Julian Dorey Podcast - [VIDEO] - CIA / Special Forces Commando | Chris Cathers • 219

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

(***TIMESTAMPS in description below) ~Chris Cathers is a former Green Beret & CIA Paramilitary Specialist. Cathers did 12 deployments to 16 different countries over a span of two decades. Currently, Chris has a rare Stage 4 bone cancer due to chemical and waste exposure he experienced while serving abroad. His upcoming documentary, “Brother’s Keeper,” will come out soon. - DONATE TO BROTHERS KEEPER’S HERE: https://brothers-keepers.org/ - BUY Guest’s Books & Films IN MY AMAZON STORE: https://amzn.to/3RPu952 EPISODE LINKS: - Julian Dorey PODCAST MERCH: https://juliandorey.myshopify.com/ - Support our Show on PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/JulianDorey - Join our DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Ajqn5sN6 JULIAN YT CHANNELS: - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Clips YT: https://www.youtube.com/@juliandoreyclips - SUBSCRIBE to Julian Dorey Daily YT: https://www.youtube.com/@JulianDoreyDaily - SUBSCRIBE to Best of JDP: https://www.youtube.com/@bestofJDP ***TIMESTAMPS*** 00:00 - Manhunt TV Show, Forgotten Historical Figures, Social Turmoil 🇺🇸 10:24 - Trump’s Felony Charges, Post-Civil War Reconstruction Period, Linocoln’s America 🎩 17:33 - Brothers Keeper Veteran Group, Terrible Border Issue, Challenging Yourself 😯 28:20 - Joining Military & Creating Veteran Assistance Programs, Chris’ Serious Health Issues & Tragic Events, Supporting Veterans 🫢 42:08 - US Population Who Served, Military Eating their Own, Veteran Amputee Story, Keanu Reeves Story 📉 54:44 - Uniting All People for Charity, Veterans on Brothers Keeper Board 😱 01:04:33 - Complexity of War, Social Media Programming, Military Personnel Learning Geo-Politics 🎯 01:15:31 - Anger w/ Politicians Giving Money Out (Ukraine, Gaza, etc.), Does Voting Matters 🤯 01:25:03 - Decline of Masculinity, Sam Altman (AI), Fear of Seeing War Through Media 😯 01:37:17 - Technology Takeover, Mental Health Issues Today, Inspiring the Youth 🥷 01:42:51 - Contracting Cancer from Iraq Missions, Lack of Sleep, Friends Dying 👀 01:56:11 - Combat Mindset, “Switched On”, Libya Ambush 💣 02:06:33 - Iraq Surviving IED Explosions, Iraq Stories & Near Death Experiences 🙃 02:17:51 - Power of Failing, Land Navigation Course 😡 02:23:13 - Amazing Story of Military Veteran (Refused to Quit & Almost Died) 🎖️ 02:31:11 - Find Chris & Brother Keeper Foundation 🪖 CREDITS: - Hosted & Produced by Julian D. Dorey - Intro & Episode Edited by Alessi Allaman: https://www.instagram.com/allaman.docyou/ ~ Get $150 Off The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress / Mattress Cover (USING CODE: “JULIANDOREY”): https://eight-sleep.ioym.net/trendifier Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey ~ Music via Artlist.io ~ Julian Dorey Podcast Episode 219 - Chris Cathers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It was just happenstance, just driving down the road. I did not have an AR. I was in civilian clothes with just two teammates and some NGOs. And we got lit up by AK. They shot the tire out. I was driving. And I shot the guy that was shooting at us. And we ended up rolling because they shot the tire.

