Jocko Podcast - 559: Turning Unimaginable Loss Into Purpose. The Legacy of Marc Lee. With Debbie Mama Lee

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

>Join Jocko Underground Full Episodes< Twenty years after Navy SEAL Marc Lee was killed in Ramadi, his mother Debbie “Mama Lee” Lee joins Jocko and Echo to reflect on grief, faith, brotherhood, and the legacy Marc left behind. They discuss the work of America’s Mighty Warriors, helping veterans heal from the invisible wounds of war, supporting Gold Star families, and turning unimaginable loss into a mission to help others.00:00 – 20 Years Since Mark Lee’s DeathMama Lee reflects on losing Mark, faith, grief, and the extraordinary legacy that has grown from his sacrifice.14:40 – Mama Lee ReturnsDebbie Lee joins Jocko and Echo to reflect on the Task Unit Bruiser reunion and seeing Mark’s teammates together again after 20 years.25:12 – Brotherhood Forged in RamadiRemembering fallen teammates, reconnecting with old friends, and why staying connected to the people who shared the experience matters.35:22 – Random Acts of KindnessHow Mark’s final message inspired America’s Mighty Warriors to provide immediate help to veterans, military families, and others in crisis.39:30 – Choosing to Keep Fighting Through GriefMama Lee describes the devastation of losing a child and the decision to turn that pain into purpose and service.45:28 – You Won’t Feel Like This ForeverJocko and Mama Lee discuss the overwhelming nature of grief, losing control of your emotions, and learning to ride the wave until you can move forward.1:00:35 – Get It Out of Your HeadWhy talking, writing, sharing stories, and connecting with others can help process pain instead of allowing it to grow darker inside.1:12:40 – Healing the Invisible Wounds of WarMama Lee explains Helping Heroes Heal, traumatic brain injuries, blast exposure, sleep problems, suicide, and the veterans whose lives have been changed through treatment.1:26:00 – Helping Veterans and Gold Star Families HealThe retreats, treatment programs, and plans for a dedicated facility designed to bring veterans and families together while supporting their recovery.1:31:14 – Gold Star Families and the Power of Helping OthersMama Lee discusses retreats for Gold Star parents and families, while Jocko reflects on how even a small act of kindness can completely change someone’s outlook.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocco Podcast number 559 with Echo Charles and me. Jocka Willink. Good evening, Echo. Good evening. August 2nd, 2006, the day my son took his final breath. How can it have been 20 years? I remember that day so vividly. I remember those soul-piercing words that took my breath away and changed my life forever.

We are sorry to inform you that your son, Navy SEAL, Mark Lee, has been killed. in action. I had been a widow for 12 years and survived that grief, but this is my child. How can I breathe again? Grief has a way of stealing your breath. Yet when I felt like I couldn't breathe, God breathed for me. He comforted me and carried me when I didn't have the strength to stand. In the midst of the pain, he gave me a new purpose and passion. He continues to heal that heart that I thought would never beat again. 20 years later, I can look back and see what God has done with every breath he has given me. I've watched veterans who once struggled with traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress, and suicidal thoughts find hope and healing.

Men and women who didn't want to take another breath are now excited to live again. I've watched Gold Star families who were drowning in grief discover they weren't alone. We've had the privilege of providing comfort, hope, encouragement, and helping them heal and find peace. I've watched military families in crisis breathe a sigh of relief when they receive help within hours through our random acts of kindness grants for medical bills, funeral expenses, home adaptations and emergency needs, reminding them that they are not alone in their crisis. I've watched little children hug a build a bear.

We gave them with daddy's recorded voice inside, giving them the comfort of hearing his voice while he was deployed. What a legacy Mark has left in 20 years. On the 20th anniversary of Mark's death, task unit bruiser gathered in San Diego. For three days, there was laughter, catching up, stories, hugs, memories, and some tears. I've been blessed over the years to spend time with many of Mark's teammates,

and every time I'm reminded there is something incredibly special about the bond between brothers. Sunday morning, before we headed to Fort Rosecrans, I was spending my usual quiet time with the Lord. I wasn't looking for a special message that day. I was simply reading where I had left off. Then I came to Proverbs 17. My eyes stopped on verse 17. A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

I smiled. How perfect for today. God's word is always so relevant for life. Then I remembered the shirt I had chosen to wear that morning was our Markley memorial shirt. Across the back, underneath the field cross, was one word. Brotherhood. That's no coincidence. That verse, this shirt, and the brotherhood had gathered that weekend. The night before during dinner, I shared a story about Mark that always makes me smile. Mark loved giving gifts, not just giving them, finding the perfect one. He would spend hours searching for exactly the right gift, but once he found it, he could hardly wait for you to open it.

One Christmas he came home with a gift already wrapped for me. He proudly showed it to me and begged me to open it right then. I told him no. Put it under the tree or I won't have anything to open Christmas morning. He couldn't wait. Within minutes, he ripped off the paper himself because he couldn't contain his excitement and wanted to see my face when I opened it. It was a beautiful gold flatware set that matched my china perfectly.

He wanted me to use it for Christmas dinner. That was Mark. In January, several months after Mark was killed, I drove from Arizona to San Diego to meet with his teammates for dinner. They knew I was bringing each of them a surprise. During my first meeting with President Bush, I had taken the Charlie Platoon team picture and shared who each of the men were and that special bond they had. I asked if he would personalize and sign one for every member of the platoon. He graciously did, and that was the surprise I was bringing them. To my surprise, when I arrived, they had booked me the presidential suite at the Grand Hyatt.

It was massive, unlike any hotel room I had ever stayed in, and it had an amazing view of the city. I suggested ordering food and staying in the suite for dinner. That evening, before I gave them their gift, I told them the Christmas story about Mark and his love for giving gifts. Then I looked around the room and shared my realization. You, each one of you, are Mark's final gift to me. At the time, I knew this was a special gift and that they were extraordinary men. I had no idea just how priceless that gift would become. Over the last 20 years, the relationships have deepened.

They've become family and embraced me as Mama Lee. Mark didn't just leave me memories. He left me his brothers. God knew exactly what I would need before I ever realized it. Mark's final gift to me was his brotherhood. My thoughts went back to what the day would bring. as we honored and remembered Mark 20 years after he had died. Oh, how much I still miss Mark.

I met Laif, Jenna, and their kids at the car, and we drove up to Fort Rosecrans. A large group had met at the entrance, but we drove straight to Mark's grave as we had a big wreath and his picture and a stand to place it on. There was already a large gathering of people at his grave. I got out of the car and walked to his headstone. I carefully placed the wreath, Mark's picture, and other flowers so they wouldn't blow over in the breeze. Then I stepped back and looked at Mark's headstone to focus on and reflect. I could feel the emotions swelling. Then came the tears.

It never gets easy to see your child's name engraved on the headstone or a memorial wall. Quietly, I prayed, Lord. please help the crowd that had gathered at the entrance started to walk down the hill over a hundred people from task unit Brewzer and their families had gathered 20 years later Mark loved deeply and he is deeply loved the chaplain prayed and then several of Mark's teammates shared stories and memories I waited until I thought everyone was done I began with the words that had been on my heart all morning. Twenty years ago, Mark took his final breath.

I paused. Emotions surfacing again, only stronger. I didn't think I would ever be able to breathe again. The tears came and it seemed like forever before I could control the emotions and continue. When I finally gathered myself, I looked around at the men standing there. The Brotherhood The verse I had read that morning suddenly wasn't just a verse anymore. It was the story God had been writing for 20 years.

A brother is born for adversity. Ramadi forged a brotherhood born through deep adversity and loss. Mark's sacrifice brought us together and became the beginning of the bond I would share with these men, an adversity that none of us would have chosen. Yet through that adversity, God created something beautiful. Over the last 20 years, I've had the privilege of watching them become husbands, fathers, and leaders. I've celebrated weddings, rejoiced over the births of their children, honored promotions, applauded retirements, cried with them at far too many funerals, and watched them answer God's call to new missions in life.

20 years later, they still gather. They still laugh together. They still remember. They still carry one another's burdens. That kind of brotherhood isn't ordinary. It was forged in the adversity of Ramadi. It was strengthened by sacrifice. And it continues because of love.

Somehow, by God's grace, he allowed me to be part of that family too I shared with them that morning that years ago while Mark was in Ramadi he called and during that conversation he tried to explain the brotherhood to me I remember questioning him as close as you were with your with the brother you grew up with for 28 years and he replied yes mom that close I reminded him that I had not birthed them so they couldn't be his brother And we left it at that the week Mark died. I had several of his teammates in my home and I started to see that they loved him so much and as much as we did and that they were hurting as much as we were I now saw what Mark was trying to explain to me

There was a very special connection and bond and they were indeed His brothers as I stood there at Mark's grave. I shared something the Lord has been teaching me over the past year. For years, I would say, I get to see the impact Mark is still making. But would I rather have him back? Yes, in a heartbeat. Then about a year ago,

I was on the phone sharing those same words. I started to say them again. But would I rather have Mark back? I stopped. I couldn't finish the sentence. Instead, I looked up to heaven and quietly see them. said, sorry, Mark, I can't say that anymore.

I proceeded to tell the person that if I meant taking back all the good that had been done, every veteran whose life had been saved from suicide, every Gold Star family we have given hope to and walked alongside and provided comfort, every random act of kindness, every life touched because God brought beauty from unimaginable tragedy. No, I wouldn't want that. I shared that even if I could bargain a deal with God and get Mark back here, Mark would be so upset with me. Why would you do that, Mom? Do you know how amazing heaven is?

I'm in the presence of our Savior. Mark isn't missing out or wishing he could come back. He's exactly where he longed to be. He was a man who loved Jesus Christ with all his. his heart and I know beyond any doubt that one day I'll see him again. That is the unshakable hope we have as believers. So yes, I still miss my son every day, but grief no longer has the final word. Hope does.

Mark was not defeated. He was redeployed to heaven. That's victory. I'm ready whenever God calls me home, but until then, by God's strength, I will give 100% to the mission he called me too. I will continue to love and provide hope, healing, comfort, respite, and encouragement to those who serve and defended us and their families. I will count my blessings daily and thank God for one of Mark's greatest gifts to me, his brotherhood. And that right there was a note written by Debbie Lee, or as we call her, Mama Lee. Because clearly if Mark is our brother and Debbie is his mom, well, that makes her our mom too.

And she is an amazing woman, a woman of strength and spirit and faith. And she has been on this podcast before episode 368. So if you want to hear about Mark Lee's life and the ultimate sacrifice he made for his friends and for his country, then go listen to that podcast. But through Debbie, Mark's spirit and his legacy lives on through her foundation, America's mighty warriors. And there is no doubt he is still absolutely helping his teammates, encouraging them, guiding them. and in some cases still saving their lives. And it is an honor to have Mama Lee back with us tonight to share how Mark continues to impact the world and make it a better place for all of us, Mama Lee.

Welcome back. You bet. Thanks for having me back again. Yeah, I know. I was telling you kind of before we hit record, I was going to pull some little sections out of that note that you had written and sent out. and I just couldn't I couldn't find any parts to to edit out and and I just it's just so powerful when I read it that I just said I'm just going to read the whole thing so it's powerful note and that was a really you know so it's based on the fact that we had a task you seal team three task in a brusier we had a reunion in San Diego centered around the the day that Mark was killed August 2nd but we were here for a couple of few days and And, you know, a bunch of the guys came out and it was just an awesome time.

You know, some of these guys, you know, you just don't see them. You just don't see them. And it's weird, too, because when we came back from that deployment, it's 2006 when we come back from that deployment, there's still 15 years of war left or something like that, 10 years, maybe 12 years of war left. It's not like we came home and now we were done. No, guys rolled into the next platoon. and the next platoon and the next platoon.

And so that we didn't even really have, you know, I talked about when I talked that night that I talked at the dinner, I talked about the Band of Brothers movie. And, you know, for them, when it was over, it was over. Like they were all done. Like, okay, we're done with this. Now we're going to ride a boat home together

and we're going to carry on with our lives. But for guys in this war, you would get done with a deployment, but it wasn't over. You know, that deployment was over, but you were going to roll into another one and another one. And so there was no closure. You know, we never, we never even had like a final muster or anything like that. We had funerals we'd go to, you know, we all, we, yeah, too many.

But those are, those are, those are just really just reopening of things. And so to get everyone together and see everyone after 20 years was awesome. It was awesome that you were there. But what was your assessment of the whole thing? I thought it was an amazing weekend. I get the privilege, you know, to see a lot of you guys through the years. I wasn't doing the deployments, but I'd be in San Diego a lot and because you guys are based over here, you know, whenever I came into town,

I'd be calling saying, hey, let's all get together for dinner, let's go to the park. So I've stayed pretty connected. There's a few of them, you know, that I wasn't as close to and didn't stay as connected to. We had, you know, one of our other guys who's still active duty who was, you know, in Hawaii, so we rarely saw him. So it was good to see him back here. But just to have so many of you guys all together and the families, you know, I've gotten really close to a lot of families. And to see, you know, some of these kids, you know, I was there when they were born, you know. I think of Jeremy's little, you know, runt of a guy who was literally, you know, pre-mey that was born.

and I held him like in the palm of my hand. He was teeny tiny. And, you know, to see the big strapping young man, you know, he is now heading off to college. And it does. It just makes me see all those blessings in one place. And yet, you know, as I said, man, probably the most emotional time I've ever had, you know, trying to speak publicly. And I just started to break down.

