Jocko Podcast - 322: Sometimes the Mission Chooses You. With Tony Cowden.

Episode Date: February 23, 2022

0:00:00 - Opening0:03:28 - Tony Cowden4:14:38 - How to stay on THE PATH.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 322 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink. Good evening, Echo. Find a new mission. That right there is some advice that I have given a bunch of guys, a bunch of veterans over the last decade. Because when you leave the military, that mission that you've been on, this honorable mission, all of a sudden overnight, it's going. gone and that's going to leave a hole and the longer you serve the bigger that hole is going to be and for some of us if the only thing you ever really wanted to do was serve and execute that mission it can be a rough transition especially after you spend 20 plus years with the

opportunity to do what you always wanted to do, to wear the cloth of the nation, to take the fight to the enemy. And it's an honor to have had the opportunity to do that, to work with a bunch of other people that are also dedicated to one thing in life, and that is executing the mission. So once that's gone, like I said, it can be a rough transition and you have to find a new mission and some veterans going to business some of them focus on their family some of them start nonprofits those are the positive things you can do some serving other ways and some just seem to keep going and keep getting after it and keep moving forward with new missions and we're lucky enough to have people like that in our country and

I know one in particular that served in special forces as Green Beret fought in Afghanistan and Iraq, served as a contractor, supporting the State Department, supporting the CIA, spent almost nine years all told in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria, and in a bunch of places all over the world as well. But that wasn't enough. needed more missions. This guy is also a businessman. A crossfit gym, a giant

crossfit gym, has a firearms range and a tactical training company. And he's competed in crossfit and weightlifting and Iron Man and Ultra Running and he's coached athletes from CrossFit and Strongman and triathlons. And on top

of all that, in December of 2021, just a few months ago, He volunteered once again with a new mission to represent the people of North Carolina by running as an elected member of Congress. This man's name is Tony Cowden, and it's an honor to have him here with us tonight to share some of his experiences and the lessons that he's learned along the way. Tony, thanks for coming by. Thanks for having me. What's up with that bio?

Take it easy, man. You know, people always say, they're like, hey, man, I know you're busy. You know, yeah, I'm busy. I'm always busy. I don't take naps. I'm freaking, I'm busy. You know, I got stuff to do. And when I don't have things to do, I find things to do.

You know, the old thing, like, if you ain't got anything to do, clean something. I'm probably not that good at that if you ever see any of my guns. That's not what I'm known for. But yeah, man, one thing after another, and you hit it on that intro, how many of our brothers in arms got out and that whole consumed them. You know, they didn't find purpose. Everybody wants to know, why is suicide so bad, you know, amongst veterans, and across the United States in general.

Purpose. People with purpose don't commit suicide, you know. And when guys get out of the military, Like you said, especially after feeling used and abused in the 20-some-year-s war now, where even the war itself, guys started questioning the purpose. What was the purpose? And at this point, we certainly don't know. But, yeah, man, without purpose, you know, guys start drinking.

It's a depressant. It's poison. You know, they don't stop training because, you know, like me, I've always liked to train by myself. You know, I've only had one training partner in my entire life. It's my girlfriend, Melissa. She's the only dude I know that can keep up. No, I'm kidding. I actually try to keep up with her.

But I was just that guy that went to the gym by myself. It was my time. I went to run by myself. I went by myself. I swam by myself. Not that's safe or anything, but whatever. But you know those guys on the teams that go to the gym with their buddies. You know, they got their little click,

a little two and three-man team that goes to the gym. You know, when those guys are, service they stop working out you know they lose their physical fitness they drink maybe they got hurt and the VA put them on an opioid you know the story you know and they don't have purpose and it breaks my heart so many Americans not just veterans right because you know throughout the gym and everything like that grew so many civilian friends or whatever and I don't use that term you know negatively in any way some of my best friends are regular people.

Some of the best friends are civilians. Some of the best friends are regular people, right? And a lot of times you know the deal. We used to, we would use that terminology like when on the teams and stuff like regular people. Like it was, we kind of looked at them out of the corner of eye. Not down at them, but, you know, we recognize that, you know, we've got this little team and we really think we're the most awesome ever, you know, like the old joke. You know, you want to know who the best is in special forces or special operations.

Ask any unit. They'll tell you, right? Ask a seal. best. As a Ranger, they're the best, you know, all with very different missions. But yeah, man, Americans in general, especially after this whole pandemic, Friedering. They're wild. No, people are losing that purpose and we're losing that pride in our nation. And, you know, now with all the containment and the mass and the mandates and stuff, man, suicide, mental health is, man, it's scary. It's of despair. It's been a nightmare. Um, let's get in all that. Let's get in

all that in a little bit, but let's start off just to get to know you a little bit. Let's start at the beginning. A little white trash redneck kid from very rural North Carolina. You know, and I, that's definitely in terms of endearment. My dad, 82nd Airborne guy. Oh, dear. I'm married, dude. I want a weekend leave from Fayetteville, Fort Bragg in Wilmington. Met my mom. Is that a little festival weekend. That's a big thing in Wilmington. and tell you a festival. And apparently he had head over hills in love with my mom, right? And, you know, freaking, they got married, he got out of the army, moved back to where he was from up in Indiana.

She was from Pamico County, North Carolina. And we always use, we have to use the county as a marker because there's no town in Pamlico County that anyone would even have heard of unless you actually lived or visited there often, right? So nearest towns like Newburn. So it's very rural. One of the biggest counties in North Carolina, smallest populations. So anyway, they went up to Indiana. Are you born yet at this point? Not yet.

My older sister is about to be on her way. And he took a job with one of the companies who made parts for General Motors, right? All that area up there, Indianapolis, Detroit, everything. It's all General Motors, Ford, so on and so forth. And after three or four years of being up there, he did a couple other things. He got like his pilot's license and, um, Which apparently back then you didn't actually have to have. They were dudes flying airplanes while drinking liquor and stuff.

The stories that they used to tell us, right? They were flying these little super cubs and Piper Cubs around. And he was talking about shooting, you know, doing aerial, you know, shooting foxes and stuff. I'm like, these crazy suckers were doing aerial sniper shit with freaking hunting rifles and shotguns. You know, he's like, yeah, you know, those little super cubs will fly so slow that you could shoot, you know, coyotes and foxes and deal with a shotgun. And I'm like, all while drinking, he's like, yeah. You know, I was like, man, you guys were nuts.

So I joke that, you know, when we're all out, you know, thinking we're cool shooting out of a helicopter, a bunch of redneck dudes been doing it for a long time. But, yeah, so, you know, man, some affirmative action policies. My dad got pushed over for some promotions over those years. And, like, he should have been in a supervisory role. he was like, you know, people are getting promoted that have less time or less qualification. He got disgruntled with the whole manufacturing world. I wouldn't even call it corporate per se, manufacturing, you know.

And it's like, all right, well, they moved back down to Carolina where my mother was from. And he took a job with a seafood company. It's right on the Pamlico Sound. So, docks, food and seafood would come off the boats there. They package, process it, sent it at the restaurants. A few years later, he bawled that company. So at this point, my older sister's born. I was born in this little time frame there.

And, you know, by like, so I was born in 76, so by 82, the business is doing good, you know. So, and I'm old enough to be aware of it. And, you know, I've got an older sister and a younger sister. So when my dad needed help, guess, guess who the laborer was, you know. So, you know, but I'll tell you, my dad, you know, my dad wasn't like, you know, by today's parenting standards, my dad was a horrible father. Right? Like, he wasn't that nice to me.

He wasn't the lovey w-d-be, you know, hugs and kisses type. But he wasn't abusive either, right? Like, you know, I'd get a spanking if I deserved it. And looking back, I probably deserved everyone plus a few I didn't get. But, you know, he wasn't a very good teacher, right? He was the type of guy, like, by today's standards, like, he was just, he did it all wrong. But, you know, my older son. sister's a world-renowned pediatric endocrinologist.

If you Google her name, you know, pretty amazing woman out of one of the most rural underfunded school systems in America. My younger sister's a successful social worker in Raleigh, she helps a lot of people who does some amazing things. Of the three of us, she's the most left. I don't know that she would even vote for me. My older sister, she's in the moderate. sister's that you know that that mother in America that was in the middle and kind of got

pushed into the left over the last you know four or five years but she's she's that person I talk about we need to win them back you know she's conservative she was raised conservative hell she grew up shooting hunting and everything I did but anyway my um my dad was that guy it was like hey look you need to do this and you need to do this and you better have this done before I get home. I'd be like, Dad, I don't know how to do that stuff, figure it out. And at the time, I thought he was just an asshole. You know, I just thought he wouldn't, didn't like me.

I don't know. My dad's mean to me, blah, blah, whatever. Actually, I probably wasn't even aware. It's just how it was. Because most of the fathers in my neighborhood were very similar. And I grew up in one of the neighborhoods. Like, if you were caught misbehaving down the street, you might get a spanking from the neighbor, right? Like, they were all family.

We all went to church together, you know. And then you get another one when dad got home. But looking back, man, he taught me so much. He taught me to figure it out. And come to find out, that was the whole point. He didn't care if I completed it, you know, at 100%, you know, awesomeness or whatever. You know, he just wanted me to try. And it's not like these days, man, someone gives you a task like, I'll just YouTube it.

You know, it's right here, in here. I'll just watch a video step by step. It'll be easy, you know. And we didn't have that growing up. right so no you just had an extension cord and the end of freaking skill saw right luck boy you know the fact that i still have all my fingers and toes because he let me handle tools that i so my employees slash interns at the range with the company man i i they have like training programs you have to go through they can't just pick up one of my chainsaws right you can chop your leg off with

a chainsaw like that circular saws right my dad was like yeah man just get it done welding. I learned to weld because if I broke something, I better have it fixed before you got home. It looked like a big pile of chewed bubble gum, but, you know, as long as it would hold the goal. It's going to hold. So that was kind of my childhood, man. And it was so many lessons learned.

I watched my dad build this business from nothing to, you know, took us to, you know, comfortable. I wouldn't say upper middle class, but, you know, slightly above average middle class, you know, especially for rural North Carolina. Cost of living is not huge. And he at Balsam property developed a piece of property into a subdivision on the water down there. One of the really first subdivisions in that era in Pamlico County when there was a lot of resistance for change, right?

People don't, ooh, we don't want them Yankees coming down here buying up our, you know, riverfront property, right? And so he got a lot of pushback. And I remember, That was probably my first exposure. He would come home from a county commissioners meeting. And these are all people we know, right? There's 12,500 people in Panlako County and has been for like 80 years.

Right? Like the population doesn't change because the exact same amount of people that move there or are born there, die or leave. Yeah. So yeah, man. It was really cool. That's when I learned to run like large machinery. At 12, 13 years old, my dad had me running a D6 bulldozer. Like what?

When we were putting the culverts in for the road, right? We built the roads in this place. You're laying layers and layers of gravel. So you bought a D3, a D6, an excavator, a backhoe, all this stuff. I can't even reach the pedals on these pieces of equipment. I'm out there running them without a lot of instruction, you know, or any instruction just go. And I'll never forget, you know, putting the big concrete tiles into the ditches for the road. I'm on the backhoe

steering these things in and he's in that ditch. You're talking thousand pound concrete tiles if I make a mistake, I would have killed him. Looking back, I would have never trusted me. I wouldn't have gotten that ditch, but he did. And I was like, wow, you know, either A, my dad was a complete psychopath, right?

Which, you know, he's one of those guys like mission, man, we will get it done. Being in the rain in the military, not a big deal because my dad was like, there was that local little restaurant in town where everybody ate breakfast, all the men, you know, and it'd be raining. And they're like, all right, we got to go. And they're like, y'all working in the rain of day is like, I don't get to choose the weather. That was his attitude, man.

He was just a tough mofo, man, just hard hours upon hours of work, you know. And I like to say I'm a decent balance between him and my mother, who was, you know, the more gentle. I mean, she wasn't a puss by any of me. Right? Like she didn't put up with none of my BS. I probably got more spankans from her and ever did him, right? You know, but like, you know, little pops on the on the ass or whatever. You got more quality from the old man, but more quantity from my life. You know, and some people would say that, you know, I was mama's baby boy, right? I was the only boy. I was that was different. And, you know, my older sister, man, she's like, she's like a T-1,000. She's the first version of the Terminator, dude. She is like, when people meet her, they're like, whoa, dude, I thought you were. intense. My older sister's a machine. I say there's probably like five or six people on this planet I'm afraid of. She's one up with them. You know what I mean? Like there's a handful of guys. We're all, you know, pretty tough dudes, right? You know, can hold our own and all that kind of stuff. But there's all of us have that handful of guys that you're like, yeah, that guy's kind of scary.

One of those guys for me is my older sister. And I'm not kidding, right? Like she's just, man, She is what she is, and successful because of it. But yeah, man, you know, watching my dad build those businesses, develop that piece of property, really set that foundation. And, you know, since I was involved in so much of it, because he didn't have labor, you know, he didn't have help, so I had to be there. You know, I didn't get to play sports in school like I wanted to

because he needed help. And looking back in a lot of ways, those lessons just continue to carry over, whether, you know, like, heck, when we were in Afghanistan or right before we were going into Afghanistan, and we were at the FOB, you need equipment, moved around. Yeah, I knew how to run forklifts. How do you think we moved pilots around

in that seafood house? Forklifts, you know, even that big, crazy machine that grabs the connexes, I went and jacked one of those from the Air Force one time, and we just went to moving around the entire lot, you know, all the connexes, you know. I was like, hey, go get that

and bring it over here next to our tent so we can pack out, get ready to infill. Well, I could do all of that. When we got in Afghanistan, you know, I knew how to, the little local tractor that the fellow had, you know, we needed it to move some stuff around with time. I was like, yeah, you know, I can run that. So that foundation was huge. But more than any of the actual stuff that I did or learned, what he taught me was that I can do anything,

if you put your mind to it. It's just like selection. I don't remember selection being that difficult. You know, it was just like I had this mission, and it just had to be done. I mean, you know, he couldn't really afford all three of us going to college. You know, he was struggling a little bit. My mother died when I was 16. I was, after that, I went, I went to misbehaving. How'd your mother die? Cancer.

Yeah, four-year bout with it, man. And ultimately, it wasn't really the cancer that killed her. It was a surgery, complications from a surgery. So it's kind of heartbreaking. Like, yeah, she had been fighting it or whatever, really, you know, the struggle back then was chemo, which it still is, but, you know, you're talking in the early. 90s, man, freaking chemo was rough. And so I learned a lot from watching her deal with it, man.

She would get up and walk and exercise and work in the yard and mow the yard, you know, while having to stop and throw up from chemo. Yeah. So one of the toughest people I ever grew up with was my mother. And yeah, so after she passed, man, you know, I started being that bad kid, you know, and, you know, smoking weed, wound up doing a little blow, whatever, freaking. Got in trouble, you know. Who did you get in trouble with, like, school?

Yeah, you know, school, the law. Yeah, I got arrested, man, freaking. Luckily, you know, it was all just minor dumb stuff, right? It was not like I was, you know, dealing anything or stuff like that. I wasn't, you know, making money off. I was just partying, you know, just doing dumb redneck stuff, you know, like hunting club roads, you know, you don't want to get on the road. You get a DWI, but we can ride around these hunting club dirt roads. redneck stuff, man. You know, drink beer and, you know, and, you know, do all the dumb stuff we were doing.

And that was when you were still in high school? Yeah. So, yeah, my senior year in high school, you know, just being bad. And, but I was still making good enough grades. Excuse me. You know, I was, you know, just, you know the deal, man. Just how, like everyone in soft, we're all pretty smart dudes. We can get bees without really trying any course we go to, you know. most of us are B students in every course And of course there's always that one nerd over there To get honored, you know And whatever

Make fun of that guy What a nerd Yeah, I wasn't the nerd I was a misbehaved kid Just being a jackass for people And you didn't play any sports Because you were working too much Well I did play a little bit

But like withdrew from the team And senior year stuff like that Just because yeah man He needed help afterward And So what you do after high school? Yeah, man. So, you know, also our, man, we were the smallest school system, and right next door to us was like West Craven.

You know, that's a school that's producing, you know, pro football players, you know, D.H. Conley over in Greenville, ECU. Big schools, man. And we're like, they're like, we'll let Pamlico play us. And they would just destroy us. You know, they had like defense and offense and special teams. We had a football team. You didn't leave the field, man. There was times we went to football games.

We didn't have enough dudes. You know, it was like, we'll play. And, you know, so after, you know, a couple years of that, man, I wasn't even really interested. You know, it was like, what's the point? You know, the average dude on our team, you know, we had that one 220-pound guy where you go to West Grave and their entire lineups, 200 plus pounds.

Like, we would just, they would mop the floor with us. So I lost interest in that and just started working more and partying more. And, yeah, man, so good enough grades to get into NC State. I look back and I'm like, I still don't know how, they let me in. You know, not good enough grades of getting any kind of scholarship. So, you know, after the second year,

my younger sister's only a year behind me. My older sister is four years ahead of me. She's entering medical school. Where'd she go to school? She went to medical school at ECU. Where'd you go to undergrad? At UNC Chapel Hill. Yeah.

So, you know, dad's paying out of pocket. Plus, he's still very much, you know, dealing with the death of my mom, man. He had a really hard time, man, freaking, you know, I watched him lose a lot of weight, you know, he didn't talk to people. He kept working, you know, and he worked more, which was already darned and impossible. And, you know, being a young, dumb punk kid, I couldn't recognize it because I'm selfish like kids are. And looking back, I was like, man, I could have been a better kid. I could have been a better son to him. But, I mean, we were kids. We were young. And looking back, man, my mom taught me the number one best

lesson in my entire life, and that is everyone you know is going to die. Right? So as we entered that war, I had already lost, and I try not to use that terminology, one of the people that was closest to me in my life. And so that set me up for being able to deal with how many of our brothers got killed, close friends and so on and so forth, you know, our partner forces. I don't think guys always realize how tight we get with those partner forces. I got some of my best friends on this planet are Muslims.

People don't always understand that, you know, especially in Iraq where I worked with the Kurds for years, the same team of dudes for seven, eight years. And so anyway, her passing taught me to appreciate why you have them. And that's why I don't use that terminology. You lost them. I didn't lose my mother. I can go show you right now where she rests. I know exactly where she's at.

So I didn't lose them. It was a gain, right? If someone in your life is so tight with you that when they die, it breaks your heart, right? You didn't lose anything. You gained something in life. Because if when we understand that everyone we know in love, they're going to die. When you start thinking like that, you start appreciating them every day. day, you know.

So I can say, man, my mom told me the best lesson that I've ever had. And it set me up for success in the war. And don't get me wrong. It doesn't mean like I'm somehow callous or, you know, immune to feeling sad and upset, you know, there's still those anniversaries. There's just thoughts, you know, there's memories that pop back up to make us all upset, you know, and tear up and, you know, and so on and so forth. But, yeah, man, freaking, without her death, I don't know that.

But now today, I would be as healthy mentally as I am. You know, it just laid that foundation. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I tell people that all the time, and I have throughout, you know, once I realized that, and I'll tell you, it really, probably number one thing that really woke me up, 2013 in April, 2013, my best friend was KIA, guy named Ben Bittner. Ben was better than everyone else.

He was that cocky little, little, that guy, you know, who everything you do. He could back it up, too. He was just better than everybody else. He wasn't huge or Jack, but he was strong and fast. And so anyway, man, I got that phone call. And me and Melissa hadn't been dating very long. We were driving up 540. It was kind of early on a Sunday morning.

I got a phone call. I was like, who's this? You know, hey, bro, Ben Ben, Ben here. K. Okay. Shit. Dude. Pulled off the side.

I started row and threw up. Because the one dude I thought that was truly immortal, right, just got suckered by the enemy in a baited ambush, right? And if had not been, I mean, shoot, that's 13, man. We're 12 years into the war. It already got plenty of memorial braces, you know. But for something about when Ben died, it was like, holy crap, we're not immortal. You know, I'd been injured, blown up.

You know how it is. As a young little trooper sometimes, right, those close calls. they make you more arrogant and cocky, right? You know, you start thinking that you can get away with more and more, and that's probably where I was in 13. When I got blown up in 2009, like, after my recovery, I went back meaner, more aggressive, you know, probably taking risks that I shouldn't have, you know, looking back,

taking risk with my teams and my partner forces lives just because I was emotionally wanting, some retribution. You know, they had killed some of my teammates and damn near killed me and then Ben died. I was like, holy shit. But like I said, without my mom's death, I don't know that I would have dealt with any of it very well. So yeah, man. NC State, I like to say that I was enrolled at NC State.

So your participation level was low? Well, you know, there's Pamlico County and there's like, you know, I graduate in class like 104 people. So let's say there was, you know, 55, 60 girls in that class, right? And then I get the NC State. There's girls everywhere. They were everywhere. I was like, holy crap, man. There's like thousands of them.

And, yes, I was distracted to say the least. And, you know, I quickly found out that classrooms where you have to be quiet and pay attention to a professor and is not the best place to talk to these girls. So why would I waste my time going to those classes? And so anyway, freaking partying, wasting money, you know, that we didn't have. And my sister's in med school. Now my younger sister's going to school.

She was going down at UNC Wilmington. And, you know, it was clear, you know, that I was wasting money. I didn't have it. My dad didn't have it. So I withdrew. Join the Army, you know. Was that your first time thinking about joining the Army? Absolutely not.

I didn't want to go to college. Right. And, you know, our generation, we have to blame our parents for everything. So my dad let me watch Rambo First Blood when I was nine or 10 years old. Done deal. Those Green Berets, they're real badasses. You know, it says it right in that movie. And, you know, so from there on, you know, like, let's face it, right?

Like some guys watch, you know, something that's got seals in and they're like, oh, yeah. Or some guys will watch, you know, the recon movie with Clint Eastwood. And you're impressed at a young point. Well, mine was Rambo First Blood, man, freaking that, you know, run. around above the snow line and the rats in the caves. I was like, yeah, I was already playing in the woods all the time anyway. And I love to hunt. No, I just, man.

So from there on out, yeah, I just, man, I want one of those funny green hats. Which looking back, I'm like, damn, that hat sucks. It's made out of wool. It's hot as hell, right? Like, you want me to wear this wool hat in Fayetteville, you know, 100 plus degrees in the summertime, the Sanhills in North Carolina? Right? Like, this hat's dumb.

There's no bill. It doesn't keep the sun out of your face. There's just not like a boonie cap. There's no ballistic protection. Why do we even wear this dumb hat? Right? Anyway. But yeah, that's what I wanted.

And it didn't help. I met a fellow named Jason McKenzie at NC State, and he was going green to gold. And he started telling me about... Was he a former greenberg? Yeah, he was a G.B. at the time. And he was getting his commission. And he went on to get his commission,

go back to the 18 Alpha course, and he went over to the unit, freaking stud. He was a stud. Real smart. dude. It still is. And, yeah, man, I was like, started talking to him. He was like, hey, look, bro, I get in. College sucks.

Let me tell you about this really cool secret. It's a card that's called the National Guard Special Forces groups. And I was like, what? How is that even possible, right? How can you have a reserve special operations? We'll come to find out. Most all of us have that. And he's like, it is the coolest, most least known way to get into special forces.

So I'm like, what do you mean? You know, where do I sign up? And he's like, yeah, man. So basically you go in and it's just like an active duty group. I mean, they just, you know, less bullshit. And that's really what it almost comes down to is like the guard gets on orders. It's not like they're doing, you know, one week in a month, two weeks a year type of thing. You know, they're doing weeks of training at a time.

If when they deploy, it's, you know, months of workup, PMT, just like the group. They have to check all the same boxes just in a lot less time. And I'm like, okay. Yeah, he's like, how's it work? He's like, well, you know, he's got me all hooked up with 19th group, the guys up in West Virginia. I had to get a waiver for my misbehaviors and arrests, right? I remember. What year is this?

So this is 97. Was it hard getting waivers? It wasn't. Were you a minor when you got arrested? No. Yes. Yes and no. Both.

Okay. I had just turned 18 with one of the arrests. I was still a senior in high school. But everything else was before that. No, man, freaking... So I go and talk to these guys, and Colonel Hoyer was the battalion for the second battalion of 19 Special Forces Group.

And he moved on to become like the general, the tag of West Virginia. Really smart man, really smart guy. And not a very imposing figure. You know, just in... average looking guy, a guy that could throw a suit on and disappear, you know, not the jack tattoo guys. Of course, tattoos on the sleeves and all that weren't quite populated time. And I remember walking in and thinking, this is a special force of this colonel. I was expecting, you know,

like John James Rambo. The Colonel, Colonel Chopman from Lambo, right? This dude's supposed to scare the shit out of me. Very unassuming, which come to find out later, yeah, those are the dudes that are really the scary guys anyway. Well, anyway, Colonel Hoyer was like, yeah, so you need a waiver. you're going to do this anymore? And I'm like, no, sir, done with that. That was, you know, three years ago, I'm good. Okay. Boom.

That easy, you know? And had he, in his assessment, I mean, for whatever reason, you know, because I know him to have turned down similar cases. But, man, there was no interview, nothing. He just took me on a very first impression basis. And I was just a dumb kid. I didn't know. I'm like, scared to death of all these GBs, you know.

I'm like, you know, I'm trying to join this very exclusive club. And I don't know what to say. I don't know how to act. So nothing I would have done would have been right anyway. But, yeah, he gave me the waivers. I withdrew from school on a Tuesday morning. You know, Raleigh to Pamika County to the house. It was about two hours.

I went home. My dad was at home. I was like, yeah, changed into some PTs and went for a run. Sure enough, met him on the road. He, like, hits the brakes. He's like, what the, are you doing? Why are you home? You're supposed to be in college.

boy, what's wrong with you? And he knew at this point, like, oh, something's up, right? Like, this ain't right. You know, great, he's probably in trouble again. That was probably his first impression. I'm like, I'll run to the house out. I'll meet you there. He probably would have pulled over to the side of the road and got out,

and we would have had that discussion on the side of the road. But my stepmother, he, luckily for my dad, man, he met an amazing woman after my mom died, who became one of my very best friends, sad stuff. story. She died of cancer too. Yeah, my dad, man, God bless his heart. So my stepmom's with him. And I remember she kind of like patted him on the shoulder and was like, let him come home and talk to us, you know, because my dad wasn't a little dude either, right? Like he's, you know, about my size now, right? I was always smaller than him until I finally started lifting some weights. I was actually

way more of a runner dude early on. I was like, buck 70, you know, I could run. I had no real weight on me, you know, but he was like two, two, ten, you know. He's a strong dude, a worker guy, right? He boxed. He boxed on the 18th Airborne court. The few times we did scuff it up a little bit, yeah, he just wiped me up, right? I just covered up. And, you know, like I said, anyway, man, freaking, yeah.

