Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Jail, Lawsuits, and The Comeback After Everything Fell Apart | Mike Glover | Ep. 462

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Mike Glover served 18 years in Army Special Forces, worked as a contractor for the CIA, founded Fieldcraft Survival, and wrote the national bestseller Prepared. He's been on this show before. A lot ha...s happened since. The legal case that consumed the last 18 months is finished. He talks about the week he spent locked up — teaching breathing drills in a holding cell full of hard dudes — what the arrest cost him, and how family and a small circle of friends carried him through. Fieldcraft dissolved. He bought the pieces back. Now he's rebuilding it from the roots. There's also a long stretch on the bin Laden story — O'Neill, Bissonette, the recorded debrief, the point man, and litigation nobody needed. Plus Roberts Ridge, the Jessica Lynch raid, Tillman, and why drama in the special operations community has real downstream consequences. TRT, alcohol, helicopters, faith, veteran suicide, and a tribute to a Green Beret they called Swede.   Join the Cleared Hot Newsletter: https://www.clearedhotpodcast.com Take the Operator Code Assessment: https://www.theoperatorcode.com   Today's Sponsors:  Black Rifle Coffee:  https://www.blackriflecoffee.com Brunt: For a limited time listeners can get ten dollars off at BRUNT when you use code "Clearedhot" at checkout. Just head to https://www.BRUNTWorkwear.com, and while you're there, enter THE BRUNT POTTY OF GOLD SWEEPSTAKES for your chance to win fifty thousand dollars.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:01 Okay, got the red smoke. So the smoke, I'm looking at danger close now. About that tall? Or sometimes you need double-a's. I don't, you know what's wild? What the fuck do you have these? I don't remember when that's in my pocket. For 100% honesty's sake, I don't know why those are banded in a rubber band in my front left pocket.
Starting point is 00:00:33 And one's inverted, like one's tits down. That's really weird. You can't have everything tits up, right? That's super funny. Yeah. So how's the how's the You know my favorite podcast that you've ever done? No.
Starting point is 00:00:46 I know rarely listen to you because I don't like hearing your voice. Have you considered going and fucking yourself? A little bit. This morning I did on the way here. The helicopter pilot, the CW5s from 160th. Bro, that was a- Alley Mac. Because you were more interested in that conversation than anyone
Starting point is 00:01:04 because that conversation was about helicopters and- Yeah, now I know how many times they almost killed us. I know. That was rad, dude. That was the bad. What's not rad is looking back and thinking before knowing what some of the noises meant and the shuttering and the blade chop. Because he got shot down in Anaconda, right?
Starting point is 00:01:23 Yeah, but then just got into another one. He thought they were going to die. He lost all hydraulic control of the aircraft. That's insane. So the stick, everything locked up. And I believe they were in a descending slight right-hand turn. Yeah. Because he came off the slope.
Starting point is 00:01:39 He came off the original. Well, he was able to pull, he was able to level it out a little bit, but had the crew chief not pumped in a quart of hydraulic fluid? Yeah. In real time, wow, what was happening? They would have been on that descent right-hand turret until they no longer continued to exist. And was it, Neil Roberts was on his helicopter. Right before that dive off of the mountaintop is wild.
Starting point is 00:02:03 Neil went out the back. What did he say about, did Neil, did Neil think they were, on the ground because they were roping. They weren't roping. They were coming off the back of the ramp and he came off of it thinking they were infilling. I didn't ask him, but if you think about it, he would probably be the last person to know what Neil thought.
Starting point is 00:02:21 Yeah. The crew chief in the back may have a better idea because he was, from my end, again, now understanding more, they are head out, head in. They're looking at monitoring. They have two pilots, right, so one can be monitoring the gates. So he's flying that aircraft on short final. And listening to the crew chief.
Starting point is 00:02:37 So, yeah, he would have not probably know. I know that Neil had to have been unclipped, not that I was ever clipped in into 47. Yeah. But he had to have been near the ramp. Yeah. I believe he was probably preparing to run off, is my understanding.
Starting point is 00:02:51 They were going to land and then depart. And it's at night. At night. I believe he might have been in the process of getting off or close enough to the back or when it pitched, he went out the back. I'm not sure how far he fell if he fell at all or if he had just taken a step off and the helicopter took off.
Starting point is 00:03:07 But again, I mean, he was. Did you interview? The TL that received the Medal of Honor for that. Slabinsky, no. I have not sat down with him for a conversation. I don't think I've ever heard him in a conversation. Michael, will you look up and see if there is, his name is Brit Slabinsky, Slabinsky, I-N-S-K-I?
Starting point is 00:03:26 That's super controversial, but you told me personally, I remember we had a conversation a long time ago, that based on what you know of that circumstance, there was nothing, he didn't know, and it's easy for people to armchair quarterback the ISR and go, well, you could see he's right there and Neil's right there, but it was at night in the snow. Yeah, that guy.
Starting point is 00:03:47 Yeah, I don't know if he's done a full sit-down podcast about it. Yeah, that's Britt. So he augmented us for OIF one. What do you mean augment? He came with Gold Squadron, even though he was at Blue First and then ended his career at Red at the command. Oh, got it, got it, got it. After that, and I don't know, and I don't want to hypothesize as to why
Starting point is 00:04:07 he had augmented us, but he was with us there for OIF1, the initial invasion of Iraq. As a TL. He was the team in the element or no, just the assalter? Just as an augment. And so I had the opportunity to hear him in his own voice in a real close proximity time to that happening because that happened while I was in Green Team. Yeah. AER style.
Starting point is 00:04:29 It just, he told this story to the group. It wasn't necessarily an AAR. He, here's what I know. his version of events that he lived. I have not heard his version of events deviate from when he has told that story. I know there's a huge controversy and people think that the Navy pitted itself against the Air Force. I'm not, I also hate when people use broad terms like that.
Starting point is 00:04:53 Yeah. What do you mean? Like big Navy. There's tons of nuance in between. Yeah. Do you mean a guy in the Naval Special Warfare and a guy in Avsoff? Maybe I don't know. There is a bunch of controversy that is around that that has continued on to the Medal of Honor Museum.
Starting point is 00:05:06 We're talking about Chapman, who was originally, I think he was given the Air Force Cross, but it has been upgraded to the Medal of Honor as well. There's a discrepancy in the current displays. And I actually was just there in Arlington at the museum. So I got to see where one person's name is and the other one in the display. And I wasn't a part of that. People talk about the tie or the connection between Britt and the foundation and all this things. I leave that to everybody.
Starting point is 00:05:30 All I can say is back in 2003, the one time I heard it from his own mouth, it has matched every version that I have heard and he believes what he is saying. Yeah. I wasn't there. I don't have the facts. That's all I can say. Was Neil, I thought there was controversy between
Starting point is 00:05:45 in the task org of what Neil Roberts was doing. Was he working with OGA or the ground branch at the time or was he attached to Blue as a controller? You're talking about Chapman? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Chapman. He was attached to Blue Squadron is my understanding. Got it, got it, got it. Yep.
Starting point is 00:06:02 Which is wild because when you see that, and you realize that like what he was doing fighting uphill like he's an Air Force guy and I just that does. Yeah, but he's a 24th STS. Yeah, he's a STS guy. So he's working exclusively with Blue. Correct.
Starting point is 00:06:18 Yeah. So he knew it is doing. And they had very limited people that be able to go back up there. There's a couple guys, right? I think there was four. Today's episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. Summer rewards people who move.
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Starting point is 00:07:31 I don't know. scariest environment imaginable. Wild, man. Yeah. Anyways, that podcast is my... What number is that? I have absolutely no idea. But you knew Michael.
Starting point is 00:07:39 Michael knows. That podcast is awesome. I'm interested in the Rootoo Wing stuff too. I know. I just saw you post a picture of a little bird. Questioning your career path. I don't think you would have been a good pilot. Probably not.
Starting point is 00:07:54 Yeah. I think you would have crashed and died. I probably would have died. Yeah. During whatever their green team is, their selection. Oh, you wouldn't have made it that far. 447. At the basic hour back.
Starting point is 00:08:04 Yeah. I would have been done. I feel like you would have failed out in the aptitude section or vision. Really? Yes. Because we just talked about this with your reporter, buddy. Yeah. About how the article of your, can when we say that word?
Starting point is 00:08:16 We can't even say that word. I don't know. I don't know. But can't even say it. I'm not even going to use that because I don't want to get you suppressed and ruin your numbers that are already down a little bit. Are they? Probably. Since your book release.
Starting point is 00:08:28 I mean, look at who we're talking about. How could the numbers be going anywhere but down? How does it feel, though? Post. This is crazy. because I already know how you feel about this. It's not a big deal. New York Times best seller, you're like,
Starting point is 00:08:40 I just did a thing and you're that. But hitting that list, because it's very controversial and political. It's not a sales list. And a lot of people don't know that. It is very, but what they do guarantee is like when you hit that list, they guarantee mass dissemination,
Starting point is 00:08:57 which was my interest in hitting the list because I'm like, prepper crap doesn't get widely disseminated because everybody's scared of it, which is why I didn't hit the list. I hate the Wall Street Journalist, which makes me a national bestseller. But I see your shit everywhere. I go on that every airport I've been in, it's in every section of the airport.
Starting point is 00:09:15 Every Barnes & Noble, it's front and center and it's mass disseminated because it made that list. So one, congratulations. You could have had your name on that book, too. You probably wouldn't have wanted money on that book at the time. Listen, life choices have consequences. It worked out in my favor. But don't think I'm going to let you slide. away from promising to do something and coming the day we were supposed to share our work together.
Starting point is 00:09:41 Yeah, you had nothing. Nothing. Here's why. Because I really prefer a ghost fighter that writes it for you. And you actually, you actually write. Yeah, I enjoyed the process. You had three quarters of the book. No, actually, you had it mostly done when we went to our first. Yeah, remember that was the agreement we had. I didn't have one page done. I'm aware of that. I can't write, man. You know what I do, Will? I talk into a microphone.
Starting point is 00:10:09 You just handed out one of your books at the event you just did. So I read that book out loud because it's all my experiences. Yeah. And had Neil Neals. Neil Neals? No, no. I was going to say, we got to work on that. Is it Nealz Parker?
Starting point is 00:10:23 It's my, my editor who did Matt Best, New York Times best selling book. Congrats, Matt. But he did his. And what I did is I read it like literally sitting. in the bathtub, in the vehicle, on commutes, talked about the courses that I was teaching at the time. And the same thing with you, all the subject matter, most of the highlights in the book that I listened to. I didn't read your book, but I listened to it. Thanks for you a good friend. Yeah. I bought the audio and the printed copy today, gave one away, and you didn't even send me a copy.
Starting point is 00:10:57 I had to buy it on Amazon. I can't send a book to jail. That's true. They don't, they're going to They've got files in it. Have you never watched TV shows? Oh, so good. That was good. You're getting sharp. That wind straw. That windstrawl is cognitive. It's a powerful peptide. What is your, I was going to ask you what your health and wellness routine is because I've never seen you more lean, more healthy. It's called crushing anxiety and stress. It really helps suppress your diet. Is it cortisol? What have you changed? You change something. I mean, I'm only partially joking about the crippling anxiety and stress. Everybody thinks business is fun from the outside. Not that you have ever experienced anything like this, but the reality, I don't know anything about business. I'm learning. I'm trying to.
Starting point is 00:11:56 I'm not trying to repeat mistakes. And I tell myself the mistakes are tuition payments. And I do mean that. but that doesn't mean they don't sting or hurt or make you question your ability as to whether or not you can continue down your path in the future is this worth it, this, that, or the other. You know, some business partner issues. We can leave it at that speaking very broadly. There's really large dollar figures associated with the coffee shop that I'm responsible for
Starting point is 00:12:20 and a large headcount there to make sure it makes enough money to do those things. Those things weigh on me very, very much. You know, there were some back end stuff, personal stuff, financial stuff that has all been tied up in coming like tax related because I'm not being able to get the, to undo the litany of accounting that we needed to that just detonated with the turnover and business partners. It took almost a year and a half of forensic accounting. This is the old business partner. Yeah, but it took almost a year and a half of that stuff to unwind it.
Starting point is 00:12:52 So there's things that are like bills that are due that are the VIG is running every month to the government. You know what I mean? And all those things are fine, but it's stressful, man. I've, I am added weight training back in with jiu jitzu kettlebell or odd objects only. No linear barbell stuff. So mostly just kettlebells, but doing that two or three days a week, Jiu-jitsu as much as I can, a clean diet. Really, it's about the biggest difference.
Starting point is 00:13:20 Peptides. Occasionally, I played around a little bit with MOTC. If I ever get injured, you'll, you know, the old TB-500, no, BP-157, TB-5, whatever the Wolverine cocktail thing is. I've done that a little bit. The MOTC I've done. Yeah. I've been on TRT for two years at this point and finally have, that was a wild journey of too much,
Starting point is 00:13:43 not enough, too much and just slowly titrating to a point where my body, I'm at a good place with that. Do you know what your numbers that you like? Is there a span? Between 7 to 800. Same with me. I mean, I'm not on it now, but I have to get back on it soon. Why did you get off? because prison
Starting point is 00:14:02 I get it prison is hard but you do prison PT so I couldn't get a lot of runs in. They don't let you have your testosterone shot in the joint?
Starting point is 00:14:09 No. Have you considered not getting arrested in the future? I've actually been successful at that for a few weeks now. Let's give it some time.
Starting point is 00:14:17 Let's get that before. Let's give it some time. One of the things that I noticed is some of the TRT centers like if you go to a local TRT place
Starting point is 00:14:28 we've had this conversation too They don't manage your levels. And so if you don't have a place that's actually on top of that, and they're telling you to do your blood work, and they're like, dude, you're too high. And they're regulating it. You're just taking what they tell you to do.