And for me, again, it seemed like it was five minutes. I mean, it wasn't quite that long. but just to see each one of you and what's happened in your lives, the changes in spite of all that adversity. And so many overcomers that have just accomplished amazing things and to see their families and to see life continue on. And yet, you know, at the same moment to be there at my son's grave. And it is because of that loss that those lives continued on

and, you know, have been able to do so much more. You know, and as, you know, I wrote in that letter, you know, Mark wasn't defeated, you know, as a believer, the end goal, we know we get to spend eternity, you know, with Christ. There's no time frame now for him. And, you know, scripture tells us there's no sickness, no sadness, no sorrow, no pain. You know, and as I commented, if I tried to broker him back here, he would. He'd be pissed at me. He'd be like, what the heck are you doing, mom? Really? Seriously? Are you kidding me right now? Yeah, that was kind of the thoughts that I was, as you were talking and I was thinking of myself, he wouldn't, he wouldn't accept that. No. He's had way too much impact. Yeah. And he'd say, no, I'm not going to trade all that.

Yeah. These other people, you know, he'd put everyone else before himself just like he always did. But to get to see that in all of you guys together was pretty amazing. So, and it was great, you know, like I said, I know the love that you guys all have for Mark that, you know, especially through you, Jocko and Leif and the platform you guys have had that over and over and over you you know honor mark and everybody knows the love that you have for him and but to see so many others that maybe don't have that platform and to know you know how much they still 20 years later you know love mark we had the privilege of and a lot of this you know reflects on the 20 year mark with the reunion that we had in you know January for remoddy with jenn mcfarland in that group

but we had the last muster we were at you got to meet some of the guys that actually went to the master's college with mark and um they made a coin to honor mark a 20 year coin and course i'm like uh duh why did i you know sorry mark mom didn't think to have a 20 year coin made for you but um they came up and presented me one and presented you and mark's other teammates that were there but the college reached out to me and said you know we're writing an article about mark and we'd love to have you know an interview with you to find out more it's been 22 years since mark was at the master's college. How many people do you know that 22 years later the university or college that you went to is call and saying, hey, can we tell his story? You know, he's still making an impact. Can we?

And, you know, that pain is what led to that purpose and that passion. And God continues to use that such a crazy way to literally change the world. You know, Leif and I got to go when Johnny Kim launched to the International Space Station. I'm like, well, I guess I can't say impact of the world now. It's out of this world. But just, you know, that I was blessed to be his mom. God could have picked anybody else. And I got that blessing to see the change.

So thanks for continuing to honor Mark and be part of that legacy, you know, that keeps his legacy alive. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. We, on the second night that we were in town for the reunion, the UDTC Museum in downtown San Diego open their doors for us at night and and let us use the whole facility and let all the fans and you know some of these families they don't they don't know what what the seal teams really are you know and so for some of them that traveled in that haven't you know maybe they got out or maybe they just their family was i mean my family didn't really know too much about the seal teams

when i was in like they didn't it just it just wasn't really part of it and so for everyone to be able to come in there and go through the tour at the ud t seal museum and try the, they have like a video game, a virtual video game where you put on and you fast rope onto a ship and like, clear the helicopter and all the stuff. Yeah. And so, you know,

to watch the kids do that and to get an appreciation for it, I thought that was awesome. And then I think a lot of, you know, look, guys have ups and downs, right? And we've had some guys that have, that have been pretty high up and pretty rough times. well and you know I think that everyone being together and realizing like oh yeah this is not

it's not abnormal right it's not an abnormal to you know get start thinking about what you know the losses that we experienced and the things that we went through and and you know start thinking about the sad times and like that's okay that's like we all do that and so I thought that that was nice to see everyone and and the other funny thing is like I said sometimes you don't see a guy for 15 years 10 years and the thing is when you have this shared um past the shared history you walk up to somebody that you haven't seen in 15 years and the first thing out of their mouth is like some wisecrack about something that happened 17 years yeah you know and you're like oh yeah it's like without missing a beat it's almost like there's those memories are frozen in time and as soon as

as you reengage with those guys, it's like, boom, we're right back there. And the same shenanigans are happening. And I think that's a really powerful thing, too, to think, you know, when you see someone from a distance, you might think, oh, they're probably different now. But then you talk to him and you go, no, they're not any different. It's the same, it's the same dude that was a knucklehead then. He's still a knucklehead now. And I'm, I was a knucklehead then, and I'm a knucklehead now. And so I thought that was a really nice thing to be able to see guys that we haven't seen for a long time meet their families. You know, and a lot of times, you know, my wife would say, oh, is that the guy that whatever? All of our families have heard some part of the story. Exactly.

So to say, oh, yeah, that's the guy that did this. Oh, yeah, that's the guy that we were talking about over here. Oh, yeah. That's the one that fell through the roof. Exactly. Like each one of these guys has their own little, they play a character in our family's heads. Yeah. And so for the families to go, oh, that's who that is. Oh, okay, I got it. That's who that is. I think it just connected a lot of the dots and just bring the guys together.

And it was just an awesome time. Yeah, we did the first night at a restaurant down in Ocean Beach. And that was great. and then the second night at the UDTCL Museum in downtown San Diego, which again was just really, really awesome. And then we went up to Rosecrans on Mark's birthday, which, you know, and we went from Mark's,

we walked down to Mikey, and then from Mikey we walked over to Seth because, you know, Mikey's... They're all part of the task unit. Yes, yes. And, you know, obviously, Ryan's not buried there, and neither is Chris. you know, we definitely thought about them.

Yeah. But walking down and just kind of sharing stories. And, you know, the stories were, was interesting because the stories were kind of all over the map. You know, they were kind of everything from some funny story to a heroic story to, and it's also interesting because you get to hear other people's perspectives. And, you know, we had, you know, the command master chief was there. And, you know, he had his perspective of things, which was just, you know,

It's just great to hear, you know, 20 years ago, it wasn't like the command master chief was going to sit down with me and tell me what his perspective was, not as like the command master chief, but as a seal, as a 30-year seal. But to hear him tell that to whole group, it's like, hmm, that means a lot. Yeah. And I think that was so healing for you guys to come together. We saw that, you know, I referenced the Vermont reunion again, but so many of those guys 20 years later that came back together. that came back together. And we had some that said, man, I haven't seen him since we left the battlefield. And then I ran into other groups and I'm like, when's last time you had, you know, connection?

Oh, we started a group and we are since the day we left, day one, we've been connected and together. And when I met those guys at breakfast that morning, I said, I'm going to be bold and make a statement here, but I'm guessing you haven't lost any of your guys to suicide. They said, nope, we haven't lost one. And that's what's so important is to stay connected, to stay in that tribe. those others that know exactly what you're going through. Yeah, like you said, maybe a different perspective, but they're struggling too.

And then they learn, like you said, it's okay. When you're having those moments that you're hurting and you're missing them, something would be wrong with us. You know, I run into people all the time and are like, so when did you feel like you got over losing mark? I'm like, got over. Are you kidding me? I'll never get over losing mark.

You'll never get over, you know, lose a mark. But you learn ways to manage and you learn ways to cope. but when you can come back together and find out, oh, Jocco, you still have those moments? When you, you know, oh, so I am okay. So this is normal, you know. This civilian world can't understand that. I've got a glimpse, probably more than most civilians, understand that.

But I'm still a civilian, you know. I wasn't, even though I was in the combat zone twice, even though I went on patrol with the first of the fourth cab. it's a glimpse. I can't understand what it's like to go through that intense training. We didn't have bullets whizzed by us when we're out there. Nothing was happening. Not that something couldn't have happened, but nothing did happen while I was out there. So no one else can understand. But when you bring your teammates back together, when that brotherhood comes back together and you share those stories and you see those emotional moments and you got that, you know,

grabbing their shoulder saying, it's okay, buddy, it's normal. You know, and I love that one video that you've got that you've done. well that says that very thing, you know, and in better detail than what I'm saying. But it's powerful. You know, I had a guy that I talked to, and he had had like a really rough time on a deployment, and he had lost a guy, a couple guys wounded. He'd gotten blown up. It was just a really hard deployment, and he ended up not finishing the deployment.

And because he was messed up from IED. blasts and the amount of like guilt that he felt that he didn't do his job was it was absolutely awful burden on his face as I'm talking to him and I just said I said hey man like what you went through is not normal you're not a human being yeah human beings are resilient creatures but they're not meant for this. You're not meant to have repetitive, concussive blasts that rattle. There's nothing in nature that does that. There's nothing in nature that rattles your brain over and over again like that. Okay, if you're a, being a boxer's not normal, by the way. That's not a normal. That's not normal. I agree. That repeated concussion on your brain is not normal. Seeing your friends get wounded and

maimed is not normal. Even if you were, you know, a caveman. You wouldn't be seeing that on a regular basis. And just to go through that and then be in a leadership position where you're responsible for those guys, I said, this is not normal. And the fact that you, that you physically had an injury. And again, it was a, it was TBI. But, you know, the reports were that he was, you know, he couldn't concentrate. He was dazed. Like, yeah, that's an absolute TBI.

This is nothing. That's as much, that's as much of an injury as if I cut your arm off. Like it's the same thing. It's your brain getting rattled around and, and you couldn't continue with your mission. There's absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing at all to be ashamed about that. Yes. Yeah.

And so many guys, I think they hold themselves to such a high standard that when they don't meet an impossible standard, they feel shame. Yeah. And it's just terrible. So for guys to see that, oh, yeah. Oh yeah, this is normal that you're going to be, you know, it's like someone asked you when you're, if you've gotten over losing your son. It's like, no, I'm not going to get over that.

I don't want to get over that. That's what I, that's, that's part of me. That's part of the memory. The sadness is part of the, the joy. Yeah. You know, if you didn't have the joy of knowing someone like Mark, I feel sorry for you that you didn't. But, and that's, that's, that's the reward. And there's pay.

The pay is you get sad. when you think about it. And so, yeah, I think bringing the guys together, and you know, you always wish you could do it more. I mean, you wish you could everyone live in the same compound. You know, let's move back into Team 3 and live in our cages. That'd be great. It'd be fun.

We had so much fun back then. But it just, that's not the way the world works. So hopefully guys stay connected via, you know, via social media and via text messages and all that stuff. stay connected, stay together, because it is, like you said, when guys stay together, they have someone to talk to, they have someone that they can discuss things with, and someone that is going to help, you know, drag them out of a dark place. You know, I had a guy on the other day, on the podcast the other day that went through Ranger School,

and at one point he was going to quit. And one of his buddies was like, you know, hey, are you all right? And he's like, well, you know, I'm not doing too good, blah, blah, blah. And the guy goes, cool. Well, you can quit tomorrow if you want. He said, hmm. Okay. So he kept going.

And then in the next Ranger phase, because there's three phases in Ranger School, the next phase, sure enough, he sees his buddy and his buddy's hurting, his feet were all messed up. And his buddy's, his buddy's like, you know, looking like he's going to make that move. And he says, hey, what's going on, man? He's like, my feet are just messed up. This wasn't meant to be. I think it's just not, you know, I wanted to do it, but I don't think this is really my thing. And he goes, well, that's cool.

You can always quit tomorrow. And so it's a great story of, you know, when you're going to have ups and downs. And when you have a buddy that can grab you when you're down, you're probably going to have. When you're having that down, yeah, instead of just being a loner and no one else is there. Yeah. And you're probably going to have to pull that buddy up at some point and say, hey, you know what, it's okay. Come along with me. We're going to be all right.

So I think that when you have a big enough group, there's always going to be someone that's going to be able to lend a helping hand. There's always going to be someone that needs it, but there's always going to be someone that says, hey, man, we're going to be all right. We're going to get through this. We got, we got plenty of things to look forward to in the world. Let's get through today. Yeah. Let's get through today. And I think that even reflects back to courage.

You know, that's my theme that is, you know, part of my story. But it takes courage to be able to share those, you know, questionable stuff. It takes courage to say, man, I'm hurting. This sucks right now. That is not weakness. That's courage that takes to do that. And then, you know, to be able to be there for one another, man, that's rewarding when you can be there and encourage someone else that, you know, down the depths of despair or, you know, how many veterans we've had that have come through our program or that we've touched base with trying to get them into the program that are struggling of suicide. They don't want to leave. They've lived. They've lost all hope. You know, and someone comes along and walks

alongside them and lets them know what you're going through is very normal and we can help it doesn't have to be this way for the rest of your life there's things that we can do that you know with that frontal over your brain that's taken that intense blast wave exposure that you talked about over and over and over we can heal you not just mask the symptoms and so I think that's the other one of the benefits of you know losing mark and I don't know that benefit of losing mark is the right wording there but the outcome of losing mark yeah yeah yeah was that to be there for so many guys, you know, and gals that are struggling and that don't want it. Like you said, the one with TBI is like, no, I should be embarrassed that I wasn't there.

No, are you kidding me? That's a severe injury. That controls your sleep, your emotions, your memory. We're Looney Tunes if we can't, you know, have any of that. No wonder they can't cope. But, you know, we can give them that hope and say we can help fix this, you know, permanently, not just mask it. Well, let's get into that a little bit. You got America's Mighty Warriors, which you started in 2008, I think, officially.

You kind of unofficially started. But at some point you said, wait, I need to, I can't just do all this stuff. Yeah, I'm running out of my own funds. Yeah, this isn't going to work. So you eventually started America's Mighty Warriors. And one of the, one of the key components of that is something called random acts of kindness. And this is spawned from the letter that the last email letter. that you got home from Mark where he talked about just random acts of kindness.

When's the last time you bought somebody a cup of coffee? When's the last time you paid for a tank of gas for someone that you didn't know or you did know? And, you know, I, the stuff that, so it's one of the most direct, um, um, pipelines to get someone immediate help that I know of in the world. If someone needs help in a matter of hours, uh, a check can be heading, their way and it can help get them through some sort of trauma and you know I was thinking about the things that have happened in the past few years there was a seal got in a car accident had medical bills

checked to him there was a green bray master sergeant for stage four cancer needed help with bills check went to him there was a seal whose mother died they needed help with the funeral expenses check went to him retired marine had a house that got flooded check went to him There was a pilot that was killed in the line of duty, needed to help offset some of the family travel expenses. Check went to him. A police officer had to take time off from work after getting injured, wasn't getting paid, needed to pay his rent. Check went to him. There was a seal that needed to recover from back and shoulder surgeries.

