Jocko Podcast - 400: Humble Yourself, Work, Strive, and Do It Again. "Transformed", with Remi Adeleke.

Episode Date: August 23, 2023

>Join Jocko Underground<Remi Adeleke is the author of the acclaimed memoir Transformed. He was born in western Africa. Following his father’s death, his mother, brother, and he relocated permanently to the Bronx in New York City. After years of making regrettable decisions, Remi joined the Navy in 2002 and later became a Navy SEALSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko Podcast number 400 with Echo Charles and me Jocker Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. With high school, out of the way, I was off to the races. I quit the sneaker store, teamed up with a hustler. I met along the way named Roderick, and we started selling drugs. My grandmother lived in Washington Heights, and in our younger years, Beio and I spent many days and nights at her apartment. Having spent a lot of time in her area, I knew it was where the Dominicans had control of the vast.

drug market. So that's where I built relationships and brought my work. But soon Rod and I realized that with the Dominicans controlling Washington Heights area down to the southernmost border of the Bronx, gangs running the Bronx drug trade and the Queens and Brooklyn territories too risky and unfamiliar to impose upon, we had to find a less saturated and safer place to sell. We were just a two-man operation. There was no way we were going to go to war. with anyone over a corner. So we did the next best thing. We jumped on the Metro North

and set up shop in upstate New York for a few days at a time. One week we'd be upstate. The next week we were back down in the city replenishing our inventory or tending to other hustles. After a while, we decided to expand our operation by bringing in an old friend from the hill, Ricardo.

Seven years earlier, Ricky and his family had moved to Poughkeepsie to escape the trappings of the inner city. By the time Rod and I had partnered with him, he knew the people and surrounding areas of Poughkeepsie like the back of his hand. Ricky's knowledge meant we spent less time trying to find unpoliced areas where we could sell, which in return meant less time on the streets. We were the three amigos, the rebellious three out to conquer Poughkeepsie, like Bundy and Sin from the movie Belly. We watched Scarface on repeat during the day and hit the college town of New Poughkeepsie. Paltz or Poughkeepsie house parties at night. We did well and the money was good, but it wasn't good enough for what I was trying to do.

I had big dreams of launching a record company that rivaled Rockefeller, Bad Boy, and Murder Inc. Not only did I want to make music, I wanted to produce and control music. So if I was going to be able to do that, I was going to need to generate a lot more money in a shorter amount of time. I needed a new hustle and I would quickly find what I was looking for. So that right there, that's an excerpt from the book called Transformed, which is written by Remy Adelaike. And the title of the book is transformed and it's quite a transformation indeed because Remy in the book and in his life transformed from being Nigerian royalty. to a drug dealing street hustler, to a partying Navy sailor,

to become a seal, a Christian, eventually, a writer, director, an author, and an actor, and it's an honor to have him with us here tonight to share his remarkable journey and his lessons learned along the way. Remy, thanks for joining us, man.

Hey, thank you, brother Jaco. I appreciate you guys. Yeah, that's, this is the first time I've got to start the podcast with someone talking about selling drugs. So you broke the mold on that one. That's awesome. It's a first for everything. Yeah.

It's a crazy story that you've been through. And yeah, it's surprising that you made it. I shouldn't have. Yeah. I shouldn't have. I know that. There's plenty of those decision points in your life when you read your story. If you think about it,

If you just read the story and you go, oh, yeah, well, that makes sense to do. Yeah. But at the time when you're a kid and Echo and I were talking about this earlier today, like, when you're a kid, you don't know. Yeah. You don't see this long-term picture. You don't see, you don't have strategic vision. Yeah. Sometimes you're just looking around the next corner to see what you're going to get and you make a decision that's going to put you in the best spot tonight.

Yeah. So, yeah, man. Let's get to the book a little bit. Yeah. And I'll just start from there, man. We'll hit this book. When did this book come out? That came out in 2019.

2019. And it got picked up to be a movie right before the writer's strike. So we're a major studio. So I turned in the first draft of the script before the strike. And after the strike, I'm sure I'm going to have to do a rewrite. You're going to finish it out. Yeah. Not right out, man.

Awesome. So going to the book here. My father was chief Adebeio. Am I saying that right? Ad de bio. Ad de bio. And you're going to have to correct me all that. It's all good.

It's all good. Ad de laque of the Yoruba tribe. Yoruba. Yoruba. I kind of said that. Oh, Yoruba. It depends on like in Nigeria. You know, for example, like Adelaika in Nigeria, they say Adelaike, but in America's Adelaike.

So you're a Yorba and then here's something that say Yoruba. Okay. This depends on. I'll tell you what. If I'm close, can we just go with it? I'm good. I'm good brother the Yoruba tribe yeah he was the firstborn son to my grandfather who Devout his Muslim faith yeah and customary to the time had many wives being the first born son of a chief my father was marked as special

But he lived up to his given status in early age at an early age dad had an uncanny gift for memorization Whatever was put in front of him whether the Quran at his Islamic elementary school or a language or a common book he would quickly memorize it Before the age of 10, he spoke and read fluently in both English and his tribal language, Yoruba. He also spoke and wrote fluently in two other prominent Nigerian languages. The guy was a savant. My grandfather died when my father was 12. So he and my grandmother moved to the southwestern region of Nigeria to be close to her family. The move would change the trajectory of Chief's educational path.

At the time, Christian missionaries permeated the southern region of Nigeria and provided free education. Muslim clerics and Islamic-centric studies were replaced with Christian missionaries, biblical studies, English literature, world history, math, and science. My father's intellectual gifts became evident as he easily recited chapters of the Bible with an encyclopedic memory and dazzled his teachers by excelling in all subjects, especially mathematics and science. In gratitude to the missionaries for the education they provided him, Dad legally adopted a new first name, John. After completing the U.S. equivalent of high school, Dad received a full ride scholarship to the University of London where he obtained his degree in civil engineering. He also earned degrees in architecture and business.

When he returned to Lagos, how do I say that? Lagos. Lagos. When he returned to Lagos after years completing his studies abroad and attaining great success in the West, he was endowed with the title of chief, a reditary title for the descendants of Yoruba royal lineage. As the 70s approach, my father had created

a vast enterprise that operated out of the western western house buildings in legos wait did i screw that up again no that's good legos legos his business is consisted of an insurance company a civil engineering company called city property development limited and two car dealerships his office also served as the headquarters for the world trade center of nigeria as well as the base of operations for one of his most passionate endeavors the lagoon development project chief wielded enormous power and wealth not just nationally but internationally in the 1970s he served on the board of the world teleport association in London this feat was historic for a black man at that time equally if not more historic was the fact that he also

served on the New York World Trade Center board for many years a man from the Bush on a board with the elite of the elite as one family friend would put it chief was never restricted by where he came from yeah so your dad And look, I'm just going to read highlights from the book today. You go into some of these details. But your dad was royalty. Yes. Yes.

So my grandfather, I never knew the story of my great-grandfather, but my grandfather, he was the first-born son to his father. And so he inherited the title of chief, Adde-Lakei. So Ad-Dae means crown in Yoruba, and Leke means is supreme. And that's why we are talking offline about people trying to get that, Get that a dot com because it's it's not just a name a name, but it's more of like almost like a slang for like elite of elite almost in your book and in Nigeria. You know, kind of house here in the U.S. will say something like he's, he's the Don or, you know, he's the king or, you know, he's the man like in Nigeria's like Adelaike. He's in Adelaike. Okay. So it would be like the king.com.

Yeah, well, the crown is supreme, so the elite of the elite. So my grandfather was that, and then, you know, he had a lot of wives because of that. And then obviously there was some wealth that came along with that. Now also, there is what's called the Oluwolu, and I know I'm pronouncing the Rome, so forgive me my Nigerian brothers and sisters who are listening. But the Oluwolu is considered to be the king, the king of the Yoribas. And so all of the Adelike's and the other royal titles kind of spring. spread out from the Oluwolo.

And that person, and Oluwolo passes down. And so there's an Oluwolo right now. That's the king of the Eurba's, the supreme king. I don't know, I can't recall his full name, but he lives in Nigeria. And so, yeah, my grandfather had a lot of wives, and then he had my son, my dad being the firstborn son, and my dad inherited the title of chief and Adelaike. and then, you know, just started, my grandfather just started kind of grooming him from there to prepare him to take over the family, so to speak. But unfortunately, when my father was about, when my father was about eight or nine years old, my grandfather died.

And when he died, he still retained the title and he still retained some of the finances. But for some reason, I have to ask my older brother. because he can probably explain this better, but all the wives dispersed to different parts of Nigeria. And but even though he came down to the south, he was still recognized as chief adibio, Adelaike, the son of, and I don't even know my grandfather's full name, but that's bad.

And yeah, so that's kind of how it all started, so speak. And then you're, and again, you're going to this in the book, but your mom is a native New Yorker. Yeah, yeah. And so how'd that link up occur? Yeah, I tell people all the time that my mom and dad's story is the real coming to America story. Because my mom, she was always into the arts, just like my dad. My dad was an art collector as well.

So when he started gaining some wealth, he would buy up a lot of Europe or art and other art from around Africa. Benin art. We had Benin sculptures in our house as well. And so my mom, she was in art as well. So one day, my dad happened to be in New York doing business at the World Trade Center. and my mom, you know, recognized that there was an exhibit on, um, aurable art at the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History. And so she, she tells me, I didn't want to go, but something just told me to just go.

And so she went that day and she was staring at a piece of art. And my dad, uh, happened to come alongside her and he's looking at the same piece of art. And, uh, he said something to her, kind of like hitting on her. And she was like, yeah, whatever. And then she walked away to another piece of art. and about a half an hour later, my dad just happened to be there as well. And then he started trying to mac on her some more. My dad, as you read, he was a savant, but he also was a man of many tongues.

He spoke Falani, which is another Yurba tongue. He spoke Igbo. He spoke Yorba. He spoke French. And he spoke English in the pigeon English. But he also could, like a chameleon fluctuate into a British accent because he spent a lot of time in the UK. And he had like a good ear for picking up other languages and picking up other accents and and so this stuff is really good for business Yeah, and for picking up girls. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Absolutely, absolutely So he came up went up to my mom and he's speaking in his very Swab pretentious, but not too pretentious, but suave British accent. He's like, you know I'm Chief John Adelaike you know and my mom's like yeah, whatever because my mom's in New Yorker. She grew up in her Harlem. She was born and raised in New York. She's heard this bullshit a hundred times. Yeah, I'm an African king. So my mom's like, get away from me. And so he did. And then she went to another piece of art. He followed her there. And then, you know, he continued pursuing her. He was funny. He was very charming as well. So that kind of won her over. And then they went on a date. And long story short, they ended up getting married five months later. And my dad, you know, ask my mom, would you be willing to live with me in Nigeria? Because that's where I'm doing my project, the Lagoon Development Project.

And my mom said, sure, I'll follow you anywhere. So this is a chunk of the book. And it's actually a big piece of history, too. I was checking it out, doing some research about it. This whole Lagoon project that your dad started. Yeah. So there's basically a lagoon, what, in Lagos? Yeah, it was right off the coast of Lagos.

Ikoi, Legos, so kind of like how we have San Diego, and then you have Coronado. So Lagos is like the big, big city, like coastal city, and then within Lagos is Ikoi. And so there was this lagoon that was off of the coastal. It was actually, it was a swamp. It was more than, it was less than a lagoon. It was like a swamp. And that's, you know, that's what he asked for, essentially backing up a bit. there was a military coup in the 70s.

Right before the military coup, my dad bought a massive plot of land called Mariko. And essentially what he was trying to do was he wanted to build a like an African Wall Street. Because a lot of people don't realize this, but Nigeria is so, so rich in resources. We're talking oil and abundance. We're talking natural gas. We're talking gold. We're talking cocoa. You name it.

There's so many minerals in Nigeria. As a matter of fact, there are politicians in Nigeria who are signing deals with the Chinese government so that they could buy up mines and mine the minerals and the resources from Africa, not just Nigeria, but other parts of Africa, but Nigeria as well. And so because of how rich in resources Nigeria is, my dad said, hey we need to organize this a little bit more because there's a lot of corrupt there's always been historically a lot of corruption in Nigeria and my dad felt as though if we can organize our business sector a lot better than we we can be a beacon for the world like people from all around the

world can come and do business and we can generate our economy a better economy in Africa and we could create so many more jobs there was there's no There was, and there's still no reason why Nigeria shouldn't be like Saudi Arabia or America because of how rich they are in resources. And my dad recognized that. And that's what he wanted to do, America, where you have a lot of Nigerians who want to get into power and gain wealth for self. My dad wanted to get in power and gain wealth so that he can make Nigeria a better place and really get it to where he saw it could be from a potential standpoint. point. And so that was Marico. That's what was Marico. That's what Mariko was supposed to be. And fast forward, the military coup happened. I think it was Abbasanjo, who led that. I might be

wrong. He ended up dying of a overdose on Viagra and some other crazy stuff, drugs a few years later. He's having a crazed sex orgy and died. But he carried out the military coup and Marico was taken for my dad. And my dad bought it for eight million pounds. So, you know, just for inflation and, I mean, that's a lot. And pounds is, you know, a lot more than dollars. So he bought it and it was just gone just like that. And that's, you know, that's a difference between, you know, Nigeria and other countries in America. You know, we could buy property. We could buy a business. We have rights ownership. And we're going to have it. But in Nigeria, you could buy something to spend millions of dollars. And then one day somebody could come along and say,

well, that's not yours. It belongs to me. And so that's what happened to my dad. And after the coup had subsided and democracy was reinstalled, my dad went back to court and fought them and fought the court system, fought in the court system. And finally, because of how persistent he was, they finally gave in and said, okay, what do you want? And we're not going to give you miracle back. That's not happening. So what is it that you want?

And my dad said, give me this swamp. And he laughed at him and said, Swam, what are you going to do with a swamp? And my dad said, just give it to me. Because my dad was such a visionary that he felt as though, if I can create something where there never was something, then no one could ever come along and say, that was mine. And that belongs to me.

And so that was the swamp. Yeah. And then as a civil engineer, he knew that that swamp could be turned into something off. Awesome. And that's what he started, right? And he brought in the company to do the dredging and started dredging out the water and filling in the land and turned it into an island. Yeah.

Yeah, he hired Dutch engineers from the Netherlands and the Westminster Company specifically. It's so funny, but not funny, but interesting because I did a July 4th post this past July 4th and I kind of bullet pointed out my dad's story and it went like on Twitter and got like 4 million views and like so many Nigerians were commenting on that. The consistent comment that I got was, one, it was a few, one was we didn't know that you were chief son. We saw you in plane and we saw the name, Remy Adelaide. When we didn't know put two and together that you were chief John at a bio son.

So I had that comment a lot. And then the other comment that I got was the current president lied because the current president said that he discovered banana. It's now known as Banana Island, but it was Lagoon City. And he lied. So many people, like, but a lot of people saying, we knew he was lying because we all knew the history behind your father, so we knew he was lying.

And that guy was the senator, the current president in Nigeria, was the senator of Lego State. And I'm sure we'll get to it in the moment what happened, but he was the center of Lego State when what happened to my dad, happened to my dad. Yeah. You know. So your dad basically dumps all his money.

Everything into this project. Everything. And, you know, it'd be like your example of San Diego and Coronado. It would be like you are going to own San Diego. I mean, sorry, you're going to own Coronado Island, which you couldn't even put a value on, on Coronado Island. So your dad, and like you said, it's on, if you go to, if you're listening, you go to Google Maps right now and you look up Banana Island. Yeah. You can see it.

It's there. You can see a bunch of houses on it. They actually don't have any pictures inside it because it's like a closed property, which you talk about in the end of the book. So your dad dumps all of his money in this? Everything. I mean, not just his money. He leveraged his art. He leveraged our compound.

I mean, everything, because he felt like it was going to be successful. That was going to be. So, I mean, he would put so much money into it that my mom, being an American, would wisely tell him, bios, please. She would beg him, like, just put some money in the U.S. Just put $2 million, $2 million in the U.S. That way, if something happens, like we have a cushion to fall back on.

Which, by the way, already happened a few years ago when you lost the first problem. Exactly. And that was one of the things that my mom would say to him, I don't trust this system. And my mom and dad, from what I recall, they didn't argue much. I didn't see them argue much, but the one time that they did argue or have disagreements,

it was always about that. It was always about, I do not trust this system. And my mom, she's a New Yorker. So she knew when somebody was scamming her walking down the streets in New York. I mean, you kind of got to know, what a hustler is in a hustler type system when you grow up in New York City. So my mom tried to warn him over and over again, but he was so loyal to this vision, and he was so loyal to the people of Nigeria because he was like, if I could just get here,

if I could just cross that line, everything will be all right and everything will fall in a place. And he told my mom, once we start, all the contracts assign, and we start building the buildings, and people start renting out office spaces and the companies start operating there, then I'll put money in the U.S. but until then, this is my priority. Well, as you can see, by the way, we're both talking, it doesn't work out.

And like the term they use in legal, like someone else, in quotes, they say, acquired the island. Yeah, yeah. And it's just terrible. Yeah. Like, it's just terrible. Yeah. And you know, I was as you're explaining this too, I'm sure your dad was like, you know, your mom was probably like, we lost that property before. And he's like, yeah, but we got this other thing now. Like it, it almost seemed like it was proof. If you look at it in a positive light, you could be, it could be proof that see, we did get what, you know, we did get something from them and we still have this. Um, so this gets, like I said, air quotes acquired slash stolen. Yeah. By another entity. Yeah. Um, your dad's company, the, uh, your dad's company, the, uh,

the, what was it, development center or a city development center? The city development, yep. Get zero money for it. They get nothing. Yeah, so the Lagos state government, after, they conveniently waited until all the work was done. I mean, for years, this is not something that happened overnight. For years, you know, the engineers were flying in, the equipment was being moved in, the foreshore was being dredged.

It was a product. I mean, it was six interlinks. It was six best way to explain. Plots of land that were created individually and then linked together. That doesn't happen overnight. And so the Lego state government and, you know, the federal government, I'm sure they were involved as well. They conveniently waited until everything was done. They saw that people were actually walking on the land and things were being built on the island.

And it was like, okay, it works. Now let's go get it. And the Lego state government came in and said that the federal government was never supposed to give him the lagoon for compensation. Because they tried to say that use some type of measurement and say the distance from the, from the, from the, from the, from Icoies shore to the foreshore. It's like some mathematical equation. The answer to that came out to be it's within the, the Ekoes or it belongs to the Lego. government. And yeah, it was, and my dad didn't see you coming.

And that's the thing, you know, and I say that that's my downfall sometimes now, you know, when I look back on mistakes that I've made. And my dad was so driven that he couldn't see what was going on on his peripherals. He was so focused and driven and get the job done that to him, to him, nothing bad was going to happen. And so crazy because I had a situation happened a few months ago where I was just like, I was just so driven. And Brad could attest to this because he was, you know,

I was dealing with an issue with my publisher. And I just kept on pushing and pushing and pushing. And I didn't realize the conflict and the issues that that was causing, you know, for me to be pushing so hard. But I wanted, I had the best interest. My best interest was at heart. And the project's best interest was at heart. It wasn't like out of something malice.

It was like I'm just so focused to get the job done that I couldn't see what was going on out here and how it was having a negative effect on the people around me. And that's what was, that's what my dad was dealing with. And I know that I inherited that from my dad is that, you know, the drive is good. It's important to be driven, but you also have to check out from time to time

and take a look right and left. Yeah, there's also a thing that can happen. That can be a bit of a blind spot is like you, or like this has happened to me I couldn't comprehend that someone would do something like whatever like someone's like gonna steal your freaking

you know you leave something out on a counter you're like you couldn't comprehend that someone would blatantly steal this and yet there's people that were gonna blatantly steal it so that can be a bit of a blind spot too maybe that's your dad had someone like your dad's a guy that's hard working and straightforward he couldn't imagine

that he could dump millions and millions and millions of dollars into this project and that they would just take lawyers and take it all away from them. And it's like a little bit of a blind spot too where you can get caught. You don't expect people that can be, you don't think people can be freaking that evil. Yeah.

And yet they can be. Yeah. And so, you know, you brought up a great point because when I got out of the military in 2016, like I went into the film of TV business and other businesses as well under the pretense that everybody has the same level of integrity as the people that I work with in the military. And I would get so upset when I was

proven wrong because it was just like, but wait, like, you're supposed to show up on time. You're supposed to keep your word. Yeah, you said you were going to do this. Yeah, and it just doesn't happen like that. So yeah, that was a great point. You know, some of the legal documents I saw about this, the titles are still disputed. I don't know if you know that. There's still like disputed titles on who owns banana, quote banana island now. Which is kind of crazy. Like in America, if you buy a house and there's a disputed, or if you're buying a house and there's a disputed title,

you're like, oh, I'm not going to buy this thing. So that's very interesting that the title is still disputed. Well, there's a lot of, there's a lot to it. You know, back and stake your claim. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I might have to go pull the black paint. Put the head and a flag on that bad boy. There's a lot.

They offered my family $8 million. They offered my brother. My brother's a lawyer. He's been fighting the case since 87. And they offered him $8 million, like five years. ago and he turned it four years ago and he turned it down. So I mean, they know what's up. I mean, they know what's up.

And then I don't know if you remember the N-SARs movement that happened in 2020 or 2021 in Nigeria. It was like a big movement where people were like protesting. I think the SARS was like a specialized police force that was taken advantage and shaking people down, which corruption is something that's normal when police come and shake you down. Um, they, uh, they part, the protesters, apparently the story is the protesters went into the courthouse. The same courthouse where my dad's case has been in for like the last 40 years.

