Jocko Podcast - 70: Overcoming Unspeakable Darkness. Protecting Children. How to Support a Military Spouse. Living a GOOD Life. With Iris Gardner

Episode Date: April 11, 2017

0:00:00 - Opening 0:04:32 - Intro to Iris Gardner. 0:23:40 - Sexual Assault--First incident as a child. 0:39:59 - Tips to prevent abuse.  Why it's hard to come forward. 0:51:16 - Iris growing up with her abuser. 1:01:24 - Resulting relationships, the wrong path, and more Darkness. 1:13:11 - Bouncing back.  The beginning. 1:26:50 - Being a Military Wife - Emotional Independence, and tips to be have a successful relationship. 1:47:12 - How to Live a Happy Life after Abuse. 1:57:00 - Jocko's letter to his daughter.  Appreciate your mother.   2:13:30 - Support, Cool Onnit, Amazon, JockoStore stuff, with Jocko White Tea and Psychological Warfare (on iTunes). Extreme Ownership (book), (Jocko's Kids' Book) Way of the Warrior Kid, and The Muster002  2:40:28 - Closing Gratitude.        Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/jocko-podcast/exclusive-content

This is Jocko podcast number 70 with Echo Charles and me Jocko Willink Good evening echo good evening now I was gonna start off tonight With a warning that tonight's episode is gonna contain things that are Not appropriate for children Then as I as I put together the notes I realized that maybe the opposite is true and that maybe this is an important episode that children do need to listen to. I would say listen to it alone by yourself first without your children and then decide if and when they are ready to listen to this and unfortunately I will tell you that I think the time is likely sooner than you think,

and it is most definitely sooner than it should be. Now, normally I am talking about war, and in that light I have covered some of the most heinous and horrible things that have happened in the world, evil things. Evil. And the things that I'm talking about are things that happen on a large scale in war. Battles between nations and armies versus armies and men against men. And in those situations,

on that global stage of war. As I always say, we see the best of human nature and we often see the worst. But sometimes the worst of human behavior, the most evil of human behavior does not occur on the battlefield. And it is not driven by war.

It's not brought on by the madness of combat. It's not the result of men trying to kill other men. Sometimes the most evil side of human beings sneaks around in the dark, on the weak, the scared, and the defenseless children. And often it isn't some archivalry. type of evil like the picture you have in your head of some sneering predator with a sadistic look it can often be a trusted neighbor or a family friend or even a relative and to talk through some of this with me tonight i'm honored to have a special guest on an amazing person

that I admire for her toughness and courage, an incredibly strong woman, loving mother, an extremely hardworking and highly productive farmer, and last but certainly not least, an incredible wife to one of my very close friends who has done multiple combat tours overseas leaving this wonderful woman back on the home front to handle the business at home. Her name is Iris.

And my first solid memory of Iris, and I met her before this, but, you know, I didn't really think too much about it. But I was driving out to see her husband out on a farm, out on their farm that they live on. And I I pulled up in my vehicle my minivan, I'm quite sure, and I'm looking across the spance of land and out there in the field, fully nine months pregnant. Guiding a horse drawn plow, right? I'm talking it looks like it's 1729 out there. Horse drawn plow In the field in the summertime and in the in the in the inland of Southern California so it's hot and dusty and she sees me and she like ties off the the horse

And then she comes walking over to me and she's wearing the actual Spurs like you see in a Western movie that jingle jangle no kidding and she's a small all framed woman you know and she took off the she had a pair of leather gloves on that looked like they were passed down from the marble man it just all worked and she took one of those off and it gave me a handshake and her her skin was basically as tough as the leather gloves she was wearing and she you know said hey and pointing me towards her house where I'd find her husband who was in there like watching TV or something in the

air condition and then she turned around and walked back and headed back out the field again she was nine months straight up nine months pregnant and I thought to myself damn what a what an awesome woman so years later I would say maybe five four or five years later I was extremely moved and angered and disturbed and thankful and awed all at the same time when she posted an article online about something she'd experienced as a child and here is an excerpt of what she wrote I was only five years old the first time it happened I wasn't feeling well so while

everyone else went down the hill to cut firewood I I stayed back at the cabin in bed. I remember him coming back, coming through the door and telling me he needed to get a chainsaw file. He then came over to the bed, told me to lay still, and pulled my pants down. I was a shy child and would never, ever have questioned an adult at that age. He inserted his fingers into my vagina, and I remember it hurting, and I was just petrified. I had no idea what to do He said things to me like

Doesn't that feel good And you like this right I was unable to say anything Or I don't know I may have even mumbled agreement with him Because that's what I thought I was supposed to do I just remember that it hurt and I was scared and I was confused The sound of my parents' truck pulling up the driveway stopped him

And he carefully pulled up the driveway stopped him and he carefully pulled my pants back up and went over to the sink and washed his hands as if washing away the evidence he then pulled me close and told me that this was a secret just between us it was so cliche it amazes me now that that's what he said and how well it worked now I have faced fear I've faced horror I've faced evil but I faced it as a full grown man who spent pretty much my entire life being trained to fight and to kill and prepared to die and furthermore when I was in those situations not only was I a full grown man

I was with my brothers in arms to my left and to my right. But to face this kind of evil as a child. It's a little girl and I have three daughters as a little girl, scared, defenseless, and alone. This is almost impossible for me to comprehend. And I know that I can learn a lot from the type of person that can survive this kind of abuse. I know we can all learn a lot,

especially from a person with the strength to confront this evil and overcome it and then put together an amazing and beautiful life with an amazing and beautiful family. We can all learn from this. And with that in mind, Iris, welcome to the show. And thank you so much.

for coming on. Wow, thank you, Jocko. It's really an honor to be here. And like all of our guests, now you have to tell us about the beginning. Where you came from, what was going on in your life. And your life is very interesting. I remember when your husband first met you

and he was kind of telling me about this girl he had met. And I was, you know, when you hear your story, you just think, damn, that's awesome. And so tell us a little bit about that, about your childhood. You had a lot of very cool experiences in your childhood and grew up in an almost completely unique way that I don't think I've ever met anyone else that grew up like you did. Yeah, I never realized it was really unique until I wasn't an adult

and got out in the world a little bit more and realized that most people, anywhere near my age, did not grow up the way that I did. So we lived in the mountains in Northern California. My dad was initially a miner, a gold miner. And he would go into old mine shafts and bring out ore that they would crush in a small mill and then refine the gold down into bars that they would sell. And eventually he became a timberfall. and a logger.

Back in 1987, I was seven years old, there's a huge forest fire that burned through Northern California. And I remember it vividly because one night there was just this wall of fire rolling down on our house. And luckily, our house was spared, but a lot of our neighbors lost their homes. And after that, a lot of logging came into the area because there was so much burned. Timber. So a lot of people have parents that might be working in mines.

They might have parents that are working as, you know, loggers or lumberjacks. But they still might have things in their house like power and heat and electricity. So you guys were like off the grid, right? Yeah, the whole area. So this place is probably one of the most rural places in this country. still unless maybe you get up into Alaska. It's in Northern California in the mountains.

There's this gorgeous river valley there. And it still doesn't have electricity. The people that live there still just use some solar now or generators. But no one had that back when I was a kid. So yeah, we grew up with no power, no telephones, no television. We used the old school kerosene lanterns with a little thin glass globes, and you would carry those from room to room if you needed light. We would take them to bed with us at night and read by kerosene lantern.

And we had a wood-cook stove that we cooked on. Just to get hot water, our wood-cook stove had coils that ran through it that the water would run through and warm it. So you would have to start a fire in the stove to have any hot water to warm it. So, yeah, it was, it was interesting. I take power and things like that for granted now. But back then it was just normal. Yeah, I was going to say it becomes normal for kids.

I know that, for instance, when my kids were little, they just thought that everyone did Jiu-Jitsu, because we did jiu-jitsu all the time. They just like, oh, yeah, well, you know, doesn't everyone do jiu-jitsu all the time? But just no power. And that's kind of, they're,

it's hard for people to even imagine that nowadays. When you're a kid and you don't have an iPad to entertain you, you don't have a TV to entertain you, the creativity has to be there, right? It has to develop. Absolutely. Because what did you do for fun? Well, we had rocks.

Yeah. I know. See, when I was a kid, when I was a kid, it was like every stick you could find turned into a machine gun. And every rock you found turned into a grenade. And that's what we did. Did you even, how would you even know what a grenade was? Or, you know, how would you know what a doll was?

Yeah. We had, we had a few toys, but, you know, I see the toys that kids have now. And it definitely is. It's very different. We had a few old toys, but mostly we just lived outside. We just, outside was our, that was our playground, our toys. And then where were you guys getting food from? We always had a big garden.

My mom grew a huge garden and canned and froze, or, well, didn't freeze. We didn't have electricity for a freezer, but canned and dried food. And we had her own milk cows. We raised pigs, which that was kind of interesting, too. We had a lot of pigs. My sister and I used to sleep outside in this in the summers when the weather was nice. There was this old stone root cellar with like a loft that had open ends. And we would sleep up there whenever the weather was a little bit iffy.

And it was right over top of the pig pen. So we essentially grew up in a barn. We would wake up in the middle of night with pigs squealing and turn our flashlights on and shine the lights down there and watch like litters of piglets being born. And these weren't even normal pigs. They were like wild boars that we'd caught and bread. And so they were all hairy and long snouts and they weren't like your fat pink pigs that you get that most people raise. And did you, was there any kind of school up there? There was a tiny little school that we went to.

When I lived there, it was sort of the height of the population. There's less people there now, but there was the mining and the logging had brought in a few more people. And so the school that I went to had about 25 kids from K through 8, so there's maybe a couple of kids per grade. And we were all in the same. There was like two rooms, the big kids' room and the little kids' room. and we were so close because there were just a few of us. And all of the kids that I grew up with had a very similar upbringing to the way I did. So there are at least 25 other kids out there in the world who grew up exactly the same as I did.

But we were this pack of just feral children, really, that just lived in the woods and swam in the river and did everything. and I have wonderful memories of that, which offset a lot of the not-so-pleasant things that happened in that same time. Did you, what about books? Did you guys have a ton of books? Did you read? Was that sort of your one escape

from the reality that was around you? Yeah, we didn't have television. And in the summers, we were mostly outside in the river in the woods. we would go down to the river in the evening and watch the bears catch salmon. Sounds like a, you know, pretty normal after-day for a five-year-old. But in the winter, when it was cold and rainy, we read a ton. And I've got the best big sister in the world.

She's a couple years older than me. And she was reading these just ridiculously age-inappropriate books. I remember her reading these huge novels when she was like 10 years old because we didn't have any money. And it wasn't like our parents went out and bought us the newest children's books or anything to read. We just read whatever happened to be laying around. And oftentimes that was not what you would typically give a 10 year old to read. But so she would, she started reading to herself and then she would read to me before I was, you know, and eventually I became an adult.

very avid reader too. But yeah, that was a big part of her life. In fact, Cormac McCarthy is also one of my very favorite authors, if not my favorite author. I think I read

all the pretty horses in the crossing when I was like 15. I read Blood Meridian by the time I was 16. I've read them all numerous times. But I remember this wonderful old neighbor lady that lived down the road from us gave me this box of a big cardboard box full of old Louis Lamor and Zane Gray novels, which for anyone who's not familiar with those, they're Westerns, they're all Westerns. And that was, you know, the way you talk about being a kid and sort of wanting to be a soldier, wanting to be in the military so bad.

and that was like you were focused on that and that's all you were going to do. That was me, but with horses. That was the only thing I cared about. And so I just gobbled up all of these old westerns and lived in that world of imagining myself being like a cowboy riding across the plains with my bedroll. But I didn't have a horse. So, you know, I lived in the woods as much as I could. I, I, we, we foraged, we found, um, we hunted for wild mushrooms all the time, which is still one of my very favorite things to do.