So I go to the house and I tell him he's just shaking his head, but it's like he understood. You know, he understood. He knew, I mean, of course, I'm in a son. He knew me. I'm his. He joined the 82nd Airborne, since the second. reason I wanted to go. So, yeah, man.

A few weeks later, I was in basic training. That quick, huh? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was like two and a half months from the time I signed up. I was already in basic training because back then, you know, late 90s, recruitment was at a pretty low there, the Clinton administration. They had routed the military and cut so much funding. But trying to get guys to sign up for combat arms, you know, the recruiter would be like,

heck yeah, sign him right up. Come on in here, you know. So, yeah, I did that. How was boot camp? I was in such good shape that it was like easy. I think it had gotten worse shape when I got there. I was already getting like a 340 on the Army's PT test. Right.

And a lot of it was, you know, I could max a push up and sit-ups, but my runtime was like I was running like 11 flat, two miles. Just a little runner, runner dude, right? And skinny. God bless my heart. I look back at some of them pictures, man. I'm like, wow. Wow, boy, you needed to eat.

Did you never ran like competitively? No. In high school or anything? No. No. I didn't start running. I joined the ROTC at NC State because, you know, okay, maybe I want to join Army, but, you know, maybe I'll be an officer. Yeah. You know, that didn't really play out that way. But that was the first time I started doing PT and running. And I think, like, my first PT test, I must have run like a 15 minute, two mile, but like my second one was sub 12. Yeah. So apparently had some decent predisposition, genetic predisposition to running. And the shock of boot camp was no factor because you were just stoked to be there. Right. Yeah.

And, you know, at this point now, I'm 20. So I'm one of the oldest kids in basic training. And I'm even back then I'm looking around looking like, dude, these are a bunch of pusses. Where do these kids come from, right? Like, clearly they didn't work like, you know, my dad, you know. And in my head, I think every American boy is like me, you know. And now there's these city kids and whatever, man. Yeah, but basic wasn't hard.

I remember I got like, you know, top PT and, you know, was quickly made like the stupid platoon sergeant or whatever. And I was like, great, you know. And, you know, there was a little click, you know, because I did the basic in AIT back-to-back. So it was like 14 weeks. So you same drill sergeants all the way through. By the end, me and these couple other boys are a little bit older, a little bit more mature. You know, we were running things. We had our own little mafia going, you know, we had when they let us clean the drill sergeants,

office. We took the key, snuck off post, made a copy of it. And I had a drill sergeant's office key, which had all our personal bags in the, right? So we would go in there and listen to the Walkmans and CDs, you know, and like hide out.

And it was funny because the drill sergeants had no idea we were doing it, much less that we were leaving post. You can't leave post in basic training. There's no cell phone calls and be on the internet. None of that. You're on lockdown. right? We were sticking off post

because we had access to the civilian clothes. We were stinking off post going and buying beer and it's stashing it in the drill sergeant's office in the personal, right? And we go in there at night

and house a few beers, you know, buy some liquor. No clue. So I always say like I was already running an underground and auxiliary when I was in basic training like SF was just

where I was guest. But yeah, man, I got out of there and, um, freaking immediately went to the little progression course or whatever, PLDC, where you had to go from, you know, to get your promotion to E4 or whatever. And it was like a couple days before I finished that little three-week course.

So you're already in E-4 after like a few months? No, I'm still in E-3. I finished because I did have a little bit of college. I was finished basic as an E-3. And so now I'm in this little PLDC course. So I can get promoted to E-3. for, and they're like, hey, you ready to go to selection? I'm like, I guess.

When? And they're like, in two weeks. Man, I haven't worn a rucksack. Right? And that's all our selection is, is carrying a rucksack for 28 days. I'm like, yeah, okay, because I'm like, I'm not going to say no. I'm not turning down a slot at SFAS. Looking back, I could have been like, hey, I really could stand another month of training.

And it'd have been like, okay, whatever, and put me in the next course. I didn't know it like that. I thought just an opportunity at selection must have been a godsend. You can't say no. So I had a whopping two weeks to train for selection. It went straight there, you know. And even then I look back and I'm like, it wasn't really that hard, but it wasn't hard because quitting wasn't an option. Right.

I couldn't have withdrawn from college, all to go to special forces and then fail, right? That wouldn't have been a thing. I could not have sold that to family members, my dad, myself. Couldn't have it. How many people make it through that first selection? What is it, 28 days you said? Back then it was 28 days, right? It's changed a lot over the years.

I think right now it's 21 days of actual course, so maybe 26 days counting the admin and all that. So it was 28 back then, exactly four weeks. Yeah, there was 250. 50 or so dudes in my class, 52 finished and 40 or 41 were selected. And I think a lot of folks don't know that, right? You can finish that course and not get picked up. You know, 28-day non-select.

Yeah, that's got to hurt. It's got to hurt. And so, yeah, I got picked up. And most of those people are quitters or their performance drops or medical drops? You know, they hurt their knees. Yeah, you know, the number one attrition rate is voluntary. voluntary withdrawals. You know, that's probably 95% and then injury. And, you know, it's funny. I've seen some dudes and I'm sure the same at Buds and everywhere else. You see those guys that

like they've got stress fractures, broken ankle, broken toes, you know, torn pettler tendons, and they finish. You know, it's like, who, I was just young and stupid, man. I'm so lucky. I don't get blisters on my feet. They never have. I got some of my first blisters ever last year hunting in the mountains of Idaho because I bought a pair of boots and didn't really break them in. I, you know, warm around in North Carolina working around the house

and then I throw a backpack on and go hiking in the mountains of Idaho. And I call it hiking. It was armed hiking because we didn't kill it. It's not really hunting if you don't, you know, it's just armed hiking. Really well-armed hiking. Good training.

I guess you could talk it up as. But yeah, I had never even gotten a blister. Like, you know, Um, so I was lucky when it comes to that because that's a big thing in our selection. It's like just dude's feet get turned to hamburger. What do you, how are you going to erupt march if you ain't got, you know, feet? I've seen some, you know, blisters that start at the toes and get like the back of the heel. You know, like, you could lose a leg out over, you know, and the medics are like, whoa, you know.

They had horrible, you know, in the little medic station, they had all those pictures and stuff. And you think it's just some genetic thing. You just don't get blisters. I just, for whatever reason, my feet, uh, fit. Jungle Boots, which is weird because it's not like they're, you know, I just did. So, yeah, man, that just worked out, finished election. It was funny because at the time, Reg said to finish, it was before the 18 or the SF baby program, the 18 X-ray. Right, it was before that.

And, but the guard had the back door. Oh. It was like the 18X because I didn't go to any other unit. And so it's. graduation day I had to go to the shrink and to the board a couple times because I was an E3 and they were like you can't you're not even supposed to be

here much less finish like what the way they didn't know what to do with me again some dudes looked at it gave me a waiver but it was funny because you know the company commander company commander in the training SF training is not really involved in anything he shows up you know he's an admin guy for the most part

the enlisted boys run selection so come time you know He's handing out his graduation, not very formal. It's out at Camp McCall. You're just all dirty and nasty, and you're walking across this little stage, and he's handing out, and he's like, Staff Sergeant Such and Such, Captain's Such and Such, Sergeant Such and Such, you know, hey, shaking hands. I get up there and he goes, Private Fur.

He looks at the Fur Sergeant, and the whole class knows. We don't wear rank and stuff there, but you know, right? After four weeks, everyone knows who the Cherry Lieutenant is. And, you know, there was some guys there probably who were pissed that I was there There's an E3. But most of the guys were like, wow, this dude's crushing it, and he's a baby. But I wasn't a child. You know, I wasn't 18, you know.

So is the average age in there, like 24 or something? Yeah, very much so. You know, the average eight, you know, senior E4 promotables, E5s and E6 is made up the bulk of the class. And most of the officers were, you know, first lieutenant and captains. And so it was kind of funny because the whole class, like, laugh and class. You know, because the captain or the company commander and major was like, what the, what the, he like talks to the first sergeant and the sergeant major, and they're like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and he's like, really?

And I'm like standing there on the stage, like, am I getting ready to get booted? You know, there's a commander going to go, nope, right here. And so anyway, freaking, he shakes my hand, he goes, all right, private first class, Caldon, welcome to regiment. Right on. So man, it was kind of screwed up I was in a racing motocross One week before I was supposed to report to the Q course

Broke my femur A couple ribs and my arm Yeah man At a race that I shouldn't have been racing Are you not allowed to race it? No, it wasn't like that You know how you know That wasn't on the list of things you can't do

You know like you're not supposed to skydive You know one never thought These knuckleheads are out there Like don't go ride rodeo is on the list of things that you're not supposed to do while, you know, in the Q course. I wasn't in the Q course yet, but Motorcross wasn't on the list until I broke my femur. They added motorcycles through the list because of me. So, yeah, man, I missed my Q-course day, and I was supposed to go to the Delta course.

I wanted to be a medic. Oddly enough, my plan was to go be a medic and either go to PA school or medical school. I wanted to be like my Terminator sister. I was the one of, I probably wanted to be a doctor more than she did. And, but I was always in the, you know, I wanted to be like the, you know, the ER doc. I wanted to be the trauma guy. So 18 Delta just made sense. Well, eight months later, I'm still limping, you know, they put a rod in my leg and all that.

You know, I got my runtimes back down pretty good, but, man, it hurt. It just hurt because I just destroyed this leg, man. It was like, you know, it was so atroft afterwards, you know, I could put my hands around my quad. It was just a bone in there. And it was, it's nasty. because basically what happened was I overjumped a triple jump. The jump got walloped up and kicked the bike forward. My buds were standing over there so they could see the drain plug on the bottom of the bike.

The bike was pointing at the ground. I was still upright. When it hit the ground, the front tire basically trapped this leg and then catapulted me. Just threw me up in the air. So when you said it's not a race you should have been in it's like too advanced of a race? No, the exact opposite. It was like a local outlaw race, not an AMA sanction race. It was just a fun race, but there's no fun races because you still got to win, right?

And I was battling for first. And a funny thing was I was racing the 250 class and the 125 class at that time. So I had already raced those two, and then there was just the unlimited class where it didn't matter. You could race anything you wanted in it. And so I was racing six motos that night, six different races. race is that afternoon night. It was a six motor. I was exhausted. And that folks don't realize, man, like, I'm in phenomenal shape at this time, right?

And motorcross is still one of the most physically demanding things I've ever done. And, you know, because you just don't realize that you're, you're strapped to a 230, 40-pound piece of equipment that has 45 horsepower, you know, with the right. You know, they're trying to control that thing, you know, it's not like you're just relaxing signal on it. You're standing up. You're clenching it, you know, between your legs, all that. And anyway, yeah, man. So now my career is like, okay, now what? So through advisement, they're like, hey, look, you lost all this time. I'm going to sign you up for the Charlie course, the engineer demo course. I'm like, all right, at this point, I just want to get in the

course. You know, I've been basically doing nothing for eight months except for rehab. And so, okay, cool. So I did the Charlie course. It was kind of funny, man. And the Charlie course, because I'm from North Carolina. So I know people at UNCW, which is a, you know, Wilmington is a college town with a beach problem, right? NC State, ECU, party.

I have friends everywhere. So I was like the tour guide on the weekend, right? Like, yeah, I know people at this school. Let's go to this party, all that kind of stuff. So we're having a good time. That's where I met that fellow, Ben Bittner. Our little clique, man, a bunch of little crazy dudes. And, you know, board.

line, you know, we were misbehaving in a Q course, you know, because it wasn't that hard, you know, especially in the MOS phase. It wasn't very hard. So we were partying and blah, blah. Yeah, I did all that stuff. Language school wasn't hard back then because no one cared about language. He really didn't have to go to language school. So I went to language school, but did not learn French.

And then, of course, it didn't really matter because it was like eight years later before I ever anywhere that spoke French, you know, not a lot of French speakers. Iraq and Afghanistan, you know? But yeah, man, freaking cool stuff. I got lucky, though, because if I had done the medic course, I would have missed the invasion. I'd have been in language

school or serious school during that time frame. So because I did the shorter Charlie course, I was already done and on a team and doing some pretty cool stuff, Afghanistan kicks off and I got to go at the beginning. Where were you when September 11th went down? So when I said

doing cool stuff, my weren't, he was the ASO guy, right? The source operations guy, not the door kicker guy. Even though he had done all that, he had just matured into understanding that that's the hard part, right? The finish is the easy part, right? How long does this take us to execute a target? You know, 30 to 90 seconds typically, right?

We're on target. Everyone's zip tied or done. We're done with the target. Now we're doing SSE. It's quick. It's that fine. fixed part, that ASO stuff, right? It's actually difficult.

It takes a brain. And he was all about that. And because I was that skinny college kid, I didn't look like an SF guy. So he got me signed up on this program that fifth group, 10th group, all the active duty groups were participating. It was 10th group's year to run it. And it was the red cell against the NCCC,

the nuclear command and control. So for the four months leading up to 9-11, I'm running around the nation tracking and developing patterns of life of this general. He's got a suitcase attached to him. He's like number 12 in the chain of command of running our country in the time of nuclear war with Russia. And I had no idea because it was very cellular, right? It was broken down into little cells, which is ironic, right? Because now we're playing red against the United States nuclear command and control.

For those six months, I didn't interact. I did not see face to face. It was all old school Cold War tradecraft, dead drops, notes, no text messages, nothing. The only time I got text messages or was call is when I actually called the handler, who was a chief out of 10th group, and he was running our cell. So we were in Oklahoma, Nebraska silos, man, right? And this guy would go from silo facility to silo facility with these tractor trailers that Indescript, three tractor trailers or so, and that could change, right?

And then a security detail that, you know, all plain clothes and stuff, right? Like you're driving down the highway, you would never notice this convoy. Of course, they didn't nut to buck convoy either. It was just these three tractor trailer trucks. And sometimes more than that. a convoy was much larger when they had other pieces of equipment that I had no idea what it was. I only cared about him. Because the ultimate goal was when we were supposed to execute, we were trying to create a four-second hiccup in the United States.

Nuclear reaction to Russia's attack. Damn. Four seconds. That was what it was, that's all supposedly Russia needed. Four seconds, man. Well, come to find out, man, it was a worldwide effort. It wasn't just my four goofballs. And I knew there were some others because other teammates of mine were scattered around the country.

And I knew they were doing it. I had no idea where they're at. Because the last time I saw them was a meeting in Northern Virginia where we all came together. They briefed us and sent us on our ways. And it was fun, man. I'm this new little punk kid, little SF dude. Man, there was, you know, unlimited budget, freaking just swiping a government credit card. There was days I had two different rental cars, freaking, you know, hotel.

You know, and it was an amazing thing. It was really cool because, you know, had to get an interim T. which back then a little baby E6, I didn't have T.S. Clarences. So that paved away to getting my clients set up and all that much younger than I should have, probably.

Or at least was standard at the time. So, yeah, man, on the morning of 9-11, I would crawl through this drainage little culvert. I went to Walmart, bought some leafy Gucci Flage from Walmart, and I got my little crows. Happy Walmart, Gilly suit, and I crawled like for four hours to get within taking a picture of this general that was going to be the shot. And like I said, man, you got teams around the world taking pictures of different types of planes and tell numbers and, oh, this plane took off in Intraloc Turkey. And then it landed in Alaska.

Like they flew across the North Pole. Yeah. I mean, these are these are some crazy assets, right? Well, yeah, man. And so I get a text and it's like, abort, move to such and such. And I'm like, I'm not compromised. I'm good. Right now was the text I got back.

Abort, right now. And I'm watching his security detail change. What the? What's happening? And as I'm crawling out, man, freaking like the local sheriff's department freaking starts pulling in. dudes that've got shotguns, right? Local redneck dudes. Some Marines showed up.

I guess they were like freaking had been hovering this whole time, this marine detail that I was not even aware of. Luckily they weren't aware of me either. So now I'm crawling quickly because it's clear something is going on, right? Because they've got mags in their guns. And I'm like, what the fuck, man? Get out, get my car, freaking call. Hey, what's up?

Yeah, meet me at this motel. It's like, you know, side of the road. dirt motel, one story, old school, you know, 1950s built motel. And there's like 40 rental cars in this motel parking lot. I'm like, what the hell is going to come to find out? It's not my four-man cell. And there was redundancies upon redundancies for all these cells at every location around the world, man, and none of us knew about each other.

And a couple of them you like recognize because this thing's been going on for months. And I'm like, I saw you in Nebraska. I saw you males, females. And this is, that's a, that's a good point because that was the first time in life. I realized how important females are for, you know, reconnaissance, surveillance. Freaking, like, wow, they do have a major role. That changed a lot of my career the way I saw women and how they can be an asset, right? Like, me and you, right?

Right. How do we walk around? We're not blending in anywhere, right? We don't even blend in an average U.S. freaking, you know, city, much less throwing some, a man. hand dress and try to walk around your lollabod, right? You know, we're busted. But, man, these ladies, you know, they can go and do, especially when you recruit the ones that can speak Arabic and, you know, can blend in, right? Which we learned that lesson.

But this was my first time seeing females. I was like, holy crap. Come to find out, one of the people on my team was a female. I didn't know. I'm just dead dropping letters and notes. So anyway, as I walk in the hotel room, man, yeah, there's like 40 people in this little hotel room. I mean, just cramped in sitting and looking at a TV of burning towers. Yeah, man, I'm just sitting there going, okay, what the fuck?

You know, we're under attack. And at this point, you know, it's early in the morning, no one even knows. Pentagon hadn't been hit yet. And so that happened while we were sitting there and we're just like, whoa. Okay, so we pack up. We actually went and linked up with that asset. and provided a ring of security for them and escorted them. So we went from playing Red Soll against them to helping with their security cordon.

We were unarmed, so we pulled in outer security and escorted him to a hard location. Damn. Yeah. And then got on planes and flew back to wherever we were supposed to. They were unit guys. There were guys from Damneck involved. Everybody flew back as fast as they could. But planes were grounded.

So they're sending C-17s from wherever they could and pick up. us up. We drove 100-mount-hour all the way to Colorado Springs, you know, to 10th group, and Kyle got on flights wherever we could get them. It was always funny because, you know, like the tier one guys, you know, the Lear Jets were waiting for them. We're just waiting on like whatever we could get. Like, oh, can I get on that crop duster, get a ride back to brag, you know? But it was, I always remember that was my first impression of those guys was like, how come they get Lear Jets? You know? Oh, they're important. We're the scrubs. But, yeah, man, so that's how it all got started, you know.

I had a slot to go to MFF. And, you know, National Guard, young SF dude to get a slot in free fall was a big deal back then, you know, because back then we didn't all SF didn't all go to free fall. And so that chief was like, well, I mean, your orders are good for another year. You're detailed and assigned to us. And what do you want to do? I was like, what do you mean? Well, you can go to free fall or you can come with us.

I'm like, I'm with you. Let's go. A couple weeks later, man, we were in Afghanistan. You know, young, dumb kid. What'd that look like? So, I mean, what kind of, what, what would they do say, all right, here's what we're doing? Yeah, a lot of people. Go figure it out like your dad used to say to you.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was like, hey, you know, call your family members. We're going in isolation Monday. We're doing what? What's that? With isolation? Like, this is how, like, the only isolation I knew about was that Robin Sage. I didn't completely understand, right?

And honestly, most of the guys didn't either. It was like, just because I was new, none of the force had been to war either. There was still only a handful of guys in SSF because only a handful of fifth group dudes got to play in the Gulf War. Handful of guys from Mogadishu, you know, no combat experience. Yeah, but I was going to say, in your actual team, there might have been zero. The chief had stuff in South American 80s, you know, but all, you know, by with and through, advisement stuff. But yeah, man, so we're like, okay, well, here we go.

And, yeah, man, got to go and be in Torbora. You know, so there was basically a lot of, because it's funny for us. Like, we all know how it all played out. But, I mean, there's an entire generation of Americans that were born either right at or after 9-11, who don't understand, right? There was two parts of Afghanistan. There was the Taliban, right? The horse soldiers and everybody that came down from the north.

and Bogorone, you know, triple nickel, you know, all that team did all that. And then there was Torbora. Pardon me. And, you know, Al-Qaeda. So I got lucky enough to be involved in all of that. My team settled in Jalalabad. Where'd you fly?

How'd you get in there? Heelo. Yeah. So you heloed into Jalabod, did you guys get up? We heloed in south of Jalabod north of Torbora. And then what was your, what'd you do? Well, just supported, mostly supported the J-Tax and the CCT guys dropping by.

bombs. Jack. Right? And tried to mostly coordinate and keep our, you know, there was two main warlords in this region. And one was Hazard Ali and the other was Saman. And Zaman spoke English and was the agency's pick to be that Nangahar warlord, that Nangahar leader.

Well, Zaman had lived in Britain for 10 or 12 years. He left Afghanistan. Hazar Ali was Muzh, man. He was a mouge, man. And he was a farmer, right? A lot of folks don't realize, man, you know, Afghanistan of the 14 most opium-producing countries in the world, Afghanistan was number 14 when he invaded. It's number one right now.

That's a horrible result of this war. Well, Hazar Ali, who ultimately became the Minister of Defense of Afghanistan, was a farmer, but also a freedom fighter, a moose against the Taliban. The Taliban very much disallowed opium growth. You know, they, they were all about, you know, that was a sin. So, you know, we changed that by getting rid of the Taliban. All right, everybody started growing opium, you know. Wow, what beautiful fields.

Those pink red flowers, man, they're beautiful. But, ooh, it's just death growing out of the ground, you know. So anyway, yeah, man. How long are you on the ground for? How long, how much time did you spend on that first? I'm not that first appointment. That question is where my fairy tale of initial entry into special horses begins to end. So fifth group wanted out as fast as they could.

So January, February, they were already like, yeah, we're going to the horn of Africa. When did you get there, November? So November, December, January, and fifth group is already. Fifth group is like, they want out. They want to get to the horn of Africa, right? There's still no talk of Iraq at this point, right? It's like, oh, a horn of Africa. We're going to Somali.

And everybody wanted that. They're like, oh, okay, we're going to go get some and return that favor, right? That's a 10-year-old favor. We owe those Somalis. Everybody wanted to get there. Well, then the clear of the battle plans changed, and Iraq became a thing. Well, so 19th group and third group start showing up. So they're like, hey, look, you're going to be continuity.

You're going to help this next team rip in, right? I got left and wound up staying like another six months, man. I was like, oh, no. So that was where that fairy tale, everything happening really cool, kind of went, oh, shit. But it wasn't bad because I wound up being on a team with a bunch of dudes that they were good friends. Mine actually got to go be in L&O for a few weeks up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. So as a, you know, 24, 25-year-old young little buck, my first experience in a former Soviet area. It was a nice four weeks of partying.

I was supposed to work at the embassy. I think I went to the embassy twice. I was the assistant LNO. The L&O was this former 10th group dude who had retired, got called back in. And he had been working like the Miami-Dade organized crime task force. He was, his name,

I'm not going to say his name. He had a very Ukrainian name. He was from the Ukraine. He came to America when he was like 12. So he spoke Russian, Ukrainian. Man, he had all kinds of stuff going on in the Ukraine or not Ukraine, Uzbekistan. And he was connected as the LNO up there.

If you needed something out of Uzbekistan, he could get it. I mean, the second night I was up there, the dude took me to a party at the Ukraine, Uzbekistanese president's daughter's house or mansion. This dude knew everybody. He was the quintessential SF guy, right? But he's like almost 60. He's kind of a way.

He speaks Russian and he's fluent. So like four days after I get up there, he's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to the States. So now I'm just up there, the assistant L&O, and I'm living in the Sheraton, which that's Russian for a Sheraton Hotel. That's all I learned. And so I just parted for like four weeks. And, you know, basically my job was to take, you know, my bud, my Uzbekie driver buddy and go pick up people from the airport, take them to the hotel and then take them back to the airport so they could fly into the FLB. you know and so yeah man freaking pretty cool but yeah so back to Afghanistan and finally home and did you do any go to ops like what kind of missions were you doing yeah we did a lot of cool stuff

you know of course you know dropping all the bombs and in Torboro was cool of course we started and there was still a lot of you know stuff out there you know we went after some um um Dagon Chechens, you know, some of those, as they were, you know, because... Were you guys already working with a partner force? Yeah, we started the initial what became the commandos. It was called the MRF, the MRF, the MRF, mobile reaction force there in Jolabon. Jolabon. Jalabababwe wasn't a base.

It was just a crappy airfield. Every time we went to get a resupply, we had to clear the airfield and clear the runway, make sure they didn't put anything on it. You know, the MC-130s would, you know, squeak in the middle of the night, drop our junk off. And so we started building what became Jalalabad's FOB. We built ranges out there and started training us Hazar Ali's guys. And I was talking about Zaman and Hazar Ali. They're the reason freaking UBL got away. They were supposed to be helping us deal with Al Qaeda and they turned on each other. Right. So Zaman, the CIA's pick, no one liked him. He had no real pull. He was

nobody. Heck, most of these kids had never heard of him. And Ali, who's been there, you know, running the show, he's not having it. So, yeah, man, they start fighting with each other. And you got like, you know, half the teams over there with them and some of the other teams and then half of us are over here with Zamont or how's all these guys. And they're fighting each other. And we're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, we're supposed to be killing those dudes. So it screwed the war up for about three days as we've sorted that mess out. And yeah, man, that's when that's when he escaped. came. How did you guys sort that out?

Ultimately, the agency stepped in. They were running the show there, right? The Juliette teams. And we were basically supporting them. And we had two masters, right? We had the FOB and fifth groups, Colonel Mulholland. And then, of course, we had the ground branch guys. And they were running a show in Torboro.

And so we freaking sort of that mess out. And basically they told Zaman like, hey, stand down. And once everything was hashed out, settled back. Everybody went to Jalabad, Zaman actually went back to Britain. They exiled him. That's what Hazzar Ali told everybody that he exiled him. But really, the agency was like, hey, man, you just need to leave. Yeah, you're right.