And they go into the records room and they burn down the records room. But the only files that are destroyed are the case files for Lagoon City. Mm-hmm. I mean, this is in 2021. Yeah, 2020. So, you know, there's a lot. And before that, they offered my debt, my brother, $8 million in our family,

and he turned it down because he was like, no, dude, like, my dad spent eight million pounds on, yeah, on- In the 70s. In the 70s. So, yeah. So, at this point, it's like 1987,

you and your brother and your mom, you guys decided to move, to New York. Yep. Right. Yeah. And that was just like getting out of, you know, the country at the time seemed a little bit more stable, I guess, in America.

What was a big push behind that? It was just, it was a lot of going on and my dad started getting threats. I mean, I didn't catalog it all in the book, but my dad started getting threats. My mom started having crazy stuff happened to her, like the horse bit her. Our horse bit her. And then like something else happened where she almost got run over by somebody that, you know, She was walking, getting ready to cross the street, and like a car just pulls up and just speeds past her, and she jumps back in the street. So there were a lot of things that were happening.

My dad was getting more and more threats. Even before the Lego State government came in and did what they did, he was getting threats from people, you know, in the government. People who were supposedly friends, they weren't threatened him directly, but they were passing a message for somebody. And so my mom, you know, me and my brother were her priorities, you know, and we were on her only kids. And so for her, she was just like, I can't, I can't risk staying here, you know, at a bio. I need to get my kids out of here while all of this stuff settles. And it was in that time where, you know, my dad died as well. Yeah.

So you and your brother and your mom moved to New York. Your dad's traveling back and forth. He's doing business. He's trying to make this thing happen. He gets bit by a freaking dog. Yeah, yeah. A rabid dog. Yeah.

And then through some combination of that and the treatment that he got. Yeah. So the autopsy. So my dad got bit, flew to Germany to go do some business. Well, went to the hospital, got medication, flew to Germany to go and do some type of business. Flew from Germany to New York, saw us for a beat, and then flew from New York back to Nigeria.

He gets to, he gets back to Nigeria. My mom was pressing him, you got to take your medicine. You got to take your medicine. He's like, all right, I'll take it. Takes the medicine. Ultimately, the autopsy report showed that the medicine is ultimately what killed him. And that's essentially what happened. And from there, he couldn't fight.

I mean, because he was fighting them and he was no longer there to fight him. and nobody else was so okay the titles now belong to us and your mom and you know you talk about this again I'm only reading small parts get the book so you can read the details but your mom flies back to Africa yeah meets with your brother yeah and she's like all right let's go through the finances let's see where we're at let's see how much you know how much I'm going to have yeah and it's nothing nothing because everything was wrapped up in the island everything and so we went from rich travel in the world

cars nannies hosting lavish parties how much that do you remember a little bit I remember my dad more so now I remember events around my dad like I remember you know playing with him in our in our big living

quarters living room area I remember riding you remember that nice ass house though yeah I remember the house I remember doing things in the house with him I remember riding with him in the car because we had our driver Frederick who would drivers. My dad would play

Fulu Kuti, who was like a famous Nigerian singer. He was against the government at the time and singing. So I remember those little things. I remember our private school that we went to. And I recall this is one of my first memories. I got

into a fight with a kid, because kids would make it front of me because my mom was American. And it was a knuckle dragon fist fight. You know, two small kids. And my dad came and my mom. came to the school and my mom was just just she was upset at me you know she's like why you do that you and my dad was just like I'm proud of my son my son thank you my mom's

looking I'm like what do you do why are you doing that way celebrating him and my dad was just like I was my boy my you're a warrior and so I have those memories and you know it's so interesting because as a father now with four kids certain things come to me, certain memories are triggered from my past when I do certain things with my kids or I say like certain events happen or even I find myself and this is the craziest thing. If one of my, especially my oldest son, my oldest son does something that he's just nine-year-old. He's not supposed to do like something out of the norm. I will go into a pigeon accent and sounding like my dad.

What do you, what are you doing? Like, see it and I catch myself. Like what did I just see? Where did I come from? It's like my dad, you know, jump through me. But yeah, it was a good life. But I'm grateful for the way things turned out because I want to be who I am without that horrible transition.

So there's no money left. I'm going to go back to the book here for a second. And you say this, Africa is my birthplace, but the Bronx is my home. There's no place on the planet like the Bronx the food the people the culture the music It's a melting pot of everything chaotic yet beautiful on one block Italians are serving up thin crust pizzas while right outside a group of Dominicans play Dominoes and talk Yankees Salsa and meringuea music blast from souped up civics black Israelis Stand on the corner taking questions from critics Haitians Jamaicans Vietnamese and Puerto Ricans

Hustlers and ballers both literal and figurative all locked together with a few Eastern Europeans It's the Bronx, not Bronx, it's the Bronx. You know a person, place, or thing is special when you have to put the before it. We fight hard, we love hard. As a matter of fact, doesn't the Bronx sound hard? That's because it is hard. You go on to say, the Bronx molded me, formed me, and trained me in ways that no other place has. This was my environment.

Africa is my birthplace, but the Bronx is my home. I can't tell you much about the land of my birth, but I can tell you all about the Bronx. I love the Bronx, both the good and the bad. So you're in the Bronx. Yeah, man. You're in a place called the Fordham Hill Oval. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which is like it's for the Bronx. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's probably the nicest spot. Well, now it is. Yeah, I mean, definitely now it is. It's very squared away now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But even back then, wasn't it still like a gated, like a like a gated kind of more squared away place?

It was a co-op. So it's like, yeah, it was definitely better than right outside the gates. But it was a co-op and middle class to, you know, about middle class area. And it was the only thing that my dad left us. Yeah. Really? Because my dad, when he was when he started doing his business in New York City at the World Trade Center, he, you know, he, you know, he, needed a place to bed down, he needed a place to operate, and Fortham Hill actually was a predominantly white area in the six, I mean, the Bronx in and of itself, like in the before white flight, I think took place like around the 50s or 60s or something like that was a predominantly Irish, Italian, you know, white area.

And Fordham Hill was that as well. So that's when my dad bought. It was a completely different place. But then after, you know, that and the crack epidemic and all of those things, brought everything went down. Yeah, this is the late 80s. Yeah. And late 80s, New York City was a totally different place. Oh, yeah, 100%. And these areas of the Bronx, you're talking about, like across the street from Fordham Hill. Yeah. It's, I mean, it's like what, it's almost like a stereotypical run-down city. Yeah. Like, yeah. That's what it is. That's what the Bronx. That's what the Bronx is and looks like up there. And that's where you're in. Yeah. Man, that's what you're in. Yeah. Man, that's what you're in. So, you know, again, hey, everybody, get the book, read the book. You got all kinds of crazy tales in there. What was, tell us a little bit about life with Dante, Elijah, Charles Showtime, Deshawn, Erica Dennis, Kenny Monkey, Chris the Joker, and Ricardo, the Dominican duo.

Oh, man. What did you guys have going on? Oh, we had a lot going on, man. We, we, that was like my mini-buds, brother. We would play kick the door and run. We would play manhunt, you know, where we split up in teams, and then when you find members of the other team, you beat them up or rough them up. I remember the older kids in the park. They got chalk, and they drew like a squared boxing ring, and they would bet on us younger kids, you know, who was going to win, and we would slap box.

So we would have these slat, and you couldn't back out of it. It was just like, nope, you're going in. I don't care if you crying, you're growing in. And so we fought, it was so crazy because all of us like, I had fights with Dante, but then we would be friends like the next day. I had me and Elijah every summer. We had like a brawl, like a bloody brawl we fight. And then like the next day we would be playing with each other. And even Erica, I remember Erica, she was the tomboy.

She would hang out with her. She could scrap. And her and Ricardo got into a fight. And then her brother Scott came and beat up Ricardo. But then we were all buddy, buddy again. And so it was a good crew, man. those memories are so funny we went in Fordham Hill yesterday I was

in New York yesterday and I saw one of the guards or Captain Robinson he he was a main guard while we were there and then he went to go work at Yankee Stadium and he came back recently and we saw each other he's like Remy

like you're not doing the crazy stuff anymore and my mom told you like he was a frog man and he's in California he's like what you like yeah but it was just it was such a phenomenon hard upbringing, but a phenomenal upbringing at the same time. Yeah, there's something that I think, I don't know if this is because of social media or because we know more now,

we know more about the bad things that happen in the world, but, you know, when I was a kid, like, you would just go out. Like, kids just went out with no parental supervision at all, and it didn't really matter. Like, you weren't expected. No one was worried about you. Like, today, your kids go out,

You know, and you're thinking like, oh, gosh, there's freaking kidnappers and molesters and, like, all this bad stuff could happen. Yeah. That stuff was happening. No, just no one knew about it. And so you just go out and do what you're going to do. And, you know, that's with the book, you know, your mom's working. She's a teacher, right?

She's a teacher in the South Bronx, yeah. So she's a teacher. So that means, you know, you're home alone a lot. You've got things going on. You got your crew. Yeah. And you're just rolling out and getting after it. Like you said, though, it's rough, it's rough, man.

And I'll go to the book here. It says, in the midst of our job. Dreaming chaos intruded. Pop, pop, pop. Yeah. The shot started off, then erupted into a barrage. A car pulled up on the southbound side of the street directly to the left of us and started shooting up the building at 2.50, 2559 Sedgwick. Yeah.

The targets of the drive-by shoot started shooting back in our direction. And before we knew it, we were in the middle of a shootout. I froze, not knowing what to do. It was like everything was happening in slow motion. I can't remember what bay. You say Bayo or bio? Bio. Bio.

Bio. I can't remember what Bio was doing, but Rommel took charge. He looked at me and yelled, come on, Remy. Instead of moving, I slowly turned my head to look back in the direction of the hill. Ramele grabbed Corey and threw him over his left shoulder to shield Corey from the bullets. Then he pushed Bio, which prompted me to, which prompted my brother to start sprinting back to the hill. After receiving one last verbal lashing from Rommel, I snapped out of my frozen state and started sprinting

to catch up. We all ran as fast as we could. I don't know how Ramel was able to do it, but he was way ahead of bio and me the whole time, even while carrying Corey over his shoulder. Just when we thought we had made it out of the furnace, the car started speeding south in our direction. I will never forget the thought that popped into my mind. They have to kill us. We're the only witnesses.

They're coming to kill us. Despite that thought, I kept running as hard as I could. As the car got closer, I thought, this is it. Then just like that, the car sped by running the red, where Sedgwick and Bailey Avenue's met. We sprinted back to the entrance of the hill, stopped to check each other for bullet holes, then made our way in.

Let's just say that we got back up to the apartment and told Mom what happened. She didn't let us walk the other way to Corey's apartment. Instead, Uncle Kirk made the drive over to pick up Corey and my army vet uncle made sure to bring his gun. I'll never forget 2559 Sedgwick Avenue for two reasons.

One, it was the first place I recall almost losing my life. Two, a few years later, it would be the same building where Dina Taylor, Bios, close friend and classmate, would be murdered. Just like us, Dina wasn't bothering anybody. We were all just kids who happened to be in the wrong place and the wrong time. Yeah. So, yeah, that's the Bronx.

Yeah, man. And in that time period, there was all kinds of crime. Yeah. And you were just back there. How was it now? Worse. It's worse, man. The gangs are more out of control.

and then with this, like, I don't even know, it's this new type of rap, hip-hop, where you got these kids going on social media and making, and rapping these negative lyrics against another gang, so they ain't rolling up and murdering people to high school that I went to. Teachers are getting murdered.

A teacher got murdered recently, like two or three teachers got murdered recently. Kids are killing, it. It's bad. I mean, Brad knows we would drive it through, and he was like, we got to get out of it. But it's sad. And I've tried to go to my high school and talk to the students.

And I couldn't get in because I have to cut through, go through so much red tape to get in. But it's bad, man. It's disheartening to see that not only has it not changed for the good, it's changed for the worse. Yeah, that's crazy because, you know, for a while New York did change. And it was definitely in a better situation. in like the late 90s. Yeah, Giuliani. Yeah, he came down and cracked down on a lot of crime.

And then it definitely, I mean, when I was a kid going to New York, it was like, it was freaking crazy in the late 80s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like there was just drugs everywhere, hookers out on the street. It was, like, you would go walking down the street and like around Hell's Kitchen or something. Yeah. And there would be hookers, there'd be probably three to four hookers on every.

every street corner. Yeah. And we're talking like movie looking, you know, hookers. And there was people offering you drugs. Every three steps you took, somebody offered you drugs. Oh, yeah. It was bad. Yeah.

And then, man, by the time I went to the United States on the Navy, and by the time I would go back there when I was a little older, and now it was like the 90s, the mid-90s, the late 90s, it was a total, time square is totally different. Totally different. Yeah. And now it's going back in the other direction again. Yeah, especially in Bronx.

I mean, the park that I grew up next to, so walk outside the Fulham Hill gates. DeVoe Park is right there. You have to walk through the park to get to any part of Fulham Hill. And I remember being a kid and you see crackheads strung out. You see people selling drugs right there in front of you. I'm playing basketball on the basketball court and people are selling. And it's just normal. Hey, look the other way.

Drug dealer looks your way if you're playing and you're looking in them. You better turn your head really, really quick. You know, I remember going into the corner stores. You know, I was showing Brad the corner stores when we were there yesterday and seeing the mafia guys come in with the big collars slicked back here and collecting their attacks coming in and the storming gives them an envelope with a bunch of cash and that he was. So that was the environment then.

And to think like as a kid, I remember walking to school and I must have been about, I was in middle school. at this time so I must have no I was just about to go to middle school so I had to be about 10 or 11 maybe 12 and seeing grown men beating up kids you know just just you know slamming it because because the kids said something and that's that was one thing that happened to me I ended up getting beat to a pole once on a on a basketball court for having a disagreement of talking junk to a kid my age and then that kid went and got his uncle who had just got released for from prison and got his brother.

His uncle was about 35 years old. The brother was like 19. I was eight at the time. I got slammed. And I remember being so scared walking to school because I would always say, it's this one I'm going to get jump because the initiations at the time too was, you know, in order to get into the gang, you got to beat up an innocent person. As a matter of fact, there was this big thing that was going around all over the news.

In order to get into the gang, they had to give somebody a buck 50. It costs $1.50 to ride the train. And so what the gang, what the blood gangs would do is they would get on the train and the new member would have to go up to somebody that the senior member picked out. And innocent person, didn't do anything, pull out a blade and slash their face. And that was called a buck 50. So my mom would always tell me, if you get on the train, keep your eyes open. You see any red?

Anybody with red? Get off the train, walk to the next car, but don't play around. because you don't want to get your face sliced. And you'd see people walking down for a row, the street I grew up on, with big scars and girls. Not just men, women as well. You know, so it was rough, but it really helped me learn the importance of being attentive and looking around and reading people and not taking people for face value.

Like really looking at the situation, trying to dive into what's this person's intent, you know, because of not, you know, of dead. You get to this point, I'm going to highlight this conversation you had talking to your mom. You say, do you ever think will get the money back from the Nigerian government, I asked. Mom gave me a response that I would hear a million times.

I wouldn't hold your breath for it. All we have to work with is what God has given us. Don't count on anything else. Many nights later, I sat on our trundle bed, I began to reflect on my life in the Bronx. Bio was out in the living room watching TV, and I was in our room alone thinking about mom's financial struggles, the bad things I had experienced in my short life, and the life I felt we should be living, the life that was stolen from us.

We had one lamp in our bedroom that sat out on our only dresser, and the lampshade had been thrown away, probably because we broke it. Right below the lamp was a framed picture of chief. I got up from the bed, walked over to the picture, and picked it up with both hands. And for the first time, it finally hit me. Your father is dead. He's never coming back, and this is your life.

I was so young when my father died that I couldn't understand it, but it was in that moment of reflection that I finally grieved my father's absence for the first time. I broke down crying. My life wasn't structured for me to succeed, and I was finally realizing it. Inner city life, a single mother, financial hardship, violence,

a subpar school system and fatherlessness. My mom must have heard my cries from the living room because she quickly rushed in and asked what was wrong. It took me a while to get it out, but I finally told her. I miss my dad. I wish she was here so we could have a better life. Mom put her arms around me and she comforted me. She assured me that everything would be all right, we would make it.

In her demeanor, if not in her words, she summarized the title of that Tupac song. I know it looks like things will never change, but my son, you must. You must keep your head up. Mom did the best job she could, but as I grew older and taller, my fear of her maternal presence began to wane and the absence of my father loomed large. The next part of the book that you go into, you start talking about filling that, filling that, the void of not having a dad. And you fill it, get some different components that fill it.

Yeah, Rakeem, KRS 1, right? So even some West Coast Snoop Dog stars to fill it, which I was a little surprised to see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then you, so you had that, you had TV, right? So you saw the fresh prints, you know, with Will Smith, you saw Martin, you saw music videos, if you had movies, you had bad boys with Will Smith

and Martin in it. Whatever happened to Martin. He's still doing this thing. I think they're shooting Bad Boys four now. Oh, damn. Yeah. Well, before the strike, the actor's right there were. Yeah.

Bad boys. And this is interesting. I noticed in the book, you talk about the director Michael Bay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which, like, when I was a kid watching movies, I didn't care about any directors of anything. But you somehow had some kind of, like, understanding of directors, even as a kid? Yeah, well, it was because they would, he had two movies that came out.

Bad Boys was my favorite movie of all time, even to this day. And I remember as a young kid, it really hit me hard because, as I mentioned in the book, that was the first time I saw two guys who looked like me, but they were playing heroes and they planted that seed that I could be something other than a drug dealer, athlete, or a rapper. And so I studied that movie to nauseam. I remember, as a matter of fact, right after it came out, I bought the bootleg version of it. and the guy holding a camcorder and I remember watching it

and rewinded and watching and I went to my Uncle Mike's house and I was like Uncle Mike you gotta watch this and I just I watched everything read through the credits listen to the music, watched the music video that came along with it and so that was like my first

introduction to not just what's on the screen but behind the screen because I wanted to know everything about this movie and then so Michael Bay's name popped, you know, for me, especially being that I studied the movie religiously. And then two years later, the rock came out.

So when I saw Michael Bay, director of Bad Boys, new movie, Rock, I was like, oh, rock, I'm going to go see this. So that's kind of how the name popped in my head. So you go see the rock, and you say this about going to see the rock. Green light on the sea. Seal incursion the character in the film said the seals received the go-ahead to sneak on to Alcatraz Rescue the hostages and defuse the missiles as I sat on the edge of my seat I got my first insight into these bold men who these bold men were and what they did Their gear was state of the art they didn't seem uptight in the way other military units were often portrayed in film

Their movements were smooth and precise and each member of the team though unique Operated cohesively with everyone else I would later find out that the guys playing seals were so convincing because Michael Bay hired real Navy SEALs for the roles. Then came the iconic shower room shootout. Spoiler alert. The SEALs are discovered. A shootout ensues, and the Marines kill all the SEALs. One might think that this would leave a bad impression with me, but it didn't.

Even after the movie ended, I couldn't get Navy SEALs out of my mind. The scene of the seals rising out of the water to sacrifice themselves to save others kept replaying in my head. I recognized something honorable in that. Something special about that group of men somehow resonated with me. Bad boys planted the seed that I could one day be a hero. The rock planted the seed of the type of hero I would want to be if I ever could. In the weeks that followed, I learned as much as I could about the Navy SEALs. And one day, I made the commitment to myself.

Remy, if you can ever become something special, it's going to be a Navy SEAL. How old were you when you saw that movie? I must have been 16, 16. So you're beginning to have some cohesive thoughts about the world. Yeah, yeah. You're getting there. Yeah. But you still have a ways to go. A long way to go.

Yeah. In fact, your next chapter in the book is called Hustler. Yeah. And, you know, this is when you start doing, you know, you start doing bad shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. God, you steal your mom's engagement, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, to this day, that's something that I regret. That's something that I wish I can go back at time and take back because that was the only thing that my father left her. But I was so going back to me, that whole driven part. I was driven in the wrong way.

You know, I wanted affirmation. I think every boy needs a man to teach him how to be a man, but also to affirm him. And every girl needs a father to affirm her so that she's not looking for affirmation from wrong sources. And for me, affirmation came from getting money or making money, and my friend saying,

you're the man, and you this and you that. And so that was the substratum of why I did what I did. I'm not justifying it in any way. But I was looking for that pat on my back from my dad that I couldn't get and stealing that ring. And I can't even remember. It wasn't bored and maybe the ring was probably worth 15, 20 grand.

I only got like maybe $200 for it. Yeah. It's a disturbing read in the book. You talk about you're bringing it into this pawn shop. Yeah. You know the ring's worth whatever, 10, 15 grand. And the guys that could give you 150. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think maybe you get them up to 200. But. And you got all kinds of things going on. You're working at a sneaker store. You start taking cash, you know, for sneakers. So you're selling people just, you know, not put them in the register and pocketing that money. You, in high school, you're kind of just barely getting by.

Matter of fact, when you're about to graduate from high school, you find out you're not going to graduate in high school. And so in the book, you say you had to write a 50-page report in a weekend. But, no, no, the reality was, no, it was in a night. And the reality was I changed it from, it was actually a hundred page report. For the book, I cut it down to 50 because I was like, you know what, it's too unrealistic? Yeah, people are not going to believe me if I put it in 100. So let me put it down to 50. But the reality was, it was 100.