Um, and I used to read mushroom and plant field guides like other kids might read, you know, fantasy novels or something. So it's a, it's a definitely unique and a lot of really, I mean, that's just an unbelievable experience and it sounds like you, you definitely. A lot of positivity. You know, there's so much positivity to that, the way you grew up. It was a very idealic childhood. I would say that I have a lot of darkness in that same time,

but I wouldn't trade the way that I grew up for anything. So let me talk a little bit about that darkness. And I kind of talked about in that opening of how it started and the first time it happened to you, this abuse that you suffered. Now I'm going to go back to this article that you wrote. And here we go. Again, this is, this is from a five-year-old. I was confused mostly. I don't think it ever crossed my mind to,

tell my parents. I just knew that I had been instructed not to tell anyone, so that's what I did. I really didn't understand what he had done or why, but I definitely knew that what had been done was wrong, and it might be something that I would be punished for. From that moment on, my life became one big game of cat and mouse. I tried to avoid him, and he pursued me and took every opportunity. to get his hands on me he had plenty of opportunities because he was a beloved and trusted family friend even right in front of my parents and other people he would

regularly slap my butt and pull me on to his lap I would always squirm away as quickly as I could I remember being left home with him I remember throwing fits and begging to go along with my mom and my sister My mom just thinking I was acting out and being a brat and would tell me to stay with him until they got back. The fact that no one realized what was happening by simply observing the situation still bewilders me. So this guy, like you said here, this guy had full access to your house, full trust of your parents. Why is it that you think or expand, you kind of talk about it. little bit, but what is it that makes a kid hold that information in when something bad is happening

like this? So I think it started happening with me when I was so young that I just, I didn't understand it. I did not understand what was even going on. No one had ever told me that something like that might happen. And I was told not to say anything by an adult. And so I didn't. And I think I definitely had a feeling that I knew something was wrong and that this was not what should be happening. But I was a lot of it was probably just my personality type.

I was a shy, quiet kid. And I wasn't inclined to express my emotions that much anyways. And I, you know, I think people. who do this sort of thing, they look for a specific type of kid. They're not stupid. They know how to single out just the right kid. And that was me in the time. And I just had a lack of understanding of what was even going on. I didn't really know that it was definitely something. that I should tell other adults. And I'm thinking that in your situation, in your upbringing,

you're seeing, you're seeing nature, right? You're understanding that pigs are having babies. I mean, you're seeing this kind of thing take place, but it wasn't something that your family talked about, the birds and the bees or anything like that just didn't come up. Yeah, not really. And definitely not in. I think that it's hard for people.

to believe that their best friend or close family members would ever harm their children. And so I don't, I suspect that my parents felt like they kept a pretty good eye on me and that I was fine because they didn't look where they needed to look. I think that's, and I'm sure Echo has some kind of biased, psychological bias for this. but, you know, anytime you're in a situation where there's something that you simply could never imagine and couldn't believe, and if that's,

if that's, if something that you could never imagine and couldn't believe happening and you're not being told about it, what would plant that in your mind, you know, to make you think that it's going on from your parents' perspective, you know, it's like me looking at one of my close friends. I would never have that thought.

And so where would it come from? Well, kind of see how it would not show up. And you'd probably think that your kid would let you know if there was a problem, right? You would be like, well, I would be able to tell if something was wrong because my kid would let me know somehow. And that's not necessarily the case. I'm going to go back as you continue this. Back to your writing here.

We moved into our own house and I would have some moments of peace. But he was always around. Always visiting and even parked a trailer on our property to live in for periods of time He stalked me like I was his prey I never ever felt safe from him He would watch me constantly I would look up from playing with toys and see him standing in the doorway of my bedroom Staring at me I would wake up to him watching me When I would have friends over I would suddenly jump up and announce that we needed to go outside and play right now

because I would notice him watching us through a doorway or a window. Again, I can't even imagine what that had to feel like for a five-year-old, a six-year-old, a seven-year-old. And again, I picture my own children and their pure innocence that they live in, thankfully. And I can't, I mean, this is like a horror movie. You know, you're a kid and you're looking up and you're playing with your toys and you're reading your book or whatever when you look up and you see this predator, you know, just, just stalking you all the time and the discomfort that you had to just feel constantly and, and no way to escape it. Do you think there's, was there anything else that you, that you can

think of that you tried to do or tried to send a, a signal? Or was it just, were you just so sort of enveloped by the situation that you didn't you know just like I was talking about maybe your parents couldn't imagine what could be happening is it was it like you just couldn't imagine this not happening yeah pretty much I think because it started when I was so young it just was part of my life and it was so consistent it wasn't like something that happened and then didn't happen for it was just like a daily part of my life. And so I don't think I really ever tried the signal. I remember one time there was a couple girls, some friends and my parents came and visited, and they had a couple

girls a little bit older than me that came. And I remember the one girl who was probably 12 at the time telling me they spent the night, they slept outside, and she told me that when she woke up in the morning, this, my abuser had, like, crawled up onto her bed and started touching her leg. And she, like, jumped up and told him no and ran away. And she also didn't go tell a grown-up. She came and told me that this had happened. And I remember telling her what happened to me. And that's the only time as a child that I ever told anyone. And I remember us sitting there kind of discussing this. I was probably eight maybe at the time. And we're like, well, that's, yeah, I don't know why he does this. That's, that's weird. I don't know. And we just

kind of discussed it and then never told anyone, even though she was even older and hadn't grown up with it. And I don't know if later on she told someone, but at the time she definitely didn't go tell her parents or my parents or anyone, which reaffirms the fact that your kids aren't necessarily going to tell you. I know with my kids, you know, if they do something that they think is going to get him in trouble,

especially in that five, six-year-old, seven-year-old, they're not going to tell you. They don't volunteer that information if they think it's something that they did wrong or think, so that's another little trap that occurs back to your writing here he was old and was missing all of his teeth

he wore dentures sometimes and sometimes he didn't I remember him pinning me up against walls and counters and kissing me with his soft toothless mouth and fingering me with his dirty hands I wanted to vomit I would never tell him no though never tell him to get away from me

never acknowledged that he was doing anything to me. I would just slip away from him as soon as an opportunity presented itself and mumbled that I was going outside to play or down to the rock piles, my secret labyrinth of tangled blackberry brambles and boulders. You'd follow me to the top of the trail saying things like, come back, you like what I'm doing. Or I don't think your mom wants you to go down there while she's gone. But he never followed me down into the rock piles.

It was my safe zone. It was the place I could cry with no one seeing me. I remember someone accusing him of molesting another little girl. I heard my parents talking about it, and then my dad pulling me aside and asking me if Mike had ever touched me. I was caught off guard and totally unprepared to deal with what saying yes would mean. So I said no. As soon as it was out of my mouth, I wanted so bad.

to change my answer but no one ever asked me again I'm convinced that if I had had a little time to think and had been asked again I would have spilled it all remember that it's important at the time I said no and the woman who made the accusation was discredited as being crazy or a drug addict and having ulterior motives and that so there's a clear example and I could I could see now going from the perspective of a parent who's all uncomfortable to go up and ask this question in the first place you know it was probably the weakest form of questioning too you know like has Mike ever made you feel weird and you know no okay he's good now dad's like okay see I told you this is

no issue. She's a liar. She's a drug addict. They want that answer. They want to hear no. Any parent wants to hear no when they ask that. And yet, you got to ask again. You got to put it probably in multiple different ways of asking the question. Not just does he make you feel comfortable, Does he touch you? Do you got to ask that in so many different ways to get to open up the mind of the kid? You know, obviously without asking leading questions, you know, that's going to put somebody, you know, in another weird situation. How do you ask your own kids? So I think that you have to talk about it casually, hopefully, before.

something happens, make them aware of the fact that this does happen. And people think that they're protecting their kids by not telling them that horrible stuff happens. They feel like they're protecting them by shielding them from this. And meanwhile, their kids are being molested and don't know how to tell anyone because no one's talked to them about it. And so you can start talking to them when they're really young, use simple terms, and express that sometimes people do bad things. And there's something, I tell my kids that there's something broken in some people's brains that makes them do something that normal people don't do, but that they're out there.

And when you, I think when you question a kid about this, you have to ask it once and then give the kid time to think about it. And then bring it up casually again a couple days later. Hey, you remember that thing we talked about the other day? I was thinking about it some more. Do you have, you know, is there anything else you want to talk to me about with that? and do that a few times, especially if you have any, if you suspect anything for sure, but even if you don't, bring it up once, bring it up again a couple days later, bring it up again a couple days later, give their little brains time to process what my,

and then make sure to tell them that if anything happened, even if they're not telling me anything did, they are not going to be in trouble if they feel like they want to tell me something. Now, some kids are just vocal and we'll talk fine, but other kids won't. And that's the kind of kid that you have to eke it out of. And if you think about this, you could actually develop a pattern with your kids where they're not talking about molestation. but if when they tell you something you punish them because they told you the truth

because they took a cookie drop the cookie jar, spilled milk and they could have kept it a secret but they told you and now you punish them you're doing the same thing you're setting them up for to keep secrets and keep things inside. I always tell my kids that

they'll get in more trouble for telling me a lie than for whatever they did in the first place. My kids absolutely know that and and That's the same with, not, never mind, kids. When I was in the teams, that's the standard. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You tell me what happened. Don't lie to me what happened. If you tell me something, you did something wrong, there was an incident, something bad happened. We'll handle it. But one thing we can't do is if we try and cover something up and we get caught, now, now there's going to be hell to pay. So, yeah, that's a.

Another thing that I do with my kids is I got it. There's some great books. out there about talking to your kids about abuse and stuff. And there's one that I read to them sometimes. And it's not, those books aren't meant to just read once and never pick up again. They're a perfect opportunity to bring it up casually in conversation. There's a book, it's called I Said No, and it's written by Zach and Kimberly King. and Zach is a little boy and his mom, Kimberly King, and they wrote this book together.

And it's really great. It talks about people as being like red flag people, and those people can be the sort of people who just give you a strange feeling. They unsettle you. They make you feel a little bit odd, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they've done anything wrong to you, but you should be able to pick out those red flag people. and then talk to an adult about what is making them uncomfortable. Now is that because this red flag person did something that gave them a red flag?

Because one of the things that I told my kids, especially now that my daughters are older, you know, one of my daughters was going on a trip somewhere and I was giving her the talk. You know, listen, you need to watch out. And my daughter said something to me like, Dad, I'm not going to. going to be going and hanging around with some weirdo and i stopped her right in her tracks and i said it's not the weirdo the guy that looks weird it's not the guy that looks like a predator that you need to watch out for the guy that you need to watch out for is the guy that seems like a nice guy the guy that just you know helped you with your luggage is the guy not all of them

yeah but you need to watch out for that and if you look at some of those serial killers you know I think it was Ted Bundy, but he had the whole thing where he had his arm in a cast. And he would ask someone to help him. He would ask a woman to help, hey, I need to get my groceries in the car or whatever. And they'd see this kind of, and if you ever saw a picture of me, he looks like a nerd. And he has his arm in the cast and he's got a collared shirt on. He looks like a white collar guy and he's got a car. And, you know, next thing you know, as soon as they'd help with the groceries, boom, the arm's out of the cast and he's abducting them.

And so, so what, how do they identify like the red flag people? It's more about your, your gut intuition. If there's something that just makes you feel a little bit weird, if they say something. You know, it's, it's about listening to that internal voice that might be telling you something's a little weird. But he's a really nice guy, you know, he's, and learning how to identify that and listen to it. Because, yeah, that's, like I said, pedophile, sexual predators. They're not stupid people. Most of them aren't stupid people.