So it was a bad call. And it was, you know, one of those convenient things. He spoke English. Hazard Ali didn't. Bad call on our part on who we decided we thought we could put in power. we didn't really understand how much influence has I really had over the posture people. Well, at least they had the humility

to recognize that and say, all right, cool, we screwed this up, let's get this guy out of here and move forward. You know, it's interesting that history repeats itself, right? Like talking to the SF guys in Vietnam, they would have those, like, guys shoot each other on base between the mungs and the whatever other groups, like the regular Vietnamese, they'd get in fights.

and shoot each other. Yeah. Like, well, and then they go on admission with these guys. That's one of our biggest problems, right? We, for some reason, as Americans, we have this arrogance that we think everyone's like us and likes the things we like. And, well, you know, we have this amazing experiment in America, this diversity that's never been this way anywhere else on the planet ever.

So we can walk out on the street, go to McDonald's, and see 20 different ethnicities. and people from all around the world, right? At least their ancestors are. And in some cases, they literally just came from there. Well, in other countries, those people will fight each other, right? They're, like, from different villages and different tribes, and they don't like each other, and they're never going to. We think we can impose that, right?

Like, Americans can't grasp why the Shia and the Sunni absolutely hate each other and will fight each other. And the only time they'll come together is to fight someone else they hate more, us or Israel. Yeah, you know, Americans, and we're bad about it. You know, we really think we can imply or impose our way of doing things. And it, you know, the deal, man, you know, you got your colonel or whoever else at the FOB. We're out there living with these boys, you know, living with them.

They're our team. And we're trying to explain all the dynamics of it. And you got some colonel who's never done even like Fids or J-SET, much less, run an unconventional war with a partner force. It was frustrating, you know, because to me it's just simple. You know, it's like, hey, just be nice to all these people. If you can stop treating them like crap and realize that that tribe and that tribe should not ever be put in the same unit and given loaded weapons, they will shoot each other.

But it's us, you know, it's just how we do things. And like you said, we just repeat it time and time again. Yeah, sometimes I think it's, it's. it's conceit or whatever arrogance that we think, well, if we tell you guys to work together, they're going to work together. And sometimes I think it's just arrogance. People just don't realize like, hey,

these two people that you're talking to right now, they're not going to get along ever. Ever. Nothing you can do. Yeah. Unless for some reason. Well, I guess the ever should be. I'm going to say the ever as well.

If there's someone that they hit worse, they'll go against that person. But as soon as that person's gone. We can be an ally for the next two days. How much money are we going to get out of this? You know, it's funny, I've always tried to tell folks there's a huge difference between allies and friends. And allies are usually pretty predictable because that means we have a very common goal, a common enemy. We have a commonality.

Whereas friends, a lot of times, friends are, that's a loose relationship based mostly on emotion, right? And you see it all the time. Who hurts our feelings the most? Our friends. Our allies are predictable, right? When you go into an alliance, so like business advice, I've always given guys business advice. One of the lessons I learned was, don't start a business with a friend. If you have to have a partner and you shouldn't take a partner, but if you have to have a partner

and get this endeavor started, do not do it with a friend. I haven't listened to that advice. Like all my businesses are with all my friends. I hope you've had better luck than I. I've had good luck with it, man. It's hard, you know, especially we tend to like start businesses with guys like us. and we're all so hardheaded and setting our ways and all that, you know, and if there's not some type of clear hierarchy in those operations agreements and that stuff

that you can always go back to and be like, hey, buddy, this is what the company says, well, in my case, we didn't even have like an operations agreement. We just started it and then it, you know, luckily it didn't dissolve into where we hated each other and it like that. But, you know, my dad always told me, man, it's like, you don't need a partner, don't have one. you know and then sure enough he was right you know like wow he was smart

but yeah man the career was awesome I uh so how so you end up going to so you end up spending this first like what is it he ended up nine months in Afghanistan with a little bit of time when he was back almost seven and a half months seven and a half months and then what happens so went home and when you're in the national guard

are you so you're in the national guard yeah but I'm on active duty so it's no different right no different So, you know, the guard guys would mobe and demob. And there'd be two months on the, you know, let's say they deployed for eight months. And that was pretty typical. It was two months of mobe and then two months of demode for a total of a year deployment.

Got it. And so eight months deployment, two months on the front end, two months on the back end. That became the standard for SF, National Guard. Well, mine was kind of like, well, what do I do now? Who do I belong to? Who am I working for? And so I was lucky I freaking went and did some, the counter drug mission for the National Guard. It's advisement to law enforcement.

So I did that until. State side? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's providing surveillance training. You know, deal. It's like, it's kind of, what about possecoa cops? Skirt.

Well, you know, we're unarmed. Most of the time, you know, sometimes you, you know, no. We're really going to go out in the middle of West Virginia and serve all these meth heads with 30-out-6 rifles. I'm probably going to carry my personal firearm and deal with the ramifications later. And I've had a couple times where meth heads, like, we were snow.

We actually didn't think he was home. He must have been sleeping it off, you know, because meth heads would, you know, they'd be up for days and then he'll sleep for days. And we thought this meth trailer, there was no, you know, they weren't cooking or whatever. And we're sitting on the side of this mountain. It's snow we're wearing,

Woodland camouflage. We're messing about. We didn't build a high sight. Some come up. We're not taking it seriously. And we're like 250 meters from this dude. It's like a cabin and a trailer. Up in this holler in West Virginia.

Dude, he comes out and starts scanning with his hunting rifle on a scope. Dang. And we're just sitting there trying to like get behind, you know, trees. We're sticking out like sore thumbs. And we're not wearing overwights or anything. Just dumb. because like I said, we weren't taking it seriously. You know, we'd just been to Afghanistan.

We're a bunch of tough guys. What's this dumb redneck going to do? Well, lucky that redneck didn't see us and shoot us, right? Because let's face it, redneck boys, you know, they can shoot. It wouldn't have been the first time he shot something with that hunting rifle, you know? And I was like, oh, good God. I was running a reconcourse one time. This is like before the war.

And I had this group up in the mountains. And they're like laid up in a hide site, right? and I'm a land grader, right? So I'm out there, but I'm cammed up too because I'm all fired up so I would like sneak around. So I'm kind of sneaking up on them

to kind of observe what they're doing to make sure that they're being squared away. And as I'm sitting there observing them and I'm not that far away from them I'm like 50 meters away. A guy, I hear like a dog, right? And I'm like, oh, these guys are going to get, you know, busted, this is going to be cool.

I'm going to watch the whole thing. So a guy comes down He's got two freaking German shepherds with them. And they look badass. They look like freaking wolves. And so the guys, you know, I'm watching this whole thing play out. And the guys pick up that they're coming because it was a squared away little crew. They pick up a guy coming.

They like fade in. They're hunkered down. A guy comes walking down this path. It wasn't even a road. It's a path. And he doesn't, he's none the wiser. And all of a sudden the dogs, bro. The dogs are like, they stop.

They start growling. and all of a sudden the guy like starts scanning. Yeah. He reaches down and pulls out a 45, bro. And I'm like 50 meters away. And I go, so the guys, I just go, excuse me, sir, you know, because I'm, we're in America. Like, this guy doesn't know what the hell's going on, man. I'm like, excuse me, sir, sir, you know, sir, it's okay.

I said, we're in the military. We're on training operation. But it was not a good scenario to have going. Yeah, man. There was lots of things like that, you know, especially in the urban side. Heck, good friend of mine, they called him the S.F. Cowboy. They use his likeness in that video game and all that. I don't know if you remember some of the first pictures that came out of Afghanistan, big dude, sleeves cut off, big old beer.

He was my roommate, right? Well, we're sitting in a little minivan, right, watching his house and freaking, I'm like, oh, crap. It's like two in the morning, you know? and freaking dude walks up Oh shit Revolver pointing at us And we're like Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa

Freaking rolls it down Most of the time We had a law enforcement guy with us But in this case it was him and I And the law enforcement dudes Were in another car up the road And now it's like hey bro Hey hey hey hey hey

Well he's just a concerned citizen You know what I mean And we're lucky That could have gone so bad Can you imagine the headline Right like Say one of us made a mistake and put him on the dirt.

You know, an American civilian. Yeah. And, you know, so since then, I've done a couple of things where I'm advising law enforcement in the States, Minneapolis, right? A couple of years before last, right? When that whole mess kicked off. And it's like, hey, man, I don't care if you're far left. I don't care if you're BLM and rioting, right?

You're an American. I'm not squeezing the trigger on an American, right? You can't, wrong answer. Now, if you're threatening me, that's different. But just, hey, man, if you're robbing and looting a Best Buy, to me, that's not something I can pull a trigger on somebody for, man. It's just not in my book. And it's weird, you know, it's weird.

Like, you have to remind guys, like, hey, guys, this is not an operation. We are here in advisement only, only if you have done everything you can to get out of that situation. And it's defense of yourself a third party, man. right like it because of backlash or something like that would be huge you know there was those um it was that old the border surveillance thing oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah shot that guy like late 90s i don't remember the name of the it was it had an operational name it was like they'd send all kinds of guys down yeah yeah and the marine shot that one fella and that was a big deal and they shut that program down

And we were kind of like a part of that same umbrella. But yeah, we always used to, you know, joke. And it's not really that funny now that I'm older that, you know, yeah, post-paccombutatas, you know. Now I look back and I'm like, should the military and the agency be allowed to advise? Because let's face it, right? Like in Waco, there were tier one advisors on the ground. You know, that stuff. That's kind of scary, man, you know, because, you know, the rule of law says that our intelligence organizations and our military can't operate here.

Of course, the National Guard gets around it a little bit with that state mission. But it's scary, right? There's a reason POSICOMA exists, so that military can't turn its weapons towards our population. So looking back, like, I'm like, man, we were kids. We were joking like, man, Pascotomatized. Now I'm like, ooh, it's not funny anymore. Right. Like, you know, when you're young and dumb, you make jokes that are inappropriate because you're young and dumb.

And now I look back, I'm like, I don't know that we should be doing that, right? Like, I know law enforcement needs help, but they probably shouldn't be getting it from us. There's definitely a, I don't know. There's a positive and negative to it too, because obviously if you have guys that can help law enforcement improve what they do, like, that's beneficial. And then there's two sides of that coin, too, because guys that are in the military, have a certain mindset. Part of that mindset is, hey, man, we've been through this before.

Somebody starts getting crazy. We're not worried about it. We're not freaking out. Like, we'll de-escalate. In many cases, de-escalate better than someone that hasn't been in these shitty situations before. But then not all the military is created equal.

So you might get someone from the same unit that goes, if somebody does that shit, you've got to freaking go. And you're like, no, actually, that's not the right answer. So there can be a positive. There can be a negative. that both those situations, you could have somebody from the military perform awesome.

You could also have someone from the military do something stupid. I mean, just because you're in the military doesn't mean you're, it doesn't mean shit. It doesn't mean shit. They're all over the map, you know, all over the map.

Some guys tactically, they were in the military for 20 years. They're tactical idiots. You know, I've gotten out a couple of times with the whole campaign. Like, well, just because you're a veteran doesn't mean you're,

and I'm like, you're absolutely right. Being a veteran doesn't mean, that I was even good at being a military guy. Right? Like, just because you were in the service doesn't mean you're even good at whatever your job was in the service. So it definitely doesn't automatically qualify you to be a politician. In a lot of ways, I feel like my experiences completely make me unqualified to be a typical politician. Right?

Like, what I'm kind of getting at here is that, yeah, I'm not a politician and never have been. And that's what our country needs right now. And my experiences in the military have set me up to where I could go do good things for our country and never become a politician. I don't have that in my blood. It's just not how I am. Yeah. As I look at everything that's going on in the last six months after the downfall of Afghanistan, and then even looking at Afghanistan, Iraq, and then you just compare all that to Vietnam. And you say to yourself, like those lessons, every lesson that you can look back at Afghanistan and say, wow.

you know, we learned this. We already knew this. We already knew this stuff from Vietnam. And so when it comes to people being in the government that are figuring out where we're going to war, I used to think, yeah, you know, somebody should be in the military if they're going to serve in the government. You know, if they're going to be a politician, they should have, they should have, they should have served in the military.

It would be helpful, right? I used to think that like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. You understand what. Continued service. Yeah, continued service. And like, oh, yeah, you know what it's like. But now I'm, we absolutely need military people that are, that understand these lessons to the core that aren't just thinking with the arrogance that that, that the generation that just sent us to war.

Let's fight. We'll fight for American principles and but. Or even more so. Wait, who's going to fight? Right. You say we? Who's the we? Oh, no, no, not we.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Those military folks. Yeah, those military guys are going to fight. Isn't it funny, right? You'll hear about folks who had these awesome blessed lives. Maybe, like Tillman, NFL football player.

You hear these crazy stories about these people who had these awesome jobs, or maybe they came from this awesome family, and they go, and he enlisted. Like, it's automatically assumed because he came from an amazing family that he should have been an officer, right? Like, that prejudice is weird. So the fact that a rich, well-to-do guy enlists and goes to fight for war, that's a story. Why is that a story?

That shouldn't be a story, but it is, right? And I just use Tillman because he's such a famous story. And what an amazing man, you know, freaking pro football player. Life is set for this guy, quits that and listen to Ranger Regiment, right? Like, whoa, bro, you really asking for it. Like, that's some American stuff. point is who's going to war typically it's just those young what else did you have to do with your life type of guys you know and in the guys like a lot of us right let's face it you know a lot of

upper middle class dudes and soft you know and you know but and and feel that calling that I need to do this stuff because their dad lets them watch rambo and they're a kid right but um yeah man Congress, right, is the only part of our government, per the Constitution, that can declare war. How is it? We've been at war for 20 years. What's the point? What was the point, right? Because in Jalalabad, which has been considered for 10, 12 years now, a hot spot, right?

But in January, February, March of 2002, I was walking around the market without a gun. I'd hop on the ATV, jump in the truck, hop in the car with one of my troopers, one of my Afghanis. Run down, wearing Afghani garb, the biggest threat to me in that market or anywhere in Jalabata, all of Nangahar province, was having the people hugged me too tightly. That was the biggest threat to me, or maybe a car accident because traffic's crazy. You know, they loved us. They loved us. happened the conventional military showed up so all the colonels and generals can get their stars and their awards and get their promotions those politicians because let's face it right once you become a certain level whether it's enlisted or officer right your career becomes that thing and

then looking out for your other you know upper senior officers senior enlisted we got to get them bronze stars we got them purple hearts our unit needs medals our you unit needs combat because you know to become a general without a CIB in the army in this time frame you got to go get some right and you're going to probably need a silver star at least a bronze star would be so how am I going to do that unless I go to war so let's take these strikers and these M2 bradley's and destroy roads and run over innocent people and they weren't doing it on purpose they're just that's the conventional military they have tanks and you know I've never driven a striker before but I've sat in the hatch and I'm like,

how can you drive this thing without running over everything? And they're like, well, you do run over everything because it can. Well, you know what? Man, we made those enemies. We made the enemies. We're now fighting the second generation. We're fighting the sons of the men we killed in Torbore. We're fighting the sons of the men we killed in the Shai Qahi Khan and Helmand and everywhere else at the beginning of that war.

We created that enemy. And the same thing happened in Iraq. And, you know, let's face it, right? Afghanistan was righteous. You know, Akeda needed to fall. I, looking back, is it a good strategy to topple regimes that are predictable? The Taliban was very predictable. The Taliban has never met the requirement to be listed as a terrorist organization. They were a sovereign nation. And yes, they had horrible, horrible means and human rights abuses, but they were a sovereign nation. Qaddafi, sovereign nation,

freaking Iraq, sovereign nation with dictators. And dictators are predictable. They care about one thing. First and foremost, their main priority is their power. So they're predictable. You know, in the interviews with Saddam, you know, he talks about like, I thought y'all were kidding. He was like, I thought y'all were making it up

that you thought I had weapons of mass destruction. I haven't had gas in years. I don't have any of that stuff. In his interviews, he's going, I really didn't think y'all were going to invade. So why did we? I had my own theories. My theory is because people say we went to war for oil. I'm like, have you seen the oil prices?

We didn't go for war for oil. We went to war with Iraq to stop its oil production. The prices went up. Because if we had pumped oil out of Iraq, all the oil companies would have made money. Right? Because that's a new source that they didn't have rights or access to. You stop the oil, all right?

Lower the supply. The man stays at or continues to increase. Price just go up. So that's a little bit of my theory on that, but whatever. Either way, at least, and that's only based off of what I have seen since, right? When we first invaded Iraq, oh, let's go, you know, like every other little young trooper. But really, you know, we're talking hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, thousands of Americans, and what did we get?

Right? If you tell me, you know, because war was supposed to be for expansion, minerals, riches, right? Throughout human history, war has been to expand your empire. Well, we suck at being an imperial power because we go to these wars and we do nothing with the spoils. So why do we keep sending Americans? Because let's face it, was it really for our national defense? Or was it for our national interests? Because that's two very different things.

Most of my work throughout my life has been for interests, less about defense. Because once al-Qaeda was destroyed and eliminated, and even ISIS and al-Qaeda and Iraq, were they ever really capable of attacking us here? Yeah, you know, they flew the planes into those towers and they killed 3,000-plus people. But did they ever really threaten our daily lives? Did they threaten America, the United States? Probably not, you know, right? Could they ever have brought that war on a large scale to America

and affected the average American's day of life? No, they didn't have that capability. And, I mean, clearly, right? Like, none of that's really, we haven't had any big attacks since 9-11. I think they just blew their wad. They were done. I don't think they had any plan after that, right? It was like, oh, crap, now what?

We pissed these guys off and they're coming for us. Now what? They never really did anything since. So my point is, right? Like, where has Congress been? Where has our representatives and our Senate been these last 20 years? The military industrial complex continues to make big time money, big time money. When our enlisted soldiers are in barracks that are covered in mold, just nastiness, right?

They're living in poverty. whereas you can go to the general's house on any post and it's a well-groomed lawn and it's basically a little mansion, right? So what did we get out of these wars? Well, it's arguable, right? It's very arguable. But the bottom line is Congress has continued to set aside

its authority, its duty, its role, its responsibility to either declare war or cut the funding. They didn't cut the funding. A lot of people got rich off these wars. I mean, I was a contractor. Guilty, I got paid for going to war. Now, did I get paid like Glock or, you know, Northrop or Raytheon or? No, of course not.

But. Well, you got a positive outlook, believe it or not, from my perspective, because the positive outlook would be that somebody was smart enough to figure out that if they did this stuff, They'd be able to raise the price of oil and these other. To me, that's a positive outlook to think that someone was smart enough to actually craft the things that you're saying. I don't know if they actually, it was planned or if it just, we didn't stumble into it. Because I worry about they, people at least conspiracy theories. I'm like, half time they can't figure out where the bathroom is.

That's what makes, that's what disturbs me more than anything else, is that it's the arrogance combined with the being naive. the naive to think, okay, here's what's going on Iraq. Look, we know that Saddam's not a good guy. We can probably create some kind of a good ally there. And we can probably just turn this into a democracy because we like democracy and we, you know, we like it. And all those people must want to be free too. And we've got people that came from Iraq or that are in Iraq that say, hell yeah, we want to be free. So cool.

Let's invade. And in their minds, it plays out, hey, it's going to be like the first Gulf War. It'll take us, you know, a couple weeks. Then we'll start to, we'll get rid of the bath party. We'll establish, we'll start building Walmarts, right? I think that that's what they thought more than anything else. Probably. And it's just, it's just an arrogant, it's just arrogance.

It's, well, it's not just arrogance. It's arrogance and it's ignorance to think that you can go. And, you know, there's a, when it comes to the economy, right? When you start trying to dictate, when you start having a centralized economy, it's, you cannot pull it off. You can't do it. You can't pull off a centralized economy. That's why communism doesn't work.

You have to let the free market kind of do its thing. So if you think, if you, if we know that you can't control an economy, which is a finite thing and a controllable thing in some, in some feasible way, and we can't control it. But at least you can understand what it is. But now we think we're going to take a bunch of millions of people and predict how they're going to respond and predict what the secondary tertiary effects are going to be with what they think and how. they're going to behave like that's completely insane to think that we we think we are going to control the future with other people we think we understand what they're doing we can't so we have to start behaving in a way that we utilize our power to make to attempt to influence but we can't think to ourselves that the things are going to play out the way we think they're going to play out

because they don't they don't they couldn't even figure out these two freaking guys in Afghanistan. One of them's from England. Hey, everyone's going to listen to this guy. Meanwhile, this is local here that's been running shit for years. And we think this other guy's going to fly in from England. He speaks English. He must be smart.

Everyone's going to listen to him. No. No. And then you just play that out over and over and over again in a bunch of different scenarios in Iraq and in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And that's what you end up with. So that's why I'm so happy that guys like you are stepping up, people that understand that we don't understand.

Right. People that understand that we can't control everything. People to understand that the enemy gets a vote. The civilians get to vote. Like all those things come into play. And we run around like we can figure it all out. Nothing is two plus two equals four. It's always an equation with hundreds, if not thousands of variables. And anytime you change one variable, to get the continued result, you're going to have to change every variable or many of them. Right. And Americans, we, a couple are, you know, that arrogance, right? So what is, I always say, arrogant. is ignorance and cockiness combined. And Lord knows we are a lot of ignorance. And then you've got the cockiness. And we think, we really think that people want 5G or 4G or 3G or whatever it was 10 years ago. They want that. But you've got this culture that no one wants to bother to understand. Who understands the culture of the Afghanis?

Who understands the culture of the Azidi in northern Iraq or the Kurds in very north Iraq? or the Shia in southeastern. Who understands this stuff? The guy on the ground. The guy on the ground. You know, we were talking about, you know, are you familiar with Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Scheller?

Yeah, yeah. He was on the podcast, yeah. He was on the podcast, right? Right, right? Yeah. I haven't talked to Stu in a couple weeks. He and I went down to the border. And I told him, I was like, hey, bro, I got a,

so he and I joke about how we met. We talked through it. We were on with Evan and J.T. with a black rifle and we were talking about how we met. It's a pretty funny story. But we went down there and we talked with a border patrol agent, who's a very good friend of mine and, of course, unofficial because he would get fired for even entertaining having a conversation with a congressional candidate or House

of Representatives candidate. But he talked to us and he showed us some places we could go and looked for and broke it down for us. nothing in the media that I had heard was anything like the border really is, at least in this section, in this section of Texas around Roma and Rio Grande's city. And it was just nothing like I thought because we were on the ground. That fellow, that border patrol agent, he's the guy on the ground. I just went and got some info from him.

And we went driving around and stuff and looked and everything he told us was exactly the way it was. And I was like, holy crap, man. but the border patrols are basically a gag order man they talk to somebody they their job's over done right so yeah man uh colonel schiller and i the funny thing is man he i got word that he might run for house you know he went out of the marine corps yet and uh it's like and i hadn't announced yet either so a friends of our a mutual friend a major who had worked for colonel um I reached out. I was like, hey, he's like, hey, Zach gave me your number, says you want to talk to me.

I'm like, yes, sir, you know, our career paths may be about to collide. Be nice if we could just meet face-to-face and chat. He was like, okay, well, I'm up in Emerald Isle. You willing to come up here? Yep. How's tomorrow morning? Sat down and it was like, here you think about running in the fourth. Because apparently at that time he had told two people.

The fact that I knew it blew him away. like, whoa, who is this dude? You know, luckily my team, my consulting team are very well connected and super smart guys or whatever. So anyway, we sat and chatted. It was really cool conversation. I'm talking about mature adult conversation because he could have easily been like, you know, an arrogant dick and been like, whatever, I'll run against whoever I want.

But we said, hmm, we're two very similar types. Do we really need to run against each other? I live in the fourth. He doesn't. And now it's not the fourth anymore. but we can get to that. And I was just a really cool conversation, a little coffee shop there

and In Rhode Island, North Carolina, and we left it with, and I just, you know, I gained a lot of respect for the man when he was like, okay, I tell you what, I'm going to think this over. I don't even know if I'm going to get out

the Marine Corps in enough time to even, you know, get in the race, blah, blah, so I'm going to think it over. He's like, when are you going to announce him to say, he's like,

okay, well, two days per hour I'll let you know. He's like, at least then, you'll know if we're running against each other. I'm like, Roger that. Thanks. Anyway, the Marine Corps

didn't work out or whatever and it didn't work out for him. I would like to think he'll run in 2024, you know? I know he's considering it. A lot can happen in two years, but yeah, man, what a good guy, man. He's definitely a Marine Corps officer, right?

Like, you know, you guys talked with him, right? He is, rah, you know. But we need some of that, man. We need some of that. I mean, that dude through his 17, almost 18 year career out the window to just stand up and say something.

Which is funny because I hear and see people on the internet like condemning him for it. And I'm like enlisted guys. I'm like, fellas, we have been begging, pleading, wishing a colonel would stand up. And now you are trying to say this man is doing it for recognition. They just sit down and talk to him for two minutes

and you'll find it out. Not so much. But yeah, we were in Roma, Texas, and we found out, we were looking, like, the people aren't coming across the border in the middle of the desert. They're coming across, like the bridge that goes across, there's the Border Patrol checkpoint at Roma. They're walking under the bridge, coming up, hitting the cul-de-sac, and every night they get picked up by the Border Patrol buses and taking an entertainment facility.

They're not stinking across in the middle of the desert. Walking right up into town, sitting down, getting picked up every night. That's been going on for months, right? this whole shipping them around the nation thing. That's not new. It's been going on for months. I had no idea. Those headlines had just broke the day before.

I was like, holy crap. When did this start happening? My buddy was like, bro, we've been shipping illegals around this country for nine months, bro. He's like, the numbers are down. He's like, yeah? He's like, yeah, it was 2,000 coming across the border in this little section every night. And then the cartels figured out. And they all figured out, right, that.

But the board patrol can only pick up about 200 a night. So now only 200 a night come across. On the other side on the mic side of the border, they have warehouses or hotels, and it costs the stay there. But they only let 200 each night. So the cartel, the cost to come across the border, not being ferried, not the coyote, not transportation. The cartels tax or fee to walk across the border.

to get your armband so you can walk across the border. It's like arm band. But the cartel gives them an armband, legit? An armband. On our side, nothing but trash, armbands. It's like going into a club. You pay, you get your armband. You're clear to go across.