How the hell did you write 100 pages in the night? I just put in, I was driven. I don't want to get, I didn't want to get left back. The worst thing that could happen to you, at least for me at the time, the worst thing that could happen where everybody would call you stupid. and do the opposite of a firm you is if you ever got left back. And I didn't want to get left back and I didn't want to drop out and I didn't want to have anything to do with school anymore. So that's what drove me.

And yeah, Mr. Wolf, I'll never forget. He said write a paper on why English is important. And I figured it out, man. Do you still have that paper? You know, my mom, Brad knows this we were in my mom's house yesterday. She brought out a whole folder of papers that I had been, that she would make me right. because you made me right from the time I was a small kid

and the dated with night. I didn't see that paper. I think I had to turn it in though. I think I turned it into the teacher. I don't think I got that one back. So you get, you're just doing bad shit. You're doing that. But once you get out of high school,

that's what I kind of opened up with. I had to take the opportunity to open up with something, you know, just you out there. Yeah. Sending. Yeah. So you go through that phase. But what's interesting, in the end of that section I read,

I start. talking about how you you were saying you needed something big or something with more money. And what that ended up being, that ended up being actually selling cell phones. Yeah, to drug dealers, yeah. And you end up making good money. A lot of money, tens of thousands of dollars a week. It was crazy. It was nuts.

So talk us through that scam. What were you doing? So essentially. It's in the book, but like just, I don't want to read that whole section. That's all good. So essentially, I got it. I was able to get a license. a cell phone selling a cell phone license through a company.

I won't mention that company name in the book. I call him WTC. And this guy who worked there essentially showed me how to activate phones on lines of credit. So essentially, well, on other people's lines of credit, people who weren't trying to get the phone. So essentially, depending on a person's credit, you can activate up to three cell phone lines. and then you had you want to receive your bill until the 30 day mark and then you had 30 days from there which was a 60 day mark to pay your bill and if the bill wasn't paid by the 90 day mark then the phone would cut off so essentially it was a it was a free phone and you didn't and up front there was no payment

so it wasn't like buy the phone for $200 and then get a bill because the cell phone company was making its money more of its money in the in the actual monthly bill because it was $29.99 a month for 30 minutes. Who talked for 30 minutes? I mean, even think about it now, but who talked for 30 minutes, especially when cell phones became a thing. Nobody talked for 30 minutes. Everybody was going 50 minutes, 60, three, four hours, and then, you know, the cell phone companies were making crazy money because I think it was like five cent a minute or something ridiculous like that after you exceed it your 30 minutes. And so, so yeah, I was, I partnered up with a guy who I went to high school with and he had a

girlfriend that worked in a hospice clinic and so he his girlfriend would get me sheet of paper and it's like five or six people's names on it and be named their name and these are people who are about to die expire so their name date of birth social security and address and then I would plug that if I would call up we use my license call call up the company because say hey I have Ricardo Regalado you know just on a random name and here's the social here's this and then they would run the person on line would run the credit, be like, oh, he qualifies for three phones. Perfect.

I'll take all three. And then I would receive the phones from the company as well. So I would have the box and I would read the number, the serial code number to the operator, and they would activate three phones. And then I would then sell those phones. I started out selling the random people, but then for the most part, the majority of my clients were drug dealers because they like the phone. The phone would stay on for 90 days and it was a burner phone and would go. turn off and then they would come back to me and get another one and then they would use

how much did they pay you for a phone it depended on it depended on the phone so the cheapest phone my remember search around 300 dollars so I was cell the most expensive phone was 900 and that was the Motorola Tick-Tac phone because it was like it looked like a Tick-Tac and it was really small and guys liked it because it was it was cool and then there were the Motorola two-way pagers they came in like silver and and black and Jay Z and all these artists made them super popular because they went to music videos. And so I would sell those for about 500 a pop.

And again, they would stay on for 90 days as well. Guys could text, do what they needed to do, cut off, come back to me. Here's another one. And I was rolling into money, man. I bought a brand new car. I remember driving it right off the dealership downtown Manhattan, not too far from...

What did you get? Wasn't the Lexus or something? Lincoln, L.S. That's right. The Lincoln L.S. Yeah, you got that in the book. Yeah, the Lincoln L.S. And, yeah, I was, I started my record company

essentially laundering the money through the company so that that way we could make music and I could kind of hide the money there. This is eighth wonder records. Eighthunter entertainment, yeah. Eighth wonder entertainment. Yeah, yeah. So now you got some rap artists that you're helping produce.

You get in studio time and stuff for? Yeah, paying for studio time, paying for, you know, when it came. came to shows and we needed the guys needed new clothes and boots and all that stuff so they could look the part paid for that. We would go down to Virginia Beach. Interestingly, we'd go down to Virginia Beach and record down there.

Was it Port Smith, Virginia? Yeah, Port Smith, Virginia. And found a DJ down there. They would make beats for us. So, yeah, that's where a lot of the money was going to. Now, you get at one point in the book, and this is a big part of the book, because it's kind of a turning point for you.

You get confronted by this guy, what's his name, Devon? Devon, yeah. Devon, yeah. He's a drug dealer that you've given a bunch of phones through. And the phones got cut off after a short, very short period of time. So he came back to you like, yo, these things aren't working. You realize or you at least suspect that the phone company's onto you. Yeah, yeah.

Because how many freaking people have not paid for the phones that you've sold? Were you doing any legit business at this time? Yeah, I was. Yeah, yeah. So I was always smart about it. I was always smart. Okay, if I'm going to sell every three phones that I sold illegally, like I needed to sell at least like seven, eight or nine phones.

That way I was covering my basis. So if somebody ever came and investigated me, I could say, hey, like, this was a legit customer. Here's the ID because they would, I would also get like a driver's license, you know, a photo of the driver's license to prove, hey, yeah, this person. And so the guy at hospice, his girlfriend would be able to get me the pictures of the driver's license as well. So if anything did come up, I could say, hey,

like, this is the person I met with, and there's their signature. I don't know what's going on. And hear all my other legit clients, and I got scammed, you know. And so I was really, really smart about not going overboard until I met Devin. Right.

And he comes to your house with freaking, he's going to kill you. He's telling you like, hey, I'm going to kill you if you don't give me my freaking money. Yeah. But see, it was all his fault because, when he approached me initially and said, hey, I want to buy bulk.

I said no. And I was like, that's not the way this works. If I do bulk, then I'm going to, it's going to mess up my ratio. And there were guys that were getting caught. Maybe not in my company, other companies. There was one guy in my company. They were getting caught, prosecuting sent to federal prisons, the federal crime. Why is it a federal crime?

Because you're stealing people's personal information. Identification. And you're activating lines of crime. So you knew this and so you thought I'm not gonna go sell you bulk. No, I told him no and then he just kept on pressing Kept on pressing come on man, it'll be fine just try one time now you just so you know I wrote a book called Extreme Ownership and you just blamed him for this app and you said it's his fault That's true. That's true. That's true. In retrospect I thought it was his fault but the reality is I was the idiot. I mean I was I was I was the brains behind the operation So it all it all falls on me but

So he comes to you, now you think, oh, they're on to me. I'm scared. As a matter of fact, when he threatened me, I wasn't even thinking about him. I didn't even see him. You know what I mean? I saw federal prison. Federal prison. You know, and, you know, Rod is actually still in prison to this day, who I used to hustle with.

What do you go to prison for? Strong armed robbery, you know, drugs, all that. I mean, he got it. And the crazy thing is, after I got into the teams, I met Rod, he got clean for a little bit. I met him. He got clean for a little bit. He was a bus driver. And then he fell back into it.

He would call me up and talk about how he was struggling. I'd be like, yo, don't do it. Don't fall back. And then finally he was like, I can't. And he fell back into a strong arm robbery in Pennsylvania. He did his time there. As soon as he got released from prison in Pennsylvania, he had charges in Jersey. So he got thrown right back in prison in Jersey.

So he's still in prison in Jersey right now to this day So speaking of charges You did get rolled up for eating a freaking Burger McDonald's Right so you got that in there And that plays a little bit of a role Because now you have a record Yeah

So you get rolled up typical like kind of cops are harassing you guys You're a you know just shit This is the kind of shit that happens You know Yeah Yeah So you guys get you get arrested Yeah

That's out of McDonald's you end up quitting your job with the phone thing. You're like, I'm out. Federal prison doesn't sound like a good thing. And I wrote a letter. Had my mom helped me write in my letter because in my stupid mind, I felt, oh, if I write a letter and quit

and explain that the reason why I'm quitting is because there's just too much craziness going on if they ever discovered it was me. They can't prosecute me because I quit. I don't know why I thought that. Just covering your tracks. Let me quit before I get prosecuted. Well, I think you can get prosecuted even if you quit, right?

Sorry, who was the letter to? It was to my boss at the company. So there was a woman that I had to report into. And she loved me. I mean, she was, you know, because I was making her a lot of money, man. I was making a lot of money. She even cried when I came to her and gave her the letter. And she was just like, why are you doing so good here?

And I was just like, there's too much craziness going on. Yeah. So you got that going. on you quit that once you quit that now you don't have the money that you had to fund eighth wonder yeah so now you're starting to scramble and trying to make something happen there and you had a connection who had a connection who had a connection or something along those lines with with Kevin Liles who's like I think at this time he might have been the president of death jam um and so you get a meeting yeah with the with the president of

Def Jam Records. I mean, this is as good as it gets. And so Kevin Liles, here, let me go to the book. Mr. Liles, your visitors are here, the assistant said. Mr. Lyle stood up and said, come on in guys. He had a warm, comforting spirit about him. He wasn't intimidating, but I could tell he was all business. Willie embraced him with a handshake and said,

these are the guys I've been working with. I think they got some good stuff for you. After Willie made the introductions, he stepped into the corner and stood there with his hands in his pockets. What would happen for the remainder of the meeting was now on me? Okay, okay, what's your name again, Mr. Lyle's act? Asked, I'm Remy. I'm the CEO and founder of Eighth Wonder Records, and these are my artists.

Do you have music with you? He asked. I handed our CD to Mr. Liles. Yes, here's our compilation album that we produced. He read the print on the cover. Who will discover the eighth wonder of the world? Interesting. Let's see what you got.

Mr. Liles popped the CD into his player and started listening. Our album was set up with what we thought was the best song first because we intended the CD to be a demo also as the music played I watched mr. Lyles intently he only listened to snippets of each song he nodded a little seemed disinterested in some songs and interested in others the good news was that he listened to some of every song I honestly didn't know what to think my assessment was that he could lead either way finally he spoke and when he did he was direct um yeah it's good but it's not there my heart sank, but I maintained my composure.

He continued, let me play you something that's popping. I just signed an artist named Joe Budden. His album isn't out yet, but check this out. This is the kind of stuff we're looking for, for artists that pop. So he plays this. You're just trying to like freaking that cool. Then you say, uh,

we set our goodbyes to Mr. Lyles and we thanked him for his time and honesty and made her way out of the building. We were finally out. When we were finally out, we stood at the southeast corner and talked. I tried to motivate the troops the best I could, telling that we'd find another way,

but deep down, I knew it was over. There was no way I could keep funding Eighth Wonder at the same level. So that's that. Yeah. What, where are you, because at some time around here, is when 9-11 happens.

Yeah, yeah, as a matter of fact, that event, with Def Jam was January 2002. Everything that happened with Devin happened in November, December, 2001. I watched the Twin Towers come down. As a matter of fact, I went, my mom woke me up on September 11th at like 9 a.m. and told me what was going on. There was a girl I was dating at the time. She lived like two, two, three buildings down. She called me up and told me to come to her apartment, went to her apartment. We went up on the roof. And she was trying to call her cousin. Because a cousin worked at windows of the world and wasn't getting through. And then we both watched. the towers come down from like the 18th floor on 17th floor on the building so the 18th the roof of the building and yeah that was that was crazy man um sirens back and forth all day

all night long it was horrific man um but it brought the city together that was the one thing that i remember everybody regardless of race regardless of what neighborhood you know just it was like New York just came together in a way that I had never seen before. But it was absolutely horrific. It didn't. I remember watching when I was on the roof, watching the Twin Towers getting ready to come down, a part of me was like, man, I want to go do something. Like, I want to go, like, I want to go get those who did whatever happened because nobody really knew what had happened yet at that point. We didn't know if it was, you know, did the plane flying by action?

And nobody really knew what was happening until the second plane here was like, okay, this is an accident, but we didn't know who it was. We didn't know from, you know, some pilots made a pack or what. And a part of me just wanted to go in and get revenge. But then that faded really, really quick because of what I was involved in from a hustling standpoint and being focused on making money. Yeah, and you had this dream of the music, right? I mean, you're putting in work to try and make that happen as well. You got the meeting coming up with Def Jam. I mean, that's freaking legit. I'm going to fast forward a little bit. As I lay there in bed, I heard a voice say, you need to get out of here. You need to join the military.

It was the type of voice you hear off in the distance within a dream, the way someone speaks to you while you're asleep. But I wasn't dreaming. I was awake. in a state of bemusement, I prompt my head up to look around, but there was no one in the room but me. The voice said it two more times,

but softer than the first, even softer on the last. You need to join the military. You need to join the military. Now, I'll be honest. I smoked a lot of weed in my teenage years, and in the process of getting high, I did experience some freaky events,

but I hadn't been high for at least three weeks before this. I was clean, I promise. Not only was the voice audible, but it penetrated my mind and reverberated through my very being. It got my attention. I sat up and just stared in the room. And as I stared, I actually began to entertain the idea of joining the military.

What do I have left? I have nothing else to do. Then I shook my head and began a silent argument. No, I can't do that. I hate the police. And anyone in uniform is the police. No. Plus, I like my hat backward and my clothes baggy.

So there's no way I'm slipping into one of those tight-ass sailor boy costumes. No. Full of frustration and anger, I laid back down and stared at the ceiling. Damn, damn. I ain't got nothing left. I took a deep sign and began to whisper. If you don't leave, man, you're probably going to end up dead or in prison. If I lay there for about 30 minutes

Trying to figure out what else I could do in my life And nothing came up Finally I capitulated All right, I'm gonna do it What else do I have left The decision was made I was all in And boom like that

Next thing you know you're going to recruiters You go to the army You talk a little bit to the army You end up at a Marine recruiter Who's trying to get you You see like a force recon picture You're like yo that's it No one's in there

No one's in there. Yeah. And then you go into the Navy recruiter. Yeah. And you get petty officer Tiana Reyes. Yeah, Tiana Reyes. Tiana Reyes. And she's good to go.

Yeah, man. As she starts running your record and stuff, a little background check. She finds out here she says, you have a warrant for arrest in New York and you have a warrant for arrest in New Jersey. What was the New Jersey arrest? Is that traffic or something?

That was speeding or. reckless driving. I was doing something like 120 and like a 65 or 70, something stupid. And I didn't stop at first. Because I knew the cops were behind me. I knew the Sirens, but I tried to play it off like they weren't. But I eventually pulled. It wasn't like a high-speed chasing.

And when they pulled me older, they were like, why didn't you stop? It's like, oh, I didn't know. You're going 120 miles off. Sirens, who else do you think were chasing? And I never went to court. I you know I even with the whole you know the thing that happened with the risk resisting arrest and disobeying law for order like that happened I got arrested with the jail I never went to court I was just like oh I didn't know I

needed to go to court I didn't know I needed to show up for trial and yeah so does that's what the more so you had two warrants out and um luckily Tiana she's freaking squared away yeah and she set up appointments for you with the New Jersey court yeah and the New York court she went there put her ass on the line as a matter of fact and said like I vouched for this guy he wants to change his life he's had some rough steps he's gonna go in the Navy yeah if you can let him if you can let him in yeah basically is which is special right is where it comes from yeah now how long was it before you

actually shipped out the two weeks damn that was June how old were you I'm 19 I turned 20 in boot camp turn 20 in At the 20 in boot camp. And the crazy thing about it is Tiana died two years later. Yeah. Yeah, there's a cool afterward in the book that you write about her and you find her and find her family. I was with her actually. Very cool.

Yeah, I was with her aunt and uncle. Yes, two nights ago at the live bar. So, yeah, I'm super close to family. But yeah, she changed her trajectory in my life. Yeah. And she did it, you know, and you mentioned this in the afterward of the book. Like, and just shout out to her. She changed the trajectory of a lot of young.

men and women to get them in the military. And, you know, sometimes people talk about recruiters, you know, recruiters lie and all this stuff, which they do. But I'll tell you what, you know, when they take someone that's on a negative trajectory and you get them in the Navy or get them in the military, man, you're doing a huge favor to them, a huge favor to them. I can tell you right now, like, best thing that ever happened to me was going in the Navy. 100%.

So boot camp, you ship off to boot camp. Yeah. How's how's young Remy like boot camp? It was easy. It was ridiculously easy.

I was motivated to be AJ squared away because of the decision that Tiana made. I didn't want to prove her decision wrong because there was a reason why the military

didn't want me in with my record about my warrants and my background which in retrospect I understand and I knew that Tiana took a risk

and I knew that if I screwed up, if I talked back, or if I was rude, or if I didn't pay attention to detail, then I would just be proving, you know, the system right, you know? And so, so boot camp was easy for me. You know, I just did what I was told. But every single day I was in boot camp, though, even when I got to, when I got to the teams, I was petrified because I always had that thing. hanging over me that the stuff that I did with the cell phones hanging over me it's going to come back it's going to bite me in the butt so every I remember being in boot camp and when my name would get called even if it was something simple as hey you know we get over here at the lake and I'm like oh crap this is it they shipping me out uh you know I lied moment of truth all this other stuff yeah you know I was I was just petrifying it and it'd be something as simple as oh we just want to confirm what your preference is on your dog tag I'm like my heart just kind of

I go back in, but that followed me. And that's one thing I learned, you know, when you do wrong, and it sticks with you. It follows you, man, for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, what you've got to be careful, too, is sometimes, you know, people make mistakes. Yeah.

And they think, well, I already made a mistake. So, like, you could easily have done that. If you had a different mindset, like, well, they'll never let me in. I'll never be able to make it. So I'll just keep doing, you know, criminal shit. Yeah. Because I've already screwed up. Yeah.

So luckily you didn't get that. I forgot to mention, you didn't come in. in the Navy on a seal contract. No. You, I don't think your ASVAB score was good enough. No, my, I couldn't swim. And you couldn't swim. And I was skinny.

How much is you weigh? I was like 1.45 maybe, 150. I was, I was skinny. I would wear baggy clothes and, you know, present like I was large and in charge, but I was a, I was always skinny. You said 145? I was like 145, 150. Damn, I was skinny.

My brother was really skinny. My brother now is like still super. were skinny. Did you, did you play any sports in high school? I played, I played basketball, and then I got kicked off the team, and I never played again. I remember I'll never forget it. I was in my sophomore year, and somebody made a joke, the coach is standing in, somebody made a joke, all of us laughed. The coach's eyes for some reason landed on me, and he said, you think that was, you think that's funny? And I was like, yeah, it's funny, not being aware that he was upset.

And he said, all right, you kicked off the team. And I was like, what? He's like, you kicked off the team. Get out of here. You still think that's funny? And I never play basketball ever again. Like in that type of capacity. It really screwed me up.

But, yeah. Okay. So, like, did you ever work out? Did you ever run? Did you ever do push-ups? Any shit like that? All the stuff I did in Fordham Hill, you know, running around with the guys playing two-hand touch football, you know, kicking the door and running.

There was a, I remember in high school, I can't remember if it was my sophomore more junior year, but we had like a weightlifting class, and I did that. I remember, you know, getting, you know, putting on muscle quick. That's something that I've never had an issue. When I start working out, like, I'll put on muscle quick and I lose it fast if I don't maintain it.

And then, yeah, other than that, yeah, I didn't have like a set fitness regiment on anything. It's good to hear because, you know, sometimes guys, they think, oh, if I wasn't a freaking swimmer, football player or whatever wrestler, then I don't have a chance of making it through buds. It's actually not true. It just depends on your mentality.

But you show up and did you get a contract to be a Corman? Yeah, I got it. Yeah, I was a Corman, yep. So you go to boot camp, you make it through the moment of truth, which if you don't know, a moment of truth is when they like tell you like, we have all of your records and if you don't come

clean with what your records say you're going to be sent to federal prison for the rest of your life. And then some kids break it. Yeah, yeah. I got coffee shoplifting in fourth grade. You know, but, yeah.

But Tiana had told you, yeah. You keep your fucking mouth. Shut boy, shut up, man. Don't let them, don't get, come on you in New York and don't fall for the okie dog.

And I didn't. I was scared. I almost did, but I did it. So you get that. You get through boot camp. You get through HM school. Yeah.

So you're going to become, if you don't know, what a Corman is, it's a medic in the Navy. And then you get stationed at Camp Pendleton at the hospital. What year is this? This is 2000. I got to the hospital in 2003. 2003. Yeah. You show up there.

And again, this is like great stuff in the book, funny stuff in the book. You get some your interaction with some of the fleet people that are showing up and treat you like shit, which is terrible. But you know you want to go. little buds yeah yeah you get the you get the DVD of the documentary for uh the class 234 documentary yep yeah and again you don't really know much about working out yeah

so you just make up your own workouts make it up i just see all right i watch a documentary and i see all right these dudes are just constantly moving they just going from the pull up bar to pushups to the surf zone and back so i can't work out where i'm going to sit down bench get up you know sit bench sit you know just chill I need to be constantly moving so that's what I did I remember having a log book where I just you know the first part of my workout was where I had to max out you know I had to with my test so if it was a pull-up workout then that that was when I would try and get the most pull-ups that I could get and I would log it so on you know 2 23 2003 like five pull-ups then you know the next week when I did that workout, I had to at least hit six pull-ups.