They're very calculating. And they look for the right opportunities. So, yeah, you've got to teach your kid specifically that. Yeah, and it seems like you need to teach your kids specifically. I said no part, right? Because even you as a kid, you don't know how to say no. You don't know how to scream. You don't know how to tell someone to stop.

and and also how to identify what you know kids don't know where the line is if you don't teach them what's right and what's wrong in terms of physical contact with them then how are they going to know how are they going to know exactly that's a good point now you you don't want to scold the kid for making a mistake and you know how you hold lying in higher regard as far as violations go where if this environment is kind of created that what you say doesn't mean that much. So be careful with what you say, you know. But if the environment is, hey, you can come to me with anything. And you demonstrate that.

Don't just say like once a month. Say, hey, you can come to me with anything. Next day they come to you with something. You're like, hey, I'm busy. Or hey, grownups are talking, you know. So if you actually provide that environment consistently, they'll come to you with anything. Anything that's off, they'll be like, hey, mom, what's this? Hey, there's a rabbit in the back yard.

You know, even something that small. So some weirdo or some red flag person comes. And they're doing something strange out of the ordinary. They're going to come to you way more likely, you know. Yeah. You know, we talk about inoculation when it comes to training for combat. And, you know, you inoculate yourself to stress. And one of the things I talk about with self-defense for, especially for women,

is if you train jiu-jitsu, you get inoculated. to the fact that someone's going to be grabbing you, touching you, grinding on units. And so you're over that. You're over that. But it seems like this is the same situation you do with kids where you inoculate them to the uncomfortable conversations. So they're okay talking about stuff that, let's face it.

You know, your kid is not going to be comfortable talking about some things unless you inoculate them and you get them used to it and they understand what's right and what's wrong. I think it's correct. What you said, it's, the parents are typically the ones going to be more uncomfortable. Like the key, you'd be surprised what kids will just talk about.

Like, we're saying if, unless you made it uncomfortable for them, they'll talk about some weird stuff, especially five, six, but if they, the parents,

hey, you know, in your scenario where they'll ask you something, you can answer. They say, good, that's the answer I want. Let's don't talk anymore.

Yeah. They're uncomfortable. And it's on the parent to initiate these conversations. It's not on the little kids to come to you and tell you something big is happening. And it's on you as a parent to initiate these conversations.

My daughter is, she's shy and she doesn't express her emotions very well. She's not the kind of kid who comes and just tells you stuff. And I don't, I don't want this to sound like I'm beating this stuff into my kids' heads every day and terrorizing them with the thought of scary things that might happen to them because I'm not. You know, I talk about it casually enough, I think, that it gets through. to them. But she had, she's in kindergarten and she had a little issue. And she told me that a boy has been coming up to her on the playground. And she, I always used correct terminology because that's another thing I want, I feel like kids should be comfortable talking about their bodies. And she told me,

and it was hard for her to tell me. She didn't want to tell me. And I could totally see it because of her personality. She came up and she told me that a little boy was coming up every day on the playground and like poking her in the vagina and then asking her to do the same to him. And she's, I think she's five. She told me that. And I was like, okay, what I'm doing is working. Because knowing her personality, she didn't want to tell me that. But she did. And so that was also the perfect experience to sort of teach. Like, okay, cool, not a big deal. He's five years old.

Little kids do that and they don't know what they're doing. But let's go talk to your teacher and make sure, you know, and I immediately took action and showed her that I wasn't going to let anything happen to her if she was uncomfortable with it without blowing it out of proportion. I was going to say, because a lot of times what kids are embarrassed about from age, whatever until, yeah, is they don't want. want to tell you because you know my my 17 year old will do that as will my seven year old dad dad you know so I think that's another thing is how do you make sure that they realize that you're

going to be you know without blowing it out of proportion which which I agree with you know it's a five-year-old kid it's a five-year-old boy yeah they're doing like you said they're talking about stupid stuff that they don't understand and they're doing things that they don't understand yet that's like okay but but let's now teach them let let them learn at that yeah and And that gave me a lot of confidence that if something, because I, because she dealt with that in a great way, if something bigger were to happen, I now feel like she would be much more inclined to come to me. But what you're saying about not wanting to make a scene, I think as I got older and understood what was happening to me a lot more than I did when I was little, I didn't want to make a scene. this is somebody who was my parents' best friend, was deeply involved in our life, had been with us forever, and imagine what telling would look like, and that wasn't something that I was prepared to handle.

Even when I was a teenager, and I knew exactly what was going on, and I knew exactly how wrong it was. The scene that would ensue if I said something was not something. that I was willing to deal with. That's even hard for adults to do. Any kind of like confrontation that's going to cause these big ripples, it's like, man, I got to weigh all this out now. You know, like can I strengthen myself up versus, you know, create this big scene? I'd rather deal with strengthening myself up in dealing with it almost.

Because you have no idea in your mind, you probably made it even a bigger crazy, see. You were probably thinking that they were going to have to make a choice between you and this guy, you know? Maybe in your mind that's their best friend, you know? Now you've got to convince people and it just becomes easier to just not say anything. You don't know if they're going to believe you. You don't know if he's going to go to jail. You just don't know what the consequences are going to be.

And it's much easier to just be like, all right, I've dealt with this. I can keep dealing with this. I'm not going to cause any ripples. So as you grow up, I'm going to go back to your writing here. as I grew older I got better and better at avoiding him his hounding of me did not decrease but I rarely let him get his hands on me I was incapable of just telling him to get away from me if he got me cornered I'm not sure how to explain what this is like this constant pursuit and hounding that you are unable to avoid when you are a child when I was 12 years old we moved it was over seven years of stress and fear and pain finally replaced with an empty discomfort a weight was lifted from my shoulders i got a horse and felt more freedom than i ever had and then he followed he bought a piece of property just up the hill from us and that was the beginning of dealing with him as a teenager i never let

touch me again I tolerated his crude comments and ate dinner next to him at the dinner table I laughed at his jokes and I dutifully rode my horse up the hill to check on him every couple of days at the insistence of my parents he would always come out of his trailer and lay a hand on my thigh invite me to tie up and come inside I still couldn't look him in the eye still couldn't tell him to fuck off instead I would just change the subject and ride off off with a hollow pit in my stomach so you move away and then he follows you there and you know you talk about how hard it is to explain this and this hounding that you got and you're trapped you can't you don't feel like you can say anything to your family you can't get away from

him and this is just got to be I mean you say a hollow pit in your stomach and this is just got to be eating at you and you find finally some comfort in horses, which was already your dream and now you finally get, you finally get your first horse. Yeah, that was the best thing that ever happened to me up until that point, at least, maybe ever. There was a neighbor lady that lived close to us who had this horse that she didn't didn't have time for and she let me bring it home and start riding it and I didn't my family never had horses we knew nothing about horses other than my just insane desire to have one and so I just

started riding it and this horse was half broke at best and I would fall off constantly I just would smack my on the ice and get back on and fall off again. And I remember my dad one time standing there and just telling me, you got to stop. You can't, I'm not going to let you sit here and kill yourself trying to ride this horse. And, you know, of course, back then I didn't, I didn't have a silly thing like a riding helmet or even a saddle. I just, I just had this desire to ride this. horse and if it was going to kill me it was going to happen and so I did I just kept

after it and finally wore the poor horse down and he he gave up and he ended up being you know the by my side for for many years and so that that gave me this whole different level of freedom I wasn't you know constrained to my feet anymore I could go out and get just miles and miles away from it all. And, you know, home wasn't, it wasn't a comforting spot for me to be. So I was much more comfortable being out in the mountains by myself with my horse. And some people might have an issue with this, but by the time I was 12, I was carrying a 30-30 rifle in a scabbard on my saddle. And I had a little Ruger 22 that I carried with me, you know, one or the other, usually when I was out riding.

Because my parents felt like I was safer with a gun than without a gun, even though I was 12 years old. I'd grown up around guns and was comfortable with them. And since I would head out in the mountains. And I think the only rule I had was that I had to be back by dark. And, you know, when you're on a horse and you leave first thing in the morning, you can cover a lot of ground. And if something had ever happened to me, I don't know how anyone would have even found me. So I was, I had to be responsible and self-reliant to make sure that I was as safe as I could be out there. And I give my parents a ton of credit for allowing.

me that freedom. They had a daughter who had this passion to be doing what I was doing. And it was dangerous. And they let me do it. And that is a large part of what built me into who I am today. And so that, you know, that's something that I also try to do for my own kids as much as I can. And, you know, I'm pretty cautious with them, but I still try to always allow them a lot of freedom. I remember one time I was, I think I was 15, I was riding away from home a little ways. And I was down in this creek bottom. And I heard this commotion down there, this like barking and noise. And I thought there were neighborhood dogs who would chase deer.

and I thought that the dogs had a deer down down in the creek bottom. And that was what went through my head. And I ran my horse down through the brush into this creek bottom thinking I was going to scare the dogs off this deer. And I came out of the brush literally from me to you, like five feet away from this mountain lion that was just in full snarling crouched attack mode. And it was squared off with, I didn't know this when I was riding. but one of my dogs had followed me and I hadn't seen it. And it was down in this creek bottom with this mountain lion and they were face to face just snarling and crouched down at each other. And I came out of the bushes right on top of them.

And, you know, I didn't feel any fear at all. I just reacted. And I just knew I had to get a little space between myself and the lion and I spun my horse around and got up the hill just a little ways and then stopped. to watch the situation. And the dog was this big wolf chow cross. It was a big dog, but she got scared, and she cut and ran. She decided she'd had enough. And she turned to run from this cat.

And the second she turned to run, the cat had her. It just threw an arm over her back, reached under bitter throat, and she just went limp. And then the cat just picked her up and cared. her away. Yeah. And that's because you're not supposed to turn your back on the... Yeah, yeah.

Don't ever... So even when you kind of rode away, I was kind of like, oh. And the reason I did that is because the cat was distracted. Right. I wasn't the threat to the cat. I was this side thing. The threat was this dog. And thank goodness my horse was just a rock and didn't dump me right in front of this cat.

Because had that happened, there's no doubt in my mind that I would have been attacked. But, you know, things like... like that. That was my life. Things like that happened and I was young and I had to be able to deal with those situations. How old were you at that point? Fifteen. And there's also this really, really strong dichotomy here is that you're out in the wilderness on horseback, pack and heat, you know, confronting mountain lions. And even with all that, you didn't confront this abuser. And that's another, you know, sign and indication to people of how hard it is psychologically

for someone that's as strong as you were as a teenager that's out there on your own. Like I said, riding around the mountains with a pistol and a rifle ready to, you know, get after it. And yet this, by this point, kind of an old man is. still has this level of control over you in your own home. Yeah. That's just, um, and, and, and I would say then at this point, maybe to fill that hole or to release some of that tension, you start going down a path that's not a good path for you to be going down in life.

Yeah. So when I was also 15, I met someone that lived a few miles away from us who was, I think he was in his 30s. He was an Indian guy and he rode around the mountains on his horse as well. And it was, I developed a relationship with him. And, you know, it was, he was. was not the kind of person that you would want your 15 year old to be dating, but to me, he was, it was just this romantic thing and it was this escape. It was, it was something different. It was someone that paid attention to me in a time when I was really struggling with

my home life and, and who I was. I think the, the molestation, abuse stuff got harder for me as a teenager as I, even though it wasn't actively happening anymore, really, physically, it was messing with my mind a lot more because I understood it better. And so I started dating this guy who, you know, was a distraction to me from that. And, you know, in the way 15-year-olds will, I just became madly in love with him. And, you know, you can make your own conclusions about a 30-something-year-old man dating a 15-year-old. I certainly feel a lot different about it now than I did then. He told me that he wanted to marry me.