Starting point is 00:14:42 Whatever it is, two mills. I forget what it is. But my levels were over a thousand. My natural at the time of testing once was like really low, but the second time was like $4.50, which is, it seems normal. I'm the same way. at seven to 900, seven to 800, I'm like balanced. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:03 It's not a super physiological dose. I got for a short period, the dosage was increased, and I physically didn't like how it felt. Yeah. And then I had my blood checked. I would say have a heavier hand in your own science experiment. Yes. Get your blood checked on your own.
Starting point is 00:15:21 I can link you up with my sister. She's actually the one who is managing my treatment at this point. She specializes in specifically women's, hormone in the endocrine system, which apparently is far more complicated than men's. Yeah. Allegedly. Allegedly. But she works with a bunch of San Diego City firefighters as well, too.
Starting point is 00:15:38 Yeah. And she, it's a heavier-handed approach. But you have to maintain your own agency in staying on top of that stuff. I look at it as a personal science experiment. Yeah. Are you doing the, what is it called, the donation like you giving blood? Haven't need to. Oh, really?
Starting point is 00:15:53 The amount of vials that she orders for me, I feel like satisfies. I leave there that they just keep popping. I'm like, I have to drive home after this. Yeah. Please leave me some. So she's doing all the diagnostics to look at all the blood panel.
Starting point is 00:16:08 Yep. Okay, I needed to get tuned into her. And then what's, Brent Tucker's... Anyways, he's setting me up for that program and then it would be perfect. I'll think it with your sister
Starting point is 00:16:19 to get the blood actually drawn and done right. Yeah, you'll have better access where you live. I'm limited the nearest facility The insurance covers is down in Missoula, so I'll zip down there. But you guys will have a bunch of testing facilities. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:31 Either in Park City or SLC. Yeah. Back to the New York Times best selling stuff. You campaigned really hard in the paint. Campaigned? What are we talking about? I wasn't running for office. Well, you did the rounds.
Starting point is 00:16:44 Yes. And it was part of a... You have to. Yeah, you have to. My experience with my publisher, especially when it came to preparedness, because they really didn't prioritize it at all because they've never really done a book.
Starting point is 00:16:55 Who was your publisher? It's a penguin random. Yep. Which is one of the top three. Yeah, one of the big ones. The big three. I think they're owned by Simon & Schuster. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:17:05 I don't know either. Yours is St. Martin's. St. Martin's Press. Yeah. So when you did that, you did that all yourself, right? You booked all of that? All of the main podcasts, the Chris Williamson, the Rogan, Cam, Huberman afterwards. Yes, that was all just direct text messages.
Starting point is 00:17:24 What's your favorite podcast? all those podcasts that you did. They're all different. Chris is, I mean, I did Chris is the day before I did Joe's, even though it came out afterwards. You know,
Starting point is 00:17:36 having sitting down with Joe, you might talk about aliens and dinosaurs, or you might talk about current events. You never know what you're going to get with Joe. Chris is, he takes a different approach. We dove into a lot of the things that were in the book.
Starting point is 00:17:50 Joe opened up talking about, hey, you're an author now. I was like, yeah, kind of accidentally because my douchebag friend tricked me into this.
Starting point is 00:17:56 And then Cam was just sitting down and talking with a friend over, you know, I've had for years talking about the book. And so that was targeted. Huberman's afterwards was, I had never met him. Because I had done the other ones, I'm not going to say his was my favorite, but I'll say it was probably the most unique out of all of them because it was our first time sitting down together having a conversation. And it was different. Was it focused on the book or was it focused on? He was able to tie in the neurological aspect. the things that I was talking about.
Starting point is 00:18:27 Really cool. Yeah. And it's just cool to sit down with somebody who makes you feel like a, like you have a golden retriever level of intelligence. Yeah. That's that guy. Yes. And he was super cool.
Starting point is 00:18:40 Again, we had communicated back and forth a little bit before that very loosely over social media. And then I had actually reached out to him. I said, hey, we'd like to send you a copy of the book. No expectation. Don't read it if you want to use it to keep your door open, you know. And he wrote back, he's like, oh, too late. And he sent back a picture of the book and he said probably time you come on the show. So that's how we linked up.
Starting point is 00:19:00 Yeah. Very cool dude for sure. So Chris is a good friend, Joe's a good friend, Cam's a friend. You know what I mean? So I'm not going to say I like one more than the other, but having never met Andrew and the facility that he had and the way that they had it structured, I thought it was really cool. Did you do anything like hot, cold, anything, like any therapeutic stuff or was it just the podcast? Oh, I don't participate in those things. Yeah, I was going to say.
Starting point is 00:19:22 I talked to him about my cold and hot protocol. I don't do cold. The ice bath should be at 80. And their saunas at 85. I heard that a Rogan's podcast too. Yeah. Yeah. I don't do that either.
Starting point is 00:19:31 I can do the hot because I love the sauna. But the cold, my body feels physical pain that I cannot describe. I think that's the point, though. It's probably just the regular thing for everybody else. I've done all those podcasts. I've done Chris's. He focused on prepared the book. And then I did all the other guys.
Starting point is 00:19:47 I haven't done Heubermans. If I was going to, like a bucketless podcast would be Heurman's because I like his neurological approach. to it is pretty cool. It's interesting to hear somebody who doesn't have the experiences that we do explain why certain types of people lean towards those experiences or what you can get out of them from an actual what your body is processing as opposed to just the lived experience. So I found that to be fascinating. Yeah. Where's he at? Malibu is where we recorded. I don't know if he lives there. That's where his studio is, Malibu, California. Interesting. The New York Times thing was cool. Quite frankly,
Starting point is 00:20:22 I am appreciative of it, but unlike our good friend Jack Carr, who will openly say he wanted to be a team guy and an author. That's right. It's really quiet about that second one while he was in smartly. I,
Starting point is 00:20:34 you know this better than anybody. I resisted the idea of writing a book. For years. For years. It told you to shut your face when you talk to me. Every time I ask you. Shut your mouth when you talk to me.
Starting point is 00:20:44 Go get fucked and stay fucked. Yeah. And finally the idea of doing it together was the only thing, which again you screwed me on in the future, was what got me, over the hurdle of the idea to do that. But since I had never put that on,
Starting point is 00:20:58 we'll say a vision board or whatever, I can appreciate what it is, but it wasn't some fruit that I was looking at and desiring for a long period of time. So it's cool, but we'll leave it at that. It's cool. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:16 Yeah. I mean, I had no intentions of being an author. So to me, I understand what it means. Again, I'm very appreciative of the fact that it made every one of the best-selling lists. I appreciate that deeply. I appreciate the support of the people who bought it. I'm just saying that accolade, if you will, not that they give you a ribbon or a certificate or anything like that, it would go into a binder or a drawer somewhere if it did, which is where all my other stuff is anyway.
Starting point is 00:21:40 Yeah. Well, I think here's where the pressure is potentially applied is obviously when you hit that list, you become an author in demand because they know you can move the books. that from a strategy standpoint publishing wise but from a personal standpoint I think about it like this one you're a Navy SEAL who wrote a book about not being a Navy SEALs
Starting point is 00:22:03 to ever write a book I don't know if you know that but not about being a Navy SEAL really because it's leadership applicable and we've actually talked about a lot that it doesn't have to do with Navy SEAL leadership it actually changed my leadership seminar style because I went
Starting point is 00:22:17 there is no Navy SEAL leadership exactly And all the things that we were told about the military and how it applies to civilians, most of it's a lie. And so this idea that, and I think you said it, we said it last podcast, these civilians don't have the buy-in that a Navy SEAL candidate where he's, where he's supposed to be, and has to be. How could they?
Starting point is 00:22:38 They don't, right? Their incentive structure is completely different. And it's like, well, then what do you do? Well, you have a principle. And then you have a way of changing and adapting that principle to a civilian, completely a different leadership style. So meaning that that book is Evergreen. And it doesn't have a lot to do with being a Navy SEAL. It's not
Starting point is 00:22:56 a Bissinette. It's not an O'Neill type book. If you were to do a second book, what would that book be? It would be titled, I'm not doing a second book. You have to do a second book. Michael, just chalk this up. This is the first beginning session of, it probably took 12 months for this one. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:23:12 For podcasts, we'll have a second book on the New York Times bestseller list. So the day that the new book, take my cut. The day that the book hit the, the lists. So it came out on a Tuesday. You find out Thursday. No, I think it's Wednesday. The publishers find out, I think, the following Wednesday. Yeah. I got a call from the literary agent. Are they freaking now? Now is the time to pitch your second one. Because what they see is, like you said, I don't know if author and I don't even know what an author and demand is. I'm going to put that on a business card though. I like what that sounds like. Yeah. Get a t-shirt. They're like Andy, author and demand. Not going to write anything else. But, You know, she said, now is the time. Let's go get you a seven figure advance. And I said, what am I going to write?
Starting point is 00:23:57 I already know what it is. No, we're not playing this game. Just like I titled the other one. I'm going to title this one. Mike, have you ever heard the saying, fool me once, shame on you. Full me twice, shame on me. You got to hear me out at least. I don't actually at all.
Starting point is 00:24:12 I don't have to listen to a word that comes out of your filthy mouth. I'm looking it right behind you. That's the context right there. Look at that picture. I don't need to look because. I know what it is. It is the me in the American flag wing suit sitting over the top of the ocean side harbor. You have, you have a, you have this world. So the only thing I could relate this to is to the world of photography that I have, which is a really nerdy passion. I collect
Starting point is 00:24:36 cameras. I've been a photographer. I was a wedding photographer in the military part time, because I loved it so much. And in reconnaissance. What was the name of your business? Photos by Mike? It was white star photography. What? Because what, named after the Vietnam, White Star units that went in to do P.O.W. rescues. There was an organization of the public space. So exactly zero people on Earth are going to get that reference. It has nothing to do with a POWW photographer. It was a cool logo.
Starting point is 00:25:04 It was a white star. But hear me out. So there's this world that you have that you actually keep pretty secret. You don't really talk about it a lot. What are you talking about? The aviation. Yeah. Free fall, base jumping.
Starting point is 00:25:18 Let's just call it. aviation world because it kind of relates to aviation. Okay. You're a world record holder and specific jumps and routines. You actually did the world record across every continent.
Starting point is 00:25:33 And there's a whole world there that is very technical, but a lot of people don't understand that world and also what it takes physiologically to be in that mindset to be able to do things like that. I don't think there's a book there. There is. For sure.
Starting point is 00:25:48 Why don't you write it? I'll give you a template. I'll line it on a template. I have some pictures of you tumbling through the skydiving, saved on my phone for, God, that montage I made of you and Evan was amazing. It doesn't compare to Evan tumbling. Evan was kicking. He's a bowling ball.
Starting point is 00:26:03 No, no. Evan was kicking the air that did nothing. You were tumbling. I was just, I was heavy driving. It's hard to keep up with me in the sky. No, so the agent called the day of. Yeah. Let's pitch a second book.
Starting point is 00:26:15 And I said, no. And the reason is this. What did he say? when you said no. It was a woman. Oh, what did she say when you said no? She said, Esther? Yes.
Starting point is 00:26:22 Yeah. She said, people don't say that. And I said, okay, what am I going to write? Well, and she pitched a few concepts, all of which I would say are ones that have already been done to a degree. But also I had no interest in. If I want to write something again, I will do it because I genuinely enjoyed the process, not because there is a check that might be associated with an advance that then puts me under a time crunch. to do so. Yeah. I would rather say no. And if I ever change my mind, it's not like the New York
Starting point is 00:26:54 Times bestselling title is going anywhere. No, you got time. Yeah. And I don't, there, I wrote about 40,000 words that didn't make the book about the triple seven that I still have. And maybe it was because it didn't fit well with the flow of the book, but the editors recommended that I pull that chapter out. And I did. And I'm glad that I did. Maybe that is a book in and of itself. but I don't know, man. Most people look at base jumping or skydiving in aviation and they say,
Starting point is 00:27:23 huh, interesting, but don't care. And I don't blame them. But like you did, you were using the framework of the seven continent jump to talk about leadership. So it was kind of like the, it was the Trojan horse, right?
Starting point is 00:27:37 You were taking them along on a journey. I mean, how many leadership books can there be, man? Well, I don't think this is a leadership book. I think it has a lot to do with, just like you lined out with this, book, there is framework and maybe you're talking about the mindset that it takes to do something like that. It's not hard. But you haven't you relax, you haven't you steal it. You haven't distilled it. What is there to distill? Here's the book. There's a lot. Chapter one, gravity works.
Starting point is 00:28:05 We'll take Evan Hayford, who hates jumping. Yeah. Okay. So what does he go through? He goes through like this fight or flight kind of thing. He's pooping his pants. He doesn't like to jump. how what makes what's the difference between him and you psychologically one of us is a pussy and the other one isn't I mean at the technical level but if you look at all your avi you're fascinated with aviation like I am but just in a different way like you're really I mean you're a mean like I actually participate in it and you look at pictures on the internet you you have a golf you have a golf is a golf golf stream get it out a golf stream golf stream is it golf stream no g-u-l-f Gulfstream.
Starting point is 00:28:46 Golf stream. You have a Gulfstream Pilots license, which is a, it's a type rating. It's a type, it's a jet rating, right? You have,
Starting point is 00:28:54 to be in a wing suit, you don't just, you don't just do your C class license and you jump over and you're in a wing suit. Like it takes, you can. You can and you'll die.
Starting point is 00:29:04 But even guys that you work with when you base jumped, I think for a period of time, maybe when we met, even seven, eight years ago, you were known for that being that guy, even the first road.