And I just gradually just started creating circuits around that. Seemed like you're pretty methodical. Yeah. There's something about your nature that's methodical. I think it comes from my dad. Being an engineer or whatever. Being an engineer and having that engineering mind, you know, even now as a filmmaker, and, you know, whether it's doing an organ harvesting film or an action thriller or,

you know, a drama. Like, in my mind, it's just piecing the story together in a way that an engineer pieces a building together. pieces of a car together. It's just like I just, I see the problem and my mind just started trying to figure out how to work through that problem. That's how it worked out with fitness

and trying to get in proper shape. And you do that with your ASVAB as well because you got to improve your ASVAB score so you figured out, and again, all the stuff is in the book, read the book. Yeah. Because it shows when you take a methodical approach to things, you can get through them.

Yeah. You also do some dumb shit. Yeah. You know, like, You've got this one Like second class Maybe she's at HM 2 or an HM 3 And she doesn't like you

Is that her real name? No Okay I can tell you the real name was on. No, don't tell me. I don't want this girl to get hate mail From around the world But yeah you got like a third class

Third class yeah And she like doesn't like you And she just hate you And then you got a situation Where you're the duty driver Meaning you need to be on call To drive if needed And you've done it a bunch of times

you'd never been called before. And so she tells you, you know, your duty driver, you better not leave base. You're like, okay. And sure not, one of your buddies is some new freaking tears. That's true. You couldn't resist it. I could resist, man.

Opening weekend. I wanted to say tears in the sun, dude. Yeah. So you go and see it. You get in trouble. Again, all the stuff is in the book. These are all great little stories from the book as well. But you end up getting through that.

Yeah. And you get, in 2004, you get, you get orders to buds. Yeah, get orders of buzz, man. What's your first impression when you show up at buds? It was like shocking awe, bro. But it was also like, wow, this is where I'm supposed to be. There were times when I was just like, man, can they do this to you? Like, I was like, what the egg?

I remember one instructor. I can't remember his name. I won't say, I probably going to say his name anyway, but he was like, we'd get hammered during an inspection where our uniform in my pants. for hat sag down, like, pass my butt in my boots for all. And he's like, what you doing, boy? Do you think this is the hood? And I looked up, I'm like, can you say that to me? And then you realize it's all the mind game.

They all messing with you. But yeah, it was just, it was like a beautiful world, man, that I had never been in. And then also the caliber of guys that, you know, that I was around, you know, they would, I had never been. And this is like the cream of the crop as it relates to Americans. Mikey Mansour was in my boat. crew. Ray Bobby Ear was in my class. Brian Joe

rolling into our class. It was like all of these really, really good dudes and guys who would go on to be legends in our community. And so just to be a kid from the hood, like here, there were times when I was like, do I even belong here? Like, are they going to find out that like I should be here for some reason? And, but it was, I was happy. Every day I was just, I was just happy to be there. How old are you now at this point when you showed up? See, that's two, I might have been 21. I should have, that was 21 for sure,

because I turned 20 in boot camp, went through to January. I started in January of 2004, so I was 21. Okay. Yeah, I turned 22 in that upcoming August of 2004. You give a good description here. Yeah. You say this, Master Chief picked up the megaphone and said, this is just the first hour of training and you clowns are falling apart.

You wanna waste my, waste the time of our instructor staff well I'm gonna waste your time go line up on the beach we all scurried down to the beach and lined up side by side with our backs to the ocean the medical truck drove through a break in the berm and flashed its high beams on us then the instructors slowly walked over the berm and down to where we stood in silent anticipation the temperature was still around 55 degrees and there was a slight breeze because of my lack of body fat and wet clothes I was already shaking to make matters worse I knew exactly what was coming next an evolution called surf torture

through the megaphone master chief gave the command about face we all turned around to face the ocean lock arms i can't help but smile what i hear this we all know what this means uh we interlocked arms forward march as a class we began to make our way into the ocean the water temperature in san diego in february hovers around 57 degrees in layman's terms that's freezing cold i'd already been in the water but it was a quick in and out now i was slowly walking in and the only way I could stop was if I unlocked arms and turned to quit. The water got up to my ankles. I said, damn, that's cold, but I kept moving. Then the water was at my thighs, then hips and finally the water reached my abdomen. Master Chief said, and hold. We all stopped and stood there as the waves splashed on us. I remember trying to stand on my toes to keep as much

of my upper body out of the water as possible. Then I heard the command, take seats. We all slowly got in the sitting position. I could hear all kinds of cursing from the guys up and down the line. Our upper bodies were now submerged and when the waves crashed over us, our faces would be submerged as well. I quickly learned that I could take name calling growing up in the hill prepared me for that. The sprints and pushups, my training at the hospital prepared me for that and everything else they threw at me, but the cold was my kryptonite. My body wasn't built for it. After 15 minutes of lying there shaking like a coconut on a tree, I heard the infamous ding, ding, ding again. The instructors had brought the bell to the beach and another.

student had quit. That's buds, man. Yeah, man. So what you, you figure your body fat was super low? Done. I had no body fat. I mean, every surf torture, even at the end of every two mile time swim, I was either borderline hyperthermic.

Hypertherman. Just because it's like, especially being in winter, you know, it was just like, ah. So you had, you also had some problems with swimming with fins. you never swam with fins before. Yeah, I didn't know that I thought that when you, when I took the screening test, I thought that I just had to learn how to do the 500 to get in. I didn't know that I actually had to swim with fins and buds.

I saw it in, I saw it in the buds, two, three, four, but I didn't know that it was like time. I thought, oh, you just get in. Because I saw the base swim in, when the guy is that famous bass swim scene. Oh, do typing out a little bit? Yeah, it's just completion. completion. I always know completion.

And yeah, man, that's, that was my, that was also my cryptos. So you, you kind of got through that. The cold is a freaking issue for you. You talk about doing these swims. And by the time you get done with the swims just about every time you're, you're not doing good. Nah, two hours, like two hours. Instructors will always mess with me saying, well, saying, hey, dude, oh, we're going to have to bring a tape player and

DVD on this boat, whatever, on the safety boat, because two hours, because the passing time was 85 minutes, and I'm out there for two hours. And they were, they were intentionally making me finish it, because they were like, nah, we're going to let him suffer until he quits. You, again, there's a bunch of good stories about this stuff in the book, but, for instance, at Steel, so now we get to Hell Week. Yeah.

In Hell Week, at Steel Pier, you, you start to hype out. Yeah. And who's your, your body temperature was like 87 degrees. Yeah, 88.7. 88.7. That's not a good sign.

No. So you got hypothermia. Yeah. They take you out of the water. They bring you to medical. They warm you up. Which I didn't even know they did this. So they take you out of the water.

They warm you up. And now they, what, like an hour or something like that? Get your core temperature back up. The thing is, man. Buds is, is psycho, but it's actually fair. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're a good example of that. And this is, your whole

story is a good example of the fact that like, that right there. Yeah. If you quit because you're cold, you're a quitter. Yeah. But if you hype out, there's only so much you can do about that as a human. Like, you know, you, some people they just don't have, well, number one, they don't

have the body fat. If you were probably like this freaking skinny 160 pound or 150 pound kid, you don't have body fat. No. You can be freaking chilly. Like even we have a joke in the teams. We call it when someone's a little chubby, they call it combat swimmer muscle.

He's like, hey, I can stay warm for a long time. Yeah. So it's a real thing. Yeah. And so when you got a guy that like gets hypothermic, it's to steel pier, Echo Charles, what it is is there's a pier over in the San Diego Bay on the, on the Navy base.

It's made of steel. Yeah. Steel is not warm, by the way. So it's steel pier. And it's usually, I think it's the first, night of hell week. It's maybe like two or three o'clock in the morning. It might be the second night it was the second night of hell week. Yeah.

Because we did the elephant run down to, I haven't even been the third night because we did the elephant run with the boats on heads from Bards down to Imperial Beach. We were down there for a while. Daybreak comes and then we do some stuff down there and then

maybe it was that night we had to... It has to be one of the first two nights because by the third night you'd you would just be like not into it, not able to do it but they put you, they basically put you on the steel pier, it's freezing cold, and then they put you in the water,

and they bring you out, they're spraying you with cold hoses, and they make you lay down on the steel pier and then stand up with the wind blowing, and they're just gonna get people to hype out, they're gonna get you cold. So you hyped out, they take you away, they warm you up. How'd you feel? Because then they're bringing you back.

And this is what? This is Dale, Chief Fortin, right? Bringing you back. What was he saying to you, dude? Oh, he was funny, man. You know, he was just like, so you want to quit or you want to go back? You want to go back in? I was like, oh, yeah, I'll go back.

All right, good on you. So that's your mindset. Like, you're freezing cold. Yeah. Then they go, okay, yep. Yeah. We warmed you back up. Yeah, yeah.

Like I said, buds is fair. Yeah. You're warm now. Yeah. Go back in. Go back. But, and they didn't know in their defense. They didn't know I was sick.

Oh, that's right. They didn't know that had. Yeah. that you had sight yeah started with sipe I was spitting up blood and so um you know none that the instructors knew because I because for me it was like dude I don't want to freaking go to this med check that med check before hell week they find out that I have sip and I'm spitting up blood and then I have to start day one of first phase all over again so I'd rather you know get go for it let's get to Wednesday yeah yeah we to get roll for it

you go back to the class here I'm going to pick it up in the book the short Rest it helped I wasn't feeling great by any means but I was feeling good enough to manage about 30 minutes later my lungs felt like I was breathing through a kitty straw Yeah I started to feel dizzy from lack of oxygen and before I knew it I'd fall on the ground I was still conscious when the instructors were on me like blood drunk hyenas Get up you quitter. There's nothing wrong with you instructor G said as I stumbled my way to my feet and began to stagger behind my boat crew Medical cleared you so stop faking it and get under the boat I mustered the last ounce of strength of my body after about 30 seconds I caught up to my boat crew stood erect with my head under the boat and kept driving. Despite my lack,

despite being back in position, the instructors didn't care. They wanted me gone. Three instructors ran beside me shouting all kinds of stuff. Drama queen, weak, loser. And then just like that, in the midst of the chaos, everything went black. I can't tell you exactly what happened before when I was told later,

every part of my body stopped moving at the same time. My arms fell down to my side and like a leaning tower that has passed a point of no return. I face planted into the concrete. One student described it like seeing a robot, powered down in mid-flight. The instructors flipped my motionless body over and tried to bring me back to consciousness. After two minutes, one of the instructors did a deep sternum rub, which led my nerves to shock me

awake. When my eyes opened, everything seemed hazy. I could see instructors running to me and the ambu pulling up. I remember coughing violently. I felt like my lungs were full of dust. The medical team loaded me back in the ambu and raced me back to medical. I kept going in and out of consciousness. I couldn't feel anything, hot, cold, or pain.

Am I dying? I thought, if I am, it's not as bad as I thought it would. It seemed kind of like a peaceful slipping away as soon as we got to Bud's medical Dr. Ryan Listen to my lungs all he could say was oh my that's not good a civilian ambulance was called and I was rushed to Balboa hospital with sirens and lights blazing My self-diagnosis turned out to be correct and I skipped this part but we mentioned it you had you knew as a Corman that you had some Some swimmer induced pulmonary edema you had fluid in your lungs X-ray showed that my lungs were filled with fluid I was subsequently diagnosed with sype pneumonia and another penitence potentially fatal condition rabdomylosis there was no way I could return to hell week instead

I spent two days in the ICU and three more days in general recovery so that's your first crack at hell week yeah didn't go good but you didn't quit now yeah and like I said buds is hard yeah but it's fair yeah it's fair and that's why if you meet someone and they kind to like blame. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's a, there's a really good chance. Yeah. That they're not being honest with you and they're probably not being honest with

themselves as well. My friend and former Admiral McGuire used to tell the guys before Hell Week. If you don't make it through, it's because of you. Yeah, that's true. And again, you're a good example of that because here you are. You hyped out. Yeah. They warm you up.

They let you restart. with the class now you freaking pass out yeah fast out while running and they don't drop you yeah you didn't quit yeah so they put you back to first day of first phase again what I didn't want to happen happen anyway so and I met Mark Lee oh there you go Mark Lee was in my boat crew oh yeah because you had you had Mikey yeah was in 250 yep and then and then and then Then Mark was in 251, right on. He was in your boat crew? Yeah, we were in the same boat crew.

Was he a freaking character? Dude, no, he was so humble. He got on me one time because you know how it is. You get, well, I'm sure you don't because you're way better man than I can never be. But, you know, I got my chest popped out a little bit more because of the fact that I made it through first phase the first time, got to hell weak. And then here I am this kid from the Bronx. and so my head just got big and I remember just walking around

and I remember Mark Lee we were in front of our barracks 602 lined up in our boat crew and I looked over after talking to Master Chief, the Master Chief first phase won't mention his last name and you know because he Master Chief was joking with me about something

and so I had my chest instructor's joking with me being buddy buddy so I walked back over my chest is out and I look out the corner of my eye and Markley's just looking at me and I look over and I'm like what are you looking at man? And he's like, you need to be humble.

Dang. Yeah. And I remember it bothered me. And it wasn't until like we got close to the hell week that I really understood what he was saying. And we became really, really cool. But he checked me because he saw where my head was going. And he said, hey, if you keep this up,

he was pretty much saying, if you keep this up, they're going to kick you out. Don't let their kindness fool you, you know, just because you had a run. So I'll never forget. get that I'll never forget him checking me what about Mikey do you remember Mikey yeah I will never forget after I got he made it through hell week and I got back he came up to me and he was like because I think I can't remember he had been in buds before he had both Mark

okay and Mikey had both been to buds before they were with you yeah they both quit okay so Mikey came up to me he's like put his hand on my shoulder he's like dude I understand stand bro like it's all right you get back in and keep your head in the game and I'll never forget that comfort that he gave me because I was crushed when I came back from the hospital so all them with their brown shirts on and they're like yeah Tuesday and you know the the yell that we do have to get a call out and he came up to me and comforted me and I never forget that he said something to me before we went in the hell week that I remember for a long time but I can't remember now it was He was such a humble dude.

He was, man. He was like a humble, good, good dude, man. You know what I mean? That was the one thing I remember about Mikey. And even when we were in boat crew and everything, when we were in like, inserved torture or to run with boats on their heads or whatever the case may be,

workman was in our boat crew as well. You know, he would just always be positive. It was almost like he was the leader of the crew and very selfless, you know. And obviously we know what happened, but that's what I remember. but I'll never forget him coming up to me after I got released from the hospital.

And that gave me that conversation that he had with me gave me that spark to keep going. Because, you know, I never, the idea of quitting never really crossed my mind, but I was down, hard, you know, seeing my brother's moving on. And, yeah, so I'll never forget that, for sure.

Awesome freaking guys, man. So you start up again and won one day. Yeah, so you've done what four weeks of training? Four weeks of four weeks of just Freaking circus games, bro. And you go all the way back to the beginning. This time you're you do good, right? Yeah.

You make it through hell week. Yeah. Once you make it through hell week, these, the instructors realize that you sucked at swimming. Yeah. And you had just barely got past every swim. And so they actually, when you get done with hell week and this happens, pretty regularly.

You get done with Hell Week and you're just done. Like you're injured. You basically can be any kind of injury, but like you get rolled. Happens to a lot of guys after Hell Week. So you get rolled, but they actually roll you for two classes. Classes. I never forget.

I'm running off the beach. Hellwick just secured. Mass Chief Hoffman. God rest his soul. Commander Zinky and Captain Smithers. You know, they, I'm about to run through that gate, you know, or from the beach

into the compound. Like, Adelaide, you come here. And the master chief was like, yo, you ain't moving for these guys. He was like, yo, we think you're a good dude and you got potential, but we got it. Now we're going to teach you how to swim.

Because you prove that you want to be here. So now we're going to teach you how to swim. And, yeah, man, started when the Roeback land. Yeah, they do, like even that right there, you can tell they didn't want to invest in you before how weak, because then you take a bunch of time, put it into a guy and he just quits anyways.

You never know who's going to quit. Yeah, yeah. You just never know. Someone might seem like a quote, good dude. Yeah. And then Steele Pier. Yeah, man. Steel peer comes around.

Boy, those good dudes, they start having a different opinion about things about what they want to do in life. You know, they start having those things happen. So you get rolled. even though you learn how to swim, so now you class back up again, you still fail swims because the time tightens up.

The time's tightened, but it was my pride. I mean, that conversation that Mark Lee had with me, time had passed. And another thing about Mark, he was always holding me accountable throughout that whole process of us going through first phase in the hell week. Sometimes it was just a look.

Blake you're getting a little hell of yourself right and I didn't have that accountability anymore and when I was in rollback land I had a lot of time on my hands and so after we we would get off at like 12 o'clock we just have to do our swim PT and then I'm out hanging out going downtown doing all these stupid things and then on the weekends it was party time and right after I passed my first swim in first phase it was on I was just like I'm making and through buds because now I'm going to die phase. Nobody can't tell me anything. And the instructors would show up on the weekends to help.

To help anybody with anything. This is post-Hel week, you know, whether you were struggling with swims, even if you were struggling with runs, if you were struggling with any, if you anticipate that you would be struggling with anything dive-related, they would show up on the weekends at like 8 o'clock in the morning, a reasonable time, nothing too crazy, work with guys for a couple couple hours and then gone and I never showed up because I'm too busy partying in the gas lamp district and chasing girls and doing all the stupidity that I'm too hung over to you know to show up part of the test of buds yeah is the weekends yeah and it's part of the test like people

are always surprised like yeah you don't have every weekend off and you don't you definitely don't have definitely don't have every weekend off and you definitely have things to do on the weekend but if you want to go down to the gas lamp district and get drunk and be stupid yeah you can do it yeah but it's going to catch up with you yeah and and that is and not to mention get just getting in trouble getting arrested getting whatever rolled up for whatever thing so that they're kind of looking to see how mature you are if you can handle that yeah so you have the opportunity to train but you you passed one swim and you're like oh i'm good to go to go you even have the book in the book and i forget which part of this, but it's like Cardinal sin.

Like some girl out in the bar asked you what you do, and you're like, I'm a Navy SEAL. And like, as you said it, you're like, oh, wait a sense. That's like a cardinal sin, dude. And I wanted to be honest, you know what I mean? Like that was one thing in a book. I wanted to be honest about, you know, because it's good to show all the glamorous things and all that other stuff. But I wanted to show, I was in a bad place.

And it was all my, it was all on me. And I wanted people to see the mistakes that I made and see, hey, I even told foolish lies like that. The cardinal sin, bro. Don't say your, don't say it, man. Don't say it. You can say I'm a trainee. There's all kinds of things you could say,

but he said it. And thankfully, no one was there to hear it other than this poor girl. I was getting lied to, by the way. So now you get back into class. You're in second phase, which is dive phase. You fail the first swim.

Failed the first swim, fail the second swim. And then you fail the second swim. Yeah. And then there's an area of training, I guess it's called pool week. Yeah. And now this is when you're actually learning to dive

with, with, with, open circuit diving, which is like regular scuba diving. And you have a bunch of protocols and tests to go through with that. And you actually are passing these tests, but there's enough.

other test called the tread. Tell us about the tread. The tread is five minutes, treading water, hands above the water. As soon as your hands touch the water, you fail. 2080s on your back, tanks, full dive gear, weight belt on, you're just using your fins. And I'm a dude that already struggled with this way.

So you had that. And, you know, for some people, like Ryan Job, I know he had no issue with it. Because he had to float. But for me, I'm already negative. No body fat. Jump in the water. I go down anyway.

With that, it's like I'm drowning. As a matter of fact, when I did drownproofing in first phase, and part of drownproofing is afloat, I didn't float. I was literally kicking the entire time because I'm so negative. So multiply that with the dive tanks and the tread, and that was horrific. I mean, for me, it was like I felt like I was. was drowning and I failed that four times. And again, here was an evolution

that the instructors would show up on a weekend because they knew it was coming. If you wanna learn some techniques or some ways to pass this, show up and will help you and I wasn't there. So you failed the tread four times. You end up at going to a board to see what they're gonna do with you and I'm gonna take it to the book here.

Adelaike, come in, Commander, O said. I replied, who ya before stepping into the room and standing at attention. Commander O asked, Adelaike, you've been here for a year, haven't you? Who ya, sir, I replied. He continued, well, because of your length of time here, I'm sure you understand what's about to happen. Who ya, I replied again.

Then the command master chief chimed in. Adelaike, listen, you've been rolled three times once for medical, and the command decided to give you a double roll for swims. Who ya, master chief. Looking down to my record, Master Chief continued. After being double rolled for swims, You failed both your swims in second phase and one of those failing times didn't even meet the first phase standard

So you got worse yeah You swam 86 minutes after reading through my stats. He looked up in me for response Who ya no excuse master chief I failed I said trying to keep it short Lieutenant B read me my rights Because of your triple rolls your failure to meet the swim standard and this week's pool week failures You've shown us that you don't have what it takes to be a seal I we hereby performance drop you you from Buds you must immediately return your training gear in and report to X Division.