Well, and armbands are color-coded from which country you come from. Because in those warehouses that you can see from America right over there on the might side, they're basically hotels or it's just cots and floor mats. every night you stay there is $100. To walk across that border is $900 to $1,200 according to where you come from. Or if you don't want to spend a couple nights in that hotel warehouse, you can pay more. But that's what it costs. In Texas alone last year, 1.7 million illegal immigrants, illegal crosses of our border were detained.

That's just how many were detained in Texas. Just Texas. That's how many more detained. Now, how many people came on across in this whole evolution of the border patrol and customs facilitating the integration and faring throughout the country? It used to be, you know, Coyotes would continue and pick up. We destroyed that business and gave it all the cartels. So 1.7 million, let's say a thousand bucks, times a thousand dollars. And we can only guess that double that were not in detain.

So let's just call it an even three miltall times a thousand dollars. That's what we gave the cartels just in Mexico. When I say we gave it to them, we created this marketplace for them. That's what this administration did by opening the borders. They created a marketplace where the cartels now, they don't really even care about drugs. The drugs that are coming across our border now are coming across in a backpack, not truckloads. There's no more marijuana coming across in truckloads. They're not seizing marijuana anymore.

It's backpacks of fentanyl and heroin Because 30 pound backpack of fentanyl I can damn near kill the whole East Coast Stuff is so potent 30, 40 pounds of black tar unprocessed opium Hash, bring it to the state's processing the heroin One backpack turns into freaking half a million dollars Worth of heroin

How do we combat that If we don't get serious about true border security And even beyond that, right? The Lord knows that's one of my problems with Americans, but Republicans more so, that everything's a linear solution. Build a wall. And then what?

No one's asking, and then what? So we build this wall. We're going to do to put guns on it. People are like, yeah. Okay, so we're going to shoot our southern neighbors who want to come to America. Okay? I don't blame them for wanting to come here.

But there's a line. Get in the back of it. There's a line to come here. So yes, it's got to be multifaceted, right? It can't be just build a wall. That's not solving the problem. That's just a measure to slow part of the result of the problem, the illegal immigration. Why are our neighbors wanting to come here so badly?

Because all our southern neighbors, their countries are crap. Had we adhered to the Monroe Doctrine and quit worried about Europe, quit worrying about the Middle East? I mean, we spent billions in millions. What if we'd invested that in our southern neighbors? Instead of letting say, I don't know, one of the richest, richest, wealthiest countries in the world, Venezuela, fall to communism right underneath our noses.

Why did we do that? Why are we not actually helping Mexico? Oh, we want to take these hard lines and look like a bunch of tough guys. It's not solving the problem. And it kills me that that's all these solutions, right? when you like all my opponents across the nation, if you if you talk to Republican candidates for any office from city council, probably to the next president, they're going to have one linear solution for any problem you talk to them about because what? Talking points. But no one's

actually discussing root causes of problems. So the border security, a wall is a measure, not a solution. It's not it's not going to solve the problem. You build a wall. Well, there's these two bodies of water on each side of it, right? You know the deal? There's not a single security measure put on this planet. Whatever you build, whether a security protocol you build, there's guys like us that can get around it. Right?

It's just like lawyers, right? Lawyers can write a bunch of legal documents and then some other lawyers can figure out how to screw that. It's the same thing. And that warfare is like, your enemy does this. They set up these obstacles. You figure out how to get around them. Well, here's an idea.

Let's address it at its root cause. And I don't know, maybe the demand to come here. Well, let's say 20 years from now. Oh, my God. And that's not an American thing, right? 20 years from now. Next election cycle only. Four years only, right?

Americans think in four-year blocks, if we're lucky. What if 20 years from now, Mexico is a thriving ally? and there's no cartels. We help them get rid of it. We give them incentives to stop teaming up with the cartels. Same goes for Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador. We help them with the game problems. We help them.

And I don't mean just toss money at it and waste money. When I say invest, right? Invest means there's a implied return on that investment, right? Americans, when our Congress just allocates funds, they just throw money at things. They don't actually follow up or have measures in place to ensure our returnal investment. So my point here is, man, that's part of why I'm running is I'm so tired of these very linear band-aids to hemorrhaging wounds, you know? And the wall is just one great example of that, you know, I mean, and name any other

hot topic right now. Abortion, ban it. The same people that say banning abortion will solve that problem and the same people that will tell you that banning guns won't get rid of guns. Where's the logic and reason here, folks? So like with abortion,

yeah, man, it's horrible, right? I mean, even people who are pro-choice will go, yeah, it's bad. Only the craziest of the crazy are like for abortion, right? That's human. are not for killing unborn children, generally speaking. So why are we having abortions? Right? Let's make them illegal. Okay. Cool. Let's make them illegal. We're done. But we're not done.

Because we've addressed why are we, why are women wanting or feeling the need to abort their unborn childs. First of all, the three of us will never, ever be able to understand, sympathize with a woman that is so desperate that she wants to abort her child. Right. It's just, first of all, we have to say that out loud, right? So let's bring in the experts. Let's talk to some ladies. I know that sounds crazy, right? Let's go find the subject matter experts and figure out why this is happening. Well, I ask people all the time, what's the number one demographic in America having abortions? Do you guys know? Put you on the spot, right?

Yeah, I was a little surprised too. 17 to 22-year-old upper-middle-class white women. Why? Well, because their fathers have told them they need to go to college, because modern feminism have told them that they need to go to college. They need to get careers. And a child inhibits that. Right?

And this is a very summarized version of this very, very complex problem. So what if we as a community, as a government, right? It's okay for the government to do things for the community, right? Like we can have some good social welfare problems, right? Things that support the wellness of our communities and our culture and our nation. So when I use welfare, I don't mean just throwing money at stuff and not expecting some type of return. So if we start saying, okay, what if we create a robust and efficient adoption program? What if there's assistance for these women to carry their children to turn instead of terminating them?

What if? And I say what if because I don't know the answer, right? And that's weird for a political candidate to tell you he doesn't know for sure what he's talking about. about, right? But we know that, right? We come up with courses of actions and then say, okay, we're going to do this and then we try to anticipate what our adversary is going to do. If we do X, they'll do Y and then this is how, well, that's how we have to war game all these things, right? So if we sit down and say, okay, because here's a, here's a really bad thing about the adoption process in America today. Me and Melissa are not married, right? We see marriage as an agreement

between she and I and God, not the state of North Carolina. Also, she's a very pragmatic, practical person, and she wants to hold the whole thing that if she gets tired of me, she can just boot me or walk away. How long have y'all been together? Ten and a half years. We're married. In my eyes, my heart, my soul, I'm married to that woman,

and she's the most precious thing on this planet to me. Right? Like precious. He's the only one. That's how precious she is. So if she and I wanted to adopt, It could take three to five years. If me and you want to adopt, right?

We could have a kid in a year or less. That's how our cultures evolved now, right? A gay couple can adopt very quickly. It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. Or me and Melissa could go out of the country and buy a child. We could adopt from Africa or China. Let's face it, you're buying a child when you do that

because it costs a lot of money. But you can do it, and you can do it a matter of weeks. Typically speaking, when someone adopts out of Africa, different countries different way, right? But you go over, you visit, come back, go back for the next trip, and you have your child. It's efficient.

And it's a good thing, right? Like, these are parents who want children, who can't have them for whatever reason, and then there are these children that need parents. We have so many in America, but so why are Americans leaving America, the United States, who go adopt children from other countries?

When we have kids right here and we have an abortion problem, why? Because it's easier. You know, like, let's face it, right? I mean, let's say, let's say Melissa couldn't have kids, right? That's not why we don't have kids. We don't have kids because it's just kind of a choice. We've been busy. She's been busy with her career and I've been busy with mine.

And so if we wanted to, it takes time, right? but we could go get a kid. It doesn't make any sense. So my point to all that is, whether it's the border or abortion or name it, you've got all these candidates and these politicians, right? Because right now a lot of politicians sitting already elected politicians, they're now candidates again. Midterms are coming.

They have these one-liners, these talking points. And then they go back to D.C. and they don't really do anything. It's so frustrating to me, man, because let's face it, right, we're problem solvers. You know, we're giving problems every single day, whether it's how to fit that much equipment on that one truck because that other truck is deadlined, right? Or supply won't give us another truck, you know,

because some Sart Major needs that truck for his ride to the Chowall or whatever, you know. We solve problems with very little. And at this point in our nation's history and future, present and future, you know, we need those type of people. We need guys from our community and gals from the global war on terrorism, those type of veterans who are problem solvers who have seen, you know, the neglect and the abuse and the fraud waste and abuse. That's what these wars have been.

You know, Afghanistan highlights it. But people don't realize how many billions of dollars of equipment we left in Iraq, too, that we had to destroy in Syria because they, ISIS. took it, drove it across the border, and then fought us with it. But there's still billions upon billions of dollars of equipment in Iraq. Now, we haven't abandoned Iraq. We abandoned Iraq, too. It was just less publicized, less emotional for a lot of the servicemen and women

because of just the way Afghanistan happened so quickly. It was really easy for the media to cover, so on and so forth. And then all the debacle in Kabul at the airfield, that was definitely the media love putting that on the TV. Yeah, it was a disastrous, you know, show. Iraq happened over a course of numerous years, and they're not interesting covering that kind of stuff. So anyway, the one thing I talk about a lot,

when I talk about leadership I wrote about one of my books, iterative decision-making process, which means you don't know necessarily what's going to happen and you don't necessarily have all the information. So what do you do? You sit there and just do nothing? No, you go, okay, well, here's a step that I think this might have an impact, a positive impact. Let me try this one step.

Right. You try that one step. Then you get what the feedback is. If the feedback is good, you say, okay, well, that was good. Let's do a little bit more in that direction. Okay, great. Oh, it's still working. That's super.

Oh, let's try a little bit more in that direction. Oh, wait a second. Now we're getting negative feedback. What we thought was going to happen, isn't happening. Do we double down? No, we actually say, oh, let's make some adjustments. to what our plan, what our strategy is. And that's what was, as you look at Afghanistan and Iraq and Vietnam,

you can see inflection points along the way where the direction we were going was not clearly giving good feedback. Now, do you immediately abandon it? No, maybe you press. Okay, let's try a little bit more. Let's make some adjustments. Oh, wait a second. Oh, wait, it's definitely not working.

Okay, so what should we do? We should try a different plan. We should try a different strategy. And we shouldn't be afraid to say, you know what, we were wrong about this. And we are going to back out and we are going to provide a different type of effort to try and solve this problem. So like you said, a lot of politicians, a lot of, that's just politicians, people, human beings don't want to say, hey, I messed up here. I was wrong about this. Here's my adjustments.

Here's what we're going to do. I'm open to ideas. COVID. Classic. When it first happened, all of us were like, whoa, okay. Yeah, man, I started carrying some hand sanitizer. I, you know, I put Melissa a go bag together for the first time, right? I'm not really a prepper.

I'm more of a, well, if shit hits fan, I've got enough that I'll be able to make it, right? You've been propped, pal. I'm good, right? I'm mentally prep. You know, she drives back and forth to Wilmington, you know, an hour. So I was like, hmm, you know what? You know, she competes in three gun and she's doing some of the tactical games and all that kind of stuff. And, I mean, she can shoot, right?

She goes to range by herself and all that. You know, she's got her own info and all that kind of stuff. So we actually packed it up through a little 72-hour go bag in her trunk, right? We were all like, this pandemic might be something. Within about six weeks, we were like, mm-hmm. And we all knew like these cloth masks, right? Like we've all done C-burn, right? We've all done some counterproliferation of biological nuclear.

And those suits and the gas masks and all that stuff, right? It's like, that might stop a virus. That might. And now you're telling me this mask is what? We all knew it was just. just horseshit. No, I got a handkerchief on. I'm good. Right. And I think maybe like you said, like with the right, we, you know, I don't think it really, like it didn't, it started out good intentions. Yeah. And like you said about Afghanistan, when we, when we got to Iraq, there was,

there was, there was Iraqis waving American flags and welcome us there. And they wanted us to be there. And even, I was there in 2003, 2004, 2006. All the way that through that time, there was the local Iraqi populace wanted us there. And by the way, in 2000, 12, 13. And when ISIS started to flex, there was plenty of Iraqi government officials and people on the ground saying, please, America, please come help us. Hey, we need some help over here. We weren't thinking that these guys would come back, but here they are and we need some help. Please come help us.

So we can't ignore the part of the population that wants that. Right. When you cause a problem, you're kind of obligated to deal with it, right? We caused that problem in Iraq. I was all four with the withdrawal and the Obama administration of the withdrawal. But once they decided they were going to withdraw, there came a point when ISIS rose up that we needed to halt the withdrawal, deal with ISIS, and then picked back up with the withdrawal. But since they started the withdrawal, they couldn't say they made a mistake. Americans will never, we just don't like to say we're wrong.

I told somebody the other day, I was like, I will kiss your white ass live on whatever social media platform you want to go live on. if you can find me a politician, an elected official that has said, you know what? I realize now I was wrong and find me one politician who has said that. And the crazy thing is from an ego perspective, people think if I say, hey, guys, I was wrong about this, you think everyone's going to think you're a loser now. No, they actually go, yeah, well, cool.

I'm glad you admitted that and we didn't know either, like you were bringing up the example of COVID. Hey, okay, it looks like a bunch of people in Italy are dying. They're showing these pictures of people dying in the hospitals. are all overcrowded. This looks like it's going to suck. Cool. Oh, you want us to stand down for a few weeks here?

Cool. We're going to flatten the curve. What does that mean? Oh, we don't want our hospitals overwhelmed. Okay, got it. We need time to prepare. Sure, sounds good. Okay.

Now you need another two weeks. Okay, hey, you know what? I'm American. I support America. I don't want us to have people get her. Okay, cool. Got it. Well, now you want another two weeks.

Now you want another two months. Now you want another six months. Now you want another year. And then after a year, we find out that the death rates, you know, most of the people aren't. dying from COVID, you're dying from something else and COVID accelerated it. And that's fine. I get it, you know. But we now have information and data, right, that says all the measures that we did, they didn't help. We've got a vaccine that really isn't, right? By, you know, they had to

change the definition of vaccine. Yeah. Yeah. Like, could you imagine getting three polio vaccines and then getting polio? Yeah, that's not right. We got rid of the. That vaccine got rid of that disease, right? This vaccine supposedly makes your symptoms less, but it could kill you. Right? Like, that's one, that's this one drug we haven't seen commercials for, right? Because all those drug commercials and TV is like when they get into the fine print, they start speaking really fast about all the side effects.

It's like, and it could kill, you know, you could have crazy diarrhea and you could bleed from your nose and maybe your anus, and then you might very well die from this. kidney failure, you know, and people are like, oh, okay, but ask your doctor. But your skin will be clearer after two weeks. Right. Could you imagine what the, you know, Johnson and Johnson vaccine got pulled, right? Why?

Shh, let's not talk about that. Let's just talk about another vaccine because of that Jay, Jay, J's vaccine killed some people. American people don't even know. So many people don't even know that Johnson and Johnson vaccine was pulled. And then it had killed people with strokes and, you know, fancy your medical terms than I know. Huh, right? Like we won't just step back and say, hey, we now have different information. We're going to adjust this plan.

Yeah. And by the way, on that, you can say, hey, there are, here's the fine print on the vaccine. Here's what it can do to. Here are the side effects you can have. And make a choice, you know, as a human being, if you have some compromised immune system or you're living in some situation where this COVID, according to all the statistics, could be really bad for you. Maybe that vaccine is a godsend.

That's awesome. Maybe a mask is great for you. Yeah. But if you're a person that's young and healthy and you feel like you could, oh, and you know a bunch of people that I've had it and it didn't impact them at all. And you say, hey, I don't think I'm going to need that vaccine. It doesn't seem like it's worth the risk. So that's my decision. Right.

So you let people make a decision about what they're going to do with their health. That seems like a much smarter move than trying to impose things on people, which I've gone off on this a bunch. try and impose things on human beings, we fight, especially Americans, they don't like it. We don't like it. That's right. But all human beings don't like it. All human beings don't like to have things imposed on them. And the only way you can impose things effectively is to do it through force, through violence,

or now we're recently finding out that you can also do it by taking their money and seizing their assets before they can even know what's happening. Which I never really thought of that before. It didn't even occur to me that, like what's going on in Canada, right now, oh, you're going to protest cool. We're not just going to arrest you. We're going to seize your assets. That, to me, is like when you come to my property and you say you're going to take my house from me. It's the same thing.

I'm right. So that is a problem. In Canada, it's just so hard to watch. You've got law enforcement guys who just a few years ago, or not even two years ago, they were being defunded and demonized during the whole Black Lives Matter thing. And now these same police officers are ones that are, literally trampling on people. And I was like, you know, please God,

don't let it come to that here because I have a lot of law enforcement brothers. And we all know that good men follow orders. And good men that need to take care of their children will follow orders. Good men have to take care of their family rely on that paycheck. They're going to follow orders. That is scary to me because it will be at that point when I'm like, Hey, law dogs, I love you and I've always supported you, but we are now on two different sides, right?

Like when you, like what's happening in Canada, man, they're siding with Trudeau. That little turd, and I usually don't, I try not to talk about presidents, elected, especially elected presidents of sovereign nations in that kind of derogatory term, but wow, you want to talk about somebody that won't admit that he's wrong? and double down on it

every step. It's like I just won't lose. And he's got an arsenal. He's got a military. He's got a national police force, man. The national police force scares the shit out of me, dude. I don't like it when I see feds wearing multi-cam and military stuff, right? Like, it makes me uneasy.

I don't like seeing local PDs wearing BDUs, right? I like some shine shoes. Like, no Carolina Highway Patrol still wears a police uniform. They look like police officers, not military. members. I still don't like it, man. Even though I want my law dog friends to have every tool available to them to do law enforcement. But there's some things that I definitely, I'm not cool with like no knock warrants and stuff like that. They're not necessary. I mean, we learn that. CQB is dangerous. Let's just knock, cordon, come out. Oh, you don't want to come out. Okay, cool. Just turn your power off.

We'll play some loud music, maybe send a robot in with some gas. You'll come out. You'll get tired of this, right? Yeah, the no-knock-warrant thing is definitely something that needs to stop. Yeah. Our law enforcement needs some help, right? Yeah. It really does. Across America, law enforcement in general needs help.

The average law is a good American, you know. And even up in Canada, I don't think that, I don't think it's going to continue in this direction. The direction that's going right now, I don't think it's going to continue this direction. I think it's going to stop pretty soon. I think the only reason that that is what's going to happen is that the people that are pressing, Trudeau. They're actually just a bunch of pussies. They think they want to fight. But, you know, do they really want to fight? Once the bullets start flying and stuff, you know, and things get pressed, I think ultimately we're going to see Trudeau step down. I just looked at my watch to

recognize the date. So it's the 20, it's the 21st of February when we're recording this right now. So it'll be interesting. Be interesting to see how it all washes out. I, you know, I hope that's what I do not want to see Canadians shooting Canadians, no more than I want to see Americans shooting Americans. You know, even like, you know, Americans are still mad about the whole riots and the Black Live Matter stuff. And rightfully so, because it was all perpetuated and funded. You know, Black Lives Matters, those folks on the streets rioting, they were pawns

of rich people. And that's sad, right? Because sometimes I feel like we've been a little bit of pawned out in the war, so I can kind of relate. I'm not mad. at young black or young Hispanic or whatever group or even even young antifa you know white kids who are rioting and breaking stuff they're pissed are they going too far absolutely right we have the right to protest peacefully but not break shit instead of it on fire it's wrong that's rioting

not protesting again root cause that whole mess was perpetuated it was funded I mean there were lots of bricks that just poof showed up and you know what's the root cause what's the root cause man what's really going on how do we reach out to even more so you know like our poor communities poor inner city communities which oftentimes are predominantly black but also Latino your your poor white communities tend to be rural right well why are these things happening what what is the perpetual process that that keeps these communities communities in their situation. Well, the modern welfare system,

and I don't mean the good kind of welfare, like wellness of society. I'm talking about the EBT and all these things. There's no, there's no, it doesn't help people get out of those situations. It perpetuates it. It destroys the nuclear family. And it was, you know, we can go back to LBJ, you know, with the modern welfare programs.

And there's plenty of quotes out there that they do. did it on purpose. They knew what they actually planned that stuff, right? Like I think back in the 50s and 60s, the intelligence agency in our government, they were pretty sinister and they were thoughtful. They weren't just meandering, right? And you can go back and look at what they did and how they approached it. And Lyndon Baines Johnson, Nixon, that whole bunch that were raised out of World War II and a fear of socialism and communism. You know, that FBI, Hoover's FBI, that CIA, You know, I mean, man, it was, they were proficient. I feel like they knew what they were doing.

And so they created that welfare problem. And here we are today. No one's ever really came up with any decent solutions. The only real welfare reform our nation has ever seen actually came from Clinton. He actually proposed some things that would help the inner city become more productive, involved citizens. And then all that expired and no one's done anything since. And I think it's funny, you know, you got the Democrats who manipulate and coerce those communities for votes. And you got Republicans who are just like, it's not even worth it to talk to them.

They're just going to vote Democrat. And I'm like, recruitment 101, folks, you've got young angry people that the system's not working for. Let's go talk to them. Let's come up with a real welfare reform. I had a root problems. That's another one, right? Just cut off welfare, tell them to get jobs. That's the average white man in America's freaking answer to welfare and poor inner city problems.

Just cut it off, tell them to get jobs. Yeah, okay, but now we're talking about decades and generations. Cultural change. We have cultures that are based around this problem. You think you can just turn off welfare and just tell them to get. get jobs, there's your answer. That's it. Okay, and then what? Okay. And then what? I had an awesome met a fellow who's running for Fayetteville's mayor. Fayetteville Fort Bragg in North Carolina. And I had never thought about it this like this. And I've only had a few days to even think about

it. But his proposal was this. And this guy is an immigrant. He's Puerto Rican, which, you know, part of the states, but not a state. So it was still an immigrant. Raised poor. Nine brothers and sisters. Right, poor family. Anyway, he said, hey man, what if? Let's say you've got a mother, a single mother with four children.

Right. And some people say, well, she just keeps having more children to get more welfare. Okay. Maybe that's true in some situations. I don't think that's true across the board. I think in a lot of cases, these mothers have more and more children. maybe they don't have access to birth control, maybe they're not super educated just on sex education in general, right?

Whatever that problem is, we have this person, their reality, right? They exist. This family of the single mother with these full children, it exists. They exist. How do we help them? How do we fix them? How do we get those four children to grow up to become productive, involved U.S. citizens?

That's the question. Well, his answer was this. Let's say she's getting $1,400 a month from all the different programs total. That's about what she's getting, $1,400. It's poverty, bro. But if she gets a job, she loses all of it. If she gets a job that only pays her $1,000, now she would be at $2,400 a month. Now she's just barely getting by still.

She's still in the poverty. But the second she takes a legal dollar or something, it's not a $1,400 a month. under the table, she loses every cent of her welfare funding. How does that insinivify her or her children to go do something? So here was his plan, and I was like, huh, huh. He said, let's lower it. Let's take some welfare away. I'm like, hmm, I wasn't expecting you to say that.

But here's how he said it. He said, okay, let's knock it down. Let's cut that 1,400 to 600. She doesn't get a job. She gets 600. She gets a job, and maybe she makes $500 a week. She gets an additional $100 a week from welfare. So as she makes more, she actually starts getting more.

So let's say she goes from that $1,400. Now she's making $2,000 in addition to her own. Like she's making $2,000 a month at her job. She's gone from that $500 or whatever initial instead of the $1,400. Now she's at $1,000. Well, there's a certain point in which she makes enough money to actually pay for her own welfare on tax dollars. It now pays for itself. The incentive is for that lady, that young woman, to go work harder to make money, and now she will actually pay for her own welfare.

It's a zero-sum game for American taxpayers. And I was like, holy shit, I've never heard that before. Never thought about it like that before. I always thought about it like the more you make, the less you get from welfare, right? Like if you're making $1,400 on welfare and now you're making $2,000, you're only going to get $7. He's like, no. Then it's capped, right? It's not like she just keeps making.

Now she's making $200,000 a year. She gets $50,000 in welfare, right? No, it's capped. There's a point in which it all goes away. And he even said, he goes, now maybe there's actually a pyramid where it goes up to a certain amount. And as she continues to make more, it goes down in a little bit, and then it's ended. but it's all based off of and he's like it would take a lot of work

because everywhere in the nation the cost of living is different so you would have to build it around all of that he's like but it would work and it would fix the whole problem he's like you would be addressing the animosity and the resentment the taxed paying hard work in Americans have against welfare recipients

that stigma right that whole just cancel welfare type. Well, now the welfare recipient is paying for its own welfare for their own welfare, not it's, right? That's dehumanizing. I didn't mean to do that. But that person is now paying for their own welfare. I was like, wow, bro. I'm like, you can't be the only person. You're, you know, this, you know, Puerto Rican American that's running for mayor in Fayetteville. You mean you to tell me you the only person that's ever thought of this? And probably not. He's just the only person ever told me about it. And I was like, I've just never thought about it, right? It's never been in my entire.

entire life, have I ever, I've never had to sit down and start thinking about viable ways to end the welfare state in America. It's not been a problem that I had to address in my military career or my small business, right? You know, it's not a problem. So now that I'm running for House of Representatives, it is something that I got to start looking at and I was blown away. So again, back to my point of problems are never two plus two equals four. No, it ain't that easy.

It's never that easy. And when we have that conversation and we sit back and say, hey, man, this isn't working. We need to adjust. Just like, man, if we're en route to a target, you briefed your platoon or I briefed my, you know, troop and ISR reports back, ooh, no, there's not 15 mofos on this target. Man, they're having some type of get-together. There's 40 maldoons on this target, you know, and trucks. And what appears to be some PKMs in those trucks, we thought it's going to be an easy target.

on and off, right? Nice little fun Tuesday night. ISR's reporting something different. Do we go, yeah, Roger, that click and hang up. We're not talking about that anymore. I'm not even going to brief my troopers. No, we probably come to a little tactical hall, huddle up, and let's discuss this, if the key leaders are going to sit down in chat, right? Is this assault force even able to take that target? Well, probably not. Okay, let's head back to the house.

We made a mistake, right? based off of information. Now, we didn't make a mistake, based off of information as it changed, let's just hit pause, you know? Or maybe we request more air and we per-on-up and we don't hit the target.