Starting point is 00:29:15 podcast, which I listened to you before I met you, I was fascinated with because nobody was talking about that and like the mindset it took and what you were doing. I don't do, I think it's, when I heard that helicopter podcast and how super excited you were about like the subject matter. Oh, dude, I've been nerding out about it. Oh, dude. And it's, it's super interesting. I don't know the framework. I'm just doing, it's a warning order. We're just throwing it out there because Michael doesn't know what that is. Don't look at him when you say that. Yeah, warning order. Look it up. Michael, it's a warning order. You have access. I don't want to hear your keys over there moving at all.
Starting point is 00:29:47 What's a warning order? Do you want me to guess? Yeah. Yeah. I would say it's, I feel like it's military related in some way. Okay, that's not an answer. You are in the wheelhouse. I'm just giving you my thought process.
Starting point is 00:30:03 You're halfway there. Continue. Okay, military related, I would feel like maybe flying related as well because you guys were just talking about flying. It can be. Tell us more. It has to, it's like something, like you're about to do something maybe, and then something from like above you comes down and says, hey, be aware of this, so don't do it. Well, bam.
Starting point is 00:30:25 No, he was so broad that that could have been like, how do you go get? He just took the word morning and then order. We can apply as an answer to go into the chow hall for lunch. He was so, you know, it's some guys and they say some things. That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is. It's a brief, call it a conceptual. overview, be prepared for.
Starting point is 00:30:45 Yeah. Well, let's just think about it. Let's just think about that. What part do we think about the warning order or the book? We're planning the seat on the book. What's it going to take for you to actually participate in aviation? I mean, you literally, I'll pull it up. You put up, the post was of a MH6, a little bird.
Starting point is 00:31:01 Yeah. Or was it an AH? Was it an attack one? That was an MH that I was sitting in. Which is an MD 500 Magnum PI helicopter for people who... Have you ever flown one of those yet? No. Do you want to?
Starting point is 00:31:12 Of course. Don't ask me really. rhetorical questions. 160th will like let you fly that thing. I'm sure they would do that. If you're in the military, yes, they will. Well, no, no. Well, when I went, when I visited 160th and got a tour,
Starting point is 00:31:25 they were like going to bring me up in it. Were you in the military? They did back of it. No, I was always in the military. It's just like a couple of years ago. Okay. And they're like, hey, we'll take you up next time and you can fly. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:31:35 And I was like, well, my M86 pilot back in the day that I had the letter recommendation for aviation school, he let us do that. for some reason we had time and we were doing... He led you to go fly it? Yeah. Did you take it off from the ground? No, no, no, no, no. No, he was very...
Starting point is 00:31:51 He was like, don't touch anything, Mike. And I was like, I am not touching anything. Let's just say the complicated phase of flight. I'm not trying to reduce the complexity of this. But once you have some forward airspeed going, it is far easier to control than when you are at vertical air speed. Yeah. Speeds.
Starting point is 00:32:08 That transition from vertical to forward is where the sausage is made. Yes. Hovering is, it's as, what's weird, though, is once you get it, you got it. You can refine it for the rest of your aviation career. Yeah. But once you understand what it feels like, like, okay, you got it. It may not be the prettiest thing, but you got it. Is anything close fixed wing to that, or is it completely different?
Starting point is 00:32:30 Talking on the radios and the airspace is the same. The control of the actual aircraft itself is very different. And all the mechanical processes that you go through, the collector, everything is. The collector? Is it a collector? Collective. The collective. See, there you go.
Starting point is 00:32:46 See, you're so interested in this. The collective. I am interested in knowing what the fuck I am talking about. So you don't die. You're a collector of terms that you don't know what they mean. I'm a photographer. You're the pilot. I just think it would be a good book.
Starting point is 00:33:00 Collective. Cyclic is what you have in your other hand, the forward, back, left, and right. That's right, the cyclical. But all of that in your helicopter is the same in a little bird. Or is it? Okay. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:33:10 And is it? Because I know they say the little. Bird is like fly by cable. Like is it, it's not cable, is it? It has no hydraulics. So you get direct feedback. I think it has a trim system,
Starting point is 00:33:21 but yes, and it allows you, I would say that allows you to fly very precisely because you are getting instantaneous feedback of any movement you make. Yeah, those little bird pilots, they're amazing. They are,
Starting point is 00:33:31 the stuff they did, I can't even just, oh my gosh. Yeah. Now that I understand, again, what they were doing with the platforms, what they were able to do.
Starting point is 00:33:39 And then you layer into that nighttime. Yeah. limited field of view? I mean, come on. I just befriended. He apparently told me he's the only Asian. He's half Korean. The only, his last name's Kim.
Starting point is 00:33:53 He just got out of the military. Out of 160th, and he's an 86 pilot. And he flew 86th for, I think, the last decade. And it's like, how was the run, man? He's like, it was amazing. Yeah. Is that, if you had one job in aviation to do in the military, what would that be?
Starting point is 00:34:12 Hmm. Are we rolling fix wing into this too? No, just rotary. I don't know, man. The Apache's seemed pretty cool too. That seems pretty dope. I mean, Alan makes the 47s seem amazing. I don't like, I would never think Chinook,
Starting point is 00:34:31 but when he talked about it, I was like, oh. I mean, if they said you can be a Chinook pilot or a DAPS pilot. For people listening, that's a six. So the AH6 and the MH6 are based on the same platform. One has the platforms on the side where people can be on. The other one is an assault platform that is loaded out with rockets and guns. There's a Black Hawk, which is people in it. And then there's the DAPs, which is the attack version like the AH6.
Starting point is 00:34:55 And that thing has just got all the heat. Sick. So that would be tough to say no to those AH or the DAPS platforms. The A86 seems like it would be real cool because they're so independent. It's like just a couple dudes in one platform. and one of my last trips to Afghanistan, the ground force commander gave the A6's permission to do strikes and do their own BDA.
Starting point is 00:35:23 So they would fly, instead of risking an entire task force and a vehicle interdiction, they would fly out and D.F. Directionally find the car vehicle with a cell phone, destroy it, and then go around and do the BDA, from the air from the air and and relayed on the radio and I'm like why haven't they always been able to do that because that sounds really awesome because typically they're doing close air support for a vehicle interdiction element yeah if things pop off but at a time we're so restricted because of platforms we didn't have a lot of helicopters we actually had you would have love this we had in my 17s and that my last point in 2010 we use that as a yeah insertion extraction platform quite a few times wild yeah that's an interesting bird For sure. Massive platform.
Starting point is 00:36:11 We had two or three. No, we had three. On one target, we did a rest over day. So we come in at night. We try to pretend like we ex-fill. And then we keep everybody, the assault force in the compound, we're instantly compromised.
Starting point is 00:36:29 So then it turns into Spectre Gunship on station daylight because we're about to get lit up. Which they don't like. Yeah, they don't like that. That's the only thing that saved us. And then it's like, you know, we're all on stand to, just like basically on the perimeter wall. And they bring in the MI 17s at night, load up the Rangers, load up the unit guys.
Starting point is 00:36:53 We get on it and go to fly away. And the troops aren't major Johnny across from me is looking at me. He's like, and he looks in the back and he's trying to get my attention. And then I sit next to him and he yells. He's like, where are the other helicopters? And so I run in the crew chief. And I can't say the name of the problem. I don't want to say the name of the organization that's flying it.
Starting point is 00:37:13 And he says, I don't know. Because they don't have connectivity. It's like they rigged a Russian helicopter, modified it because we didn't have 160th. We didn't have enough assets. Were you being flown around by Blackwater? No, no, no. I'll tell you all along. You know it is.
Starting point is 00:37:27 Okay. So we land and when we get off the helicopter, the other two helicopters are missing. That's not good. The troops aren't Major Johnny thinks they got shot. shot down and we're like what happened, they go to take off, both of them have mechanical failures of the, because of the load on X-Fill, and have to auto-rotate to the ground, both of them. Johnny makes me and three other guys go out with this unit, and we go to a Russian MI-17 scrapyard to pull parts, cross-load them into, what's the one, the Osprey?
Starting point is 00:38:04 They flew into Ospreys from Kanahar, picked some of the guys up. We didn't go. It was some of their mechanics and flew over the mountain range. This is from Kunduz to Mazashirif. Landed Mazda Sharif repair. I think they can't repair both of them. They could only repair one. They get one off the ground.
Starting point is 00:38:21 The rest of the guys load. And then they drop a J-dam on the third helicopter. And I was like, yeah, that's sketchy. Very Iranian rescue. Yeah, it was wild, dude. And that MI-17 was scary to fly in, especially on final. Yeah, those are older. but proven aircraft for sure.
Starting point is 00:38:40 The blivet is only outside or the bladder. I don't know. I wasn't paying attention at that time for sure. Yeah. Yeah. It was wild.
Starting point is 00:38:47 So you guys used those on your rotation. Yeah. I don't actually know who was flying them up front though. What color were they? Just white? Tan, I think.
Starting point is 00:38:57 Desertish. Boflaged, green and tan. Like rattled canned or professionally painted? Legitimately rattle canned. Like saw the guys out there, rattled can in it. It was awesome. That was a cool trip.
Starting point is 00:39:11 Damn. What's new in the world? What have you been up to? Well, I got Philcraft back, and that was partly thanks to you, and their inability to make money. There was nothing in there that was thanks to me. Yeah. Yeah, your vote counted. I had to vote to remove you from the company.
Starting point is 00:39:32 I know. I know that. But I would have voted to remove. I actually saw in the paperwork to remove myself. Because I knew. the circumstance. I mean, it was dire. I mean, I was like...
Starting point is 00:39:43 The situation, yeah. I mean, I was obviously very quiet about all of this. But yeah, you had put me on the board of Fieldcraft, I think the year before that. And so I kind of had an inside track as to what was going on. There was no other choice to make, unfortunately, based off the public optic
Starting point is 00:39:58 of what was going on and it actually freed you up. That sucked. You didn't get kicked out, though. I've heard you say on some podcasts, you get kicked out. No. I got, it was, well, one, it was self-selected because I could have fought it legally.
Starting point is 00:40:12 Yeah. But I also was told, I mean, look, what you just said is the fact. I could not fight in court. No. And be part of the company at the same time. In fact, so it was a blessing in disguise. Let me tell you how not fun it is to officially submitted vote to remove one of your best friends from the company that they created. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:38 And that was tough. I know it was tough. Yeah. But then you voted me back in. Kind of. Not really. Because I think I, once that happened and Fieldcraft went the way that it did and it folded, which it had to.
Starting point is 00:40:52 I had no hand in anything other than that, other than signing stuff saying I would, I agree with the path for acquisition. Or for dissolvement. Dissolment, yes. The acquisition I was not consulted on. I just because at that point it was outside of, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Once it's dissolved, my role in that, I assume to some degree that you probably were at least looking at, I mean, there's some valuable things associated with that, an email list of multiple hundreds of thousands of names.
Starting point is 00:41:17 Incredible amount of the social channels, all of that stuff. I assumed that that would probably be the case, but I didn't have a hand in it coming back to you. I had a hand in it ending, I guess, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. And that was tough. Evan was actually on the board at the time. He didn't make any of the calls, though.
Starting point is 00:41:34 No, he had his own things to deal with. I just don't think he could reach the phone on the table, but... That's okay. Yeah. He's growing up a little bit. That was rough, man. Yeah, it was rough, man. It was rough because I knew more than most people of what you were dealing with, but also
Starting point is 00:41:49 not enough, nor was it my place to ever speak about it. So it's people hit, well, why aren't you saying anything about Mike? And this, I'm like, first off, eat a dick. All of the dicks you can find. Yeah. And anybody who was fighting their way through what you were working your way through would have asked for only one thing, and that would have been time for you to present the actual facts of the case itself, which in the modern era, nobody seems to have an interest in doing,
Starting point is 00:42:12 which sucks. Yeah. And those people who were the heaviest on that bandwagon, if anything like that ever happened to them, they'd be screaming at the top of their lungs. Wait, it's not true. Let me tell you my side of the story. Well, you weren't even able to tell your side of the story. No. Because you were incarcerated, Mike. What was your prison name? Did you hold onto people's pockets? I've never told so many people so fast my background. Did they even care? Did they hold on to your pockets? They did care.
Starting point is 00:42:40 Good. Well, it didn't help that the first person who I ran into, the first corrections officer I ran into, and my dad retired from corrections after the military. So he was a military police officer, combat arms guy, transitioned into Department of Corrections and did that for like ever. He was like a detective at the state prison in Florida. And I've said that. So I think there was like a, you guys are like my old man. Like I grew up in this kind of environment. and the first guy walks up to me, he's like,
Starting point is 00:43:07 hey man, thanks for your service and shook my hand. Like I'm in an orange jumpsuit, and he's shaking my hand telling me thank you for everything that I've done. And he heard the story about Vinny, and he has so much respect for me. And as soon as I went into lockup with these guys, MS-13, dude, big shout out to the guy with a 380 round lodging his neck. And I had these dudes doing yoga.
Starting point is 00:43:30 I had him doing breathing exercises, and we were talking about our kids. because these dudes were hard up and like mean mugging each other. And I'm like, oh, there's a hierarchy here. It's like a tribe. And when I told them my background, one of the dudes in the lockup, which was like five, seven guys recognize me. And he goes, holy crap.
Starting point is 00:43:50 And I even get chills now because when he recognized me, all the other dudes were like, really? And then all of them settled down. The anxiety they all had, they were like, so what happened with this? And it was like story time with Mike. it was like a podcast. It would have been the greatest podcast on the planet. But I had these guys like I was crying over my kids. They were contemplating their life decisions and going,
Starting point is 00:44:15 what am I doing with my life? And I'm like, yeah, dude, what are you doing with your life? And I knew there was a part of me knew that what was happening was temporary, but I didn't know if it was going to be permanent because it could have very easily turned permanent. In fact, I was probably a couple seconds away from their decision to go just keep them in there until it's all said and done. Now that for me would have took a couple months.
