Cleared Hot - Powered By BRCC - Jake Harriman and Garrett Cathcart - A More Perfect Union

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

Jake Harriman and Garrett Cathcart are both distinguished Iraq War veterans that have turned their focus inward, tackling one of the most pressing battles on American soil: political divisiveness. They share the compelling story behind +More Perfect Union, a nonprofit dedicated to breaking down barriers and promoting unity across communities in a time of unprecedented polarization. Jake, a Marine Force Recon Platoon Commander and recipient of honors like the Unsung Hero of Compassion award from the Dalai Lama, and Garrett, a U.S. Army Cavalry Officer awarded three Bronze Stars for his service, reveal how their shared experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan forged a bond and a vision for a stronger America. They discuss their latest campaign, the "Coffee + Courage" challenge—a social media movement encouraging people from all walks of life to sit down, share a cup of coffee, and find common ground.

Good morning, everybody. Let's dive right in. Today's episode is brought to you by Black Rifle Coffee. I'm going to head over there right now. Do a little screen recording. Show you what they got. Still showing Gothic Serpent up front. I covered out the last two episodes.

So I'm going to skip that and see what else they have. Ooh, good thing I did. Buy two, get one free, using the code rounds. Okay, I'm going to go back to that, actually. That looks like a Curig-type round. Not my preferred way to get coffee, but hey, if this is what you're into, buy two, get one free. Use the code rounds. Then again, there is that Gothic serpent, which you can learn more about.

There's a button right here. You can join the ECS. What out? So those are the first two. Okay. Left to right, light, extra dark, all the roasts they make. And again, like I mentioned, the last episode, hunting season is full swing, so hopefully you have that stuff. Time to start looking at Christmas presents.

I know. It's just October. and I'm saying that already, but hey, it comes around fast. The calendar flips pretty quickly. Let's click on gear. I'll just scroll down here. Look at this. Cups, grinders, chemex, dog leash.

All right, cool. Yeties, another grinder, mugs, travel packs. I mean, holy cow. If you're a coffee fan, a coffee fictionado, or you know somebody who is, I mean, isn't this pretty much anything that you need to know? as far as getting your coffee supplies? I think so. Go to black rifle coffee.com and go to town to your heart's delight or somebody else's heart's delight. My guests today, plural, are Jake Harriman and Garrett Cathcart. They reached out to me. Actually, I think somebody who works with

them reached out to me. Specifically, I know that for a fact because I'm looking at the email. I don't know why I was working my way around that. Somebody who works with them reached out to me. Two veterans launched a viral social media challenge and founded a nonprofit for political unity. Their nonprofit is called a more perfect union. It's aimed at healing the political divisiveness within our country and communities and hopefully ultimately bringing people together. Yes, I like the idea of this. I like the sound of this a lot. Divisiveness is a term that could be very equally applied across most of the country at this point. A little bit about Jake. graduated from the United States Naval Academy, served seven and a half years in the United States Marine Corps.

For those of you that didn't know, Marine Corps officers start their commissioning source through the Naval Academy. Marine Corps as a platoon commander in both the infantry and force recon, led operational deployments, including two combat tours in Iraq. And Garrett, nine years as United States Army Cavalry Officer. I bet that fucker has some spurs, of which I'm very jealous. Veteran Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Three years in ground combat leadership roles beginning as a reconnaissance scout, platoon leader in Baghdad during the surge in 2006, colloquially known as the blood is here in Iraq.

It was embedded with the Iraqi Army in 2008. Two very distinguished military officers from two different commissioning sources. They're going to get more into their service, so I'm not going to dive into it too much deeper. But let's get right into this. And maybe at the end of this episode, you'll have an idea or a desire to maybe bridge the gap with somebody. I think that would be amazing. Episode number 356 with Jake Harriman and Garrett Cathcart. Enjoy.

I'm looking at danger close now. Oh, what a minute? Can't be clear that. Where do you want to start? I mean, obviously, maybe perhaps not obviously, but intros are always a good place. Try to keep the mics are kind of directional. You can move that one around a little bit. just talk into it essentially.

Eat, god damn, dude. Just don't eat it. Take it easy. Very aggressive. You can tilt it. Yeah, you're good. And then, yeah, yours is good as well too. I'll let you guys decide how you want to intro.

You guys know each other. So who's better? I mean, he's better. All right, let's hear it. His story, I think he goes first. This is his idea. He brought me in early. How deep do you want to go to the story?

Five-minute version. I mean, are we going to start at first? At first, there was light, or what do you? I want to know where. where you conceived, he knows. Okinawa. So the diapers were bad. Yeah. But.

Wherever you went to, fire away. Yeah. Let's see. So I grew up in West Virginia, a little farm. Grew up in poverty. Didn't really know it, though. My parents were awesome. We lived off the land, hunted for meat, all that kind of stuff.

It was pretty great upbringing. When did you realize you were living in poverty? When I started middle school. And, you know, like that was back in the days when, you remember the Reebok pumps, the little Pumson. They were the shit, right? So my parents couldn't afford that. I really wanted them.

And I remembered having the same shoes I'd have for quite some time. And a lot of the kids were getting some of the kind of whiz-bang toys and stuff. And we never really had that. But I didn't notice until then because, you know, it was a small farming community. We nearest neighbors were a couple miles away. I played in the woods, built forts, all that kind of stuff. We had a lot of fun, you know, use their imagination. And even when I realized that we were poor, it didn't really bother me, you know.

Because I just felt like we were super independent, kind of make our own decisions out there. The town kids, you know, kind of had all the cool toys. But I kind of got over that pretty quickly. And that was really thanks to my parents, I think. My mother always taught me, look, there's always somebody a little worse off than we are. And we should be helping those folks in the community. So, you know, there was this old couple in the farm next to us. He had become unable to work the farm.

So we would go and, you know, chop wood for them every winter, deliver food, you know, when they were shut in, all that kind of stuff. So I learned pretty early, yeah, you could be in poverty. But as long as you still have, like, choices, like, we had real choices. We could, we were independent. We could make our own decisions. We could do what we wanted to do. That's not real poverty, you know.

And actually throughout my life, this is kind of a theme. I really began to value that. kind of freedom of the ability to make meaningful choices for yourself and your family that we had, even though we were poor. And later on down the road, I would found out overseas in a lot of the areas we operated, both in the military and then out of it. A lot of folks don't have those choices. They don't have that freedom. Yeah, I don't think being poor has anything to do with the amount of money in a bank account. Right. That's exactly right. It's a definition narrowly used by a small section of the world. Yeah, I became pretty frustrated with that definition, actually,

extreme poverty. You know, they define it as living on less than $1.25 a day or whatever it is. Strictly economic definition. We really flipped that on our head, on its head, and really defined it as that lack of meaningful choices, that lack of freedom, which I felt was so much more powerful. Because, as you know, you interacted with a lot of folks overseas that had the same trap, you know. People here in the United States, and I'm not claiming that there is in poverty by every definition. I do think that there is. I think that there is. I think that most people on their worst day of days here would probably not trade somebody where we were on their best day of days.

Yeah, I think almost across the board I would agree with that. I think there's pockets in this country, right? I mean, like, areas, and I saw some of this growing up, areas in really remote rural Appalachia, some of the inner city stuff that I've seen since then where it is a situation where there's a lack of these meaningful choices. But large scale in this country, we have that freedom and it doesn't compare. And actually, when I was trying to convey that to folks here, when I got home, it was difficult to talk about that because people would be like,

hey, why do you want to help people overseas who are in poverty? We've got lots of poor people here at home. Why aren't you focusing on that poverty here? And it was just on a different scale. Yeah. Yeah. That's your intro? You didn't even use your name.

That's it, man. You didn't even use your name. I'm Jake Herman. I mean, I'm just saying as far as the intros go, I don't know the technical description on what is required. The story of this is fantastic, but you left out some key features. What got you out of West Virginia? I'm assuming the military. It did.

Yeah. So my dad was in the Navy for four years. Good man. Yeah. What do you do? He was on the USS Middard. way he was a signalman. Okay.

During the Vietnam War. Did he enjoy his experience? He did not, I would say. Shocking story that I've never heard of. Tell me more. It was funny actually growing up, like he didn't talk about it a whole lot. But I always remember, do you remember the Fourth of July? Actually, they probably still did that here.

There were always these great parades. And you could always turn on the TV on and watch parades for the Fourth of July when I was a kid. Is there a parade here, Michael, for the Fourth of July? Yeah. Michael's saying, yeah, he's the local Montana resident. I don't really participate in them. But I think that I know that there's one thing that happens near the Fourth of July and Memorial Day.

There's flags everywhere. Oh, yeah. Awesome. Yeah. So everything straight down the main street, we just walked across as far as the eye can see. Totally. And we had this little black and white TV that we would, every Fourth of July, we'd turn it on and watch these parades. And I remember when I was a kid, my dad would tear up, you know, when he'd watch these parades.

My dad was a pretty tough guy. Like, I never saw him cry. And I remember thinking when I was really young, like, he's got something in his eye, like, was going on here? You know, why is he crying? Eventually, as I got to know my dad more, he had some really good friends who were Marines during Vietnam, paid the ultimate sacrifice, and he really understood the cost of freedom, right, that we all talked about, but he actually knew it in practice. And I began to feel a sense of, you know, this kind of call of, I mean, it sounds corny, but call of duty, this kind of need to serve others. And first it was in our community, you know, in the mountains

in West Virginia. But eventually it was like for some greater idea. This kind of, I began to equate what I called the idea of America with this freedom of lasting meaningful choices for everybody everywhere. And that became really ingrained in me. And eventually I wanted to serve that. So I was in high school. I applied to the Naval Academy.

Shockingly, I got in. But then they told me I had to wear a tie and I had to be in the military for six years. And I said, no thanks. Turned it down, went to West Virginia University and all my wisdom because I wanted to party with my friends and I thought we were going to be friends for life, you know, from high school. So went to West Virginia University. I never left the state at that point. Actually once, my grandparents took us to, I think, Ocean City, Maryland or something like that. That was the one time out of the state.

Got to West Virginia University and quickly realized that I made a big mistake. I felt this kind of hunger to see the world, adventure. I felt that kind of duty, sense of duty that, you know, that was nagging at me from my time of my dad. And so I decided, look, I got to get back in. I got to go serve. I got to do my time. It's going to eat me alive if I don't. So I kicked and screamed and nod at it until they let me back into the Naval Academy, got an appointment.

And in 94, I enrolled there. That's why they let you back in after turning it down to be honest. It's a very competitive school for my understanding. Yeah, yeah, I was pretty shocked myself, to be honest with you, but I just, I was kind of relentless. You know, I just, I really fought for it hard because I knew that was kind of my path out to do something, you know, of meaning. And I really wanted to, you know, make my family proud, make the community, the farming community I came from proud, wanted to serve, you know, like my dad had done. And I thought, I felt like that was the, and we couldn't really afford a higher level education per se. As you know, like the Naval Academy's quote unquote free, taxpayer dollars.

I know, I know. Not everything is paid. What did you study there? Oh, gosh, man. Systems engineering. Well, at least you have an engineering degree. No, no, but I have never used it one day in my life. Yeah, but that's the story of anybody.

Well, not anybody. The vast majority of people, I think, that go to higher education, which, by the way, as soon as I say the word higher education, I'm talking out of my ass because I barely grab it. graduated high school. I know so many people who went to the Naval Academy, and they didn't say quite Polly Sye, but it sure as fuck wasn't an engineering degree, and that's an engineering school. To which my response was good on you, sir, because I would have taken the courses with the least amount of math as well. But you have to admit, like, for a guy to like put himself

through such suffering with the worst possible degree, I mean, that was thought, it was miserable. And why would I put myself through that? Lared on top. Papaville the other bullshit. Yeah, to never even use it when you get out, right? Like, why not do the... The guys you did PolySci, they were the smart ones, right? I kind of feel like I... Were they, though?

Well, I mean, I kind of feel like I was on the... There's a whole conversation around the structure of higher education in the modern era. Oh, yeah. Yeah. One, you went the path, well, I was just about to say that didn't land you in debt. However, comma, the contract you signed is a much different type of debt. You know, my middle son is in college right now. So I have three kids. One turns 21 in like three weeks.

I understand how calendars work, but it still blows my mind. But we've arrived at this point. Middle Sunday is in college. My daughter is 16 looking at probably graduating high school a little bit early. And we have these type of conversations because, A, it's not cheap. And B, my wife has multiple master's degree. And she came from a family of academics. And of course, you can imagine the advice that she got coming from a family of academics.

What path should you follow? Academia. How do you pay for your degrees? You take on student loans. I can't think of a worse way to saddle somebody in their younger years than six figures of debt that they qualified for in ways I still don't understand. It violates every lending standard that I know of. Like go try to buy a truck with the same inability to pay back in any way, shape, or form.

And they just like, oh, do you want the F-150? because get the Raptor. I mean, fuck it. The money is free. You know, I don't know if that's a great idea. I have nothing wrong with, anything bad to say about higher education, but can't we do better than saddling our youth with six figures of debt?

I will also say this along those lines. Like, I think we put so much pressure on kids coming out in high school to go to college. You got to have a college degree in order to do this, that, and be successful. I think that's changing, though. I am so against that. Yeah. I think it's changing. people that I know in my life.

Yeah. Never went to college, you know. I've watched, so my middle son started two businesses while he was in high school. Are you doing window cleaning for him still? Yeah. Okay. You're working for his son. Michael works for my 19-year-old son, who is in college.

And, okay, sorry, Tyler, we're getting into this. Did you do that one job for him? We had to reschedule, but we're doing it Monday. What percentage of the job is he paying you? 50. originally Tyler was like I'm going to give him 20% and keep 80 just passive income stream in college and I said listen this is your business to do what you want you should keep 30 and give him 70 so he is motivated to do so he figured out how to create all of this business cards business plan YouTube while while still in high school he does or when he's living in college now so I don't know what he's up to in his mornings he would wake up early into day trading for months with a fake account first. Oh my God. He would sit down and try to talk to me about stocks to the point where I'd look and be like, I love you, but I need you to

shut the fuck up. And he is using the educational resources that he has access to. He went to junior college and did a semester there straight into MSU in Bozeman. And I watch people of his age, when they want to figure out how to do something, they're not diving in. the textbooks. They're not looking for a college level curriculum or an instructor. They're going to YouTube and they're typing in, how do you? Fill in the blank. And there are legit college level educators providing that information for free. Why do we devalue that over a piece of paper? Well, even beyond that, think about life experience. Yeah. You know, some of the folks I mentioned in my life, like, they just have so much rich-lived experience that I think Trump's so many degrees and

letters after your name. Now, don't get me wrong, like, there's something to be said for higher education for sure. But number one, it should, it is not the key to success. Two, it's not for everybody. Unless you are working in narrow, like, very narrow. For a brain surgeon, I need to see your CV. That's right. Just briefly. Like, I just want to see it, and I'm not going to judge your medical school. I don't want you to learn that on YouTube. But I want to make sure you attended one, right? You know? But you prefer Harvard over somewhere in the Caribbean, right? Like, I don't even know. I mean, this, you know, an equivalency course or something like, an accountant,

please show me you have a mastery of addition and subtraction for a surgeon and, you know, but outside of those really narrowly trunched things. And I get the value of while you go. You could learn, you know, you could learn systems. You know, the most important class I think I've ever taken was typing and that was in high school. Use it every single day. I loved English. Use that every day.