Front tire got shot out. And there was this big ravine on both sides of the road, like a drainage ditch that was real deep. So when we hit that, we ended up rolling and ending up in the air. I was a young guy. I didn't know what the fuck i was doing i was like 25 26 somewhere around there so i was a new guy fng and i switched my mag i hit the dude pretty much center mask luckily what i found out later and when we rolled the guy next to me captain was gone and i was like where did he go we're stuck up in the air i climbed out the window because I couldn't, I didn't want to get out the side of the ambush because there's about five or six guys walking down with AKs and PKMs or bell fed machine guns. And I got on the roof of the

car and I was like, holy, these guys are, they're closing in. They're only like a hundred meters, you know, and it was dark out. What's up guys. If you're on Spotify right now, please follow the show so that you don't miss any future episodes and leave a five-star review. Thank you. Did I just hear you saying to Alessi you watched that Manhunt show? Yeah, man. I just saw it the other night, and I was telling you with the work that I'm doing. Him.

You were telling him. Yeah. Well, yeah, correct. But correct but yeah i was watching that i tuned in uh the other night because i like i love history um kind of i also like to spend my time like if i'm driving in a vehicle i always throw podcasts on and it's my way of like educating myself throwing on julian dory podcast shameless plug i just love julian d's podcast, so I always plug that in when I'm on long road trips. But yeah, I mean, I do stuff like that. So when I have a really long day in the office, I like to kind of unwind, and I still want to learn something, right?

So my wife and I were watching a show the other night called Manhunt, and it was about reconstruction, more so like the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and all that was involved. And it was just so crazy because if you look at politics now, a lot of people are just like disenfranchised. There's a lot of division in the country, which really breaks my heart. And some of it, it's hard to discern what's real, what's not with social media the media you're getting force-fed bad stuff because of algorithms but anyway i was watching and i was like holy cow man how crazy you know when i was fact checking i was watching it because people take creative liberty yes and then you're then you're regurgitating falsehoods you know about

history but they obviously assassinated Lincoln. And then I was just like blown away why I did not know how close they came to toppling the U.S. government at the time, right after the Civil War. I mean, literally right after, I think it was around 1865, he gets assassinated. They just went down the row. And there was no clear succession at the time as well like there is now, like Speaker of the House going all the way down the chain. So – and I was also fascinated. They were using almost like biological warfare according to the show with – I think it was maybe smallpox.

The uniforms. And the uniforms. Yeah. uniforms. So one of the Confederate, you know, businessmen was providing uniforms to the war secretary's men. And it came damn close to fielding those uniforms, which would have really just ensured the whole country would have been in a whole different place than it is today. And it came very close. The chaos that we were on the edge of at all times when that closed in April – closed and I'll say that in air quotes in April 65 when Robert E. Lee surrendered is a part of history that I was actually very, very underserved on and i've studied the civil war before they taught it i think very very well when i was growing up all the basics of it and things like that but some of the nitty-gritty of like the continuation of government and everything blew me away because ironically i watched that show too

when i had food poisoning in april i was literally sitting here like right in on the floor there like dad i'm like all right i watched something today and i have been studying like reconstruction stuff over the past month before that i was reading a bunch of things on it was just one of those things i got interested in and i did not even realize in doing that just how much the assassination of lincoln which as you pointed out luckily stopped at lincoln and didn't go beyond that to all these other people within you know the higher end of government and effectively take out the union government but like that assassination completely changed the trajectory of this country in every bit the strongest way that say jfk's did 100 years later and i would say more because effectively, you know, Andrew Johnson, his successor, who was an asshole,

ended up pretty much undoing all the things that Lincoln and his war secretary, Edward Stanton, who's the main character in the show, who investigated. I think he went by Mars. I couldn't remember Edward Stanton. I'm like, why is he not a household name? And then Andrew Jackson, what a bird that guy was, you know, you know, obviously racism was rampant at the time with, you know, emancipation, everything getting passed. But I was so one shocked that he's not a household name, you know, and according to what I watched Stanton and what also I was fact checking as i was watching it i was googling things talking to my wife like why don't if like it's not a sexy name but i was like dude at least i could name my

dog or someone should name a child after but i'm like edward uh sorry all your edwards yeah it's something some old school we'll go with stanton and mars but i'm like that's my point is why don't americans today know who this guy was and andrew jackson's on you know our currency and i'm just like wow dude and we were you know kind of going into the education system today i just feel like it's so it's so poor you know when i was growing up back in the stone ages you you know, chiseling on tablets, I didn't have a real tablet. I had stone tablets, right? We're like, and I'm like, looking at, you know, I have a 20, 20 year old now who's an 11 Bravo in the military.