Starting point is 00:44:41 It took 55 days. I remember every hour of every day. Is that how long you're in there for? No, no, no, no. I was only in there for, I was in there for seven days. It's their rookie numbers. I know, man.
Starting point is 00:44:51 You got to join me sometime. Did you get a shiv? Yeah, of course. Good. Prison purse? Yes. Of course. I think that's the move.
Starting point is 00:45:02 You're supposed to either beat somebody up or get a shiver both. That's what they say on TV. Do both. Okay. That's the cover all. But you don't know how to fight. I don't know how to fight. I know. I could box. I don't know how to do Jujitsu anymore. I, well, why did you just say anymore? Because you've never actually trained Jiu-Jitsu. I have started many times. Yeah. And then I've ended up injured. Like, I'm actually off the injury. I'm leaning out a little bit. I've actually lost a little bit away. I don't think so, but five pounds. Since when? I'm much to you weigh right now.
Starting point is 00:45:32 What's your weight? I have no idea. I don't get on the scale. I go off on my clothes fit, which they fit fine. What's the value of getting on the scale? I get it if you have a weight loss goal. But I also don't want to nerd out over just a number that's going to give me more additional anxiety.
Starting point is 00:45:45 I'm all tapped out with that. When I got off a TRT, I dropped like 10 pounds. And I feel a lot better. Yeah. You're probably on too high of dosage. Or maybe you didn't need to be on T or T. I legitimately got my endocrine system checked and it was an absolute nightmare. Yeah, your numbers were like single digits.
Starting point is 00:46:00 No. Now you're making things up. I thought you told me single digits. No. Four? No. That was Brent recently told me that. Single digits.
Starting point is 00:46:08 What was yours at? High twos, I think. Which is pre-pubescent teen. It's hard to say. What I never had was a test when I was younger to see where my baseline was. From my understanding, some people trend lower. Some people trend higher. 1100 might be normal for somebody who had a higher level in their life.
Starting point is 00:46:27 I don't know what my baseline was. I know I felt like shit and it's at least helping with that. I will tell anybody considering being on TRT it's not magic. No. It's not a, it's not a, and everything is better.
Starting point is 00:46:41 It takes you a long time to figure out the dosage. It doesn't, you're not going to be a superhuman. I don't look superhuman. I can't perform superhuman. I recover better than I used to. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:46:51 And I am appreciative of that. I can still continue to train. The mental clarity is a little bit there. But a lot of that too is diet and just prioritizing rest. as well. Yeah. So it's not, I know a lot of people look at it like, oh, that's the easy button. I got to hit that one. It's not that. It doesn't do the work for you, as you know. Let's talk about drinking because I did a post recently. And a lot of dudes slid in my dhams, which is normal,
Starting point is 00:47:13 but they had a lot to say. That happens every day. What was the post? So I did a post on basically stating that, one, I drink alcohol before. And I think me and you were in the same kind of social climate where like you'd have a drink every once in a while. A glass of wine, a whiskey, and a rock. But I really found that after I began, especially where it disconnects that connection between any type of addiction, it just gets rid of that thought or idea completely. Where you have a craving for something,
Starting point is 00:47:49 you don't have any cravings for anything. Like you don't want... For anything? No, no, it's not for anything. It's literally for vices. Like these things that you, you know are bad for you. Like I didn't crave sugar.
Starting point is 00:48:02 I didn't crave coffee and I didn't crave alcohol. Since then, I just crushed some amazing coal brew at your BRCC. And I partake. But I have, the idea of alcohol makes me nauseous.
Starting point is 00:48:15 And so it's easy for me to say I don't drink alcohol anymore. But what I've realized over the last year of not drinking at all is the profound benefit I've gotten from it. I don't feel like crap after I drink. when I drink, I'm not seeking anybody's approval, so I just drink what I want, right? Because I'm like, oh, he's drinking. So, you know, JT's drinking. I'm like, I'm, I should drink with him, right? And then the overall cognitive benefits of not being clouded or fuzzy. And people, we, I don't deal with it like an addiction because I really don't drink a lot. But there was absolutely no benefit. And so I did a video saying, look, there's, you do you, but here's my experience. And I talked about the military and how people destroyed their careers.
Starting point is 00:48:57 over alcohol. How when I was in the CIA, they dedicated entire shipping containers just for booze and social hour, where I would have to babysit case officers because they were getting wasted, and I'd have to be like, look, you've had enough. If I have to come get you and you're inebriated, I can't get you off the target. Stop drinking. Like, I'd have to have those conversations with grown men and women. And we've talked about it before, but I want to get your thoughts on it. What do you think about alcohol overall and are you still drinking? Because I feel like you haven't been. I haven't seen you drink in a long time. I mean, I think I had two drinks over the Fourth of July weekend. Every once in a while, I'll have a glass of wine with Leah. I think what's important for people,
Starting point is 00:49:44 I think any broad statement like that is always going to get pushback because the more broad you are, the less accurate you are. I think what's important for people to understand is there why. Why do you drink? What do you get from drinking? Because let me ask you this. The way you feel about drinking now, I'm going to guess, and on the things that you mentioned, have a lot to do with the phase of life that you are in right now. For sure. I bet like myself, some of the, in my 20s and maybe even early 30s with some of my best friends, I had some of the most enriching, fun-filled, hilarious experiences with them involving alcohol.
Starting point is 00:50:21 Yeah. I was never addicted to alcohol. and I chose when I wanted to participate. For me, I'm a little bit more introverted. So it's a social lubricant. It can open up that layer of, and I'm not making an excuse for alcohol. I'm talking about only myself here.
Starting point is 00:50:36 It can open up that conversational element a little bit more, just maybe more comfortable being around people that you don't know, literally just the social lubricant aspect of that. People have to make the decision on their own. I'm thankful for some of the experience. experiences that I have had in my life when I was drinking. But in the season of life that I'm in right now, when I'm looking at probably the tail end of the lap around the track, the halfway point, or approaching the halfway point, it doesn't serve me as well because I feel a lot of the same
Starting point is 00:51:10 things. You can feel the residual impact from it. And the cost benefit ratio has changed. And that's okay. And I think people need to determine that for themselves. It's the why. Are you drinking because you can't control it. Are you legitimately addicted to it? Are you drinking because you feel like you have to? Are you being pressured? Or do you have a healthy relationship with alcohol? Guys, I think that you can. Yes, there's no positive benefits truly, I think from a physiological, not a doctor, but from a physiological basis, I doubt there's any medical benefits from that. But everything in life is a risk, cost benefit ratio. A lot of the stuff that we did
Starting point is 00:51:55 wasn't beneficial for us in the long term. But we prioritized that experience over getting a full night's sleep. And I think that's okay, as long as you can manage it and it's not managing you. Makes sense. I think especially the analysis
Starting point is 00:52:11 of the investment in drinking and at our age what it kind of does detrimentally to our health. Like in my 20s, I could... There was no hangover. There was nothing.
Starting point is 00:52:22 Leah has two cocktails and she'll be on a three-day journey of like, she's like, the crab shit in my mouth again and found me last night. I mean, age is a real thing, man. It's a different phase and a different season of life. You know, if, Michael, will you pull up the, the alcohol industry right now is getting their shit pushed in? Yes. CBD. Yeah, Michael, pull up the, I don't know what the Google term would be to find this.
Starting point is 00:52:49 but the difference in alcohol consumption via sales in the last, call it 10 to 20 years. I think it's 20 plus percent. It used to be... I think it's down like 65%. Wow. So it used to be 40 billion a year in revenue, tax revenue. About 28 to 30 billion of that would be from the states, the states combined. That's ABC stores.
Starting point is 00:53:13 Yeah. And then the rest was from the federal government. But that's down. Yeah. profoundly down. Huberman actually asked me, and he said, he said, I cannot believe that I'm about to ask this question on this podcast. But do you think there is benefit for younger people to have exposure and experiences with alcohol? Oh.
Starting point is 00:53:32 And I had to look at it through the lens of my own life. I mean, like the social lubricant's a good point. Can you make decisions that can destroy your life and career? Yes. Would I trade some of the experiences I have with my friends? No. I know, man. So again, I'm not here to advocate either direction.
Starting point is 00:53:50 It's a use with caution, understand your why and actions have consequences. So you need to be able to control that and you can't blame it on anybody else. It's, uh, yeah, I don't know, man. It's a tough one. This season of my life, it doesn't serve me well. But I've had a healthy relationship without having trouble finding a chart. Oh, gosh. It's dropped 54% of the lowest in 90 years.
Starting point is 00:54:13 Spending at retail shops is fallen by an average of 5%. The bar sales have seen a slight increase. as venues pivot to mocktails. All right. It's fair enough, which is just a non-alcoholic. That's weird. Down 54% the drinking rate, but spending at retail
Starting point is 00:54:28 has only fallen by 5%. Through bar sales, a slight increase as venues pivot to mocktails. Yeah, which is just a non-alcoholic cocktail. Yeah. What I find interesting is the GOP-1 thing where I thought GOP-1 was a replacement for it because people were getting healthier.
Starting point is 00:54:43 No, it reduces the cravings of alcohol, which is wild. which, you know, I began, for example, like I, like you talk about like the social experiences. When I ripped into Africa one trip, we went to Germany for Octoberfest and I was a team sergeant, me and my cell leaders and one of my medics, I said, look, guys, we're only in Germany for a short period of time. Let's go out and enjoy Octoberfest because it's an actually legit thing, right? They take this seriously here. And we partook and it was so fun. Did you wear Laterhausen?
Starting point is 00:55:18 Absolutely. No, you didn't. What is that? That's the weird leggings, I think. What is it? The white, fruffy, frilly. Michael, pull up a picture of October Fest. The big mug?
Starting point is 00:55:29 No. What is it? What are you talking about? Well, first off, why did you say yes if you don't know what it is? I thought you meant the stockings. Yeah. Yeah, that. Yeah, yeah, I didn't wear that.
Starting point is 00:55:38 But I wore. But you did say yes. No, the people around. See that girl right there with the wind outfit? Everybody was wearing that. Yeah. But they were about 100 pounds heavy. Men's idol-wise Laterhausen.
Starting point is 00:55:49 I know what I'm adding to carve for Michael's Christmas gift. He would look handsome in that. I'm just saying. You should do an Octoberfest episode and you should wear that. That would be fun. I don't really have a deep tie to Octoberfest. Laterhausen. So let's talk about this because this is coming out after Biss's episode.
Starting point is 00:56:10 Yes. This will be out Monday. So I could ask you about the post reflections of that episode. Sure. I mean, I've had less than 24 hours to post reflect on it, but go ahead. So we talked about O'Neill's podcast and kind of the controversy. I didn't realize the extent of these controversies because I've been living under a rock, which I'm very thankful for for the last year.
Starting point is 00:56:33 But when I talked to Brent Tucker, I didn't even realize there was a whole thing between Brent Tucker and O'Neill. Yes. Very bad. I didn't realize. I know it was a podcast, but I didn't know it was actually Brent Tucker. was part of that whole podcast. He is currently in a lawsuit with Rob.
Starting point is 00:56:50 Yes. Not with Rob. He's on the, I don't know how you are supposed to say that correctly. There is a lawsuit that is involving Brent and Rob currently and some other podcasts. But it's not just Brent, right? It's a whole bunch of people named. Not a whole bunch, I think.
Starting point is 00:57:03 Maybe three or four. Okay. So I found out about that with Brent when I was in Florida with him. So I was like, oh my God. I didn't realize that that was the thing. Anyways, we talked about when I knew last podcast and you had some,
Starting point is 00:57:15 reflections. And we talked about how Matt Bissanet and Rob should be in the same room. Do you think that's, after you're talking to Biss, is that feasible to kind of just get this stuff out there and work through it without the legal drama and all the things that are going on? And Frank, can you frame out what Bissanette? I mean, because I really don't know. I don't think their lawyers would allow them to do that for one with active litigation going on. Oh, so there is active litigation between Biss and... Well, Rob is in litigation with Brent over... And this is, I am not repeating verbatim what I understand...
Starting point is 00:57:58 This is what I understand it to be. Brent did, I believe multiple, at least one, but I believe multiple episodes covering the narratives that surround essentially the deviation in the stories occurs at the second floor of the residence and what happened beyond the second floor into the third floor. And the key piece in it is, as dumb as this sounds, who shot and killed Osama bin Laden. From my understanding, listening to Matt yesterday, sitting where you were sitting, talking about the debrief that was audio recorded.
Starting point is 00:58:50 The debrief that was audio recorded. Based off what Biss said, I was not there, I have not heard the recording, is that when the debrief went down, the point man and the point man alone described actions that took place after the threshold between the second and third floor, meaning he took the substantial actions
Starting point is 00:59:11 that the success of the operation was based upon. Rob has... Which was not Rob and not Bissonette. Bissanet has never claimed to kill bin Laden. Bissinette has claimed that he was in a place where he could have seen what happened and that that story deviates from the story that Robb tells. He doesn't say that specifically.
Starting point is 00:59:34 He doesn't say, this is my story and this is Rob. What he says is, this is what I saw. Do with it what you will. And he wasn't the point, man. So we're talking about a man who's unnamed, unknown, who's never talking about. doesn't want to be named and doesn't want to be known and I'm not going to ever pull on that thread because I can respect that. That what in my understanding, what Brent discussed in his episodes was what is supported by the debrief. If the debrief, which again, I wasn't there, didn't hear the audio recording, if the debrief is the point man talking about the actions that he took and nobody else interjected and said, no, that's not what I'm.