Some of the math classes I took in high school. I'm like, I've never done any of that shit, but I certainly, you know, have a mastery. of plus and minus and a mastery of how to use a calculator. So there's that. That's actually a great point of technology. Yeah. Tools kits can use. Have you seen some of these apps to solve math problems?

They just point their camera. If you can master AI now. Yeah. Right? I mean. No, I'm talking they'll have to ban phones in math classes because you can point your camera with apps at a mathematical problem. Yeah, it'll solve it and show you how and spit you the answer.

I haven't seen that. Oh, yeah. And then the question becomes. I could have used that. Oh, couldn't we all? The question becomes, are they wrong to use it? Do they need to? Do you really, unless you're going to be that expert,

do you need to know every single steps or every single one of the steps or do you need to know how to find the technological solution to solve the problem? Yeah, long division. Do you really need to write all of that out? Part of having injury is like, I think I had to do it to be sexual,

so you know you have to as well. Yeah, that's a very millie. military-centric phrase. Right. I had to do what you do too, right? Versus all the knowledge is you can go to MIT or Harvard. IDIU and all the courses are most of them are free. Yeah.

But it's a brand name. It's a network. But also, you know, if I'm successful in business, I have a four-year degree and I'm hiring. You need one too, right?

Like it's a gate that we've created to move forward. Yeah. How the hell did we get off tangent? You're in the Naval Academy. Where'd you go after that, Ensign? It's not about me. It's about me.

It's not about me. Trust me. Nobody wants to hear anything about me anymore. So you graduated as an entente. No, no, no, no. Second lieutenant. Oh, that's right, because you went to the Marines. Yeah.

Yeah, I decided. Which is the men's department of the Navy. But most people don't realize. I thought we were going to go straight to crayon eating. I mean, I've got a sailor and a soldier here, you know. I have absolutely nothing but respect for the Marine Corps. They do not fuck around. That's, that's true.

And Army Rangers, holy shit. If you tell a Ranger to stay on a corner, they will stay there until it doesn't exist. Roger that. They don't fuck around. I don't want to use that line, actually. That's good. Okay, so you went the Marine Corps route. And then this is where... I will say this.

This is an important lesson for me. When I was at the Academy, you go through this whole process that they all call service assignment, right? Which is where 900-some people in your class, you get ranked. And you choose among like 23 different M-OSs about what you're going to be able to do. Did you have to declare you were going to go Marines before entering the Academy? No. No, it's once you're there.

So it's one of the choices. Interesting. you rank them. And depending on how well you do, you get some of your better choices. And except for one field, and that was SEALs. And I really wanted to be a SEAL. I had wanted to be a SEAL for a really long time. There was an officer at the academy there who's a SEAL. What year was this? This was in, I got in in 94, graduated 98. Okay. So did you watch the documentary Navy SEALs with Charlie Sheen? I did. I did watch that. Fuck out. I mean, it was amazing. Thousands of times probably have watched that.

true too, by the way. That's what I thought when I joined. I tell people this to this day, the only accurate part of that movie is the opening scene where the guy is passed out face down in the circle with a hooker's high-heel shoe. That is the only accurate portion of that movie. Beyond that, it's all fiction. That part is not. I can see that. Despite the movie, I really, really wanted to go Seals. And I think we had 15 spots for Buds for my class. They were probably 300 guys that were going for the spots. And up to that point, I'd been pretty successful. Like everything I tried, I'd been able to achieve.

And I was really going for it. I was skipping everything I had. We went home for my senior year, went home for Thanksgiving break. There were 20 of us left. There were five more guys going to get cut. And they were going to call us over the break, you know. And I was sure I was in.

I mean, I had checked all the boxes. You know, I'd built the relationships. Sure enough, I get home for Thanksgiving. and I get a call and I thought it was going to be, hey, congratulations. And no, it was like, hey, you didn't make the cut. And it sounds, it doesn't sound like that big of a deal, but for me it was devastating. You know, for the first time, I was unable to accomplish something that I really, really wanted to go after.

And I always thought, like, if you work hard enough, you know, you can just, you're going to be able to do absolutely anything, you know. I wish that was the case. Yeah. And I had this kind of arrogant attitude that I was, unbreakable. I was unstoppable. I was unstoppable, all these kinds of things. It was probably one of the most important lessons of my life. It taught me humility really early on. Did you recognize that lesson in the moment? No. I just want to make sure we're on the same time. I was so bitter. I learned

those lessons about a decade later. First, I am filled with bitterness and anger. And then eventually I go, hmm, yeah, that probably is beneficial. But you know, it was funny because I so my second pick was Marine Corps ground. Okay. And there was a recon officer who was at the school also. And nobody knew who he was or what he was about. But he quietly kind of like took me under his wing and very patiently, even though I was so better, very patiently, you know, just kind of started teaching me about the Marine Corps

what it was all about. And over time, by the time I graduated and went to TBS, I was pretty fired up to be a Marine. Yeah. And I realized there was this kind of culture and code and kind of the bruntary. brotherhood that that and sense of belonging that was there was was really cool that the esperee or espereidicor that's right that the Marine Corps has is unparalleled in the other branches I in this I would you know I'd say the seal community maybe numbers 2,000 operators that's what they've been trying to get it to for years and they'll have years where 350 people graduate and

349 get out so they're really chipping away at it you know and it's cool inside of the community but there's just nothing like people who served in the Marine Corps. And I don't know how, you know, the, what is it, the globe and anchor? Eagle Globe and Anchor. I don't know what it is about how they forge Marines, but God damn it, it stays with them for their entire life. And it's awesome. It's one of the things I appreciate the most about that branch of the service, actually. Yeah, I felt very lucky then to be able to become a Marine.

And so went through the basic school, IOC infantry officer's corps. got stationed at Camp Pendleton. So my first duty station was as an infantry guy. Yep. Third Battalion First Marines, a platoon commander. And I had started hearing about force recon at that point. It was this kind of mysterious unit.

Nobody knew at the time much about it. And of course, then I really wanted to go there. That was the competitive side of me. It was like, okay, if I'm going to be a Marine, I want to be with these guys because I heard they were like the baddest guys. You know, they were the guys who got the real missions. And so I show up as a boot second lieutenant in my, at 3rd Battalion First Marines and decided that I was just going to go over there.

And I was going to get a slot at Force Recon. Yeah, I don't know if that's how that works. It's not how it works. Hey, guys, just so you know I'm showing up and I just want you guys to know how big of a deal I am. It gets better. And if you would like to serve with me, I'll consider it. It gets better, man. So somehow, somebody got me a gear list for the selection.

and it had the time to report gearless and everything. You have no orders. You're just walking over. No orders. I just decided. And for everybody listening, this is actually the antithesis of how the military works. The military, you don't do shit until you have paper in your hands telling you to do it. My idea was I'm going to do so well at selection, they would not be able to refuse taking me.

That was, I know, really smart. So I show up 4 a.m. You know, dark up at the pull-up bars, probably 40 guys, you know. kind of show up there with me. The gunny's screaming, you know, everybody's running around, you know, trying to figure out what's going on. Nobody's checking shit for papers or anything. So I just kind of like sneak in there and I'm like, okay, this is happening.

I'm taking selection. So the... What did you happen to tell the duty station you were assigned to? I'm going to just be taking some leave. I took leave. Oh, yes. I took leave. Awesome.

I took leave. Why wouldn't you? You're going to get to hear all my worst mistakes. things here. So yeah, I start taking selection. So about halfway through the day, we're in pool phase. And I'm drowning. I'm literally drowning in the pool. I, you know, I'm not prepared for this at all. I thought I was the toughest kind of, you know, guy ever. Did you do any water training? Oh, I thought I had. But I had no idea. I had no idea. And I'm drowning in the pool. And I remember the captain was on the side, the guy running selection.

He's kind of like, these guys clipboard checking through stuff. And he looks at the gunny. He said, hey, who the fuck's that guy in the pool? Growning. And Gunny's like, you know, sir, I'm not really sure who that is. He's like, get him out of, get him over here. So the gunny, you know, yells to the instructors. They literally drag me out of the pool, come over, stand me in front of the captain,

he said, who the hell are you? I'm like, you know, I'm trying to catch for breath. I'm like, sir, I'm a second lieutenant, Harry. He's like, what did you say? I said, I'm second lieutenant. He's probably now referencing his list. He said, did you say second lieutenant? I said, yes, sir.

He said, what the hell are you doing here? I said, well, I'm just taking, take a selection, sir. And they all start laughing, just laughing in my face. He said, he said, listen, why don't you go back to where you came from? And when you get some hair on your balls, maybe we'll give you a little invitation to come back over here. For people who don't understand that comment. So a second lieutenant in the rank structure of an. officer is an 01. The captain you're talking to is only in 03, so he's probably at four to six years in.

And he's new, by the way, to the unit. And he is new. So basically, you were trying out for the World Series team on your first day playing baseball. That's a great accurate description. So, yes, I went back in shame, back to my unit. Did you tell your unit? I told a couple people. That was a mistake. That word got around. Yeah, got around pretty quickly. And I kind of paid for it in the beginning. But over time, you know, I really, I took on the kind of idea that, okay, I'm really going to work my ass off and try to really learn to be a good leader. Because I didn't know what I was doing. I had no idea what's doing.

And I'm like, okay, I'm going to be an infantry guy. I'm going to be the best infantry guy I can be. I got to learn from these guys who have been here doing this a lot longer than I have. This is probably, what, 98 at this point? This was 99, 2000. So we're getting close to the turn anyway. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's funny actually later when I ended up going over there.

Those guys remembered that that I had gone over. Oh, that story has been told. It probably is still being told to this day. You're saying that. You're telling the story and I'm thinking back as my own experience as a Bud's instructor. And I never worked in first phase. So it would kind of be impossible for somebody because by the time they get to second phase, that would be. You can't slip through that.

It would be, I would deeply respect it. painted the helmet blue and slid in with the class. But even at first phase, I mean, they're dealing with probably 200 students on the first day. Yeah. I don't know what the instructors would do. I know they'd respect it. They may not be able to show that they respected. Yeah.

But God damn, you would. Like, all right. Motherfucker. I mean, you're going to have to probably get you some orders. Yeah. But I just wondered. You just wondered in here, dude. Yeah.

Yeah. You could. And I'm thinking about it. You could. It's an open compound. Yeah. At least when I went through. Yeah.

There's people running around. There's a hundred percent chance you could just fall in line of 200 people. Yeah. And probably do about half of the first day. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, are you even in the Navy? Like, I just want to be a seal.

When I went through seal training and they moved, they have since moved the West Coast SEAL teams down more towards Imperial Beach. And I haven't seen the compound. And I don't know what they're doing with the training center. But they didn't check IDs on the ocean side. On NAB Coronado, they would check IDs. but there wasn't even a guard shack. So there could have been if somebody would...

Yeah, and we would run back and forth because the Chauhaw was over on NAB. You could... And there was a bus stop right there. I mean, you would need to be wearing... You would need to be wearing the appropriate stuff, which you could source... I was the first mover.

Yeah, I was an innovator. You were. And I mean... Yeah, I look back at some of that. I'm like, we... There were some gaping holes in a skewer. So anyway, I go back and, uh, end up picking up a platoon of really good guys.

And I learned so much from those Marines. I mean, they taught me everything I knew about a leader to that point. You know, I realized how much I did not know. I thought I took over that platoon. Isn't it interesting the leaders that you generally respect the most talk about learning from the people that they were with as opposed to bringing all the knowledge with them? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, the greatest lessons I've ever learned came from the people I led. Yeah. For sure. Yeah, I am very wary. The best leaders that I ever worked for and with, never tried to be the smartest person in the room. Oh, yeah. They tried to be incredibly diligent and aware of their deficiencies and then staffed those

deficiencies with the most capable people they could find. Oh, yeah. It took no attempt whatsoever to take credit for it. Right. That was the best. The worst was the person who came into the room who literally, hey guys, you're welcome to have me. Just want to let you guys know, you are welcome.

I've never heard somebody actually give that speech, but I've heard shockingly similar and shockingly close. And inside your soul is just like, fuck. Well, I've always, you know, I say a lot that, you know, one of the things I love doing is hiring people in my team that are smarter, faster, better, tougher, stronger. That's actually. Right. I mean, people who are afraid, you got all these leaders who are afraid to hire A players

because they're going to make them look bad, right? That's the sign of a bad leader. That was going to say. That just means, yeah. It's not the right person. You got to, the whole point is actually. to bring together teams who are better than you are. Yeah.

That's how you can accomplish, you know, things that are, you know, beyond what's possible, right? I'll take that even to a day-to-day activity. So Michael and I both train jiu-jitsu at the same gym. And my wife is a world-class jiu-jitsu practitioner and coach, and we'll talk about it. It's tough for coaches when they get to a place where their students start beating them. And I'll have this conversation.

Think about this. If you are a good coach, not only should you be able to get somebody to the level that you were at faster than you did, because the knowledge and knowledge delivery has evolved, but I think the true mark of a good coach is that you are developing athletes that can beat you. And you don't stop them or withhold information. You're proud of it. You're not like jealous of it.

Because the only thing that stops you from doing that is your ego standing in the way. But that's the, like if a coach can beat all of their students and they never develop an athlete, that can beat them. I'm kind of the opinion now that you, I'm not saying you're bad, but maybe you suck. I stole the same thing with A's higher A's and B's higher C's, right? You're scared to be outshown by people that work for you.

And to Jake's point, right? Like when you hire people that literally have different experiences or better and wherever that means way, that shows a lot about your humility and your character's leader. Yeah. How long did you stay in the military? Seven and a half, almost eight years. Okay.

Yeah, so. Got out probably then as the captain? Got out as the captain. And what's so for in Marine Corps? Major? Major. God, why can't all the branches have the same? It's the worst.

