house you know. Well, you found a gang. It was just the army.

I mean, the military, again, I mean, can fulfill all those things that you're talking about, that sense of finally being a part of something, being accepted, that familial relationship, supporting one another, having it, I mean, from a descriptive sense, I mean, it's not that far off from a gang. Obviously, they have different end states and purposes, but. But you get that consistency in that family. So the cop was about to send me back, and I was like, but I can. got that note. You guys told me about that note. And he's like, what note? And I was like, this one. And he goes, he reads it. And he gets back on the phone. I think he put the phone down.

I think she was just yelling at the countertop. So he picks the phone up and he's like, ma'am, did you sign this note that said X, Y, and Z? And she's like, yeah, I signed it. Don't mean shit. And he's like, cool, thanks. It's called getting to the point. Yeah, that cop had my back. And so, like, I don't know if that note honestly would have been enough. But he, probably knew that like she's not going to go to a lawyer and follow this through so as long as i'm good i could help him out and so i was able to stay in new york so 15 i officially like got away from all that was your sister still stuck with her yeah how much longer was she stuck until 18 yeah so my sister always kind of had it a little different though like they kind of bonded a little differently

to where my mom would just like baby her and like left her alone yeah like she always made sure that my sister wasn't included on any of the stuff. But she still... She still was around it. She still was around it. You know, one time she was crying in a corner because they were beating the shit out of each other. And, like, barefoot, I was like,

I got to get her help. I took off running through the desert to my aunt's house, which is, like, four miles away in the middle of the night. And I'm just bare feet running through the fucking desert by myself to go get my aunt. Then I'm pounding on the door. Like, we got to get Kelsey. We got to get Kelsey.

How's she doing today? We don't really talk, but she's okay as far as I know. Is your mom still alive? She is. I haven't talked to her in probably like 10 years. Last I heard, she was living in a hotel being paid for by some old man. Whatever arrangement that is, I'm sure we could assume.

How about your relationship with your dad? How is that? I don't talk to him either. Okay. So I went to New York. We had a falling out because I wanted to stay in New York there, moving to Colorado. And then we didn't talk for years. And then he found out that I was going special forces.

And so we, like, reconnected. And then he was, like, cool for a little bit. It was cool. He was, like, I was, like, seeking his approval. And I was like, he was, like, proud of me and stuff. And then we had this instance where he adopts these, like, big-ass dogs. And the dog, like, jumped on my kid. And my kids started, like, screaming.

So I ripped the dog off. And he's adopted. You don't know this dog, right? You've had him for, like, a few months. So I ripped the dog off. and stood between them obviously and then I told my dad I was like if I had my gun on me

I didn't have my gun on me because we were drinking I was like but if I had my gun on me and weren't drinking I was like I would fucking shot that dog in the head just so you know and that like floored him

like the fact that I would think that his dog would hurt my daughter and that I wouldn't just like take his word for it that the dog is okay and that the dog wouldn't hurt her he's like and then he told me he's like if he wanted to hurt her

he would have hurt her I was like How is that supposed to feel as a fucking father that I'm going to watch your fucking dog mull my little girl? And then, so anyway, so we haven't talked since. How many years ago was that? Actually, we did talk since. So that was like three years.

And then we talked on Father's Day to which that conversation ended in. This will be the last conversation we ever have. Fuck. It's all kinds of fun, dude. How have you been able to come to grips? with what you had to experience growing up and move through it or past it. So that, I'm really glad that you asked that question

because that's what the book is. And that's why I wrote it, and that's why it means everything to me, is because it kind of just like takes, takes you through the whole timeline and then just how things went for me, you know? Because it was like, it wasn't like a drastic change

where he was like doing bad and then good. Yeah. It's like this, it's a slow process. Incremental. Yeah. It's like you're, you want to do good things like going to EMT school.

I want to be a firefighter, so I'm going to EMT school on my own. I made college work, you know, and I'm getting it paid for. But then I headbutted kid in the nose. And so it's like, fuck. You keep fucking it up. Like you're trying to do the right thing,

but you keep fucking it up. So it took me until about 33 of getting in my own way, and I'm only 34 now. So it's literally like this book is, so probably like 32, because this book's been like a couple of year process of going through the past. And that's how I came to terms with it. So instead of like literally, dude, my whole childhood was tucked in this back corner. Nobody knows.