Starting point is 01:00:14 happened. I was the one. If it was the point man talking and only the point man, what Rob is suing Brent for is Brent essentially saying that the official debrief is true. And what he is extrapolating from that is that what Brent is saying is that Rob is not the person who killed Osama bin Laden. Those are other people's words. That's what I believe the origin of the story is actually about. Wow. Because, and Rob on this podcast for the first time said that story that they told with their heads together that they said was the factual account of what took place was not true. He said that they created a story for the debrief to provide top cover for the ground force commander. That seems weird.
Starting point is 01:01:11 I mean, or difficult to comprehend. One, why you would do that. But two, how to contest that when you have the facts being the official count. Because we're saying the official count is the facts. And to get off that narrative, he has to say it's a lie, which he said. I mean, he said it here, I think, for the first time. And now, and then Bissonette is backing the official count, or he's saying that what Rob is saying? Bissonette, again, I can't speak for Matt, but my understanding of it was, and Michael, you were in the room, Wes, you were in the room, correct me if I'm wrong. And my assessment is this. He is saying that the official debrief, the one that was recorded is in line with what he saw in the physical evidence.
Starting point is 01:02:01 Wow. Okay. And then and then Bissonet, look, Bissonette's book is a really good bulk. So no easy day is the first one. No easy day. by Mark Owen, supposedly Matt Bessonet. No one knows for sure. No one knows for sure. Except they found that out in about 12 hours. So what is the conflict with this book? Which book? So he's done three.
Starting point is 01:02:27 Oh, I didn't know. He didn't know that. No Easy Day was the first one. Yeah. What was the second? I know this one is no easy way. What was the second one, Michael? Can you just pull up Matt or Mark Owen or Matt Bissonette books?
Starting point is 01:02:38 Not the same publisher, I imagine. He is self-publishing the third one. Got it. He did not like the feedback he got from his publisher, so he's deciding to do it on his own, which could work really well in his favor. No Hero. Okay, yeah, that's right.
Starting point is 01:02:50 So No Easy Day was the first book that came out, 2012, which was kind of the beginning of the unraveling of his personal and professional life. His words, not mine. Again, I'm paraphrasing. The No Hero book that came out in 2014, and then No Easy Way is the book that is coming out. I think he said they're starting to ship on,
Starting point is 01:03:10 two days from now, one day from now, so the eighth. He looks great for being 50, just saying that, like throwing that out there. I had no idea he was 50. First off, what picture are you looking at? No, I've seen him. I just saw him post that he was on the clear hot. Yeah. And no easy day, 2012.
Starting point is 01:03:28 Where were you in 2012? I was at Traydet. The training detachment on the West Coast had gotten back from that last Team 3 deployment. I was in the process of the P-E-B-M-E-B submission. I was getting all the paperwork done. Going from enlisted officer. No, no, P-EB, physical evaluation board, medical evaluation board. Oh, okay.
Starting point is 01:03:51 I got commissioned in 2008. So I was submitting my package for medical retirement at that point. Got it. At a training command, I was a, what job was I was an operations officer there? Yeah, operations officer. Yeah, I was an op sergeant at that time at E8. God, I would have made you salute me so many times. I would have did it once.
Starting point is 01:04:09 And just got it. I would have had you leave the office and come back. Mike, go grab that for me. Come back. Respect the rank. No easy day is the book that has all the controversy behind, right? And why is that? Because it's...
Starting point is 01:04:24 Well, it was the first... And again, we didn't specifically speak about why he thought it was, but from an outsider's perspective, I would say... One, the biggest thing is he did not seek publication review. Which is a huge no-no, obviously. He agrees with that. Yeah. What was the mistake?
Starting point is 01:04:43 Did he just kind of... He received or he retained counsel who told them that he didn't need to do it. You know, sometimes it's good to get a second opinion. Hindsight, 2020, right? Yeah. He got, he got counsel associated with that. His counsel was actually the same attorney for the guy who wrote Black Hawk Down. Oh, wow.
Starting point is 01:05:05 And so he thought... Boughton, Mark Bowden. Yes. And so he thought that, and probably reasonably so, that if he had, you know, if he had worked with authors in this space before he probably knew what he was talking about. So it was, I would say it was a couple things. One, no pre-publication review. And two, it was the first record, public facing record of that operation, really that went into it at any level of depth that broke the news for lack of a better term, even though it was a couple years later. Was he on active?
Starting point is 01:05:33 Did he get the time? No. I was under the assumption that he was as well. he had made the decision to get out before starting writing the book. Oh, wow. So he was out. Okay. So, and then he did it under the Mark, Mark Owen, which lasted, I think, less than one business day.
Starting point is 01:05:47 Wow. Before it was leaked. Well, before they figured it out. One of the things he didn't change in his origin story was the small town from Alaska that he was from. Which is, where is it out on there? Wrangel. Yeah. And so I don't know how many team guys have come from there.
Starting point is 01:06:01 But let's say it was six. You're going to figure that one out real fast. Yeah. So, and that it kind of unwound from there. So he had, so is it the government sued him and then made him pay back all the royalties or the money he made on the book? Oh, you're going to have to look this one up, Michael. I don't know the exact mechanism of that. So I thought, so he did give all the money back for the book.
Starting point is 01:06:23 That he made for the, no easy day. For no easy day. And the reason he said, again, his words that he used yesterday, not mine, were he is writing this book, no easy way, to pay off the money that he. owes the government. I thought he owed the IRS. It's the DOJ, Department of Justice. So initially, I believe they came after him for felony charges, then misdemeanor, and then he entered into a settlement with them to pay them back. I'm not sure where he got the 1.5 from. He agreed to a settlement in which he acknowledged breaching duties and forfeited 6.6 million. Wow. Yeah. So he gave that back. this other money, I don't know necessarily where it stems from.
Starting point is 01:07:11 I don't know where the DOJ came up with that figure. But that is the agreement that he. So there's another figure. So he paid back that money. And then he had to pay back another sum. Is paying back. And that's why I thought for some reason this was associated with the IRS. He corrected me.
Starting point is 01:07:27 It's not with the IRS. He was able to say, he's like, I always pay my taxes. Always did this stuff. It's with the DOJ. Wow. So that was a criminal kind of prosecution, obviously. That was FBI. I mean, I imagine.
Starting point is 01:07:37 It started felony, then down to misdemeanor, and then the settlement came after that. So I don't know the specific answer. So he wrote the second book two years later in 2014. Yep. So he, this obviously didn't happen until 2016. So he wrote that second book. Is he having to pay back the second book? Because he didn't get the second book reviewed?
Starting point is 01:07:57 I don't know. We did not actually talk at all. I don't even think we talked about the second book, not even for a sentence. Got that one clear. Okay. second. Fast learner. I thought the one-twined five was he spent some of the money. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:08:12 So it was the reason. Okay. So he, oh, well, I don't know if you know this. Attorneys aren't free. Yeah. So I think he,
Starting point is 01:08:19 that's where it came from. It was attorney and some of the money was in fact spent. So it's the delta between the two. What do you think? Because, so I talked to Brent about this and I've talked to other people about it recently about this whole world of veteran stuff. And what I've noticed about like, I think there's pockets of us, right?
Starting point is 01:08:39 Maybe it's geographic. Maybe it's just how we've linked up. Like me, you and Evan, for example, are really close. J.T., Matt, we're all really close. We don't, there's no drama, right, that we've ever seen like this. And you see it coming from the Navy. I've seen it now last year coming from the Army. What do you think about all that drama?
Starting point is 01:09:02 Because you've been good at staying out of drama overall. Does do you, I mean, you're a former Devrew guy. When you see two guys, I spent way more of my career out of that place though than in that place. I spent the minimum amount of time there. Yeah, but when you see guys from the command period that are sitting in the same chair, just in different times, going head to head over something that I feel like needs to just be a conversation.
Starting point is 01:09:27 And I know how lawyers work because I've been dealing with them. They're incentivized by going through a litigation process because they make money. And obviously there's legal parameters and issues, but when two men sit down and they work out these things, do you feel like that's something that needs to be done or is likely never to happen? And how do you feel about it from a Navy perspective? Because, dude, it's ugly. And I see it. And I know we talk about it because I want to understand it because I don't understand the mechanics behind it. Yeah. But I feel like it's something we should just be able to work out or talk about. In an imaginary world where I could get both of them to sit down and have a conversation.
Starting point is 01:10:05 I don't think either of them would deviate from what they have publicly said. So I don't think there would be a change in either person's perspective. There is two ways that I think you could get to a final end state. Neither of these are going to happen. If the official debrief is correct, and it was the point man, voicing his actions and only that, that person could come forward and put it to bed. It's not going to happen. Totally respect that. You know that it's not going to happen because they said... It's an assumption. It's just an assumption. It's an assumption. I don't know the individual.
Starting point is 01:10:52 I've heard the same rumors about who it was as anybody else. Don't know the person leaving it at that. No interest again in pulling the thread on bringing that person forward. Respect their decision to remain in that place. The other option is the Navy comes forward and they handle it and they say, listen, this is the official record. This is what we have the document to show that. And it either aligns with neither of their stories or more so with one of them. And that would be the most fun way to do so. The Navy will never do that either. Today's episode is brought to you by Brunt and I've talked about this brand quite a bit. My daughter needed new boots for her new welding job. where'd I go? Bruntworkware.com. And not only do they make footwear they make clothing for the person out there working.
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Starting point is 01:12:52 Again, limited time, go to bruntworkware.com. Use the code cleared hot. So you're going to get your $10 off. And while you're there, just sign up for the potty of gold sweepstakes. I would sign up for that just based off the name. Back to the show. I think they would view that as too much of a calculated risk and a look behind the curtain.
Starting point is 01:13:11 Because there'd be real hard follow-up questions. Like, why are you waiting to do this until you're forced to do so because of public outcry? Which there isn't really a public outcry. No. Most people, the vast majority of people, give precisely and exactly zero fucks. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:13:27 About who killed Bin Laden? They're just stoked that he's dead. Yes. it was a huge victory for the United States for that to happen. Everything that comes after that, I would say personally, diminishes that to a degree or to the people who really invest themselves in it or pay attention, which for clarity is a microscopic group of people. But the microscopic group of people that care about it and that are talking about it
Starting point is 01:13:57 probably have a vast influence over very young impressionable minds that might be considered military service in the future. I also think that it has real world consequences beyond the potential influence. I think that when something like the strike in Venezuela where CAG launched from naval vessels, which should have been the purview of dev group, but I have no understanding because I wasn't invited at all,
Starting point is 01:14:30 nor should I have been to the planning or why that happened. But I would imagine that senior military planners, at least to a degree in their head are thinking, okay, if these are equally capable units, which one is less of a gamble of things coming off the rails on the tail end than the other? And they have examples of things that they can point at, which I think to a degree influences that. I think it has cascading downstream consequences to senior military leaders.
Starting point is 01:15:03 That is an assumption. I have zero proof of that. But I think that that would be something that is discussed at some level. I don't understand the drama. Having said that, I was never involved in an operation like that. So I don't know what that feels like. Well, you were involved in Jessica Lynch-Rae. Yeah, but I mean,
Starting point is 01:15:24 I mean, that's, that was, I mean, that was old drama. Not really. The drama from that was the story that got spun from that while we were still overseas, that she fought to her last, I mean, she was actually used. She was used. Yeah. It wasn't her fault. No.
Starting point is 01:15:43 And I, I mean, I've had her on the podcast. And it was fascinating. She had never talked with somebody who was on the other side of that. And I feel terrible for the way that she was basically propagandized. I remember people talking about she's going to be the first female medal of honor recipient. She fought until the last round. And she never even had a chance to fire around. She got her head cracked on it, I believe the seat in front of her to humvee.
Starting point is 01:16:06 Unconscious. Yes. Which, you know, that shit happens like that. You know, there was what we thought we were going to potentially face there as an adversary. But at the same time, we faced nobody who was there. So, I mean, yeah, there was the risk associated with that and the willy this to accept the risk for a hostage rescue mission, which was the first successful one since World War II. There have been other successful ones since then that were far more dynamic and
Starting point is 01:16:31 far more kinetic. It was the first one in the GWAT, right? Yes. Yeah. And so it made the news at the time, but we still were over there for another 80-some days working. So all of the stuff, that was out of our hands. Honestly, I think it was politicized by the administration and people who wanted to show a victory in a place where the whole thing was WMDs and we have to do this. And then all of a sudden we can't find those things. I mean, the target we action before that was the number one chem biot target in Iraq, which was an agricultural school. That was our best intelligence we had about where they were having these chem bio production and all this stuff. So we went from that to, I think we might have done Lake Tharthur in between and the Jessica Lynch.
Starting point is 01:17:16 Or we went from that to Jessica Lynch to Lake Tharthur. And then we surged into Baghdad. So all of that stuff was out of our hands. It wasn't people from the operation saying anything. One, the social media environment wasn't what it was anyway. But by the time we got home, you know, the government was putting her on the back of Ford Mustangs and putting her in parades and stuff like that. So I feel horrible for her in the way that she was treated and politicized. I heard Rogan talk before your podcast with him about the raid and the controversy and was bringing it up.
Starting point is 01:17:46 And he got a couple things kind of missteps on it. but then he had you on and everybody in the comments section was like ask him about because he was he was like i wonder if it's this or i wonder if this happened and i don't think joe knows that you were on that that raid or he didn't he didn't ask at the time but i know that when when i was a young special operations guy very very junior that was an example that led into the tillman incident where there was a world that existed where the DOD would kind of do these things. And they did it with LaTrell. I mean, they did it with Lone Survivor.