Much easier, yeah. There, I was on the receiving end of some phone calls sometimes when Marines would call and they'd say, hey, this is Captain, so-and-so. Because in the Navy, Captain is a little bit of a bigger deal. They're like, oh, yes, sir. And the guy's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. O three, buddy. Yeah.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah, so I did a few deployments. with that unit with 3-1 and then you know not obviously 9-11 happened everything changed things got a lot more serious and then we had just gotten back from we had been doing some work in what is now CJ TFOA there was some Al-Qaeda stuff happening there in the Emmett at the time and we had just gotten home and all it got all the guys off the ship everybody you know was starting their new life that first week and the battalion next so called me back in. It's like, hey, get all your guys back together. We're getting back on the ship.

And I said, you got to be kidding me. Because when we come back from overseas, it's like, you know, a year to 18 months where you're kind of doing a new workup, you catch new guys, doing training again. And I said, what are you talking about? He's like, well, apparently we're invading Iraq and we're the senior battalion in the Marine Corps. They need us up on the front lines for this invasion. And I was shocked. I mean, none of us actually thought, you know, that it was going to happen. They've been talking about Saddam for so long. Yeah. And so, yeah, everybody got recalled, got back in the boats, went back over. They moved us up on the berm, you know, there in Kuwait. And I remember we were all in like, you know, mop for, had all that shit on.

And we were just all just kind of waiting and nobody thought it was really going to happen and run and drill after drill after drill. And I'll never forget one morning we hear over the radio this brevity code, lightning, lightning, lightning, which meant incoming scud missiles. And I'm thinking, okay, it's another drill. So I'm looking at all my guys. Hey, guys, throw your gas mess. So I'm getting your holes.

And then we start hearing this whistle overhead. And we looked up and sure enough, a couple of missiles flying overhead, landing behind us. And all of us start grabbing our shit, diving into our holes. I mean, this is, and thinking, oh, my gosh, this is actually happening. And all of a sudden, the berm blew because the combat engineers had put the line charges across the berm, blew the berm, and company commander comes running down the line and says, hey, grab you guys, getting your trucks. You know, the president just said, we're going.

And so then I run over to our sister platoon, my buddy who's from the Naval Academy. And we just gave each other hug, traded letters, you know, those letters you write to your loved ones, give him a big hug, and said, amen, you know, hope you see him the other side, and went back and went through the breach. In the middle of night, Tom Hock missiles flying overhead toward north of Baghdad. It was kind of nuts, man. It was the first combat that I'd seen in my life. And, yeah, everything changed after that.

How awesome is Mop Level 4? Oh, my gosh. First target we hit. So we were staged in Saudi Arabia, same time. We actually the number one Kambio target in Iraq in Mop level 4. Final stage, I mean, we had the clothing stuff on, and I did gas mask and hood. I think at 30 out, we started to put in that stuff. on and put my sling right over the top of the blower hose.

That was awesome. Ripped my mask off shortly after entering the facility because it was 100% clear. There was no chem bio threat there. I don't even know how to describe mob level floor to people. It's a chemical biological protection suit. Let me ask you this. How long did you guys wear it for? Dude, I'm not kidding you.

Not with gas mask. Everything else? Two weeks. One day. I never fucking wore it again after that target. I think we were supposed to for clarity. I didn't. I'm pretty sure my feet were rotting by the time I changed my boots.

And for people who don't understand why that'd be the case, just think about a piece of a clothing designed to keep everything out, and you're wearing it generally in a full athletic sweat for weeks at a time. A hundred degrees, yeah. Yeah. And I don't think I touch that shit after that night. Yeah. Good for you.

Again, I think we were supposed to. I feel like the statute of limitations. has expired on my personal choice. So, yeah. Oh, God, there it is. Yeah. Oh, yeah. C-B-R-N.

Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear. It's like those, when you're cutting weight and wrestling, like the trash bag. That's exactly right. Oh, Michael, if I get a mop level four suit, will you do an entire episode in it?

Yeah, I actually thought you were going to say, doing a roll on it. So this is a much better. No, I don't, I would not actually. I would not do that to you. Would you wear it? for an episode if I got it for you? Sure.

You heard it first. Game on. So one story I'll tell you that kind of, you know, we all have lots of stories from combat, obviously. There's one story that kind of like changed my life forever and has impacted me still at this day

when I'm doing right now. It's kind of the same theme of this kind of freedom of lasting meaningful choices for everybody. We were doing the push through southern Iraq and the first major contact was this place called Nassaria. You might have heard of the battle Nassaria. You know, start taking casualties. We were able to basically push through the city,

set up this defensive perimeter north of the city on what was called Highway 7. That was the main avenue of approach for American forces at the time. And we were dug in. And it was about 4.30 in the morning. I remember I got up out of my fighting, a walk to the lines to check on my guys to make sure they were okay. Everybody was super nervous.

they're exhausted, you know, and kind of, you know, hungry, scared, blow on ammo. And southern Iraq at the time, as you know, was a pretty desperately poor place. Saddam been oppressing the villagers and the tribes in the south. And what had been happening as we moved through the south was the regular Iraqi army. They were retreating to kind of make this final stand in Baghdad. And Saddam, I don't know if you remember these guys, but Saddam was pushing these special forces guys. Yeah, Fedian. Yeah, he was pushing these Fedian guys south.

They were staging out of the hospital in Nazaria. Exactly. I know this because objective barracuda was Jessica Lynch, and that was the second target we actioned. Oh, you were in that. No shit. Yeah. Okay. Well, we were right there.

Yeah. That was the second target we hit. Second target. Yeah. First night was the Kembaugh. Oh, okay. Also known as agricultural school with tomato plants. I don't remember the name of that objective.

Jessica Lynch's objective was objective barracuda. Okay. All right. Yeah, they surgesed over there when they got a positive proof of life through the video. Okay. Yeah. That's crazy that we were in the same place. So the Fedain was going into these villages, as you know, like getting these farmers to fight us, right?

Because they didn't have enough guys. The farmers were hungry. The kids were starving. They'd say, hey, pick up this weapon, go fight these guys to a mile south here, and they'd do it. And in those early days, we were fighting these guys, but sometimes the hundreds and thousands as we were moving through the south. And that kind of set the stage for this, like, one day north of Nasseria. So I was dug in, got up out of the hole, walking the lines, checking the guys. And I look up on the highway, and this little white car is, like, racing toward our position from the north.

So I'm thinking this is a VBID, right? They packed, explodes in the car. They're going to blow themselves up. So I grab three of my guys. We take off running toward this car to get it to stop. And finally, this car stops about 50 meters out. The driver hops out. He's, like, waving his arms frantically and, like, running at me.

So now I think he's strapped a bomb to himself. And he's going to blow, he's wearing an S vest. and he's getting closer and closer. I'm yelling at him, you know, in Arabic to get on the ground. He's not listening. And as I lift my weapon, I think I have to take this guy out. I look behind him, and this, like, big black military truck rolls up behind that little white car.

And six guys in black jump out. They run up to the car, and they start shooting into this car. And this man starts screaming, turns around, starts running back to his car. And I realized that he was one of these poor farmers who was trying to escape across our lines of safety with his family because you don't want to fight. And so I yelled to my guys to take out the Fed Aene, and I ran as fast as I could to save this guy's family.

But by the time I got there, it was too late. And I looked in the pastor's side. You know, his wife had been shot in the face and the chest. You know, she was slumped over dead. He had a little baby in the back whose arm had been shot off, and she was shot in the head. And he was cradling the body of his little five-six-year-old daughter who'd been shot in the stomach, you know,

and she was choking her own blood. And we all see a lot of bad shit, you know. know in combat it. But for whatever reason, that moment, everything slowed down for me. And I put myself in this guy's shoes and I just thought, this is not fair, man. Like I live in this world of choices, you know, here in this country and where do I want my kids to grow up and what I want them to have to eat and where I want them to go to school? And what were this guy's choices when he woke up this morning? It had nothing, you know, and I got really, really angry.

I think that's a pretty reasonable response. Yeah. That's like an average person response. Yeah. Did you guys kill all those dudes in black? Oh, yeah, they were done. Okay. Why'd you let him start shooting first?

Let me just say R-O-E's might be different between units. Somebody gets out of a car dressed in black, armed, and that phase, you're fucking dead. Well, we were trying. We were trying. And the way the road was set up and there was a curve and there was a building. Yeah. We couldn't see the truck. until the very last minute.

And so by the time they were out of the truck, my guys weren't trying to engage them, but they were too far away. Yeah. And so by the time I got there, they had penned the guys down by the time I got up there, and then this poor guy's family was gone. And we actually did get him and his daughter back through our lines to the medics in the back.

And I heard later that his daughter made it, which was awesome. But for the longest time, man, that guy's eyes, you know, the look in his face just haunted me forever. And I just, that was the beginning of like this big awakening in me.

I began to see that, you know, that lack of choices, you know, how much that freedom meant to me and how much that meant that my family could have that and how wrong it was that these other folks didn't have that, you know? This guy was not an evil guy, you know, and he just happened to be born in a different grid coordinate than I did. And I started to have this kind of burning of me that I wanted to do something about that. And, you know, we went on through that, took Baghdad, ended up going, long story, up going, we took Baghdad, the war was over, mission accomplished. And we went, we got pulled

off the front lines, went back. I actually finally got invited over to take selection, went to the force, ended up going back over, doing some capture, kill, snatch and grab stuff. But I began to see a lot of the same stories over and over again, you know. And I believe, like, my guys and I were talking about this, it seemed to be a pretty critical gap international security strategy, because we would take out these HVIs or we'd bring them back, and their cells kept growing, right? And they actually would grow more, the more effective that we were.

Exactly. The disaggregate, you know, ISIS or al-Qaeda, which became ISIS, we smashed them so hard with a hammer that they realize they can't get together anymore. That's right. So it actually caused them to spread out. And I think their presence is in 60 countries,

something like that. Yeah. And that's not because we're not good at our job. I think a part of it is because we're so good at our job. They had to reorganize and restructure how they did their business, which makes it even harder for you to. You can't, you know what I mean? That snake, I don't think ever gets put away by chopping the head off.

Not that alone. Yeah. Like, I mean, there's evil people in this world. We've got to take those guys out. However, I began to talk to my guys. We thought, you know, we need a little bit more of a comprehensive strategy here to crack this code. And we kind of hatched this crazy idea.

We were like, hey, what if we could? what if we could make a hybrid? Because the problem was in these dangerous places, as you know, aid groups can't reach these people because they can't survive there. It's too dangerous. And for a while they had us trying to do this, it's called Village Stabilization Operations.

Yeah, VSO stuff. It's the name for that morphed over time. Exactly, yeah. But we couldn't do that shit. We were trained to, we were trigger pools. We didn't know how to help farmers. We were only there for three to six months. So we thought, hey, what if we could make a hybrid?

We could take knuckle draggers like us than no combat and combine them with kind of front-line development civilians who knew how to like build sustainable solutions to poverty. And we could take these composite teams and we could embed them in these gray zones. And we could live there for like five to seven years, you know, where nobody else can access. And we could work with local leaders to kind of build locally led solutions to poverty that were sustainable as a complement to the kinetic side to build what we call a resilience corridor that would stop the spread of ISIS. or al-Qaeda in that region. So then when you're doing kinetic action, there's nowhere for them to spread. They couldn't exploit that poverty.

So that was kind of the idea. I love that idea. The U.S. military is not a tool to do that. Exactly. That's exactly right. So we wanted to try to do it from within, realize we couldn't. And so my time was getting close to being up in the Marine Corps.

And I began to think, okay, well, do I really want to go and try to figure out how to build this? Because it was just this glaring gap for me. I really felt compelled. And I kept, you know how it is, like sometimes, like, we all have nightmares of stuff when we come back. But mine was I kept seeing that guy, you know, every night. And I just really wanted to do something to meet that need. And I was getting ready to transition out.

I had lots of different things I wanted to do. You know, I was a buddy of mine in my platoon were working toward Kagg selection. We wanted to try to go that route. Or, you know, the agency's got their paramilitary side, was talking to those guys. But I felt so compelled that I needed to get out and do this. thing because I didn't see anybody else doing it and, you know, and who am I to think I could do it? But I just thought, you know, the same, I guess the same kind of mentality that second lieutenant had trying to go over to take the Forest Recon Indoc.

I just thought I got to try. So transitioned out when my time was up. And I was at a little apartment I was renting in Carlsbad, California. Very familiar with Carlsbad. I'm sure you are. Yep. And quickly realized I thought to myself I made a huge mistake. I missed my guys desperately.

You know, we had just done our paddle party, you know, when you do the paddle on the way out and a big bonfire on the beach. We call them oars in the Navy. Actually, I think they call them paddles. Yeah, and I just really missed them a lot. And I also felt woefully inept to address this problem. I had no idea what I was doing. And so I started to really kind of have second thought. like what am I doing here and I got it I had to pay my rent I had no money you know

getting out and and so I got this I got this job driving a seafood delivery truck um deliver yeah I had basically the same thing you were doing while you're in just taking all of those same exact skills applying them same exact skills I had a San Diego rot Orange County Rout L.A. rot I mean it was honestly one of the best jobs I've ever had I bet it actually sounds kind of awesome I uh yeah it was a great time for me to kind of like D decompression the war and kind of worked through some shit and and also try to think about how to do this next thing and I and I but the more the longer went on it was when it was six eight months I was like I got to do something here and I had a buddy who had just gone to business school because I was

trying to figure out I literally had bought a book non-profits for dummies on how to like try to figure out how to build something to do what I wanted to do fight poverty in conflict zones to stop spread of ISIS which sounds nuts but I was failing miserably and my buddy's like, well, you need to figure out a bit of a company. You need to go to business school. And I'm like, what's business school? And he's like, okay, well, you know, you need to, it's a place where you can go to get the technical skills that you need in order to actually start to build something, that whole, like, dirty word entrepreneur that you talked about before.

You've got to be able to navigate the business world if you're going to be effective. Yeah, yeah. It's a different language. It's a different ecosystem. It's a different structure. Yeah. It is. And it had nothing to do with weapons.

So, you know, it was totally new to me. and so I thought to myself, well, I'll apply. So I applied to, you know, I'd heard of, you know, Harvard and Stanford had obviously business schools. And I really thought I want to try to get into a good school and see. I mean, I thought I didn't have a chance. But I told myself, I was like, God, if you want me to go to business school, you'll give me one of these schools, which was pretty funny. And I forgot about it. I forgot that I applied.

So I was driving my seafood truck. I was doing my little business for dummies and trying to figure out this workbook. and went home one day from driving the truck, dropped the truck off, went home, and on my doorstep was this envelope, two envelopes. And they were acceptance letters. Oh, shit.

I had miraculously, I mean, it must have had a quota for a West Virginia boy who was a Marine or something, but man, I was, like, blown away. I'm like, well, now I have to go. And then the tough choice is, East Coast or West Coast. Well, that's not a choice, as you know.