And guess what? He all of a sudden didn't have the income he needed. Check went to him. A Navy, a retired Navy diver's mortgage. he got injured and couldn't work, sent a check to him. Those are just some of the, we had seals that needed cars. Like, hey, I don't have a car right now. I'm in a bad situation.

Can I get some help? Yes. So those are the kind of things. I mean, those are like a small fraction of the examples of the random acts of kinds of. And I know you do, you personally do more minor ones that are just, you know, nice kind of, but these are sort of some of the bigger picture ones. Yeah, it's really cool right now this week.

I don't know if it's today or happened yesterday or tomorrow, but we were able to do a random act of kindness for a World War II veteran who was a prisoner war. He did the baton death march. Oh, my goodness. And was a prisoner war. And, of course, they just did a mass grave every time one of the prisoner wars died and just threw him in the grave. Well, didn't have the technology back then to be able to discern, you know, who was who. and through DNA testing, they were able to determine who he was.

And we were able to help fly the remains home and pay for the funeral expenses for this family. And granted, it's World War II, so his mom's not alive. You know, his immediate family's not alive. But so that his great-grandson and his family could go be there for the funeral. And I just think of, you know, Mark, my 28-year-old kid that gave his life, you know, in 2006, and he's still impacting back to World War II, you know, even though Mark didn't know him, still a brother at arms, you know, that he's helping to be able to do that through the foundation. And it's just that care, whether it's, you know, through our Helping Heroes Heal program and the

personal care we give, whether it's that care. It's like I talked about in all those things. If we had to pull those things back and say, I selfishly want Mark here, you know, no. this is crazy the things that are happened maybe for two days can we get them for two days oh can you imagine for two days all the craziness but it's it's powerful it is so powerful and again that comes back to a choice that was made I had no choice the news that was given to me on August 2nd 2006 and as I said I'd walk through death before I you know had experienced grief I knew this would be much harder And when my husband died, I wrote in my journal two weeks after he died.

What's wrong with me? Why am I still crying? Why have things not gone back to normal? I really had no clue what the grief journey was like. But I started reading and I read probably 25, 30 books on grief and what to expect. And the seven stages of grief. And all of them say the toughest death that you can go through is the instant death of your child. And having lost a spouse and a child, I agree 100%.

Now, granted, it was a second marriage for me. It was not a good marriage. He, you know, cheated on me, and not that I wanted him dead, but, you know, it was still loss. So it's not like I don't want to compare myself to someone who's been married to someone for 52 years and the love of their life. But in my experience, it definitely was true that was much, much harder. Losing Mark. And I get it when people curl up in a ball and, you know, can't pull themselves out of that. but the pain wasn't any different for me.

That pain was intense. And for me to, you know, curl up in a ball and feel sorry for myself, that wouldn't have brought Mark back. You know, the stress destroys our bodies. We see that all the time with, you know, you guys coming back and with the PTSD. But my choice was to put on his boots and pick up his weapon and stay in the fight. That's a choice, you know. That's that courage that comes.

in. Did I have it all figured out at that point when I made that choice? No, I just said, I'm not going to quit. I'm not going to give in. We had amazing support from August 2nd until the funeral. I came back home to Arizona. I'm not near the seal base where, you know, they're so great in the community of checking in. You guys were still all deployed, you know, so that support wasn't there. And I came back home and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm starting a journey. This is going to be a long journey and I'm all by myself. There's nobody here to help. And again, you know, my personality's not have a pity party, but I'm like, okay, I can make this different for the next person. You know, little did I know that it be seven weeks or so later when we lose Mikey Mansour. And again, I'm still

very fresh in the healing process. You know, my wound is not healed. The scab's not even there yet. But I came over to support the Mansour family. And I remember coming over, it's the same hotel. We you stayed in. The same black cars, you know, I don't know if it's exact same, but the same, you know, type of car came to pick them up. And I remember talking to the Admiral, and he came over and he's like, how you doing? I'm like, hanging in there. And he said, we want you to go with the family in their cars. I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no. This is not about Mark. This is not about me. That's not why I'm here. I'm here to support the family. And literally, almost pleading in his eyes, he looked at me like, yes, that's why we want you.

in that car. And so I got in there with the family, and of course, Mikey's buried up at Fort Rose Grand's where Mark is ceremony at the same place, and I get up there, and it's even the same style of casket, and I'm just like, oh, what am I doing? This is so painful. Now I know what it's like to receive that folded flag, you know, but I knew that's where I was supposed to be, you know, and stayed very close, you know, to the Mansour family, and, you know, but that was the one unofficially, you know, the first family that we supported there. But again, that was a choice to make that choice. And there's so many things in life that we have that opportunity to make a choice, you know,

and it takes courage to do that. It may be tough to do that. It may be tough for our veterans to stand up and say, I can't cope anymore. I see no hope. I don't want to live anymore. You know, I need help instead of saying, no, someone else, you know, worse off than me, needs this. No.

you know, that takes leadership, that takes courage to stand up and say, I want that help. And so, you know, again, not that I had a plan laid out or decided I was going to do a foundation or, you know, God just kind of put me in places to be able to support and to help. And, you know, people can do that. They can make that choice, even in the midst of their pain, even in the midst of their injuries, whether it's, you know, physical, mental, spiritual, moral, You know, you can make that choice. You know, and then, you know, for me, God gave me the strength to do what I do every day.

So then it's an honor. It really is an honor to see Mark's impact and to get to know so many of you guys. And I was talking to Nick Cush this morning, and I said, I am a blessed woman, you know, that I have so many. And it was funny because, and I know you shared, I think it was Mark's birthday bash a couple years ago,

the video that you sent. And I never even thought about, it this way but you know he said mama lee started out and she was there for Charlie Platoon and she supported Charlie the task unit bruiser and then it was SEAL Team 3 and then it was the West Coast SEALs and then it was you know all the seals and then it was all the military you know and um now it's just global yeah but it wasn't everything any of the ever set out to do you know it's just God put me in the right place and gave me a heart to be able to support and love on you guys and

You know, what a blessing back that has been. You know, going back to the process of grief, and this is something that I really connect to a lot of other things. So one of the things that I try to explain to people when they lose somebody, especially, is it's what makes it so strange. It's exactly what you just said with you who were crying for two weeks and you say, hold on, what's wrong with me? So there's a huge part of one of the weirdest things about grief is as an adult, as a grown person, you're supposed to be able to have some kind of control over your emotions. So, oh, I can't, you know, I need to push through this. Or I need to, you know, I'm not talking about some hardcore seal pushing through. I'm talking like, oh, oh, you know, somebody caught me in line at the grocery store.

I'm not going to yell and scream. I'm going to bite my lip and we're going to go through. Or, you know, your boss yells at you. You don't yell back. you go, yes, boss, you know, like we learn to control our emotions as we grow up. And that's a difference between an adult and a baby, right? A toddler, you take his toy away, he screams and cries. An adult, you take their thing that they want away and they go, okay, I got to figure out how to get this back.

We try and use logic, right? Well, when you get hit with these heavy losses, all of a sudden, as an adult, you do not have control over your emotions. And I think that is very, very scary for people. And it definitely was scary for me when I would lose, like when Mark got killed, I'm like, oh, I'm not going to be able to talk right now. Like I can't speak words. And so it's very strange. I mean, I was a, you know, I have pretty good control over my emotions. All of a sudden like, oh, no, you're not going to, you, you don't get a vote here anymore.

This isn't, this isn't, this isn't, just your emotions don't care right now. Now, those emotional waves that hit you in the beginning, they will start to dissipate over time. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's okay. That's what that's your, that's you, you are processing it. And every time you can't control your emotions, you've learned something, you figure something out, you make progress. And, and I'm not saying you will always control your emotions because sometimes you'll just get choked up and that's the way it's going to be. but those there in the initial moments it sometimes seems like oh I'm my I'm never going to have

control again and I think that's what really scares people is they go oh wait a second like you after two weeks going oh my gosh I'm going to feel like this forever and what I try and tell people is like it feels like that but it's not you won't be like that forever you won't be like that forever it won't happen it might take two weeks it might take a month it might take three months it might take six months, but eventually you will start to process it. You'll start to come to grips with it. But I think it's important to know. Number one is that, listen, it is a finite amount of time that you will be completely a slave of your emotions. But that time will end. And then it's important to remember that like in that moment, you feel like you don't have a choice. You don't have a

choice in that moment, but there will come a time after a week or two weeks or a month where you go, okay, I understand that sometimes I'm going to be emotional, but I have to move forward and I can make a choice right now about what I'm going to do with this. And the reason I bring this up with, because it doesn't only apply to, you know, we're talking about the most, you're literally talking about the most extreme circumstance which there is, which is sudden death of a child, which can't even imagine, can't even fathom. That's the most extreme. example of this. Well, people deal with much less extreme examples of this, but still, you know, someone gets

fired from their job. Someone finds out that their spouse is cheating on them. Something that goes wrong with their finances. Like there's always going to be stresses and situations that we get in where we start to feel an emotion that we cannot control, whether it's panic, whether it's grief, whether it's anger. and you kind of have to learn to kind of ride that emotion for until it settles a little bit and you can you know it's like being on a horse that's just going wild you got to just you got to just hang on for a little while until that thing's going to lose a little bit of its energy it's like when you drop in on

a big wave surfing like you have to survive that drop in and eventually you'll get to the bottom turn and you'll catch the wave but and eventually that wave loses its energy you know it's not going to it's not going to continue. The horse is going to run out of energy. So riding that wave, riding that horse until it settles down enough. And I think that's an important part when you're a friend, when you're a parent, when you're a spouse, when you're a mom or dad, and you see someone that is trapped in those moments, what you're actually trying to do is just help them get through that moment. By the way, there's nothing you can say. I can't say, oh, oh, Mama Lee, you lost your son. I'm sorry for your loss. It doesn't matter. I mean, it's nice. It's fine. I'm

sorry for your loss, I know how you feel. Don't say that. Um, you know, or he's in a better place. Yeah, he's in a better. Yes, I know he's in a better place, but right now my pain is intense. Right. And so there's nothing you're going to say as a parent, as a spouse, as a friend that's going to, they go, oh, thanks for, oh, thanks, Jocko. Thanks for saying, uh, you're, oh, you're sorry for my loss, Jocco? Thank you. And I feel better now. No, that's not going to happen. What you're really trying to do is be there and, and, and, and help them just be a, uh, something that they can look to, something they can see, and just be there for them to help them, because they're going to have to get out of that emotional state themselves.

They got to get them out of it. Almost nothing you can say will help them get out of it. I've never been successful. It's like when my daughters lose a wrestling match or a jihitsu match, there's really nothing I can say. There's nothing I can say. I've failed 100% of the time to say anything that made them not be mad. So it's one of those situations.

they're emotional. Yeah. There's nothing you can do about it. But as a friend, as a spouse, as a teammate, being there, letting them know, hey, I'm here. That's probably, if there's anything you could say, that might be it. If you need me, I'm here. I tell people that all the time when they're asking, okay, so-and-so, here's the relationship.

They, you know, lost somebody. What do I do? You know, I don't know whether to go. I don't know whether to talk to them about their loved one. I don't know whether they're not mentioned their, you know, the one that died. I don't know what to do. I said, just be there because you feel so all alone. You feel like no one else can possibly understand what you're going through.

So you're correct that trying to say, oh, I understand what you're going through. I had a lady once. Oh, my goodness, I wanted to clean her clock. I'd been speaking an event and it shared Mark's story. And she came up to me afterwards and she said, she's all teary-eyed. She says, I'm so sorry. You know, I understand. Well, if someone tells me that, maybe they didn't lose their kid in combat.

I'm guessing they've lost a child. And it doesn't matter if it's combat or what way it is. It's painful. And I said, oh, I'm sorry. Did you lose your child? And she said, no, I just lost my cat. And I was just like, oh. And I was just, I just paused.

I'm like, don't hit her. Don't hit her. But I'm like, and then I step back and I thought, you know what? Maybe this lady's never lost anybody close to her. Maybe that intensity of losing her pet. You know, people get really connected to their pets and it's painful. But at the time I'm thinking, you did not just compare your cat to my son who stood up in the line of fire three times on his final day and gave his life. Are you kidding me right now?

But I always said I was going to write a book saying the stupidest things people say to people say to people grieving. And it was just like, because I've heard some whack-a-doodle. But I think back to that grief statement that in the beginning, we couldn't, if we had to have to, emotionally and mentally process instantly that loss, there's no way that we're designed to do that. You know, we'd all go commit Harry Carey. And so I think God allows us to be in that numb, that painful, that crying, that, you know, just kind of shut down mode to try to, you know, it's like when they forcefully put people in a coma that are severely, you know, have injuries with swelling in the brain or whatever. And so they put them in a coma just to stay in that rest state. And I think that's part of that process.