Like what we've talked about today is the most anyone's ever, ever heard outside my immediate family of the things that I've been through. And like I've just been starting to open it up on like podcasts and stuff. but this is all part of the healing process. So instead of just like tucking it away and be like, that's not who I am, I don't, I'm not that person. I've gotten away from that. It was like, it was like putting a parachute on and being like,

I'm not going to even look at the parachute to, I'm just going to leave it there and then trying to run as fast as you can. It's always pulling you back. Yeah. So it's not until you go back and like, you know, deal with it and look at it and learn it. So I kind of like relate it to it to like, like having a dragon. I feel like we all have dragons with us.

And it's like the best thing for me to kind of like look at it is like you're, the more trauma that you've been through, the more powerful that dragon is for you. But that's a double-edged sword. The more powerful dragon you have, the more shit it burns down and the more damage and chaos it can cause for you. So you need to learn how to tame it. You can't run from it because it's just going to follow you.

Yeah. And so that's been my process, is learning to tame my dragon so that I could use it instead of it just fucking everything up for me. Are you doing that on your own, or do you have outside help? This has been, this has been me. It's been pen and paper

and really looking in the mirror when I make mistakes and never allowing myself to blame anybody else. Have you ever considered sitting down and talking with a counselor or a therapist or just having it, somebody else take an objective look at your strategy? Not the strategy itself.

I have talked to a therapist, like when I was getting out of the police department, to deal with the re kind of like invigoration of my PTSD. Yeah. And that helped quite a bit, but not the strategy itself. That would be interesting to do. It's like, why is this working and have them break it down? To me, that's the biggest value. So I talk to somebody every Thursday.

And I mean, I have a, I forget my rating for post-traumatic stress from the VA. But, you know, and I have one. And oftentimes I'll look at him like, I don't, it's like, what the fuck does that even mean? You know, I've never had, I think a lot of times people, again, will associate from little screen or big screen flashbacks or people waking up or, you know, like I've never experienced anything that I've seen on TV when it comes to post-traumatic stress. Do I think about stuff that happened overseas every day? Every fucking single day. Do I dream about it sometimes? Yes, I do.

Are all those dreams positive? They're not. Sometimes though I wake up laughing my ass off because I'm remembering dudes trying to clear buildings while they're slipping in human feces. And that's fucking funny. And for me, I have found the value in talking to somebody who was completely detached from all of that. And it may not even make sense because this is one that I get all the time. People say, well, I don't want to talk to somebody who has different experiences than me or they don't come from the same world that we come from. And my response is they might be able to give you the most objective viewpoint because I'll, you know, I'll talk about or I'll ask about or I'll just, you know, what's going on in my day and try to explain or figure out myself like, okay, well, how did it get to this point?

What led up to this? Have I had to deal with this before? And then the ability just to sit and ask or unpack a situation for somebody who's totally neutral who's going to go on and, you know, there's no judgment involved. It's been huge and it's changed the way that I've thought about a lot of stuff. So I would, and the reason I asked you about it is I would highly recommend it. And I never thought I'd be somebody who would be, I mean, I don't know. I can't consider my, I am an advocate for mental health, but I say that because of my own personal experience. Right. And it could be a huge lever for you to continue to move forward and through, well, it kind of seems like what you're already working on.

No, and so I did, and I agree with you 100%. And I do have a little bit of experience with that, which only confirms what you're saying. Yeah. And she kind of, at first it was like really great because she broke one barrier down for me to understand why the police department of all things was having more effect on me than combat. And that was huge. That was like a little breakthrough for me. I bet you were seeing more things from your childhood in the police department than you were in combat. 100%.