West Coast, obviously. Yeah, obviously. Stanford, it is. Stanford, it is. Yeah, it was amazing, man. So I was blown away. I thought, you know, well, the difference about me going to business school was most people go to business school at like a transition point in their life to try to figure out, hey,

what's next, you know? Like, I've been at this hedge fund for a while. I want to figure out like, do I want to try something new? Do I want to be an entrepreneur? Do I want to work as a consultant? I was very focused on what I wanted to do. You know, I wanted to build this company, go back into conflict zones and do this work. And for some reason, people were really drawn to that.

When I first got to business school, though, I was really afraid to tell people my real story because I'm thinking Stanford, it's going to be a bunch of really liberal people that hate Marines, and they're going to put me in a box. So I grew out my hair, wore rainbows and jeans around campus, and nobody really knew. I mean, they'd asked me at those little mixers, hey, where did you work? I worked at this VC firm. I worked to this P firm. Where did you work?

I was like, I drove a seafood truck in San Diego. And they kind of laughed nervously, and I was like, no, no, no, I really drove a seafood truck in San Diego. So nobody knew what I actually was doing there for quite a while until I started building out some friendships. And then one night I was out to this crew of guys I'd become pretty close with. And we were sitting around and had a couple beers. And this one guy starts telling this story about the Iraq war. And he was Dick Cheney's aide at the time. And he's telling this kind of dramatic story about, so,

there we were, you know, outside the situation room. And Dick Cheney goes in with the president and Condi and, you know, like they come out. And Cheney's like, go get me a bottle of the scotch or whatever. I went to get the bottle, came back. And President Bush was the last one out. And he walked over to the window, kind of forlornly looking out the window. And that was the beginning of the war. And I was a little loopy at that point.

I had several drinks. And I looked at her, I said, well, that's not how I remember it. Different experiences, for sure. Same situation, different experiences. Yeah. So everybody looked down around and was like, oh, seafood truck guy. You got a story to tell in Southern. But it was really cool.

Those guys were awesome. They helped me from that point on. All right. So I'll stop you at business school. Because that was a way better intro. And now we're going to intro the other part of this. Before that, though, you still see that man in your dreams? No.

What do you think got to stop? I'll tell you about the work I ended up doing. in these conflict areas, but I had a lot of healing. Two things. One is the most important thing to me has come to me over time. It's been my faith in Jesus. That's like a really big part of my life. Has it always been, or you found that later in life? Later in life. Okay. Yeah. And I kind of hit really deep, deep, dark places after combat. And when I went downrange in these villages and I was living there. I had some pretty epic encounters with God. And my work in these villages was off the grid. I had no contact, you know, very little contact back here. And turning all the

skills I learned, you know, to bring destruction and death using those same skills to bring hope and life and choices to people, it did something inside of me, man. Like, it really helped me heal. and people talk about post-traumatic growth, and it's a real thing, you know. Do you think it's a good thing that you stop seeing that, man? I will say this. I didn't stop ever seeing him, but it was not every night where I was waking up in sweats and fear and anxiety. I still remember him very well. Yeah.

You know, his daughter, I don't know where they are to this day. But, you know, that was the driving force. I talked to a lot of people who want to start something about that, get out of bed factor, that thing in your gut that drives you, you know, when everything is lost and you just can't get yourself out of bed. And for me, it was him. Yeah. I think it's important that you, A, remember, I mean, and through whatever expression, obviously I don't want anybody waking up in nightmares and cold sweats every night. But my theory on war is that if you touch it, it touches you back. And I think, I have similar experiences. There's people,

that I remember and they'll show up in dreams. And at first, I didn't make any sense of it. And I've stopped trying because I just use it as a reminder of the cost. And almost nobody understands that cost. But for those of us that do, it is our obligation to make sure that we don't haphazardly send other people into an environment where they have to pay it. That's right. And I think if you stop meeting with those people, I think it's easier to forget.

That's well said. Yeah. That's right. Yeah, you can never forget. You can't forget. And honestly, God, I've had some bizarre dreams talking to those people, observing those people. And it, I mean, it nerded me out a little bit when it first happened. And now I just, I make, it just goes where it goes. And it is what it is. And I use it as a positive reminder of, you have to do something with this. Yeah. That's right. And you can't forget these people.

Turn it into something good in the world. Yeah. That's right. Now that you've monopolized the fucking podcast. Sir, please introduce yourself. I asked you to go first with him. Like, yeah, my name is Bob. I'm 37. I like the color blue. Next. I love following Jake. Jimmy Christmas. How do you follow that? I think you told him to go first. Well. And I was thinking in my head, the only reason, yeah, the only reason that you would say that is that if you got the banger, you're going to follow it with. That's right. That's right. You know what are you? Like World Hot Dog Eating Champion? What have we got here?

I'm pretty normal dude. I feel lucky I get to do cool stuff because I meet cool people along the way. Don't make the mistake he did and didn't mention his name until 15 minutes into it. All right, let's learn from our mistakes. That's a good point. My name is Garrett Cathcart. And I, yeah, how do I, where I start? I guess I'm from middle class Indiana, Indianapolis.

Dad, super poor from a small town called Seymour, which is the song that John Mellencamp is from. many things out in small town. And so he's first got to go college and so pretty normal growing up, but I loved readings as a little kid and always drawn to like military history and kind of current events and just history. So in the third grade, I went to my mom and I remember forgetting the kitchen. I said, mom, all these famous journals and all like presidents went to school called West Point, I'm going to go to West Point too. She never heard of West Point. She knew what it was. She's like, sure, Garrett, like laughed and kind of like, you know, went on their way. At the time, my stepdad was I was a high school physics teacher and cross country and track coach.

And so, you know, they invite like studs to like these candidate luncheons to recruit them into the academies. And so I tagged along as a fifth grader. Hey, I want to come to West Point too someday. And they like, pat me on the head and laughed in my face. I'm like, all right, dudes. Yeah, here's a patria sticker. Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, exactly.

Here's a keychain. Good luck, kid, you know. And I, you know, same thing. Never forgot. I applied to one college. That was West Point. I did the whole schick. Got to get a congressional nomination or Senate nomination.

I kind of designed my entire career in high school to get into West Point. I ran for class president. I'd say it's for the sole purpose of putting on the West Point resume. I feel like that's a better reason than other people run for class president. Yeah, I mean, being high school, 5,000 kids. I mean, public school. Shit, that's huge. I got, you know, inner city kids, rich kids.

So kind of a great, I love public school. I've been a public school my whole career. But I somehow got in. Like I got an early acceptance. I knew I was going. Graduate high school in 2000. Do you're a little pleads somewhere at the time? You think it's hard as shit,

but looking back, it's comical. It's all like, as college kids yelling at college kids, like, you know, did you memorize how many gallons of water and Lesk Reservoir and how, you know, what's for lunch tomorrow? You're like, I'm so sorry, sir. It's like a, it's a college kid who's never actually done Army stuff in his life,

but you don't know that, right? But 9-11 was my sophomore year, right? And so it's my first day ever of like military guard duty. cadet in charge of quarters. You're just sitting at like at the clipboard. Whoever like walks in, you sign them and out. And there's an active Gudeau 3 captain in charge of every cadet company who's like,

you know, teaches about the army and yells at you and you have to walk hours and stuff. But he's like, Kathcart, roll out the TV. This is like when TVs were on like you roll them out, like on the AV cart and plug it in. Don't forget the strap that was on the top of it. That's right. It's right. There's like this ratchet strap, right? Yeah. That's how I watched a space shuttle explode in school.

The Challenger, yeah, that's right. I mean, let's talk about the traumatic. impact of that across a variety of schools. Hey kids, look at this. Oh, Jimmy at Christmas. Also, maybe let's put stuff like that on like a 30 second delay. You know what I mean? I am not a technician here, but I can think of ways that would enhance

viewership safety. Teachers all over America are diving for the TV to turn it off as children were just. I think they were all paralyzed. I think everybody watched together just with collective jaws on the floor. There was a teacher on that flight, Sally Wright. She was like just a teacher that they weren't sending to space to Are you guys aware of the conspiracy that they were never actually on the shuttle and they blew it up intentionally? I am not. I am now.

I mean, you can just Google that in your own time. I'm just saying. Okay. Maybe I'm into things that you guys aren't into. It's not a big deal. Yeah, the moon landing was, it's fine. Now, I've seen a conspiracy about where the shuttle was empty and those people are still alive and there's photo documentation. As if people don't realize that, you know, individuals can look very similar to others, even though they've never met them. and okay. Okay.

Learn something new every day. I digress. I interrupted your introduction. It's a good segue. I remember O-W rings were the problem. Yeah. And so, you know, we watched live together as a second plane hit. Like, in real time, one of the planes flew over West Point.

I thought we were target locked us down. A crazy time, but my roommate and I had a time we looked at it. And I did major in law. It was the easiest thing possible at West Point. Really? Yeah. You got that four-year degree? I have a Bachelor of Science,

because it is an engineering school in law because it was the easiest thing possible. And I was not the smartest kid in the school. I thought for some reason law school was longer. No, no, no. So to be clear, I had no law degree. It is a major you could do like American politics or international relations. Oh, so you just studied law. I studied law in order to graduate college.

How has that been helpful for you? Super helpful. Just check it. As a cavalry officer in Iraq. Actually, after that, I went to go quit West Point because I went to my roommate and I went to the attack. probably, hey, sir, we're going to resign and enlist because we're going to miss the war. You are not the only people who felt like that. And he's like, Cathcart, you're a fucking idiot.

I'm like, yes, sir. He's like, trust me, there's going to be enough war to go around. I'm like, are you sure, sir? I'm like, the first one lasted like 96 hours or something like that. And so it's like, just trust me, graduate and go for it. So I end up graduating, Branch Armor, same thing. Like, you know, you don't know what you're going to do in the Army until your senior year. And they sit to you, according to your class rank, the smartest kid is in the front right

and the dumbest kid is in the back left. Like, and so... I wonder if they're still allowed to do that. Because that is very discriminatory. We all are... And that is just really highlighting differences in people. And I think now... Are you revealing some wounds right now?

No. Well, it irritates me that some of those DEI policies have infiltrated the military service. And honestly, I guarantee you that there are people who would argue against that because, well, what are you saying to the person who's all the way in the back? that they're not as good.

And the answer to that is, yeah. I'm saying to you, you're not as fucking good. Try harder. Well, that's why I love the army. It's a meritocracy, right? We are racking and stacking performance. Notice that you're at the tail end of the line. Draw conclusions as you see fit.

That's right. Lives are on the line. Jesus. So, I mean, that was post night when I see it like, so you get to pick what post you are according to your class rank. Smart kids are going to Italy. The kids on the back end are going to Fort Paul, Florida, Oregon, Korea, right?

And so I'm kind of, I'm in the top of the bottom half, the bottom third, right? So I get Fort Hood, Texas. I branch armor, which is one of two maneuver ground branches in the Army, infantry and armor. And I go to the armor bicycle horse and I get a ranger slot. I want to go be a ranger. What a weird trajectory? What do you mean? Oh, his gets weird.

I mean, when you said armor, I'm thinking you're like commanding a tank with aviator goggles on it. Well, that's what I thought to. Perhaps an ascot and a scarf just flowing behind you as your knowing shit down. I wanted to be patent with like, you know, my monocle and top hat. riding on top of a tank. Who doesn't want to do? Liberating towns. Yeah.

But in the art, but there's every vehicle in armor range, right? And so I, you don't know what you're going to be until you graduate the basic course and I got sent to a cavalry unit, which is at the time that was Bradley fighting vehicles

and Humvees, but the doctrine of the cavalry is reconnaissance. You're front of the infantry. You're scouting bridges, classifying bridges, can tanks roll over it? You're kind of like the front guys.

If you get seen, you call an artillery runaway. Well, we don't do that in a counterinsurance here, right? So I graduate, go to this Ranger School Odyssey, He spent six months in Ranger school. By the way, don't have a tab.

Broke both my legs in the mountain phase by falling off a cliff. Show up to Rangers, who had immediately deploy. So my first real job ever with the W-2. In high school, I got paid cash under the table mowing lawns. I'm a scout platooner in Baghdad, no six during the search. Reconnaissance scout PL, Hager platoon. Here's a baseball car.

I'm like, what's a baseball card? Like, you have to kill or capture this guy tonight. I was like, squeeze me? What's his name? The Iraqi equivalent of John Smith, Gulf, Gulf, find him. Sweet, thanks. Do we have a photo? No, but here's a picture of a silhouette that maybe you could hold up next to something. There's a grid coordinate. I'm like, how do we find the house of a grid coordinate? I mean, I'm green. Meanwhile, it's a six-digit grid, so it's 100, you know,

100 meters. And I'm green as it gets, right? Like, I get out the first time and I'm like stacking on a door of the shotgun as a lieutenant and my platoon sergeant, he's seven, who's crusty, he grabs him by the color and pulls me off. It's like, dude, sir, that's not your job. Well, Let me ask you this. What kind of route did you have loaded in the shotgun? Probably a beanbag for all I know, right? Like, probably not. Bush.

Bush. Pure Bush. I would, I would be one of the dudes, right? But like, you know. With a shotgun? With a beanbag shotgun? I'm going to,

I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I think I took the shoddy from an E5. And they're like, what do you? I learned very quickly, though, right?

I mean, I mean, you learn fast in situations. But it's the surge in 06. High adventure. Yeah. Dudes are getting killed. Very kinetic. IEDs everywhere.

You know what's wild is that's the opposite of the invasion. There wasn't really an IED threat. When I first went to Afghanistan, we were thin-skinned vehicles. We stayed on the roads because obviously it's one of the most heavily of mine countries on the face of the earth. But, I mean, Iraq, we weren't necessarily worried about IEDs, especially, you know, the penetrating type IEDs that have influenced from Syria, yeah. Iranians taught them how to make them, yeah. Yeah, and then I think they pushed them through Syria on the Western border. But, I mean, early on, we are going as fast as we possibly could.

And, you know, not worried about people running at you with a suicide vest. Not worrying about VBI IDs. You get to 06-07. Holy shit, the tapestry had changed. Well, you talk about, you know, that truck roll out. I got, God bless them, sergeants and special C4s served by shoot or not suit. His car is racing towards us. You make a call and it's the wrong one.

You kill civilians. You make a call and you don't shoot and it blows up all your people. Like, that's a lot of pressure on a guy. right it's a lot of pressure in the moment and I hope they have time for the rest of their life to realize you make the best decision you can with the information that you have that year in that platoon we're all still healing I tell you um two quick stories I says long for me you edit them out but you know one of the first learning experiences talk closer to the microphone remember when I told you how they're not I'm coachable and trainable yeah sorry but it does take two or three times from you actually that's fine um we're in a combat outpost or burnout paper factory kind of living live in live in rough we live there and we live there and we We hear like just nonstop gunfire. It's a gunfire. But I'm like, it's not America's up there. But there's just like cruisers going off nonstop.