And when his grandmother sent him a card when he was in 10th grade and he had me try to read it, I was like, what do you mean? You can't read cursive? Like you don't know how to read and write? Like what are they teaching you in school? And that was during a time of COVID. And it was so poor when, I mean, some of these kids probably have a ninth grade education. And not only do you have a poor education, but the topics that they're talking about with history, when I grew up, it was kind of biased probably in one way. And now things have shifted grossly in another direction with critical race theory and all these kinds of things that they're pushing in school and narratives. History should be told accurately and it should be, you know, not biased. It's always going to be biased on people that are in power.

And, you know, I understand that. But there should be very little biases like when it comes to especially history. It should be told the way it happened, the best way possible during the time. I completely agree with you. Because just like this, if you juxtapose the situation watching Manhunt to today with all the nonsense, in the last 10 years, I've just been – like I mentioned to you before the podcast started, I don't really like talking about politics all that much because I want to control things in my sphere of influence and do the most good that I can. I want to unite things in my sphere of influence and do the most good that I can. And I want to unite people in this country. And it showed back then, united we stand, divided we fall. That is such a powerful statement.

And I firmly believe that. And I think we talked about in the last episode we did together with – Two of them. It was like nine – if you look at 9 11 terrible the day after the way people treated each other in this country was the best thing I've ever seen it was like doesn't matter your background your religion your race if you're an American you'd pass people and you're like yo what's up brother yeah it was kind of like you know everybody just there felt like there was this unity in the last 10 10 years in this country we've gone radically in the wrong direction and some things might be fabricated you know and force-fed whether that's social media the media

there's narratives all over and i also think the algorithms through social media, like the social dilemma, you know, that show really was highlighting anger fuels engagement. You know what I mean? And it's unfortunate, man, because what I'm doing with Brothers Keeper Veterans Foundation is not only trying to assess, you know, what we do is, you know, clinically assess veterans. We connect them with resources, fund them, and we're trying to curb the epidemic of veteran suicide through those modalities. And there's a lot of them. But I'm also looking at it holistically of what resonates with you might not resonate with me. For instance, we have faith-based programs, and we have one for 20 veterans starting on the 6th of June.

And what's cool about that whole thing is I might not be the most spiritual guy, but I want to offer this as a CEO and curb my ego and offer things that I think is going to resonate with a vast array of people with different ethnicities, backgrounds. I don't care about any of the political affiliations, if they're gay, straight, transgender, if you're a veteran in need, I'm like, come to us, man. And I feel like that's the proper way to kind of, you know, approach a lot of different situations in life, you know. But going back to what we're talking about with Manhunt, it was just wild, man, because you see some similarities today

because people are freaking out about politics and things now, whether that's Trump, 34 counts as a felony. We got an election coming up. It's just a wild banana. It's almost like a banana republic. And I get people like veterans call me because they, they paid the ultimate sacrifice in combat. A lot of my friends are amputees, some triple amputees. And I'm telling these guys when they see this, they get this disheartened.

I'm like, look, brother, focus on your, your span of control. and if you can grow that and that's what i want to do through media right now is the more influence that that i can have and reach people whether you're left right whatever your you know your backgrounds are i'm like i want to bring these people together i don't want to alienate people anymore that's there's plenty of people doing all that there's more people doing that than anything else there's not a lot of people trying to do, the people that are doing good work don't get the time, you know, and it's unfortunate. Well, you raised an amazing point a couple minutes ago, which is that anger is what fuels engagement. And, you know, sometimes, sometimes, all the time, when I walk outside, a great reminder I'm always just subconsciously setting is looking at people and realizing that most of them are not the people saying that post with 30,000 likes that said, fuck this guy or fuck that guy. You know, maybe they liked it because that's what their algorithm trains them to do.