Starting point is 01:18:26 It's like they pulled him out and a lot of people blame him for what he did with the book and the Hollywood. They made him do that. They told him, this is how we're going to do it. This is going to be a good recruitment tool. Take it easy there, Rambo. Yeah. You ever heard you don't have to follow an unlawful order? 100%.
Starting point is 01:18:42 Yeah. I'm not going to remove the agency of the individual's choice. and actions and what he's done with it since then. Yeah. I don't think the military could order you to write a book. Yeah. Yeah. I just think he's obviously compromised.
Starting point is 01:18:58 The Tillman thing was felt. Why? Pat was augmenting us on OAF One. That's how I got to know. Yeah. He was awesome. Him and his brother, Kevin. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:19:07 That was 03. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the initial invasion of Iraq. Yeah. Yeah. That whole thing was tragic. There's these patterns.
Starting point is 01:19:18 And why I even care about it is because I know a lot of young impressionable men look at it and they go, why would I ever want to be part of that? And I think there is... Well, there's a balance. For every one of those stories that are legitimately horrific, and you can use the Tillman one as an example. I am not an expert in the exact details in timeline,
Starting point is 01:19:44 but I think it is demonstrably clear that the military knew far earlier than they led on that that was a blue on blue or a green on green. Maybe we would call blue and blue green on green, whatever, a U.S. force on U.S. force. I do believe they tried to hide it with awards and with some pomp and circumstance.
Starting point is 01:20:03 And it's horrendous that that family had to go through that. And I can tell you from personal experience that that family is still dealing with the bullshit associated with that. But does that paint the entire picture of the community? Right. How do you find the balancing act between the things that are legitimately everything that people would think that they want special operations to be?
Starting point is 01:20:27 And then those other things where, yep, those are so far outside of the lines and outside of the bounds of what should have ever happened. And it was a conspiracy from the military to try to cover this up or to change the narrative. we have to be we have to be careful with how we speak about both sides of those because neither of them paint an accurate picture of the community or the life associated with that but people seem to get very sticky on one side of those or the other because it's not all stories like tillman and it's not all heroic fantasy make it through a 20 year career and everything's going to be okay and you're just going to be fine it's not that at all it's uh It's tough. I mean, we live in a world where people have more access to information who people have lived those experiences. But I don't care how long you have with a microphone and a video camera on. Neither you nor I give an unlimited gigabytes or terabytes or whatever it is can truly unpack what that life is and the cost of that and the burden psychologically, emotionally, physically. So it's, I worry about the influence sometimes on the younger generation. You had a good conversation with DJ from GBRS on the chain. I think it was a change agent episode. He's going to come on at some point. We just got to line up to schedule.
Starting point is 01:21:51 Yeah, I really like that conversation. And one of the things that stands out to me is a lot of guys, like I told you a long time ago, like I don't need I began. I don't feel like I need psilocybin. It's for sure. It helped. But I haven't. dealt with maybe moral injury or this idea or not idea it is post-traumatic stress for a lot of guys that deal with this but there is a segment of our peer group that for sure has not addressed
Starting point is 01:22:24 those things and i mean you see them i mean they're they're going through it they're going through the difficult um times they're killing themselves it's happening i can't remember the name of the master chief and i apologize um from dev grew who told me a story on Mike Force podcast. Michael, you might be able to pull it up. It's just a Mike Force episode with a senior magistrate. You probably know who he is. And he was telling me about two of his studs on a target that were killed.
Starting point is 01:22:55 And he told them not to go to the threshold of the door. He gave him orders. He said, was this Jim Foreman? Yes. Yes, Jim. Mike Coke and Nate Hardy. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:23:04 And he told me, like, he says he remembers walking by them. And their shirts were pulled. up and he could see like the tattoos on their body. And he thought to himself and he felt guilty for this later, but he thought to himself like, you idiots. Like you guys are dumbasses. Like why? Typical team guy stuff. I tell you not to do it. You go through the threshold. And that was the last thoughts he had of them before he moved on and got ready for the next rotation. And and so he never was able to kind of process that information. And you, I've noticed that you don't really, I mean, we've talked about certain actions in combat and certain things, but you seem
Starting point is 01:23:45 more resilient than other guys. Is that because of experience or is that because of something that you've managed in your own heart and mind that's, I don't want to say, I don't want to use this word separates because I don't think that's the word, but you know what I'm saying? You seem to be more resilient to that kind of things that a lot of guys are dealing with moral injury-wise, but you for sure have seen those and faced those and dealt with those. I mean, you dealt with personal friends who have died and free fall stuff that you've talked to me about. Or do you just not, have you not been confronted with that? Do you not deal with it? I probably have experienced far less than a lot of those people. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 01:24:27 And just because you were in that community doesn't mean the experiences apply to everybody equally. I mean, that was my old squadron. I knew Mike. Well, I turned over departments to him. So Jim, you worked with Jim. Yeah, Jim is awesome. I worked with Jim at Gold Squadron. He's fantastic. He was at the Recky Squadron when I was there, but he's the best. And then he was the operations chief for a bit, and I worked directly with him.
Starting point is 01:24:46 Just cool, calm and collected, man, the whole time. Just constantly able to perform. I always try to be honest about my career, man. It was average at best. Like I said, I did the minimum amount of time at that command. I would have liked to stay longer, but I got injured right at the four-year mark and had to leave, largely due to my own actions and telling an E-9 what I thought of. him at the time, which was not advisable.
Starting point is 01:25:09 Those guys saw a lot more combat than I did and a lot more exposure to that stuff than I did. So there's probably a metric of that. I have spent a tremendous amount of time talking with counselors and therapists in the course of my life trying to understand who I am as a person outside of those experiences and why I am the way that I am and what motivates me the way that things motivate me or how can I, like one thing I am very susceptible to is negative self-talk. and identifying, for me, it's the tools of recognizing it earlier and reorienting that. Because you could realize, hey, this doesn't serve you well, but you can't stop yourself
Starting point is 01:25:44 from doing it, right? The things I say to myself, like I say some fucked up things to you, but I say some really fucked up things to me. Like, I would never say the things to other human beings, the way that I talk to myself in the mirror sometimes, and I don't know why. Or I should say, I used to be that way. Not perfect at it, but getting better. But that is spending a lot of time talking with people who are actually.
Starting point is 01:26:05 experts at this type of stuff. And one of the long poll excuses that I hear from a ton of veterans, and this is an excuse in my opinion, is that, well, why would I go to a counselor or therapist who doesn't have the experience that I did? They're not going to understand it. And they don't have to understand it. If you can find the right counselor or therapist, they're going to help you understand you and give you the homework to unpack the things that happen to you because they're an expert at between the ears. That's what those people need. I've spent a lot of time doing that. I also, although I'm incredibly proud of the time that I spent in uniform, I never defined who I was by that time in uniform, which didn't necessarily mean that the transition out of the military was simple. I mean, I've reinvented myself many times. Some of it was through aviation. Some of it was through skydiving. Some of it, you know, starting a business, which again, for clarity, I clearly didn't know nothing about. it's it's been a left and right journey this whole time and i've gotten more comfortable with that
Starting point is 01:27:08 as i get older because i realize that all the world's problems have solutions at some point like i'll figure it out i'm not going to give up i'll keep maneuver around and changing the angle and stuff but i also try not to take myself that seriously either um and i try to remember that the things that i was involved with overseas i made the best decision that i could in the moment with incredibly limited information. And I remember why I wanted to serve and what my service means to me and hopefully without other people saying what it means to them,
Starting point is 01:27:41 what I hope it provides and the totality of everybody's service, not just my own because an individual service isn't going to have an impact largely. I think it helps keep you grounded. And I think not having my identity super deeply tied to that and being able to find a purpose beyond military,
Starting point is 01:27:59 which I didn't have initially. There's so much talk about identity and so little talk about the purpose. I think the purpose part is harder than the identity part because guys can find jobs. They're infinitely employable. Maybe not in the sectors
Starting point is 01:28:11 that they would necessarily want to be, but you can find a job and pick it up. So I think, honestly, man, it's just a metric of the work that you put into yourself. And I'm not saying I have done all of the work. I still have my moments for sure. God, catastrophic lapses
Starting point is 01:28:27 in who I wish I was in the way I responded to things. earlier in my life, but I don't know if I had the tools necessary. And the military doesn't give you those tools. And here's the thing. They're not supposed to. It's just like people getting out of the military and they say that the TAPS program sucks. Spoiler alert, it does suck. But I actually think that the military should offload all offboarding of military members. And that goes to NGOs and you have like a four-month transition where they actually people, the military is good at a couple things, onboarding you and then using you as a military
Starting point is 01:29:02 cog in the wheel. They put almost no effort into the tail end of that. So let's just remove that from them and move that over to the NGO space. There's, of course, arguments that could be made about the efficacy of that and all those things. But you take some agency over your fucking life. You know, yes, the military didn't give you all the tools necessary to potentially deal with the burden that can come from this job. I got it. That's real. Are you going to do anything about it is the question I have for you. Are you happy with who you are right now in the trajectory of your life, right?
Starting point is 01:29:37 They're saying it's okay to not be okay. It's not okay to stay that way. I truly believe it. Nobody can force you to do those things. You have to take agency over your own trajectory in life. I don't necessarily think I'm more resilient than anybody else. Again, it's probably a metric of I was just exposed to less than a lot of the people. Yeah, I think it's a combination of everything you just said, especially taking
Starting point is 01:29:56 agency. I think also what you're doing to podcast-wise and talking to people. It's like Rogan's podcast. You kind of learn as you go from other people's experiences, of course, correct. And I take, you know, I talk about the sum of five, like the five people closest to you're the sum of that if you put all their characteristics and traits together. So keep your friends very close because those high-quality individuals, they're going to bleed off into your characteristics. And a lot the things that I've done to course correct, I've kind of taken examples from you and other people in our networks, like Evan, who's dealt with, I mean, he actually was going to write a book at one time and decided not to. I think he gave the money back. He did. He's like, screw this and not doing it,
Starting point is 01:30:42 which is wild. Hell yeah. That was a year process. But he, but the lessons he's learning business-wise, we've talked about it, me like, we don't make those mistakes. And we've talked back and forth about certain mistakes and certain ways that we're maneuvering. And I think that's what you should do with a good friend group. My buddy Annie Moore here, you know, who's living a very civilian life. I need civilians in my life to learn from. And a lot of people are closed off and sheltered that way because they're like, I belong to a tribe in a community. It's like, well, that's not your life anymore. That's not your identity anymore. So one piece of advice I always give first responders, specifically law enforcement, but it applies to military as well.
Starting point is 01:31:22 Have a social circle that has nothing to do with what you do professionally. Yeah. Smart. I mean, I am as close of friends, close to as close to friends with people from my military services I am in the jihitsu world. Yeah. With some people, no overlap whatsoever. Shit never comes up.
Starting point is 01:31:39 Maybe every once in a while, like something on the news will, they'll ask a question because it's tangential to the military and they want to ask somebody who might have, some have exposure or experience to it. No overlap whatsoever, though. And it's super healthy. It's awesome. Yeah. The people that I know, and I'll use the law enforcement as an example, that seem to struggle more, there is no gap between their professional social circle, social circle.
Starting point is 01:32:03 So when they're off work, they're hanging out with people who are at work or on work, that same social circle, talking about the things when they're off work that happen at work. So there is no escape of the merry go round. Yeah. And that's tough. If me, you and Evan were having coffee, which we've done a lot. Yeah. I don't think we've ever talked about the military. Why will we?
Starting point is 01:32:22 You're talking about business, about family. Yeah. Yeah. Why would we? There's no reason, too. Yeah. And I think that's super healthy for you. I do, before we go, I do want to talk about these guys.
Starting point is 01:32:35 First of, this is my show. You don't get to decide when we go. So I'm interviewing you. This is my podcast. This is a non-paid, first off, why have a holster when you have a pocket? What do you mean? Just throw your piece in your pocket. Pocket piece.
Starting point is 01:32:53 That's a technique, Andy. You could do that. Yeah, be careful. He's got invader concepts. Yeah. But they gave you a chess thing. So here's a question for you. The bear is coming to get him.
Starting point is 01:33:03 Yeah? Why is he pointing the opposite direction? That's a good point. Yeah. Maybe he's killing the bear closest to him. And that's the secondary target, the secondary threat, despite it looking like it's right on his back. I don't feel like that's right on his back. I don't feel like that's.
Starting point is 01:33:18 We have to talk to these guys tonight about their branding. How about you talk to them? I want to do a business deal with you. I'm hardful on business deals right now until I actually learn something about business. Invader concepts. Yeah, it's a chest rig. For people who go out in the backcountry, access probably, you know, it's going to fit probably a Glock 10 millimeter, which is a, they make bear specific rounds.
Starting point is 01:33:37 Yeah. Easy access in the back country. A lot of people will go to the Chessword because it's right there. Yeah, you got to mean. That's a Montana thing. Or a rural America. I think it's a, I think it's a bear thing more than an. There's so many bears in Utah or Wyoming.
Starting point is 01:33:51 I bet you've got some blacks. We got some blacks. You have to have grizzlies. They're like pets. We don't have grislies. Really? Have you ever gone in pet one? Yeah.
Starting point is 01:33:58 We don't have any browns. You have browns. Do you have Browns? Do you have Brownsson? Yes, we do. Michael. Do you have blacks? Do grizzly bears live in Utah?
Starting point is 01:34:04 Yes, we have both. Let me see. First off, you better be careful. Somebody might clip that. Well, we met, was it black neck today? That's his name. He told me to call him black neck. I'm not going to do that.
Starting point is 01:34:16 I'm not going to call that man blackneck. That's how he's listed in your phone. That is what he texted me his name as. Big shout out to everybody who came out to the Black Rifle Coffee, Callispell. 1923. Last known wild grizzly killed in 1923. However, comma,
Starting point is 01:34:33 expanding populations in the Gradually-Ullisone ecosystem have led recent settings in South West Wyoming. Yeah, so maybe. I mean, it's a pretty porous border there. But you guys have Black bears for sure. We have blacks for sure. Yeah. And they're not pets. Don't treat Black bears like pets.