The guns are singing. It's crazy. I'm like, what is that? I'm like, we got to go up there, man. It's a lot of action going on. It's not America, but what is that? It's a kilometer north that sounds like. So we take a section.

We roll up broad daylight. It's straight up sectarian violence. There's dudes dug in, chest deep fighting holes, Beards, Wahhabi guys, foreign fighters, Shia on Sunni. Just banging it out. Just banging it out. It's broad day. It's an open.

field. I mean, it's like, I assume if you go paintballing or like, it's like, we're practicing, I'm up and me, sees me, I'm down bounding. I'm like, holy shit. Now they both look at us and unite their hatred of America. Now they're both on us, three trucks, four dismounts, right? Yeah, but that's, you know, that's a solvable problem. I call that a JDM, where they don't have that when they were fighting each other. I raise your cruise serve weapon with a 2,000 pounder and checkmate. in an Afghan story but you know

Apache's come on station we're abounding it's like broad daylight and God bless his kid from Georgia Justin Jarrett Specialist Jarrett he just shoots a two or three

in a guy's chest I'm like could you do that and it blew the guy in half everyone stops and looks at each other like even like the bad guys and that's work did that just happen holy shit we get them all suppressed

there's like 30 guys we just captured I don't have enough zip cuffs I get yelled by my comm here for not being properly equipped all right we got them all back in the front of the Police show up. We'd get them all these guys in the back of the Chevy Love pickup trucks.

And then one of these fighters had somehow got his flex cuts in front of him. And the blindfolds over one eye. And I'll never forget this scene the rest of my life. One of the IPs Iraqi police puts his PKM Russian machine gun on the side of the truck to walk around to get in, then to guard them. And then 15 seconds it took, this guy grabs the PKK, which you can't get the safety off, gets it up, but it shoots two or three of the guys who are on their knees. flex cuffed and blindfolded. Some of his own guys. Some of his own guys.

I call that a buddy fucker. At the time, my company commander had come on station, a captain, and then he points straight to his face. I'm like, this is a slow motion. What are we going to do? God bless this kid. Love soldiers. Married a stripper right before he left.

But he wheels around with the 240 on top of a gun truck drops this guy. I'm like, oh, no, it's close. Thank God. The Iraqi police response to this is to just unload on all the trucks. So I'm a second First lieutenant Iraqi police are just unloading on these guys are in blindfolded

on their knees flex cuff behind their back They're just mowing them down I'm like this is I'm pretty sure this is a war crime I'm not a genius I did study law at West Point briefly But this is thinking headlines Army captain

I'm in jail forever now right And so what do you do? Like you know I pull out my name I'm appointed the Iraqi colonel like you need to stop this Or I need to end you And so like that after that day That's like my first month in Iraq. I'm like, this is a real job now, right? You know, the other form of deeply formed

experience, we start losing guys to IDs, you know, you know, around the corner from that place we were just at, Satataji, they call it Sunni Beach because all of Saddam's ministers live there. Gorgeous mansions, you know, Baghdad Bob lived there, whoever the big guys were. I get a call that an IED maker live there, right? And this is after our company commander had been killed in action by an EFB. We get the word that the guy that made the bomb lives in this house. And so, like, I have to make a decision. Do you tell the guys who it was or we tell them as a bad guy, we go get them? Because I don't know what's going to happen if we tell them who it is, right?

Grab the guy and brought daylight, coming back. Ambush initiated by a 500-pound I-A-D. Trucking from me is just gone. We get a suppressed, but, like, sorry. You got to recover your dudes. Like, I'm the patrol here. I decided to go that way. So, you know, the part that stays with me is out of go find their body parts, man.

That kid Justin Jared, that killed the guy with a two or three. Like, I can only find his leg. You know, you got to put it in the bag, not to be too dramatic. But we're working on the guys. And I'm like, I'm trying to do like, first take, because it was only one section with this Black Hawk Medevac lands. And I'm like, put a stretch around. They're like, get on the bird.

They think I'm a medic for some reason. If I'm the platoon leader, the bird takes off. I'm on it. Like, my dudes are down there. Like, we're working on the guys. this guy named James Ellis who's still intact, South Star Nelson Valad, out of Georgia,

they think they can save him. And so, like, you know, I've never seen Army medicine up close. They put, they have some of the best surgeons in the world in the cash in Baghdad. They put this guy, Ellis, in the back of a gator from the bird,

driving straight in the OR, start working on him. Dude, I'm covering blood, sweat. I'm sure some of my own tears and just fucking rage. And I just walk into, like, this lobby, this hospital, like, you know, weapons on red

and like, this, God bless his specialist behind a desk. He's like, sir, you can't have a weapon in here? And the way I looked at this guy, I mean, it must have been rough. And like, someone came out and tucked me. They offered to me like a little Debbie snack kates, ho-hoes and coffee. I remember sitting now, like, 15 minutes ago, I was like working on a dude and we're in a huge fight. And, you know, 500 bouts of HME just went off. But that always stuck with me because James Ellis ended up dying in my arms, a black guy from Georgia. And like, to your point earlier, like,

dude, what the, what is all this shit worth for? Like, how do I do something? How do I ever recover from this, right? That was my first 12-month deployment, you know, not to get too into it. I got to lead dudes in combat for 37 months on the ground. It says, big army, conventional forces guy, GP that call us general purposes. But you come back from that, you train for a year, and then you go back. And so I was supposed to be what they call an assistant operations officer, a talk nerd who makes the slides and the out-waters. And, you know, I'm in the cap. Don't forget the coffee. The coffee. I was an office bitch the second year. So you go from that year, door kick in, but that's the career of the officer.

you get to lead dudes, then you're riding plans. It's the same in the SEAL community. You have a short operational window and then you are lateral out of that world. But the cavalry, we love our little, our literal traditions with the big, the black hats we wear and the spurs and the. Let's be clear, those are both awesome. And I considered wearing those with my Navy uniform and they're not authorized. But you went with UDTs instead. That's a good choice.

I still think those were curated as a joke. I still think those were created by a woman as a joke. Like, I know what the military needs, one half inch inseam with no liner. Oh, that's awesome. It's not, actually. It's really not. The chafing, I can imagine. Just bubble gum everywhere.

I can imagine. Oh, Jesus. The Navy. We're not the only ones that wear them. That's true. Ranger panties at least have a liner, though. That's right. That's right.

I have to admit we had the same. Selfies are better than us. That's for sure. The squad, and the cavalry we call it, we call companies, troops and battalion squadrons, right? So we had a squadron commander.

It's like, Cathcart, you suck at slides. I'm like, yeah, yeah, sir. We need a major to go train and live with the Iraqi army. I'm like, all right, I'm some dumb captain. He's like, pre-companied command.

Cathcart, God damn. I'm asking, do you want to go be the guy and build an advisor team? I'm like, I get to like live with the Iraqis and going patrol and stuff, yes, sir. But of course, And we're in every line unit is tasked to give up non-commissioned officers and soldiers.

Who are you going to give up in combat to go to some unknown made-up unit? Probably your bottom performers. Yeah. It's me and the Apple Dupilagang guy. And I love these guys. Like, one of them made either grenade. I mean, we lose a set of items, but. Yeah.

And it made it where the dirty dozen. No one wants us, right? So you had like a platoon of people who resemble sling blade. I'm not like the fresh front tighter like, like sir. Listen. Like, they have a place as well. They have a place. But you win their loyalty.

I love soldiers, like just dirty American soldiers. Like, you win there a little, they'll run through a wall for you, right? Like, we need a tire. And, like, where'd you get this tire at, Sergeant? Like, he, like, stares blankly off. I'm like, is this the fucking brigade Sergeant Major's talk? You steal it from his Humvee, dude? Sir, you said he needed a tire.

I'm like, I know, dude. But, like, let's have a little situation awareness here. We're going to get rolled up. Yeah, steal it from the skippers. Like, exactly. Leave the command sergeant major a little, but definitely take it from the CO. So I, that year was like, I'm getting out of the Army. I've done all these deployments.

That's squadron command. They're offering for the first time officers a bonus to stay in. 30 grand, stay in. I'm like, I'm getting out. I'm tired. I'm going to go to business school, make money. I thought it might go be a KSR for the agency or something like that. He's like, Kathcart, come to my office.

He's wearing the hat and smoke, sir. Like, out of a movie. And he's just like, I know your heart's an alpha troop with your company commended was killing action. Ian Wichael. I'm like, yes, sir, he's like, I'm going to give you command of that troop. I'm like, sure I'm getting out. I turn to my paperwork.

He's like, I know. I went to the S. that's legal. That's what I said. He's like, ah, it's not. But he's like,

you're good at this shit. It's in your blood. I'm like, don't flatter me now, sir. And also, that's not how contracts work at all. At all. Again,

not a lawyer. I'm no lawyer. I did, to be fair, I tried. He's like, let me tell you someone else. It's top secret.

And it wasn't the time. It's like, you're going to be the first ever mechanized unit commander in Afghanistan. You'll take this troop to Afghanistan. I was like, God damn it, sir.

So I didn't get the bonus because I already passed it. There's no retroactive, so I stayed in because I just love America, and I got to take a troop to Afghanistan, which is an amazing year and a million stories, but, you know, 150 dudes in Afghanistan, but the highlight of that was what you talked about earlier, the military operations,

and a lot comes to kind of the work we're doing now. I'm general purpose, regular dude, no special anything. I am airborne qualified. I do have seven jumps out of an aircraft. But I had three combat outposts that cost about 1500 square kilometers in Afghanistan, and I was like, dude, I can't secure this. What province were you? Baguiz and Harat.

I had two commands. Okay. Are those up in the northwest? Northwest, yeah. Okay. I mean, I actually drove into Tajikistan once. I was like, we can't be here. We just invaded another country.

Let's turn around. I mean, did you invade or did you visit? I visited. Did you report it over the radio? Did the blue force tracker happen to be off at the time? There are ways that I can help you avoid. They're coming in and broken, right? It's like when I called, what I was, when I caught into the talk and when I was a

between leader in Iraq, I'm like, we have one, nine, E. K-I-A-P-O-Ws. And like, what did you say is like, we have 1-9 K-A-E-A-E-P-Ws? Like, no, no, that doesn't make sense. You can't have enemy, you can't have Kulin Action POWs.

I'm like, well, they were blindfolded that in handcuffed or whatever. And like, you're like, dude, get off the neck. Get off for that now. I was going to say, things you don't say over the radio for 500, Alex. I learned that later.

Like, dude, Jack was fast for bringing to the talk, Kaskar. What are you doing? Anyway. So in Afghanistan, I got to be friends of the tribes. These guys, like, They were mojed.

They fought the Russians. These guys are crusty and hard. And some difference in Iraq and Afghanistan, Afghans can, they can fight, dude. They can fight. I don't know if they necessarily have more technical competence. In my experience, they're more game to fight. That's true. I'll buy that.

Like, if they get their toes up on the line, they're going to drive forward. Whereas a lot of the times in Iraq, they would only fight if you had them pinned. You know, like they didn't have anywhere else they could go and they knew that they were cornered. fight, but if they had an opportunity to run, which I'm not saying is a bad idea, and run and fight again another day, they would take it. Afghans are like, maybe fuck yourself. Well, the thing about Afghans,

unlike Iraq is all Shiasuni, they are a clan and they're a tribe for anyone else. So, you know, I had pastures and Tejiks and some Uzbeks, and I just from smoking who can eat and lambie and they ask me why I don't have any wives, and they have three, and you know, and I'm like, I don't know, it's crazy question. I would flip that question, but why the fuck do you have three wives?

You know? And then this thing called my Swarmes. Are you ever heard of Naswar? No. It's servers in a dip. They take a tobacco leaf. They dry it in the sun and they grind it into a powder.

No. This is the type of shit when people offer you. I'm like, get away from me with that. No. I want an influence friend's my ability

to consume this because then you mix it with wood ash just, you know, you burn wood and mix it in it. And then the key ingredient. Yeah, that seems safe to mix something

with you're going to consume. It's lie, which is straight up corrosive poison. Have you seen Apocalypse now? Have you done a full body scan to see if you have the things like growing inside of you? I probably do.

You need to get his health screening immediately. It's like copse-it-s-like, copse-nuff times a thousand. God. But like they were so impressed that I could do it. They take their hands and open my mouth like, a medici, commandante, that's what I'm like, they throw in my mouth. And like, they're like, oh, my God, you can do that. While discussing that small ability to consume their powerful tobacco product,

they're like, okay, you're okay with us. I'm like, all right, I guess. So that, you know, grew into where now? I'm like, when USA is like, where should we build a school? I'm like, this guy's village, right? You know, you need gas for your motorcycle. Here's some JPM. And, you know, come up and patrol with me once.

Let's just see what happens. It's not legal, but now there's, like, dudes on motorcycles running recon up routes. They're, like, zooming around the grid lines, pulling security. You can't really control them, but, like, you can point them in a direction to hope there's no war crimes. That grew and grew, there's a couple of dudes,

and Petraeus at the time was the head of Afghanistan. He, like, heard about this stuff, and it was, like, sent a guy out to study, do a case study on this. How does the fourth entry division mechanized have tried? I'm like it's Nassau, gasoline, relationships. We have common interest, right? Let's just, let's do this, right?

Buy with and through. Buy with and through. You know, the other thing we did was, what's been the night in your village? Set up patrol days, guys. You know, no one ever sets a patrol basis anymore. It's lost art. Man of patrol bases, we're spending the night.

We're spending three days here. It's going to be rough living, but we're going to deny the enemy territory and we're going to be friends now. Okay. So, you know, I get invited to this VSO conference at Leatherneck in Kabul. Never been to Kabul? I walk, I'm the only guy in here from, it's like I walk into the, I'm not a Star Wars guy,

the Star Wars bar, everyone's wearing Patagonia. Some guys are dressed like they're Afghans, they're orange and keg and, I mean, all these other letters. And this guy walks up and he's like, hey, sir, you lost? I don't want to say I have a chipmarshaler as much as a fucking cinder block at this point. I'm just like, oh, is this these super secret General Petraeus VSO Stability Conference of How to Work with Tribes? Like, is this your invitation to?