And it does. It gets, you know, the further you get from that day to loss, you shouldn't be crying all day long. In the beginning, yeah, I didn't want to get out of bed. You know, I just felt like why I got nothing to live for, you know, is how I felt at the time. But that wasn't long that that stayed that way. And so I always encourage people when those emotions come, when you feel like it's surfacing and you need to cry, let it out. don't sit there and cry for hours and hours and hours when it's been 20 years later. You guys saw me up at the grave breakdown, you know, and I was able then to, you know,

kind of pull it back together. But whenever I'm speaking and there's that intensity, I know I'm going to need to get home and have, you know, a little bit of cry, you know, and it goes for a few minutes, and then I focus on something else. In the beginning, what I would do was Mark's amazing letter, go do random exa kindness. And so I'd purpose, and I still do, on the anniversary of his death or on his birthday, you know, I plan to go out and do random acts of kindness. And usually I'll go to base because it's, you know, important for us to do the military or I'll go,

I live in a retirement community and you'll go in a restaurant and see lots of people with, you know, their military hats or T-shirts or something on. And so that makes me feel so cool, you know, when I go up and get to buy somebody and I'm like, no, no, no, thank you. I'm like, oh no, my son was the first seal killed in Iraq, and he challenged us to do this. And then they're like, okay, thank you. And then I would say it was probably about two weeks, you know, after we lost Mark and I was just, it was probably at that point where it was just before the funeral just came back.

And because my focus was so much on you guys, you know, and our troops, you know, that are fighting still. And for you guys, I was like, oh, my gosh. I can't make a decision at all. My brain is just mush. And my focus was on, how are you guys going to do this? You've still got to do missions. You've still got to go out and be 100% alert, you know? And I remember laying in a bed and just thinking, yeah, I got no reason to get up today. And in my thoughts, God said, you know, do you have hot water in your shower? You got something to be grateful for? Like, yeah, I live in America. Of course I got hot water. in my shower. He's like, a lot of our troops, they're not even on a base where they can get up

and take a shower today. I was like, oh my gosh, how selfish in me. Yes, thank you, God, I have hot water in my shower. And I started doing that every morning. And I said that gratitude thing, if you wake up every morning before your feet hit the ground and find one thing to be grateful for, it changes your whole mindset for the day. And it's crazy how that happens. And then about that same time it was like get up walked to the end of the driveway and I'm like and my driveway literally at that time was about the length of my car so it wasn't a big feat but because I just got up out of bed and did that and I'm competitive so then the next day it's like okay walk to the end of the block well it was two houses over so not a big accomplishment but to where I walk five miles a day every

day and then the other thing is I tell people go serve go do something for somebody else because when you're doing something for somebody else, you feel better. And so I call that my GPS, the gratitude and the physical, you know, hopefully not just walking into the driveway, but doing a good intense workout. There's feel-good endorphins that are released when you do that. And so I think those things help people, you know, that are in that grieving process. Yes, when that's first happened, I can't go up to you and go, oh, here's the little GPS I'm going to tell you to do. You know, this is going to cure everything.

But as you go through that process, and I know you've shared this before too, but, you know, I would share with people even from the beginning, as you're walking alongside the ocean, and you see those waves, you know, and you don't want to get wet, you just want to enjoy the moment. And so you're walking along and you're watching and it's beautiful and things are great. And all of a sudden a sneaker wave comes up and just soaks you. And, you know, grief can be that way. You can be thinking you're doing pretty good with it. And then all of a sudden something hits and you're just like, oh, but don't take that as defeat that you're back at the beginning. It's just part of that process as, you know, God knows we can handle a little bit more of it than a little more that healing takes place. And it is. It's a journey. Yeah, it's a lifelong process. Yeah.

One of the things that you mentioned was, you know, you were, you came out here for March's funeral. And so you're, you know, you're dealing with all this stuff and you're distracted, right? And it's, do you get home? and all of a sudden you're in bed by yourself, it's like, oh, that's when it hits you. And I've heard that from a lot of people, and there's a lot of people that they want to focus on something. Even the things like the administrative parts of a funeral,

who's doing what? And we're going to put flowers like, you know, the wives or the husband that's like very focused on the minute details of stuff because they're just trying to get their mind off the loss. And that was for sure, like what my mode was. And it was like, oh, I don't know what, I don't know how to handle any of this, but I do know how to work. So we're going to work.

What I do know how to do, I'm going to focus on. That's what we did. Now, that being said, also, once you started, you know, talking to people about it, and even what you just said, you know, you're in a restaurant, you pay for someone's meal. And they say, oh, that's okay, ma'am. And they go, no, no, no. And you say, no, no, my son was the first deal killed in Iraq. That's like one moment where you talk about losing mark, right? It's all encompassed in this one little statement and I've always been very

You know very supportive of talking about things writing about things Sharing the things and I think that every time that you do that every time you express The feelings that you have you get more Control and understanding of those feelings and it becomes the net effect is very very positive so So like for you, clearly, you know, at America's Mighty, you, you tell Mark's story all the time. I tell Mark's story all the time, right? And I can make it through, I can make it through Mark's story. I would say 60% of the time, I can make it through pretty stable, you know, 40% of the time,

you know, there might be a sneaker wave that gets me. But, you know, that comes from going through those emotions over and over again and starting to see what they are, where they're. come from why they're there there there's nothing wrong with them it's okay and and you know for me it was like I was out of the gate you know writing eulogy for market in Ramadi like I mean I can't I remember I was writing that thing and it was just I was a disaster I mean just openly crying as I'm trying to write about Mark and everybody's winner all these it's agony yeah and then you know you do it again and you do it again and you do it again and you do it again and you do it again and you do it again

you get to share the story and you know maybe there's some there's some metaphysical thing that happens when you share that that joy and that pain other people feel that joy and they feel that pain they get a little bit of it they take a little bit from you and that's kind of a good thing right they get to share those emotions but but I think that's a really positive thing to do and again this goes back to the whole idea of America's mighty and connecting people together because Because if you don't talk to anybody and you just let those emotions, which are, they're sadness, but sadness doesn't just stay sadness if it's, if it's inside you, right? Yeah.

It doesn't just stay sadness. It starts to turn and get darker and darker and darker and darker. Whereas if you let it out, it actually lets people see the perspective and understand. you connect with people. So I think that that idea of connecting with people, of sharing, of talking, of writing is such an under, and you don't, look, I guess people go to a therapist to do this, right? Sometimes people get to a point where they got to go to a therapist.

That therapist, what are they trying to get you to do? They're trying to get you to talk. It's literally called talk therapy. They're just trying to get that out of you so that you can process it better. There is an element of detachment that comes when you say something, when you write something down, it's no longer inside you. You become detached from it. You can now see it from a different perspective. You can see what it looks like.

And that really helps you understand it. And so that's really powerful for people out there that you go through something hard. You've got some challenges to face. Even if it's like, you know, if you have financial trouble and you got some financial burdens and they're weighing on you heavily and you don't talk. to your wife about it it's not gonna get easier it's not gonna go away it's not gonna go away you know if you but you say hey honey here's what's going on we missed this I didn't pay that I got behind over here I shouldn't have bought this here's where at where can we save you are gonna be that's probably gonna be one of the hardest

conversations you have to have but I promise you at the end of that conversation you're gonna be moving in the right direction you're gonna feel better yeah so do you think when you look back like all the writing I mean you send out an amazing news newsletter all the time the writing that you've done, the talks that you've given, like, how much do you think that has helped you move through and process losing Mark? Yeah, I'm sure that's helped me, you know, in great ways, processed through that. I didn't start in the beginning to do that. If you'd have told me I'd be speaking in front of people, I'd be like, oh, no, there's no way in heck that I'm

ever doing that. I had a preschool and kindergarten for 15 years. We did a, you know, cute little kiddos, you know, their Christmas program and a kindergarten graduation. And I literally, two weeks before my kids knew, oh my gosh, mom's going to start stressing, freaking out, because she knows this thing's coming. I would hold the microphone with both hands, and it still would be bouncing like that. I was so terrified to speak in front of people. But I heard of an organization that was, it was back in 2006, there was so much, you know, anti-war protests from Code Pink and the wack-a-doodles. That's when they spray-painted. anti-war stuff on the Capitol steps. And Nancy Pelosi's like, nope, don't arrest him. And I'm like,

what do you mean, don't arrest him? If I went up there and started spray paint and Mark Lee, and he's a hero and mighty warrior, you know, I would be arrested in a Harvey, as I should be. I'm destroying public property. But it just, in the midst of the grief, it just angered me. I'm like, oh, no, you are not attacking my troops. This is not happening. And so I saw they were doing a cross-country, you know, tour to, support the troops. And I had to be in D.C. for something related to Mark. I don't remember what it was, but I was flying back home. So they'd started in California. And so I joined them in Tucson. But when they ended, then I think it was close to Mark's birthday on the one-year anniversary. And I wanted to be

back in San Diego. So I just got a rental car and started following them. I'm like, I can wave my flag and, you know, cheer for our troops better than anybody else could. And when I got there, I had communicated with, it was Move America Forward and the Tea Party Express is who it later became, but I communicated with them ahead of time so they knew I was going to be joining them, you know, just to drive behind them and, you know, cheer our troops on. And when I got there, they said, we've got the mother of, you know, fallen Navy SEAL, Mark Lee here, she's going to come up and speak. And I'm like, wait, what?

And I went up, and, of course, I didn't know, or I may have known that it didn't stick with my brain all of Mark's story at that point. so I don't even know what I got up and said that day. Just full blackout, I'm going for it. And I got done there like, that's amazing. Would you speak at every one of our rallies? You know, when you follow us? I'm like, I guess.

I don't know. But that's one of the things I have learned. When God calls you to do something, you may not have the skills or talents to do that, but he will give you what you need to do that. And he sure did, you know. and as I would get up there each time, I'd think of Mark running into the line of fire for his final actions,

you know, and I'm like, seriously, I'm going to be afraid of speaking to people when, you know, he gave his life fighting for us. And so it wasn't anything I planned or I'd read a book that said, oh, this is, you know, this will help you processing through grief. And, you know, I've always enjoyed writing. That was always something, you know, that I enjoyed doing. but so then I you know would write different things but I think definitely that for whatever you're

going through that helps and maybe you don't publish it maybe you don't speak publicly in fact chances are you aren't going to publish it right right but write it out and and you you never know know maybe that is something that but the impact that I you know hear back from so many people we just had a couple staying at the Heroes Hope Home over the weekend and her son is, not a Gold Star family, but her son's getting ready to join the Air Force, and she goes, I've watched you for years, and I was terrified before to have my kid go in the military. But now I've seen, you know, you've given me that hope and encouragement that even if, you know, the worst happened, I'm good, you know, I've watched you walk through this, you know.

And again, not that I've ever done anything purposely thinking, okay, well, I'm going to set the example here. or do that for that reason. But we just don't ever know how our lives are going to impact somebody that's watching what we're doing. But, you know, I love sharing the hope and encouragement, you know, and that's my spiritual gift is I'm an encourager. So to be able to, you know, be able to help others and encourage them and whatever they're going through, you know, whether it's, you know, by speaking or writing or just living

life, you know, that's how God's equipped me and I love doing that. But I think that's something that people should do when you're processing through stuff is writing. I think that also helps you sort through, you know, how are we going to solve this? No, no doubt. You know, and you can, you know, write something and then you reread it and you're like, oh, wait, here's another thought. Here's another idea. You know, could I try this? Could I do this?

How about that? You know, so I would encourage people do that. Even if you say you're not a writer. Doesn't matter. You know, nobody's going to inspect it. Nobody, yeah. You'll get better. Yeah, writing.

and if you can't write, I mean, just talk to your buddy about it. You know what I mean? Just open up a little bit, get it out. Like you said, that's what therapy is anyway. Lots of people pay big bucks for you to go talk to somebody and they just listen to you. Yeah, just start invoicing your friends when you get done with a conversation. I should do that for Echo Charles. Because, you know, you may not know this, but when we show up here, usually if we don't have a guest,

then Echo will talk to me for between one and one point. five hours about random stuff. Wait, what? He's got things, he's got opinions, he's got to talk to me about stuff, he's got to fill me in on stuff. So I'm going to start sending you an invoice for therapy. One of the things that we mentioned really, we kind of brushed over a little bit was TBI and PTSD.

And one of the biggest things and most impactful things at America's Mighty is the helping Heroes Heal program. And this is a whole slew of different protocols with hyperbaric oxygen therapy, H-Bot, supplement therapy, restorative retreats, so getting people out of these

stressful situations. Talk to me a little bit about how you've discovered that and what you see the benefits in all share some. I mean, I've seen absolute life-changing, life-saving situations where people have completely turned around after going through this program. Where did you first hear about it? So we were the first military charity. I want to say it's 14 years ago now to

start reading about the research. The gal that was my executive director at the time had read quite a bit on it and shared it. So we started really digging into it. I'm like, okay, well, this is kind of an alternative therapy, but let's dig into it and see what we found. And so we started doing more research and, you know, got connected with some people who'd done some of the research studies. I read a book by Dr. Harch called The Oxygen Revolution, and it very much made sense to me. And so I said, okay, let's test it out and let's send a couple guys to do that. Again, that was back when our budget wasn't huge. So, you know, we just had, I think, that first year, three guys go through the program, which now we have, you know, easily three guys a month

or gals. I say guys kind of generically. And by the way, we do all branches of the military. I know that, you know, we're really heavy in the seal community just because that's my family. But we do all branches of the military. Well, you also have Marines and armies in your family as well. So I do. My oldest son served in the Marines. He was in Okinawa the whole time. Met his wife there. When he went over, I'm like, oh, honey, don't fall in love over there. I'll never get to see you. I'll never get to see my grandkids. And he's like, Mom, I'm not even attracted to the Asian woman. I'm like, okay, awesome, we're good.

How long that lasted? And he was there five years. And so you remember the country song, the girls get prettier at closing time? I'm like, so was it like that? But she's amazing. They live a mile from me. And very close to those five grandkids that are there. But what a blessing they are.

And then my son-in-law, Christopher, yes, they're both Chris's. He served in Iraq. He was there when we first went over. And then my brother served in the Air Force. I think he did like 13 deployments. You know, their deployments are a little bit shorter. and then Mark's best buddy was in the Coast Guard. All branches covered.