Like it was very serious in my mind. And then one morning I was riding away from home down this dirt road. And I remember a neighbor rancher pulled up alongside me and asked me if I'd heard what happened. And he told me that this man that I was in love with had been shot and killed. What was the genesis of him being shot and killed? It was, like I said, he wasn't, he wasn't the most upstanding person and it had to do with marijuana and guns. And it, it was just a mess and it was tragic. Some kind of a drug scenario.

Yeah, he wasn't a drug addict, but he led a life of, um, of, well, I'll just say it, he would steal people's marijuana plants from them and sell them. And it got him into trouble. And I look back now on the road that that relationship could have taken me down. And while it was this horribly tragic event for me at the time that sent me into an even deeper tailspin, now as an adult the way I am, I'm almost thankful that it happened because I think that had that not happened,

who knows where my life would have gone. And so what, you know, there's, first of all, I can see how 15-year-old Iris who's dealing with this stuff at home and meets this guy that's, you know, 31-year-old is I don't care if he's a total idiot. He can manipulate the hell out of a 15 year old all day long. But regardless, you're in just a super vulnerable situation because of your mindset

and you end up here in this relationship with this guy. Now he gets murdered and you go, you end up just going even worse at the time. Yeah, that was a hard thing for me. my 15-year-old brain to process. And shortly thereafter, my parents separated, not in an amiable fashion. My sister went off to college, so I was especially on my own because she was, you know, my rock. And I just really went into a cycle of depression and misery. And by the time I was 16, I was dating a 32-year-old cop, which again, you know, I have very different feelings now on what a 32-year-old cop is doing, dating a 16-year-old. But he was this safety zone for me in a big way.

He was this, you know, strong, brave person who wasn't going to let anything bad happen to me. and I really latched on to that when I was just trying to find something in life to hold on to. And that ended up being a long on and off again relationship, which definitely was not healthy for me. And at that point in time, I started self-mutilating. I started cutting and burning myself. I was definitely very depressed. And it was not something that I knew how to communicate to anyone. I just was sucked into misery and self-pity, really.

And when you start hurting yourself, is that at that moment, is it just so much, anger and frustration that it somehow feels good to feel that pain or inflict pain on yourself? Or is it more of a, hey, everyone, look here. I'm doing this to myself. Maybe you should pay some attention to me and help me, or is it a little bit of both? Or is there something that I don't know and understand? I would say it's definitely both.

It's definitely, it's a funny thing. It's hard to understand. It's sort of an addictive behavior. And, you know, I've read about it some, and they say there's chemicals released in your brain and stuff when you feel physical pain that makes the emotional, that doles the emotional pain and things like that. But it also, for me, I will absolutely say that, yeah, I think it was, it was a cry for help. It was like somebody realized. what, you know, and as all teenagers do, you think that you're some rare exotic creature that's no one else has ever experienced anything you've gone through and nothing anyone says to you

matters because they don't know what they're talking about. But for me, yeah, a lot of it was a cry for attention to have someone. And I got it. The thing is, is I got the attention. The cop that I was dating told my parents that I was doing this. And people kind of freaked out. And everybody thought that there was really something the matter with me. And I was really depressed.

And I wouldn't, even though I was getting the attention and people were actually asking me, like, what's going on? What's, why are you doing this? I wouldn't say I would not tell anybody. I just was shut off. And it's like I wanted the attention, but then I still wouldn't say what. And maybe part of it is that I didn't even know, but I think what we talked about before of the not wanting to make a scene. I was not going to make a scene.

At this point, my abuser was pretty old, but he was still alive and he was still in our lives. still, you know, all the time. And people were asking me, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? And I was not going to say. Going back to your writing. By that time, I was already damaged by so many years of abuse, heartbreak, and death, painful and destructive relationships.

My parents were divorced and angry. My sister had moved away. I was in a spiritual, I was in a spiral of self-destruction and self-pity. I had taken a cutting and burning myself, scars that I still carry to this day to remind me of the way my life could have continued. And that's what you just talked about. And then at this point, you're 17 or 18 years old and your abuser who you just said was now an old guy. He dies. I'm going to continue.

I'm not sure exactly when I woke up. When I shut off the self-pity fountain and realized that I was strong. and indestructible somewhere in my early 20s my 20s was a slow rebuilding of my life the way I wanted it I traveled wandered worked as a horse wrangler around the West had relationships with men who were kind and decent got married got divorced made friends built up a reserve of strength and found myself little by little so So, you know, one of the reasons that you're sitting here today, one of the reasons that I know you is that despite all that darkness that you got sucked into, you somehow, in some way, at some point, realized that you were going in the wrong direction and you turned around and started to. And I know we've talked about it before.

It wasn't like you woke up one day and said, today I'm going to change my life. life you you transitioned you transformed over a period of time you can't put like you know you're not going to put a day on it you didn't have a eureka moment but you slowly started seeing yourself from a different perspective and realizing that the path you were on wasn't a good one so as soon as i graduated high school i left to start working on ranches i went to Montana and i remember clearly I was 18 I guess and I was working on a ranch in Montana and someone had left laying around this dusty old copy of D.H. Lawrence book of poetry. And I read this little poem and it just stuck with me and I'll read it here. It's, I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.

A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bow without ever having felt sorry for itself. And I read those words and they just, they just hit me in the right place. And I'm not saying that that in particular is what really started to make a change. But I read some more things and, you know, I was growing older and I was thinking about things differently and my abuser had died and that was probably the biggest weight that I've ever felt lifted off of me because now what I realized is even if I did choose to tell someone it wasn't going to cause the kind of scene that it would have before and I still didn't really choose to tell anyone, but that in itself, not having him actually be present was a big thing for me. And I realized

that I'd just been damaging myself and I'd really been hurting people in my life. My parents, my sister, they were just confused. They didn't understand why I was where, why I was doing what I was doing to myself. And I realized that I was just in this, I was a being selfish and self-centered and just feeling sorry for myself. And I stopped. I just gained a little bit of perspective and made myself stop. That perspective piece is so important. What's crazy to know we all have seen and everyone's seen people that are in the downward spiral. They're just caught in the downward spiral, whether it's a relationship, whether it's booze, whether it's drugs, whether it's behavior,

you can see it. And when you're on the outside of it, it's so obvious. And you want to grab that person. And I'm sure everyone, I have literally grabbed my friends that I've seen in that downward spiral and shaking them and saying,

get out, come out, come here. All you have to do is come over here. Step over here with me and look back and see what situation you're in and the direction you're heading. And unfortunately, you can't pull them out you can't pull their head out and let them look back at themselves they have to step out they have to come to that recognition themselves and that's

one of the hardest things as a friend or as a family member to watch that person it's like watching a train wreck and you know all you could do you know you could press the brakes you realize how easy it would be just say hey press the brakes press the brakes stop and yet we can't we can't do it we can't help people we can't you have to help yourself and and so I mean obviously that poem you know seeing that was a form of you starting to take a look at it starting to take a look at yourself from a different perspective maybe your abuser dying helped you start to look at that from a different perspective definitely it was it was a long slow process for me though it didn't just happen overnight I mean I

I think I've been made a very conscious decision not to hurt myself anymore, but you have to teach yourself how to think and feel. And that takes time to teach yourself to have the right kind of thoughts and feelings about things. And one thing that I wanted to say while I'm here talking about this is that just, Just because I'm sitting here saying that I did this, that I woke up and stopped, doesn't mean that everyone who's experienced something like this should just get over it. If you have listeners, if you have a girlfriend or a wife or a sister or someone who has been through something like this, or maybe after listening to this show, will confess to you that they've been through something like this. Maybe they've never told you before. And maybe they'll tell you something that doesn't even seem like that big of a deal. Maybe it's not years and years of abuse or violence. Maybe it is something that, you know,

happened to them when they were young and it's a sucky situation, but it's not horrible. It's not horrific. but she still feels violated. And it's this personal process that you have to go through. And friends and family and people that know someone is struggling with this definitely need to support in every way they can. But you also don't become a crutch. Just because someone has gone through something like this doesn't give them the right to drag everyone else down with them into the,

into their pit of depression and misery. So you support the best you can without enabling the bad behavior because that's really what it is. It's bad behavior. There's people who've gone through much more horrific things than anything I have ever been through that have come out fine. And it's just getting your mind and the way. the right place and taking control of your your thoughts and I know you know you have obviously

experience being being married to a military member and I would say along the lines of what you just said is that people are going to handle things differently then you can have two guys that were on the same exact combat deployment and did you know pretty much the same things and they're just going to have to deal with it in a different way and maybe one guy gets over it pretty quick or Maybe one guy barely even reacts to it. Maybe one guy, it really hurts him and it takes him some time. And it sounds like it's the same thing with what you're saying. We have to be open to, hey, this may take some time and it may take a different course.

And at the exact, again, to mirror what you just said, there's guys that just because they had some rough combat that doesn't give them the right to, number one, drag themselves down. down the wrong path and number two drag their family and their friends down the wrong path and and I think definitely You know saying hey look. I I don't claim to understand what you've been through But I do know this your behavior is not going to get help it right The the the bottle isn't going to help it the self-abuse isn't going to help it the skipping work isn't going to help it So I think those are those are those are fairly similar again. I don't I'm not trying to say they're the same thing I'm just saying that there's that there's that there's that there's that dealing with them has a lot of similarities, both guys that have been in combat trauma and people that have suffered this type of abuse. It seems like there's some similarities in the way that

there's varied ways that they get handled. There always has to be accountability for your own actions, no matter what you've been through. You can't just say, I've been through something horrible so I can act like this. Well, you know, case and point before we pressed record today, you and I were talking about, you know, Colonel Reeder who came on the show and who was a P-O-W. He was amazing. And you just think that guy, you know, just has been through any, he's been through hell. And then he sits there during the podcast and says the same thing that you just said, which is, look, I had it rough, but there's plenty of guys that had it way worse than me. And, you know, I think I don't, I can't think of anything worse than a two.

two foot tall bamboo cage in the middle of the of the jungle with rats eating my wounds with my feet shackled into a bamboo shackle you know that is just that's just unbelievable and to your point he comes on and says you know number one other people have had it rougher than me and number two i'm happy for what i've got and let's move forward yeah yeah So it really wasn't until my kids were born that, I mean, this was, this was in my mind all the time. I probably, I would say into my mid-20s, this is how prevalent it was. I probably thought about the abuse at least once every single day. It was always in my mind.

and eventually I learned that I didn't need to waste my thoughts on that and learn to spend less time thinking about it. But it really wasn't until my kids were born, I think, and my daughter was five years old. She was just this little girl, just this little girl. and she was the same age that I was when I was already dealing with abuse. And that just made me burn with rage. And I realized that I felt that I had an obligation to speak about this. That it happens to so many kids. It's so prevalent in not, you know, girls, but all.

boys. It's not just girls. It happens in higher number to girls, but it happens to both. And I felt like what I'd been through and what I had, you know, I think I've come around and am a pretty well-adjusted person now. And that I had an obligation to talk about this because it's something that doesn't get talked about. It gets swept under the rug and even people who have happened to get treated like, there's something wrong with them and they're embarrassed and they don't want to talk about it. And it's time for that to stop. It's time for us to start talking about it.

And I feel like I'm resilient. I grew up with this really close proximity to nature. And I've seen animals suffer horrific. wounds that should kill them. They don't have doctors, they don't have medicine, but they've got fire in their hearts and they don't feel sorry for themselves. And they survive. And I credit a lot of my resiliency to my upbringing in nature and observation of nature and how it's cruel and it's beautiful. And creatures survive in the most difficult and challenging situations, and they flourish. And if they can do that, so can I.