We let the Air Force do it for us or the Navy or the Marines or whoever's flying for us that night. You know? It's so frustrating, man, because it's like, you know, there's eight SF guys running for U.S. House of Representatives. There's seven Cs.

deals. And like I said, 25, 30 global war on terrorism veterans. You know, somebody asked me the other day, well, what sets you apart from these other candidates?

We're all conservatives. We all pretty much agree on how to, you know, we all have the same stances on everything. The difference between, the first difference between me and some of my opponents is spine and shoulders.

Right? And I don't mean that in a bad way. Because they're good people, right? The folks I'm running against, Sam's probably one of them, are good people, good people who really want to go change. And if you ask them, they're going to Capitol Hill and they're going to save the planet. Here's reality. The reality is a freshman, brand new representative in Congress, has zero influence and no friends.

Lobbyists don't even knock on their office door. They got a little cubbyhole of an office over in that other building. they're nobodies. So they look for friends. They make friends with lobbyists and other little groups and caucuses, right? And the incumbents, the three, four, five, 20 term representatives,

they recruit them. They do them favors. Now we got clicks, and this is politics, and it's the grossness of it. Here's what, aside from me not being willing to compromise, right? I've said straight up, four terms. If America or North Carolina, if District 13th or whatever, whichever district I want up running in, four terms is all I will do. Period. We need term limits,

whether or not we can get that push through or not, if when I'm up there. Different story, I'm still not going to. I'm a self-impose my own term limits. I don't want to work in D.C. And I was, one of my opponents recently told me I was a ignorant wannabe. And I was like, yep. Except for the differences, I was like, you're absolutely right. I am pretty ignorant to exactly the kind of bullshit you guys are doing in politics. But you're wrong about the wannabe part.

Not a wannabe. I don't want to run for Connors, but because of people like him, America needs us to run. Well, I'm not willing to compromise. That's the biggest thing. I'm not, you know, I say this all the time, right? I'm not even mad at Democrats.

I'm pissed off at Republicans who have compromised our rights away. They keep thinking somehow that they can negotiate or not even negotiate, because I'll clarify the difference between negotiate and compromise. They keep compromising with the left and the Democrats thinking they're all going to get along and come to some type of agreement. Democrats just keep taking that shit, putting it out back, powing it up. We got some more from them. We got some more from them.

And Republicans go, well, if we keep playing nice with them, maybe one day they'll be our friends. No, man, the Democrats are hell-bent on creating a communist regime in this country. They don't care what you think. They don't want to be your friend. They want to get rid of you. They want to replace you. And we see this playing out in this whole politics right now, right?

All of a sudden, you keep seeing everything. Like, what's the cure for COVID? Midterm elections. All of a sudden, the mandates. The science says, no bullshit, man. Freaking, it ain't no. There's no, there's no, the COVID numbers haven't changed at all. The science hasn't changed at all.

Midterms are coming and Democrats know they're about to lose. And across the country through boards of elections and every different means they can, they're trying to protect their, what they have left. And we sit in North Carolina with the redistricting and all this nastiness. But anyway, the number two thing that sets me apart is that group of veterans, those Green Berets, those seals. when we show up, let's say half of us, right? Let's say there's 30.

It's just over 30 global war on terrorism veterans. Young, vibrant, not old gray hair, crippled old men. Easy on the gray hair, bro. You're not old. You're still vibrant, you know. I keep looking at it like this, right? We're still young if most of the 20-year-old troopers, the 20- to 30-year-old troopers in the teams or on the ODAs,

don't want a fistfighting. The second they know that we're not able to, you know, hold our own, then we're that old line that gets pushed out of the ride. You know? But I would say right now the average 20 to 30-year-old soft trooper doesn't really want to throw down with either one of us, right? I mean, some of them would, and they probably whip our old asses. We're going to be sore the next day no matter what.

But the difference is they know we got this old knowing we're either highly aggressive, violent and smart, right? Like, you don't get through 20-some years of war just being lucky, you know? And I always tell them that, you know, I'm still in 20th group, man. I teach down an Arsafal course and I'll pick on the young ins and I'll be like,

okay, whatever, man, you know, that fun, you know, shooting and shit, talking, whatever you want to call it? And I'm like, okay, whatever, man, you want a fist fight? And they're like, on the outside, I look like I'm ready, you know? I'm ready to get after it.

On the inside, I'm like, please, Lord God, don't let this do fist fight. Don't let this give you for the guy. This kid actually wanted to take me up on this offer because it's going to hurt so bad. But yeah, man, could you imagine 20 global war on terrorism veterans, right? 12 of them, special operations guys, swearing to oath for a second time on Capitol Hill. The Democrats shaking in their boots because they know they just lost. And the Republicans going, uh-oh.

We're going to have to ask those guys. newbies, these freshmen, we're going to have to really team up with these guys and work with them. That's some stuff that could change America's trajectory. And that's the difference between me and some of my really good opponents, good people, right? I mean, I got a guy that's running a district against me, man, he's a good old boy, good old country boy.

We talk after meeting, we hit it off. And I was like, man, in any other time you and I met, we'd just be hunting fishing buddies. He's a good Carolina boy. And I told him, I was like, hey man, tell you what, won't you just let me and my buddies go up there for a couple years? I told you, I'm out. This is not a career for me. I'll do everything in the world to help you run after I'm done.

You know, of course, he didn't take me up on that office. He's still convinced he can beat me. And maybe he can, but that's the cool thing about democracy, right? I have to show the people in this district that I'm the best candidate. I can't just say I am. I have to go show them. And so anyway, man, it's some interesting stuff. So much.

It's like so simple, but it's not easy. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, a little sidetrack right there. You get done with Afghanistan. You go do some stuff working with law enforcement, whatnot. And then when do you end up going to Iraq? just before the invasion.

And so Iraq happens, all that goes down, I'm up north, and made more friends, more Kurd friends, more friends over at the agency, because we were basically doing that advanced prep for northern Iraq with the Kurds and everything. So you got there before the invasion, and you're up with the Kurds, and you're prepping for what's going to go?

The war's coming, right? Yeah, so, you know, evasion goes down, freaking I was running around like Mosul, Kerkuk, all that stuff. Are you with an ODA team? I'm actually with one of the SAD teams. Okay. Because I'm that young kid that doesn't look like an SF guy, right? So really cool.

Yeah, Iraq happens. And then in my next trip to Afghanistan, I got bumped off a cliff. and I broke my back. How'd you get bumped off a cliff? One of our partners tripped. We were walking down. He was above me. And he tripped.

80, 90 pound backpack. You know, nice, you know, freaking offset infill. Yeah. How far? How high was the cliff? Probably fell 15 feet, you know, enough to, you know,

and basically, when he hit me, you know, I kind of like feet went out and landed basically on my ass like my feet were kind of out in front of me a little outcropping and that rucksack just buckled me. Right? It just split my L5.

How much did you weigh at this point? Were you jacked yet? Yeah, I'm starting to put on some pounds at this point. You keep talking about being the skiddy Yeah, no, I know, now we're, you know, three years into the war, four years into the war, man, I've been hitting a weight pile like everybody else. I'm probably like a buck 85.

And, yeah, man. It just bent me over, split my vertebrae, part of the vertebrae hit my spinal cord. The prognosis was you might walk with crutches one day. So were you like paralyzed on site? Bro. That hole, I can't feel my legs. Yeah, I didn't experience that because I could feel it and it hurt like hell. Right.

If you took this dude, put it in a fire, got it nice and orange and stuck it in the side of my spine back here, that's what it felt like all the way to my toes. it was like I was on fire. Did they Kaz a vacuum? Oh, yeah. Spent three or four months in a brace, doing a wheelchair thing, freaking got better. Really fast.

So within a year, I'm running again. Well, my ETS day came up, and I had a flight packing in. I wanted to be a pilot. I thought, you know, my ground pounding days was, I'd already done everything we could, right? How many more countries are we? invading. I thought my ground pounding days was over and these Apache gunships keep flying in

and just doing all our work. I'm like, I mean, I grew up in air condition. Yeah. Yeah, they got like, they could only work a few hours a day. I'm like, man, these warrant officers, they can fly for the rest of their lives, you know, because the army has a warrant officer program. Oh, huh. So I put it in a packet. All I had to do was get home and go to flight school. It's going to be awesome. Well, that clearly changed. I thought my career was over. So, let's do. Luckily, those friends that I made at the agency, I got out and I initially took- Did you get medically retired or? Young and dumb, man.

My intent, I thought I was going to go contract for a little while, get better, and then I would come back in the Army and fly. Just take some time off. And there's all these awesome contracting jobs out here. They're paying awesome. Oh, and this is because you're in the National Guard, so you could say, hey, I'm non-deployable for a while. I'm going to heal up.

But you'd still be in the National Guard. But I got out. I got out. Oh, you got out completely. Yep. You called it. Because at this point, the guard has figured out that they were just hemorrhaging dudes to contracting.

So you got all these battalion commanders and group commanders. So, 0405. Oh, yeah. This is like $1,500 a day for contractors and stuff. They're shutting it down. And they're like, nope, you know, you still got to be at your drills. You still got to meet your commitments. Whereas in like, oh, 2, oh, 3, you had company commanders jumping in.

And they were like, yeah, I don't care if y'all show up or not. And if you think about it, right, like you've got your troopers overseas doing, you know, at least combat-ish type stuff, you know, it was a good thing for the guard. You had guard guys that were getting exponentially more combat experience through contracting than the active duty groups were doing because they were just rotating, you know. So it was a good thing for the guard, but it wasn't good for their numbers, right? It didn't look good. They had guys that weren't getting their online training done, you know. You got to do your EO and your sharp string, right? It was killing those numbers for these commanders.

So they shut it down. So I was like, screw it, I'm out. I'll just come back in. You know, I'll go make some money, whatever, buy a house or something, which is, you know, exactly what I did. But as I got better, you know, I went, became operational again and started doing cool stuff, way cooler than the Army ever was going to let me do. This is as a contractor.

Yeah. So I never went back in. or I didn't go back in to fly. And at one point, it was kind of funny because I did go back in and join 20th group in, like 2012, which I'm still in. How long? But that's a pretty big gap, though.

You got like seven, almost eight years. Seven, eight years. And were you contracting that whole time? Whole time, nonstop. I stayed really busy with that. Of course, I started the gym. I would come home. I got lucky, man.

You know, teamwork, right? You know what makes a dream work. When I started my gym, which I opened it in January of 2008, That's when this gym opened. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Very cool.

You know, 2008 I was gone nine months. I opened a gym. Luckily, the team that I put in place ran it like it was their own. They did an amazing job, amazing job. Good friend of mine, Darren Kansler, man. He just did it. The young lady I was dating at the time, Julie, they ran the damn thing. And so I could come home and be the war hero that showed up to run the gym and take over for a minute.

and ruin their lives. You know, they had a plan in the way they did things. Nope, I'm going to do it my way. You know, like, no, hopefully I wouldn't like that. But, you know, intrinsically that'll happen. But they just did an awesome job with my gym. And I could. I could stay deployed.

And I did. And the gym grew. So that was cool. It was kind of a parallel there. And the gym was great. You know, it was supposed to be just a little CrossFit gym that, you know, guys like us, Marine Recon boys and Marsock dudes because we're just south of Lejeune. come in there take their shirts off spit on the floor throw up if they want to and we'll just

thrash ourselves and then regular people started showing up right like soccer moms and stuff and you know hell i'm still at this point in my life i'm like hey you you know you know stop being a puss and and you know maybe stop eating so many donuts fatso and and you could daggone be a pt stud too well when 33 year old 36 year old mother of two or three or three that drives a suburban pulls up, you can't talk to her like that because she won't come back. And those are also the people

that have the money to pay their gym leaderships. Those college kids that are studs that you want to train, they ain't got no money. You got to at least pay the light bill. So I quickly figured out how to talk to regular people. You know, you can't be like, hey, Sally,

maybe cut out that bottle of wine and that box of donuts every night. You might be able to do a pull-up. Yeah, she's never going to get pulled. Right. So now you have, you know, I had, I had to, I was real adamant about not being that creepy gym owner and, you know, who was like, you know, having any type of fraterization with clients and stuff like that. I was a big deal. And I did start that gym with a partner and it quickly figured out it wasn't going to work.

Not a bad separation. They were just like, he couldn't move to Wormington. And, but yeah, man, it was that gym taught me a lot about teaching, you know, just how to talk to people. You couldn't. Hey, Ranger, you know, hey, Sally, come here. What's going on? You know, hey, when you're ready, if you like, let's sit down and, you know, maybe line out some nutrition or diets and stuff, you know, nutrition, not diet, right?

Those words mean something. Because if you say something to a lady who needs to drop 20 pounds, you know, if you say, hey, let's talk about getting you on a diet. Oh, my God, bro, you just, she's gone. She hates your guts. But if you're like, hey, look, let's tune this up. You know, man, your shoulders are starting to get really defined. And you're looking great.

And that was a cool thing about CrossFit, right, is that women's upper body started to develop. And, you know, you clearly can't be that creep and talk to her about her legs or any other, you know, lady parts or whatever, you know. You can't be like, hey, Sally, you know, your bum's looking great. That's inappropriate, right? It's not professional.

And so, you know, I really learned how to talk to people and then motivate them and bring them into the fold. And, you know, before we know it, That was one thing my gym was so well known for. I'm so proud of it is that are women monsters? And people would come to me, like other gym owners and stuff. I'm like, what are you doing to motivate and turn these women into these monsters? We sent like, I don't know, 18 different athletes through the CrossFit games out of a town of only 150,000 people.

And it was just, I didn't. even have to recruit once it started. We had one of the original super strong females. She just showed up. She was a volleyball player powerful, right? She could very coordinated. I'd talk to her, and O'I lift them before you know it. She was like throwing weight over her head that most of the dudes in the gym couldn't touch. And so people started hearing about her and then it grew and then her and then a handful of others. And next thing you know, I've got these, I'm looking for dudes. Our thing was the team events. I love the team events. I don't know. The individuals is cool. right and a whole different level but the team was fun and I'm all about building a team so our teams

did really well but there were years where you know a couple years where we didn't the team didn't get in the team didn't go to the games because the guys on my team weren't strong enough to get us on the podium at regionals it was never the girls man um I trained one young lady she came in the gym of phenom right like just this diamond in a rough fast twitch powerful She'd been a soccer player, a swimmer at ECU. God bless her heart. She's just a, imagine the most hardheaded ranger, young seal pup you ever dealt with. This was her, man.

But like the first time she ever deadlifted, she picked up over 300 pounds. I walked in and was like, stop, stop, stop. What are you doing? Who is she? Why is she picking up that kind of weight? She's clearly new, right? Horrible farm, which is powerful. So anyway.

That's impressive. She quite, she could have been an individual athlete. She had that type of genetics. She went a different route. That year, I couldn't put her on my team. She just wasn't ready yet. She couldn't work with the team. She came in a little late.

She had everything going for. I was like, hey, in the interim, let's play with Strongman. Right? We just started getting Strongman equipment. It was getting more and more worked into the CrossFit stuff. And we kind of did a pure thing. And some of the gym members, I was that guy who was, I was like the most anti-CrossFit gym owner on the planet.

I was like, CrossFit was supposed to be to get you in shape so you can go do cool stuff. You want to try a triathlon. You want to try, you want to, whatever, you know. I never really saw CrossFit as like becoming a sport, but I can't help it. But I like to compete. You know, let's get in it. So anyway, this young lady, Kimberly Lawrence, she, I said, hey, let's try a strong man.

So she did like a local event, crushed it. And still is super strong. Well, that event qualified her for the Worlds at the Arnold's. Damn. She weighed 165 pounds. Naturally. She never touched any drugs. And strong man is not a tested sport, right?

So the middle weight class and the females is the most competitive. And it's 140, 180 pounds. And most of the girls cut from 200. They're 511, 6 foot tall, 200-pound females. And like I said, not tested. Kimberly goes to the Arnold bro and wins world. Our second strong man competition wins it. And she didn't cut.

She walked into the competition 160, five pounds. This is what she weighed at the time, right? I mean, she's probably five, eight or nine, five or nine. Just naturally a mussel. Well, not naturally. She had been an athlete in college, right? But just explosive. And you said she swam and played volleyball. Is that the one? And soccer. Okay. Just aggressive, too, man. Just like, hostile. She should, at the time there wasn't a good MMA presence in Wilmington, that's, that's where she should have gone. That's where she should have gone. As one of the gyms, Salter and those guys stood up in the MMA gym there, and had that been stood up out of center over there.

I mean, Go kill people. With a little bit of training, this chick would have been scary, right? She was, and she would go over there and train and play, and she went through a little phase where she was doing some striking and stuff, and I was just like, God, man. Anyway, long story short with her, she kind of got involved in the wrong people and stuff, and I didn't coach her anymore, freaking, but what an amazing cheek.

And like I said, man, it was just so cool that our females were so well known. And like every lady on the team is snatching 200 pounds, deadlift in 3 plus. Like Kimberly was deadlifted 500 pounds at a buck 70 and had abs. You know what I mean? She did not look like a power lifter. And this is just the ladies we had. They were just badass. You know, Melissa went to the games.

She was just the small one. She was the body weight one. And as CrossFit matured, Now the average crossfit female is like a buck 65, man. Those girls are big, so Melissa, she can't compete with them. She can't move the weight that they do. But, yeah, man, the ladies, and Melissa was instrumental in helping, once Melissa realized she wasn't big enough because our last time we went to the games,

you know, Dawn was, you know, probably at the time 160, 16, 15. A girl, man, 150 pounds, another volleyball player. and Jordan probably 150 pounds and every single one of them were instead left in 400 pounds cleaning jerking over two I mean these chicks and running sub six minute miles

like what the and I mean you know luckily that last year the boys were all big boys and studs but Melissa was you know an amazing amazing coach to those ladies you know the deal once you realize you ain't you ain't ever going to be in the ring again right

Like you can either, you know, what is it? Those who can't do teach. And that's just really, same for me, right? Like as I got older, I was like, I don't stand a chance of being, you know, involved in this sport, but I can damn sure coach some people to it. But yeah, the gym was amazing, man, freaking, it was lucky that I could run it in a parallel. Once me and Melissa started dating, I started, I went through a phase where I didn't deploy a whole lot. What were you doing?

Like teaching stuff, state side? Mm-hmm. And a highway patrol friend of mine asked me to start helping him. him like teach some firearms. His father had a nice range and stuff. I'm like, yeah, man, why not?

You know, he was going through a divorce and needed some money. So I was like, yeah, you know, he's like, yeah, I think, you know, with your background,

you know, we can bring in some people. And that's how the whole shooting part of my business kind of started, was just trying to help a buddy that needed some, you know, money because he was going through a divorce. And so that turned out, man,

thing half ass, right? If I'm going to do something, I'm doing it, you know. That's why, like, all the physical stuff, the triathlons, the ultramarathons. Hell, I put myself in the hospital after the Bigfoot 200, not after, because I didn't quite finish my 177. I'm pissing blood. Rabdomyalysis, freaking, I was in bad, bad shit. How many hours into it was that? Probably 70-some, day three. Yeah. You're familiar with the company, Soft Fleet? Yeah, guys. Yeah.

So Brent. I don't know them, but I know who they are. Yeah. So Brent, one of the founders and owners, Marsock dude, a good friend of mine, he joined me at mile 112 of that race. And I was already in bad shape from like a section of the race. It was a lot of downhill. Well, first, we don't have mountains where I live in North Carolina.

So I was trained uphill on a stair mill. Dude, I would go to the gym and spend four and five hours walking on a stair mill. Miserable. miserable, stupid. But I set a goal. I don't like running. At this point in my life, I don't like running anymore, right?

I just said, oh, we're running a 200-mile race. Why? I just say I did. Well, yeah, man, that race, one of the sections, about 11 miles, all downhill, and I ran the shit out of it. And your muscles weren't used to that? Quads destroyed them.

Destroyed them. At mile 112, I was already pissing blood. And that's from Rabdow? Yeah. My kidneys were hurt. I could feel it. It felt like somebody just worked on my freaking back, man. And by my 150 something at that age station,

that was the last time I could even keep water down. I was, my TBI was definitely flared up. I had a lot of damage to my brainstem and stuff when I got blown up in 2009. Yeah, man, I was in bad shape, and I wanted to sleep. He wouldn't let me sleep. Come to find out later, he was like,

yeah, I was worried you were going to die because I was having a seizure. And I was laughing about it. You know, I had convinced myself, you know, you know the deal, man. You know how we can be. And I just took it too far at, by mile 177, man, I'd gone, you know, almost an entire night, 20-some miles without any food or water, no sleep. Just, you know, Brent was just trying to get me to the next aid station. Because it's in the mountains of Washington State around Mount St. Helens.

They have no evact plan. There's no way. And I'm probably the biggest runner on the course, right? I'm doing these 200 mile raise at like 215 pounds, you know, and I had lost weight to do it, you know. I think I usually walk around at about, you know, 225, 2.30 or whatever, and I cut some weight to go run this race. And how many months did you prepare for it?

Like a year, year and a half. So we trained for about a half a year for the 2007 Bigfoot. Melissa tore her meniscus at like mile 120. And so we stopped at mile 133. We were doing it together. And I had time, but during that last trek, I didn't want to leave her. It was cold, way colder and it was supposed to be. So we didn't, I mean, teeth chattering.

We were both hypothermic. And she's busted her knee. Can't move fast. And so at like mile 132 or three at that aid station, we got there in time. And I could have taken off with no rest or whatever and got. to the next one, but I probably wouldn't have finished a race, right? I was just now I was behind. And I would have never left her on that mountain, right?

Like, especially hypothermia. You know, she's never had hypothermia to where she was, you know, freaking disoriented or something like that. And, you know, just clearly I wouldn't have left a runner I didn't know in her shape, much less I'm not leaving the most precious thing on this planet to me. So we got it at a station. I'm like, you know what? Screw it, honey.

We started it together. Let's go get some breakfast together. You know, someone was coming up. So we drove back to Portland and had some breakfast. The next year, she decided to do it, but we made a deal that we wouldn't do it together. No preconceived notions. Her knee was still not healthy. She's like, I'll try it.

I mean, that says a lot about her, man. She's like, I got this energy. I'm going to give it a whirl. She did like 77 miles and dropped. Only 77 on a busted knee. She's probably worse than us. But yeah, man, at my 176, 177, whatever it was, Brent was like, hey, man, I'm going to run ahead and make sure the crew's ready.

No, he was running ahead to make sure the medics and the doctors were there so they could drop my ass. 205 miles, man, you know, so I had, you know, whatever it was, 29 miles or something left. And I get there and they're like, yeah, here's the drop paperwork. I'm not signing that. I'm twitching, having seizures, my tracheas freaking, like, not working correctly, you know,

so some of my damage and stuff, I used to be left-handed. I'm right-handed now because this didn't work for a while. Like, I couldn't hold on to things. I definitely, but worse, I would have a seizure.

Well, if you're holding a Glock and your hand seizes, probably not a good thing. So I switched to be in a right-handed if all that was happening. I'm like seizing and anything.

It's not a muscular seizure. It's a CNS seizure. And it's just weird. It doesn't hurt, but when it happens, it looks weird. I was going to say, you ain't looking good at this point. And, bro, the pictures of me, I'm gray, right? That whole dehydrated. My body temperature was 96.4 degrees.

And my heart resting heart rate was like a buck 60. Laying down on a cot. You know, when you lay down, your heart rate should drop. Mine didn't. My body's freaking out. And I'm convinced, I don't know, it's only 29 miles. I got this. And luckily, luckily, one of those five people I told you I'm kind of scared of was helping me.

And he was like, hey, Bubba, you can either get your ass in that truck or I'm going to put your ass in that truck. Either way, you are done with this race. The next thing I remember, I woke up in the hospital in Portland, Oregon. How long was the recovery from that? That's a more fun story. three weeks after that on the last day to register for the Moab 240-miler

I went and got my blood work done 88% kidney function I'm like all right I'm good and I signed up for the Moab 240 and how far away was that at the time as far as like how much time did you have before that two weeks

oh it was only two weeks away last day to register for the Moab and here's my thought process oh I got to hear this because it hurt man. Rabdo hurt a lot more. I'd heard of Rabdo, right?

CrossFit made it famous. Everybody knew what Rabdo was. And, you know, but we all give ourselves micro cases of it and then we take days off. The reason, there's no days off in a four-day, 200-mile race. You don't get to recover. You know, it gets worse.

Well, three weeks after it, I go in, I'm like, okay, I'm trying to figure out, do I train another year? This is the first thing in my life, I've DNFed. First time I've ever did not finish. You know, man, I've been like first time goes, and every hard course they ever sent me to, you know? Like, this isn't, this isn't making sense to me.

Voluntarily withdrawing the year before because Melissa was hurt, I was okay with that. Like, it didn't hurt my feelings, you know? It didn't feel like I had somehow compromise, you know, my soul. Your integrity is a man. Yeah, but now the Bigfoot, they almost tried to kill me. And I'm like, okay, there's this Moab 240. It's all ran by the same people.

I'm like this Moab 240 mile race. It's actually 243 miles. Just like the Bigfoot 200 is 200. I'm like, y'all need to fix your t-shirts because last time I checked, a five-mile or that's like a race in another. So give me credit. I want credit. So the Moab 240, 243 miles. In my head was, okay, do I train a whole other year?

And when you train for a 200 mile, you're talking about going out at midnight and train until 6 in the morning just to get training under your headlamps and stuff like that. It's miserable, dude. In this point in my life, I'm not a runner anymore and I don't enjoy training it. I shit since then I think I've ran about six miles and that was 2018 right and it's all been like a three different army PT test I had to take you know yeah I ride my bicycle now my mountain bike and stuff but anyway yeah man I'm like okay I can train a whole other year or maybe I can knock out this 240 and just check this box and say I did a 200 right it's 240 it should be good make up for this disaster silliness of the big foot last day of registered I was down in Alabama teaching 20th group of Falkhors. I drove to one of those local blood workplaces. Had my labs pulled, interpreted it to myself. Pretty much qualified for that. Because you were going to be an 18 Delta at one point, so you're good to go.