Yeah, I'm supposed to be your guy. So, you know, I mean, so I'm supposed to say that, but went back. and all that led to this clearing of a Taliban capital of Baghdadist province. I'm in a war story more now, but we had built this coalition of like 700 people and we're going to roll out and clear this village. They knew we're coming. There's lots of us leaving the Baghdice airfield. Most of the Afghan, I think it was probably 50 Americans and 600-someod Afghans,

militia, Afghan police, national police, some NDS guys. we get to the village, take it over. No one's there. It's a bandit. It's a ghost town. I'm like, this is too easy. Something's up, dude. Something is up. Of course, that night, it's every side is just raining down fire upon us. You're reported by J-Dams. Immediately we're in contact. Afghans turn on their pickup truck, their headlights to get a better shot, mutually sucks up an RPG. Everyone's skilled inside. Afghan Kandak commander, the battalion commander, super bummed. I'm like, you know, hey, come here, sir.

Look at this little little computer screen I got. because the guys that had did it had gone 10 kilometers north and they're on a campfire drinking tea and high-fiving and dancing that killed Afghan commandos. We had kept PID from like an Apache draft 16. I'm like, I don't know how this works. I got J-Tax. Like, laser on that thing and let's blow those guys up.

I said, actually, you know what? Come here, hand out, commander. I was like, get on the radio and say, you know, not to be told on the nose, fucking cleared high. There's a reason why I picked that side in the verbiage. Right, like cleared high, authenticate, give a minus. Just like Golf Delta Charlie release ordinance.

and like Jay Dan will top those dudes. He got to watch it on the screen. And like, like, I can't bring your boys back. But like, you just ended their life. So I hope that's something for you, right? The whole night goes down the next morning. We're so far removed that there's no radio. Satellite radios are like, we don't know how they work.

They lost the field. There's no, there's no, my only reporting mechanism is BFT like Fipper messages. It's like text messaging. I'm like, I'm alive. Okay. LOL. LOL, BRB. Right?

Yeah. So like the talk is for you. Miss you. Yeah. because they haven't heard from me in like a day. I have a satellite phone, but forgot the charger back at the base. So it's dead.

I said... It's a power move. I was like, I have no... I've literally no comms. But I said, every Afghan governor has two Russian hips helicopters. You fucking love those hips up. You need Afghan dead bodies out of here

because they're sitting in the hot sun. The Afghan's bad for morale. They're out of food and water and bullets so this Russian hip lands. And I didn't know this is the thing. There's an American Air Force crew chief on it. Oh, interesting. I was like, dude, God bless, dude, you got some Cajun ace flying with an Afghan pilot in a Russian 80-year-old Russian helicopter.

But it was a scene because the ridge lines were smoking, right? They're loaded on bodies, they're pushing out chickens, they're pushing out bottles of water. And like, this guy just gets out and doesn't say a word and just tears starts swimming down his face. I mean, it's post-battle, right? I mean, it's smoke and fire and death. And I say that because in the middle of that fight, I'm on a rooftop, and I'm pretending to be special. I have a baseball hat on and no uniform top and I'm drinking coffee and calling in air strikes.

And like, I just remember thinking in the middle of all that. And this is like, obviously, high intensity, high adventure. But like, I was like, this is the most important I'll ever be in my whole life. Fuck. This is in contact during a symphony of violence. Like, this is the most important thing I will ever do in my life. And I was like, I mean, it was a short.

I was like, dude, get back in this. You're in a legit combined arms fight. But I just, that never left me. It's like, I hope that's. And then, of course, we, we left Afghanistan. I have an afterwards. I'm like, dude, that sucks. Right? And so... You're talking about the withdrawal? Yeah. I mean... It has nothing to do with us. You're right. And that's one of the biggest mistakes that people make, in my opinion,

is they derive their value of service based on how we exited Afghanistan. You're right. And I don't know about the two of you, but I certainly wasn't consulted. And I did the absolute best I fucking could every single day. Well, I'm sure you did it amazing. That's why I love Vietnam guys, because... Yeah. But you got to let it go. Yeah. You have to. to let go that that decision was made. What pisses me off about it is that nobody was held accountable. And everybody points to the politicians for that one. Fuck that. I want to see some flag officers with their shit ripped off and held accountable. A lot of it is when I show up and I'm training the Iraqis of my ear, they're all red. They

can't do anything about themselves. But when I leave, they're all green. They're all the best on their own. But the guy behind me in here, they're all red. It's just, it's the cycle of they're ready on their own. Obviously, they're not. So I'm trying to get the army again last gig and it'll get to what we're doing here is it like they made me the aid to camp to a general i was like what does that even mean i'm getting out of the army that means you could do wear one of those tassel things doesn't it is the big gold thing that's what i'm talking about i don't even know what it means but i want one i would wear one of those in my uniform with the cabboy it's it's it's some flare dude but like you're right and udttss and nobody knows what it means

but they know it means something you're like what do you do i'm like i even know as i'm like part speech writer part travel as your part whipping boy but i got to like work for an awesome dude and be in big rooms while like those flag officers are making this And you're like in the back taking notes on your little Blackberry or whatever. I have always wondered what the decisions. I would always, still to this day, like one of the people I would love to talk to is George Bush Jr. And just like, hey man, let's cut the bullshit. Talk to me about the conversations you had in arriving at the decision points for Afghanistan and Iraq.

I would love to know about the conversations that were had. The air in that room to be a fly on the wall. because I want to know how much thought they put into the human capital that's going to go into it. They didn't. I guarantee you, right? That is my suspicion, but I would love to have been able to experience it and have that knowledge firsthand. You know, I mean, nation building is a hard business. He's done that in war and in Africa with New Roe International. The militaries used to have the shirtland military used to take an whole ground to win wars.

Building a nation, building an democracy is not what we're making. They're not a tool for it, man. So, you know, I was going to, we lost eight guys in a suicide vest and a four-upil brigade, one of the four-80 brigades. And he said, you know, he's going to leave to be the RCE East commander, command half of Afghanistan, all the Pack Porter. We had briefings of the agency, the White House, the Pentagon. I'm kind of excited to go with his cool buildings, these cool people.

And anytime an American soldier is killed, there must be a flag officer present. That's just a rule they made. And usually it's the National Guard guy, the reserve, whoever lives closest goes. he looked at me, he said, Cathgar, we're going to go to all eight of those funerals. I was like, sir, like, we got to go to the CIA of the White House. And he looked at me in a way that, like, I knew that I had stepped in it. He's just like, oh, I'm sorry.

Are you in charge of the fourth interviewers now? Did I not get that memo, Kathkar? Are you, you know, I'm going to crash car, crash because I bump into stuff and I'm, you know, whatever. So, and this is where my career would have ended because I would have said, yes. Did you not check your inbox? He fired me twice, but I found it later. His wife kept like, give Garrett another chance. He's trying really hard.

which is true, by the way. But where, you know, he gets on our knee and gives a fight to every mother and every widow and every kid. And I read the thing, it eats you. It eats you alive. You're in eight cities in the period of two weeks. And you do this over and over. And like, we're at some Applebee's drinking beers in the middle of Nora Oregon. And I'm like, sir, he's like, what do you want to do?

Gary, you want to get out and be a time commander? I'm like, this time Petraeus is the DCA. And I was like, I want to go be Jason Bourne. He's like, no, you don't. That's not even real. I was like, uh. That last part of the sentence is very accurate. Guys to know, right?

And so a long story, but I ended up, you know, getting a conditional offer, getting Polly, going down in the pipeline, living in San Clemente with a girl for a while. After I got out of the Army, not knowing how long a pipeline it is. And the interim, I got a job in medical device sales in Beverly Hills to make a shit ton of money. That's the way to be better. That's the way to transition. But like very quickly being just like miserable as shit. I'm taking neurosurgeon to dinner and they want to hear war stories.

And so they buy my stuff. And I'm telling them stories about where guys I love were killed to buy. I'm like, this is the worst. Why am I unhappy, right? And then I got a call from one of those guys that was, the guys that said to study me in Afghanistan, hey, we're starting a nonprofit for veterans, dude, you should help us. I'm like, dude, like, I'm a veteran.

Frankly, I don't care about veterans. I'm not working in nonprofit. I don't want to be poor. I love you, but hard pass. Thanks for the again of me. And I went and volunteered to these guys in L.A. It was called Team Bread, White and Blue. And it was simply about building community,

building relationships, getting fit, positive, post-traumatic growth. Like, hey, you were awesome, but you can still be awesome. Don't live in the past. And I was like, this is what I miss. I didn't know the words. I miss their brotherhood, the camaraderie, the community, the purpose, everything I didn't know that I needed. And so now I'm like, dude, this is awesome.

Move to Atlanta, take the gig. Under Polly, the agency in some warehouse. Like, have you ever miss handled class information? I'm like, yeah, all the time. That was not the right answer. I was quietly like off from that program. Have you ever taken anything home from work? You're like, well, funny you should ask.

Are we talking batteries, or are we talking other? We're talking AT-4s. I mean, Jesus, I mean, let's not get crazy. Maybe some 9-mill routes, you know? So now I'm like, I'm doing nonprofits. So building community, we end up being the fastest growing post-9-11 veteran nonprofit in the country. But I'm still, like, really mad that the agency let me go. I'm like, if you don't want me, maybe the FBI will.

So I apply to them and I go through the whole process. And, you know, their reputation is being a little more kind of hard, nose, disciplined. And it says here they. You mean, sound like, you guys. talk to each other? Holy cow, I didn't know. They're like, yeah, of course. But then they're like, but you try to sell it or do anything? I'm like, no, dude, it was a map of a bad life fought, and I wanted to take home. And I get home of course as FOU. It's not even classified. I was just so nervous. I was misspeaking. FBI is like, all right, especially during your report, June 6,

D-Day. I was like, um, I think I like this veteran thing more actually. I don't, and at the time I was watching the show FBI with Piacor Chopra. I was like, is this how it works? Or is the FBI? Like, dude, no, not, it's not even close, you idiot. Like, it's all paperwork. I was like, all right, all right. And so I stayed up, you know. It's actually really not the way to sell the job either. Like, no, it's not like the TV show. It's only paperwork. Like, I'm out. Pass? Yeah. Hard pass. Yeah. I'll take door number two, regardless of what's behind it. And that, and that led to one of the founders of the Home Depot, who was one of the, he's probably the largest private donor to veteran causes in the country, Bernie Marcus. Kathcart, like, we want to build an

non-profit, and this is where it's reverse. Here's the money up front. There's a bunch of veterans probably two or three million that are not connected to the VA. They're mostly young guys. How do we how do we get their voice together and go advocate on policy issues for him? And also tell their story and also change the narrative of veterans country that we're not all broken. We're not all of PTSD that like you can go be awesome after service and not just tell your stories in Iraq or Afghanistan. That's all you're ever going to be. That was called mission roll call. We built that. And then this guy is like, Cathcart, I heard your name. He comes back from Africa to go to the first ever presidential leadership scholarship scholars program. It's like, it's a big deal.

It's the first one. And he comes back and I'll let you pick it up about what you see when you get in 2015 and how we kind of met and all that kind of stuff. But I'm living the dream as a professional veteran, as I say, my second veteran nonprofit, when he calls me, he's like, hey, you know about veteran stuff. And let me get your, let me get your, pick your brain. I'm like, all right, dude, what's your idea? What do you need?

I say we jump to what brings you guys here today. Skip the interim step. Yeah. Talk to me about what it is that you guys are trying to do because I think it's timely. and I want to spend the time necessary to dig into it as much as possible. Right. So when I came back from Africa, I had been living overseas for like 15 years. You know, first downrange as Marine in combat and then, you know, living in these villages for seven and a half, almost eight years off the grid, building out this organization to stop spread of ISIS and al-Qaeda.

And when I came back here, man, I was just, I was shocked by what I saw. I did not recognize the country that we all left to fight for in 2000. there was this crazy hatred and divisiveness. People were tearing themselves apart, tearing each other apart. I mean, Americans hating Americans. Are you talking about last week or when you came back? No, dude, this was 2015. Yeah.

This was, I mean, and this was, I thought it was bad then. Do you guys have a sense of when that started? I mean, I would say the tipping point was probably around 2010. Okay. When things started getting pretty bad. Because I think we can all feel it. It's our team versus your team for getting more. on the same team. That's exactly right. Neighbor fighting neighbor, but I have not been able to really

put a pin into where, why it started and how it got so bad. Well, it's been, in my humble opinion, it's been an evolution over time of a couple things. As most things are. Yeah, of a couple of things. One is the, the, what I would call geographic sorting. So people started with with the access to be able to kind of move across the country. This, there's dissemination of information more rapidly. the rise of social media. People start moving around the country and kind of congregating in areas of people who think like them and come from the same backgrounds, et cetera. And we also kind of lost what I call the civic fabric in our country. So think about like Rotary Club, the VFW, Lions Club,

those kinds of things, churches where people used to kind of come together and meet other people in their community who are not necessarily like them. People don't do that shit anymore. They're not actually coming out and getting together anymore. How come? I think it's because, because of fear. At the same time, we had this kind of geographic sorting and this kind of like, there was a guy named Robert Putnam that wrote this book called Bowling Alone. It was the concept that people used to come together

in like bowling leagues and have teams and they work, they bring clubs and you actually met other Americans all the time. That's not happening anymore. And as that happened, another effect started happening, which is people started running for a political office to become famous. They wanted to be on the news, they wanted to get likes

on social media, it began to be, you know, a great kind of center for power and influence because of the rise of, I mean, social media, it's not the evil to end all evils, but it is an enabler for a lot of these problems that we're seeing. Yeah, I'm not sure it's a net positive. I personally don't believe that it is, but it is definitely fueling the polarization and partisanship in the country. Have you guys seen, Michael, double check me on this. I swear it was 42 district attorneys or attorney general.

generals of states in the U.S. are trying to get a warning label associated with social media use for teenagers because of the addictive nature. I think it was 42, but Michael, if you could double check. I only see that accelerating, I hope, in that label being put on that. Because I've seen the influence it has on my own kids. It's fucking addicting for one. And it is not the real world. It's not. And people are getting more and more isolated. You know, they're getting removed from one another. We need human contact. And I saw something else happening. It's a tactic we used in combat. So you know how they used to dehumanize the enemy, right? It was actually a tactic we used. That's happening here. So media celebrities, politicians are dehumanizing the other side to make

them easier to hate. I have a perfect example of this from, oh, I'll call it the second assassination attempt on Trump. Yeah. And this is, it's just, he said that the red, from the left is what is causing him to get shot at. Meanwhile, they are the ones destroying the country from inside and out. And my analogy was, dude, you're in a pool watching somebody whip their dick out pissing in it, complaining that you don't like that, but underwater through your shorts, you're pissing everywhere. You're complaining about rhetoric while participating in rhetoric. And then people on both sides of that, well, our side's telling the truth, and we have to stop this other side, so that makes it okay. okay. What does the other side say? Well, our side's telling the truth because of this existential

threat. We have to figure out a way to upend that cycle because the dehumanizing, I do think, is real. Do I think it's causing crazy people do crazy shit? Do I think it's causing people to shoot at Trump? I don't know if there's a direct correlation, but it's certainly not helping. I think it's safe to say that. I found this kind of like dramatically increasing sense of hatred and fear. And to me personally, it made me really sad, man. Like all of us have been downrange how long, how many years fighting for the idea of America against our enemies, ISIS and al-Qaeda, only to realize when I got back here, it's not going to be them that defeats us. It's going to be us.