The command career counselor will talk with your detailer and you will reenter the general Navy. Who yes sir? I replied respectfully. The commander asked, do you have anything to say, Adelaike? Yes, sir. I want to thank you for all the countless opportunities that you have given me to succeed. When I look at what has transpired over the last year, I can't blame anyone about myself. I made sure to scan the entire room as I delivered my parting words. I showed up unprepared. And when I had the opportunity to get remediation on the weekends, I didn't show up. My goal moving forward is to learn from my mistakes and come back 10 times better. In retrospect, that was the first time in my adult life.

I remember taking responsibility for my actions. In the past, my failures were always somebody else's fault. But finally, I took a stand and pointed the finger at my own chest. Master Chief concluded, dismissed Adelaike. Who, yeah, I replied. Then I did an about face and walked out of the conference room, through the quarterdeck, and out to the grinder. As I walked across the grinder, I stared down the big be someone special sign and then made my way to the barracks to move out.

Yeah. Damn, yeah. Yeah. It was good. It was necessary. You know, I look back on my life, certain things that happened to me, even with, you know, looking back on my dad and what happened to him and coming to America, I wouldn't be who I am without what happened to my dad. I know it sounds crazy. and I wouldn't be who I am without having learned that lesson,

without having taken responsibility. I needed that to happen. I wasn't ready. And I know for an unequivocal doubt that if I would have made it through and, you know, went on with Mikey and those guys and to the teams and all that, I would have been an out-of-control monster. And going back to Mark, Mark saw that.

And that's what Mark was trying to rectify me, you know, throughout our time in first phase in the hell week, because he saw what I would potentially become if I got to the team. So that moment was necessary, me getting kicked out, but even more so me getting that lesson. Extreme ownership, you take responsibility for your actions. You can't grow. I don't think there's no way I could have grown without looking in the mirror at that point. saying it's your fault. Yeah.

I mean, that's, did you at that moment truly think, like, I'm going to get better and I'm going to come back? I didn't know if I was going to get the opportunity to come back, but I knew that if I did, I would be ready, you know. Because it's not, now look, this is, this is like the wars going on. So at this time, at this juncture, there was a better opportunity of coming back. Yeah. Then there is like today.

Yeah, yeah. Today if guys don't make it like they're not going back. But it's definitely even here. I mean you got to do all kinds of things to get back. You know you got to get approval. You got to spend a couple years out in the fleet. Like it is no easy task to get back. This conversation was like a nightmare.

Even when I read it. I read it your book. It like turn my stomach. Even I can just remember, you know, because you're always facing something for me when I was going through buds, like I was never that great at anything. So on any day, I kind of could fail something. Like I would pass, but like if I tripped on a run or something or I, you know, whatever, drop the fin on a swim and had to go back and find it or something like that.

Yeah. Or, you know, like those kind of little things could trip me up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I always was paranoid, you know. I was paranoid. Yeah. And reading this thing and I looked at it like. like, man, if you don't make it through this time,

I don't know what's good. Like, I couldn't even imagine going to the fleet and coming back. Like, you took that like a champ, bro. You took that like a champ. It was humbling, man. If I wrote this chapter, it'd been like, so then I was crying, and I fell on the floor, and I begged them for mercy

and told them I'd never be a bad person again. Because, yeah, man. And, but that being said, you really didn't have a leg to stand on. I didn't. They gave you two rolls and you failed two swims and you failed. You even didn't make the first phase time and then you failed four treads.

And in my engineering mind, you know, my dad's mind, you know, it's always trying to figure out a way to fix the problem or get around it. And my mind saw this problem. It's like, there's no computing here. There is no working your way back into this right now. You got to go away and I bet whatever they write on your like record. Yeah, yeah. I bet if you went in there like well, you know I didn't get this and I didn't get they probably been like don't let this guy return. Yeah, but like you said, you took ownership. Hey, this is my fault. Yeah. Thank you for the opportunities. They clearly you gave me a bunch of opportunities. Yeah. They probably said, hey, you know what? He's got a good attitude. Yeah. If he wants to come back, let's let him come back. Case in point.

Senior Chief Hitchcock gave me a record. recommendation letter right after that. When I was walking across the grinder, a lot of this is cut out because my publisher was like, you didn't want it to be a shorter book, so much as trunk it didn't cut out. But when I,

right before I got off the grinder, Senior Chief Hitchcock was like, come in, like, when he's like, dude, like, here's a matter of fact, I ended up going to SWIC. That's not all out. That's not even in the book?

That's not in the book. So afterwards, In other words, Hitchcock pulled me aside and like two other instructions like, yo dude, we want to kind of keep you in the community. Maybe you should consider going SWIC and then coming back and going to Buds. So you went to SWIC?

So I went to SWIC. How'd that go? I was in training. Well, I got put back in Brownshall, I rode back land and then I was in training for maybe like a week and I was like, this ain't for me, man. Nothing against it.

This is just not for me. And I went back to an ARB board, and I was like, and the proctor, I can't remember his name, bad with names, but he was super cool. And he told the, it was a seal. I can't remember that dude's name, but he was a seal. He was the ops guy in charge of both classes. And he was like, listen, Remme wants to be a seal. And, you know, we know he can make it through his wig, but it's not what he wants. and then I went to First Marine

Team Yeah so it was more to And then Hitchcock gave me the wrote me the letter Got it And said hey Come back We recommend that you come back

In a year So Now you go to First Battalion Fourth Marines Yeah You're a medic Yeah

Corman Doc Yeah You go on deployment Yeah On the USS Pelaloo Yep Yeah

Hell yeah You do a Paycom deployments. Yeah. Sailing around. Went to Kuwait. Oh, then you went to Kuwait? Yeah.

Yeah, we were, well, we were just going to do the paycom thing. And then the guest report came in. Hey, our sister battalion was getting, taking heavy losses. And so they needed us to come in and reinforce the command battalion, whatever it was. So the Pelaloo pulled into Kuwait. We all offloaded, moved to the Iraqi border. This month, what year was that deployment? This was 2005?

2005. And, you know, we sat there every day. They like, hey, you guys are going to go in. You're going to go in. And finally, like, after three months, they said, hey, we're just going to have. I guess I got another battalion, whatever. So then we just loaded back on a pedal little sale back to California. So no Iraq for you on that deployment.

Yeah. And again, there's all kinds of good information in here. But you have some bad luck in your life. You also have some good luck in your life because it turns out that a guy named H.M.1 Roscocoe. Is that Roscoa? Rosca, yeah. He's one of your buddies.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he gets assigned. He was my LPO. He was your LPO, your leading petting officer. And he gets assigned at the division HQ to sort of control where all the corpsmen are going to go. Yeah. And he knows you want to go back to buds.

Yep. And so instead of spending over two years in the fleet, yeah. You spend what, like a year in the fleet? A year, like year and change, a couple months, yeah. And he gets you orders back to buds. Gets me back to buds, yeah. You go back to buds again.

This stuff is all, you give a lot of good stories, some funny stuff. You end up now, you're in class 266. How's your attitude coming back this time? Squared away. You ain't playing no more. Nah. I already got my pee-pee slap, bro. It's like, I ain't sure how to happen.

But again, I was AJ squared away, quiet, helpful team, I was a team player. Is it weird going to buds when you have a pretty clear idea of like what's going to happen? It's easier because you know everything that's going to happen. So when there's trucks, it's like, we're going to keep you in the water for another 30 minutes and guys start quitting. Just like, we ain't keeping the same thing. Like, hell week is going to go until Saturday, you know, because it ends on Friday. Yeah, typically it's on Friday. It's like, I ain't going until Saturday.

You know what I mean? So you said in my mind I already kind of knew when things were going to end, even evolutions, like beat down sessions. I kind of like in my mind knew when it was going to happen. Yeah. So I knew nothing about butts. Yeah. I like knew nothing. Yeah.

And we didn't know. I didn't know what pool comp was. Yeah. Like I showed up and there was a poster. They had a Texas chainsawp massacre poster. Yeah. But they had changed it with like a Sharpie marker. Yeah.

To put like a student down there. Yeah. That was getting massacred. And it said, Texas, pool, no, Bud's pool comp massacre. And the guy was like drowning and dying. And I was like, what is this? That was my first memory of buds. I walked by medical and I saw it.

I was like, what is that? What are they doing? So I didn't know anything. So for me, it was always just like, I thought in the 30 second timeframe, you know, like what am I doing right now is all I'm caring about? It seems like knowing could go two ways. Yeah. You know, like if you know,

Like, oh gosh, I got to do all this again. Because I think some people quit because of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like when you got rolled back, sometimes people hear that one, one day roll back and they go, I'm not doing this again. I ain't going through. So now you're going through and you know what's going to happen, but you kind of look, it kind of fell for a positive way for you. Yeah. I knew it was going to suck, but I knew I was prepared this time because I, you know, the very next day after I left SWIC, I was in the pool, you know, working.

on my swims. I was, I created this exercise to strengthen my hip flexors and, and my quads and just all the muscles that needed to be strengthened for the tread. And I was, I was good to go. I was aging. I was locked in. And I didn't fail any swims in first phase. How week, good to go. Hell week, good to go. Kind of fun. Was it kind of fun? I mean, it sucked. I mean, it was, it was, like, yeah, it was, yeah, it was fun. I mean, um, in the sense that, uh, I was able to enjoy it. because I wasn't so stressed out about Can I make it? Did you try and put on weight?

Do you try and fatten up at all? In the airway? Just in general. Just like going back to buds. No, I don't want to say it, dude. I want to say that because no matter what I do even now since the day, I can't put on body fat. Like I try.

Like I can't eat a bunch of cheeseburgers, pop-a's, all that stuff. He's got bad genetics. I just got bad. Terrible genetics. That's that your own genetics. You just can't be fat, dude. What's wrong with you? Yeah.

So it's all going good. Until you get to your nemesis, the treads. The treads come again. And you fail them. You failed two of them. I'm going to go back to the book. Well, technically, technically you failed them. I failed them, but I passed a tread part of it.

You passed the tread part where you didn't pass the swim, but your thing popped off, your tanks popped off or something like that. For the first, I thought you were about to read it. Yeah. You failed the first one because... After they called time for the five-minute tread, I went swimming down, and then on my... And the strap got loose and wrapped around my neck, but I was still technically in it, and then I hit the wall.

And when I came back, I was swimming, and the strap was now around my neck. And then it fell off right before I was about to touch the wall. So I instruct. It's called fail. So they say fail. Then what about the second one? Second one, did the five-minute tread,

swim down on my back on the on the on the on the on the on the on the on the on the on the on the back on the back I have a shallow water blackout right after I passed the second dive tower so it's that first small one and then yeah the die platform the dive platform and so and one day they all I didn't know what happened but when they pulled me out of the water and got me on revive me they said that again it's like somebody pulled the switch and then and then and And the instructor looks at me, fail. It's like, dude, I thought that.

And then the third time, yeah. Well, so you failed the two. Yeah. And then I'm gonna go to the book here. It says at the end of the day, all the students who failed the tread were ordered to the Bud's quartered at conference room for a board. The last time I was in that room,

I was performance dropped and sent back to Camp Pendleton. I knew that that wasn't gonna happen today, but still I didn't wanna be anywhere near that place. The second phase, oh, I see, opened up the board. So you're all here because you failed to meet the minimum standard for the tread twice. This board is more of a warning than a final decision If you fail the next two tread, you will stand before us in dress uniform, and we will determine whether you will be performance dropped or performance rolled.

My advice to you, don't leave your fate in our hands. Go out there tomorrow and make the decision to continue with the rest of your class. Then senior chief went down the row of students asking each one of us if we had attended the, if we had attended the optional weekend training. When he got to me, I said, hoo-ya, that's right. This time my weekends weren't for partying for just for rest and any optional training offered. I had learned my lesson. After all the instructors said their peace, all the students were dismissed except me. Senior chief said Adelaike, you've had some bad luck having you.

Who ya, I replied, listen, dude, we know you can do this. You pretty much pass twice, okay? But pretty much is not the standard here. And we can't let you go on until you meet the standard. So just go out there tomorrow and get it over with so we continue with training. Okay? Who ya. I replied.

Dismissed the next day I passed the Buddy Gear Exchange with ease. Afterward, I went straight to passing area, sat down, faced offense, are focused on meditating and breathing. I'd been so confident before the last two treads that I didn't do my spiritual teacher. I didn't do anything my spiritual teachers that taught me and you got a bunch of stuff about how you were learning about meditation and stuff.

I whispered to myself, calm, Remy. In and out, in and out. I cleared all the negativity and noise out of my mind. I searched for peace within. I'm sorry, I'm laughing. I'm just trying to picture like how freaking like, how focused you had to be. You're like looking for peace within before the tread.

I found it. I stood up, had my dive buddy help me, donned my tanks and waited for the evolution to start. Prepare to enter the water, senior chief commanded. You are one with the water. You are one with each inhale and each exhale. Peace among the chaos. I declare.

I was in the zone, stone cold focus, jaw clenched and body still. End of the water. As soon as I hit the water, I popped back to the top. I decided to keep my eyes closed this time to center my senses within. Everything I'd been taught was working. The five minute tread felt like two minutes time. Time start your swim on your stomach upon the command I opened my eyes and turned around with my hands still in the air Once I saw the target I slowly dip my hands in the water and began to swim

Even though I was past the hardest part of the test I didn't let go of my meditative state I breathed in cadence with my mantra peace peace I made it to the wall spun around kicked off and started my flutter kick on my back as I stared at the sky Couldn't help but think of my pool sprint workouts I did those workouts when I when it was cold when it was raining when the pool area was When it was empty. I did it when I didn't want to do it and I did it after the long drives up from back up from Camp Pendleton I was staring at the same sky I had stared out in so many days and nights it was full circle event for the first time since starting buds I finally felt gratitude to the universe for all that I had to go through to get to this point. Thank you for making me do this tread three times now I understand why I wouldn't have appreciated my journey if I'd pass the first time. Thank you When I touched the starting wall I peacefully climbed out of the pool as I felt nothing it as if nothing had happened the calm that I had

derived from my meditation was still lingering. Senior chiefly yelled Adelaike, pass. It's about damn time. Now drop down for taking so long to pass the tread. Who ya? With tanks on my back, I dropped to do push-up. To do push-ups.

This time, as I stared at the ground with water dripping from my body, I knew it was over. I knew that despite having six more weeks of dive-traving and eight more weeks of third phase land navigation, weapons, demolition, and tactics, nothing was going to stop me. I was going to graduate.

So you made it through that through freaking peaceful meditation and stuff hell It's classic man I felt it even reading that I was like what's funny though is like when I was reading it I was kind of like oh yeah it's cool When I actually started reading it out loud I was like this is kind of funny kind of funny especially if you were an instructor I knew that was going on they were like they were like I got to what you're doing boy They were freaking got on your ass, dude, for sure. You make it through, man. You get rolled in 267 for land. What'd you do?

Dude, I failed. It was stupid. It was like a demo test, man. Like, I just screwed up the procedure. You know, failed a demo test. I can't remember me. This is like years ago. But it was like something with a demo.

Some kind of demo procedure. Some demo procedure. You didn't ground yourself or something like this. Boom, they roll you. Yeah. Dude, it ain't over, man. I know. It ain't over, too.

That's why even, like, I never had the feeling in any of buds that I was going to graduate until, like, I graduated. And even then I was a little worried. Yeah. You know, I was like, wait a second. I could make it through this. Yeah. By the way, this book, I'm just reading, like, some parts of this book, but you got, like,

a whole up, down relationship going on with this girl. Cecilia. Yeah. while you were, you know, you're kind of going out with her. You're also kind of like still like a young player out getting after it. You end up kind of you're in this like weird relationship with her where it's like I said, it's on and off again. She seems like even the way it started like she had a different boyfriend and you guys kind

of got together, but then she went back with this other guy and you were kind of like whatever, but then you guys get back. There's a whole, there's a whole freaking, you know, romance story there going on. And that's all covered. But now you get, you graduate buds. Now you're an SQT. Seal qualification training. And you're up doing land navigation in Alaska.

Yeah. And you start to like, you have a little epiphany, a little life. One of your life epiphanies here, you say as I walked through the wilderness, it was hard to not to stop and admire the beauty. The snow hadn't started to fall yet, so everything was bright green.

Trees were massive. Some shot up 200 feet in the sky. Being from the Bronx, I'd never seen a place like this. And never in a million years Did I ever think I would end up in a place like this? Remy, I said to myself, as I stood in awe, at my first steak, that's what you're looking for,

a land nav stake. You've come a long way. Wow, this is so beautiful, I wish Cecilia could see this. As I continue to walk, I noticed that one of the most serene aspects of the Codiac forest was the silence. There were times when I would hear an occasional chirping from a bird or rustling in the trees when the wind blew, but for the most part, it was quiet.

I was truly alone. Something miraculous began to happen while I continued through the wilderness. In the silence and the beauty, I began to reflect on my life. who I was and how I treated people. It was as though someone or something was holding up a mirror and showing me what I had become. And the more I walked and reflected,

the more I didn't like what I saw. I saw a kid who stole an engagement ring from his mom and never confessed to her. I saw a person who treated his own brother like he was worthless. I saw a person who had integrity when it was convenient for him, but didn't when it wasn't.

I saw a prideful person whose favorite song had become, you can't tell me nothing. I saw a man who treated women like meat and what hurt me the most was I saw a man who treated a woman who truly loved him with constant contempt. As the memories replayed in my mind, I began to be depressed, and then my depression led to anger. My anger led to questions. You did that.

How could you do that to a person? What were you thinking? What's wrong with you? It was as though I had been outside my body on vacation for 26 years, and when I came back and home and saw the mess I had made, I was in shock. At that time of year in Codiac, daylight was from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. So when I got to the last stake at 8 p.m. It was still bright.

In the brightness of the night, I made a vow. That's it. I'm going to fix me. I'm not going to be the same person I was anymore. I'm going to meditate more. I'm going to spend more time with my spiritual group. I'm going to buy a ring and propose to Cecilia. And I'm going to be the man to her that I need to be.

No more. No more. No more. So, interestingly, while you're having that epiphany, Yeah. She's having an epiphany as well. Yeah. And the epiphany that she's having is that she shouldn't be with you.

Yeah, yeah. Yes. And of course, you can't really communicate. And it just doesn't work out. Yeah. Then you get to a point where you have what you call the chapter called the ultimate transformation. Yeah. And this is like a spirit.

Awakening for you in church. Yeah. And, you know, you basically are, you encounter God for the first time. Yeah. And you go through that in the book and it leaves you with this in a new, in a new light, right? Yeah. You say day after day I would experience, experience miraculous events. I began to feel God's presence.

I began to encounter him in a tangible way. And I had so many dramatic encounters with God. that all I wanted to do day in and day out was be with him and do for him and forsake the life I used to live so I could live this new life with him. Dramatic. Yeah, man. Yeah, I went from

sleeping around and not having sex at all. Yeah, you became abstinent. Yeah, which is, that's a miracle. And then, so especially the way I was horrid. It was like, you know, I had an encounter that no one

could fix me, but God. And I had a lot of traumas from what happened in Bronx, my childhood, and traumas that I created for myself, scars. And I searched for other things to bring me to healing that I needed, meditation. That helped to a certain extent. Women, relationships, affirmation from other people. but it was just like putting a band-aid on a gushing wound, you know. And then it was finally when my brother would tell me all the time because my brother became a Christian, like, when he was in college, and I used to make fun of him before it,

because I would fluctuate between atheism and agnosticism depending on a day a week, day a week. And my brother would always tell me, Remy, when you hit rock bottom, not if, but when you hit rock bottom, just remember the crowd to Jesus. And I just remember mocking him for that. but when I was in that very, very dark point of my life in Alaska and even coming back, and nothing worked.

And I just kept on hearing these voices. I was just in such a very dark, dark place. I said, all right, Jesus helped me. If you're real, help me. Turn this around. Help me. And I'm not saying turn my situation around, but turn around what's going on in here. Because what's going on in here is really tormenting me.

and that's when I felt for the first time, peace. I felt like God was saying to me, the father that you had always been searching for has been right here with you. And I am here with you. And everything changed from there. You know, me and my wife were talking a couple nights ago before I left from New York,

and she was sharing the story that one of our neighbors was sharing. park by where we live and the neighbor was telling her that her uh her daughter was getting picked up picked on by another kid in the park and the parent of the other kid wasn't saying anything the parent was just allowing this kid to just not just pick on her kid but pick on other kids as well and finally the mother said something to the kid who was picking on her kid and the actual mother who had not been doing anything ran over and screamed at the woman and said how dare you ever correct my child and as soon as my wife shared that story I was reminded of the same exact

situation that happened in the same park years ago with my oldest son he's nine now but he was five at the time and um this kid was just picking on a bunch of kids he was just like he was he was a bigger kid but he was like pushing kids and make it funny kids and just doing things and he saw my son and he like tapped one of his friends like he's now This kid's next. And he beelines towards my son. I was sitting on the bench watching. I just stood up and all I said was, hey, that's my son.