Close, man. I've done some nutrition counseling for people at the gym, right? I can, yeah, creating kinase levels are almost back to normal. Almost. Right? And like, all right. Walked out of the parking lot. Signed up for the 240. Clearly, I know it's not a good idea. because I didn't tell anyone until a couple days before. I already had an 18 Delta mine that was going to, you know, crewed me at the race,

and that just basically means drive the truck from one aid station to the next, and the truck is a place to sleep. And so, yeah, man, I got the Moab 240. So I always say that, you know, Dumb Ranger Tony did Bigfoot, where I was like, I'll sleep an hour a night, and I'll just keep moving, and I'll keep banking extra hours. Well, the Moab 240, I just approached completely different. I'm going to sleep two hours to three hours every night, and I'm going to use every second of time to make it from here to here.

I was trying to bank time and go fast. Now you build up this extra time. Do you know how many people remember my finish time of that Moab 240? Zero. I don't even remember what it was. All I know is I finished it, and I got a picture of me walking underneath a finish line. Right. And I do know, I did have about six hours to spare.

six to eight hours of spare, whatever it was. But the point here is, unlike the Bigfoot, where I was trying to go so hard and not sleep, I walked every step of the way except for the last 13 miles of 243 miles. I rocked it. And you're just wearing one of them silly little vest, you know, maybe 10 pounds enough to get you, you know, in between aid stations, which, you know, they're pretty considerable.

I mean, you're talking about an aid station and aid station, 20, 25 miles, you know, like marathons. It's not like a marathon where there's a station every mile. This is the middle of nowhere, nowhere. Moab, you know. So, yeah, man, I knocked that crazy shit out. And freaking, heck, I was so fresh and okay that hopped in the truck instead of staying in Moab, drove back to Denver. You know, and so, yeah, man, freaking good experience.

Don't necessarily recommend it to anyone. But if you do get a wild hair and want to run at one of those races, give me a ring or a DM and I'll tell you my strategy. My strategy was, rock marched the whole way. The only reason I even ran the last 13-ish and we didn't run the whole way is that I linked up with a dude

that I had met at the Bigfoot and we trekked it in. But I wouldn't say that we ran that whole 13. We just, I picked up the pace, did some jogging, blah, blah. But yeah, man, you know, like I said, just got to get after it, you know, and purpose. You know, like we talked about that whole,

Having something, I don't know if you get dramatic, say having something to live for, but that's ultimately what it is. And, yeah, I stay busy. These days, I'm over the craziness. These days, my PT is all about just staying healthy so I can go hunting, you know. That's it. I just, that's my only real hobby I have left. As long as I'm fit enough to throw a 60-pound backpack on and go hike around the mountains and, you know, that's where I'm at in life. I'm done.

You know, Melissa's still getting after it, just crushing herself in the gym. I'm in there like, I think I'll do back and buys. Maybe just, you know, chest and tries a day, you know, and then a nice little light leg day. Like my deadlift, man. So I just turned 46 and I was like, all right, you know, for fun, let's put some weight on there. 500 for three on a deadlift. I'm like, I'm still not old yet.

You know what I mean? I'm still kind of young. But typically speaking, man, 400 on the deadlift, all I do and just do some reps, I'm not trying to hurt me anymore. Because through a lot of the stuff that I did, man, my back hurt. My, you know, TBI hurt. Always on that edge. And where'd you get blown up in the rack?

Yeah. Freaking armored sedan. IED meant for a striker. Yeah. Sucks, man. I was the only one of four in the vehicle to walk away. And I didn't walk away. Yeah.

Suck, man. freaking. We just happened. We were the marked car for the Ranger Regiment. They were going to action a big target for us. Where was it? No, Iraq. Mosul. And so we, basically, we

were going to identify, we were going to identify the gate that they were going to drive the strikers through just by simply pulling just past it and parking at that point. By the time they got there, I would already be out of the vehicle. Last thing I remember is buckling my helmet. Putting the buckle when I just put my helmet on.

And so, yeah, it was a, you know, it was a level seven being W, but it's, you know, they're bulletproof, not blast proof. Not definitely not EFP proof. EFP hit right behind the rear seat. So the two boys in the backseat, man, they were DNA'd. And driver, I guess he died, you know, eight or ten hours afterwards. The, a funny story, man, like, you know, talk about small world stuff. A few years later, I'm running. one of the training courses for the NSA,

for them, for their security guys, participating in that. And it was the end of the class. Everybody got picked in this one young ranger or whatever. You know, throughout the class, we had talked about, yeah, I worked for these people. I was in Mosul, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, because he's a student.

He didn't ask until afterwards, you know, everybody graduated. Let's go get a steak and some beer. And he's like, hey, hey, Tony, did you know that team of guys, that agency team of guys or whatever? up in in Mosul that, you know, they got blown up, the whole team died. I was like, you mean, 2009?

And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we were up there, man. We were, I was in the range reserve, man. We helped recover that. We were on target for that. We were going to do that. When they threw me in their instructors, they thought I was dead. Because the reality is, right, man, it blew that car across three lanes. It was a main highway one.

Broadway. We were in the right lane about to make a right turn into the neighborhood where the target was. Hence why I just buckled my helmet. And that EFP blew that car all the way across three lanes, big medians, you know, the medians are there and stuff, right? Across that, across three lanes and down the alleyway. Yeah. Hitting other cars, right? It wasn't a small IED. And how I live, man, I can only talk that one up to God, you know. And, um, Man, it hurt. Blast injuries. Hurt.

I came to in Germany, and it hurt. Everything hurt, man. Like, I'd say, like, my fingernails hurt. My gut, splass gut, my lungs. I had adema in my lungs. And, you know, that armored car probably, you know, clearly saved me, blah, blah, blah. But, yeah, man, my whole left side was screwed up,

freaking just from damage to that, brain stem and all that stuff. And, yeah. And that was why you were a contractor. Mm-hmm. Because you ended up going back in, right? Yeah. I, um,

I, what, 2012, I was like, you know what, freaking, I did these, you know, this eight years, maybe I should go back into guard. I could help the next generation, right? You know, what's that thing about good intentions? I say that if you get out of the military and then go back in the military, it's like taking your car, drive it in into a parking deck, putting in it reverse, and then backing over the spikes and blowing your top. requires one purpose.

That's what going back in the military is like. And I joke. I do joke, right? So the, I'll try and keep that in mind. Because you know all the time I, you know, those mornings when I wake up like,

you know, I can probably, you know, I call some people, you know, take me back. Ready to rock and roll. No,

I, I went, and so I work for our ASD advanced skills attachment, the group level, ASD. So I get to teach the courses like our CQB course,

a falcon and it is worth it but the guard has its own beast right there's like all the BS that you would put up with with the active duty military and then there's the guard it has its own personality its own type of crap and because it is a part-time thing for so many people and the few full-times that they full-timers that they have they're trying to manage you know on half staff all these guys who all have problems who are all the most important people in their own lives blah blah Luckily, I have an amazing admin staff where I work and stuff and they keep it squared away. But, you know, it's still the military. Because we're not full time, we have to jump out of our asses to do stuff.

You know, the budget, blah, blah. Hell, Alabama National Guard sent a bunch of people to D.C. After January 16th, the federal government has still not paid Alabama back for that, right? And that's across the board. There are national guards across our country that don't have funding to pay people. So like some of our full-time guys in October when the fiscal year rolled around last fall lost their jobs for like three weeks. It's like what? And these are people with mortgages and families and stuff, you know.

It's their job. Like, oh, no, we don't have money because, you know, Joe Biden don't want to, you know, send us money. Right. Of course you don't. Actually, who signs the budgets, Congress. So is it Joe Biden's fault? Or is it a representative's fault? I don't know.

I mean, I always go back to this, right? First page. Range your handbook. The leader is responsible for everything that does and does not happen on a mission or patrol. So anyway, I digress. But yeah, the guard, man, it's good. I get to interact with the young guys,

the up-and-comers, share some lessons learned. and it's worth it. But, you know, if I go teach Sif out for four weeks, I'm back to make an army money. So, you know, you lose money doing it. And sometimes you ask, is it worth it? I got to go put up with this BS and, you know, whatever. But then I remember like, hey, man,

we now have a service full of all the combat vets got out. There's no combat veterans left. special forces for the most part right same with the seals man I got some guys from up Virginia Beach that come down and use my long range all young young pups and they're snipers I'm like I thought

snipers are supposed to be like the most experienced dudes are like we are like aren't you like 22 like 26 so you mean to tell me you are one of the most experienced dudes in your platoon when you're in the team you're like 30 yet

yeah man everyone with any experience left. I'm like, well, crap, it's the same in the Army, same in the Marine Corps. So I look at it like this, man, I feel a little obligated to give back, you know, for whatever reason, I am still here with all my fingers and toes. I still can't shoot. I still can't teach. And man, I get down there, I can't help it. I'm not the dude on the catwalk. It's not how I teach. I put my kid on and go and do CQV with the teams. And I'm like, all right, check it out, guys. And you're doing that as an act as a guard. Guard time.

And when did you go back in the guard? 2012. Did you go on any deployments once you hit 2012? I haven't. Not with them. Got it. Yeah. That doesn't pay good enough.

I mean, you know, if you, so I weigh it out like this. Since I belong to ASD, we're not a deploying unit anyway. We're training detached. Got it. To go do an eight-month deployment with SF, the return of the return. investment just isn't there for me. It doesn't pay well enough. It's too long.

Whereas I can do stuff, you know, with the agency and projects and stuff like that that are shorter. And we actually get to do. So you still been contracting the whole time? Did you go to Syria? Who are you with over there with your contractor? Yeah. What was that like? I mean, it's cool because, like I said, we're, that would be the wrong.

I was going to say our ROEs are different. The ROEs aren't different. We have a much more efficient chain of command. I don't have to ask for permission to, you know, take a potty break. Whereas, you know, teams typically to move from here to here have to ask permission. We are given a mission we're allowed to go execute. We send up sit reps. We don't have to ask for permission most of the time.

You know, we always have our market managers too. Yeah, you know, it's not for free for all. But we get a mission and we go do it. a lot of our stuff is you know the ASO type stuff the source operations and then

AFO you know doing the reconnaissance and especially with the lay of the ground as far as the local population and a lot of PRAMSI type stuff and you told me not to do that here I am with an acronym

right? Freaking Promete is like that that area study of all the equations that make up a an area, whether it's, you know, population, resources, and all that sort of thing, not just like combatants, right, the entire area, what's going on in this area. So we do a lot of that. And of course, we can action targets if we need to, typically like in Syria, since we were working in such small elements that, you know, it was like, hey,

gang rangers not doing anything tonight, you know, you know, we got, is there an ODA around here that can come do this? You know, where the seals at? know, but yeah, man, that type of work is really cool. I've done stuff in Haiti and, you know, we've got a lot of things going on that are, I said, more U.S. interest than national defense. And one definitely leads to the other, right? Like, it's important. If you talk to a lot of people are like, oh, we need to withdraw from around the world.

Well, if we want to continue to be a superpower, we have to continue to influence in a positive way around the world. This is why Ukraine is so hard to figure out right now. My take on Ukraine is, hey, man, Europe is full of a bunch of really well-powered, modern nations. It is their A-O, right? Yeah, with modern militaries. Very modern militaries, right? We help with that.

Russia wants Russian land back. The parts of the Ukraine, it really wants. And maybe Putin, I don't know what Putin's thinking, right? Like maybe he wants the whole nation. But they've shown us since, you know, even since 14 when they took or, they didn't take Crimea, right? Crimea allowed themselves to be annexed. There's a big difference. The Ukraine, you know, the south and the east, I mean, they're native Russians, right?

And that's, again, Americans, we're too stupid to know that there is a difference between. Russians and Ukrainians. They speak two different languages. Right? And do a lot of them speak both? Of course. You know, it would be no different in like the border of Texas. Lots of people speak both.

But there is a clear difference between Americans and Mexicans, right? And that's what's happening here. In Ukraine, they, Russia wants it lands back. Does Russia also want a warm water port? Well, yeah, Russia's wanted a warm water port for decades, a century or more now, probably longer than that since navies have been navies they've wanted warm water well okay i get it are we at a point in our so we have two things right like this president who is weak clearly could stand up to russia draw a line in the sand and be the heroes and russia doesn't get to invade

or we can act tough russia invades we look like a bunch of pusses and now we're obligated to fight that's the wrong answer man American boys and girls don't need to go fucking die in the Ukraine the Ukraine is one of the most corrupt nations on this planet now that is partly due to Russia keeping them that way

a corrupt Ukraine can't get into NATO right NATO's not letting them in in their current state it's just not happening so that's part of it's like well we want them in NATO if we really wanted them in NATO we did let them join NATO 3 510

years ago. They're not eligible. So, I mean, come on, man. We got to, you know, like there's a difference in messing and meddling and getting ourselves into it. And you got to, you know, again, not a conspiracy theorist, but what everything is going wrong for this administration, one can't help but to at least entertain the idea that it's a distraction from all the other crappy mistakes. Now all of a sudden Biden wants to look strong. Well, there's Biden and there's Putin and I don't think Putin is ready to step back from Biden I think he's calling his bluff man you know

and I don't think that Biden has that hey let's sit down and hash this out type of freaking mentality you know well unfortunately in that case like I unfortunately truthfully I have a hard time thinking that that Biden could carry on a logical conversation and negotiation with Putin. It just doesn't seem like that's a feasible thing. I mean,

he has a hard time. He has a hard time, unfortunately, as we watch him, he has a hard time putting together sentences, right? I mean, putting together legitimate sentences

that are prepped for him. Right. That's really, really disturbing, really, horrible to see. And you think he's going to go in with a freaking KGB agent

and be able to carry on a conversation and not get manipulated and take advantage of. It's very disturbing. A KGB agent that for the last 20 years has not been distracted by some wars in the Middle East. And we have been. He's been preparing and preparing for whatever he wants to do while we've been messing about in the Middle East. Yeah. And that's, you know, talking earlier about iterative decision making. Here's

another bad move when you're in a leadership position is painting yourself into a corner. Right. You know, don't paint yourself into a corner. The world changes. Things change. Right. Things happen. And don't put yourself in a situation where you can't say, hey, this is the direction we're going now. It's a little bit different than where we were heading, but it's okay. Because I, the whole time was saying, I might go in a different direction. That's okay. And you know what? Let's say we have this amazing, charismatic, badass leader, which we don't, that allows us to look like we're letting Russia paint us into a quarter and then poof. He's got a whole other plan. That would be cool, but that's not what's happening. That's not what

happening, right? Like that's that old, what's the, everybody likes to quote the whole, you know, what's the Chinese book? Sun Tzu. Yeah. Right. I always laugh. I'm like, whenever somebody wants to, you know,

sound like they'll understand war, they're going to quote that guy, you know, feudal Chinese battle and, you know, war theory. Okay, cool. But great. Some of us have actually participated in war.

Thanks for quoting that. But there is a good, the whole thing of, you know, the ruse appear weak when you're strong, you know, appear strong when you're weak, right? Like, always give missed signals to your, to your enemy and adversaries.

Yeah, that's not what we're doing. Our adversaries clearly understand that we have a very broken leader. I don't even want to say weak. Because I would say that probably Biden, as goofball as he has been throughout his career, you know, Biden in the 80s and 90s was definitely an intelligent person, right? That guy as a president probably could have been decisive. But this Biden we have today is just an – an old broken person.

And I talk about term limits. How about a retirement age? That would be nice at this point. Yeah. I mean, we have 80 plus year olds running our country. And I always ask people, yeah, would you trust your 85-year-old grandma to walk your dog? Right? Like put that into perspective.

What would you trust your 85-year-old, your 80-year-old grandparents with? And I'm sure there are plenty of out. outliers, right? There are 100 years old out there that are brilliant. Outliers never prove a rule. Military's retirement has a retirement age. Every industry has a retirement age. Our government, 65. Why are our justices? Why are our representatives? Why is our president allowed? I mean, it's socially acceptable to have a retirement age on these things. You know? And of course, term on us, but it scares me that we're literally at a point right now where this, this president, this administration could lead us into a war of war and we're not ready for it. I mean, I'm sure,

don't get me wrong. How many weeks would it take for American soldiers and sailors to get ready? Yeah. The military is ready for it. The military is ready technically to fight, of course. Right. But are we ready to start losing people in Ukraine, which a lot of people couldn't even figure out where it is on a map that we don't understand. We don't care about that much. against Russia who's Russia so who's ready for that when you say who's ready

I'd say we're ready to fight of course but are we ready to go and die and kill a bunch of people that we don't know and civilians that are going to die as well it's like we may want to think through that a little bit I'm all for helping our allies right that's a good thing we need

a strong bunch of allies but the Ukraine has known for well over a decade right that Putin wanted that land back. So my question is, what has the Ukraine? What has Ukraine? I've been told that you're not supposed to call it the Ukraine.

Do you know why? Because Ukraine, I guess it means frontier. And if you say the frontier, which is the Ukraine, that's the frontier of Russia. So calling it the frontier, that's where that's where that little, that's where I hadn't heard that. Somebody told me like in a comment on social media that it's not the, Ukraine. And I'm like, it's just Ukraine. Okay.

Sorry. I don't know that I'm not purposely trying to diminish that nation. No intent implied. Yeah, I don't know, Jack. Man, it's, it's so frustrating. It's like we have all these problems. And I, again, I'm not the, I'm not the guy that says, hey, we have to completely withdraw from the rest of the world.

And we have to be involved. Yeah, that's not a good point. To maintain our status. But like, to just go meddle with the Ukraine, when they've done very little to prepare themselves for this date, which they knew was coming. They've done nothing to get their allies in Europe to help them.

They've, you know, like, hey. And again, any of these situations, any of these situations around the world, just to say, oh, we're not going to get involved with anyone anymore. That's not a good move. No, that's not a good move. It's a good move to say, well, okay, what's happening? What would make sense? Let's try this approach. Let's see what happens

with this approach. If this approach works, cool. continue to invest in that approach. If that approach isn't working, we'll say, you know what, we didn't realize that there's a bunch of different, because Ukraine's got all kinds of different factions in there. Oh, we didn't realize that. We looked at it a little bit too broad and we thought Ukraine was Ukraine. It was Ukraine against Russia. It doesn't really look like it's that anymore.

We're going to stand down. Right. Or we're going to back away. Or we're going to really support this group that we know is now come to the surface as being the prominent power there. Okay. Instead of saying what we're saying right now. like we don't understand what's happening fully

and we can't predict the future. So don't over index on things that you can't predict. Don't do that in anything. Right. Well, and also, let's influence. Clearly we are still a superpower with tons of influence. Even if our European allies don't respect our current leader,

he still brings to the table and immense amount of tools that he can use to sway them. Hey, look. Oh, hey, Britain. You guys don't want to back us up with whatever we want to do. We're going to cut such and such off. Oh, hey, Germany. All those things.

Because those Eastern Bloc, man, they all love us, right? Hey, we're, you know, there are, there are two allies now. You've got, you know, the Brits, the French and Germans who are kind of, they've been flipping their middle finger up to us quite a bit for the last 10 years. Okay, guys, that's your stance. Cool. We're going to continue to be friends with Romania and Hungary and Lithuania, Estonia. Yeah, we're going to back them up because they're on the line with Russia.

You guys, screw you guys. Take care of yourselves for a little while, right? Just like Trump wanted to pull funding from NATO. Like, you guys are going to start funding this, right? He took a little bit hard line with our allies. Like, hey, we're going to treat you guys like adults. Now we're going to cut some of your funding. You guys are going to start contributing.

That's not a horrible approach, right? accountability. Own it. Right? You guys want NATO? You like NATO, don't you? Right? You guys like that security

of having us backing you up from across the pond just like we did in World War II. Yeah, y'all know. So check it out. Here's some new rules we're going to play by. You know, we've been funding this thing. We're going to take a step back.

We're going to let you guys take the lead for a little while and see how you do with it, right? There's nothing wrong with that. No. And I think Trump was trying to do that. I don't know. You know, and, you know, let's face it, those leaders in those countries, man, they, they, they led the way. They are the Bidens ahead of Biden.

Europe. America likes to think we lead the way with everything. Like, we led the way with this crazy goopy leftist presidency and all this stuff. No, I mean, Europe was way ahead of us on that stuff. Their leaders, right, have been crazy liberals for freaking, you know, five, ten years now. They definitely got to jump on that for it. You know, not that that's a good thing. So until we just take a step back and say, hey, guys, deal with it.

I do think, you know, clearly in this case, war with Russia, war with China, man. You're talking something that would affect the entire world and be so expensive for all parties, right? Putin, here's the reality. Putin doesn't want war with us. It would destroy his country. I don't have the money for it. Exactly. So choke him out.

Oh, that means cutting off that pipeline we told him. they could have. Shit, that's going to mean we have to freaking admit we were wrong. Sanctions. Russia can't afford. And even more so, right? Like, if the rest of the world distance themselves from Russia stops. And then Russia's standing there with a China that's kind of their ally, but also

trying to shove them out of the way at the same time in Iran, that's your friends, Putin. The rest of the world is kind of tired of y'all's crap. and they go back to behaving, right? And ultimately, again, root calls. Why does Russia want this? Why does Russia want it? We just identify that. We can cut them off at the knees.

It's just so frustrating, man. And again, you know, I always step back and say, you know what? I don't know everything. I don't get to peek behind that curtain, right? Like, clearly, Biden or whoever's running our country, Vice President Harris. They know way more than I do. So I'm always going to give any administration a little bit of a benefit of a doubt, right? Like, you know, I always, I hated growing up the military where some key leader would be like, well, you just don't understand the big picture.

And then as I got older, I realized that I don't understand the big picture. They didn't understand it either, dude. Yeah, of course, they didn't either, right? Like, that was their way of saying, like, yeah, we don't really know what the hell's going on either. But now when I'm older, I do have an acceptance that I don't have the big people. picture and I never will, right? None of us will ever know what the president of the United States knows, right? There's no security clearance out there that touches what that guy gets to know or that gal presumably one day. No. So you as us, as the guys who work for that commander

chief, always has to kind of sit back and go, okay, they know more than us. So I always try to keep that in reserve, you know, like that to keep me from creating assumptions and assertions that is realizing that my assumption and my assertions are always going to be less informed. Right. Right. Yeah, they've got massive intel networks,

briefing every day, sources all over the world. Like, they got some information. Right. Still. I like to think that they do some good stuff with it. Me too. I'm like, please God.

Because right now, man, what we've gotten ourselves into is scary. And again, and especially when you have, China, like you're talking about China. What if China makes a move on Taiwan now? Like, they're not sitting over there going, oh, well, if America gets back to Ukraine.

The withdrawal from Afghanistan is what set this stage, right? Like, I don't know anybody except for like some staunch left supporters of, I don't even know if there's any Biden supporters left, but there are the Democrats, right, who are just never going to say that they were wrong for voting for him or that he, anything they've done is wrong, right? This is how our system works. But the reality is any objective, synthetic thinker knows that this all started with our withdrawal from Afghanistan.

And the weakness that was just, you know, sent out across the world. Worldwide. So what was the, or was there a straw that broke the camel's back that made you say, I'm going to go and run? Because, I mean, let's face it, here you are. How would you say you are? Just turned 46. Just turned 46. You got businesses.

You got a cool woman in your life. You got a nice place to live or whatever. Yeah. Seems like you could be going into actual literal retirement mode. Yeah. Like instead of enjoying your life mode, right? And that's where I was at. And I had been working towards it pretty hard.

You know, even living in Wilmington drove me insane. Stoplights and traffic and, you know, I flew in yesterday. Because, you know, Melissa and I bought 62 acres about an hour outside of one. You know, it came with three donkeys and chickens and fenced in pastures and we turn our dogs loose. And I mean, if I want to walk around my yard naked, you know what I mean? It's that type of country, you know, it's the same way I grew up. And I think, you know, whether that's genetic or not, I've always craved it.

I like to be in places where it's just quiet. You know, growing up on the coast, you know, the water, and then because of a dare or someone talking smack, I went to dive school. I wound up on a dive team. I wanted to be on the mountain team. I went to Afghanistan and fell in love with the mountains because before Afghanistan, I had done some training in Colorado,

but not really done enough to fall in love with the mountains and the thin air and all that. Well, we went to Afghanistan, man, and I was just, man, you know, I remember looking around like in Torbore and stuff and, you know, like, wow, this would be some amazing snowboarding. What are they doing here? You know, and at the time, I didn't even realize that it actually was a destination back in the 60s. Yeah. My stepmother and her friends all went to Kabul in the late 60s to smoke weed.

Yeah. My stepmother is she was so funny. It's so funny. My mom, you know, a North Carolina girl, a country girl, a farm girl. grandfather was a farmer and my stepmother was from out here. Oh yeah she was from like a uh-oh. I should say uh-oh. I forget her hometown but um between here in L.A. And so she was like a hippie a little bit in the 60s turned into like she was traveling to Afghanistan smoking pop. Right. Right. Right. But not like a not like an anti-government hippie just like a California young girl,

you know, whatever. It's so cool stories. you know, and I had no idea there was that part of Afghanistan, that it was actually very Western and modern during the 60s. You know, Kabul, you look at pictures. There's, you know, the roads are nice. It's clean. People are smiling, you know. So anyway, yeah, man, I'm just not into the city, you know.

These days, you put me behind a tractor or a combine, and I got to go six mile an hour for 10 miles. No stress. I'm not even going to, whatever, you know, I don't care. Because living out there, I'm rare. in a hurry. I have days that I have work to do and clients and guys to shoot with and classes. But on my days off, man, I'm my boss.

You know, and don't get me wrong, I can be my own kind of a pain in my ass, but I'm flexible with my time. So no stress, you know. Got out of the city. Everything's awesome. It sucks from Melissa because she drives almost an hour every day one way to her practice. But, you know, she's chill. You know, she loves to listen to her podcast and all that.

kind of stuff. And, you know, she's a dentist. So she works four days a week. And so Friday, she gets to go and do whatever she wants or whatever. So, you know, before we did it, you know, I was like, hey, are you sure? Because our price is cute, man. And I found it by accident. It just happened to be driving down that road, took a different route home one day. And saw the for sale sign. Pull it off the side of the road, put up Google Maps. She could kind of see the property lines. I was like, ooh, called the realtor man. We closed on it. So yeah, you know, there are days where my most intelligent conversation is with a couple of donkeys and some dogs. I don't even see people.