Like we're tearing ourselves apart while our enemies are sitting on the sidelines laughing. And if we don't get our shit together, we're going to be in a soup sandwich here really fast. So I got really pissed off at that, well, look, I'm not about to watch my buddy. to pay the ultimate sacrifice to tear ourselves apart here at home. I wanted to do something. And I had some mentors who were like, hey, you should run for office. I thought that was a really bad idea. I was never going to do that.

There's got to be a better way. And so I had some donors who have been working with me for about eight years. So we've been able to raise about $60 million over that time to kind of build the work in Africa. And they were like, hey, we're shifting our money, our philanthropy, and in this new space to try to figure out a way to build out more of a center and help unite the country. because we've got kids now, and we're worried they're not going to have a democracy left to inherit, and we've got to figure something out. And you were this kind of weirdo who didn't know anything about poverty.

You kind of built this model that disrupted the industry. Would you take a look now at the politics industry here in the U.S.? Is there a new way? That's a good word for it. The politics industry. It's an industry. It's an industry. It's a whole industry.

Did you find it, Michael? I see you messing around with the little slide over there. It's 402. I see at the point of my eye. He's such a tease. I was right. fuck you. Wow.

Look at that. You know what that means? Every once in a while, a blind pig can't find shit. Yeah, 42 attorney generals joined together a Monday called Congress passed legislation implementing Surgeon General Vivek Murthy's proposal to acquire official warnings on social media platforms. Yes, I support this. Yeah, absolutely. Does it solve the problem?

No. Is it a step in the right direction? Yes. It is. It actually has to be a multifacist approach. And so I wanted to, like I said, I wanted to do something. I was hell bent on doing something now here at home. I wanted to make sure that what I had built overseas would survive the transition.

Had an amazing teams. You know, we brought together operators and aid workers to help stop the spread devices in some key places. It was really working and scaling. And so I put a 12-month transition plan in place, handed off the reins to the new CEO in June of 2020. I didn't have to worry. They're actually crushing it.

I think they just had to get rid of me, probably. And then in July of 2020, I stood up this new entity called More Perfect Union. To do this, the whole concept, I'll give you a 30,000-foot view of what we're trying to do. We saw this, what we believe was a great, untapped, strategic asset for the country that we were not using. And that was our brave men and women coming home from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq overseas who were coming home. They were getting into the job market. They were doing, you know, they were being successful in their careers. But they were a little bit lost.

They needed purpose and meaning. They essentially they needed a new hill to take. And there's no greater hill to take right now, in my opinion, than helping save our democracy in this moment. We fought against our enemies overseas to protect the idea of America, and now we've got to fight here at home for it. And there's nobody a better position to do that than our veteran population. And so what I decided to do was, what if, and you know veterans, like we're still one of the most trusted entities in the country. People in the left and right trust veterans. And so the idea we had was, hey, let's recruit some top vets from around the country.

And let's train them up with some skills that they needed this program that we partnered with the University of Montana, actually, in Missoula. Okay. And it's a five-day training package, and we equip them with the skills to roll out our model. My son goes to college in Bozeman, so I can't support this program. Because apparently those two schools are mortal enemies. Apparently, I hear that. The Bobcats versus the Gris.

I have to be Team Bobcat. I'm sorry. I will say the institution that shall not be named. Yes. That way he can listen. I'm just joking. And so we train to equip these guys and gals, and then they go back to their home states to launch what we call brickyard operations. So we call them a brickyard because it's building the country back brick by brick.

This is our version of chapters, right? And so the idea is we're taking veterans and also public servants, so people who have been in the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, who have served the greater idea of America in the past in their career. and we're basically using a lot of the skills we use overseas. It's counterinsurgency skills. You know, we're going into these communities. We're mapping out the power dynamics in the community. Who's controlling the power? Who's the influencers?

We're bringing together folks in the left and right into these chapters and in these brickyards to do three activities, three types of activities. There's three pillars. First, we start with basic social connection activities to build understanding. So that's like fitness challenges, potluck dinners, concerts, people coming together to have fun, right? Second, then they start doing community service projects. Now, these are service projects sourced from the community.

We don't go out there and build a playground in every community because a lot of communities don't need that. What do they want? What do they need? And the members of the community tell us what they need and they come together to do that action. We're getting our hands dirty together. We're sweating together. We're breaking bread together. It's Americans physically coming together to do good.

And by doing that, we're building trust. So first, we're building understanding. Second, we're building trust. and the final activities that we do, we do to build ownership, ownership in our country and a democracy. These are our civic education programs. So it's about, yes, we have a lot of rights as American citizens, but we also have responsibilities. Yeah. You know, it is upon us to make the country that we want to see for our kids.

You know, this is a country of by and for the people, and we can't wait for people in Washington to solve these problems. Like, we the people have to do it. I don't think they're capable of doing it at this point. No. Yeah. I mean, we have to do it. Yeah. Right? Regular people have to do it. And so, you know, I didn't know how to build a movement.

I'd heard about this knucklehead who'd built a lot of veteran movements. And so I tricked him into to come and join me. I called them advising sessions where he was giving me advice. And then I just basically slipped an offer letter to him and stole him from his employer. And it worked out. Yeah, it's great. You're building force multipliers. Exactly. That's exactly right. And it is taken off, man. There's a hunger in this country. people, you know how it is. In a time of fear and paralysis, people need to see action. They need to see leadership and they need to get moving to do something.

We're giving Americans something to do. We're giving them and we're giving veterans a new hill to take to get out of this kind of lack of purpose and meaning and do something. Let's retake agency. There's a pandemic loss of agency in this country. And Americans need to feel like and know that they can change their situation. So they're getting involved in the past two years. years. We've quietly built a movement of over 10,000 people.

31 sites around the country. We have unique access in a lot of rural communities that a lot of other groups don't have because it appeals, the veteran brand appeals to a lot of rural communities. I come from rural community myself. And it's also appealing to the veteran community. We've got a lot of veterans coming out saying,

hey, sign me up. How do I get involved? I want to be a part of taking my country back. And we believe This is the moment. We're living in a moment right now. And I don't say this with hyperbole. We could lose everything we fought for. What do you think that would look like? I was talking with somebody the other day and we talked about whether or not we're reaching this precipice. What do you guys think that that would actually look like, losing the democracy? If we stay in these silos where we don't understand each other, then we become vulnerable to leaders who will spew hate and rhetoric at us and we'll believe. leave whatever they tell us. And we will follow that to the point where it's going to divide as permanently as a nation. I think it starts out with these lone wolf acts of violence across

the country, which then could potentially turn into larger scale violence and eventually, God help us, like runaway violence that could, you know, it's not going to be a large scale civil war like we had in the 1860s. However, it could look like militias mobilized against other units across the country where there could be violence in pockets across the country. Now that's like, that's an ugly proposition. It is a very ugly proposition, but that honestly, and I'm not trying to fearmonger. Yeah. But if we don't do something to stop it, that's where we're heading. And I think it requires two things. We need real leaders to step up and help lead the country. Agreed. I make fun of Washington, but we need real leaders. I mean, we need guys like you, like others who

have, I know you're not going to do it. Let's just go ahead and I'm just pick a different example. You know, I'm saying that. I'm not trying to convince you. However, I'm saying that we need men and women who understand the cost of freedom who are servant leaders to step up and lead. I would be assassinated almost immediately. And I'm going to tell you why. I think we have to reshape the size and scope of the government. And one of the first things that I would do is fucking yank power from a lot of organizations and shit camp people.

Yeah. Well, I mean, and they don't like that. Yeah. That's true. That's true. But I will say that I believe the answer is servant leadership. I believe we need at the national level and I believe we need it at the community level. Yeah.

The problem with that in our current structure is it the servant leadership has to be towards the people that elected them into office and not for themselves. Yeah, that's right. And so one of the things that I think, and I've said this quite a bit, is I think, I think, I think we have to institute a few changes. One of them is term limits. We have to limit people. I look at politics now as something like a medication. And all medications have a warning label on them.

Because we've determined the safe dosage before it starts having negative impacts on the human body. I think the most altruistic person who finds themselves in politics, if you play in that shit for long enough, I don't think you're the same person. And I also think, though, that that environment and that desire for power, like it's this chicken or egg. Are people corrupted by politics or does politics corrupt people or is it both? To the people who are susceptible to that, find their way into it because they want to be in power or if you play in that shit for long enough, you're just covered in the toxic material. How about we strip away how long you can be associated with that? Because I think it is dangerous.

Two, we have to get rid of this bullshit the way that we pass laws and put bills that we vote upon. Single issue bills is something that I think would make a massive thing. difference because you hear people arguing. Yeah, no moron to bus bills. Oh my God. You shot down the border security bill. I'm like, well, yeah, but these people are calling it the Ukrainian funding bill because inside of the, well, like, which one of these?

Because you could easily switch out the other ones. So what we need to, you know what I mean? And we have to limit that ability. I mean, I think those two things in and of themselves and a really hard look at the size of our government, potentially reducing the size of the government would make a huge difference. I agree with you. I think it's going to take a multifamily. faceted strategy attacking different flanks to solve the problem we're in right now.

Yeah. There's a political solution and then there's a nationwide kind of community solution. What we're operating on right now at more perfect union is we're really focused on grassroots, ground up, local leaders, local communities, kind of getting ourselves out of the situation. I do want to tell you about one thing that we're actually doing in the moment because as we approach the election, as you might know, there's an election coming up in November 5th. I haven't heard so far. Right.

It really hasn't been on the news. It's not in the news. You know, it's probably, you probably haven't heard of it. I enjoyed the several days in between the 2020 and 2024 elections. And I am not joking when I say several days that the discussion on every major platform was not an election. That's right. It seemed like it was seconds. Well, and to that point, as we, the closer we get, the rhetoric is ramping up.

Yeah. And there's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of fear. and so we kind of got together and we thought, okay, we need, we're positioned in this moment, we're building this movement, this veteran-led movement, and let's get people doing something right now. And when I give talks and stuff around the country, people always ask me in the Q&A, hey, what can I do? What can one person do? The first thing I say, go find somebody in your network, in your community, and your family

who is on the other side of the political aisle. Buy them a cup of coffee. Sit down with them and have a conversation. Talk about what you care about. about what the country means to you, try to find common ground. It's really hard to hate somebody if you're sitting across the table from them. And so what we decided to do was, do you remember the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge back in 2014? I did not participate. I didn't, I think I was overseas at the time, but. Whether I was or wasn't. I think you were cold enough in buds. I'm more than happy to write

you a check. I'm going to skip the ice bucket portion. So we are not doing ice, but we decided to do something called the Coffee Encouraged Challenge. Right. So the concept is this is something anybody can do. Every American, go out, find somebody on the other side of the aisle, have that cup of coffee with them, talk about what the American dream means to you, shoot a 30 to 60 second video on your iPhone, post it to your social media, tag three friends. What about Android users?

Excuse me? I mean, we can agree that there as a class of the green levels. That's a great catch. Not an economic class of people, but as a quality. Homo sapien, they're at a lower class, right? Because they fuck up my blue text. I mean, it's green. It's green, right?

Okay, so, I mean, are they allowed to participate? They're allowed, yes. Okay. Shoot a video. In this instance, I will make that exception. Okay, good. Most of the time I prefer they fuck right off. Maybe that's your curve.

The other side of the aisle is green and blue ones, right? Here's the real mission for you iPhone users. Go find an Android user. Yeah. And try as hard as you can to find common ground. You may not find much. You're going to have different views on the world for sure.

Well, shoot that video. On your iPhone. On your iPhone or Android or flip phone. And post it to your social, tag three friends and get them involved. Tell them to take the challenge. I really believe in this moment. It's not hard to do that. And what we'd like to see is millions of Americans coming out of their silos just to get

together. Get together for an hour with somebody you don't know. That alone is something, right? It's not going to solve the problem. It's not going to save America, but it's a way to get us out, get us out and get moving. It'll also highlight, and this is anecdotal, but I think, so whatever Team Blue, Team Red, whatever you want to call yourself, other than the people who are at the extreme fringes, which there are people at the extreme fringes, but it's not most. I think most people share an immense overlap of values. You would never know that.

But it's not newsworthy because it's not, you know, clickbait. We get along, it's not on the news. You would never know it if your interactions are only on social media. Well, that's the whole point of this organization, Annie, right? It's like, you know, it's not for veterans. It's for all Americans, right? It's led by, you know, we got probably 70% veteran leadership because we are convening authority. We're leaders.

We work together to get no matter to the background, the whole thing. But go to our baseball game in Colorado. We'll buy a beer in the pub, the first pint. We'll buy a barbecue. You know, there's a great story about a small town in Texas I could tell about one of our events. But you're just, how often do you meet, someone you don't know that's not in your bubble, right? Because I'm on my Facebook page, watching my news station, listen to whatever podcast. Like, I'm going, I'm in my bubble of thought.

But I mean a good dude whose dev grew. I'm like, wait, what? Like, we have a bond. But I'll listen to you, right? Because I know who you are. Maybe we'll build something together and serve the community of Calispell together. Like, you're not going to change my perspective, but I know who you are as a human being now. Or maybe you'll learn something. Or I'll learn something. There's something to be learned from everybody. I have, I will talk with a, a, about, politics with people, what I won't engage in a political debate or discussion. I'll ask a bunch of questions and I'll listen. And oftentimes, I do this like my dad and I.

He, I would say he trends more to the left and he'll be the first to tell. He's like, I don't actually recognize the Democratic Party. Some really weird shit has happened. It seems like the left became right and the right became left. And even that, we disagree on a bunch of stuff. Yeah. And we can have like a full, like sweeping conversation over a coffee or dinner. He drinks hot chocolate with his.

stage two diabetes that he thinks he has. He clearly doesn't even understand. Yeah, he told me he got a stage two diabetes diagnosis. I'm like, I've got diabetes one, two, and three. And I said, do you mean type two? And then I had to call my sister, who's a nurse practitioner. And she said he barely met the metric for being pre-diabetic on blood work. He said, I have terminal diabetes.