And in an instant that kid stopped, looked at me, and went in the other direction. And just the power of having a father say, hey, that's my son. Meaning I'm his protection. I'm his source. I'm the person that he can cry on. happens that was what I felt when I had that transformation when I when I when I when I when I cried out to God and said help me and it was as though he said you're my son and I've always been here and I'm gonna always be here now and

cover you and that is something that can't really be explaining words it was real heavy and even to this day like it's heavy even now when I go through stuff and struggling mentally I always like I have that source to go to and that gives me peace and it gives me hope you know especially with all of the stuff that I still deal with

in my head you know and with my family and the battles and the business that I work in in the film and TV industry and even stuff you know working on a human volunteering on the human trafficking side of things and just the horror

stories that I hear and feeling hopeless. And then also even the division in our country, you know what I mean? It's like sickening to me at times because, you know, I came here with nothing, absolutely nothing, and put in the work and was able to rise to where I'm at today. And that's only possible because of the freedoms that America is allowed it to me. And so to see how divisive we are as a nation and I know and I understand that part of it is there's outside forces that understand the concept of divide and conquer and the plan is to conquer our nation and they and the way to do it is from within but to see how so many people just falling into that trap just just crushes me at times and it messes with me so but I say all this is I say I always can

go back to the source and say God I know you got me. You've brought me through worse. I know you'll bring me through this. And I know that you'll bring my kids through whatever's going to come their way. So that's why that whole story, even now to this day, touches me. And it's a good reminder for me, a refresher for me as well. Yeah, and it really, I mean, the name of the book is transformed.

And that is the transformation ultimately that has the biggest impact on you and the way you're going to live your life. Yeah. You end up getting through SEAL qualification training. For those of you that don't know, Echo Charles. Human intelligence. So, you know, there's obviously different ways to gather intelligence. You can study maps to gather intelligence.

You can study data to gather intelligence. You can intercept the radio communications to gather intelligence. You can get intelligence from humans, from sources in the world. It's called human. human intelligence and there's a whole there's a whole craft to it right not only how to meet the right people how to communicate with the right people how to communicate the information how to vet the information there's a whole yeah a whole a whole methodology to it and and a lot of things that you need to learn to get into that world it's becomes your kind of can become your specialty yeah

you know eventually ended up going to i don't know if i could say the actual name of the school and i'm in this class it's like all the stuff that i learned in the streets It was just like now it's just they're putting the terms behind it You know because I mentioned earlier like I had to learn how to read people Especially when I'm hustling and doing certain things And it really set me up nicely for when I got into the course and then went back on a deployment It wasn't actually Deep into the human stuff and running sources and having to keep track and having to be a different

Learn the personality of a source and then be a specific person to that source to collect information so that we can then running up the chain of command get it vetted against other intelligence and then hopefully go out the door and do stuff so um it's it was it was a cool world to be a part of that's for sure what do you remember about checking into team three it was it was it was empty right because there was nobody was on the point yeah yeah yeah it was empty nobody was really there but it was it was it was uh seeing the pictures of the battles on the walls and stuff just like your guys and you know you know you know task force bruiser and just all all of those pictures and it was just like wow you know it's like holy crap this is really

happening man and then even like even the you know I didn't have I can't recall if I had my uh fob not fob but key card to get in so somebody had to do but even that was like you thought you were James Bond it was like cool of me man you know what I mean and then you know going down to see the armory and I'm again I'm a kid from the Bronx that wasn't supposed to be here, you know. And so all of that stuff was eye-opening. And even just being on the, just being on that side of the compound, because we were always, I mean, we had to run through the park a lot to get to the O course, but for the most part,

we were always separated from that. So to be able to be, actually be there and see and see the Mark Lee trade at center and all of that was like, it was, it was surreal. for sure go in the other direction when I retired so I had my key card and so I had my key card and I was the Admiral's aide for a while and so when I had the when I was working for the Admiral I had access to like every building in NSW. Yeah, yeah, and so and when I left being the Admiral's aide I just kept that card and they never changed anything. So I like just could go anywhere in NSW just get into anything and yeah and then that last day I remember I cleaned out my my cage and I turned in that card and I was like yo it's a Over. It's freaking over. It's like the cop movies turning in your badge. You got some good word in here from your chief.

Yeah, yeah. And again, you know, things when you write a book, they start editing stuff and adding stuff and switching stuff around. But I think this is worth, it's Hootica. Yeah, hooty. And he says, so he's kind of giving you a tour. You said, I could hear Chief's word echo up the long stairwell.

This is as he's giving you a tour. He says, if you're not early, you're late, be it every platoon muster five minutes early. He was talking to me as if I was already part of his platoon. Always check, check and recheck your gear. If we're out on an op or training and you run out of anything, I don't care what it is, batteries or whatever it is you needed. That's on you. Check that shit multiple times before you go out the door. Roger that, Chief.

Hootie continued. Don't take anything personal. And if you fuck up, own it. This is the big boy club. No excuses. We exited the stairwell and made our way down to the platoon space hallway. We got to the Delta Patoon Space doorway. I noticed the legendary Punisher skull emblem on the door.

It was the emblem worn by SEAL Team 3's Task Unit 2. Task Unit Bruiser, which was made up of two platoons, Charlie and Delta. Many legends wore the skull patch, some of whom I was in buds with 250 and 251. Ryan Job, Michael Monsore and Mark Lee. One last thing. You're a new guy. So you know what that means? I replied quickly.

I'm the first to volunteer for everything. You got it, Chief replied. Hootie opened the door to the platoon space, sitting right in the. the middle of the platoon space was Chris Kyle. That moment really made me appreciate how far I'd come and made me appreciate the caliber of people I had earned the right to work alongside. Who's the new guy?

Chris asked. Who'd he answered S.O.2 ad de laque. He's from the Bronx. Yeah, man. That was... Was your first platoon with Chris? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And here's a... I didn't know who he... I didn't know anything about him. Yeah. No. Why would you? He's another team guy.

Yeah. I didn't know anything about them until later when people were like sniper and done all of this and done that. And I was like, oh, crap. Like, dude. And again, it's surreal because like I said, for me, I wasn't supposed to, you know, it's a world that I never envisioned being in. And that not many people who come from in the city of Bronx end up in, you know, or Compton or other places. So that was eye-opening. Well, maybe if they'd let you go back and talk to your old school in the Bronx,

so you could get some people on the track and on the path. Dude, and that's the craziest thing. I get opportunities to speak at like suburban schools all the time. No red tape, no nothing. Inner city schools, all the red tape in the world. Even when we've done stuff at an inner city school here in San Diego, all the red tape we had to cut through just to get inside. I think it's saddening.

I think it's a part of it is, you know, they want to keep, again, this is my theory. I could be 100% wrong, but like in these inner cities, they want to keep the cycle going. Because then that'll keep people as victims and keep them making wrong decisions and keep those people in power who are, you know, in power. And so that's my only explanation for why you want to allow a person who was, quote, unquote, a criminal, but was able to arise out of the situation. that he was in, come back and tell these, look, these kids in the eye, who I can identify with and they can identify. I've gone to prisons and spoken in prisons. And you'd be surprised that the guys had come up to me and be like, I wish you came and spoke to me when I was, when I was this age. Crying, guys in tears, crying. You know what I mean? I get guys who've

read my book in prison. And, you know, and I hear, you know, they don't write me, but I hear from, you know, the counselors, man, he's. He was moved. I never saw, I've never seen such and such inmate cry or show emotion. He's a hard dude. He's in for murder, in for life, never getting out. And you read your book, came to me in tears. You know, we were talking earlier about like little decisions.

And you made some good, you know, you made some jacked up decisions. But you made a couple key decisions that totally changed your life. Yeah. And you're already talking about, you know, the guy used to run with is in prison right now. Yeah. Right. So it's just as easy that you could have gone that direction. and you make one little adjustment,

one little change, one little maneuver that's the right, in the right direction, your whole life is changed. Yeah. And look, Michael Bay made a movie about the freaking seals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and made a bad boys. Yeah.

He made, like, coincidentally, a movie with some guys you could relate to and some guys that you thought that would be cool to be, and that changed your trajectory of your life. Yeah. So for them not to let someone like you into a school and be like, yo, this is the deal.

You guys can keep making these bad decisions or you can get out of this where you're at. There's a, you know, people think there's no way out. There's ways out. There's ways out. You're living proof of that. Yeah. You know, living proof of that.

Then you can get out of those situations. But if you don't get any guidance, I mean, if you didn't see that Michael Bay movie, if you didn't see bad boys, you just wouldn't have, you know, you said it. That's what put on the radar that you don't have to be a drug dealer. You don't have to be a criminal. You could take a better path.

And it was just that movie that showed you that. Yeah, it was that exposure. And that's, you know, like my brother's another good example. He ended up not going down the path I did because he was exposed to engineering. You know, my dad was an engineer. And so I forgot what age he was at, how old he was, but he came across my dad's blueprints and all my dad's engineering stuff. and that one instant of exposure in his mind, he's like, I'm going to be engineering.

And then he graduated high school from three years. In three years, Kennedy High School, which was a hard worst in Clinton at the time from a safety standpoint, graduated from me in three years, got a full-ride academic scholarship to Syracuse University, graduating from me in three years, got his master's in computer science engineering from Syracuse University in one year.

Maybe we should have him on a podcast, bro. Which is what you are? It works for the DOE now. I mean, he worked for Saudi Ramco for a number of years. Yeah, he'd be a great one to have one because that dude, he's a genius. And he knows a lot about what's going on with the water drying up in the country in Colorado and West Coast. But I say all that to say, you know, he was exposed. It was that one moment of exposure that changed the trajectory of his life.

And that's what a lot of these kids need. Especially these kids without fathers, they're so easily influenced. And if you can have somebody coming and influence them in a business. positive way somebody who they can identify with and it doesn't have to be a long drawn out speech it could just be one moment somebody saying dude look at where you are look at where I'm at you can be there that's enough for a lot of these kids yeah they start saying oh does this where I want to be yes this was this decision gonna lead me yeah going back to your story here so you're now at the team yeah you get into a

platoon yeah you did you go to human school right out of the gate like as a new guy yeah no I went I went to I went after not during ProDev after okay got it got it so you do you do you LT yeah wish you man yeah I never forget man man land warfare bro you killed a platoon keep going I'll never forget you came in and you were giving it to the task you know I was like that's that dude's a beast talk to everybody the same no rank brother it was awesome man I always joke like everybody like everybody in the teams from a brand new guy to the admiral all called me Jocko.

Yeah, yeah, that's the way it is. Yeah, so you, did you have any challenges? Was anything hard for you? Because you'd already been through with the Marine Corps. Like this stuff was pretty second nature for you at this point. Yeah, man, it was, I, land warfare.

I mean, Marines do, I mean, they do those type of tactics all the time. So I got out there and didn't have any problem. What was your job? Were you a gunner, machine gunner? No, I was a corpsman. Oh, no care. Yeah, so I was a corpsman.

So I did the corpsman. thing actually before we went to ULT I went to soft OEMS and did that course and then I was to Corman and then I went to Humid after I don't know if we could say the name is cool but we'll just say humid for the sake

of confidentiality but I went there after ULT so went through CQC love CQC no factor yeah no issue at all Aaron Vaughn I never forget we were doing we were doing our FTX and there was somebody

on the other side of the room was that we cleared all the rooms and then the last room it was somebody like on the other and it was like it was like these paint I don't know what it was these guns they had like paintballs that were painful dude legit paint balls probably just out of the freezer by the way sometimes all sometimes my old trade at homies they'd be freezing some paintballs get those things

maybe they didn't freeze them but they definitely keep them in the fridge just the fridge is the next level yeah yeah oh that was painful and I remember we got to the last part And we opened up the door and this, it was like a machine. I don't know what type of gun had, but it was like a bunch of bullets coming down. And we all got back behind the corner of his appointment. And there was another guy on the other side of the door, on the other side of the hallway. And Aaron Vaz yelling, somebody in there.

What are you doing? What are you going to do? You're not going to do anything. What are you going to do? And finally, I took one of the blue grenade things. And I tossed it in there and waited like a second and blew up that. ran in and got train came behind me at papa five and that everyone was like that's what the fuck I'm talking about that's all he's supposed to go in there and get after it and so I enjoyed it

man and I'll never forget that again it's these moments that always come to my mind especially with guys who pass away like Aaron Vaugh what happened on extortion 17 but you know Mark Lee Mikey Mansour is just those moments of encouragement that always kind of gave me that push to keep going and gave me the confidence to keep doing the job and so um so yeah I Yeah, I didn't have a problem. They had to diving, did skydiving, did it all, and easy day. And then, yeah, went to humid school

and got in and got through that. It was kicking nuts with the writing side of it because it was a lot of writing. And then pumped out. And then it's deployment time. I'm going to go to the book here. Yeah. After Luzia.

Yeah, where you guys are Fallujah. Yeah, but yeah. Back to Fallujah. After two minutes of holding on the door, the team lined up behind me and I felt a squeeze on my shoulder. I slowly moved up two steps. Or I slowly moved up the steps. When I got to the entrance of the roof, I saw the door cracked open. I took my left hand off my M4 and pushed the door just enough for my team and me to make entry.

When the door didn't squeak, I moved on to the roof. I immediately saw two bodies 40 feet from my position. The roof entrance was at the center of the north end of the roof. The men were sleeping at the south end of the roof. They were lying about 10 feet apart from one another. There was an AK-47 to the right of the guy on the right, which led me to believe he may have been Yassine's bodyguard. I kept the scope of my M-4 pointed at the bodyguard's head

while the team entered around me. With their guns trained on the body to the left, three seals led by Seelode. Is that my said? Seleod, yeah. Seleod moved diagonally south toward the east wall. We set up a half-cross ambush with sleepers, at the center point of the cross.

Upon initiation, Celad's element would move west to the center point while Eli and I moved to the south of the same point. Eli lined up behind me and Hootie stayed at the door to monitor the takedown. After Eli gave me the squeeze, everybody moved swiftly as one. We met at the center point at the exact same time. Without stopping, I kicked the AK away from the bodyguard, then bent down and grabbed his ankle. Celad's element was already on top of the second sleeper. I dragged the bodyguard like a rag doll to the south wall away from him while Eli followed me with his gun pointed at the man's head

After arriving at the south wall, Eli and I flipped the bodyguard over to examine his face The look he gave us was priceless He was frozen he was in a frozen state with his eyes and mouth wide open. He couldn't move I probably wouldn't either if I saw a six foot two two 110 pound black eye with a ski mask and a silencer on his gun Just drag me out of my dream and into a nightmare. I live for that look Why? Because in my opinion 100% of the terrorists are cowards. They kill innocent people.

The high-level terrorists send kids to blow themselves up but never volunteer to do it themselves. Then they go and make a video and talk all kinds of trash about what they're about to do. So I loved being the one who waken them from their dreams and said, what do you got to say now, homie?

The utter fear in their eyes nourished me. So you're, you know, you go into a bunch. I obviously I skip around in the book. I'm just pulling out one of the ops that you're on. You talk about the missions that you were doing. You were obviously, you were working the intel side, and then you guys would figure out where a target was going to be through various sources and various means,

and then you'd go hit those targets. And this is an example of what you're doing. How was your op tempo on that deployment? It was good, man. We're doing a lot of DAs. So it was like, I would say maybe three times a week we would go out, you know? And then there were times when we would get like the random hey, we need you to come in and help out with this or come up to Ramadi or go up to Baghdad. And I was always busy.

I mean, I was always like either in a source meet or, you know, talking to the source to get with another source and then going up to Ramadi to have a meeting with, I can't. I'm trying to be careful with specific terms. but to have dialogue with the guy that is my boss on that side of the things or the guys who are our boss and even going up to Baghdad and I never forget Sinkledemayo one year on that particular deployment. They made me tell you, my publisher suggested that I take it out the book, I didn't see it was harmless, but where we were at the agency compound in Baghdad and sipping Sincol de Miles on Sipin Kouran's on Sincol demis in Saldem's palace and had been turned into a compound and by the pool. And I was like, man, I'll never forget this for the rest of my life. You know what I mean? I'm here talking to the feds before I was scared of death and getting wrapped up by the feds.

And so I was always busy between the sore stuff and going out and even meet with shakes off of the compound, stuff like that. And then hitting the DAs. I mean, we worked from, we did. That whole pump was like a vampire hours. So we were up at like 5 p.m. Out the door maybe like around. 12 midnight 1 o'clock in the morning tried to get back before the sun came out

Mm-hmm so so it's a freaking great deployment yeah I mean just you're busy you're getting after it yeah And that deployment during that deployment and you talk about this in the book Yeah, there's one dude that you're kind of really tracking hard His name is Umar Zahid Yeah change the name of yeah The name you use in the book is Umar Zahid but this is a guy's you know he's a guy that's a just a terrible, terrible subhuman killer of women and children. And so you go into the book and you talk about the efforts that you go through to try and track him down,

trying to figure out where he is. You go after him a few times. You don't get him. Finally, you get to a point where, and I'm going to fast forward a bit. Again, get the book and read the book, everybody, you know. I'm not doing the audio book. Actually, you read the audio book, too. Yeah, I did the audio book.

So get, you want to hear. And I did the audio for Camilian too. So there you go. You want to hear Remy's version of Remy's story. You don't have to listen to me to it. Get the audiobook. At this point, fast forward. One of your sources tells you that Umar's back in town.

This guy you've been looking for. And then you get a location and it's time to track him. And you say around 1 a.m., Mr. E called us in for a brief. All right at 10 p.m. The drone followed Umar's last known vehicle to a farming area on the outskirts of town. One individual exited. We believe it's Umar. The drone has a large group of people sleeping at the front of the house south side

and two individuals sleeping at the back of the house north side. We're not taking any chances. We'll offload the assault team three miles to the east. The assault team consisted of the AOIC, Eli, Seleod, Christian, Ox, me, and a few other operators. Looking at us, Mr. E said, you'll hike in, quietly take down the two individuals at the south end, then assess whether you have to conduct a second search among the North group. Roger, we all said. Any questions Mr. E asked?

We shook our head. Then Mr. E finished with mount up. As planned, we loaded the vehicles and with the lights off slowly drove to the insert point. When we got there, the assault force offloaded, then started the hike. We crept through the large flat farmland. There was a full moon, so we made sure to spread out. And any time we thought we heard or saw something that would give us away, we melted into the ground and a prone position. At about 3 a.m., we finally arrived at the house.

There was a large row of bushes running north to south that lined the east side of the property. Eli slowly peered through the bush, and I was able to. able to see two individuals who were fast asleep two men no weapons visible no suicide visible he whispered over the bone mics a OIC commanded in a low tone Roger semi or sorry Remy Ceylod moved through the bush onto the property and line up on the east wall facing the two sleepers we nodded then fall smout found a small opening in the bush to creep through without making noise our fire team was essentially setting up an ambush similar to the one we'd use when we captured

Umar's brother upon indication Cilad and I were gonna move north from the corner of the east wall and capture the sleeper on the right side while the rest of the team was going quietly take down the sleeper on the left once i got in position and gave the a i see the nod he whispered over the bone mike initiate as i quietly crept north to the body on the right fire team two moved in toward the second body it was like a synchronized dance i moved in with my i r laser trained on the head of the sleeper i dare you to move i thought four four steps five steps six he was only about 30 feet from me but the walk seemed to take forever Sweat was dripping down my helmet my heart was racing in anticipation. I'd set a goal to capture Umar Zaheed at the beginning of deployment and in And in moments I might achieve it When I got to the man he was still fast asleep

It was Umar his face had been posted at my trailer desk for seven months and now I had him in the flesh Honestly, I wanted to put a bullet straight through his head not for me, but for the hundreds of innocent people He'd killed and the family members who were left behind I I continued my scan to ensure he wasn't wearing a suicide vest or had a gun. All of this took place in seconds. Once I finished my scan, I kicked Umar over, which startled him from his sleep. Then I knelt down on his back with my left hand and pressed down on the back of his neck. Don't move, I whispered.

And I'll close it out. Close out the book with this. I turned and looked at the AOIC, who was in the process of zip tying the second individual and whispered jackpot. and then I thought now I can go home it's a good way to end the deployment right and it's not the end of the book

but I mean for get the book go read the rest of the book a bunch of other stuff going on here so from there you do what another deployment yeah do another deployment do an augment

do another deployment do I don't even know be careful way I say it but they made me take out certain terms in the DoD we'll just say more deployments yeah yeah so you do more deployments meanwhile you meet your wife Jessica yeah you start having kids yeah um and so you do two more deployments you said yeah and you continue working as a medic mainly but you start going more in the human human stuff yeah especially when we did the national level tasker

be careful by what I talk I cut a lot of it yeah but but you don't need to say anything it's good enough we understand it's all good yeah you're working high level missions yeah on these deployments yep and then like at a certain point you think about getting out yeah so what what triggers that my kids man my oldest son was born in 2014 my second son was born in 2015 and having had my dad died when I was five, I wasn't fearful of death. It was more so, you know how it is,

work up, deployment, being gone, I mean, gone is almost as a lot, I mean, it's almost as much during workup as you are during the deployment sometimes depending on the deployment cycle is for me to workup cycle and I just wanted to be home with my kids man. I wanted to be dad.

So that was the main decision. And your wife's a doctor? Yeah, she's a doctor. Yeah. When did she graduate from medical school? She graduated from medical school in, I want to say, June, no, sorry, May of 2011, I want to say. Oh, okay. So she was a doctor while you were in the teams. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, she, I met her when she started residency. She moved down here to start residency. She went to residency at on the other side of Chula Vista, H. For Kaiser. Okay, Kaiser, I believe. So you kind of at least have. had some kind of financial stability with your wife. No.

She's a doctor. Residency. Oh, residency. They don't make no money. No, wait. But by this time, by the time you were looking at getting out, she was done with a residency or no? No, because she had, her residency got extended because she had my son. Oh, okay.