And, of course, now they added the Space Force, so we don't have anybody in Space Force. But Johnny Kim, you know. He's got to be close. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, granted, he's still part of the Navy and it was NASA. And it's a different program. I do understand that. But yeah.

But very proud of, you know, all branches of our military and all those who've served and never take for granted the freedoms that I get to enjoy every single day because all those who've served. but as we started, you know, learning the stories and talking, you know, and hearing all the stuff. And I'd say, so when's the last time, you know, you had eight hours to sleep? And I don't know, 10 years ago, I'm like, what? And I said, what's a normal night's sleep? Well, three or four hours?

I'll tell you what, Jocko, if I'd have had three or four hours sleep last night, we would have already had 20 times where I've been like, huh? What were we talking about? What was I saying? And sleep is so important to our time. healing process. Of course, I never thought I would know as much about the brain as I do now and that I've learned. But we got connected with a facility down to Texas and started doing spec scans before and after of their brains before they went through treatment. And you see some of that. I mean, you hear the symptoms and the changes in the veterans as they go through the program.

But when we saw those on the, you know, spec scans black and white, some of them, it was so bad, it looked like there was a hole in their brain. And I'm like, how are they even functioning at all? And so, you know, over and over, that'd just be reinforced and seeing another one healed and another one healed. And a lot of them were suicidal. And September is, you know, national suicide awareness month. And unfortunately, my husband, second husband, committed suicide. So we've lived through that. But so something else, what we were really passionate about, getting them that healing. And there's so much out there. that's just masking the symptoms. And I get why you guys want to try anything and everything to get rid of the pain

and self-medicating with alcohol or illegal drugs or abusing your prescription drugs, but it's not healing you. It's just masking the symptoms. And I think over and over you go through trying another therapy and it fails and another therapy and it fails. And then pretty soon you get so hopeless and that's why you get to that place where you feel like the only relief you're going to get it is taking your life. And that's not a choice. I mean, that's a choice to make that.

But that's not the right choice. You know, that is something that's a permanent solution to something that we've found, we can get you healing for. The frontal over your brain is what controls so much. That's the major blast wave exposure, whether it's from IEDs or breaching or firing your firearms over and over and over. And it's just like the shaking baby syndrome. your brain is not designed for your brain to hit your skull over and over. And that's what happens. And during that blast wave exposure, you have no oxygen that's coming to your brain.

And so the more times you do that, then the more that your brain starts to die off. And so as we saw that healing take place for our veterans over and over and hear the stories of those that literally, they had the gun laying on the table, ready to take their life. And as we spoke with them and encouraged them and enrolled them in the program and then saw, you know, that healing, several of them, some of our task unit bruiser boys that life saving, not just changing, literally, lives that wouldn't be here today. And, you know, I remember the first veteran that told me that when I'd called before I had a program director and Kowie Mae Errol, who was task unit bruiser, is our program director. But I would always call and follow up and say, okay, how's your sleep? How's the memory? How's the emotions? Whether it was the raging emotions or no emotions, you know, that's that frontal lobe of the brain again. And he went through the things telling me all the changes that had happened. And he said, well, you saved my life. And I said, well,

you were willing to give your life for me. Are you kidding? This is no brainer for me to help you. And he says, no, stop. And I was like, ro-ro. Made a Navy Seal man. That's probably not going to end. well and he said, I literally wouldn't be a life today if it wasn't for you and your foundation and the programs you provided. Hugh saved my life. And when he said that so strong, I thought a mark running the line of fire to save his teammates' lives. I'm like, oh my gosh, that kid is still saving his teammates' lives. And to be a peace, even if it's only one life, that was saved, one life that was healed. You know, most people don't have that blessing to be involved in that,

and we've seen that over and over. We've worked on legislation, you know, for the past five or six years, trying to get that approved. We're still currently working on that, trying to get that change. We haven't made progress yet on that? No, they have made pilot studies, and this is probably about 10 years ago. They approved legislation to do a pilot study.

And in that pilot study, you had to have two therapies that you'd gone to the VA for that have failed, and then they were supposed to refer you for Hyperbaric for the 40 protocols. And during last time I checked, it's been probably three years or so since I've checked. Only five veterans were ever referred. Well, the first failure, a lot of them go to the talk therapy or the exposure therapy, and it hasn't worked. A lot of them have tried the medications, and a lot of those have side effects that say, cause suicidal tendency. We wonder why are suicide rates so high? So, you know, right there, there's two that they should be referring out. But part of the problem is they did a research study

and Dr. Harch had done 100 veterans and you can't do a placebo. You can't put somebody in a chamber with no oxygen and somebody who won't with oxygen. Obviously we die with no oxygen without oxygen. You can't put them in an unpressurized chamber versus a pressurized chamber because we can all tell. So when they got done, the research showed that they all had improved. And when those that were evaluating that at the top said, not everybody can approve. There's no way. It's in their head. They just go in there and they think they're better.

And, of course, my thought on that, it was, well, isn't our goal to get them better? If they think they're better and they're better, even if that were the case, which it wasn't. But the placebo group was getting it at 1.3 ATA. So they weren't going as deep in the dive. and then the other group was getting it at 1.5, so they were going a little bit deeper. So obviously the ones in the 1.5 were getting more intense healing, but they all benefited from it. And the gentleman that did all the research, they would not let him write the summary. They hired someone else to do that, and I've talked to the gentleman, and they said, well, it doesn't really work.

And so they're basing it all on this old research project that over and over they're saying it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And it's like, oh, there's been more that's been done since then. So, and I think that could be the pharmaceutical companies that, you know, don't want to see this. We had one of our veterans who, when he came to us, was on 53 prescription drugs at the same time. That should be malpractice. And what's happening is, you know, they have an opioid addiction, and the opioids cause you to clog up. So now you've got to give something to release that. And then they can't sleep.

So they give you something to sleep. Well, the morning you can't wake up. So they give you speed to, you know. And it's just this vicious cycle if you're just medicating the symptoms. from the medication that you're getting. After he went through our program, he was on three prescription drugs. Yeah. That frontal lobe and all these, you know,

concussive blows that it takes in your career and talking to people that have watched their husbands, you know, we had Sarah Wilkinson on this podcast, her husband, Chad, was a seal that killed himself. And but just talking to her, like she was just like, it was a different guy than the guy that I married. This is the guy that I married. And this guy at the end of his life was not the same person. And, you know, and they had a good life.

I mean, they were great people. I mean, she's a great amazing woman. They had amazing kids. Like, you know, they were into CrossFit. Like, they were just really cool. It wasn't like some, you know, train wreck of a marriage or anything. It was like a really nice couple with a great relationship. And, you know, you're in the SEAL teams.

You're in the Marine Corps. You're in combat. You're just, you're just, you're just taking blows. Like, whether it's, whether it's firing your weapon, firing a 50 cow, firing Carl, in Carl Gustavs, doing breaches, crashing rooms, like, you, you, you hit rooms in the crash. Like, if someone throws a crash in a room and you're in there, you just, you just, you just, just eat it. Like that's just what you do. And that can happen on a regular basis. When you're, and when you're in training, you're in the training cell. So a training detachment, like, oh, you're in

the catwalk. That thing's blowing up. Like you're going to feel it. You're going to feel it. And by the way, you're going to see the next platoon do it. You can see the next platoon do it. And they're going to do over and over again. And you're probably seeing, you know, five times as much as the platoon guys are because you're either in the rafters or in the room when it's happening. And then you're watching the breach get set up. You know, you're one that's controlling. Everything is just going boom, boom, boom, boom. And to think that, and the other really important thing I think here is that different people respond differently to these blasts. And there's people that, I mean, I always bring up the example of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, right?

George Foreman and Muhammad Ali were big heavyweight bruisers. And they punched hard and they took a lot of hits in their career. And George Foreman was like, good to go. through his whole life. You know, he was selling us grills and whatnot. And, you know, we all saw what happened to Muhammad Ali. They both had very similar styles and very similar lives. Yeah.

And yet one of them was okay. One of them was not. And there's a bunch of boxers that you can look at that are on both sides of that fence of, you know, really, really messed up or pretty much normal. And a lot of them have very, very similar careers. So it's the same thing that happens with military people. You know, some people just, they have a, they just don't have a propensity for that damage to happen. And some people have more of a propensity for that damage to happen. And that's just the way it is.

Kind of like, I'm not as fast of a runner as Mark is. You know what I mean? Like, Mark can run faster than me. Okay. Cool. Like, that's the way it is. You know, everyone's got their little advantages and disadvantage. Some people are more flexible.

Some people are less flexible. Some people have more fast twitch muscle. Some people have more slow twitch muscle. So we've all got our little individual physiological differences. And one of those differences, some people, those blasts really impact their brain in a super negative way. And some people, it's less. And so to think that, you know, you're just going to be able to give blanket cures to people is also crazy. And I think that this HBot thing, to me, it should be part of the escalation of treatment, right?

where, you know, the first thing, talk therapy, and that really helps some people. I know people that that has really helped them out. They started, you know, when the SEAL teams opened up that kind of therapy thing, like I knew guys that went to it, and they were like, oh, yeah, I'll never stop going to that. Okay, great. That's awesome. And then after that, well, I guess there's drugs that you can try or something like that, but I think even before the drugs, why not try something like HBot where it's like, let's see where this goes first.

So one of the things that IDF does, so the Israeli Defense Force, all of their veterans, when they've been exposed to blast wave exposure, they come back and go in the chamber. And they are not having the issues that we're having with the PTSD and TBI. So we tried working with the command for a while to make that protocol we've been offered to send chambers to the combat zone to be able to, as soon as they came back from a mission, you just go in there. And then I think that also eliminates the having to raise my hand and say, I need help. because they've all gone through there. This is what you're doing. Yes. And it would just make such a difference, such a difference.

But we've had over 600 veterans that have gone through a year-long program. That does also include the hormone and supplement therapy. And I love that Secretary Higseth, you know, has implemented the testosterone. I don't know to what level, you know, that has happened. But we've seen amazing, you know, results even with those things, getting the body back to where God designed our body to be, you know, producing that. The stress, you know, your cortisol shoots off the charts. Your testosterone is, you know, down to that of an, you know, 80-year-old man sometimes. But we do that with Kevin Lace, who was Mark's teammate,

who was the medic that actually was with Mark when he died, yeah. And he got out and started. Actually, he went to a medical school and became a physician's assistant. And then he partners with Dr. LeMay down in Pensacola. He has Trident Performance Medicine. So we were work with him to do that. You mentioned the retreats. We've got a facility out in East Texas where we've done retreats for 15 years. Sometimes it's for Gold Star families. Most recently the last three years, it's been for our Helping Heroes Heel program. And it's beautiful facility, a thousand acre ranch. It's owned by a fellowship church, which is a big megachurch down there. It's where they do their youth camp. So it's, you know, 350 kids can go there in bunkhouse type sleeping arrangement,

but it's amazing facility. And so to bring those families together and there's no agenda, you know, we don't do counseling. We don't, you know, have sessions for them all the time. It's just recreational. There's kayaking, canoeing, paddle boarding. One time I said waterboarding. Like, yeah, we won't waterboard you, but bring the terrace. I got no problem waterboarding.

But horseback riding, kayaking, high ropes course. I mean, it's just phenomenal. Three swimming pools and lazy river. an inflatable in the lake that would put down any, you know, afflatable you've ever seen. But just to let them be with other families who've gone through what they've been through. You know, just to let those kids connect. Like you said, you know, families last time don't understand. And we're currently looking for, we've got about $1.5 million set aside for purchasing our own retreat facility

where we will have chambers there. They can get their blood draws and all that done in one place so they don't have to, you know, do this on telemed and do this, and we'll still use, you know, Kevin for the telemed, but they won't have to go down to the local lab and have the jaws done because the hormone supplement therapy is also personalized to what they need. You know, sometimes, you know, other foundations will have a protocol, and here's your vitamin B and your vitamin D, and here's this, here's your package. But we personalize it to exactly what it is your own body needs.

And just it's been amazing to see the life change that happens, But a lot of our veterans, we try to partner them with a facility that's an approved facility near where they live. It's 40 consecutive treatments to start. We have approved up to 60 because they're finding now with TBI that 40 is just kind of getting the edge of the TBI. And so we've approved up to 60. We'll evaluate it at the 40 mark point with their clinic and doctors they're working with. But a lot of them can't commit, you know. Some of them are still contracting, you know.

so they're only home for a month. So if we had our own facility, we could do two dives a day, knock everything out in a month. They can come stay. It'll be up in the mountains where they can hunt and fish in between getting their dives during the day. We're going to have accommodations for the family, so a lot of them don't want to leave the family behind.

They can bring the family with them. Sometimes it's severe enough and the home life is bad enough that they're better just to be alone for that month and just focus on their healing, but then they've got the options to be able to do that. And so we started looking another one of Mark's teammates, Jake Kynbaum is a realtor who recently moved to Arizona. So Jake and I have been looking at property, and I found one that was perfect. It was a Boy Scout camp before, but it's at a $7 million budget. So if we've got any listeners, you know, that can write a couple million dollars checks and help us out here,

that'd be great. but the stables in there are approved for Kentucky Derby Horse. But it's just, it's perfect. It's got several houses, you know, it's got a place where you can put the chambers in there. How many acres is it? I think that one was 100-some acres. And it's, it has a canyon in there. It leads the, it does have water, but it's seasonal when we get the monsoons.

But it goes down into Lake Pleasant, and it's only 45 minutes from me, which is awesome. that's that close, but most of the other things that are two or two and a half hours away. But it looks like a mini Grand Canyon. It's just beautiful, you know, the spot that's in there. But so, but anyway, we've looked at several others. We've really fortunate. We've got someone that's committed to Deegan Construction, is committed to donating all the concrete for the project.