But they're out there going to the grocery store like everyone else. They're walking down the street like everyone else. They're going to the gym. They're going to their favorite restaurant or whatever. And yes, people are divided and it's a huge problem. And we do see massive issues going on in the country at the moment but i think there are still enough people who at this point after these last eight years of just kind of political can we agree on 10 it's been a while man 10 years of political insanity people are exhausted by it when they get out in the world right maybe when they go home and

they look at their phone and they're sitting there on social media they're still engaging with with things but there's a separation between the two and what i hope doesn't happen is that we go backwards again and change that separation because of some of the shit we see that your veteran friends i'm sure as you were pointing out are complaining about because you know we're at a point where i think we have fucking horrible choices that are running for offices because the parties are so disunified and so far away from each other. And the worst people run for these offices and not the least of which is president. But like when you see the kind of shit that they're doing to Trump, you make you make me have to defend the guy. I mean, it's like, that's where we're at now where, you know, you can just throw a bunch of no pun intended trumped up charges on someone you don't like and then throw them in, in, in a district that definitely doesn't like them with a judge

who provably doesn't like them, not allow, you know, cameras in there to, to show what's up and boom, here you go. And it's, and it's like a guy, I mean, he was just, whether you like him, not allow, you know, cameras in there to show what's up and boom, here you go. And it's, and it's like a guy, I mean, he was just, whether you like him or not, he was just the president. Yeah. I mean, look at the checks and balances. What terrifies me, it goes back to the manhunt again, man.

Like. Good theme. It's, yeah, really? I just watched this, this happenstance too, you know, because my wife would always be watching these shows that are getting me fired up at night. You know, it's like my time to unwind after a long day. And it's like, dude, everything that's on Netflix and across, whether it's Apple TV or whatever the platform is, it's just like these series are just like intense, dude. It's hard to keep you coming back.

Yeah. And then you're like, well, what's going to happen? You're like, oh, it's like a Greek tragedy every freaking show I watch. So I'm like, yeah, let's watch history. Then I'm like, holy back. Yeah. And then you're like, well, what's going to happen? You're like, oh, it's like a Greek tragedy. Every freaking show I watch. So I'm like, hey, let's watch history. Then I'm like, holy. Yeah. Not this guy. I'm like Abraham Lincoln, like 1865 seemed pretty wild.

But yeah, it's the judicial system. The justice needs to be blind, period. And stop, man. And checks and balances are so important. The Constitution is exceptionally important document. Please never modify. Change never modify change that i mean yeah change it for good very few it's just wild the fourth the foresight when you're looking at that show i'm thinking about how how brilliant was lincoln at that time there was it was very hard you'd have to read books he was just reading all the time right and going up with no means and became a sitting president and at that time when it was you want to talk about a dicey situation as a sitting

president to be forward-looking saying look if I unite people like oppressing people in this country if you do that that, you know, what are you going to do? We're going to have a terrible society, you know. But to get to that position, and then you were talking about JFK assassination. During those times, you know, racial tensions were at such a high level. And you had Kennedy kind of attempt, and then you have two of these guys get killed. And it was just amazing the foresight of, like, trying to change the country for good.

And he was just such a, you know, it just seemed like a very, like a brilliant guy to be able to, and also to have the biggest balls on the planet because he knew how difficult that – he wasn't going to be – he's going to have to overcome immense challenges to get to that, to what the vision was. And you know it wasn't going to happen overnight. But radical changes, man. What's crazy to me about that situation though because I,'d like you have a ton of respect for the constitution i'd love studying that's another part of his i pretty much love all history but i love studying the revolutionary war in the aftermath of revolutionary war when there was a few years where it's like oh are we actually going to get this thing together and what the

founding fathers did with that document was incredible now do i think it think it's perfect? No. That's why we have amendments and it takes a long time to get the amendments we've gotten through through and some of them took longer than they should have. But the crazy thing about Lincoln is that he was maintaining the constitution by maintaining the country, trying to keep the country together, keep it as one America, which is, I would would say the most constitutional thing you could possibly do. And yet the argument of the other side who obviously the south felt like their economy depended on slavery. So that's why they were fighting for something that was a horrible part of our history, they were arguing that they were constitutionalists for that because the federal government shouldn't come in and infringe