Yeah. She's getting thrown back in your face outside of your control. And so, absolutely. And so that helped a lot to talk to her about that and to like hit that breakthrough. But I'm not going to lie to you, she hit a wall. Yeah. She hit a wall and was like, and you could tell when therapists hit walls because all of a sudden it's like, you should try this medication or you should try that medication or you should

go talk to your doctor and it's like you know what you do when that happens find another one yeah I need to it's not I mean I've talked to a variety of people throughout the course of my life you don't connect with everybody no right we could have sat down today and have been like it's up fucker it could be super awkward right but instead we're able to sit down and I've had experiences like that with counselors and I've had ones where it's like you're not the right fit you're too young you know what I mean like I'm 43 at this point I don't rather talk to somebody at least in their probably late 30s or somebody maybe even older than me. And I could care less about professional background or any of that crap. But if you found that

benefit with the one woman, I would highly encourage you to continue. And the reason why is this. I hear how many times you hear people post-traumatic stress, post-traumatic stress, post-traumatic stress, how about post-traumatic growth? Absolutely. The ability to work through the things that you, the shit you're talking about with your childhood man, nobody should have to suffer through. that. Nobody should have to, I mean, at the age of eight, having that level of self-realization where like, hey, I'm changing. When I was eight, I probably was eating fucking paste. You know what I mean? Or finger painting with my own shit or something. Well, maybe that was when I was six. But, you know, I can't even imagine having that level of additional stress put on top of me of that age

all through those formative years into your teens. But you can, I mean, I don't think it'll ever be perfect. And I'm not an expert in mental health. obviously, but I think there is such a huge opportunity for growth. And all I can really talk about it from is my experience and then what I see in the veteran community. How many guys do you know, and I say this without judgment, but they hang their hat on their post-traumatic stress disorder, however they want to frame it. I hate when they do that rating. Oh, yeah. And they can't get past it.

And they allow it to become a roadblock. Mm-hmm. there's far too many of them. And people might not like me saying this, but there's people who game the system too. Oh, yeah. Who have ratings that don't deserve it, because they know it's a way that they can,

a path that they can go down, and there's a monetary reward for it at the end of the day, via VA rating. And I just feel like it limits and stunts who they can be as a human being. Yeah. And it sucks. I hate seeing it. I hate seeing vets, specifically vets,

with PTSD ratings, they're not able to get past it. It's just an anchor that's constantly holding. It's like, dude, start shaving away at that anger with an angle grinder. Like maybe it'll get a half an ounce lighter your first time, but do something about it instead of just allowing it to be what it is that defines you for the rest of your life. I fucking hate it.

Right. And I feel the same way about the childhood trauma. It's like you use that. And so, well, this happened to me. Will that happen to me? It's like, listen, there's always good attached to the bed. And that's really what I've been trying to do is find the good attached to the bad

instead of just ignoring all of it and not benefiting from all the trauma I've been through. Yeah. So once I started to pull those apart, I was like, fuck, there's actually a lot of good attached to this bad. It's like, I don't have victim mentality because I had no one to blame. Like, who am I gonna fucking blame?

Like, if I was gonna take responsibility and get anywhere, I knew that I had to just do it, you can't be the victim when no one gives a shit. So look how that turned out. Like, I just, keep grinding because, you know, no one, it's, I can never have an excuse. There's no one to blame. And that's what, that's just one aspect of what that childhood taught me. I can only imagine how much that childhood taught you and how you want to be as a parent to your own kids.

Oh yeah. I mean, that, fuck, what a compare and contrast. And that's, that's huge. And like, I have a daughter and she's amazing. She's nine. I have one on the way. And my daughter, like, just, Anytime I go anywhere, she's like, oh, I don't want you to leave. And she gets all upset and it's like, God damn it, you know the magic things to say. You get me. And she tells me she loves me like 10 times a day every single day.

And she's never worried about money. She's never worried about food, nothing. And that's a huge, that's huge for me, is we could break this cycle. I was just going to say that. You have the opportunity to break what happened to you. There's no, there's literally no excuse for my daughter. She said, she's had a beautiful house. her whole life will always provide a house for her her I've had you know

associate's degree a bachelor's degree and I'm finishing up my master's degree right now so she comes from the formal education even though it's you know we could go on that all day what that provides but whatever I still the point is to distance as far from these like stigmas to where the next generation can't have any excuses it's like listen your dad had money he had education and he gave you And he gave you love and respect and appreciation and every opportunity that you could ever, ever need. And you grew up in one of the best states in this damn planet. You have no fucking excuse.