That's awesome. That is just awesome. And, you know, you kind of went right to talking about your kids or right to talking about your daughter. you you you know as you got out of that bad time of your life you ended up meeting your your husband my friend your husband and my note here is that you meeting your husband was the best thing that ever happened to him and and now and that's another reason why I you know I really wanted to bring you on and have you share some of your experiences obviously the the the abuse and your survival and your attitude about all that,

but bringing also that strength to, and people have always asked if I would bring my wife on, and you know my wife. I do, she's wonderful. She's wonderful. She's not coming on the podcast. It's not her deal. But, you know, people always want to know

because there's a lot of young military families out there. And, you know, I'm going to say this right now. I'm going to talk about military families. And in the back, I just want everyone to think first of all that also applies to you know cops and first responders and and firefighters Maybe not to the same in fact not to the same degree But also just normal you know hard-working Americans men and women You know you've got someone that's working hard and gone a lot and dedicating a lot to their job

So that that applies across the board but that being said you know you're a military wife My wife's a military wife and you you you you ended up in this situation well you you met your current husband who's a you know like I said a good friend of mine and and we I was on my my very first deployment ever back in the day had to fit that one in was he was on deployment as well and I think it was his second deployment and you know we met and hit it off immediately he kind of grew up he grew up in California I grew up on the east coast but we grew up with a similar kind of background and that we were both kind of into hardcore music and metal and punk rock and we were just into the same kind of stuff and we

recognized that immediately about each other and so we became friends back then we then we spent many years at different teams and but we we ended up being together at seal team three he was in different task unit than me but anyways you got a guy you ended up being married to a great guy but who's a military guy deploying all the time you didn't come from a military background, you didn't have military in your life. What was that like, how was it like being welcomed into the military family and the harsh realities of a being married to a military member during a time of war? Yeah, I, definitely not from a military family.

I don't, I barely knew what a Navy SEAL was. I wasn't impressed particularly with the fact that he was in Navy SEAL. I think that I'm fairly well suited to the lifestyle because I'm pretty independent and I'm, I don't tend to be someone who frets a lot over what might happen. I know that he loves his job and he's as well trained as he can possibly be to do the job that he does. And so, you know, that's really, that's really all there is for me. And, you know, of course, there's moments where you feel a little bit sorry for yourself and think, gosh, what if something happens? What if he comes home without his legs or with half his face shrapneled or something? But, you know, I don't, anymore, that stuff doesn't get into my head much.

And so I don't, I just don't really worry about it. You know, one of the, one of the, you talk about being independent, and I know obviously you're independent person. You can get along by yourself. And my wife's the same way, very independent in terms of her day to day. She doesn't need me to actually do anything for her. But I wrote down a note just to talk. about another level of independence and that's emotional independence which I think is very

important I think it's something that you know spouses need to find for each other because I think there's spouses that become emotionally dependent on each other and that works in a day-to-day relationship if you're seeing each other all the time but if your husband or your wife goes on deployment and leaves you for six months to 14 months to 18 months if you're in a long deployment cycle you are not going to have that emotional shoulder to lean on. It's not going to be there. And so you have to learn how to be emotionally independent.

Now, what's scary about this is that, obviously, if you get so much emotional independence that you're no longer, you can lose connection, right? And so that's what you have to watch out for. And I think what you see with, especially with younger married couples, the emotional independence from one person, leads up to leads to some kind of emotional dependence

on some other person that they meet next thing you know we have a bad situation so I think that emotional independence is something if you talk about with each other and you say you know my wife was one of the best things about my wife is I wouldn't even talk to my wife you know just not you know I wouldn't send her an email

it'd be a week two weeks three weeks no email nothing because I'm overdoing my job and and she wouldn't think to herself oh he's not talking You didn't send me an email. Why aren't you emailing me? Send me. No.

Hey, he's busy. You know, she wasn't dependent on me for her emotion. So I think that's another important piece that you need to talk about with your spouse if you're in a military situation. Yeah. My husband's pretty good, actually, about staying in touch with me and communication on deployments. But it's not because of emotionally being dependent on each other. That's just the way he is. He values my opinion on things a lot and we talk about things.

And, you know, so we do communicate quite a bit. But, yeah, I completely know what you mean about the. And as being a wife sitting at home with your husband gone, like, you can't just sit there and pine over them being gone and wait for them to come home. You have to have your own life. you have to carry on while they're gone. And that's the best way you can support them, I think, if you're, you know, making them feel bad for not calling you every opportunity you get and then laying a guilt trip on them about, you know, the fact that they're not giving you enough attention and stuff when they've got, yeah, you can't do that. you've got to you've got to just take charge of your own life and and do that while they're away. Now when they're away obviously that's some things you deal with.

They're away and then you have other things that you have to deal with when they come back home, especially during a hard deployment. Now, I know a lot of civilians listen to this show as well and it's important to recognize that there's different types of deployments. And even during the same time period, exact same deployment cycle with two groups of people or 100 groups of people, there will be some people that are in an area

or in an area of operational or have a mission set that will allow them to completely coast and enjoy themselves and have plenty of free time. And that can happen. And then the other end of the spectrum is you can go on deployment and you can think you can end up in total violence and chaos and mayhem. And I just thought of this.

My first deployment to Iraq, you know, we did a lot of operations. It was cool. It was fun. They were really good operations. And when I got back, when I was there, I was thinking, man, I wish I would have brought my guitar. Because, you know, I had some time. You know, I could have probably played guitar for, you know, half hour a day, maybe 45 minutes. If a couple of other guys would have brought their guitar, we could have had some little jam sessions.

right and and we were working a lot you know our op tempo was high we were working we were probably you know we were doing probably a mission every one two or three days we were out so my next deployment I said to myself cool you know bring a guitar you know with time get work on the work on the riffs sure go back in this deployment was to romadi and I think Leif and I played guitar not so much time we played we played guitar one time when there was like three days left in deployment we broke out of guitars and there was another tasking it there now and we were turning over but that shows you the difference and we literally did not have any time to do any of that and and obviously the the pressure of combat on my second deployment to iraq was a thousand times more intense and I know that your husband

has done multiple deployments as well and they varied in stress level and they varied in amount of combat and amount of direct combat and his leadership situation but I know that, you know, not too long ago, he went on a deployment that was definitely high stress and they saw a lot of hard combat. And when he came home from that, you know, what was that like? What did you notice? And what do you think other people should look for? So the very first night he was home from that deployment, I woke up in the middle of the night and he was standing over the bed holding a gun. And that sort of shocked me a little bit and made me realize that I was dealing with something a little bit different.

I'd talked to him on deployment, and over the course of the deployment, I could hear his voice changing. I could tell that he was changing. It was strenuous, and there was a lot of engagement. And when he came back, he just, you know, when he woke up in the middle of the night, his immediate response, he just heard a noise that dogs barked or something. And he just jumped for a weapon. He just startled easily. And that was his reaction. He had definitely a shorter temper.

Little things that he shouldn't have been getting mad about were setting him off. you know just just dumb stuff somebody would say something or do something and he would get so mad about it and it was like you know take it down a notch he started um you know i don't want to make it sound like he was doing this in a terrible way but he definitely started some self-medicating with alcohol uh he was like relying on sleeping pills to get to sleep he has never been much of a drinker i'm not a drinker at all. And so when I noticed him drinking more than he normally would every single night, you know, that immediately was a red flag to me. And then the sleeping pills, you know, this, this ambient is powerful stuff and can really be a bad, a bad road to go down.

Yeah, guys definitely get on that ambient road. And I, I've seen guys go to. down that road and it's just like all of a sudden they can't sleep without Ambien and it messes up your sleep cycle and everything else. Definitely. And I guess that there's times when people need it, but I think, I think guys in the military slip real, really easily from a guy that needs it to a guy that's just doing it because they're starting to rely upon it. Yeah, for sure. And it's weird that you talk about, I mean, we just had, you know, Dave Burke, who was an Anglico guy, Ford, air controller, on the ground with with my task did a lot of work with my task unit in Ramadi and you know he was an he was an F-18 pilot he was you know top gun you know echo just thinks he was straight up

tom cruise but he was on the ground unless in remade for a hell of a deployment and saw a lot of stuff and in some very intense direct combat and exactly what you just said like a couple of things you know he said when he was talking about when he got home and he got in the car with his wife and and his mom, he was in there for 10 minutes, and they were having a normal conversation. All of a sudden he yelled at him. Like his temper was just short. So there's the temper, the increased temper.

So that's one thing people definitely get. And the other thing, you know, the startle response, which was, which Dave talked about as well, was, you know, he heard an air gun for putting the, working on a car. He was walking by a garage and somebody fired off an air gun. And he grabbed his wife and threw it to the ground, right? And he was like,

He said while he was doing, he already realized what am I doing, but it was too late. So those are things to watch out for. And then what about the, I know you talk about the sleep pattern. Yeah, he definitely wasn't sleeping normally. And so, you know, I started to see this stuff and I was like, this isn't, this isn't a road that we want to go down. And so I told him that I thought he really needed to go see a psych. And luckily, in the SEAL team, there's good access to that.

And also, fortunately, my husband listens to me. Luckily for him. He values my opinion. And if I say something is a miss, then he believes that something is a miss. And so he went and saw the psych. And I think Doc Parsley, I think you've talked about him before, or helped him to get on to just a healthier sleep cycle, cut out all the medication.

He doesn't take any medication at all anymore, never any sleep pills or anything. Started taking like some herbal supplements and stuff. And he takes some alpha brain now. And it didn't take long. He, you know, he made a few appointments with the psych. That definitely helped him. to realize that, yeah, he wasn't acting normally.

Because I don't think when these, when you guys come back, you don't, you've already been used to operating on the elevated level for a while, and you don't realize that you're not, you're now home with your wife and your kids and you're still trying to operate on that level. It's like that, you know, the Boil of Frog thing, you know, where you just, that's normal to you.

It's normal. You don't sense it when you're overseas. you just are getting ramped up and ramped up when you're staying in this heightened state all the time and everything is intense all the time but you don't notice it and so when you come home you don't notice that it shouldn't be like that right now

yeah yeah and that's where it's really important for the family spouses and stuff to you know keep an eye on these guys and hopefully channel them in a good direction when they get home as opposed to you know, had I not stepped in? And I mean, my husband's, he's, he's been a sale for a long time.

He's, he's been through a lot of stuff. But, you know, he definitely could have gone down a road that wouldn't have been healthy for him or his career. No doubt about that. I just remembered this when, I think when it was either right after you met here, met, right after you moved down here, I think. I was talking to him because I was talking about. about where you guys were living, you know, out, and then you guys had property. You hadn't bought property yet,

but you were renting a big property and you had horses and everything. And I said, oh man, you know, what made you move out here? You know, this is awesome. And he's like, yeah, my wife told me she wouldn't come down here unless I got her a property with horses on it. And here we are. It's like, awesome, that's killer.

Yeah. And then, you know, you talked a little bit about your kids and how that helped you, but, But in the meantime, as you were having kids, when you got down here, you started straight up farming. Yeah. I mean, that was a condition to him having me was that I was not going to put my horses in a stable and go see them once in a while. Like they were going to come with me and we needed land for them to be horses, wild horses like they were used to being. And so he made that happen.

He made it. He did. He made it happen. And we got a great 18-acre piece of property, and we've got five fat horses now out in the field every time I look out. And I never farmed before. I'd always been a horse wrangler. And I started just growing a little garden. I was like, oh, I love this. And I heard about a CSA program, which is basically where you grow. a, like, you grow a bunch of stuff and you sell a box of whatever your farm is producing every week to people who pay, you know, they'll pay to get their box of fruits and vegetables. And I was like, oh, I could do that. I could get a few people and start to do that. And so I did. I started out with like 10 families that I'd do boxes for and realize that I really liked it. And it gave me a lot of focus when he was deployed.

It gave me a lot of something to really throw myself in. into and focus on. She wasn't going to pick like knitting. Or playing in cards. I'm going to run a farm. How are you like that? And then, you know, we had kids kind of right around that same time. And so that was a little challenging itself to be trying to like get this farm up and going and being, you know, in the beginning you talked about me being like nine months pregnant out there working.