You know, my nearest neighbor, well, my nearest nearest neighbor is like some meth heads that live like, I don't know, half a mile through the woods. We basically have an agreement that they sat at my business and, you know, I sat out of their business and their trailer doesn't burn down. You know, how meth cookhouses sometimes, you know, catch on fire. So we're good. You know, we're good. Every now and I'll wake up and, like,

You know, I can hear their music playing at like four in the morning or something. But other than that, they don't mess with me. I don't mess with them. They're just redneck meth heads. And then the other neighbor, man, it's kind of cool. She lives like 1.2 miles away and she's completely deaf. So she can't hear the range. Other than that, no one lives within two miles of us, you know.

So we get out there and shoot and shoot and no one cares. So it's real cool, man. Yeah. So we were planning on moving to Idaho. As the costs were going up, we're starting to look at Montana. as well because a couple years ago Montana being really expensive, Idaho was still like, all right. And the cool thing about Idaho for me is while the Rockies aren't as high there, they're not, they'll have the same elevation as say Colorado or wherever.

Idaho is like 60% public land. Lots of hunting access. And I like hunting, but I like being on those mountains, man. You know, it's just, it's quiet. Most of time it's just me and Melissa. but yeah man we we'd found a couple different places we were looking at one place very seriously in Idaho City just north Idaho City and I was like all right and then everything in America started happening because man that's where I was at you know my business is doing great I mean this is a

dentist so like were she ready to pull chalks too yeah yeah and for her to do that's kind of a big deal like you know clearly like I said I can I can pack a backpack and a duffel bag and move, you know, grab some guns out of the safe, let's go. She clearly, you know, I mean, she, you know, she's got 18 or 19 employees, all females. They, it's always fun because they've always got something going on, you know. I don't want to call it drama because that would be dismissing it, but the dynamics in that office are always fun to listen to, you know, because I have team dynamic stuff and then

I get to listen to them to listen about her team dynamics. And it's like a lot of the same stuff that we would deal with only with a hint of, you know, the lady stuff, you know. And I'm like, wow, I don't envy her at all. Because at least like on a team, man, in theory, you could always go out back and sort it out, you know. At least go in there and put the gloves on and sort that shit out, right? She doesn't have that option. So, yeah, man. We were really close to pulling the trigger on moving.

And we had talked about it for years. Like our first date that we claimed. as our first date, right? We were, when she and I met, she and her boyfriend had just broke up, me and the girl I was dating had just broke up, and we were real skeptical of each other. We'd known each other from the gym and kind of looked at each other like, I don't know, who's that punk, who's that punk, you know, both very strong personalities. She's her own boss, same with me.

I've been a boss for a while now. I don't really, and that dynamic was just so interesting as we came together. We kind of kept it quiet that we were seeing each other. So our kind of our announcement to all of our friends, and you know how a gym can be, everyone's friends from the gym. And we did a hike across the Bob Marshall Wilderness out in Montana. Very. But it wasn't supposed to be a hike across. It was supposed to be a loop back to the car, two days, 20-some miles.

Well, that night, we hit our turnaround point. We woke up in the morning and there was smoke everywhere. largest forest fire ever in the Flathead National Forest and the Bob Marshall was inside the flathead. Uh-oh, now what? So now we are running from a forest fire all the way across the Bob Marshall. So it was like 70 or so miles

and we didn't even have the food for it. And right now in the console of my truck are protein bars. They're not mine. They're for her. Her favorite protein bars because the last thing anyone wants is for Melissa. to get hungry.

Is she a hangary woman? So Melissa is, Melissa is half German and half Japanese. I live with the Axis powers. Keeping her fed is a priority. I'm telling you, man, and it's not like a gradual descent. Everything's cool,

and now she just wants to tear your throat out. And you don't know it. Yeah, and you don't even know it's coming. I'm like, I'm blissfully, you know, like, do, do, you know, I'm not real crazier anymore anymore, right? Like, my thing is, like, I just, you know, I started getting older, started not having

abs as much. So I just quit eating breakfast and lunch. Simple. Some people call that intermittent fasting. I call it, screw it, less calories. No fancy diet names here. And no, dude, she needs to eat. So we have to keep her fed.

But yeah, we run out of food, running across to Bob Marshall. So you're one day in when the forest fire hits. and how many what's the total day? We wound up doing it in two and a half, two and three quarters days. And 70-some miles, man, we had to go across the continental device. It's like you got to climb like 9,000 feet in like a mile and a half. It's like zig, zig, zig. I remember we were going up the zigzags, right?

The switchbags. And I remember looking up, the trail would go here to here. And on the trail right there were three or four mule deer. And I was looking up at their bellies, like right there. but I could still almost touch them. Dang. Like this. Anyway, I bless her heart, man.

On that trip across the bottom marshals, she learned how to read a top of them at. Freakin was running the GPS. She'd never done that stuff before. She had been ice climb, mountain climb, hiked in all kinds of national forests. Her and her buddy from dental school were like adventurous young ladies out.

In some cases, they tell me stories. I'm like, that was dumb and dangerous. You could have been one of those missing person stories. And they were like, yeah, probably. Well, anyway, just that type of person, man. And we had to cross the White River, and it's in August, so it's snowmell, you know. And, man, I made a huge mistake, freaking. Because she's so physically fit, but, dude, she's 120, maybe 125 pounds at this time.

And I'm like, oh, this is a good place across this river. I mean, it's rolling. It's like knee deep to me. That's halfway her quads. I got across, dropped my pack, and I could see she was struck. struggling, right? And I'm pretty sure footed. I've been in the woods, backpacks, walking stick. She's got a walking stick. But it's got her where it's starting to leverage her off. And man, I got back out there. And, you know, the rocks under that water are slick. And I'm like,

get out there, man. And I put my hand on her backpack and she slipped. We went in a drink. Oh. It was lucky. I got underneath her. And man, it was like that whole push her up. Get me some air. Go back under. And man, I got scuffed up. My whole backside, my knees, this whole side just beat up. She's got her pack on, so she's pretty protected or whatever. And luckily there's a curve in the river because a couple hundred meters on down this way is the Salmon River. If we had gone in that, go through those little bit of falls and into that river, we would have died, right?

Luckily, a little curve, man, it washed us up on the shore, and we kind of crawled out, laid there. It's warm in the afternoon, but man, the water was cold, real cold. And like cold enough to where I'm bleeding and scuffed up, but I can't feel it. And I'm like, ooh, I'm going to be sore. This is going to suck. She rolls over and looks at me. She's like, oh, you saved my life. And I was like, yeah, we're going to go with that story.

Because I picked that river crossing, man. I almost killed her. Almost killed that girl, man. And I will never, yeah, it spooks me even talking about it, right? Freaking. Because who would have believed afterwards that? that I chose that river crossing, right? They were like, oh, he did that old purpose.

He drowned that girl. But no, we were new and I was like, oh, I'm in love with this chick and stuff. And it horrified me that I had made such a stupid decision. Just stupid. But we were running from a forest fire, whatever, freaking haste, all that. I did learn that she's not one of us. You know, I still have to be careful.

She's smaller, so on and so forth. Anyway, man, we get across there, whatever freaking out. was like our first date coming out of the closet as far as us dating and stuff. And, man, it was ever since then, every vacation we took was to the mountains. She wants to climb Everest. Which clearly puts me in an interesting position because I don't give a damn about climbing Everest. But I can't just let my girlfriend.

You do now. I'm like, I guess I'm going to have to go up there too. Or I just suck it up and say, hey, honey, I'm going to wait for you in a base camp, freaking hang out with these pie heads and freaking, I'll talk to you on the radio. Are you dead? No, you're good. Keep going, right? Summit that thing.

But now, so we start climbing the 14ers in Colorado. So we're doing that stuff, man, just falling in love with the mountains. Point being is we want to move to the mountains. Her best friend from dental schools in Colorado, or originally talking about going to Colorado, and then it got a little California on us. Lots of public hunting land there. One of two states left that you can get over-the-counter tags for elk.

No big deal. And if you leave Denver, Boulder, right, go up anywhere freaking it's still dodge trucks with bumpers you know it's still diesel pickups and good old ranch boys you know so I would do collar if she wanted but we kind of figured on on Idaho a bunch of my friends moved to Idaho probably a bunch of your friends have moved to Idaho it's like the where everybody's going it's the last conservative holdout I guess well we were that close man we were getting ready to pull the trigger on moving and like I said a big deal for her with her pride is

And then everything started happening. The pandemic, the weirdness. It got to the point where I was like, wow, one year ago, if you'd ask me how long it was going to take for us to get right here, I would have said 20 years. But somehow the U.S. got put on fast forward to its, you know, progressive decline. And every nation has it, right?

History tells us every culture fails. And we have some very distinct parallels to the last greatest culture, right? the last greatest city state, Rome, right? The Roman Empire, you know, huge debt, a nation and culture founded on slavery, on the backs of slaves, right? There are many parallels, a nation who cared more about entertaining themselves

than protecting their borders, right? It's some spooky parallels. And I'm like, ooh. And then I'm talking to my very good friend, Alario Pantano. Alario, if you Google him, he was the Marine in Fallujah that shot and killed two

terrorist dirtbags and then was charged with their murders. Lieutenant type to, you know, his platoon, he had lost some boys the day before. So he was an enlisted guy, scout sniper,

was working on Wall Street. 9-11 happened, doing great for himself and his family. Smart guy. Real smart, dude. And 9-11 happened, and he got back in. And then in Fallujah, man, you know, for killing two very clearly terrorists, right? Remember, Fallujah.

Get out or fight us. Anybody that stays, you're a bad guy. And they were bad guys. They had weapons in the trunks, so on and so forth. What got weird, you can look his story up, but bottom line, they charged him with murder. Two counts of it. And for how many months of his life,

He was having to defend himself against the nation that he's so much loved and went to war for. Well, Elario ran for Congress in 2010 and 2012. I bet it right before then, 2008 time frame when I opened my gym. So I watched, and as he was running, I was still very apolitical,

wasn't really interested, so on and so forth. The primaries didn't work out for him. They were fighting him and another fellow who was now the incumbent, again named David Rowley. They were fighting for that area and what they were really fighting was a 30-some-year Democrat incumbent Well, between the two of them, they did finally oust him and but David Rouser Bested Alario in the primaries he just had more pool in one highly populated segment of that district and you know

David came out the winner Since then you know, all righto he became the director of veterans affairs and stuff for North Carolina long story short man just, you know, has dedicated his life to trying to take care of service members. And just, just a great guy. But last Easter day, we're sitting on the tailgate in my truck out of the range and we're just chatting. He took a job at Syracuse University and was living up in Syracuse, down, visit it. And we were just chatting about things, the nation, the state of it, so on and so forth.

And I was like, hey, man. So I was thinking about potentially maybe. dude he hops off the tailgate and he's like he can get excited you know like when he gets excited he's really excited he's like yes if there's ever a time it's 2022 the nation's ready for it the climate needs you it's this this he just got

he didn't even let me finish he knew what I was going to say and which I thought was pretty cool because I don't necessarily think I you know broadcast something like that especially something so out of left field for me but he just had a feeling and it was funny because it's Easter Day and he's like you know what I was like, well, I'm just kicking out.

I'm not sure. He's like, it's Easter Day. And it's clearly God sent me here today to tell you that you must absolutely do this. And I'm sitting there going on. Okay. Not really where I thought this was going to go. But now I'm like, all right, all right. So if he feels this strongly about it, and he's the first person that I've even mentioned it to,

maybe this is something I should look at. And at the time, I'm still like, I just want to move to Idaho. I just want to go hunting. This will be left alone. Mind my own business. Then I realized that the reason we're where we're at is because dudes like me have been minding our own damn business while the left has rallied, protested, organized,

and executed a subversion campaign that the world, like the world's never seen before, right? A very successful subversion campaign. And so fast forward a little bit. So that was Easter Day. Laria puts me in contact with the folks who are now my consultant team and all that. We start kind of exploring, all right? Let's come up with some courses of action, see if they're viable.

Let's see if this works. Well, North Carolina, and the census picks up an extra, an additional, not an extra, an additional seat. So we had 13 now we're going to have 14 representatives, U.S. House of Representatives. Yeah, man. So we're like, okay, let's just, we're going to have to wait and see because right now I live in that same district. with the incumbent David Rouser. And by all means, a pretty square away dude. He hasn't done anything to really upset anybody.

He's not a rhino. I wouldn't say he's like, you know, the champion of all things patriotic America either. But what he has in is take care of his district, which is agriculture. I think he's probably going to become the lead on the agriculture committee. At least that's what I've heard. Well, so we decided, hey, look, if I'm going to run, I'm going to have to wait to see the new districts because challenging Rouser is probably a losing thing.

I'm not doing America any good, challenging an opponent that can't be beat. That's not a good strategy, right? And, you know, especially a guy that's doing what he's supposed to do representing his district. That's right. I am all for challenging Republican incumbents that suck. They need to go, right? And I've said numerous times, reelect no one. Reelect no one.

the reality is there are still some good dudes up there who need some backup. They need a QRF. Right. So the new districts come out and the county I live in and a couple of others to include Cumberland County, Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, Harnett County, this little block, this almost a square, right in the middle of North Carolina, mostly rural. And I live in it. And it's got Fayetteville Fort Bragg. I'm like, oh, okay. Now we're making sense and no income. but damn right like it's ready made it's just sitting there ready for me to go who I'm a run for Congress so we announced man and we'd already put it together we were ready right we're just waiting on those districts and I was like okay this

this makes sense right I can do this and hopefully go do some be part of positive change help correct this trajectory I joked that it's like a 308 trajectory and we're trying to make it like a like a you know a 375 enabler trajectory you know Let's flatten this curve a little bit, not the pandemic curve. Let's like flatten this trajectory curve that America has been placed on by crazy socialists. So yeah, man, that happened. We said, okay, cool, this makes sense. But you asked like this straw that broke the camel's back, man.

I'm not usually a super sentimental type person or whatever, but that my father passed last summer. We held his memorial service over July the fourth weekend. my niece, my older sister's daughter, like I said, my older sister is a very successful pediatric endocrinologist. My niece has never known what it's like to miss a meal. She doesn't know suffering.

And in a lot of ways, I'm kind of that guy that's like, this next generation sucks and these boys need to learn how to change the oil in their car. I mean, we'll get into that. Sometimes we're like, man, this next gen is just weak. But I'm looking at my niece, who is this beautiful young lady, lacrosse player she's almost six foot tall stud freaking a gear ahead in school super intelligent right

um not only is my sister you know more aggressive than me she's a brilliant mind so her son and her daughter got some of this well anyway they come to the house my niece is playing you know my sister's in biotech so she lives in boston so my niece is a city kid so he's She's out on my, you know, property riding the four-wheeler, playing with the dogs, freaking, throwing, you know, the dummies into the pond for the retriever. And I'm just looking at her. And I'm like, she's never known when it's like to not have Wi-Fi. That level of luxury, right?

Like, that's America. I mean, even the poorest people in America today have it pretty good. Like, homeless people in America, you know, have it pretty good. You know, we take care of even our poorest. but I'm looking at her I'm just like huh She's never known what it's like Like since she's been able to use a smartphone

They've had Wi-Fi on airplanes And I was like I don't want her to ever know what it's like Not to live in that type of luxury I don't want her to live in what Western Mosul Look like in 2005, 2006 And then for the whole entire Nineve it would be burned to the ground And crushed in the indigenous folks of Nineveh city To be murdered by ISIS right

Like I don't want her to know an America at war with itself. And if we keep on this trajectory, that is a potential course. And that scares this shit out of me. And I don't know that any of us will be alive to see that type of demise of our culture, but she might be. All right. She's 16 years old.

And that was the day that I was like, all right, let's do it. July the fourth weekend last year. And it wasn't because it was July the fourth weekend. And it just happened, right? It was just kind of a, I guess, a cool story. And I'm not a very sentimental type personal whatever, but it was about my niece. It was the weekend that we memorialized my father's life.

And I was like, okay, eight years is all I'll do. That will put me at 55 years old, and then I'll retire. And hopefully, if I can continue the path that I'm on, I'll maintain physical fitness. And at 55, I'll still be fit enough to go hunt whatever crazy animal I want to chase around a mountain. But I was like, you know what? If not me, then who?

I'm out a place where I can. Like I said, me and Melissa don't have children. And you know as well as I do, right? Like overseas, I had different times in my life where I wouldn't take a married guy with kids on my team. I would take that young ranger because I know he wasn't distracted. I built a team there for a while that was just,

they were some scary young men. They had no distractions. I have sent men home for being on the phone too often too late arguing with their spouses. Hey, go home, sort it out. I'll see in a few weeks. Or, bro, hey man, I understand if you don't want to come back. Go take care of your family. But you don't get to be here running operations with us while you got that distraction on your mind.

So I don't have kids, man. I can go and go to D.C. and be fully vested, right? While another person like me who might be considering a run that has two kids, they need to go to a ballet concert or a ballet recital, not concert,

or a band concert, or a soccer game, or a lacrosse game, or a football game, or whatever. You'll be sitting at your desk. I can get the work. Yeah. You'll be making shit happen.

The whole desk image is just ruined it, bro. Can we not put me behind a desk? Um, yeah, you know, I was joking. I was like, um, I want to make C-SPAN the most watch news network. Oh, I like that. Let's see what this crazy bastards. Yeah, I want people to like be tuning in to see it. Like, okay, what in the world has Tony?

And, uh, so this is kind of cool, right? AOC and that weird bunch, they call them the squad, right? Clearly not an infantry squad. So myself, Jay Collins is a, a seventh grouper who's running in Florida. He's an amputee. He's a stud, man. Stud of studs.

And so he's running down in Florida. He's doing really well as well. We were joking that, hey, man, if they can have the squad, we'll be the JTF. The Joint Task Force, right? And that's the thing, man. We were trying really hard to put it all of America. Yeah, JTF America.

That's a caucus, right? The JTF caucus, the veterans calls. Whatever you want to cause, right? But yeah, man, that is how I made that decision. And it's like, you know, hey man, there is an entire generation of America that needs to be taking care of, that needs to be set up for success. And I feel like it's my generation, the, you know, the 40, the 60-year-olds right now who have failed this last generation and allowed all this to happen because we were just hardworking conservatives that minded our own damn business. And by minding our own damn business, we elected these spineless cowards that went to D.C. and sold us out. time after time again.

Compromise our rights away, right? Everybody's heard just saying, conservatives haven't conserved a damn thing because conservatives are good people and they think dealing with the left is a rational thing. The problem is the left are not rational people. They only want what they want

and they're not going to compromise. The right just keeps compromising bit by bit by bit. Every single right that we hold dear, they let it go. Peace by piece by piece. And that's how this nation can fall, right? There's clearly no nation on this planet is going to invade us, right? And get anywhere.

You know, there's a gun behind every blade of grass, right? The Japanese knew they weren't hitting this mainland, right? China knows they can't. Same with Russia. The only way we can fall is if we allow it. And we have allowed this country to get where it's at. And when I say we, I mean us, all of us good people, it's our fault. I made him post on social a couple weeks ago, a week ago, whenever it was.

I told her that, you know, the biggest problem in America, question one. It's us. It's us not being involved. I ask people, who's your representative? What district do you live in? Who's your county commissioners? Are you involved in the local GOP? Are you?

We're not, man. We're not. And while the while the Democrats are organized, super organized. We're not. And that's how we lose. We don't even vote. The average voter in a primary on the Republican conservative side, it's 57 years and older. Young conservatives are not involved.

And part of that problem is there's a lot of young people in this next generation. They don't realize that posting comments and things on social media, it's not real action. Right? And I'm not even being funny about it. It used to be kind of a joke that, you know, like, okay, you think fighting on the internet, it's not like a real fight. No, man, it's like they really, they have begun equating saying things on the internet as if it's a real thing that somehow influences, right? Because we use the term influencers. You're not influencing a damn thing.

You know, even with the little bit of followers I have on Instagram, I ask people, I beg, I say, I am pleading with you. please go join your local GOP. How do we get involved, Tony? Go join your local GMP. How do I do that? Okay, let you get on your phone. And I want you to pull up Google or whatever search is you're using these days. I want you to type in your county's name and the letters GOP or Republican Party.

And you will find their website and you will find out that they have monthly meetings. And you'll go there and you'll find out that on average there's only 30 people there. No one. And they are the conservative, like, Raz, they want to be involved. But they're the ones that will tell you, like in North Carolina, they want 15,000 volunteers

to watch the polls. Sit at the polls. 15,000 people. And it's not enough. That's a very, very low number. They probably need double that. Because early voting, two and a half weeks long.

Oh, right? Yeah, I have people. People watch the polls for four-hour shifts. Two shifts per day. You need two people per shift, at least, right? The need is there. And, you know, I always joke, this generation, if they want something, just like our generation, too. If we want something and we want to participate in something and it becomes our hobby, man, we know everything about it.

Because we YouTube it and we Google it. And we, it's all right here. Everything you want to know. everything known to mankind, except for classified information and some of that, is all right here. It's in the phone, right? So if you want to know how to get involved, man, it's right here. And when you go and you talk to those people at those meetings, yeah, man, they're the fanatics. They're the really passionate conservative Republicans who really do want to change that Republican

party in the image of the old GOP, the rhinos and all that. If you go to these GOP meetings, man, they're mad at the Republican Party. They're the Republican Party, and they're mad at the Republican Party. They want to get rid of the rhinos. They're the people who want to renovate that party. Because, you know, I hear people say, you know, maybe we need a third party. Okay, that's not a viable course of action. America's not ready for it.

It would take the Democrats and Republicans getting together and deciding that the third party was a good thing. Getting together and deciding to surrender whatever power they have, which they're not going to do. Power is like matter. It never goes away. It can be transferred, right? And we have transferred willingly power throughout our nation's history, right? A good example is when we gave minorities the right to vote, right? So we are capable of doing it.

We gave women the right to vote, right? So we have transferred power willingly. Typically speaking throughout, not American, human history, power is transferred. because it's taken. It's rarely given. But that's what makes America special is that we have given power willingly in an effort to create this amazing country.

But yeah, man, freaking, you know, it's going to take us getting involved. The biggest problem on this planet is today is that we're in America today that's going to continue to lead us down this path and not change this trajectory is us minding our own business. And I get it, man.

You got a job. You got a couple kids. And if you don't get involved, right? Because what happens when you go to the GOP and you're 8, 10, and 14-year-old, so you get involved, what are they going to grow up to do? It's setting the example, right? Set the example to exceed the standards. All that military leadership talk. It's not bullshit.

I know you know it. It's not bullshit. Remember an entire book about it? A couple of them now, right? you know setting the example for your children is not just making sure they're taking care of right we we've got to get involved and if we don't man well like i said our adversary they're very involved they're organized and they're scary i ask people i'm like name one thing the left has wanted in the last six years they haven't gotten one is complete reversal of the second amendment

Why? Because there's a bunch of people out there with guns that ain't going to let it happen. Other than that, every niche special interest they've ever wanted, they've gotten it. And now it's like they're just bored looking for shit. You know what I mean? Like the transgender is frigating college sports. Like, all right, we're just going to make up some stuff. It actually goes against our whole feminist movement.

It's like they're bored. Like, we got everything we want. What else can we take from them? But they're going to continue to take because. whether or not most lefts truly want communism there are enough folks out there that do

that believe that communism is the right path well the rest of them will follow them because they actually have leaders right you mean you tell me Hillary Clinton is not an effective leader I'm not saying she's a good leader I'm saying she's an effective leader right

like Putin is an effective leader he's not a good person she's definitely not a good person she's effective. And one thing Hillary Clinton hadn't gotten that she wanted presidency, and I don't know that she's done yet. Scary shit, man.

But we've fighted that one out soon. Hopefully, I got a factory down in Ashboro, North Carolina. I think it's a sixth district. Hopefully at some point, when I get down there in the next several months, we can link up. Definitely. And hang out. You've got to come check out the factory.

I haven't been there yet, but actually we have two factories. We're consolidating in the process of consolidating right now, but hundreds of jobs, hardworking people. Funny thing, man, that district, I think, because we've had so many changes, that is probably the district that Christian Castanelli is going to run in. He's one of those eight GBs. Oh, really? Lieutenant Colonel type, Seventh Grouper.

He now chatted quite a bit, and it's going to be a real tough race for him as well. he had more county. And now they redistrict again. And like I said, it could redistrict another time. It's going to the courts this week. It's frustrating. And it's, you know right now which, where you're running? For right now.

Okay, but it could change. So, yeah, it was that new fourth, which was Samson County, Johnson County, Johnson County, a little bit of Wayne County, Hornet County and Cumberland County. And now it's the new new 13th. And that's Duplin County. Hampton County, Johnson County, a little bit of Wayne County, and Southern Wake County. And it's so weird because these new districts, they don't hold communities together. It was like, again, it was a, the Republicans were trying to make the Dems happy, get some stuff pushed through that would actually work, meet all the numbers, because the districts have to have equal numbers, right?

And to do that, you know, you've got to get a city in here and a part of a city over there. And it's not like it's like, okay, just pick this region. It's more complex than that. So this new district, again, our man, and like I said, this goes back to Republicans trying to make the Democrats happy. The Democrats suckered them again. So we have an activist, very left-leaning Supreme Court in North Carolina.

And so when these new districts, the Democrats challenged them, it went to the Supreme Court. They booted them. They had to rewrite them. So they rebuilt them. The House did a set. I like that, Matt, pretty good.

This new one I don't dislike it. It's just not my favorite because I lost Cumberland County. I want to represent Fayetteville for Rag. It's kind of personal. So this week, they have to go to a three-panel court, three-judge panel in the court, and that's two conservatives, one liberal. It will get the thumbs up there. most likely the Democrats will challenge it again.

But the shasty, like, sinister part is when they were building these maps, it was bipartisan in the Senate and in the House. Both parties working together. They created these maps. Dems gave them a thumb up. It went to vote. Dems all voted against it. Suckers. Now what?

Because it's divided half and half. And one Republican voted with the Democrats. That sets the precedence for it to go to the court. and then toss it out. They can be like, look, y'all don't even agree on it. It's clearly bipartisan. This is supposed to be,

or it's clearly partisan. They set them up again. And it's like, you guys are bending over backwards. When are you just going to draw the line in the sand? They could draw the line and sand and take it to the U.S. House or U.S. Supreme Court.

That's expensive, and it takes a fight. And time. Lots of time. And they're worried about the time because we've already pushed our primaries back from March to May, They're probably going to get pushed back to June now.