SLSC plumbing is offered all the plumbing there. We've got another gentleman that offered dumpsters for the, the facility, a soil testing. We've got someone else that's donated all the mini blinds. So, you know, it's pretty cool to see, you know, that we're getting this close to making the project happen. So just need the land and so yeah, hopefully some buildings are on it. And then how many people do you want to be able to like house in the, in it? And again, it would depend on what we end up finding. If we've just got a mono chamber, then probably we would have four families at a time that would come.

We've got a multi-place chamber, then we could have 16 families up there at a time. How long does a dive take? A dive is normally about an hour and a half. We do hour at depth, but it takes about 15 minutes to get down to depth and then 15 minutes to come back up. And you don't move. You're in this chamber, but it's consistent to diving. It's called, Echo Charles. It's called a dive, but you're sitting in a drive, probably watching an iPad movie.

or something like that, generally speaking. When you also do not just restorative retreats for the guys that are going through the program, but also for Gold Star families. And you have a couple locations that you use for that. What are those all about? We do. So Alasso Ranch, when we started out,

it was just Gold Star Families there that we did. We have done some that were combined with half of our helping Heros Heola and Half of Gold Star families. We've also partnered with Gary Sinise Foundation, so we do three retreats a year with them. Those are right now currently, they're just for parents. Gary has an amazing foundation that has done so much for our veterans, but he took over the Snowball Express, which takes kids to did in the beginning at Disneyland. Now they go to Disney World. And I think they have almost 2,000 kids that they take in their chaperones, which typically will be the spouse that, you know,

lost their loved one. He lost his son, unfortunately, a little over two years ago, I think, to a very serious cancer called Cro-Dorma. And at that point, obviously, losing your kid, now you relate more to the parents. And so he said, we really want to start focusing on, you know, supporting those parents, reach out to Mama Lee. So I've known Gary from, for almost 19 years, met him when Elliot Miller, you know, was wounded and was visiting Elliot here at Balbo. And he's like, come down, there's some guy coming doing a concert, come down, we're gonna meet him.

I'm like, no, no, no, no, Elliot, this is your thing, he goes, no, I don't wanna go alone. I'm like, oh, all right, I'm going with you. And, you know, he had done, obviously, Lieutenant Dan and in the movie, For Scum, And so people know him from that. I don't think he started the CSI series at that point. I don't think so, no.

But yeah. Yeah, that definitely came after. His Forrest Gump was a pretty long ago movie. Yeah. But I met him and we just kind of stayed in touch and done lots of things together. And he'd be visiting San Diego on vacation and he'd send me a picture he was up at Mark's grave. And I'm like, are you kidding me? You're on vacation.

And he goes, no, this is who I am all the time. But I don't know he said that. But, you know, I realized that was the case. But so we take, we do one that's Gold Star moms and we do one that's Gold Star dads. And then a couple weeks I'll be back doing one for the couples. And it's a great, great time to do that. We just, this past weekend, went out to North Creek Ranch in Nebraska. And we're going to start doing one or two there a year out at their hunting lodge.

You know, bringing Gold Star, you know, family members in for that too. Yeah. I was just out at the Georgia Military College in Georgia, obviously, and I was out there for September 11th and I was talking to the staff and students there. And actually, there's two graduates of the Georgia Military College High School whose dad, Alex French, was killed in 2009. And he had talked to his wife about if they, wanting his kids to go to the, the Georgia Military College High School. And so the two kids, Alex and Alexis, I met them. But just a real honor to meet with them and see how, you know, the Georgia Military College had them go to school and, you know, they lost their dad.

You know, their mom's an awesome woman. And just the trajectory that just helps get people on the right track and being around supportive people, you know, I think it's very easy to not recognize the amazing amount of impact that you personally can have on someone else's life and you know people reached out to try and you know get their scholarship to that college and the college helped out so you have these kids that are growing up in a in a great way with a great future and you know who knows how many people help make that happen i mean clearly obviously their dad would be incredibly proud of them but you know and he set them on this path but you know every chance that you get to try and you know

lend someone help, it may not seem like it's that big of a deal, right? It might seem like the smallest thing that you're doing. Maybe it's just something you don't even really think about. You think it's not, it's no big deal. But man, it can have such a huge impact on other people. And, you know, what might not be a big deal to you personally might be a huge deal to someone that's going through, you know, a challenging time. And that's another thing I was going to say about the random acts of kindness is like the,

you know, that just might be enough light in someone's world to go, you know what, it's not all bad. You know, there's people out there. This person that I've never seen before, never met before just came up and helped me out. Yeah. And man, you know, maybe this isn't,

maybe I'm not, maybe the world isn't as dark as it seems right now. And that's definitely a very powerful, a very powerful thing. And Mark talks about that when he's talking about the random acts of kindness. And I think about that, you know, if you're just found out, you know, a loved one's got cancer or you've just been in a big fight with your spouse or your kids or, you know, and you stop to get coffee on the way to work and you get up there and you're like, somebody already paid for your coffee and like, what? I mean, just think how that little thing would change your whole mindset for the day where you're like, you know, and it's like something so little. And Mark saw that, you know, and he said, or opening the door or helping someone with their groceries into their car.

It doesn't even have to cost anything. You know, you think about even just if you're walking along somewhere and somebody smiles at you, just how much that simple thing changes, you know, your attitude and your mindset. And it's like, and so it's so simple things in life that we can make an impact, no matter what we're going through, no matter what our financial status. You know, we can make a difference. You have to purpose. You have to choose to do that. But, you know, that that kid had so much wisdom.

and you think about that letter, he's in the middle of the combat zone when he's writing this letter. So it was just shortly after the 4th of July. It wasn't the, if you're reading this, I'm gone letter. It just happened to be the last written letter we got from Mark. And he sent it to about 13 people that were on that email thread when he sent it. And I homeschooled my kids. And I got to the bottom of it. I'm like, wow, it was a powerful letter.

Who wrote this? And not that Mark was done by any means, but I'd never seen that depth in writing and power. And, you know, it's like, whoa, for a 28-year-old to have that much wisdom, you just sense how much his life was changed being in the combat zone. And, you know, he writes about so many things over there. You know, he talks about the hospital that you guys would, you know, take people into. Which they literally, because I was thinking about this the other day. So as I've sort of started to graph out what happened on that deployment, you know, and when I had General McFarland on here and realizing how close all these operations,

they seemed like they were weeks apart. But they would really be like, we'd do one, and then there would be another one, and then there would another one, and then there were another one. And that the fact that he wrote that just after the 4th of July, because that operation at the hospital took place on the, 4th of July because we task unit bruiser celebrated the 4th of July on the 5th of July when the guys got out of the field and so we had we had procured steaks really good stakes I forget what the connection was it was some other government agency you know somebody made a deal and we were I was back at camp and the guys were coming out of the field and we timed it like okay how long

is going to take to cook the stakes, they're going to get back, debrief, and then we want them to like be, we're going to celebrate the 4th of July. And so that's when he came back, you know, that was the 5th of July. They came out of the field. We all ate stakes and he probably wrote that, you know, note after having seen the terrible hospital, which had been run by, basically by Al-Qaeda until the Marine Corps went in there and took it over. We supported that operation and then started squaring it away and eventually it was a, you know, a regular, hospital. But yeah, it was just disgusting. Yeah, that's what he says. Most people wouldn't be able to stand the smell or to even go in there, let alone get medical help there. And it's those things that

we take for granted here, that we do have the blessing to live in America and the things we enjoy each and every day. And, you know, he ends out with my family and friends, do me a favor. Pass on the kindness, the love, the precious gift of human life. And we not one of America's toughest warriors, you know, that, you know, one of the kindness. You know, one of the kindness. You know, one. And we want to, of the most compassionate men. And so many of you guys are that way, you know, hard, tough warriors. But, you know, loving, you know, husbands and fathers and compassionate and caring. And, you know, it's just, it's amazing.

So, but yeah. As you look at America's Mighty, one of the things, you know, when you drive up from San Diego on the Five North, you drive by, you drive through Camp Pendleton, the Marine Corps base. and on the right-hand side as you drive north, there's this massive, beautiful Marine Corps hospital up there. And I remember as they were building it, there were so many casualties that that Balboa Naval Hospital was, you know, overflowing and they needed more space.

And so the Marine Corps built this hospital up there. And I remember just thinking, man, this is so much agony is going to be in those, in that building of all these guys that are wounded. And every time I drive by there now, I look up at the hospital, I think, you know, there's no wounded guys in there. Like right now, right now there's zero wounded guys in there.

And I go, you know who's in there? I always think to myself, you know, I go, there's women giving birth to like young Marines. With baby Marines. That's what's going on there. And, you know, obviously, though the world is an unstable place. and, you know, there's people get wounded, people get hurt in the military.

That definitely happens. Even training people get killed. Obviously, we got conflicts going on currently. You never know what's going to happen. But as you look at America's mighty right now, you know, 15 years ago, there was going to be wounded and killed on a regular basis. And now it's like, we don't have that anymore. Have you thought about like what, how would, how does.

America's mighty morph towards, you know, the current situation where we just have less of those guys. And look, we'll always have veterans that need help. We always will have veterans that are going to transition into the civilian sector. They're going to run into issues and problems. And, you know, the military set you up for a lot of things. It doesn't necessarily set it. Well, definitely. It doesn't set you up for financial success. It doesn't set you up how to handle when you got, you know, some health crisis with your kid and you're no longer in the military. Like it doesn't, So there's obviously things that you'll always be able to help out with. But what do you think the focus is going to become if, God willing, we continue on a path

where we don't have our military hospitals filled with wounded and our military cemeteries filling up with killed in action? Right. And I think for us at America's Mighty Warriors, I think that, you know, we've seen, we saw at the Vermont reunion, you know, 20 years later, guys still carrying the burden, still not getting the healing, still not asking for help. And we had so many of those guys that after you spoke and after I spoke that were like, hmm, I need help.

And so we're seeing that 20 years later we're finally getting to a place where they're starting to ask for help. So that need is still very much there of so many that, you know, have played that tough card and, you know, somebody needs it worse than me or I'm okay. And they realize, I'm not okay. And I can get help. but, you know, I think that we'll continue to develop the program. As we see that, we haven't seen any numbers drop, you know, from not having the veterans there to be able to help through our helping Hero Seal program.

But I think that's a mindset that we always need to have to develop, you know, then what is that next program? I know, you know, Jocco, you serve on our board and we're working currently on the succession plan. You know, I'm 72. I'm not going to be around forever. I have no plans. Which is weird because you still act like you're about 30. three. Oh, I thank you. Oh, I think. Maybe was that a compliment or not. But, you know, and I have no plans, you know, to retire. I love what I do. But I need to be wise, you know, and have that backup plan there. And so as we develop that, you know, we always want to build

that leadership that's strong, that continue that mission on. Obviously, you and Lafer on the board for, you know, that heart that, you know, can carry it on, you know, maybe not quite as strong as me as Mark's mom, but pretty doggone close. So that heart is set there for that mission, but that we always continue to evaluate our programs, what's most effective. You know, is there a different need that we can reach out and help? So, you know, thanks for giving me that mindset to think,

okay, we need to watch. But right now we have not seen numbers decline yet in our Helping Hero Seal program. And if you're listening, if you're a veteran who is struggling, please please reach out you know you don't have to live with those symptoms you don't have to continue the sleepless nights or just three or four hours of sleep you don't have to deal with the raging emotion the damage that's caused in that frontal lobe of your brain not that you go through therapy and all of a sudden you never get angry again but you're at a healthier place where you can

deal with those emotions where you can detach from the motions you can you know make a plan you can look around, make a difference, and there's hope, you know, that you can get that. So please reach out. You've got people who understand you, like I said, Cowie Mayer-all was Task Unit Bruiser. Four years ago, he was in the darkest place that he could be. So we're here. We're ready to help. You know, if you can help with funding, whether it's, you know, making a monthly recurring donation of, you know, 25, 20,

six, five dollars. We've got over 20,000 contacts. If each one of them signed up to give five dollars a month on a recurring basis, that's almost a million dollars, which is half of our budget for the year. You know, something so simple. And I thought of that because we've got this one donor that for probably 15 years has given $5 a month, you know, on a recurring basis. And very faithfully, and when I thought about that, and I just kind of picture, he's got a name that's not, you know, a youthful name, you know, an older generation name. And I just picture that that's, you know, he's probably on a fixed income. And that's probably a big sacrifice for him to give that $5 a month.

But on a faithful basis, you know, there's so many others that could give, you know, a different level, you know, we're always looking for that support. But if you're, you know, Gold Star family who's lost their loved one in combat or killed in a training accident, you know, please reach out. If you're a veteran who we can support you, you know, we, would love to do that. And, you know, I think of, you talked about the hospital, was just having babies right now. And, you know, I think back to when Mark was born at a very difficult time in our life. You know, I was a single mom already at that point. It was 23. Had a three-year-old,

18-month-old when I found out after the divorce, I was pregnant with Mark. And I remember after I had him, I was sure. I was sure I was having twin girls. They heard two heartbeats all the time. two weeks before, you know, they did an ultrasound back then. You know, that was pretty costly, and they didn't do this very often. And then there's only one. I'm like, what do you mean? There's only one. They didn't tell me as a boy or girl. So I had him, again, I've got insurance, so I'm good for three days.