During resets. So she had to take a break in residency. They allowed her to graduate with her starting class, but then she had to go back and finish her ULT. And that's like a couple years, three years? Yeah, man. And that's like you're making like $38,000 a year. I don't know the exact number, but she wasn't making much of anything. It ain't much.

Yeah, she wasn't making much of anything. So with that, you decide even with her only making it, whatever, not enough to support the fam. Yeah, yeah. You're like, I'm going to get out. I was always smart with my money. Okay, so you had. Well, I was smart with my money after I had, you know, my faith transition. Before that, I was like crazy with the money.

But, yeah, I was good with your money. Yeah, yeah, as the Remy was. Better than I was. So I saved a lot of money. And then from the deployments, you know, I started buying a flashy car when I came back, put it in an account, let it, you know, save it. That's how I was able to buy my first house when I got back from that second deployment in 2010. I was able to buy first house by myself before I even met my wife.

And so by the time I got out, we had a good cushion. And then I already started, I finished my bachelor's while I was in. I was taking classes, online classes. And then I started my master's. And so when I got out, I was still in grad, I was able to use a post-9-11 GI Bill. Got it. So that was provided some cover for us as well.

And I was planning on going into business consultant full time because my wife's brother is a YPO guy. And I'm sure you work with those guys a bunch of times. And so he was getting me like side consulting gigs with his YPO chapter in Toronto and stuff like that. So I wanted to get my master's because I didn't want to just rely on the team guy side of things. I wanted to have it. but I also wanted to have that theory and the academics as well.

And so I was in school. And my plan was to just, you know, finish out school and then work with my brother-in-law full-time. What year did you leave the Navy? January 2016. January 2016. So when did your first, what was the first acting opportunity that you had? Was this the last ship? Is this a movie?

What is last ship? I saw it on the internet, but I don't know what it is. It was like, it was on TNT. Like a TV show? Yeah, it was like a TV show on TNT. So I did like some extra stuff. I don't even call that acting. I don't even want to call that acting.

I just literally just showed up the bass and shot on the side on the boat. How'd that come from? Like, where'd that come from? Team guy network. So some team guys like, yo, you want to sit down here? Yeah. I'll give you $400. You're like, we'll do it.

Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. So then what's never too late? This is a play that you want? was a play yet that was uh so you had to straight up this it you can't you can't pass this one off i know i know you can't pass this one off i know yeah this lady at my church she was like uh hey um they're doing a play down in um uh down i forgot where it was downtown san diego that mall it was

it was a theater used to be by the mall horton plaza yeah yeah horn plaza it's like a theater like right under right pretty much right in the mall area and uh just like you just need you to be a pastor or something like, give a speech. In the play. In the play. Okay. So I went and did that. But I was like, I don't want to have anything to do this anymore.

Did you, how many shows did you do? It was just, it was just one show. Oh, okay. Yeah, it was just one show. Right. Yeah, it was like, it was like a big bill, like a, it was like a big training. I don't even know what they call it, but like a training thing. But I didn't show up most of the time because I was in school.

I was just like, showed up. I just memorized my lines and then all I had to do was give a speech at that. But you didn't really like it that much? No, not at all. Not at all. So then came. Transformers. Yeah, yeah.

This is now 2015. So you're still in the Navy. 2016. Oh, it's 2016. Yeah, it's 2016. 2016. In May. And so are you out of the Navy now?

Yeah, I got on January. And then I was in grad school. And then in May of 2016 is when I got the phone call. I was actually in my office writing papers for school. And what was the connection there? There was a woman who worked with a guy by the name of Kevin Kent. Yeah, I know Kevin. And so she, I guess Kevin Kent had given her my phone number.

Okay. And so she reached out to me and she was just like, hey, you know, Kevin Kent told me about you. And Bay's looking for some Frogman to work tomorrow in L.A. Mm-hmm. What's your schedule looking like? And I was like, I wasn't interested in doing it. But she was like, you know, it's a good opportunity. So I was like, all right.

We'll give you 500 bucks. Yeah, we'll give you $500. I was like, all right? And it's Michael Bay, right? Yeah. And there's a little bit of, you had to be stoked on that. Yeah, yeah. But that didn't come out.

I'm truncating it, but that didn't come out until like a little bit later in the conversation. She didn't want to tell me what the movie was until, you know, until she found out that I was like more interested, like vested. Like my priorities were in the right place. That's a little trick. Yeah, yeah. She played a little trick on you.

You could be like, yo, I don't care. Because her husband, her husband's a team guy. Harry Humphreys is her husband. Oh, okay. So she's been around a lot of team guys and put a lot, her husband put a lot of team guys in films and stuff. I guess it was part of her vetting process to make sure I was gonna be like a,

I don't know, like a fan boy or something going, not knowing how to act on set and stuff like that. But yeah, but yeah, I said, she finally said, hey, send me some pictures. I sent her some pictures. She said, hey, all right, babe, approved your pictures

and come up to L.A. tomorrow. So then you get up there. But this turns into bigger. Yeah, that one day, on turning in three weeks. After that one day, she calls him back and said, hey, babe, like that your performance and your consulting and that you could take direction,

can you do three weeks? We're going to do a week in Arizona. Was JP in this with you? Was he, JP De Nell? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the same one. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. This was the same one.

Okay, yeah, yeah. And so that one week, one day turned in three weeks, I met J.P. He went out to London with us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he went out to London with us. That's right. right now remember so he wasn't in Arizona and Michigan he came later in Michigan yeah he would he wasn't in in Arizona but he came out later to Michigan and replaced a bunch of

other team guys and then I stayed on and went to London with him in Wales and then and then came back here in San Diego we filmed some stuff in December down in on base on a naval air station face so three weeks is total time that you spent on this no six months Six months. Yeah, yeah. So I was in... How much are you in the movie? I'm in a good chunk of it.

I'm in it from beginning to end. It's like, good chuby. I got lines and everything in that movie. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I got the line one thing. You're in it from beginning to end, the whole movie? Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah, not like the first scene, but like from the first act of the film to the last act of the film. And what do you say? How many lines do you have? I got a couple good lines. I got the, we're going home, Izzy, at the end. With a strap on her on me in tandem with her. And then I have some other lines. Mark Wahlberg put it down and all that kind of one-liners and stuff like that not like heavy dialogue stuff but uh and then there's some there's a line I have in the plane with Mark Mark Wahlberg and some of the other actors but the big one that's like clear like this one I skip oh and then there's a line when the girl comes up to me and have like a that's like a bazooka like it wasn't even it was like a transformer level bazook type thing she's like does that thing kill Decepticons

And I look at her, I said, no, we do. And I grabbed the wall. That's the line I was looking for, you know? That's the line I was looking for. Okay, so that's, what's next after that? Is it Who Dare's wins? No, that didn't come until later. That didn't come until later.

Yeah, that came like into 2021 is when I did my first season of Who Dare's Wins. We did that out in Jordan. Okay. Did two seasons of that out there. Yeah. What about ambulance? So ambulance is another movie. Yeah.

Is that another Michael Bay movie? Yeah, that was another one. I did six underground before that. So six underground. I didn't act in six underground. I was the consultant on six underground. Six in the ground? Six underground.

Six underground. That was on Netflix with Ryan Reynolds and Corey Hawkins and a bunch of. We shot that in Italy, like all over Italy. And then Abu Dhabi. And I trained with the actors before we went out there and shot. I wasn't really on camera much. I just had like one scene, but I was on the whole shoot for like four months, just working on the consulting side of things.

and then did ambulance, which was Bay's next film. And then what's your role in the ambulance? I played an undercover cop. So I played an undercover cop that was helping set up the bank robbers. So we knew that, I mean, it wasn't really explained much in the script, but essentially we got intel that the bank robbers were going to rob this particular bank. So it's like I was like an undercover cop. But then I also did some consulting on that as well.

So consulting means you're telling them like, hey, you should not shoot this type of weapon or like don't go in the room like this. Yeah, even looking at the script and like just saying, okay, this dialogue doesn't make sense here or doesn't make sense for this to happen to this part of the screenplay because, you know, tactically that wouldn't happen that way. You know, so that was kind of how I got into the, would later get into the WGA and end up becoming a WGA writer in Hollywood is reading, getting off for these scripts and saying, hey, can you read these scripts and consult them? and I would consult on the scripts. And I was like, dude, I think I could actually write these scripts better than some of these people write these scripts. And I started writing scripts and got into the WGA that way. And so what was the first script that you wrote?

I adapted a book called Slaves Steelers into a limited series. And so it hasn't shot yet, but it's the Tim Ballard. Tim Ballard has a book called Slaves Stealers where he jumps back and forth between his story and a woman by the name of Harriet. Jacob. So Harriet Jacobs was a slave in the 1800s. And she was doing all kinds of, she, I mean, her story is crazy. She was doing trade crap before anybody even knew what tradecraft was. And she was a slave. And she, like, intentionally got impregnated in order to be able to use that to escape slavery. It was, her story is crazy. She was wearing disguises. And after she escaped, she came back to the town and eating to North Carolina. I mean, her story is just ridiculously crazy. And she's the first, you know, known slave to have written an autobiography. And so called a... What was it called?

Incidents of a slave girl or something like that. And so Tim kind of did a book where he jumped back and forth and took techniques that she used to rescue other slaves and how he applies those techniques in what he does or what he did at the time in OUR, Operation Underground Railroad.

And so I adapted the flashback chapters essentially into a limited series. And that's being made for Netflix, you said? A streamer hasn't signed on yet, but it's being made for a streamer. Yes, for sure. Yeah. What else?

So you got, that's a bunch of stuff. Yeah. That's a bunch of stuff. Yeah, yeah. And so the latest thing that you got going on right now is chameleon. Camelian. This is your first book? It's my first fiction book.

Yeah, first fiction book. Yeah. Tell us about camellia. What's the deal with this thing? So Chameleon is, I say it's like somewhat of a fictional extension of Transform. You know, all the stuff that I couldn't talk about and would never talk about and transform. It's like wholly fictionalized, right? So like the plot and the characters and the places and even Collie Kent is very loosely based off of me.

The name is based off of a kid in the Bronx by the name of Khalif Browder. So Collie's full name is actually Khalif Browder Kent. There was a kid in the Bronx who grew up not too far from me. And he was unjustly accused of stealing a backpack, sent to Rikers Island jail at 16, held in at Rikers Island for three years without trial. I mean, he was put in general population with adults beat up. He spent 700 days in solitary confinement. And then he was so tormented after he got out that he committed suicide two years later. And the only reason why he got out is because a judge finally looked at his case.

It said, oh, there's no evidence here to charge him. And so they dismissed the case and then, you know, let him, let him free. So anyway, the character's main name is Khalif. Browder, Kent, you know, very loosely based off me, but the name comes from that. And he's part of a secret program called the Black Box, the CIA program called Black Box. Essentially made up of people with different specializations. You have chameleons who are able to become whatever character they need to become at the drop of a dime. But it's all grounded.

They're just very good method actors. You have ghost agents who are people who are able to get in and out of places like a ghost. You have aberration agents who are a combination of chameleons and ghosts, but they do it for a decade plus. Then you have win agents who are pretty much swift. They could drive any vehicle like the wind. And they're all part of a team called Dark Horse. And in this particular book, they are trying to find the identity of a South African mastermind is manipulating

worldwide stock markets in order to cause economic collapse so I didn't want to go with the traditional bad guy has a nuclear bomb or the bad guy has a biological chemical weapon that he's going to set I wanted to go on the financial economic warfare

side of things because I think that a lot of people now it's more plausible now well at least to the general population is more plausible with everything that happened financially after COVID and even where we are with the recession now and with impending recession and all of these things that are happening financially,

I want him to be able to portray a villain that is using his brain to essentially destabilize the Western world and Western economies and cause even more chaos. And in some cases, you know, a bomb can sometimes. It seems like he'd be able to possibly get away with that. Yeah. That's a kind of crime you can get away with,

like right in front of everybody. Yep, yep. And they don't understand, like, well, you know, well, it seems like the stock market's down and this guy happened to make whatever, you know, sold shorts on these companies that went on, you know, like that's, start manipulating that kind of thing. You kind of do it in front of people's faces. Yep. And part of what he's doing is he's, you know, he'll buy stock in a specific company and then he will have his team essentially take somebody in that company hostage and then essentially force the CEO of the company to make a,

specific business decision that's going to either allow the stock to go up or stock to go down. So he does this under the table clandestinely so the general public doesn't know what's going on. So it's very intricate espionage-s-type corporate espionage is a part of it as well. And so different, different. And so Collie and his team are tasked to essentially bring this guy in and shut it down. But then there's also, you know, the backdrop of it takes place during obviously what's going on now, with Ukraine and Russia, so there's a connection there as well with the antagonist and what he's doing. And then the substronom of the book is national unity. Like, you know, when I'm writing a

story, whether it's a screenplay or whether it's a book, whatever it is, like I always try to put some type of inspirational, educational, educational message in there. Otherwise, I think that it's a waste of a person's time, you know, to spend two hours on a book. And or sorry, two hours in the film or 11 hours on a book and they invest that time and all they get out of it is our thrills and last. I think that, you know, I truly believe that as a storyteller, my job is to kind of engage them in a different way or challenge them in a different way. And so the, again, the substratum of the book is the importance of national unity and what happens when we don't have national unity. And I also dive into the fact that the reason why we are so divided is because it's actually, it's not just coming from outside entities. but a big part of it is coming from the top.

Politicians and people in Washington, D.C., that kind of needs us to be divided in order to maintain power over the groups that they want to maintain power over. So that's like, it's not just an espionage thriller and an action thriller, but it's also a political thriller as well. To try to engage people's mind

and get them thinking, what am I doing that's contributing to the disunity? Not just in our nation, but in my family or in my community or, you know, in my state and what can I do better? So it's essentially holding up a mirror kind of like what has happened to me. And we talked about what I've had to have a mirror, a proverbial mirror held up to my face to show me what I've been doing wrong. So I'm hoping that the book access that and brings the healing that plays a role in bringing healing that's necessary to our nation. What was your writing methodology?

How are you writing? What do you do? You know, for me, I have, my writing starts long before I actually get to the computer and start structuring it out and putting, you know, proverbial pen to paper. So, for example, chameleon's been in my head for over 10 years and I have a not a physical notepad, but a digital notepad where when certain things came to me, like the idea about their finances being the backdrop and the antagonist. I can't remember what I saw, but I was watching something on 60 minutes one day. And the interview was asking this guy questions about how somebody could, I think it had to do with insider trading and what's going on there and how people are getting rich. And I was like, huh, it'd be interesting if there was a bad guy that was using insider trading in a different way. And so I just dropped that into my notepad.

This might have been like three or four years ago. Then one day I hear somebody say something. and I'm like, oh, that would be a great line of dialogue. So over the course of 10 years, I'm just putting all this information in. And then one day when I decided, you know what, I'm going to create this world, then now all I have to do is take what I put in that notepad, and I just now put it in a structure from three-act structure. Here's where this is going to happen.

Here's where this is going to happen. Here's when I'm going to introduce the villain and so on and so forth. And even now, like, for Camellian Book 2 and Camellion Book 3, like ideas come to me I drop them in even with screenplays ideas come to me when I was writing the transform screenplay like I had the book as a reference but there were so many stories that didn't make it into the book

as we talked about how to be truncated and change I was like oh maybe I could take that part and put it into my notepad and I would put it into notepad and then when I got to writing the screenplay a lot of what I needed to essentially the meat was there now I just had to massage it and then my process is just sitting down

and I tend to not outline or if I do outline I'm not regimental on it you know it's not the gospel to me so when I take all of these ideas and put it into this space even if it's structured I don't hold to it because I like characters to tell the story

for me it's always about character driving plot and driving narrative versus plot driving characters and what they do so once I get a good sense of the character I'm writing, whether it be Collie Kent, whether it be Nevea, whether it be Thane Macklin, who it is, how they would react is going to drive where we're going to go into the story. So, for example, if Collie is, if I've already established him as a guy that's going to conduct an interrogation in a way where he's not going to go straight in and start screaming or yelling or he's going to be a bit more calculated than that's

how that scene is going to be driven, because that's his personality. And there's times where I don't know exactly what's going to happen in the scene that I'm going to write, whether it's a book or whether it's a script. I allow that character with the attributes that I've kind of given him or he or he or she has shown me begin to fill in the gap. And then before you know, you have like a very cool scene, especially with dialogue and stuff like that that comes together. So can you write for a long time at a time? Like I can only write for like an hour and I get super bored. So I just write an hour every day. I know, I can write for a long time.

Yeah. So for me, I go for time because, you know, my nanny starts at 8.30. Got to work out. I don't do the 3 a.m. wakeups like you, jock. I'm sorry. I ain't on it like you there yet. And so, you know, I work out. And then after that, I come to my, I get to my computer.

And I'm at my computer from, say, about 10.30 until my nanny gets off at 4.30. And I write for time. So six hours? Yeah, yeah. Dang. And then sometimes, like if I'm on a time crunch and I need to get it done or I need to get into a publisher or I need to get a script into a producer or whatever in the case may be, after my nannies off, hang out with the kids. Once they're in bed and in bed like around 9 o'clock, I'm back at the computer and I'm there until out two, three in the morning, just hammering it out just to get it done. So I go for time.

I wish I had a little log book and I could make a version of my books where each section I wrote where I wrote it. Like you know like some random like bus train freaking airplane a lot of a lot I wrote a lot in airplanes and hotels I travel a bunch so I'd just be like on a plane just get my hour done. You know sometimes obviously Maybe my house but yeah there's a use I I would do because I write every day when I'm writing I'm going every day for like an hour Okay because otherwise I get bored and crazy and so I just like write an hour book so I must take you a long time to get it done Well you know a thousand words a day because I can write I write about a thousand words in an hour so it's about you know three months okay and you got 90,000 words pair it down you got your book. Oh they so I can knock them out pretty quick actually.

So no writers blocking that one hour is this like you no no um I also I will have like you I have the whole thing in my head yeah so I have the whole thing in my head and I just got it and I take the whole thing that's in my head outline it like I write it down like basically chapter one chapter two chapter three chapter four whatever and then I have like a very brief description if what's going to happen in that chapter you know in this chapter uncle Jake shows up and he takes me to jit-soo like I know what's going to happen and I kind of already have that whole thing in my head yeah yeah you know in this one you know Regan Mark's going to do this or what Johnny's going to do this whatever and then I just

sit down and I write for an hour whether no matter where I'm at yeah I always leave like what's going to happen in the next frame or whatever so I when I sit down again I just can You have a lead in. And if you don't, for me, if I don't write every day, then when I sit back down, if I skip a day, I can probably get away with it. If I skip two days, now I'm going to go back and read everything that I wrote. It takes me 20 minutes. Now I wasted a bunch of time. So I'm very religious about writing it every day, so I don't have to do that review.

But that's what I do. Yeah, if I wrote for six hours a day, that'd be six thousand words a day. I could write a book pretty freaking quick. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. But I don't have the patience for it. I get too freaking jumpy after a little while. Oh, I can't.

I get distracted. I love it, man. I don't mind. That's what drives me, man. Well, yeah, I think what you said is that there's scenes that you're, that are playing out in your head as you're writing. For me, I don't have that. I already know what's going to happen.

So for me, it's just like, it's like I'm building a house. Like you're building, you're like an architect that's designing a house like, oh, what is this going to look like? I already know what it's going to look like in my head. I already know. So for me, it's just labor. Yeah, yeah. It's just labor and a freaking type.

There's nothing exciting about it. I already know this story. There's no discovery. Yeah, there's no discovery for me. It's already in there, man. The whole freaking thing. Actually, like the lyrics or I guess in books you call, when I write songs, you know, I call them lyrics. But, you know, when I'm writing books, I guess it's just words or dialogue.

I already know what that's going to be. I already have those things in my head. So anyways, that's me. So you said you're already working on the next two chameleon books. So you need a chameleon books and then ghost books and then aberration books and then win books? Right now I'm following the main character, Chameleon, so I'm going to do two more books in Chameleon for sure. But the ghost agents are in, so part of the team in book one is made up of a ghost agent, another chameleon agent, a few aberration agents, and then a win agent. And so we're going to keep following Collie and the chameleon in book two and three, and then maybe we'll branch it off.

You know, a graphic novel, maybe you know what's going down with you? The aberration agents. That's what I like to hear. It started out as a screenplay. You know, I wrote the screen. It was the first screenplay I wrote in 2019. And then long story short, my agent shopped it around. And there were three production companies that wanted, we went one of the big ones.

And went through a year, rewrites on the screenplay. And then after that, after that, he started my agent, that started to produce and started shopping the screenplay around to directors, to get a director attached. and got the same, kept getting the same message. Great screenplay, but I'm booked up for the next two years. Great screenplay, but I'm booked up for the next three years. And that was when I was like, you know what?

I'm tired of this. I want to teach myself how to direct because it's kind of like almost in the teams. Like the more qualifications you have, the more ops you're going to go on. And that's kind of how it is in the whole Hollywood. If you could produce, write, and then direct, then you most like to be able to get the job done. And so I directed my organ harvesting film. And then that got picked up to be a feature film, which is going to go into production. after the writer strike lifts because we can't get bonded insurance wise during a writer

strike but the camellian script is going to the camellian film is going to come at some point as well and what's the organ harvesting film so I did a film called the unexpected inspired by true events essentially comes based off of the the yassi's genocide where ISIS came in and essentially killed the men and then trafficked the women sexually but also from organ harvesting standpoint and then also from a labor standpoint. And so I started, I volunteered with a few different human trafficking nonprofits after I got out, you know, nothing like where I'm working with them for months on end, but just popping in here and they're almost like a contractor.