We, back and forth. And I don't love the guy any less. And there are so many times where it's like where two of those little marbles bouncing against each other, but not in a destructive way. It's just our ideology may not align. And that's okay, right? Cool. That's what makes us, I mean, that's what makes us so great as Americans.

I mean, it is our differences that can actually bear our strength. But we have this common foundation of values that there's so much more that unites us and divides us. People have forgotten what it means to be Americans. You know, we always talk about these six core values that we really, I mean, think that American needs right now to come together. Service, virtue, mercy, humility, courage, hope. These are things that we all can come around. There's a lot that unites us, man.

But we've forgotten that. So people just need to be reminded. They need to see that you don't have to hate that other person because of the political party they're affiliated with. Since when does that become our identity? Yeah. You know, we're not an R or a D. We're an A.

We're Americans. Yeah. Right? And when we come together and we can begin to see that, we're going to be so much stronger. We can take on it. America, I mean, the world right now, I believe, needs the idea of America more than ever. I agree. And it needs our leadership.

But we are so busy navel-gazing right now and tearing each other apart. We can't get out of our own way. I plan to use that phrase probably daily now, because I don't know if I've ever used it, but naval gazing seems to me to be something that's appropriate once a day. I'm going to start using, you're pissing the pool, but I'm pissing in it too, but I'm standing it. Well, that was a gold star analogy, man, right? Like, I ask people this when they get really, I ask them about, there are some people who are really open. Like, if you're a Republican or Democrat, and you're on the other side, it's fuck you. Like, you're a bad person. And I always say,

have you ever been a first responder to an accident? You ever come up on a car wreck? Right. And somebody needs help. Most people have, in some degree. And I asked them, did you ever stop and look at the back to see what kind of bumper sticks they had. Yeah. And they say no. And I said, well, why not? And they're like, well, you know, it's, it's somebody that needs help. I'm like, you're right. It's your fellow American that needs help. And we are fucked if we ever get to the place where the first stop. What kind of American are you? Correct. We're fucked if we ever get to that spot where people would actually take the time to stop, like, oh, you have a Trump versus fill in the blank, something with a blue backing or something

with a red backing and they change their behavior. Most people, and they're ever, everyday lives, if you talk to them about encounters, they're not actually thinking politically forward. They get stuck in this place though where it's like on repeat and everything has to be viewed through that lens. We have to get out of that. Yeah. Yeah.

To be fair, like we don't, we never talk politics directly in this organization. This is a service and civic organization. The genius is, you know, behind the veteran in a city, they make the relationships with the tribe, so to speak, and the people. And then you're building something for someone else. I'm gonna know you, I hear a story.

I'm like, holy shit. And then maybe later I found out you're a what? But like I like you, dude. Like, it's, you know, we call it, you're almost from the credit. We're meagging people in a way, right? Like, well, who cares? Building relationships and trust. That's what, and serving the community.

And along the way, you're going to meet people that aren't in your bubble. And that's how we, you know, inspire kids to serve, inspire folks to get involved in their community. And it's not, you know, rocket science. Just no one does it anymore, right? It's, you know. Having said that and the fact that you guys don't address politics like that head on, I mean, I think it is important to remember. And I've said this to many times. The things that people complain about in their day-to-day lives are downstream from the votes that we have the ability to cast.

They don't want to believe that. It's easy. Oh, my vote doesn't count. There's all sorts of these ways that you become disillusioned. And we were saying that I was telling you this when we were walking over here. I don't care what people vote for, but I want them to express that right. Because the changes that I think that we need to make, they're upstream of the voting. We have to participate.

And if you don't, it's our duty. It is our duty to. And the numbers of Americans that actually vote is shameful. I mean, we could probably change it, maybe do it on a Saturday, right? Instead of a workday. Just let's start removing bullshit excuses. But you have to participate. We are going to have to.

There's no way, I don't know how many people are, you know, in totality between the White House and the Senate and the Congress. But those people work for us. Yeah, that's right. But if we don't participate, I think we kind of end up working for them. And that's not the way it's supposed to be. You nailed it. Like, we own this country.

Yeah. We the people own the country. Only if participate. We have to act. Yes. If you don't and you are allowed to absorb this message of your vote doesn't count to worry about it. You don't own it anymore.

No. Yeah, you become a victim of your life, not the author of where your country's going. That's right. And so when we talk about not being political, We don't choose a red or blue tag. What we do, though, talk about is that agency and responsibility to go out and do what you should do as an American citizen. Take on the responsibilities and the mantle that comes with that title and go make change yourself. And it's not just about voting.

It is voting. You have to vote. But beyond that, if you see a challenge in your community, don't sit and just bitch about it. Go do something about it. This is the one country in the world where you can actually do that. You can actually change the situation. I don't know if you know this, sir, but commenting on a Facebook post is brave. Hitting like?

Not as brave. Because, you know, people have to do one more click to see who liked what. But you get on there with your anonymous account and your anonymous picture and made up fucking username. Back to social media. And you make a comment, you're standing for what you believe in. And for anybody who can't figure this out, I am fucking joking. You could yell at your TV Or you can go do something

And a lot of members are like, well, what can I do? I need you have that conversation with my dad He thinks it is a two-way radio More so than a transmission device Occasionally Also, he called me over one day Because he couldn't get his TV turned on And I follow the power cable, which was not to his television

It was one of those little circular ones for a phone And he had shoved it into a screwhole And was wondering why it didn't come out Well, my headphones had to work earlier, huh? That was interesting. actually Michael, who is himself a fucking screw hole. But you can take that however you want to, Michael. With respect. I'll take it sexually. Yeah. Boy, it was intended to be sexual. But I want you to be interpretive in which direction you want to take that. Okay, cool. Yeah, yeah. I want you to have.

Very accepting. We're talking about choice. A lot of, I want you to have that choice. Real meaningful choices, Michael. I, uh, do you think, do you think we have to get to that place where we almost lose it before people pay attention? I mean, we're almost. We're almost there. We're almost there, Andy. I mean, you got to quantify, right? Because we don't know the road ahead of us and like what it would actually take. But like, do we need something? We don't know what truth is. Yeah. Our elections are like, are they, some people question whether they're real or solid. Like that's, those are the first major cracks. Is there, can you trust the election? Can you trust what's true and what news out do we watch? I mean, that's how some third world country shit works, right? Like we're there, you know? We've seen how this plays out. All three of us have. Yeah. You know, we know what happens on the other side. I just wonder what the tipping point is to inspire the average person. I don't know what that is. Is it small pockets of violence where people are absolutely forced to look at this and say, holy shit?

I was not complicit, but I didn't get involved. And now I have, is that what it takes? I don't want to see that, but I wonder, right? Like you're in a tunnel and nobody really, like, how far is the end of this thing before we get to a point of no return? Some people thought, I mean, look, a 9-11 style event. I mean, one of the most United Times we ever had.

9-12. Yep. Was the day after 9-11. I mean, it was unbelievable across the country. I never, ever want to see something like that happen in this country again. A lot of people thought COVID would be the United moment, but it ended up being extraordinarily. Didn't call that one. Well, if people were thinking about, because I'm not an expert, but I think it went the opposite.

So it's like, you know, to your point, what is it going to take? I, you know, outside of a violent large-scale event, which I really pray does not happen. Same. There, I believe, in the opposite power, too. Like, I believe if average everyday American citizen, you know, can see that they can do something that creates, like, positive change. Like, I'll speak for myself. Like I'm a knucklehead, grew up a farm in West Virginia, became a Marine, right? I've been able to, look, I'm my, I am always the dumbest guy in the room when I'm around my team and everybody else. However, I've been able to have a little bit of an impact, right? And I'm just one person, you know, and if I can make a difference like this, anybody can. Anybody can make that change.

And I think when people see that, that creates something that I think is more powerful than anything in this world, which is hope. If you can have hope, Americans have lost hope, man. I talked to so many Americans. Yeah, you're right. Not all of them. But so many Americans that I talk to have lost hope. They've lost that. And if we can regain that,

if people can see the path forward and they can see that hope, I think that can turn the tide. I think that could be the tipping point. But we need that to happen in small towns and cities all over the country. And we need to find common points to come together to be able to create those sparks of hope.

If we don't, then we're left to the violence of these idiots. who are leading us down the wrong trail, like the Pied Piper. Yeah. Gentlemen, we've been out of over two hours. I've got to bounce out of here at five. Wow.

Wow. There you go. Well, no, it's good. I don't want to stop yet. I want you guys to close on, though, where can people get involved? How can they get involved? I think a lot of people are very willing to take action. Their question is, what can I do? And I don't even want to phrase it under what should I do because I don't want to be

directive. I'd rather just give people options. Yeah. I have a couple ideas and then Garrett, love you jump in. I think, number one, do something. Like doing nothing is not an option, right? So if we're laying out the suite of options, number one, do something. I think there's a lot of things you can do.

Number one, a very simple thing. Don't just, to your point, go on social media and hit the like button. Or like make a funny comment or an encouraging comment. You know, things like this coffee and courage challenge require actual action with real people. If you want to do something, go take that action. It does honestly take courage. You know, you kind of got to do something you're not used to doing. Go find somebody who's different than you and just have a cup of coffee.

It's not that big of a deal, but you got to do it, right? That's like an entry point that you can do. There's other ways you can get plugged into what we're doing to. You can sign up to be a brickyard leader, you know, to get trained to actually build out a chapter where you live, to start doing service projects and bringing people together to do real stuff in the community for others. But outside a more perfect union of what we're doing, there's lots of other good organizations out there too that you can get involved in. Find out what your passion is and then go out there. Look, a lot of us are just working three jobs to pay the bills.

But find that thing that you can be passionate about and in line with service, serving other people, whatever that is. you know, making meals for people on the weekends, you know, going out and volunteering with your church, whatever it might be, just do something. On the other end of that, there are some people in this world who have been blessed with a lot of wealth, you know, and a lot of capital, find good organizations to get behind that are doing good things, that's measurable, that's creating change in the country, and get behind them in a real meaningful way. There's other folks out there that, I mean, I know I just told you, like folks like you that should run for office,

But I'm not kidding. I'm not telling you too. But I'm saying people who have served and who are servant leaders who understand the cost of freedom, we need people running for office. And it sucks. It's awful. But we need folks running for city council. We need folks running for president who are not career politicians. If we want to steer this country in a different way at the top, we've got to get different types of blood in who are running for office. And that doesn't matter what ethnicity, socioeconomic status, it doesn't matter where you come from.

but just have that servant leader heart and understand the values that can bring us together and run for something. Those are a couple ideas that I had of ways people can get involved, but do something. Yeah, I mean, I saw,

something to say, a lot of just get off the couch, dude, right? Like, get off the keyboard. Do something in your life in the community. And that could be, look, I love if you joined MPU, www.m.us.

But it could be, you could go coach a little league baseball team, join the PTA, go to the VFW and talk to those guys. But you got to meet people. It's the self-isolation. and I'm going further down the silo, what my album tells me to believe,

where my news station tells me to believe, and I'm yelling at the TV instead of doing something positive, right? That could be volunteering at a nature park picking up trash, and that sounds kind of hokey and Kuma'i and Hippi-Dippy. But you guys know us, when you serve a cause greater than yourself, it's great for you. It's also great for the community, too.

And you're going to meet people, and I believe with all my heart, there's more of us that have so much in common that don't hate each other, the middle 75%, but we never interact. It's not all the news. It's not, you know, it's not sexy to be friends with someone and there's no drama, right? So it's not social media.

It's not a white hot meme. It's not like on one of the news stations of crazy stuff happening. But we can make it newsworthy, right? I mean, we're here because of a slow degradation, you know, the frog in the boiling water. Like it got worse and worse and worse. We can reverse it that way too, right? It's not going to be an overnight dramatic tomorrow morning. We were on this podcast and we saved America.

But like, as some people... I mean, let's not say that that didn't happen. It's some awesome. Awesome folks. Like, hey, you know what? I am going to get involved. I'm going to do some shit. I'm going to join whatever.

It's nice at Columbus. Boy, Scott. I mean, choose the group. It could be anything. But doing something for someone else alongside other people in real life and building relationships and trust, that's where it's at, right? I mean, I firmly believe that. And we all love this country.

A lot of people that never sometimes would love this country, too, by the way. Right? And so this is a platform for them. And so that I've been so moved by just civic leaders, regular citizens who are like, can I help you? I'm like, you know you don't get paid, right? Like, yeah, I'm just happy that there's a platform for me to do something. And I get to keep trained and I get to work alongside other awesome people.

So this wasn't designed to be a leadership development organization, but people are becoming incredibly good leaders by working alongside. And four great leaders. We got some great trainers that we, you know, people that come and speak to our folks that are, I mean, off the charts, right? I don't want a name job, but like it's some big dudes, right? Anyway, I'm rambling, but sign up today. No, it's good.

I think one of the best things that could happen for human. is social media platforms, for whatever reason, stop working. And it would be chaos for about a week. And then our society would be exponentially better in about 30 days. What if you could put on social media cool shit, right? Like you guys, or somebody drink coffee talking about how they're friends. No, sir. No.

It'll be weaponized in some way. First, we have to go cold turkey. I forgot one of the other requirements that I had for changing the government. This one's slightly more controversial. Maximum age between the two final candidates is 100 years. because the 100 and fucking 53 that we had until recently unacceptable. So constitutionally is 35. What's the math work?

I mean, you have a sweet window. You could 35. So it'd be 70 if they're, but I'm not saying you couldn't have a 70. Well, fuck, I guess. Yeah, you could. Listen, fine. We'll change the Constitution.

No, okay, keep it the way it is. You need to have some life experience. So that would mean like 65 years old, be the maximum age for one candidate if they were up against somebody who is at 35. We need the vitality. We need the different perspective. And again, I'm spitballing this, right? I'm not saying we should vote on this shit right now.

I'm just saying, like, maybe. Maybe you would work. So what you're saying is you're running tomorrow. You've heard it here first. Oh, sorry. We're making news right now. No, I'm not running here first at all. Hey, let me say one more thing, though, about what people can do.

I love it and appreciate it. Until social media burns down, we have that week of solace. Let's use these voices. So there's people who have platforms and influence, you know, like yourself. You're out here, you know, having conversations with us and other people trying to do good in the world. Influencers, people who have that platform, I'm a big believer for those who have been given much, much is required, right?

So use your voice for good. Don't use it for, like you are, this conversation we're having today. Don't use it for divisiveness and fear and tearing people apart. There's already enough of that. Yeah. There's very too much of that. Yeah. So let's call on these people who have that power and influence, you know, to actually use that voice.

Because people will listen. Yeah. If people will listen, you can do a lot of good in the world. And so there's those who have that platform. I just encourage them to use it. That is a perfect ending. Gentlemen, thank you for your time. Thank you, brother.

Yeah, of course. Appreciate it.