on their state's rights to decide what's legal and what's not within their states, which is a wild, wild heads off, if you know what I mean. Now, obviously, Lincoln took the better side of that, but it just goes to show you when you look at history, there's always these moments where we say, you know, we'll use phrases like this is a constitutional crisis or like this is the line in the sand where everything's going to get lost or whatever. And yet if if you let it play out, I think we've seen enough that like good will win out when it comes down to those logical type questions that get brought up. And, you know, the country is resilient. And I hope that if we're coming into a time like that, through some of the

things going on right now in this country, I hope we'll be able to say, you know, 50 years from now, it was another one of those, oh, well, there were constitutional questions, people had points, but, you know, the overall good of America happened to be the result. Well, it's like coming to the podcast, I was running and gunning yesterday. It was a crazy freaking day, man. I was trying to firefight, just got off a salute and shoot event in Nashville, which was awesome. A firefight? As a salute and shoot for a cause, I actually trademarked it.

But it's an event for all skill sets it really is just what what i want to do is bring like i want to bring eyeballs to non-profit work and you know nobody's tuning in for non-profits because the algorithm certainly don't like that because it's just you know it appears kind of a little bit more benign or not not not fun right so what I want to do is try to engage with audiences and bring people. I want to rally and unify people in different communities across the country because we're nationwide. We do this event. So we have belt fed machine guns out there. Next year, we'll have mini guns. I had too many guns last year, but we can't pay for the ammunition because it's exceptionally expensive because you have the war in Ukraine going on.

A lot of the ammunition is tied up for that. So I would talk to presidents of some of the biggest companies and ammunition manufacturers to donate in-kind donations to our company. They can throw you a few. And I'm like, come on, man. It's like 20, 30 grand, man. We'll have fun. We're going to mow stuff down. They're making 20, 30K a body in Ukraine.

Let's go. Yeah, I'm like, come on. They're like, we're short because you got stuff,000 a body in Ukraine. Let's go. avid shooters or, you know, Patriots come out to support, you know, the community and help us fundraise so we can in turn grow and do more good. Guys, if you're still watching this video and you haven't yet hit that subscribe button, please take two seconds and go hit it right now. Thank you. You know, these kinds of events are fun because even if you're on the range all the time, it's very, very few and far between where you can get behind a minigun or a bell fed. You know, we had a 240 golf out there on a tripod and we had a couple of those donated.

Some CEOs from some big armament manufacturer would bring out, you know, the best, coolest gear that even some stuff hasn't even been fielded to like SOCOM. So it's just fun. And then, you know, I best, coolest gear that even some stuff is, hasn't even been fielded to like SOCOM. So it's just fun. And then, you know, I've got another event coming. So I'm, I'm rushing to get here yesterday, bro. I didn't even have my, my hotel booked. I was booking it while I was getting on the aircraft and I get in a cab, like an Uber, I said cab, I just dated myself again. Wow. Um, and the guy, you know, I always strike up conversations because I'm always fascinated with people, you know, just try to learn a little bit because we had a bit of a drive. His name was Muhammad. He's been here 28 years from Pakistan, right? He's just grinding to make his, he's like, I want to have my kids, you know, they're in college. I'm just trying to help

support, you know, he had two daughters or actually three daughters and just kind of trying to help support, you know, he had two daughters or actually three daughters and just kind of trying to get them a better life. It's the immigrant story, you know? And I said, brother, we're all immigrants here. And he started talking about, you know, this is all going to tie back again in the manhunt. This is like a manhunt episode. What the hell? So, you know, he goes, he was talking about the immigration policies and we got a little bit into politics, which I try not to do with people because I'm like, I just kind of just want to hear what they're saying, you know, he goes, he was talking about the immigration policies and we got a little bit into politics, which I try not to do with people because I'm like, I just kind of just want to hear what they're saying, you know, like get boots on the ground. And he's like, yeah, man, I'm just working and grinding, you know, for my kids have been here 28 years and he gets a lot of grief being an immigrant. I said, dude, we're all immigrants in this country. Every single person here, except for