And yeah, that's what I did. But it was awesome. You know, I loved it. And I've managed to build up a pretty decent little business. And there's nothing that I find more rewarding in life than growing good food. There's something about it that's – and for my husband, too, like, I do most of the technical farm work. He's more of my farm boy, maybe. Maber.

Yeah. Yeah. But – it's very therapeutic for him, I think, when he comes back from deployments and stuff, and he will, he can just kind of let all that go by being in this natural surrounding with physical labor to do every day. You don't need, I think you've talked about this before, you don't need sleeping pills when you work yourself hard all day long. You don't have to, you need sleeping pills when you're married to Iris working on the farm. You're going to go to sleep at night tired.

I've sent my, I've sent my boy out there, like when her husband's on deployment, I'd send my boy out there just to do slave labor out there and get after it. Let him learn about an honest day's work. Sleep outside. It's legit. It's, you know, one of the things you had written, and this is, you know, a different topic, the different article that you had written. And I'm just going to read a little chunk of it because I love it. Here we go. This is about, you know, being on the farm with your now, this is when you just had your one daughter.

Here we go. My garden helper turns one year old this week. I remember when life was simpler, when I could work in the garden all day, uninterrupted, when I could sleep when I wanted and be out of the house by the early morning. But I didn't laugh nearly as much. My heart wasn't as large. I was more selfish. These days are slow, this baby and I.

There are so many little breaks we take, things we get distracted by, things that must be learned. I feel lucky to accomplish one or two small tasks in a day now. That is enough, though. We manage. There is nowhere she would rather be than in the garden. Makes me happy to see her dirt-streaked feet.

face smile. I have gotten past everything having to be clean. Let a child be a little wild. Let her experience the taste of dirt, the feel of leaves, mud, and water. Let her grow in the garden like an artichoke,

rambunctious, and beautiful. She laughs out loud, throwing her head back to point at the birds. She squeals with the light when she gets a hold of the cat and crawls like mad to get out of the way of the sprinkler. This is nothing that can be replaced by toys, nothing that can be learned from books or videos, parks, or playgrounds.

This is my sweet child. Sweet as the honeysuckle blossom. Dirt and all. That's good stuff bringing those kids up on the farm. Yeah. And, you know, continuing. and down that and kind of bringing it up to to the present you wrapped up the article that you wrote about abuse and you kind of talked about where you're at now and I'm gonna I'm gonna

hit that the person that I am now I'm fairly proud of considering I carry very few scars from my past other than the physical ones that are carved into my skin I am comfortable talking about abuse I can look at of my abuser and feel very little I am married to a kind and courageous hero of a man I've built up a beautiful farm I've got two amazing young children who I will protect with my life Which is really where this story begins the children Look around you please look at your own children and other children that you see Look at your friends and relatives and watch their interactions close

We fear so many ridiculous things in life, but we don't fear the most common dangers to children nearly enough. We like to think of child molesters as strangers, not the people we know and let into our lives daily. Stay vigilant. Trust your gut instinct if something seems off. Remember, even very young children can keep tremendous secrets. This is uncomfortable. But sometimes uncomfortable things need to be handled head on until they no longer have the power that secrecy and silence gives them. Thanks for listening.

Please share and keep the children safe. And then, and we, you know, we've talked through some of this, but I kind of want to just, you, you kind of laid out, and you've talked about it already, you know, just in what we've discussed so far. But I think it's worth covering again from your perspective your thoughts on how to keep children safe and some of the things to watch out for and some of the things to do Here we go. I think the best answer is talk about uncomfortable topics early and often Don't just have the talk with kids talk to them on a regular basis about their bodies Sex predators consent If they never hear you talk about it it's going to be harder for them to bring it up to you I know communication is difficult in many families.

Remember, it's not up to the kids to do it. As an adult, you have to initiate hard conversations regularly. Don't ever assume your kid is too young for something to have happened to them. It can literally happen in a few minutes with a friend or family member when you are out of the room. Ask them if they've ever been touched inappropriately or in a way that made them feel uncomfortable then ask them again and again a few days later bring it up casualty the second time hey I was thinking some more about that conversation we had the other day give them time to process and decide if they can handle

telling you do not push kids to hug and kiss people if they are resistant to it even family members this is a topic that they should be familiar discussing with you everyone treats it like it's this dark That we can't talk about that makes kids feel like they can't talk about it either Take every opportunity to bring it up in conversation a news story a Facebook post a friend dealing with issues Talk about what's going on and why We may think that we are doing our kids a favor by keeping this horrible stuff from them But the statistics and the women who have spoken out here prove that most likely your child or grandchild or

will have to deal with it alone if you aren't proactive if you have four female children or grandchildren or nieces chances are at least one has or will be molested some kids just will not talk no matter what be observant and if anything ever seems slightly off follow your gut instinct if a child or teen tells you they haven't been touched or molested don't take their word for it kids can be amazingly good at keeping secrets. And that's, I think, it's just a great list for people to think about, to put into action and really a great example to live by

so that you can be aware of this stuff ever happens. Yeah. I want the subjects to be normalized a lot more than it is. You know, yeah, it's a horrible thing to talk about. it's hard to talk to your kids about it, but we have to make it more normal, not only for kids, but for the millions of adults that are out there who've been through it and still don't talk about it. When I first posted what you read, I posted on Facebook, and I had a ton of people send me private messages telling me their own horrible stories, people that I knew,

people that were friends of friends, people that I didn't know at all. And I was shocked by a few of the people that I knew who had horrible stories, kids that I went to high school with, that I knew during the time that their abuse was also going on, told me some things. And everyone just deals with it and doesn't feel like they can talk about it. And that's, it's not right. And so I hope that my coming on here and bringing this to light and being the person that I am and saying, hey, let's have an honest conversation about this will help someone else, even if one or two other people decide that they can change their life. for the better because they hear someone addressing this honestly,

or one or two other people look at their kids and the interaction that their neighbor or their friend or their grandpa, uncle, somebody has with their kids and realizes that there's something not quite right, then everything that I've been through is worth it because I will have used my experiences to help someone else. Well, definitely appreciate that. And I know we focused a lot on that today.

And again, you know, you as a military wife, I also wanted to take a moment to recognize all those military wives out there that hold the line while their husbands are as, you know deployed overseas in harm's way and I wrote something for one of my daughters and at this point one of my daughters was quite frankly not treating my wife with the kind of respect that my wife deserves you know it was typical teenager stuff a roll the eyes a flippant comment basically young adolescent girl with young adolescent attitude what you talked about earlier no one can tell me anything

i know everything and in her mind you know my wife was just some lady that did the laundry got the groceries and cooked dinner and that's how she treated her and so i wrote this for my daughter but I wanted to read it for everyone and I want to dedicate it not just to my wife but to all the military wives out there holding the line on the home front so this is what I wrote to my daughter your mom I wanted you to know a little bit about your mom your mom was a champion horse rider she rode cross-country races show jumping and she did fox hunting she cared for horses every day clean them train them and took care of them she won many victories your mom worked since she was little starting in restaurants first peeling potatoes then busing tables

then cleaning then waitressing to make money your mom went to an extremely good college Her parents didn't pay for it. She worked through college as a waitress to pay her own way. When your mom got done with college, she took the money she saved and backpacked around the world. She went to Thailand, Malaysia, Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and a bunch of other places. While doing that, she worked as a waitress and other odd jobs so she could make money and pay her own way. when your mom got done traveling the economy was bad and she couldn't find a job so she went overseas and worked at an airline as a flight attendant which is a hard thankless job serving ungrateful

passengers on planes she didn't like it but she did it when i met your mom for the first time she was the most beautiful girl i had ever seen and when i talked to you She was the nicest person I have ever met. She was funny and sassy and sweet and I knew immediately that I wanted to marry her So your mom picked up everything and left and came to be with me in America She moved into a tiny one-bedroom apartment with me She was wonderful. She was adventurous She surfed with me and she trained Jiu-jitsu with me every day and worked out with me every day She got her blue belt and Jiu-jitsu. She worked as an a gazette

executive assistant in a real estate office and got a real estate license we went skiing and hiked mountains and camped under the stars in the mountain and we went dancing at night she was amazing I got orders to move to Virginia she instantly packed up everything we had and quit her job and moved across country when we got to Virginia she got a tough job working for an insurance company of course I was in a seal platoon so I I traveled all the time and was gone all the time and she never complained one day she told me she was pregnant That was you she was so happy and then the day after you were born I left on deployment for seven months

She did everything by herself. I was gone she never complained and she sent me a picture every day of you When I got home from deployment she was already back in shape and looked amazing The Navy gave me orders back to California Without a word your mom packed away all of our stuff quit her job and we moved back to California I worked and went to school I never got up in the night to help take care of you it was always your mom every time She changed every diaper made every meal tried every tear read every good night book I worked went to school and trained Jiu Jitsu she never complained one single time Soon she told me she was pregnant again

That was your first sister. When your first sister came, now everything that your mom did for you, she had to do for your sister too. Every diaper, every meal, every tear, every little book read. I was working and going to school and training. She walked you both and read to you and took you to parks and playgroups and dancing lessons and swimming lessons and craft fairs. She did everything for you. She didn't get to surf anymore or do Jiu-Jitsu anymore or work out or hike with me anymore She devoted all that time to you her kids who she cherished

She never complained or whined or asked for anything then she got pregnant again this time it was your brother She kept doing everything for you when she got her morning sickness throwing up dizzy and carrying around a baby in her belly She didn't complain Ever. When she was in the bathroom, sick, and throwing up, she would apologize to you and you and your sister that you girls had to see her like that. Then the war started. I went back to the SEAL teams. I went to Iraq for six months.

I was working so much that I barely got time to write. Your mom always wrote me. She never complained about anything. She did everything by herself, everything. I was taking care of my seal platoon. and she took care of you three little kids. She cleaned everything, made every meal, changed every diaper, dried every tear,

took you to lessons and parks and doctors appointments and read to you every night and made your lunches and got groceries. She did this all by herself. No in-laws to help out, no grandparents around, just her alone. When I came home, things didn't get any better. I just started getting ready to go back to Iraq.

again she didn't complain some guys had to worry about their families their wives would complain and cry and file for divorce and fight over the kids I never worried about that at all your mom took care of everything and never made me have to worry about you kids or her or anything else my last deployment to Iraq I was gone almost seven months I left your mom alone again with you three kids some of my men were wounded and killed Your mom went to the hospital to visit the wounded men and went to the funerals of my friends. Your mom knew at any time it could be me that was wounded or killed.

She never complained. She cried with the moms of my friends. She gave support where she could, but she never asked me to stop or come home or leave early or even be safe. Never. She never asked me to give anything to her. She knew I had men to take care of She told me not to worry about her or all you kids She only told me to do my best at my job and take care of my friends on the battlefield

Most seals get divorced almost 90% There is too much pressure and separation and distance and too many challenges and many women can't take it so they leave Your mom never wavered She never had an issue or a complaint no matter what happened or when I came home or when I left or what I did She supported me always and she took care of you kids every day every night every moment Every need you had was her responsibility She never asked for thanks or appreciation and when it was her birthday or our anniversary She would tell me not to get her anything so we could save money

When I got home from my last deployment to Iraq, your mom got pregnant again. That was your youngest sister, and she did it all again. Morning sickness, diapers, sleepless nights, puke in the bed, pee on the floor, chicken pox, lice, tears, scrapes, bumps, bruises, teacher conferences, school lunches, everything. She never complained about it. I was still working, preparing men for war and traveling all the time, and she continued to, to take care of you kids so I could do my job. Your mom has stuck with me through hell. It has been hard.