And hope that they take that baton and run with it. Yeah. Have you forgiven your parents? Or do you think you will ever be able to put that down? That's a weird one. I'm not, I don't know if it's forgiveness, but I'm not mad at my mom anymore. But I don't know if that's for, you know what I mean? And again, it'd be based off of your, your own definition.

I can only imagine that some people would carry, would carry that with them and be unable to, to view their parent as anything other than I'm going to describe, I will use my terms as a fucking, a demon that you had to deal with. To me, it's just like she's like a black hole. Like, honestly. Like I don't have animosity torture. I don't have any love torture whatsoever. I don't have, it's just, she's just, she's a shadow figure that was in my life at that time and is now not in my life anymore.

If anything, I fear her more than anything because now I'm stepping out into a little bit of limelight with, you know, just being here with you, dude. Yeah. I mean, this is a big deal. And having a book coming out, she's already, I've already been contacted by multiple family members that. that she found out I have a book coming out, and she's been hitting all them up, threatening them, and harassing them to get my contact information. So to this day, I can't even, like, think about forgiveness

because she's just a person out there trying to attack me for doing something decent with my life, you know? And I've been able to hide from her because I've been in the military or I've been a cop. But now she sees potential to come after me, and what does she do? First thing she's going to do is tries to find me so she can come after me. So it's, it's literally, yeah, I don't know if there's forgiveness.

It's just kind of nothing. And I just hope that she doesn't find me. And when she does, I'll just have to change my number and play that game all over again. And as far as my dad, he messed up, you know, and he, I, even after the dog thing, I called him on Father's Day, I think it was last year or the year before. And I said, hey, this is dumb. We're fighting over nonsense. just understand where I'm coming from I understand where you're coming from

you know let's just move past it and he's like no no no you think that you know you call yourself a Christian but then you go around you judge me because of X Y and Z and you act like this and you have no forgiveness in your heart and he just starts coming out and I'm like okay dude I was like listen I tried I tried to meet you halfway I made more than halfway

I called you yeah and then I apologize for my behavior that I don't even like like you know just meet me a little bit all I was asking for just take one step off the ledge of your ego and in your stance and I would have went to the other 99% that's it and he could not even take that one step so it's like okay there's too much going on in my life to continue down this path so it's easier for me to just tell you I said no disrespect to you I was like I don't mean this from a hostile position anyway whatsoever and I need you to understand that because it's very important for what I'm about to say I don't make empty threat

and I'm not upset with you right now. This will be the last conversation we ever have. I hope you have a good life. Don't talk to me ever again. And I plan on sticking to that, I promise. Yeah. Fuck, man. Family's a rough.

You're like, I didn't sign up for this shit. I wasn't talking about SF stuff. This guy's getting... No, but it, I mean, you know, the SF stuff, even your experiences in SF in the way that you... You know, that leader, being in that position, you know, and acting that way and how it's all who you are.

You know, people are an amalgamation of their experiences or their combination of their experiences. I mean, to me, it's, I had no, everything you've described when it comes to your upbringing, like, I had the exact opposite of that. And, uh, I don't know, I can't even imagine treating a child that way, let alone my own child. Like, not even a fucking stranger, but my own child's like, holy shit. it's a lot, man.

It's very impressive to me that you've been able to do with it what you have, as opposed to allow it to just consume you and not being able to put it down and be able to move forward with it. Well, thank you. And honestly, just having this conversation, it's kind of made me look back and realize, like, there were so many times when, you know, in the military or with other in relationships

where I'll step on my crank and I'll do something, that's a total asshole thing to do. you know like you know I can go down that list you know just just fucking up yeah and as we do as we do you know and but it's like until now there's never I've never told my backstory and I don't want that to be an excuse I'm not trying to like come up to me it's already it's all been done right like I've accomplished my my big things without anyone knowing where I came from so they can never judge me or change their impression based on what I've been through. But now that I'm past it all,