Before I go into the life of raising these three little kids by myself, give me three days. Well, the day after he's born, they came in and said, we need your bed. You need to go home, but you need to name the baby. And because I was sure I was having twin girls, I just had good. girl names picked out. And I'm like, okay, I got a name of the baby. I'm by myself. I don't have anybody to help make this decision. And on the tray table was my menu for the day. And he was born in March, and the H was covered up on the menu, and it just said, Mark, M-A-R-C. And I'm like, oh, I'm like that. My name was Debbie. I swear there, you'd say Debbie and half the school would

turn around. There were 10 of us that were cheerleaders and literally, five of us were named Debbie. but I wanted my kids to have unique names but not weird names, you know, and so I spelled Christopher K-R-I-S-T-O-F-E-R-E-R. Cheryl, you could either spell it C-H-E-R-Y-L or S-H-E-R-L. It's not as weird as some of the names where you see La L-A and then the dash and then an A for La-Dash. It wasn't, you know, quite that uncommon. But so when I saw the mark, I'm like, oh, I like that. And I had no idea what Mark went, what his name meant. But Mark means Mighty Warrior.

And, you know, when I was looking at the name for the foundation, I didn't want it just to be Mighty Warrior about Mark because it's about every man and woman who's served and sacrificed and given so much. So for me, that's why, you know, I picked America's Mighty Warriors as the name of our foundation. But he used to, you know, say, oh, great, Mom, you got my name. off a menu. I'm like, yeah, Mark, that's how God communicated to me, how you're, you know, what was

in store for you? And, you know, he definitely lived up to his name. Yeah, and that's a really important point that you made. And you already made it, but I'm just going to reiterate, you know, this isn't just for seals. This is for veterans. And one of the, one of the very moving things at the task unit Bruges reunion was Miguel Santana showed up.

And he was, you know, from the 137, he was. a platoon commander and he was you know it was his platoon that was that extracted mark that that inserted those guys on target um and you know talking to him and what's really crazy was there was a reporter that was embedded with him and as a matter of fact i need to confirm this with laif because there was a you know layf sometimes they would want to embed reporters with us and we would just be like no and I'm pretty sure that they were like oh can we embed with you guys and Laif was like yeah no and then they said okay well who can we embed with and they embedded him with Miguel um but just talking to Miguel and you know for him to see you so so moving for him you know he he just couldn't

say enough about how important it was to him and how much it meant to him but my point in saying all this is, you know, I know seals get a lot of, obviously get, you know, so much attention. Those infantrymen that were out there more often than we were. All they were out there, all they lived out there. You know, we lived back on camp Ramadi, you know, in a little adjacent thing that we ended up calling camp Mark Lee. That's where we lived. You know, we had air conditioning. We had, you know, meals.

These guys down there in the various cops, the Marine Corps, the 3-8 Marines down in downtown, the government center in downtown Ramadi was just like freaking vicious down there. Their area of operations, like Leif went down and visited like with his platoon, like they went down to the 3-8 to check and with those guys see what we could support. Laif came back. Like we can't do any operations down there. Like their area of operations is too bad. Like we can't de-conflict enough where we could go and set up Overwatch position because

it's too bad. I was like, well, okay, Roger that. I think he went down there one other time to like check it out, but there was just nothing. We just, it was too gnarly. And those guys lived there. And the guys in Cop Falcon, they lived in Cop Falcon. And so, you know, just every, we know the, that what the, the grunts, the burden that they carried was so heavy. And, you know, again, the seals get a lot of recognition because for whatever reason.

but you know talking to somebody like Miguel like they were there they not only were they they were they were there more than we were and they experienced loss and they they had guys wounded they had guys killed you know the the casualty rate for these battalions these conventional battalions was was was insane well back in 2006 it was every day on the news if it wasn't one two three it was just Ramadi you know as you guys said it was the hell hell of Iraq, the worst piece of real estate over there. And it was really crazy because I got connected with Miguel probably about a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago. I was in Costco, returning something. And I looked over the counter and there was another guy there. And I don't even remember what

caught my eye. I think he just had that military look. And I walked up to him and tapped him on the shoulder. I said, did you serve in the military? And he goes, yeah, yeah. How'd you know? I said, the haircut or the look or something. And I said, yeah, my son was the first Navy SEAL killed in Iraq. He goes, you're Mark Lee's mom? I'm like, yeah, of course I'm Mark Lee's mom. And he got all teary-eyed and emotional. And it was one of the guys that served with Miguel.

It was Travis King. And he says, I was there. And of course, then we just embraced it, you know, and got to know him pretty well. And he's like, oh, my gosh. He said, you need to get in touch. you know, one of our guys is writing a book. He's been trying to find you. He wants to get in touch with you. You know, he's going to share Mark's story. He wants to make sure it's accurate. So then, you know, connected with Miguel. Then I got connected with one of the other guys that was the actual driver who, you know, taken Mark to the morgue. And just one thing led to another where I actually, you know, was asked to write one of the forwards for the book for it. But again, Miguel just started our program. He's another one of the, those 20 years out, you know, that realized that the help that we have, you know, is there for him.

So, and it's just, it's crazy how that happens, like I said, in a Costco. Here he lives in Surprise, Arizona, where I do. And, um, because of Mark, you know, this kid that, you know, with the crazy sense of humor that he had and the, you know, the onrinus and, you know, I do. I just picture that, up in heaven there's a planning space you know and I was telling um this weekend when I went up with the Sipniewski's who are supporters of ours with SS LLC plumbing and he took me up to the um the ranch that's the the hunting ranch you know and it was just crazy all the different things and you just feel like they're up there you know and I know God doesn't need Mark to do this but I just picture they're like okay now if mom goes here and she meets this person and course some

Zipniewski's at a muster, you know, back in 2000 or 2022. Okay, she goes here and meets this one. And then this one goes there. And John was actually at the San Antonio Mester. So I met him briefly who owns the ranch up there. And then she'll meet this person. This person, you know, and it's just, it's just crazy, the paths that are crossed to be able to, you know, continue Mark's legacy. But to help us in our mission, you know, to continue to love all of our gold star family.

who've given the very best and to take care of our troops and, you know, yeah, it's pretty cool. Well, you'll be continuing to get after it, I know. Is that anything else? Does that get us up to speed for now? Well, we should probably mention the way of the Warrior Kid movie. Oh, yeah, the way of the Warrior Kid movie comes out November 25th. Yeah. So just a little clarification.

The name of the character in the book and the movie is Mark. And in the movie, they actually say the full name, Mark Lee. And it's pretty obvious because the spelling is the M-R-M-A-R-C way of spelling it. That's what you can tell them the book. But when they asked me, like, well, we need a last name for this scene. And I was like, well, it's Lee. And they were like, okay. But, you know, that's the name of the character.

But it doesn't really reflect Mark because the kid in the beginning of the book is not exactly like, in the book especially, he's not exactly a real stud, we'll say. And I remember you telling me the first, you're like, well, you know, Mark wasn't really like a wimpy kid. I go, I know, it's just the name of the character. It's not the Mark Lee story. Right. You know. But it is, you know, that's what name of the character so that I get to say that.

And anybody that ever reads that book or sees that movie is going to go, I wonder where he came up with that name. And they're going to Google it and they're going to read Mark Lee's story. And there is a scene in the movie, spoiler alert. I won't spoiler alert it, but there is a scene in the movie where Mark Lee, gets announced in a loud way and it is it is the first time I watched it I could not maintain control of my emotions the first time I saw that scene I was like yep I'm gonna go ahead and be by myself for a minute now but you know again the reason is because I just wanted people to be able to you know open up that book and at some point in their life saying hey wonder wonder where you got this

character name from oh oh mark Lee okay and they're gonna they're going to they're going to read Mark's real story. Yeah. So that's awesome. The movie comes out November 25th, and I'm definitely looking forward to getting that out to the world. It's going to, I've seen it. And yeah, it's really a beautiful movie, incredibly well made, incredible story, incredible

acting. And so in the book, for those that haven't read it, there's an Uncle Jake who is a Navy seal who comes to help his sister, you know, instills some, you know, character qualities into Mark and, you know, he's being bullied and he can't do even one pull up. So Uncle Jake is jaco. Who's playing you in the movie? So Chris Pratt plays Uncle Jake. And you know, this is something, we're having a little bit of fun with it right now. But I've said many times, Uncle Jake is definitely not me. In the fact that like in the book, Uncle Jake is kind of a superhero. I mean, he's kind of perfect, right? He can just do everything perfect. And I, you know, I, you know, I,

made an elevated kind of perfect Navy seal to be Uncle Jake in the book. I wasn't going to make him a flawed character like myself, right? But what's cool is that in the movie, they give Uncle Jake some more human characteristics. Like in the beginning, he doesn't really want to help Mark. He's like, hey, I got to get back to work. Like, I don't have time for you. And so they gave him a little bit more human characteristics makes a little bit more realistic. But we are having some fun with, Chris Pratt and I are having some fun with like, who's Uncle Jake?

You know, it's kind of like, oh, you know, I'm Uncle Jake. You're not Uncle Jake. Like, I'm Uncle Jake. So we've had some funny conversations around that. But yeah, and Chris is such a great guy. He really, he's just an incredible person. The first time I ever met him, it was like, you know, I was kind of thinking, oh, here we go.

I'm going to meet some Hollywood guy. And man, he's just super nice, self-de. Deprecating, funny, charismatic, magnetic, fun, and just kind of very normal, very normal and very chill and very cool. And I was, you know, when we first started looking for the actor, I didn't think he was going to want to do it because it's like he played a Navy SEAL in Terminalist. He played a Navy SEAL in Zero Dark 30. I just thought he might be Navy SEaled out, you know, but then he read the script. But it's Uncle Drake. It is, and it is a very different character.

And it's very evident that it's a very different character. And that's one of the things. I wanted people to see military people as like, you know, good people that are out there with trying to do good stuff. And that's what it boils down to. So, yeah, I'm very excited for that November 25th global release on Apple worldwide in one moment. I want to start. I wonder if it's like midnight. I'm going to be able to like press play.

What do you think? I control. Is that the way it works? I don't know, but that would be pretty solid. That would be pretty cool. And, you know, I'm going to try, we're going to try. I'm going to try and do showings at various places, you know. I would love to do a showing in San Diego and Virginia Beach.

I would love to do that. I'm going to try. But I don't know. It's kind of all weird Hollywood stuff that I don't really comprehend. But yeah, November 25th, the world is going to hear someone pronounce and announce the name Markly to the world. So I'm definitely excited about that. You know, and I think even when you say that, back to his letter, that first line of it says, some men seek glory.

Others find it stumbling on them, not expecting it to find them. And Mark wasn't looking for glory. And just another way, you know, that it has found him, you know, because not just how he gave his life, but who he wasn't how he lived his life. You know, and I say that, you know, so often that no matter what we're going through in life, we have that ability, you know, to make a choice, to do something positive, to make a difference, to overcome, you know. And he definitely was a great example for us how we do that.

And love the kid to pieces, blessed to be his mom, and look forward to the day I get to see him again. Yes, ma'am. Like I said, I'll give 100% until God calls me home. I'm not saying I'm going to do anything drastic. But, yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Of course, it's always awesome.

I'm sorry that you had to get on your 8th. plane trip in a week. Is that what it is? No, today will be my sixth flight in eight days. But it's just like, where am I? Was I just at this airport? But again, for your listeners, if, you know, you can support us. Go to America's mighty warriors.org. If you need our, you know, we can help you.

Please reach out. You know, our emails, America's Mighty Warriors at gmail.com. You're on Instagram, too. All the different social media. It's at America's Mighty. So that's where people can find you if they need you. Did you have any questions, that question, Charles? Yes. Oh, we got a question.

Oh. Speaking of Glory, you know the action figure? Yes. The Markley action figure. How does that work? Because, okay, so at the mustard, kids don't, the muster is not really for kids, right? But every once in a while, you'll get this little conglomeration of kids. And they all go nuts over this action figure, like for real nuts. So they can enter to win it or something like this. And I've literally seen a kid almost break down just

because he didn't win. Yeah. So what's up with that? Like, how does that work? So what Echle's talking about right now is there is a, like, what is it about 12 inches tall? It's maybe like a one foot tall. It's a one-sixth replica of Mark. Of Mark. Yes. And it's really accurate in terms of his gear, his weapon. Like everything is really, it's pretty awesome.

Yeah, have that come about. So there's 50 pieces replica of his gear. Like the little Bible that you guys get in Buds, you open it. There's actually scripture, not just little dots in. Marks, it's actually some real scripture on there. His Oakley sunglasses, the same style that he wore. You know, so they say it's an action figure. I call it the Markley doll because he'd be like, Mom, they didn't make a doll after me. But it's a way, you know, can pick back on it. But and those, right now, there's just a very limited number. So we only have them accessible through

a raffle if you attend muster. You can purchase raffle tickets there. But, um, They are doing a remake on it, so we will have that. I don't have details when that will be out yet, but we will have those for sale as well. Is the same company making them? Yep. Yeah, that's it. It's black ops toys is who makes it. But it's crazy.

The detail, like when we pulled out this last muster, actually this one, it was a kid that wanted to. But the detail was crazy. Like the triggers actually work on the, it's like. Like, oh my gosh, this is unbelievable. Yeah. The detail. And it looks a lot like Mark. We really worked to get, make sure the hair was curly enough.

And yeah. Yeah, it's a good. It works good. His helmet, you know, he wrote the way he labeled his stuff was the M. And that the L then was the stick of the M that just went. It looks just like, you know, how he had marked his helmet. And yeah. And that's only available at the muster.

Yep. If you tend the muster, we got one coming. up in Denver and I don't know, Jock, over one. There's still tickets left or we sold out. There are some tickets left right now. If you want to come to the muster, do you want to enter a raffle to win the Mark Lee doll? I have to call it an action figure.

I'm not his mom. I got to call it an action figure. Then you can come to the muster. What is that? October. It's in Denver. Yes. That's what it is?