And that's when I really got exposed to human trafficking. And I found that there was so much focus on the sex trafficking side of things and not any focus on organ harvesting side of things. And so that's when I decided, you know what, I need to educate the public more about this. and that's when I decided to make the film the unexpected, which is a 32-minute short film that really dives deep into the intricacies of organ harvesting rings and how they operate,

which organ harvesting is a billion-dollar, multi-billion-dollar industry globally, and it's nuts. The more you go down a rabbit hole and learn about it, Cairo Egypt is considered to be the organ harvesting capital of the world. There's been so many stories coming out lately of Westerners, getting caught up, you know, going to other countries to get a kidney and via organ harvesting ring because about 6,500 people die every year on transplant waiting lists. And so there's a big

need for it. And so the more I started going down a rabbit hole and reading these articles and doing more research, that's when I was like, okay, I need to make this film. And so where can people watch that? The film's on YouTube. Oh, it's on YouTube. Yep, it's free on YouTube. What YouTube channel? My YouTube channel.

What's your YouTube channel? Just rent me out of Lake it. I looked that up. I didn't find it. How must I need to look harder. Just rent me out of Lakin. Unexpected. It'll pop up this.

It's right on the home page. Okay. And, you know, I just made it just to get it out there. You know, not to, not for it to get distributed, but it got seen by some people in the industry now. That's what got picked up to be a feature. That's awesome. Yeah.

It will it be a documentary feature or? No, too often. Actor film, yeah. Similar to the short film. Picks up five years after the events of the short. Sweet. What else? I mean, you got anything else going on?

What else we need to hit, man? I got a new, well, I was working on Special Forces Fox, not doing that anymore, but I got a new project. Can't get into just yet, but we start shooting that two weeks, right? Two weeks. Military-related show. Cool play. unscripted show. It's going to be cool, cool, just educating people on some cool sides of the military.

Not necessarily soft, but like all aspects of the military. And then, yeah, got a transform. Hopefully after the writer's strike, we can get that in the production as well. Outstanding, man. Probably a good place, damn. It's been over three hours. Echo Charles. Yes, sir. Any questions? Yes, I'm sure. You ready, dude. Here it comes.

Yeah, yeah. So when you used to go party in the gas lamp, yeah, yeah. What year was that about? Man, 2004 to, man, I stopped partying in a gas lamp around 2008, so from 2004 to 2008. Okay, so that was my time, too, by the way. Were you a bouncer at any closer down there? I knew you looked familiar. Was there a place on a corner?

Yeah. And there was a girl named, they named Sin. Yeah, yeah. That's in. There we go. That's where I knew I saw you. I was like, I knew I knew you from somewhere. Bitter end, yeah, yeah.

Right on. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, a lot of the team guys would come down because two of my friends from Kauai, they'd be. They'd always come down and we'd hang with them. But yeah, that's funny. And you were bouncing there, right? I was bouncing that for a while too for like at that time.

So since like 2001 to 2007. Okay. What if I happened to sin? I think she's still, she might have a promotions coming out. I'm not sure. Sure. I left that world a long time ago, but from what I see, she's still around. Yeah. Doing promotions.

You know somebody's out there when they name is sin. Like S-I-N-S-I-N. She had a tattooed on her back. Dang. She was okay? Asian lady. No, no, no. She's cool.

Yeah, yeah. She was good at what she did. Do you think she has a random, happens to have an Asian name that's sin? Or you think that's an adjustment? I don't know. That's a good question. Like sometimes, you know, people have a name. It's just like one syllable.

I'm sure it's like short for something. Yeah, maybe. Which I know she had S-I-N. Yep. In red tattooed. I don't know that. Because I'm a rat. Awesome.

And then you said you're negative buoyant. Are you like big time negative point? Yeah. Like right now, like if you like took a deep breath, you would still sing. Yeah. That's how you know right there. Because sometimes when you're kind of in the middle,

if you don't have any breath, you just sink. But then if you, you know, you can float. If you try to. Where are you at? Same. Right. No, I'm the same, yeah. Like, sink?

Yeah, even with the big breath. Even with the big breath. Yeah. No kidding. But, yeah, when I was bigger, when I was like 240, I could float a little bit. Yeah. Got a little bit of that combat swimmer. Hell yeah.

Oh, yeah. But yeah. Right on, man. Good to meet you in person. Right on, awesome. Yeah. We met. I know we met.

Because I saw you when I first saw you on the podcast, I was like, man, I know that face, but I'm bad with names. I'm good with faces. Now you remember he threw you out the club. Yeah, you probably did. Hey, we can find you basically Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Remi Adelaike. Yes, sir. Now, YouTube channel as well. Yes, sir.

You got a website that you're going to get developed in the near future. That's just going to be Revi Adelaiki.com. Yes, sir. You've got to get that dumb. You've got to make that happen. Oh, my Chocco's orders. Remy, man, any closing thoughts from you? No, thank you so much for having me on,

allow me to be a part of this epic podcast. and thank you for your service and your leadership, man. You're always in my head pushing me from the time when we were out in Nilean and you getting at us talking about how much more we can go. There's always more, you know. And so I try to follow that pattern in my life. So I thank you for the inspiration and motivation that you give me. And I know millions of people around the world.

Appreciate you, brother. Same, same echo. Thanks, man. And obviously, thanks for coming. Sorry this took long. You live in San Diego. We'll be able to wrap it up, do it again. And so thanks for sharing your lessons learned.

Obviously, thanks for your service in the Navy. Thanks for your service in the teams. And thanks for what you're continuing to do today. I mean, you're putting the word out there. You're setting a great example for people that, like you said, if you work hard, you stay dedicated, you stay focused. The American dream. The American dream.

You're living it, man. And you're showing people how to live it. So thanks for getting after it, bro. Thank you, brother. Right on. Yes, sir. And with that, Remy, Adelike, has left the building. And left some positivity.

You can definitely change the course of your existence. You can change the course of your life. Hard work, persistence, making some good decisions. Some of those decisions that he made, pretty epic. joining the Navy, no, no relation to the military, not even, you know, at one point he talks about in the book, like he's not even down with being in uniform. Hey, I did read that part, right? Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't like cops. He thinks, you know, military is just cops. More cops.

Yeah, man. I mean, he's got warrants out. He's a hustler. He's a criminal. Makes the decision. So, get on the path out there. Everybody help people too. You know, you can spread that word a little bit. You can spread that word a little bit to people. Let them know they got a choice what's happening. They can change the, you can change the direction you're going.

Yeah. You can do it. Do you feel like, it felt like he did have tangible seeds of, of like doing the right thing, though? Maybe not like super glaring, but just the idea, okay, so he's in the phone,

illegal phone selling business. federal prison sounded bad yeah and he was like hmm and made the decision just because it's not like hey he hit rock while you know or almost died or got arrested and then changes he was like hmm this is getting a little bit too so let me stop and then writes a letter look was it the best move maybe maybe not but i'm just saying he's a different old mind thinking like yo i'm covered yeah yeah at least helpful you know kind of a thing so it's kind of like there was some ingredients in there which is good For sure. So yeah, you add that with a little, you know, and he liked the movie The Rock.

Let's face it. The Navy SEALs in The Rock, and he was right about that, where they did look freaking badass. Sure, they all got massacred in that one scene. I get it because they had to make the bad guys look extra bad. I get it. But at the same time, they look badass. I cannot give that order. You cannot give that.

What did they yell in back and forth? Yep, that was it. You must obey that order. I can't give that order or something like that. That's exactly what it was. but the part, there was a part where probably if we asked him, oh, he'd probably be like, oh, yeah, that part was sick too. When he was like, when he asked Nicholas Cage, right? Nicholas Cage was the scientist guy, whatever, and he had to go with him under the water.

And he was like, have you ever been in a combat scenario? And he's like, do you find combat scenario? And then the guy, Michael Bean, who also played the Terminator one, by the way, he goes, Shep. And then Shep is like his right-hand man kind of guy. And he just goes into this thing like, oh, an underwater, encouraging. And he goes into this thing, real straight face, though, real like, almost like it was rehearsed, but just like real, like regimented way he said it. But it was freaking sick. And then Nicholas Cage kind of listens to it.

And he goes, in that case, no. And then he goes and throws up as freaking funny part. But anyway, even that part made him look super badass. So yeah, man, I dig it. Michael Bay. He makes a lot of stuff look badass. Okay. Well, there you go.

Make good decisions. Get after it. Get on the path. Hey, if you're on the path, by the way, you need some good fuel. Get yourself some jocco fuel. Get yourself some jocco fuel energy drinks. Get yourself some protein. You're addicted, I've noticed, to milk protein.

Yes, sir. So here, let me tell you what happened today. So I worked out today. No big deal. But right after it worked out, I was like, okay, let me make my way down to record. So what I had was two pieces of the chicken, a peach, one mulk. Okay. So, you know, some people, they really like to take in the protein, the post workout protein, right?

I'm one of those people. I try to anyway. But think about it. Two pieces of chicken. That was probably like maybe 30 grams of protein right there, total. Plus the monk. Okay. 60 grams of protein, just like that.

Boom. Super fast. Super good. Oh, yeah. That's a whole, like, that's a whole spectrum of flavor and taste and satisfaction. Right. A little chicken is good. And then you get that mulk dessert.

Then I had one when I was here too. So think about it. 90 grams. Without even thinking about it. Without even thinking about it. Easy money. Get some protein. We got powder protein, the pow-pow.

Is pow-pow going to catch on as a description? Well, I mean, it's stumbling out of the blocks as right now. But hey, you never know. Didn't go good out of the box. Okay. Powder, otherwise known as pow-pow. We got everything. So check that out, joccofuel.com.

You can get it at Wawa, you get it vitamin shop. Vitamin shop's crushing, by the way. G.N. Number one brand of vitamin shop. Did you see that last year? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, that's, hey, is that a Nobel Prize? Maybe not, but it shows you, it shows you that people, other people that don't know about it, try it,

they keep getting it. That's what the subscriptions do too. The people that subscribe, go to joccofuel.com, you subscribe to Time War. Because you're like me I'm taking time more for the rest of my life because it is has an impact on the way you feel So check that out get a while while you can get vitamin shop GnC Military Commissaries aphys Hanford dash stores in Maryland wake firm shop riding a G B It should be killing it end caps you know what an end cap is

Yeah the the the aisle at the aisle at the end Yeah, they put they put like end caps because everybody down in Tejas is rolling in and getting their talk Few hitters and then up up in the Midwest you got Meyer same thing Myers we I saw met about with a bunch of the Meyer people there they're getting everything They're bringing into the stores Harris Teeter lifetime fitness shields and then you got like little gyms all over the place little CrossFit gyms we're doing crossfit we're doing Jiu Jitsu I happen to have a crossfit and a Jiu Jitsu gym It's called Victory MMA and fitness guess what we sell here

Jock Fuel when you get done rolling you can get a mulk. Before you roll, you can get a go. Mulk, go. Go, mulk. Either way, you're good to go. If you want to sell this stuff at your gym, email J.F. Sales at joccofuel.com.

Get on the path. Get on it. It's called joccofuel.com. It's true. The clean path. Yeah. The goodness. All right, what else?

Origin, USA. American made. What? So we started with geese. Yes, we did. Gies made in America. Sure, people thought it was great. But then when they start rolling out you know rolling off the line

No, no people didn't think it was so crazy in fact It started becoming the new standard since then American made geese which have gone through some evolution by the way Improvements all the time so I don't know if you know this about me But I have one of the original original origin geese Before before I knew Pete before I knew even of origin I it was gifted to me because I did some work For this guy cool guy who was like fitness this dude and he and he was like oh thank you whatever and he gave me that

ghee because too big for him or whatever you know and he gave me that key and I was like oh yeah cool origin gear right on cool it's black with it you know gray stripe is cool and then so I just put it away and I didn't train ghee that much and then years later I get the riff gey I get all these other ones and then I go back I'm like wait a second that original one I got was a freaking origin gea and I grabbed it but you compare the evolution of The fabric material. So, FYI, the original ones were better than every other GEE.

But now we're just upping our own game. And we're doing that across the board with everything. With the t-shirts we're making, with the jeans, with everything. We're evolving. We're getting better. And we're doing it here in America, which is what it's all about, right? Because sure, we can be like, oh, we'll make a little t-shirts and we'll make some money off it and have our brand. Right?

You can do that. You can do that in 15 minutes. Set up a Shopify drop ship, you know, the whole thing, right? And that's not just, look, you're a small company out there. You can make that happen. I get it. That's cool. But then at a certain point, you should say, oh, cool, we're going to buy American.

We're going to sell American. Not, oh, we can save 30 cents a shirt and put it in our pockets as long as we enslave some people overseas and wreck the environment. You can do that. I don't recommend it. I recommend you go to origin USA.com and get some American made stuff. That's what we're doing. What else?

Also, Jocco store called Jocco store, aka DefCore.com. It's all the same. Joccoor.com, Defcourt.com. This is the same gig. Check. One and the same. Anyway, on this path, or if you're representing, closing ways. Seems like we should have something else on DefCore.com.

Like what? I don't know, maybe just like a black screen that says get some. And anytime you're feeling like what to do in life, just go there. Okay. That could be something. Hey, it's not a bad idea. Seems like that would be a better use of the URL. You know what that stands for?

Yes. Wait, no. Because I don't. What is it stand for? Yeah. Oh, no. You told me this a long time ago. Yeah.

It's like, not, yeah, I forget. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. I know what it is. So there you go. It's the domain name. It's the freaking URL. Anyway,

deaf door. DefCore. dot com chocolate store.com this is where you can get your shirts and hats and hoodies you want to represent on the past this discipline equals freedom discipline that too represent on the path with discipline equals freedom or good in the concept of good you ever heard of that you hear good things okay all right that one I learned about that one too but anyway you want to represent boom this where you can get it we also have what's called the shirt locker subscription scenario you get a new shirt new

design every month. There you go. Get some of that. Subscribe to the podcast. Subscribe to the unraveling podcast, the Warrior Kid podcast. The jaco underground.com. Go there.

That's our own platform. Look, we don't control the platform. You know, we don't control iTunes. We don't control YouTube. We don't control Spotify. We don't control any of these other platforms. We control jocco underground.com. So we can do whatever we want on there.

And that's why we do a little, another little kind of adjacent podcast. It's called the underground. We talk about some other stuff on the underground. We answer a lot of questions on the underground. Well, yeah, that's life questions, by the way. Okay. When you think about, like, okay, so every once in a great while,

we'll get a question that's maybe not quite as impactful. But very interesting, I think, like, you know, there's one that he was asking, like, what Metallica song you like or something like that, which is cool. It's fun. It's fun. But most of them are impactful stuff.

Like, hey, you're starting a new job, And you don't know what like, hey, man, am I going to be able to handle this thing? I'm sketch about it, all this stuff or whatever. Boom, that kind of question. Something's going to like literally help you in life. Yep. No, so there you go. It's $8.18 a month.

And listen, if you can't afford it, it's fine. Just email assistance at jocco underground.com. We'll get you taken care of. But we do need to have something that we own. We need to have ownership of a platform that we can control. Otherwise, it could be a problem. So to avoid that problem, we appreciate that support. and to pay for you for the support.

That's where we do that little adjacent podcast. Check it out. YouTube, subscribe to the YouTube channel, subscribe to Psychological Warfare, go to Flipside Canvas, get some cool stuff from Dakota Meyer to hang up on your wall. We got a bunch of books.

Okay, so from Remy Adelaike. We got transformed, and then we have Chameleon. Go check out Remy's book. You just heard a story. I mean, it's an incredible story, right? I covered 3% of the story. when I read it.

He actually did the audio book and he does like, you know, he does his little accents and stuff like this. He gives some, you know, he's an actor. And he acts when he's reading it. He gets into it a little bit. Oh, yeah, that helps.

You know what I'm saying? It's good, yeah, it's good. I listen to the sample. It's pretty good. Remy did a good job on that. Hey, was it on the podcast or was it before we were recording when he was telling about how sometimes

he'll be talking to, his kid and like go into the voice was that on the podcast okay i could remember for that was before after yeah are you sure i'm pretty sure yes yeah yeah was okay i was yeah it is fun bro i'll do that too so what voice do you go into it's like pigeon okay but hawaii pigeon but not when i'm yelling at my kids but if i get like it's been years but if i start to like lose my temper at someone like i remember when i was a bouncer like every once in a while like i'd get in a confrontation Get Remy's books transformed and get his new book

Camellium Check out final spin I just gave a copy of final spin To Remy He was like, yo let me read this I was like cool, do it So there we go Leadership Strategy and Tactics

Field Manual The code evaluation protocols Discipline equals freedom Field manual Way of the Warrior kid One two three This is You know I couldn't help thinking

Right You give a kid Way of the Warrior kid One two three four Five That's the little That's the little direction Change that they need

In their life I know this because thousands of people have told me that those books made a shift in their kids' life or in their life. So help the people around you, help the kids around you. That's what we're doing.

Don't forget about Mikey the Dragons. Don't forget about Face by Hackworth. I wrote the forward to that. What an honor of that was then extreme ownership dichotomy leadership. Also, echelon front, we have a leadership consultancy. That's what we do.

We heard of talking about J.P. Dennell today. He's our first instructor that we hired. So we got lay. We got all kinds of instructors. But what we do is we solve problems through leadership. Go to ashtonfront.com. If you need help inside your organization with leadership, if you want to come to one of our live events,

go there and check out events and sign up because we sell out. Dallas is sold out. And that's in September, man. It's in October. It's already sold out. So check it out. We got FTXs, we got counsel, we got Battlefield. We got the Women's Assembly coming up.

The chief operating officer of Eshlam Front, the chief operating officer of Jock Fuel, and the chief operating officer of Origin USA, they're all going to be there. So Amanda Roberts is going to be there. Diane's going to be there. Jamie's going to be there. Go and check that out. Women's Assembly, September 14th through the 16th in Phoenix, Arizona. We also have online training.

at the Extreme Ownership Academy. Learn how to live. If you interact with other people, which you do, you're in a leadership position. This is life. Life is leadership. You need to know how to lead. There are skills that you can learn.

Go to Extremeownership.com and learn some of these incredible skills. And also, if you want to help, service members, active and retired, you want to help their families, Gold Star families, check out. Mark Lee's mom, Mama Lee.

She's got a charity. organization and if you want to donate or you want to get involved go to America's mighty warriors.org also don't forget about heroes and horses.org where Micah Fink takes our vets into the wilderness so that they can find their soul outstanding program if you want to connect with us on the inner webs on the Graham on Twitter on Facebook Baja maybe even on threads you on threads I'm on threads oh you're on threads for Remy Go to at Remy Adelaike.

And Echo is at Equal. So I'm at Jokolink. Just watch out because there's that force there and you think it's no big deal. It's a sneaky force. It's not the kind of force that looks intimidating. You actually don't even really know it's there. Next thing you know you're getting choked out. Yeah, it's true.

So watch out for that. It's like a 10th planet, planet jiu-jitsu player, right? Sure. You're like, oh, this person's skinny. Little Eddie Bravo. Well, this is no. You know this little guy Little skinny guy

You know and then the next thing you know you're getting choked Yep you don't really detect the threat till it's too late Yeah, it feels all kind of like limber too right well sweet Flexi flexible like what's that sir you know I'm strong Yeah next thing you know you're getting your back taken next thing you know getting caught in that rubber guard Yeah the rubber guard that algorithm that's what it's doing you don't see it coming It's true kind of like a tenth planet jujitsu player Just watch out for him

Right? Watch out for that. Also, thanks once again to Remy for coming down today. Remy, thanks for your work. Thanks for your service in the teams. And thanks for your service to our great nation. And thanks to all the military people out there who have served and are serving in our military. Thank you for what you do.

We get to do what we get to do because you protect our way of life. the freedoms that Remi talked about today that allow us to have these opportunities that's because of our military personnel keeping evil at bay keeping tyranny at bay and we thank you for protecting our way of life and also thanks to our police law enforcement firefighters paramedics

EMTs dispatchers correctional officers Border Patrol Secret Service all you first responders that are out there on the front lines here at home protecting us and keeping us safe thanks to all of you as well And to everyone else out there, you know, sometimes it's two steps forward and one steps back, right? You heard that expression before Echo Charles. Sure.

Two step forward, one step back. Sometimes it's two steps forward and five steps back. That happens. And boy, does that take the wind out of your sales. And that's probably a person's most vulnerable time. That's where you can rationalize quitting. Right? That's when you can say, oh, it's probably not going to work.

out. I already gave it my best shot. That's when Remy got sent back to the first day of training after he'd been in basic sealed training for five weeks and he gets rolled during hell week. That's the time where some of those, uh, you know, I gave it my best shot. And then he actually gets

dropped from training. Dropped. You're done. You're out of here. You're turning your cool clothes and get your normal Navy outfit back on and go to the regular Navy. Made it through every made it through hell week made it through the swims made it through the runs made it through all the hypothermia then he gets dropped because he didn't perform what does he do humbles himself

humbles himself as mark lee told him to do owns his mistakes and then goes back and does it all again that's a long journey that's a hard journey but guess what in the end he made it and that's what it takes to win that's what it takes to win yeah you have to win yeah you have to work you have to strive you have to suffer you have to humble yourself you have to own your mistakes you have to fix them but most important you cannot give up that's the rule never quit and until next time this is echo and jocco out