Your mom has been married to this hard-headed frogman for 17 years. She's been through multiple wartime deployments. She has helped me when I was sick or injured, and she has done the same for you. She has done it because she is strong and determined, and she loves our family more than anything in the world. Your mom is an incredible person and amazing woman and I worship her She is everything I ever wanted So when you get the chance you should tell your mom that you love her

That you know how much she is done for you and for our family and that you appreciate everything that she has done for us and for you I hope you grow up and have some of the same qualities that she is possesses strength, honor, intelligence, dignity, selflessness, respect, determination, and kindness. That's your mom. And I hope you realize how blessed you are to have her. That's the note that I wrote to my daughter. And, you know, there's some people that say, A woman can do anything that a man can do. I don't know if that's true or not. I can tell you this, I don't know of too many men

that can do what my wife has done and what thousands of other military wives have done. I want to recognize how blessed we are as a nation of these women out there holding the line on the home front. A job, and yes, it is a job that is under-recognized and overlooked Iris, like my own wife, I think you are a stellar example of... Thank you. No, thank you for what you have done for your family, but also what you have done for our country

in supporting your husband and your family. And obviously, thank you for coming on here today. to teach all of us about a subject that we all need to know more about, not just abuse, but also determination. And on top of that determination to overcome what you experienced in your life, but the determination to keep a family together and protect the protectors. Well, it's been a incredible honor to be here And thank you guys for

Stepping out of Box a little bit with me And getting this out there And talking about some of the stuff And I love, you know, what you wrote to your daughter And your wife is still stunningly beautiful And very kind She is indeed And it's, you know

Having you on the part podcast was a no-brainer. I probably waited three or four months to broach the subject with your husband. I was waiting for the right moment and he said something to me about it. And I was like, you know, hey, if she ever just happens to want to come on, let me know. And he answered me in 30 seconds. And it wasn't his answer. He said, I just talked to her. She's good to go. I was like, yes. So it's been great having you on the podcast. Huge honor. Thank you guys. Well, speaking of the podcast, sure.

Echo Charles, I mean, if somebody wanted to support this podcast, is there any way they can do that? Yeah, there is actually. This is kind of the, you know, we talk about these heavy things. It's kind of the time to decompress a little bit, right? A little bit. We can talk about supporting the podcast. That's a good way to decompress.

Yeah, I think so. Most of the time. Let's talk about supporting ourselves now. You know because actually a lot of it like being like a strong military wife and all this stuff even even just a normal and you know this I'm gonna say this too I didn't say this there's military husbands as well Yeah definitely and and and they're they're doing all that stuff that I talked about I was talking about wives because that's what I deal with I dealt with my wife you know and and you're a military wife the guys that are out there holding down the fort and also there's guys that are married to police officers there's I know that that gets flipped some sometimes and and respect yeah respect equally challenging for for anybody that's that's holding down the Ford at home so yeah the the concept right yes you know a lot of times especially when you're dealing with kids and oh the responsibility is on me or whatever and I mentioned this

before where it's easy to fall into that kind of mindset where you're making it about yourself now you know where you have kids and it's like hey I got a change I changed I changed The diaper last time, you know, but if you notice, you're talking about yourself now. The diaper got to get changed regardless, but you're like focusing on the fact that you had to do it, you know, kind of thing. So not that you're wrong, but you chose to make it about yourself. So the less you make it about yourself and more about the mission, the family, the whatever it is that you're doing, the stronger you're going to have the, like, the capability to be. You know, you can like solve the problems and, you know, accomplish the mission. Anyway, so that being said, let's make it about ourselves for a second by supporting ourselves.

So this is kind of a flip, you know how you switch. You know how like in the airplane they say support yourself before you support the kid. Yeah, you got to put the oxygen mask on. You got to put the oxygen, you know what I mean? Because if you support yourself, you have more capability of supporting others. True thing. That's why. Like the stronger you are.

Echo's all excited. He's got Iris over here. She's in the game with him. Echo's like blowing me off. No, you're looking at him. You're talking to Iris now. Because she knows she mentioned alpha brain, all these things. And I started taking more alpha brain, by the way.

I think I noticed that today. You were sharp. You were crisp with the thoughts. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I felt like I was a bit distracted. Not necessarily here, but just in life. You know, I couldn't, like, focus on the thing that I need. Like making videos?

Or what in all. I've been making videos, bro. I've noticed that. That's good. Yeah, man. We like that. Anyway, if you're working out, You want supplementation, you want some support in the workout, which actually I'm down for now.

I wasn't a supplement person before, as I said before. But now I am because there's supplements like krill oil. You know strong bone, strong bone? Yeah. Is that for like bones too? It might be, but I just, I don't know. My bones seem strong. I don't break them very often, but my joints want help.

So I take it for the joints. Yeah. Because you figure, because usually one like your tendon detat, like, you know how I rip my bicep or whatever. It's the tendon ripping off the bone. Yeah. So you figure joints, maybe that's, you know, the strong bone is that's the part of it. I'll tell you what. Homework.

Do some research. Get back to me. Anyway. If you want the good supplements, krill oil for your joints, that's a big one. In my opinion, in Jocco's opinion. My opinion. Iris is a. opinion sure yeah man essential so whether you're working out or whether you're

actually working on the farm yes girl all up in it that's a good one but as far supplements go you know you get the good ones when you get on it ones anyway if you want 10% off on it dot com slash jaco my joints here's the thing like p all all bust out krill oil whenever it's applicable in my mind and people be like Oh, you're always talking about krill oil? No. But I feel like it's kind of always on my mind because, you know, like, okay, I'm talking to Greg, right, the other day. I don't think Greg's on the krill oils.

We're talking. It's after where he should be. Yeah. We're talking for a while about stuff or whatever. It's, oh, it's time to go. We get up, Greg. He goes, oh, like that. Oh, no.

I understand. He didn't have to make that noise, but him making that noise is an indicator. Full indicated. Exactly right. Somebody order that man, krill oil. Exactly. That's exactly what I thought. I didn't say nothing, but that's what I thought.

Why didn't you say anything? That's kind of jacked up. Time and place, maybe it was like, right? It was too new. It was too fresh. So let's just make this just for this whole advertisement's for Greg Train. Greg Train gets on the krill oil. Do it.

And it's less about making that kind of noise or not making the noise. It's the feeling that compelled him to make the noise. That's the important part. What if Greg Train wanted 10% off? What would he do then? I'm trying to help this along. No, but okay. If he chose to get 10% on it.com slash jaco.

The slash jaco, that's the part that gives you the 10% off on all your stuff, even if you like protein powders and whatnot, which is good too, by the way. Yeah. Look on there, see what, you know, because it depends your lifestyle. You see what I'm saying? Anyway. It does. You get it.

You get my drift. Okay. I think we do. That's a good way to support yourself. and the podcast and ultimately everyone around you. Actually, everyone in the world will be more supported. Ultimately, yeah. Like the butterfly effect, you know, like us talking, it'll affect China later.

Anyway, Amazon, click through. That's a good way to support you, by the way. So what that does is, you know, before you do your shopping, you click through the website, jocco podcast.com. There's a tab on the top, banner on the bottom. Thing is with the banner, I'm only saying this because people like hit me up about it. And they'll say, hey, I don't see the banner. Your banner is not there on the website.

If you have an ad blocker, which is a smart thing to have, by the way, just generally speaking. If you have an ad blocker, it'll block certain, like, things. And sometimes that banner will fall within the confines of things that the ad blocker blocks. Yeah. See what? You know what? We could also change our whole attitude here and make the full focus of the podcast and the website. and everything that we're doing to get people to get into to give us money.

Yeah. We're not going to do that. Right. So like now that I'm thinking and talking to you guys about it, I'm like, man, I should really go change that. But when I go home or when I go, you know, other places, I'm thinking about getting after it. I'm thinking about making videos, what have you.

So, you know, I get reminded about it. So maybe that's a good thing. Maybe that's a bad thing. But nonetheless, those are the facts as of right now. But it doesn't matter because there's a tab on the top. Like I said, click on. that one if you want to support it takes three seconds small action and that support that everyone's been giving big reaction and and somehow this supports china you were saying it can

ultimately yes it's the butterfly effect look into it's it's real yeah it's real uh you can subscribe to the podcast and this is on any podcasting providing platform google play itunes of course Stitcher. Yeah. You can write a review too, which I've done some, I've read some live reviews on here of

of Jocka White Tea, but I might do that with the podcast because there's some really good ones there too. I was actually thinking of doing a Facebook live and reading the comments on a picture that Joe Rogan posted of me because there are some funny comments.

Some pro comedians out there listening to Joe Rogan, so they want to make fun of my head. Yeah. But they're worth reading. You know, there was, remember that video that we made actually long to, I don't even,

might have been before the first podcast even, maybe after, I don't know. Anyway, we made it and it was about martial arts training. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're, you know, what's the best martial arts and self-defense, all this stuff, right? So I revisited that and this was a while ago. There's like millions, there's over a million views on that. Right. So with views come comments, right?

Yeah. So. You like that, don't you? And typically, yeah, you know, it's usually not very productive to spend much time in the comments section on YouTube. But a lot of views, a lot of comments, let's see what the people. And it's not like people who necessarily follow Jocko podcast. That's the thing. There's random people.

So you get a cool little, like, variety of people in there. So, yeah, there's some interesting ones in there. I didn't quote any or nothing or save any, but I'm just saying, generally speaking, is interesting. Nonetheless, back to subscribing to the podcast. Speaking of YouTube. Yeah, we have a YouTube channel. If you like the video version of this podcast, eh, like people know what you look like.

Yeah. But a smaller percentage of people know what I look like. And I'm not encouraging you to watch the video to see what I look. I'm not saying that. Echo doesn't look like what he sounds like. You definitely look different than you sound. Did you ever seen him before today? I've seen pictures of you online, and I was surprised when I did

because you sounded sort of, well, no, I'm not going to say what you sounded like. But you didn't sound the way I, you look. We'll assume that that's white hipster. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something like that. One guy said a mixed white and Latino, not hipster, like skate, not skater, I don't know, something. Anyway, they got real specific, which is good, which is cool. I dig it.

Well, yeah, I guess it's becomes you have a weird background being a Hawaiian what are you half black half white guy yeah I mean not to split hairs but there's some Native American and they're and native Americans but see none of that has anything to do with the way you talk yeah the way you talk yeah it has something to do with the way you talk yeah yeah it does I don't know why I said but yeah coming yeah growing up on Kauai and then living here and then I don't know talking to you all the time all this stuff just jumbled me up you know anyway back to the if you want to see what he like looks like you could check if you're interested in something like that if that interests you

subscribing to the YouTube channel might facilitate because conversely I look like what people think I'm gonna look like yeah exactly what I look like yeah exactly so yeah the YouTube also also my looks aside what we do now is and we've been doing this for a little bit is take out little excerpts of the podcast little lessons and we'll put them on there as well so you can share them you know it's easier than sharing the whole podcast and and having people receive it you know because you can't just listen to two and a half hours on a whim you know no but three minutes you have to kind of schedule that you got to schedule that yes exactly right three minutes though no schedule no no press play right now yeah yeah yeah lesson learned boom

yeah individual life approved good to go yeah rock and roll yes exactly so that's really the goal there and you know i gotta be like people Have said you know I always said oh people been asking me as one person No in my case people have been saying like that's good to have those ones because some people they don't listen to the podcast like the first day You know they're like how you said they kind of got a schedule well even even somebody even we got a lot of commuters Yeah, but you know half an hour commute It takes you you know a few days to hear the whole podcast but it might have been a little nugget you needed for work that Monday Exactly right. Yeah, yeah some people they'll say

that helped me that day. Like the college one that you talk about? Like how to approach college? Yeah. Legit. Anyway. Don't you wish you had that when you approached college? I wish I had all of this really when I approached anything in life, really.