it's almost like an apology to a lot of people. It's like, and I hope this makes a little more sense now. For all you people out there that had a bad run in with me or think that I'm, you know, some kind of way, now you know. Now you know. I may have gotten, I may have been standing side by side with you

and where we were in our careers and our lives, but that was a big, fucking deal for me to be standing with college educated people who had good upbringings and who you know decided to do hard things and were successful human beings that's a big fucking deal for me and i just never wanted to feel handicapped so now it's like to come out about it it feels good it's like yeah i was i have a lot of problems you know and i had a lot of problems and i'm still dealing with a lot of problems, but I hope that it makes a little more sense now for people. Do you think you've arrived at a place where you're no longer seeking that external validation?

100%. Yeah, I think that's a fucking huge place to arrive at. It feels amazing. Yeah. You know what? The only person whose opinion matters is yours. You don't need to do anything to seek that external validation. Obviously, your wife and child, their opinion, of course, matters too.

it's an interesting move. You take a lot of power away from people when you no longer give two fucks what they think about you. Yeah. You know, I had someone that was in my company and he messes it. He said something on one of the social media sites

and he was like, he's like, you got kicked off your team, dude. Like, I wouldn't take advice from you. You got kicked off your team and you quit SF. I wouldn't take advice from you. And I was like, okay, you're right. I haven't talked about that yet. Thank you.

I've talked about all my mistakes. I've talked about all the things that have to me. I haven't talked about getting kicked off the team yet. The very next opportunity I get, I will talk about that too. Yeah. And where do you, you literally take away all their power? Yeah. And that's, it's a veil of protection.

Honesty is a veil of protection. So for anybody out there that's listening, that they're ashamed of something, how do you think that I was okay talking about being a cook, my whole SF career? I was praying to God that that conversation didn't come up about prior M. Wes's you know. I mean, you could have just said you were a chef. They'd have been like, fucking bitcher. I was a chef, bro. So. I was a school with one Casey Raback. It's on a boat. It's in a, man, it's fuck. It's a lot to absorb. Just sitting here, like I said, it's so different from the experiences that I've had in my life. And I'm just trying to imagine what

it would be like to live through it. It's, I think it's awesome that you've been able to do the things that you have. Thank you. So after, I mean, you got the book coming out. That's next month. So this episode will come out two weeks. So right about early February. And then you're finishing up your masters. What the hell is the next five meter target for you? What do you got in the horizon? Dude, honestly, I don't know.

I thought about, and I think about this constantly, right? Because I want to enjoy the road and I want to push things. And it's like, it's so dependent on people's reaction to the book. That I was thinking about last time, like, what is this like right now? What does it feel like having a book come out? And it feels like the best thing, like the best way I could think of is like we're on a halo jump and you guys are all the whole team we're all there we're all a team right and you guys are all gearing up and everyone's putting their

oxygen on they're about to jump and the door comes is about to go down and they're going to get the green light to go and I don't know until they say go I don't know if I'm on the team well I have to imagine you've circulated some copies have you had any feedback at all if you let anybody read it? Like, two. Who were the two? Were they friends? Yeah. Close friends? Yeah. Or were their thoughts? Were they too close to give you objective feedback? Probably. Yeah, probably, dude, honestly. What did they say? So he was, he, he's like, I can't stop reading it. He loved it. He's like, I want more. I wished it was longer. And the other guys was like, dude, loved it. He's like, I wish you just talk more about these instances. It's a short book.

you know I'm I didn't I'm not trying to prove that I'm some kind of intelligent guy and didn't worry about word count I just want to get through it honestly because it was kind of this therapeutic thing well it doesn't have to be the last one yeah you know maybe it could turn to something else but honestly so we have to see we'll see where the what happens when the book comes out and how people respond to it and if it what kind of other opportunities it leads to but right now with the YouTube channel I started that to just get people to see who I was. And I was like, I need to be out there so when the book comes out, they could come see who I am as a person. What's your channel? FNG Academy. What does FNG stand for? Fucking new guy.

What kind of stuff do you cover on there? So that's about like helping the next generation get selected and getting the right people into special operations. Okay. So it's a pretty tailored channel towards that avenue. Right. And then that just, dude, like, it's been five months since I started that channel. I think we're at 41,000 subscribers.