Starting point is 01:34:45 That's really bad advice. Yeah. They don't just eat. They'll eat your face. Don't ever do that. Yeah, I think blackbows are less likely. If you have a surprise, close encounter with them, they might get aggressive. My experience with them is they generally want to avoid humans. Grizzly bears will eat you asshole first.
Starting point is 01:35:02 Yeah, they don't mess around. No. We saw a guy who hit an elk on the way here and completely destroyed his vehicle. Yeah, it's going to nuke a car. Yeah, have something. I mean, you can't have something in your camera. I think it was like a camry or something that got destroyed. What do you got, you've done?
Starting point is 01:35:17 You've done the book. You've done, I mean, you've got so much going on. What's the next thing for you? What are you doing next? Like what's the next? Are you got some trip hunting? Anything lined up? Nope.
Starting point is 01:35:30 Are you taking a break? I seem really busy for somebody on a break. You're super, dude, you're all over the place. I've never seen you this busy. I don't know if I'm accomplishing anything, though. It looks like it. I don't know what it means, but you're all over and I'm like, oh, that's cool. I don't have a big thing on the horizon.
Starting point is 01:35:48 that I'm really aiming for. I need to unfuck my understanding of business and get some personal stuff sorted, which will happen over it. I mean, I know there's a mechanism to do so, and a lot of it is just paperwork stuff that I've been waiting on that now I can work my way through the penalties
Starting point is 01:36:03 associated with that. So, I mean, that's probably the near thing, but that's not an aspirational goal. That's just kind of like a life speed bump that I'm going to have to maneuver through for a couple of months. Man, it's, I mean, an interesting, phase. My oldest son is doing well. Got a girlfriend successful at work. They're pitching to him,
Starting point is 01:36:27 teaching him a more of a managerial role. My middle son is going to be a junior down in Bozeman at MSU on a mechanical engineering degree. So awesome. He's got two paid internships. One of them is at a quantum computing facility, which even me saying, yeah, even me saying that word, I don't even know what I'm talking about. And then my daughter, who just turned 18. She finished a vocational welding program instantly got hired. She is working for, I don't want to say a defense contractor because they do more than that. And I don't want to necessarily say the exact name of it because I'm not sure how they would feel about it. But she got snapped up in his full-time welding now Monday through Friday, 4-10s and then overtime on Friday
Starting point is 01:37:09 with nothing. But, I mean, her first job at 18, 401k, healthcare, PTO. Like, vocational. Yeah. A technical job. Yeah. That's right, man. So they're all spreading their wings a little bit, which not that it's ever going to remove your parental concern or your parental impact on their life, hopefully. But I don't know what's next, man. I don't have anything huge.
Starting point is 01:37:38 That feels like it's nice, though, just to take a knee and, like, kind of settle after the, I feel like you've been going like 100 miles an hour for a long time. hour for a long time now. Probably the whole year. I mean, this year has been pretty intense. I mean, I could always tighten the screws on stuff and be more efficient at the things that I do. So maybe that'll be the next thing is to do that. I have fallen in love again with aviation man with getting back into the rotary stuff. I've only been flying helicopters now for coming up on probably two years, but it's cool. I thought I was going to be done with it when I put it down when I was doing a lot of the fixed wing stuff because I was flying part 135, which is charter operations, which is cool, but you're taking people and their families, places that you wish you probably could take yours.
Starting point is 01:38:19 And oftentimes on holidays as well, too, and you need to be there in case they want to move around and stuff. So it was cool. It was great experiences. Those licenses are good for life. I'm not current or competent anymore, but you could always get recurrent if you wanted to. But the helicopter stuff is just cool, man. And it's just a really cool tool to unlock Greater Montana as well. So playing around.
Starting point is 01:38:38 I don't know where that will ever go. I don't think I'm ever going to start a business associated with that. it can be a, you know, essentially the helicopter is itself a marketing tool. That's really all it is. Yeah. So, and that's easy. Cs are aspirations with that? It's not the type of helicopter for that.
Starting point is 01:38:51 I mean, it's not hoist capable. I volunteer to fly anytime for search and rescue anywhere anybody would need it. I mean, I can move people. I can move things. I could look for people in things. But there is an organization up here, ToBeer, that is funded by, an individual here in the valley completely. They have done over a thousand rescues
Starting point is 01:39:15 since they have been operational. And it's privately funded. And they have never charged a dime. Wow. Is that the A-star? Is that a... No, it's a HC-145. It is like a new 15 to probably $20 million
Starting point is 01:39:28 multi-engine turbine. It's badass. And your buddy is flying the penetrator, the extraction. We're talking about Nelson and he definitely flies a penetrator. Let me tell you. And your hand signal too. Legs wrapped around the penetrator.
Starting point is 01:39:44 That's a bad helicopter. Michael, see if you can pull up, though, two bear rescue helicopter. They just posted. Nelson's done a lot of rescues off of that. He's done a lot of penetrators. Is he still doing that? Yes, I believe so.
Starting point is 01:40:02 So that's their old one. That's a Bell 429. They just posted on their social media. That is the old one. That's a Bell 429. But, I mean, you're talking hoist capable, all the sensors up front. I mean, that helicopter is in itself incredibly capable. But they have a new one.
Starting point is 01:40:21 And I wish the paint scheme on it is legit. Privately funded. Privately funded. That's wild, man. Sometimes, depending on where the rescue is, they have to land next to the non-privently funded helicopter. And they cross-deck people over. And you hear a noise.
Starting point is 01:40:36 And the noise is this. Ch-ching. As the bill starts running. Michael Gogan is the guy who did it. That's so awesome, man. Yeah. Michael, see if you can find. I'm looking for it right now.
Starting point is 01:40:49 It's on their Instagram, which I think is just too bare errors. Oh, click on the right hand side. The little Instagram symbol. Let's be smart. Enhance. What's not awesome is the amount of fatalities this place has because of people. Scroll down.
Starting point is 01:41:03 Being dumb. See, that's the top of it. Is that Nelson right there? No. It's him in the middle on that left one. Oh, yeah. That's him in the middle. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:41:12 Scroll up, Michael. Dang it. I feel like this was a bucket list. Click the middle one. Yeah, the black one. Oh, no, no. No, no. No, no.
Starting point is 01:41:22 Down. Right there. See it. Oh, it's going to be. Never mind. So scroll down, though. You see the logo of the two bear head logo. That's on the top of the root, the blade root as it comes in.
Starting point is 01:41:33 Oh, that's awesome. The helicopter scheme is sick. I'll send a picture. Have you been able to do any kind of spotting for them or assisting them at anyway? To bear, no. They have totally different abilities. That's that pod. They're running that pod. That's a third pod. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. That means again, hoist capable, all the things. They have paramedics on board, all that stuff. I have helped out the local law enforcement and search and rescue when they have asked, but I will leave it broad for the privacy of those people involved.
Starting point is 01:42:05 Got it. Got it. Such a rad deal. And we're going up in it. We're filming a YouTube video. for... Nobody said we're going to go fly. We're going to talk about survival and... Yeah. We can go fly if you want, I suppose. Oh, we don't have to. No, it's expensive.
Starting point is 01:42:19 It doesn't make sense. I don't care about that. It's just the content I would love to talk about because this is... The load out. Well, this is real where I live, too. So I always have a mechanical kit. Not that I'm a mechanic, but I have... I can solve very simple things.
Starting point is 01:42:30 Then I have a med kit. And one thing that Leah has talked about, and sometimes I have with me and sometimes not is a survivability kit. Because as you talked about today, large temperature swings, a winter that is real. I still fly in the winter months. You put that thing down. The heater no longer works when the turbines are off.
Starting point is 01:42:48 So you could find yourself out there in the back country waiting for a bit. I mean, I know the right people to call who have other helicopters that could come get me. But I'd be interested when some of the field craft outpost stuff, I'd love to figure out. I almost always have a maximum of four people in there. And so that leaves the seat directly behind me. I'd love to figure out a way to have all that stuff arrayed there. I mean, if you have a truck gun, don't you need a helo gun? We do.
Starting point is 01:43:13 We'll put that in there. That's what I'm saying. And so having all of that, basically they're all non-negotiables. In the summer months, of course, I pay attention less to the survivability kit, which is stupid. That's an excuse on my part. Just because the temperatures are warmer, it doesn't mean you still don't need to be able to source food, water. Period of night. All of those things, right?
Starting point is 01:43:34 So I'd be interested to see what we can do with the space available. I wouldn't develop any product lines around it because it's very niche. Yeah, I'll do it. Aviators have asked me, especially stall aircraft. Yeah. They have asked me for years. Which stands for a short takeoff and landing for people.
Starting point is 01:43:50 Yeah, they've asked me for years. These bushcraft or what do they call bush? Bush. Bush crafting, I think, is building stuff. Yeah, that's not bush crafting. It's, oh, man. Bush pilots. Yes.
Starting point is 01:44:01 They're bush pilots. They fly low and slow. And a lot of those guys, I don't, think I've talked to one that hasn't had an incident of some kind because of the locations they go into. Well, and there's thousands of moving parts. Sometimes you mechanical out. Yeah. Like what you're saying, I have a star bat as well too. I don't always fly with it. But again, a lot of that is because, you know, the Pelican case is great. I'm like, where am I going to put this thing? It's heavy.
Starting point is 01:44:27 It is, it is heavy, not enough to really offset the weight and balance in that thing. But that's all stuff. If you have a system, I think it's better. It's just, so much more organized in your mind and you know everything is in a spot it's supposed to be in and especially in a crisis or a critical situation you know where to go as opposed to your assholes and elbows trying to go in there and get the stuff so like i have a very generic med kit in there but when you come out with the new you know bleeding control kits or vehicle mobility kits and so i'll just transport that stuff over into that but yeah i'd be curious it's it's actually still mobility yeah it's just a different medium yeah yeah yeah we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll
Starting point is 01:45:07 do is we'll do the video. We'll get your recommendation. Yeah. We'll put out the post and get everybody's feedback, especially the stall pilots, but rotary wing especially because you're right, if you break down in Montana in the middle of nowhere, even just waiting for somebody to get to you could take depending on the season. You may not make it until they, like in the winter months, but you put it down somewhere that is remote where it's going to be maybe a long vehicle ride to a snowmobile to get to you. Yeah. And hopefully you're flying around at least some type of commensurate. appropriate outerware. But dude, I mean, you turn the heater off in that thing?
Starting point is 01:45:44 It gets cold real fast. Yeah. So the heater doesn't run if it's on the ground? It is taking hot air from the turbines, from the bleed air. So it's actually pressurized hot air that it recycles back into the cabin. Wow. Yeah. That's how most heating and air conditioning systems in aircraft works.
Starting point is 01:46:01 You can get standalones, but most of them are based off of bleed air. Okay. Yeah. I'm excited to do that video. And I know Andy Moore's not shooting his pants now because he's scared of flying. Well, then we're definitely going to go fly. That's fine.
Starting point is 01:46:14 It is acrobatic certified. We can do loops and barrel rolls. Yeah, he would love that. I don't know how to do any of those things, nor do I want to. But we can try. No, we cannot try it. But I can appreciate that that helicopter
Starting point is 01:46:25 is certified to do so. Is it really? Does it actually, is certified to do that? Yeah, it's got a reason. So we can do a rollout. You could do a barrel roll. It's the same helicopter that the Red Bull guys use for acrobatics.
Starting point is 01:46:35 Oh. I didn't know that. That was that high speed. I'm thinking like an R44, man. I'm thinking like a step up from an R40. This is actually a high performance. It's a twin turbine. It has two little bird engines in it.
Starting point is 01:46:47 Wow. C40Bs. Or two, it was a C240B or something? I don't know what it is. What's the time from here? You dropped off Biss in Missoula. What's the time from here to Missoula?
Starting point is 01:46:56 It was 45 on the way down because we had a little bit of a headwind 36 on the way back. Damn. That's nice. Yeah. And that would normally be two hours easy in a car. Nice, dude. Yeah. That's exciting.
Starting point is 01:47:08 What else you got going on? Do you get a gift for me from MKC? I do. But you don't get to decide when we're done and when we're done talking. Do you have other things on your schedule that I don't know about? No. So long haul supply company, people have asked me this. They're like, I don't understand this.
Starting point is 01:47:20 The company. Well, what's the time with Fieldcraft Outpost as well? Yeah. So are they the same? Do they work in tandem? Yeah. I'm not allowed to have Fieldcraft Survival because they dissolved it technically, right? So when they dissolve the company and it's-
Starting point is 01:47:32 You're welcome, by the way. Yeah, thank you. So when a company dissolves, The assets are up for acquisition, and then the IP related to Philcraft survival as an entity, as an LLC, are no longer available. But the individual branding assets, like the logo, basically all the IP, I'm allowed to have. I got the, I mean, they're my patents on certain products. I get the email list and the social media stuff. My whole thing is one, we have a whole group of people who've been watching Philcraft for years, a decade.
Starting point is 01:48:05 and I started that channel on my cell phone, like in turning around the cell phone and myself talking about like preparedness. We're going to get back to those roots. Philcraft Outposts, which is Philcraft Survivals, main channel, I haven't even changed the names, and I won't of those channels. Philcraft Outpost is the media...