16th and 17, something like that. Good. Yeah. So there you go. Action figure. Any other questions? Nope. That's it.

My son says hi. Oh, cool. Tell him I said hi. here today yeah awesome cool yeah awesome mama lee anything else oh i think we're good i think we're good well again you know like i said thank you so much for coming and um thanks for raising this incredible warrior thanks for sharing him with us and thanks for carrying on his legacy and doing so much to keep his spirit alive and the fact that he is continuing to help and in some cases literally safe continue to save his teammates and their lives and also helping so many other families and so many

other people in need. So thank you for all of that. And of course, thank you for being a mom to the rest of your boys in tasking a bruiser. It's a blessing most of the time. But I thank you guys for, you know, like I said, Tev watched so many of you, you know, grow and get new careers and you guys impact in the world such a crazy way and, you know, the leadership that you teach to, you know, kids through the book and to adults and, you know, the experiences that you share and how you keep Mark's legacy alive. So we wouldn't be here without him in any way, in any sense of the word. We would not be here without Mark. Yeah. All right. Thank you, Mother. God bless. And with that, Mama Lee has left the building. Always awesome to see her. I actually get to see her

a decent amount. She comes through a lot of Eschleon Front events. She speaks at some Eschleon Front events. We always have donors that we do deals with to get them to come to echelon front events, support

America's Mighty Warriors. So, America's Mighty Warriors.com. And, you know, it's one of those things. It's like, you know, you try and describe what someone is like yeah but there's no there's no way a human can accurately describe another human like 100% you know what i mean yeah like you can't you can't just explain imagine if you're your favorite song yeah and you're trying to explain what your favorite song was like like no it was so

good it was but you can't do the song justice right well obviously it's not just a song it's not even just a movie because if you had to describe your favorite movie you couldn't pull that off it's even harder because now it's a whole imagery. And then if you took some experience that you went through that you're trying to explain, can never do it justice. And then you're trying to explain a person like Mark who is just like 12 dimension. You know what I mean? Just a 12 dimensional element like beyond 3D, beyond 4D.

There's just dimensions that you just can't explain. And to see what she's done, you know, to carry on his his legacy is just awesome so yeah always amazing to have her america's mighty warriors what a great organization helps out so many people and we'll continue to do everything we can to promote that and get it out there and get people that need help the help that they need that's what we're doing yeah so mommeli's like she's the best so even when you you know like that's just her name right momali it's like debby lee yeah it's momallie we all just call her momaly but it's so appropriate like when you

She's kind of like kind of all of our mom, even me, right? You know, I wasn't in the military. You know that about me. And she's kind of like my mom. And my son looks at it and is like, oh, yeah, that's kind of like our, you know, our mom kind of a thing, you know. So it's so because she's like, I mean, you can tell even today, I mean, which is something we knew for years already, that you can tell even when she's talked like just how much she like cares. Oh, yeah. Just how she talks.

And then you guys know that like, you know, 10 times more than just this episode. But oh, yeah. And that's like literally like how she is. So yeah, it's only, this seems only appropriate this whole outfit. Yeah, everything that she's done is just in keeping with the whole, the whole thing. So much. The whole thing. But anyways, if you can support America's mighty warriors.org.

That's where you can find that organization and help, help Mama Lee, help people. That's what we're doing. So also, if you're out there, working out, you're out there training, you're out there playing soccer. Oh yeah. Like Mark Lee playing soccer, freaking good athlete. You know people that are just a good athletes. You're like, right, this guy's a good athlete.

He's one of those people. Sure. Getting after it. If you're getting after, if you're sprinting, if you're lifting, if you're, if you're getting gains with a Z, the different kind of gains, right? Yeah. Support that. Support that.

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Wait, what's endurance? We got an endurance product out. What's it called? We called it endurance. Jago fuel endurance. Yeah. Yep. So check that out.

Of course, Ashley, the wizard is formulating all this stuff out there. She's, you know, that's her, that's what she went to school for. And not only does she go to school for it. she's hyper into it. Yeah, yeah. No, Ashley doesn't. Ashley will, if you ask her a question about something, you're going to get the most legitimate answer that you could ever want.

You may have to look things up. You may have to ask her to redefine some terms that she uses because you will not know them. But she just loves it. She's passionate about it. Obviously, she trains really hard herself. And she puts her heart and soul into, you know, putting together these products. and she works with other people if she needs any help. You know, I've, I give sometimes direction of like, hey, we need a product like this

and she'll be like, okay, tell me what you want it to do. She's the person that makes a lot of this stuff happen. So, yeah, we got an endurance product out. We also have a bunch of different flavors now. You know, we've got the pumpkin spice. That happens to be Mama Lee's favorite. She just rolled out with a pumpkin spice ready to drink protein drink. So we got a bunch of flavors of protein.

We got the energy drink, the clean energy drink, which apparently is it like became a thing, right? After our energy drink came out, other people started to make what they were claiming was clean energy. But if you put artificial sweeteners in there chemicals, you cannot make that claim. If you're putting 400 milligrams or 300 milligrams of caffeine in there for, one drink. You know, I'm not sure you're going to call that healthy. Right? So we set the standard with our energy drink.

We set the standard with our protein. Our protein powder is freaking delicious. By the way, we got the little packets now, of all of the different flavors. Yeah, yeah. So I just got in the mail because I ordered some of the fruity cereal powder. Yeah, yeah. Because that's one thing.

When you travel, you can't take the RTD with you. Yeah, yeah, it's way harder. But you roll in with a packet. You're all good. the fruity cereal the peanut butter peanut butter chocolate that's still honestly as much as i love mint yeah the peanut butter chocolate's like so good it's so good so good so jocofuel.com you get all the stuff that you need all the supplementation that you need check it out jacofuel.com also you can get it in retailers all over the country stores all over the country stores and if they don't have it in

the store that you shop at just ask for it say hey we want some jaco fuel in here and we'll get it there so Joccofuel.com. Check it out. Also origin USA.com. This is where you can buy American made blue jeans. American made boots. American made sneakers come in your way. Sneakers. Tennis shoes, some people call them. What's the other word? Sneakers. Trainers. Those are probably the big three terms. Yeah, yeah. In England, my wife, she calls them trainers. But tennis shoes is real popular in like the middle of the country.

Yeah. I grew up in New England. sneakers all day. What'd you call them in Hawaii? I don't know. You don't even know what you call them. You don't even know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember.

I mean, you probably called them sneakers, is my guess. Well, to be honest, I don't know that I wore tennis shoe sneakers. The tennis shoe sneaker scenario is very sparse, we'll say, in Hawaii. I can name all the different words for slippers. Yeah. Slippers. Something you might call flip-flops. or bare feet.

Yeah. You see what I'm saying? There's no different words for bare feet though, is there? No, no. Yeah. I used, when I went to college, I studied English. And, you know, you get into that kind of dialect, right? And they have cool maps.

They would do maps of the way words were used. And I remember a map that had like the regions of America and what sneakers were called and what soda pop was called. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Soda, pop. Some people call it a Coke. Yeah, Cokes. Yeah, just get a Coke.

Well, they don't mean a Coca-Cola. Right. They mean, they might mean a 7-Up. Right. But they call it a Coke. Yeah, one of the guys that worked at with taught me that. He's like, are you going to go, you know, can you get me a Coke or whatever? And he was like, just get a 7-up though.

It's like what that? And he explained that whole thing. You call it Cokes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If I wouldn't have been like in the military. I would probably be doing a podcast about like the etymology of various words.

Oh, yeah. But the funny thing is we did a podcast about writing. I think the podcast was called writing. It was one of our numbered podcast. It was a legit jocco podcast number, whatever. And it was about writing. And I thought, man, when people get a hold of this, they're going to really want to get this information.

But it wasn't like a big deal. In fact, it was probably less listened to than a war. podcast. People always like war more than they like the they like they think that the sword is mighty or the pen when it comes to listening to cool stories, right? No one wants to hear me talk about the etymology of various words. Yeah. Although I'm still tempted to just go hard in the paint on some Shakespeare.

You know, we did we've only done. I think we've only done Henry the fifth on here. Yeah. As far as. I feel like we did Shakespeare. Yeah. I think I think the only Shakespeare we've done is Henry the fifth. I don't think we've gone hard in the paint on any other Shakespeare.

breaking it down word by word because that's what you got to do when it comes to Shakespeare. So you know what though? I do know this. We do train jiu-jitsu and for jih Tjitsu you're going to need some kind of geese. Now, some people call the ghee a kimono. Sure. Some call it a ghee. Any other words I'm missing?

Some people sarcasticly call it pajamas. Right. Pajamas. But you're going to need a ghee. You might as well get what you should get. None might as well. You should get an American made. for your jiu-jitsu you should get American-made rash guard for your jit-sue.

You should get blue jeans that are made in America. You should get sneakers that are made in America or tennis shoes that are made in America or trainers that are made in America. My wife and I were out the other night. Oh, yeah. And you ever seen a, we're out for dinner with the kids? You ever seen when you, at a restaurant when they take a lemon and they put like a little net around the lemon?

And it's made to catch the seeds. so you can squeeze it on your fish or whatever. So my wife says one of the people that was with us, one of the kids was with us, says, what's this little net for? And my wife says, oh,

it's to catch the pips. Pips. And then the kid goes, what's a PIP? And she goes, oh, the stone. So she used two British words in a row. And I said, hey, no,

that's neither one of those are American. Right. So Pips, stone, cement. Seeds. Seeds. Do they not say seeds as much? They say Pips and they say stones. They don't say.

Cool. There you go. Yeah, I had to do a, had to interview someone from a different dialect of English when I was going to college. And I interviewed my wife. And we had all these things to ask her, what do you call this and what do you call that? And what do you call the colored, small colored sugary bits that you put on an ice cream cone? Do you know what I'm talking about? Sprinkles.

Yeah. You know what she called them? hundreds and thousands oh yeah yeah you told me yeah i've told you that before but hundreds and thousands like that's what they called that's good didn't know what sprinkles are that's not a thing to them so well there he could so whether you need sneakers trainers or what was the other one tennis shoes we got you covered origin usa.com get american made goods don't get these you know it's so ridiculous you go you see these clothing company you know you know people start a clothing company Yeah.

They're like, oh, I started a clothing company. No, you didn't start a clothing company. You just are printing. You're buying shirts from China or Pakistan, and then you're printing stuff on them. That's not a clothing company. That's not a clothing company. Don't do that.

Don't buy those people stuff. Buy American made stuff. We own the factory. That's what we're doing. Support America. Go to origin USA.com and get some. Yeah, it's true. Also, don't forget about Jockel Stewart.

You represent on the path of discipline. Discipline. Discipline. Not discipline. About that, too. The whole deal. You understand. Discipline equals freedom.

You want to represent that? We got you. Got your shirts and hats and stuff on there. Good. We're representing that. Well, I'm telling you, we're representing that. Anyway, we got three versions of that one as well. Actually, four versions.

Got a special version of that. Anyway, also, short-lockard new design every month. That's a subscription situation. You already know it. And if you don't, go to jococon. store.com, click on a shirt locker. Check out the shirt locker. See what it's all about.

Otherwise, yeah, just, you know, go on there, see what up. If you like something, get something. Check. Like something? Get something. Books. Unheard voices, the fight for Ramadi, written by Miguel Santana. He's on the podcast. Who is that pit bull?

Pit bull. We're talking about a little bit today, but it's just a great book. And it's so awesome to hear that, that grunt perspective of what it was like in Romadi. So check that book out. Also, put your legs on by Rob Jones. also need to lead by Dave Burke, and then I've written a bunch of books, including The Warrior Kid Books,

which you heard a little bit about today, movie coming, get some of that. Also, we have a leadership consultancy. We teach these leadership principles that we learned on the battlefield, so you can apply them in your business, in your team,

in your department. Go to echelonfront.com if you want to get engaged with that, and then we also have an online training for leadership at extreme ownership.com. And then if you want to connect with us, obviously we have Mama Lee and she's on the interwebs

She's at America's mighty warriors.org I kept calling it America's Mighty Today that's because her Twitter and Instagram is at America's Mighty But for the website it is America America's mighty warriors.org And then so check that out

You know what it's about Also check out Heroes and Horses. Dot org also check out Jimmy May's organization beyond the brotherhood.org and then warriors in need.org. All a bunch of great organizations, but please check out America's mighty warriors.org. If you want to connect with us at all, you can check out jocco.com. And then on social media, I'm at Jocco, Willinkin. I go at Echoes at Echo Charles. It's better if you don't even check us out there because you're just going to waste a bunch of time wasting your life. So stay away from it. Once again, thanks to

Debbie Lee, Mama Lee, Mark's mom, for everything that you have sacrificed. Thank you for being there for us. Then, thank you for being there for us now, and thank you for being there for so many. And thank you for carrying on Mark's incredible legacy. And to all of our military around the world right now that are going into harm's way to protect freedom, thank you all for your service and sacrifice and thank you for the service and sacrifice of the families who wait at home and worry and take care of the home front we thank you all for what you do for the country also thanks to our police law enforcement firefighters paramedics EMTs dispatchers correctional officers border patrol secret service as well as all all other first responders thank for what you do to keep us

safe and also thanks to your families for what they do and what they sacrifice in supporting you else out there it has been 20 years since Mark was killed and I have no idea what he would have done with his life I have no idea what he would have done he could have done anything I can tell you this without question it would have been extraordinary he was such an incredible force of good so much so that his spirit has carried on and he continues to be a force of good to this day and I would say if you can try and find a little bit of that spirit in your own soul try and do some good try to help some others try to live an amazing life that is full of passion and joy and laughter and love like mark

life is short so go live it and that's all we've got for tonight and until next time this is echo and jaco out