That's awesome. And it was like, holy shit. This is like paying me. It's like therapeutic. These guys are responding. I get messages daily of like, hey, man, really appreciate the help. Like, it's helped me a ton. And it was like, okay, this is turning into something that could make me happy.

Like helping other people has been the one thing that's like giving me the most satisfaction other than that first day stepping into a team room. So whatever I end up doing from here is going to be geared towards helping other people in any capacity I can. Hopefully overcoming trauma and, you know, getting the next generation of warrior into special operations. What about like a personal goal? What's your dream, buck? Oh. My dream would be to turn the book into a movie. like the

like dude the typical seal contract bro well you're going to need to go to buds to get that contract I'm going to sign up for buds don't do that don't do it no honestly like that

if I'm being if I'm being honest yeah a movie that's not that is somehow able to capture the childhood and then have an impact to me

would be a really cool perspective it would feel good to watch that come to a point where people could see what it was like and be like fuck man like kids are out there living like this and it's like there's far worse than this yeah you know there's far fucking worse it's a scary thought that is a scary thought fuck man so that that would be that would be bitching that'd be cool how can people find you and support you so the website's sean buck rogers dot com and then the fngia Academy on YouTube. So every episode I do is a fundraiser for the Green Beret Foundation.

I think we've raised like $3,800, $3,700 so far. So that's a good way is to give to that. And honestly, the best thing anyone could do for me, if they have any inclination on helping me or giving back, is buying the book and reviewing it because that I put, you ever heard the book with The One Thing? No. So it's just all about focusing your efforts into one thing

and not being scatterbrained. And that was my one thing. That is my... I'm not good at that concept. Let me just tell you that right now. It's hard. I'm currently failing at the one thing. Yeah.

So if they want to support me at all, they could just wait until February 23rd when that book drops and then buy that book and that will change my life. I don't care about the money, but I just want people to have the opportunity to see what kind of starts you could have. and how you could still end up.

And that would mean the world to me. It's a crazy story, man. I applaud you for being able to be so open and honest about it. I would like to think that I would be able to if I had those experiences, but I don't know. But it's powerful to hear you sit here and talk about it very openly at a very deep level. Thanks, man. And on that note, we've been talking for almost three hours. Oh, damn.

That's fine. That's how you know you're having a good conversation. You lose track of time. It's been three. That's crazy. How many fat green brays do you know? Mostly the time when they get out. Because like meal team six and the gravy seals are real. But I know that the green bignets are real too.

Oh, there's some chunkers, man. There are some fucking chunkers. They get through training and they start, they just find that food. They start eating. Most of the time I find it with guys when they get out. Yeah. They're like, I was hard. Yeah, back in the day.

But I'm not anymore now I'm soft. Let me tell you a story. It's appealing. I guess. it but no people are always like meal team six I'm like that's weak it's seal team six year olds bitches yeah but there's marsnack there's mar snack yeah there's there's green bignets there we all get fat and happy together they're the one I mean that we had some chunkers in that they were just but here's the thing when you give a green bray like a lot of team

time like you say because you know typical team time be like three years when you give that dude like seven years on an ODA, nobody could touch that guy when it comes to experience and knowledge. Or click it over to a decade and a half. I mean, he could just be power twinking it all day long and nobody's saying shit. That dude could get as fat as he wants

and you're going to be like, he's fucking invaluable. But it does suck when you're going somewhere in front of like infantry cats and stuff. And then you got your fat buddy and he's like, listen, he's got a ton of fucking experience, all right? Or it's like, hey, Bob. Yes. We're going to do different.

Evolutions, you're not going to be at the one we're going to. You can go to Mickey Dees. Yeah, go eat, dude. We love you, but we need to hide you a little bit. You're the ugly kid. Well, Sean, thank you for making the travel, man. That was awesome to sit down and talk with you. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. Dude, my pleasure. We'll do round two. I've got the West Bank of the River. Two is going to give it to you. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you. Thanks for taking the time to tune in, whether you're listening on an audio-only platform, you're watching on YouTube.

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