Starting point is 01:48:22 Are you worried that's going to confuse people? Well, what they say is, I will change it, but for about a year. I'll leave it for about a year. And then once we get back into the flow of things, because they didn't post for six months. I mean, Philcraft Survival didn't have content up six months. Julian, one of my media guys right now is filming three documentaries. Hopefully you'll
Starting point is 01:48:43 be one of them. And I know it's going to be difficult around your schedule and you don't like as busy as you think. You don't like to do these kind of things. I do not like to. You don't like to do these. So I'm doing stories of survival. And we did them for Black Raffle Coffee and they were really good, really good stories of survival. The same guy is doing them for me for Philcraft Outpost. We're doing Joe Kent's wife, Shannon Kent, who was killed in a vehicle-born IED in Syria. We're doing John Wayne Walding, who was a Green Beret, who would be a wonderful podcast guest, by the way. Real humble dude who had his leg shot off by a PKK machine gun, penned it to his thigh, his lower leg was shot off at his shin, tied it to his thigh, and stayed in the fight. Did they reattach?
Starting point is 01:49:30 they took it off, I think, above the knee and then he continued to serve. He actually went to, wind up going to sniper school and doing a whole bunch of stuff as an amputee. One of the first amputees out of a few guys that were still on active duty. If you wanted to keep your leg
Starting point is 01:49:49 and you went through the effort to bring it back with you, do you think they would let you? I don't mean reattach. I mean, can I have my leg? Can you stuff it and put it on the wall? That's what I'm saying. That would be cool.
Starting point is 01:50:02 A suvi. It's your. Well, it's yours. Formaldehyde in a jar. That's weird. That's a big jar. But I'm just saying it's yours. You could technically do whatever you want.
Starting point is 01:50:17 I don't think they would let you. I think they're going to take it from you. Yeah. You were shot in the leg, right? I was in the hip. Oh, damn. I feel like that would be painful. It wasn't great.
Starting point is 01:50:28 10 out of 10, don't recommend. mend. Yeah. Don't get off track here. I want to know what you can do with your own appendages that you lose. I feel like a good case can be made. Is pickle it. Turn it into a walking stick or something. I have a cane and at the bottom of the cane, it's the leg. It's your foot. Articulating ankle. I would like that. I would do that. All right. If I lost my leg in combat. This is, you know, sometimes I lose the battle with internal thought versus external thought. You said all of that out loud. Yeah. Okay. Who's the third stories of survival? Third is going to be Clint Emerson.
Starting point is 01:51:03 So he was black squattering guy. And he's written more books than I would ever write in survival, eight books total. He's also going to be a content provider. Me and you are going to do a lot of content together, especially wintertime because winter survival is paramount for Montana because of the things that you guys deal with. And so I'll be back and hopefully teaching a class with some of the similar friends. I think it would be cool to have, should we name drop anybody? Sure. John Barclow is a guy I recommend.
Starting point is 01:51:34 Yeah. Yeah, Barclow is... He hasn't committed to this. I'm just spitballing here. He worked out of Kodiak, Alaska, and basically taught it. Well, he also lives in Montana. He lives in Bozeman. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:51:43 He works for Sica. Is he still working for Sika? Yeah, he's one of the main guys down there. I need to get some gear. He's got a book coming out. Yeah. We've been promoting his book, which we will do because he is the SME, the subject to...
Starting point is 01:51:55 Legitimately. Legitimately, yeah. And then... And then more content, man. Look, I told you a long time ago that I was going to get to a place that you operated in where you were local, you were walking across the street to do Jiu-Jitsu, walking down the road to do your podcast and keeping it very close. And I've done that. I didn't, I don't, the roundabout way I did it was catastrophic, but I'm here and that's going to be the new path leaning forward. Has everything settled legal-wise for you?
Starting point is 01:52:29 Everything's done. Good. I haven't even told you, but everything's done. Can you own a firearm? Yes. Are you sure? 100%. You can touch one?
Starting point is 01:52:38 Don't, I can't touch one. How long until you... I mean, I don't want you right now, but... How long until you can touch a firearm? Two weeks. Until I submit another complaint against you. I knew it. Yeah, don't tempt me with a good time.
Starting point is 01:52:53 That's good to hear. Yeah, it's all done. That's gnarly. What was flashed a bang on that? Two years, two years plus? 18 months. on that one. What do we learn from this? Honestly, if it wasn't for my friend group, if it wasn't for you and Evan and very close,
Starting point is 01:53:12 and my family, my mom, my spouse, my kids, I don't think I, I don't think if I had, if I didn't have the support, which many guys who were put in this situation don't have the support, if I didn't have the support, I think it would have been a lot more difficult. And so having that support because you have people you're allowing or willing to get close to you or be close to you, I think is advantageous. And that's something that even when I say it loud, I'm like, I don't really like that, but I've been more open to it. And, you know, I've had conversations with you offline about your situation and you've helped me through, like, don't do this. Don't say this. Do this exactly. I mean, the best advice you gave me at one point, you said,
Starting point is 01:53:57 your kids are going to remember that. Don't ever say anything to them negative about anybody including their mother. And I said, and then you told me some of your experiences, and that stuck with me. And I didn't say a word. And that's helped me advantageously. The biggest lesson learned also is, and I know we talked about this before, and you've talked about it with several guests, including former Navy Seals, about God and how just getting really, rooted back into the foundations of my faith have benefited me greatly. And I do a preaching to the choir YouTube segment every Sunday because it keeps me accountable because I slip and fall off so easily. But just getting back to it because a lot of guys, mostly guys, depend on that message.
Starting point is 01:54:45 And they're like, it's helping me. It gives me purpose. And it also gets me more closely connected and staying in my faith, which is beneficial for me. Beneficial for my family. Because that's how I grew up. That's always raised. Are you going to start a cult? Not yet. We're thinking about it, though. You'd be a good cult leader. I would be okay.
Starting point is 01:55:04 The Asian persuasion is beneficial to me because I'm the neutral race. I get along with all races of people because of my neutrality. What about Koreans? Not Koreans. They hate me. They actually have a name for me. If you're a half breed, they hate half breed. I was going to say, well, hold on.
Starting point is 01:55:21 Is it Koreans and Japanese people that historically have beef? My mom. Because you just said you love everybody and you're loved by everybody. I think you're lying. When I was in the Q course in Special Forces Training, there was a dude named Fink that's, I'll just give you his nickname because he's still serving, very senior member of social operators now.
Starting point is 01:55:38 And Fink was half German and Japanese. And my mom, I didn't know this at the time because I didn't know there was Japanese Korean beef because I wasn't schooled up on the whole World War, everything. We're talking historical beef. Korean War, World War II, like historical beef. That goes back deep. And she would always say,
Starting point is 01:55:56 son how was training i said mom it was really good and she goes did you beat think and i'm like what do you what do you mean beat think yeah yeah yeah i i know think is your friend but he's japanese did you beat think and i'm like i i didn't beat him we're not competing it's like you need to beat think and i'm like what is what's wrong with like he's a good guy he's japanese you know we don't like the japanese put it down mom put it down it was a long time ago yeah 53 i think we ended that yeah Korean War. All right. She holds resentments against the Japanese. She won't see it out loud, but I said it out loud for her. Yeah. What is, I was going to ask you this, you're a photography nerd. What is your dream camera? Monetary aspect aside, dream camera for a photographer like yourself.
Starting point is 01:56:42 A Laika M6 is about, well, so I think you have a Lika, right? Didn't you have a reporter? Yes. Yes. That camera for anybody who has the money, it's a great expense, but it's probably you're universally one of the most robust digital cameras. I have a Q3 or Q2 monochrome. I have a Q1. Yeah, you have a Q1. Color. It shoots in color.
Starting point is 01:57:07 I mean, you can put it in black and white, but yes, it's designed for color. So the Q3, I think it's Q3, monochrome gives you like 30 to 40% more available light and exposure. And it's one of the best black and white cameras ever made in the history of cameras. There's a 35 millimeter called the Lika M6 with a, lumina cron a lens like a 50 millimeter 50 millimeter lens high quality glass the best camera probably ever made and a lot of photographers would say that but tack sharp beautiful photography and some of the best photographers in the world have shot that and my inspiration from photography comes from
Starting point is 01:57:43 frank heard who is on the shackleton expedition as their photographer so these this ship that you know are we have the same tattoo artist what's his name Gabe Gabe Gabe Amazing tattoo artist. White and light tattoo. Here local, right? It's in whitefish. Very difficult to do. He did the ship endurance.
Starting point is 01:58:04 And Frank Heard went from that to World War II and was a photographer, a combat photographer in World War II. And this happened during the early 1900s, in 1917, where he did these photographs and then winded up being in Africa all over the world and then actually took photographs in the World War, the second World War after World War Crazy. Lica or Hasselblad. Which one's better? Lika. Those seem to be the two competing ones at the top of the heap
Starting point is 01:58:35 if monetary restriction is pulled aside. So if I have a hassle that is a full frame camera that you shoot looking down into it. Oh no, you're talking about you. Beautiful camera. And it's for full frame portrait, full frame landscape shots. Yeah. Beautiful photography coming from that.
Starting point is 01:58:54 but it's really old school and the tech is old. In fact, the filming industry has taken a substantial turn. Mark Welsh, who's a pretty famous photographer, shot most covers of Surfer Magazine. And his current photographer got me into developing photos. There's not many places in the country now that are doing 120, 110, or 35 millimeter even. So if you get into these cameras,
Starting point is 01:59:21 the limitation is on the development of the film. Oh, interesting. So you can get a high speed Lika M6 and then you send it off to a crappy development shop and they just hack your stuff. The best way to do it is do a dark room in your house and actually do it yourself,
Starting point is 01:59:35 which is expensive, but it's, I think, worth it. Fair enough. You want to go talk mobility, but in the air? Yeah, let's do it. Swing by the shop. Oh, hey, hold on. Yep. Here's your gift.
Starting point is 01:59:47 Oh. Is that a real gift? It's a real gift. Are you allowed to touch this? I'm allowed to touch this one. As long as it doesn't have a connection. Show me something that says you're not going to go to jail if you touch this.
Starting point is 01:59:55 Michael just got the text before I sent it to him. It's on the email. I'm going to hand this to you. But this is violating some type of thing that I don't know about legally. Those are all Airsoft, by the way. They are. Is this the new tactical? It is a tactical one.
Starting point is 02:00:11 I'm excited about this. Dude, they are leveling up. This is a level up. It's a near Apple experience. Dude, this is wild. You used to be cardboard years ago. Yeah. I mean, still technically it is cardboard, but don't cut yourself.
Starting point is 02:00:27 Those blades are sick. Plus, with the custom etched, cleared hot logo on the other side, I mean, it's not a big deal. You need a first aid kit for having this knife. Apparently he gave one to Dana White and then they went to the hospital. I believe that. Because he opened it with his fingers over the kidex and just pull that sucker straight out. And this will cut your fingers off. This thing is amazing.
Starting point is 02:00:48 Those guys get there. I know. We need to convince Josh, which when I say we, I mean you, To do another Philcraft Outpost edition. Folding knife. I don't know if you'd ever do it. Are you allowed to carry one of those? If the blade is under three inches.
Starting point is 02:01:01 Give me two weeks. I was going to say, I need to see paperwork. I don't trust you. Delay the text. Trust is broken. By time this comes out, we're good to go. We're good to go. We'll date this one.
Starting point is 02:01:10 Thanks for this, man. Yeah. What do you want to close it with? I'll let you close it out. No, I, look, all of the things that we talked about are really important. A lot of guys recently because they see what I've, been going through, I've been pretty vocal about it on mostly on your podcast, have reached out and like, hey, man, I'm going through a difficult time. And I would just say the perfect way to close
Starting point is 02:01:34 this out would be listen to some of the advice that you gave and don't be afraid to reach out and get help. I mean, there is no, look, suicide is a serious thing in our community, but across the spectrum of men and women in this country. And I think, I hate to see it because I see it nearly every week. Somebody's posting something about somebody taking their life. So I don't know if you know this, but this probably lands even heavier with you. I'm pretty sure that this stat is correct.
Starting point is 02:02:08 The Green Beret community has now lost more people to suicide than combat operations. I believe that wholeheartedly. I don't know where the seal community is on that, but I guarantee you with enough time it will be the same. It will be close to the same, yeah. And this is only the beginning because a lot of our peers, some of our senior peers are still serving. Yes.
Starting point is 02:02:26 Which is wild to me. That guy think, I mean, he's been in the building for 20 years. I mean, it's just wild to think that. Be encouraged by the things that we're doing because there is purpose to be driven, a mission to accomplish outside of your identity in the military. And there's phases to life. I think that season or that chapter or that way that you put it,
Starting point is 02:02:50 there are phases that you're going through that are not tied to your profession or your identity that you think is you at the time. I thought when I was in the military, I was going to retire on a lawn chair and fish for the rest of my life. And I got out at the age of 37. How galactically boring would that have been?
Starting point is 02:03:06 Dude, that would have lasted a couple days. But just seek the help when you need it. And I do want to say lastly, I talk to Brent Tucker about a guy that I serve with, I serve with him in the unit. He actually pawned off the Afghan partnering unit on me during one of our rotations. and he was one of the new guys
Starting point is 02:03:22 and he was like Mike can do it he's a green beret, make him do it and he successfully did that. His name is, I'll just say his call sign was Swede and I don't know if the family wants me to put this out so I just give you his call sign, but an amazing operator that served his country for a long time and was a superhero and he passed away. I found out last,
Starting point is 02:03:46 I find out with Britt Tucker, he passed away last year in a tragic vehicle accident in his truck with his teenage son at the time who survived. Your dad is a rock star. He was an amazing human being. One of the kindest men I knew, but also a warrior. And you're following in big footsteps. And he would be very proud of you.
Starting point is 02:04:07 It's a pretty good close. Yeah, man. Cool. Let's go talk survivability stuff. Let's do it, man. Cool. Thanks, Bill. Yep.

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