But yes, the college, yes. So yeah, subscribe to the YouTube, man. That's a good one. That's a good way to support. And that's another way to support yourself in a way, kind of indirectly. And then if you wear T-shirts at any point, and you want to represent a little bit. We've got some cool t-shirts, you know.

I think. I think they're pretty cool. Approved? They are approved, quite literally. All approved stuff. There's a new t-shirt out, which you are wearing at this time. I like it. It's real complex.

It's black and it says get after it on it. Amen. Technically, it's a charcoal, Heather. Fashion guy. Amen, you know, it is what it is. And there's usually more to them than kind of meets the eye. We call that layers in the philosophical sense. But yeah, you know, if you want to support that way, that's a good way, you know.

And you get a shirt that you can wear. Very wearable. That's the thing. They're not the cheap ballpark giveaway shirts. They're like good, very wearable. Multiple occasions. People say it's my favorite shirt to wear because of the fit. People are telling you that.

People every single day, all day. Yeah, I'm telling you. Women's on there, women's stuff on their shirts, patches, rash guards. I'm going to put out a new rash guard here pretty soon. Not that that's like supposed to get everyone fired up or nothing like that. I'm pretty fired up. Yeah, it's good. The hoodies are on there as well.

And, you know, if you like any of this stuff, I'd say, just look at it. If you choose to support, if you feel like supporting, you feel like representing, go ahead, get something. That's a good way to support you. Yep. And also, this, what I'm about to tell you. you here could very well border on essential now it's like one of those things where okay so psychological warfare we're gonna talk about i'm gonna go into it so you know how like let's say you're getting after it iris is getting after it i'm getting after it i start taking cruel oil iris

starts taking cruel oil jaco is not taking cruel oil maybe someone else comes in they start getting after it they start to meanwhile you're not taking the krill oil we're kind of ahead of you you know you see it's a little soft jacco you know you're just saying no they'll consent Conceptually, that's a big deal. So psychological warfare, what that does is, okay, psychological warfare is an album with tracks. With Jock on there, put simply, with Jock on there,

helping you through any moments of weakness that you may have on your getting after it journey, waking up early in the morning every day, sleeping on the diet, procrastinating, all these things. Yeah, big deal. You know what's, yeah, if you think about just the procrastination,

one yeah procrastination is one of those things it's a massive problem with people right people all over the world have a massive problem with procrastination think of how easy it is to overcome that yeah it's the easiest thing yeah it's the easiest thing to overcome psychological warfare yeah you just do just do what what you're procrastinating and it's already you won it's not like you have to work to get over procrastination you just yeah just crush it yeah it's back the other day or last week whatever when I said like you got to switch it to manual just and for procrastination you just got to switch it to manual for like literally two seconds yeah one two boom and then you do it once you're starting right yeah you're doing it you were no

longer procrastinating you know but it's an easy battle to win and what a what a battle that so many people face and lose and lose it's yeah it's one of those psychological things that you kind of got to declare war on and in that case you're engaging in psychological warfare nonetheless this is a good way to so okay so back to my point about when everyone starts getting after it and you're not so I I don't want to feel that like everyone's like it's like a logical warfare because you can't listen to it and like hey I don't want to wake up I want to press the snooze you can't listen to wake up you know one of the first tracks or whatever you can't listen to that and then not wake up you can't you won't be able to face yourself it's like one of those

things it's like that strong so let's say everyone's doing that you're kind of left behind if you're not that's how I feel like if I'm not like if I'm not doing it you know I'll do it even if I feel like working out I'll still listen to it give you a little kick little kick anyway psychological warfare jocco I did I looked at it I was looking at an audio book the other day it's still number one by the way number one on spoken ward on iTunes see everyone's getting on it yeah man it's been that way since it came out the day so everyone that you're telling to get after it they're getting after right there that's part of my point right there like you got to do it also

Clicking when you're clicking through Amazon you can also get jocco white tea and here's the bottom line You know we all need a deadlift more yes all right sure don't play around if you order your jocco white tea You're gonna boost your deadlift to approximately eight thousand pounds and I was thinking about this the other day you think eight thousand pounds is heavy It's in another you know Unit of measurement is four tons yeah yeah I think that's good man that's really good you want to do that Way the warrior kid by the way it's not even pre-order anymore because it comes out May 2nd right so it's coming out soon boom order it now and save a child smash a bully Save yourself smash pull-ups that's the that's the that's the overall message

I was at the podger game yesterday and so there's a playground there and the kids They're just kind of running them up, you know. And a lot of times there's parents in there. And there's this one kid who was big. Oh. And he had that look on his face. I'm not saying he was a bully. But, you know, walk around.

He was like grabbing another kid. I don't know if it was his brother. I don't know if he was bullying him or helping him or whatever. But you could tell, like, in all the little kids' face. Because, you know, there's some people, they're, like, there's a line for this little thing that kids get on. It's like a, it's not a merry-go-round. It's a thing you sit in.

And so some kids are real assertive. They'll be like, oh, it's my turn. Cutting the line, not even realizing there's a line or whatever. Then there's some kids, they'll stand in line, and they'll just sort of let people just cut. And then there's some kids who are like, oh, wait. And they'll explain there's a line, you know, so you can see the different levels. There's different people out there. Yeah.

So like something like this, that's going to turn you into, you know, the person who's, you know, it's kind of like the leader. It's going to turn you into the little leader. It sounds like Kenny Williamson might have been out there. Kenny Williams is a bully. Now, interestingly, I'm doing the, there's a lot of, I asked questions, who should read the audio for this, right? Because if I was thinking I would just read the whole thing, then some people said, hey, you know, Jocko, you're not a kid, and it's a kid's voice. It's in the first person of a kid's voice, kids named Mark. So I couldn't read the kid's part.

I decided, you know what? I'm not going to read the whole book. I'm not going to read the kids part. But there's a character in there named Uncle Jake. Sure. Now, Uncle Jake, he was a seal. Sure. And he's going to come and help out.

And I decided maybe I could read Uncle Jake parts. So I did. Seems like he's a kid. And then we got a kid reading the kid's part. And I think you all find out who that is. And I think there'll be some layers behind that part even. So, yeah, weigh the warrior kid. You can order that now.

You can also get discipline equals freedom. Field manual is coming out. What's a field manual? It's something that you allows you to take information and put it into action. That's what the discipline equals freedom field manual is going to do. Comes out October 17th. Might seem like that's a long ways away, but so did May 2nd. Right.

But this thing's coming out around the corner. So the field manual, it's basically this podcast in a book. You can't bring this podcast into the field with you. I guess you can put it on your headphones. I guess maybe you can. But sometimes you need visual. will use yeah so that's what it is the thoughts the things from the podcast but then it also has very specific additional information like workouts sleep strategies

martial arts you know everything that's cool in the world it's all you know so you can do that extreme ownership you can you know by the way why is extreme ownership still one of the top books on Amazon and iTunes and Audible a year and a half after it came out, why is that? Is it because of the big advertising campaign that we did? No, it's not because that. It's purely because of word of mouth. So everyone that's listening to this right now,

that's buying it for other people and spreading the word, it's because of you, that's awesome, appreciate it. Extreme ownership, Amazon. Why is it not out on paperback yet? Do you wanna know why? Yeah. You know why?

Yeah. It's not out on paperback, because people ask me, why isn't it on paperback? It's not on paperback yet because books come out on paperback when they aren't selling the hard cover anymore they re-release a cheaper version here it is in paperback now it's only 995 they haven't done that with our book yet why people still want the hardcover it's still selling and the reason for that is because because it works because people get a lot

out of it so if you don't have extreme ownership or if someone that you know doesn't have extreme ownership just like they don't have krill oil tell Greg Train he needs krill oil tell your tell your subordinate leader or your superior leader or members of your team tell him hey look man I'm gonna get you a little something here for it to help you up yeah true ownership and if you need some more extreme ownership at your team company contact whatever you're you're you can contact our company echelon front Laif Babin myself Dave Burke J.P De Nell leadership and management consultants if you want to bring us on board contact us info at echelononfront.com

And also along the same vein, if you don't know, we have the muster coming up, number zero zero two in New York City at the Marriott Grand Marquis. Come get your leadership on. You will become a better leader, period. Laif's going to be there. J.P. is going to be there. Dave Burke is going to be there. Well, I'm going to be there.

Echo Charles is going to be there. And a ton of people that listen to this podcast and that we've worked with are going to be there. Come and get it. We'll see you there. And until we do get to the muster, if you want to communicate with us, you can find us cruising on the interwebs. Now, first of all, we're on Twitter. We're on Instagram.

You can also find us on the Facebook key. If you can find us there. So, Iris, for Facebook, where are you at? You can follow my farm on primeval. It's primeval gardens on Facebook and Instagram. And then I'm on Twitter at only Iris Gardner and I just told Iris to sign up for that this morning. I'm not a Twitter, but I will I will be there. That's what Tim Ferriss did to me too. Yeah, he was like, oh, just sign up for Twitter. No big deal. And then a bunch of people were like asking me questions. Yeah, yeah. But the cool thing is, well, that's what makes it cool is you can communicate with all these different people and they can give you good information. They can tell you what books to read and they can tell you what speeches to listen to and they can tell you what YouTube videos. You know, that's what you Check out and they can tell you what you did this is awesome. It's a great way of communicating with a bunch of people so you know like Twitter? I don't actually because you know like back in the day They sent messages with what pigeons right? Yeah, you know they send the message

Carrier pigeons. So it's like when you send someone a message it's called the tweet Yeah, but what does that have to do? Pigeons don't tweet though. I don't know the details I'm saying birds tweeting messages is that's what Twitter is. Oh, okay. So it's related to birds. Sure. And message it pigeons.

Exactly, right? Which now that we have an animal expert in the room, they don't tweet. They need to change the name of Twitter to like, well, yeah, well, no, they have to change the name of tweet, tweeting, the act of tweeting to that noise. Yeah. Cooing. Awesome. But that's what it is, just little messages, you know.

Interesting. Simple. Echo? Yes. You got anything else for us? today. Yeah, you said you, um, your dad made gold bars. Yeah. How big with a bar? Because, you know, you get the little, maybe that's a second career. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, there's a little like, like, like, like, gold kind of crumbs, right? First. Yeah. You get just little fragments of

pieces when you crush up ore. Yeah. If you're like going in the streams and creaks, you'll come out with gold nuggets, which are naturally forming larger. But when you're crushing a bore, you just get little tiny flex of gold, and then you refine it down into a bar. And I don't remember, I think, you know, they do them in a few ounces to whatever size makes sense to sell. You hear the word gold bar you're thinking. You know, like on the movie, you watch a three-chance.

Yeah, yeah, not like a 10-pound brick or whatever it is. but yeah smaller bars it's pretty cool yeah is that your final question that was it awesome awesome iris anything else you want to close out with gosh no just thanks for thanks for doing this thanks for getting me on here and um love listening to the show i i listen to it when i'm out working getting after it i i need to get after it shirt yeah well i always like going over your house because you and you and your husband both want to expand the conversation and point stuff out to me and ask about this so it's always awesome to have you guys listening but thank you anything else i think we're good well obviously thank you for coming on seriously i think it's awesome i think

it's courageous and brave and really helpful for a lot of people i hope so and Thank you for that. Thank you for giving us a warning that and hide anywhere, right, under our noses, and slink around and trying to corrupt those that are closest to us. So thanks for telling us to hug our children, to hold our children, and to watch our children closely. And also thank you for reminding us once again that in the end, evil cannot win

if we decide that we will not let it. Because if we confront the darkness, if we stand up with courage and we look upward, the light will shine on our faces and watch, out the darkness and bring us warmth and hope and happiness thank you for showing us once again that even with and the darkness of the world and even with the scars that they can leave even still even with all that this life is as sweet as the

honeysuckle blossom next time This is Iris and Echo and Jocko.