That's getting closer and closer to the general election in November. They could, in theory, move that, right? That November election date is not a hard set date. The state can choose a different date. They could push it to January, but that cuts off the whole next cycle. That pushes into the next cycle. What do you do now? And we're in such uncharted territory,

and I just don't have faith that the Republicans right now know how to deal with this fight. And the Democrats, it's almost like I said, it's almost like they're just trying to see what they can get away with. But they're panicking. The Democrats know, right, what's coming in this midterms. So these new, our new districts, they are so close to any other year. They would, most of them be 50, 50 splits. They could go either way. They'd all be swing districts.

But because of this anticipated red wave, they set them up. It looks more like they set them up on purpose to be a Republican, very much favor of the Republicans. And they, well, certainly. But the North Carolina Constitution says it is the role duty responsibility of the General Assembly to set the districts. So of course it's going to be partisan, right? Because rarely, if ever, is your House and Senate 50-50, right? That just doesn't happen. So there's a whole constitutional battle here.

state constitution. And I think people really understand how important your state constitution is, right? Like when our government was set up, it was supposed to be, you know, all these states, these nations of the United States. And we've gotten away from that. The federal government has gotten too big. And that's one of my big things, man. Like, hey, let's return that federal government.

Let's put it back in its constitutionally limited box and put the lid back on it. Because that monster has climbed out of that box. gone all over the place. And I would say like, heck man, if you could simply attempt, let's say we got a 70% solution on getting our federal government back to its constitutional limitations, we would solve over half of America's problems with the federal government. Just return it to what that constitution says. I don't know, man.

I just feel like too often folks up in D.C., they use the Constitution as toilet paper instead of reading it for exactly what it's stated. It's heartbreaking. Well, like you said, it's going to be a battle. It is a battle. I know you mentioned about what to do for people to help out locally where they're at. How can people... I think this is probably a pretty good place to wrap up

because we've been going for over four hours. But if people want to support you, we got Tony Cowden.com, right? That's the main... That is the campaign website. The campaign website. You're on Instagram. name you just said.

Tony underscore Cowden underscore four, the letter four, or excuse me, the number four. Is there a letter four? No. The number four in C. And then I have two Facebook pages, my personal, Tony Cowden, and then the campaign, Tony Cowden. They're both me. All right. And then you've got a YouTube channel, which I saw.

Yeah, I don't see much with it. I was going to say you have one video. Yeah. You know, I didn't want to. You never know. I think I've got like three. Tony Garland gets after us. I don't know.

Maybe tonight you're going to post 87 videos. I don't know. YouTube's just never been my favorite for whatever reason. And I've had numerous YouTube channels, right? I've got the one right now. Like you said, it's got like a couple videos maybe on it. And then like,

but you know, YouTube was a big thing when I had the gym, had lots of videos on it. And just something happened where with the whole shooting gun thing, Instagram became my main platform. And as much as I don't really like social. I don't like the whole idea of it I mean I'd much rather go back to just

You know but it seemed that At least the evolution of it all I don't know if it was even by design That yeah the Instagram page was what grew And funneled me business Whereas it was when I had the gym Facebook It's called Facebook so local

So now I'm having to get back after Facebook Because the campaign is very local Got it But yeah man the reality is And this sucks man Because I spent my entire life being Pretty independent I've never had to be

to ask anybody for money. And it's weird. The reality of this whole mess, and it is a mess, because there needs to be campaign finance reform. The reality is, if the campaign is not funded, I don't get to advertise, and there's no recognition, there's a name face recognition, and I won't get the votes. And strategically speaking, you know, we're addressing, you know, fundraising, talking to donors, and then there are voters. And they're not always the same people. We've done really well so far The soft bro net Just like you having me on here

Been on with a bunch of different other guys And when I launched that soft network man Just started sharing it And we raised 132 grand And like 13 days over Christmas And that's what got people going Well wait, who's this dude? Where is this guy coming from?

And you know there's always this There's some contention that oh, you're not getting your funds from the district. Well, I don't even know where the district is. You know how hard it is to get someone to donate to your campaign when they don't even know if you live in their district or not? Yeah. You think the Democrats don't know that?

Of course they do. Right. What they're doing is creating voter apathy. Where it's like, whatever. So they won't donate and they're not going to go vote. It's a strategy. It's not new. I've done it before.

So yeah, man, this is where I have. You know, that's asking for money thing is hard. But here's the cool part. That $132,000, the number one donated amount was $50. We had 1,600 or 1,500 individual donors from across the nation, all 50 states over Christmas, when people don't have extra income because they're spending on their Christmas presents, donated this campaign. That's a clear signal.

or it should be a clear signal to the folks up in D.C. and everywhere else that the American public is tired of their shit. Excuse my language, but that's what it is. And they want normal people.

I don't know if I follow in that category that well or not. They want real people who have never sought out politics. You know, before we got on, I was joking and telling you about my opponent who's a state house rep. and they call him the Al Gore of North Carolina politics

because he sold out and those kind of taxpayers and sent tax dollars all around the nation to invest in green energy and so on and so forth. Long story short, he didn't like it. I think I might have been with Andy Stump when I referred to him as the Al Gore of North Carolina politics. Well, the reality is that's what they call him, right? Like he's a North Carolina member of North Carolina House

and all of his contemporaries. They all call him that. Right? He didn't like it. The other day, he charged up to me and he was bra, rah, rah, right. You know, he's like, you know, and ultimately I was like, hey, look, man, you know, you can say whatever you want, but you sent that money out. And he told me, he told me I was an ignorant wannabe. And I was like, like I said, I might be ignorant to how and why y'all do things as dirty-ass politicians.

I was like, but I'm not a wannabe. I'm like you created me. Men like you are the reason why men like me are coming for your jobs. We hired you, you suck. So now we're going to fire you. And that's what America wants right now, right? Let's clear. America wants.

And like I said, man, we get that JTF up there. Yeah. So, yeah, 10 bucks. Right on. Right. 100. I mean, if you got 2,900, that is the max contribution. I can stand some of those because that new district's more expensive.

But Southern Wake County, Raleigh, that advertising is way more expensive. Sure. That market, right? A TV ad in Raleigh is expensive. But that's what I need. I need funding. People ask, what can I do? Ten bucks, right?

Don't get your Starbucks coffee today. Give me five bucks. And it's weird, man, asking for people for money. And then I came to the conclusion, I'm not asking people to give me money. This is an investment in America's future. Because I promise people, I will not become a politician. I would rather die than sell this nation as people out.

And I put myself in that position before that I would have died and almost did a couple times. I feel like I have that proven track record. And people are like, but there's this guy and there's this guy. He's this veteran and that veteran. And they went up there and they sold us out. I'm like, I'm not those guys. I'm not those guys.

What do you want? Here I am stepping up. Help me get there. And if I turn out to be some spineless dirtbag politician, fire me. Right? Get involved and fire me. But I promise I'm not capable of being a dirtbag politician. It's not in my genetics.

You know, it's not even close to something I could ever be. you know, corporations don't have things that I want. I'm not a gear guy, right? I'm not a, if you look at my whole shooting things, right? I'm not a gear guy. Corporations don't have things. I don't want a boat. I don't want a boat.

I don't want, I don't desire money. I desire experiences. That's why I like hunting and, you know, with my girlfriend. You can't sell me that. I'm not for sale. So, yeah, man, if you got a few bucks, Tonycounting.com. Oh, I will tell you, this man, one of the cool things is when you go to the website, when it pops up, there is a pop-up

that has a video and stuff. You know, watch it. It's cool videos. It's me telling you how cool I am or some shit. Just move past that. And right underneath it, it says dirt bike prize. I'm not a something for nothing type of guy. So last year, I got this hair up my ass that I was going to get back in the race of motorcross. So I went and bought a brand new KX4F50. Rock and ship. I got an excavator. And it was a little. and 63 acres and I build a motorcycle track in my backyard I'll let my girlfriend

going what is wrong with you and that dirt bike it's been I got it last November so it's been whatever a year and a few months still has a second take of gas in it I haven't had time to ride it so she going up for auction I donated it to the campaign

so it's a raffle not a raffle raffle it's a $10,000 dirt bike that's never been laid over. I was cautious getting back into riding, so I took it easy. Boots, helmet, nice stuff, man. I didn't bullshit. I bought some nice stuff.

Four or five sets of riding gear. Oakley goggles, all that stuff. You can buy chances at it. I'm not a something for nothing type of guy. I got an AR coming on board and a precision rifle, a custom precision rifle that my buddy who makes my precision guns freaking building for us.

So point being is, right, I'm not a something for nothing type of guy. So if you donate it, at least you're getting a chance to win some cool stuff so hell yeah all right so uh echo you got anything no we covered it awesome man um hell yeah thanks for coming on bro no thank you for having me thanks for sharing your experiences thanks for what you've done for america in the past yeah and thanks for what you are about to do for america awesome to meet you man thank you so much Thank you so much for having me. This is how we win.

Absolutely. Hell yeah. Thanks, brother. Thank you. And with that, Tony Cowden has left the building heading back to North Kakalaki. And I failed to mention. I failed to mention, North Kakalaki. I failed to mention.

Look, I mentioned the fact that we at Origin USA have a factory in Ashboro, North Carolina, which is awesome. But I failed to mention. And it just, like, these conversations, you don't know. where they're going. I failed to mention the fact that when I went through Buds and STT, CLE Tackle Training, and then got to SEAL Team 1, and then I did three deployments, and then I was in training cell with my running mate at the time, who I also, he was my roommate that whole time, and he was from North Kakalaki.

And he's a freaking best guy. Awesome guy And a total stud Across the board But he's a super good athlete Like a ridiculously good athlete Like we had He played

This is the guy that played basketball In North Carolina as a kid And then he got drafted He was 511 He lost He missed a foul shot And lost like the state championship He did that

You know, so he had that, but, you know, he was still, he was in the state championship and he's obviously a key player. Right. And he got, he got some, he got drafted or whatever, recruited to some D2D3 schools because he was such a good basketball player. And he ended up, he's like, listen, I'm not going to, I'm not going to be a pro, obviously. So I'm going to focus on my education. So he ended up going to University of North Carolina. And while he was there, he grew five inches. So he graduated at 6-4.

And this is a guy, you know, you go out and shoot basketball with him, and he would just sit there and hit three-pointers all day. So then we had Alton Lee Grizzard, who was the Navy quarterback, and who's himself a stud. That's the guy who was a great friend of mine, and he ended up getting murdered in Coronado, which was awful. But just a stud, just a stud across the board. I mean, he broke all kinds of records at the Naval Academy.

just a beast and those two guys got in a little throwing contest of who could throw a football further and my buddy from North Kakalaki also played football so I'm sitting there watching because I'm not even going to participate in this competition against these two freaking studs and so they started throwing it back and forth just backing up each time right and yeah the kid from North Carolina he threw it further it was like 65 yards. You know, I'm talking to wing. Yeah.

And just a beast, man. But so whenever I hear North Carolina, I always think North Calacchi, because that's how he, and you know, he had this funny look he'd give people, me, everybody. But when you said North Carolina, if you said North Kakalaki, he'd give you a look like, of

the most affirming of looks, you know, like, that's everything. You know, like, mm, you know, as if you just said, you know, chocolate peanut butter milk like oh that's so good you know it is one of those things so I dig it very cool to talk to Tony and you know it's a scrap man yeah it's a scrap man yeah it's a scrap he's got to go he's going hard in the paint you know going hard in the paint

um he uh he said something that was that was interesting and maybe I don't know I don't follow public politics as much as maybe others do but he did mention something that I thought, hmm, that's, that's, that's good. This is a good thing to be talking about and to be thinking about is the, the lack of effectiveness of a linear solution. Yeah. Because man, that linear solution, like, and that just in everyday club, bra,

I don't know how to run out of country. Everyone knows that. You know that about me. I don't know how to run out of it. But I do think that it's going to be difficult to make decisions for, what, 300 million people or whatever. You know, what's in the best interest for three, huh? That's hard, I understand.

But if you kind of simple it down or whatever, let's say, I don't know, for example, your kids, right? If you start implementing linear solutions with your kids, so the kids, I don't know, crying. They want a soda. Soda pop. Give them the soda. That's the linear solution, right? Yeah, they're crying. They're unhappy, obviously, because they're crying and whatever.

What's the linear solution exactly, right? Give them the soda. But that causes all kinds of other problems. A lot of them, too, by the way. Not just one other problem. It's like a bunch of other problems. So I'd imagine it'd be that same formula except times a million with running the country in whatever way. So it's like, yeah, to focus on that concept where it's like, okay, sure, this will be a linear solution or understanding, okay, that's a solution.

That's a linear solution. Understand what would happen then. And he kept saying, and then what, right? Just to be paying attention to that stuff, I think that's a good thing. It's a good move. And I'm not saying no one else pays attention to that, but that's not like any kind of front-running concept that people are kind of pushing, you know?

It doesn't seem like it is. Yeah. I don't know, but I liked it. Well, if you can lend some support to Tony, just look, you might not agree with him on every topic that there is. Maybe he sees some things a little bit differently than you. But, man, the guy's character and just the fact that he's going to go up there and live in his room and make things happen, help them out if you can.

If you want to help out yourself a little bit too, speaking of origin USA, we have a factory in North Carolina, kind of two factories right now, which we're consolidating. We have factories up in Maine. We're building stuff in America. Look, here's something else you can do to support America.

You want to help America. Buy American. Buy American. You need a pair of boots. Buy American pair of boots. You need a pair of jeans? buying an American pair of jeans. But have you ever heard of Jake Tran?

Okay, so maybe I have, maybe he, what he does is he kind of breaks down things that have to do with like money and power and he makes these cool YouTube videos. Okay. Jake Tran. So one of them, one of his recent ones, were fashion, like the evil fashion industry.

And that's what he would talk about. Like how basically fashion is built by slavery in other countries. Oh, for sure. So. Have you not been listening? to me for the past freaking years? I have and mainly just you.

But you had to hear it from Jake Tran. Bro, Jake Tran, the way he breaks stuff down. Oh, he did it better than me. I got it. I got it. I love you. You were the man. But in this one, he did a really, really good job.

Well, here's the thing. Maybe if I had someone that I worked with that could put together videos that kind of accented the things that I were saying, maybe that would have worked out better. I don't know. You know what? You make a good point. You make a good point. It's my fault for not finding someone that was more effective in social media.

media and media arts and film again again great point but the way he does it is he does it in terms of like like you're the evil one and he's talking to you goes all you have to do is this just get some slaves and like he'll talk to that's how he'll make it it's his style does he do that all the time that's his thing yeah kind of it's kind of sarcastic but kind of like like when he's kind of coming at you a little bit yeah he's coming at your sinister side almost like in certain ones it's more heavy than others but then he'll be like what That's the heaviest one. This one was so heavy, it made me consider actually doing it.

But at the end of the day, when you stop the YouTube video, you're like, I'm not going to do that. You know, anyway. One about charities, like how charities can defraud the government or something like that. And he'll say, you can do this, this, and this with no strings attached, of course. And then he'll keep talking. And you're like, see what he did there. So you were going to start a charity to defraud the government? Is that what you were saying?

You almost did? That's not what it's about. But I'm saying when you watch the video, you're like, that's actually not a bad idea. You know, it's like that kind of thoughts. But it's the way he says it, though. I'm glad you're one YouTube video away from being sinister and ripping people off. There's more to it than that.

Anyway, watch that one about the freaking fashion industry. You're going to be like, bro, yeah. And I get what you're saying when you're like, that's what you've been saying. That's what I've been saying. I haven't been saying it effectively enough for you to understand apparently. No, no, no. I understand it, but he did, he did a better job. Okay, I'm going to watch him.

We'll get the message right. I'll get the message right. So people that will understand that when you buy some fashion crap that's made overseas, it was made by slaves. That's what's happening. You remember that one building in, I forget where it was, but where it collapsed on all the workers there. So he starts off like with that and like just all these.

Yeah, it's crazy. And then a lot of it, it's all essentially like. like borderline free stuff, like as far as how it was made. Yeah. So so much of it just goes to the trash. So much of it. So they're just just, yeah, who cares? Kids, whatever.

That's why you see sometimes those high fashion companies will take their surplus and just burn it. Because they want to keep the supply low. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But they misread the next fall season or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. And so they got to burn it.

So let's not support that. Let's support freedom. Let's support America. Let's support origin USA. OriginUSA.com. Also, get yourself some jaco fuel. I mean, let's face it. You're going to have some, you know, whatever.

Injuries, soreness. Soreness, yeah. What's the difference between muscle soreness and like when you have a joint sorness? Well, what do you call it when you're, if you did, let's say you did weighted dips yesterday? Sure, hypothetically. See, weighted dips.

Every time I do weighted dips, I feel like a little bit of not just soreness in my triceps and chest, but I have a little bit of, what is that called, in my shoulders themselves? Yeah, like joint pain. Yeah, yeah, like a little bit, but it's minor. Right, right, right, joint aggravation. Yeah. It's like, I think a lot of the times it'll come obviously from like certain nutritional

elements and could be past injuries as well, but a lot of times it's, it's, balances in certain places, you know, so you kind of overstretch or understretch certain things and whatever. But, well, when you have joint aggravation, you can take like joint warfare. If you have muscle soreness, you can take

milk. Yep. And these are nutritional elements that can improve these. That are going to improve these. Unfortunate scenarios and kind of fortunate because at least you were able to do them. Exactly. You know, you were able to get after it. And it's part of the game. So I learned early on and I was, okay, so I make my daughter do little workouts.

Sometimes it's punishment. Sometimes it's, hey, this is just what we're doing. And she's eight. So Dom's delayed onset muscle sortness is new to her. So when you're new to Dom's, you're like, I don't like this feeling. Like, why would I do push-ups or why would I do a bunch of squats when my legs are going to feel like this the next day? It's like you feel like your body's kind of being destroyed or whatever. But when you really understand what Dom's is, you kind of invite it.

So I understood the value of Dom's early on. I think I was like 10 or 11 years old. Dang. from reading about it or just understanding that like I went out yesterday I'm sore because I'm getting stronger. Yes. So I found out. I forget how I found out this is you know whatever in 1988 or whatever. However old or whatever year. But I knew that your muscles were sore because they were triggered into like growing back big or whatever. So I'm like oh shoot. So if I do a bunch of push-ups and I'm not sore, I'm like dang, I didn't do enough push-ups or if I ran a bunch like when I started when you, you know the first two days of football practice. You get sore like your sore your legs are sore your abs are sore from doing sit-ups your necks are all this stuff

But I knew that no that's because they're about to grow back bigger you kind of invite it So now as an adult I understand hey man that Dom's life is part of the part of the game man Yeah, I'm saying but you can mitigate it you can mitigate it yeah not by working out less or working out weaker Oh no but by but eating the correct food yeah you're facilitating the whole Dom's process right there so all that stuff Joccofuel.com plus You can get the drinks At Wawa which by the way we're kind of Dominating at Wawa if you go out

And you buy stuff from Wawa I am personally thanking you at this time for making us Dominating Wawa Don't let up clear shelves go in there Get After it We're working with a bunch of other companies We are I gotta put together a list of where you can buy Jock Fuel

But right now I can tell you You can get it at Wawa the drinks And you can get it at the vitamin shop. So, or you can get it at joccofuel.com. You ever drink kombucha? I don't like it. Me neither.

And that's kind of the thing where, you know, like, um, you know, drinks cambucha, all the females in my family. Yeah. They're drinking that stuff like it's methamphetamine or something. To each their own. Not that they're into methamphetamine, but like it's a very addictive, like, something that they're enjoying. You hear good things.

Yeah. Okay. I haven't ever good things about methamphetamine. Anyways, let me retract that. My wife and daughter. like kombucha for whatever reason. Yes. I think it tastes like crap.

Like crap, yes, sir. And I'm not even a get, my father-in-law, he makes his own kombucha. Oh, damn. So I was like, dang, okay, obviously great for you. Good enough for you. There was a dude that made kombucha with jaco white tea, by the way. Oh, okay.

He was selling it. Combat, Cambucha. I don't know what happened to it. He went out there, he was making combat kombut. Cambucha, cambucha, kombucha. That's all that. It's all the deal. However you want to say it.

Either way, the point, okay, do you have any vegetables that you just, Like, you know, okay, they're good for you, but I'm just not going to eat that because I'm just not into it. Into the taste or whatever. Just not in it. Like asparagus. You know, people like asparagus. You just salted up. I think it tastes kind of junk.

So I'm not going to be excited for asparagus. Okay. So the good thing, and this is why I think a lot, most people like this energy drink. Because when you drink it and you have no guilt, you know that it's actually good for you. It's not like asparagus. Is it what I'm saying? Well, asparagus is good for you, but it tastes bad. Yes.

Discipline go is good for you. And it tastes good. Double bonus. Exactly right. And that's what I think people like it. Especially the mango one, by the way. I hear great things about the mango one. Check.

If you want to get some stuff from this podcast and represent, you can do that too. Echo made a store. It's called Jocko store, yeah. 100%. Get some of that stuff. Shirt locker. So there is a shirt coming out that I created mentally.

And then you have brought to fruit. I think it's going to be a classic. Yeah. I think it's going to be a classic. It's a good one. And that one is the March, March shirt. Okay. And it's pretty squared away.

The shirt locker is the membership. Did you make the adjustments you needed to make to that shirt as directed? No time. No time. Didn't have time. It was already, hey, what do you call? The ship is sailed. OB. OBE.

Overcome by events. Yeah. Well, look, we're good. The spelling's good. And that shirt's legit. Yeah. It looks good. That's the March shirt.

And the whole shirt lockers squared away anyway. So it's like if you order it on March 1st, second or whatever, it's all like up to date. You're saying. You're good. Yeah, you'd be good to go. Check. So check out jocco store.com. Subscribe to the podcast.

Jocco underground. Jocco underground.com. Who knows? I know we mentioned COVID during this particular podcast. That's the kind of thing that apparently gets people banned, gets people in trouble. That's why we. have jocco underground.com. It's $8.18.10 a month. It allows us to have a separate platform that we actually have control over. We can say whatever we want. We won't be censored. So if you want to

help out there, you can do that. If you can't afford it, we still want you in the game. Just email Jocko Underground. Assistance at jocco underground. Check out the YouTube channels. Check out the the Jocco podcast YouTube channel. If you want to see what Tony looks like. Also, Origin USA has, If you want to find out what's going on, I talk about these factories and all this stuff going on. Check out the Origin USA YouTube channel. That's got a bunch of good information on it too. It's true. Psychological warfare.

Yep. Get that if you need a little hitter. Yeah. And I would say motivation. It's not motivate. Basically, you want Jocker to help you pass your moment of weakness. So I've always said it. Does I'm going to keep saying it because it's absolutely true.

And if you want Dakota Meyer to help you pass your moment of weakness, he's making cool stuff. Clipsidecanvas.com. Written a bunch of books, if you want to check them out. Check them out. Just go to check out books by Jocko Willink. You'll find them. Some of them are pretty popular. Some of them you might like.

You might be able to learn something from them. Might be able to contact me and tell me I got something wrong. I'm standing by for adjustment. Ashland Front, Leadership Consultancy. We've got live events that we do. The next big one we've got is in Dallas, Texas, March 24. and 25th. So if you want to come to a live event, you can go to that.

We also have the battlefield events coming up in Gettysburg in May 10th and 12th. And then Gettysburg, May 13th and 14th. And we're doing Little Big Horn as well. Anyways, go for any of this stuff or you want us to come and help your company, go to Eshlamfront.com and check that out. We also have an online training, an online training platform. It's at extreme It's at extreme

Ownership.com If you have questions for me You can just go there and ask me a question I'll be on there I'll be on there on a Zoom meeting Remember what Zoom is COVID brought us Zoom It's one of the good things about COVID

Right COVID brought us Zoom Now we can everyone uses Zoom now I used to try and do Zoom meetings Back in the day or Skype Right Skype and people just weren't ready for it Now everyone's like oh Zoom call Yep we're ready Yeah

And people understand the benefits of it. Yep. So if you want to talk to me on a Zoom call, I will literally be right there. Go to Extreme Ownership.com. You can take a bunch of courses we made. We make fresh courses coming out once a week. Leadership. Leadership for you.

Not just for like, oh, you're the CEO of a company or you're the manager of this. But if you're leading a family, if you're leading your friends, if you're leading yourself, go to Extremeownership.com. Also, if you want to help service members, you can go to Mark Lee's mom. She's got an awesome charity that she put together. Helps out veterans so much. Go to America's mighty warriors.org for that. And also check out Heroes and Horses, which is a outstanding charity run by Micah Fink. Up there, Montana, getting it.

And if you want to support Tony Cowden, go to, like he said earlier, go to, go to, like he said earlier, go to tony cowden.com and he's also on instagram which sounds like that's his primary mode of communication with the crew it's tony underscore cowden underscore four the number four and then nc for north carolina he's also on twitter tony cowden nc and facebook youtube tony cowden as far as echo and i go we're both on twitter we're we're both on the graham We're both on the Facebook. Echoes at Echo Charles. I'm at Jocco Willink.

Of course, be advised. Come to check it out real quick. All of a sudden you get sucked in by the algorithm. Don't let that happen. That's the devil's play thing right there, the algorithm. I'm going to watch out for that one. Thanks once again for Tony, to Tony, for coming on tonight. Thanks for everything that he's done.

You know, we barely even, you can't spend, what is it, eight or nine years in Afghanistan. Iraq and Syria The amount of stuff that he's been through that he's done the amount of risk he's taken to serve our country You're not going to cover it in a four-hour podcast or a 20-hour podcast or a hundred-hour podcast But that's the kind of person that's been out there laying his life on the line for the country now he's stepping up again So support him if you can and thanks for coming Tony and the rest of our American military out there and the veterans

Thank you all for what you've done and continue to do to serve our great nation. And to our police and law enforcement, firefighters, paramedics, EMTs, dispatchers, correctional officers, border patrol, secret service, all first responders. Thank you for keeping us safe on the home front and to everyone else. How much can you do? I actually know the answer to that question. More. That's how much you can do.

You can do more. and a guy like Tony makes that obvious, but it isn't going to knock on your door. You have to kick that door in. You have to make things happen. You have to initiate action. And you do that by going out there every day and getting after it. Until next time, Zekko and Jocko. Out.