the Native Americans that were here long before us. You want to talk about somebody who got screwed over. But he's like, yeah, you know, because of the policies, dudes pouring over in troves over the, you know, into the country over the last couple of years. We're a nation of laws. I'm all about immigration, but they got to do it in a lawless, a lawful way. This is what he's saying. Yeah, we're both in kind of a line there, you know? And I said, yeah, dude. And I, which brings up, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I turned on a news channel,

which I go in and out of the news, man. I stay informed. I'm not ignorant of what's going on in the world, but I try not to get like emotionally vested because I want to focus on doing good. So we're talking, remember, like, I don't know, it was a month, couple months ago, Greg Abbott, governor, I was actually going to speak to him about helping a veteran. I had a meeting set up. Yeah. And he's in a wheelchair. Anyway, he, he, you know, I turned on the news channel and it was like the federal government,

he was like trying to crack down on immigration with the state. And the state was like fighting the federal government. I was like, holy shit. What is going on now? Is Texas going to succeed from the union? Like, is that where we're going with this thing? So, which is funny because it's like ties into like everything is so, there's a lot of volatility going on in across the country you know in a lot of different ways and at the core of it i just don't understand

why you know look man we're not i'm a hundred percent for immigration um legally and you know what's the argument you know we just can't have you guys probably see it up here in New York. I mean, they're just busting people up and it's stressing systems. I understand why he's doing that too. And they don't, you know, pay into the system for roads and education. A lot of us work our butts off and we get smashed with taxes every year. So, yeah, man, as long as you pay into the system awesome you know yeah you know you you mentioned a little while back maybe it was right before we went on camera i think it was when we were

already on but you were talking about how right after 9-11 everyone was so united and you know that was after a very contentious election too. Obviously, that had been about eight months before and that went out the window like that. Seems like it. And I get real nervous when we bring that up. It's a great point to bring up, but I get nervous whenever we do that because the connotation is you need some sort of tragedy to bring everyone together. You need some sort of common enemy to bring everyone together. And, you know, I hope to God we don't have something like that happen. When you look at history, you know, it does unfortunately certainly feel that way. Like we go through these long lulls once you get five years, 10 years, 15 years after whatever the latest crisis was, where maybe we get too

comfortable in society in certain ways. Maybe then people don't have enough upside to earn, stuff like that. They feel like, oh, I deserve more. And they might be right in some cases for sure that the complaining starts to turn inward on each other to the point that then it's like a reset button is hit every time. Yeah, it's a cycle. You've seen, you know, maybe on the previous one, we talked about the quadrant, you know, weak man, strong time, you know, that whole thing. And you see it in societies. Again, that's why history is so important, man.

You can't erase history. You got to learn from it and keep it and make sure people are educated on history because the fall of most of the great civilizations, when people have it too good, that's where things start going awry. And people have too much time on their hands too, because if you're fat and happy and you're not, you know, you know, struggling, uh, struggle is good to some ways, man. I tell people when it comes to the work that I do, most growth happens in the darkness, man. You know, it's kind of counterintuitive. Like that's why I was – if you had your damn coffee cups, that would have been like perception, you know. So when you're in those times, it's the worst of your time.

You're hitting rock bottom in life. There's a worst of your time, you're hitting rock bottom in life, there's a lot of opportunity. If you stay tuned in and you look for those opportunities, that's where the growth happens. It's just like going to the gym, man. That's why I like kids doing sports, right, is a really good thing in my opinion because it challenges them. You know, not everybody's a winner. It shows you competitiveness and things like that. And if you're grinding in the gym, man, you do the hardest workouts. You know, if you're doing whatever the sport or modality is, when you're sore and you're in pain, you're actually – it's forcing you to adapt and move to the next level. You can't be the world's best anything if you don't suffer.

And when I suffered with mental health challenges, had a gun in my mouth 100 times a day, or sorry, a year for, I mean, I went through that for nearly 13 years of my life while I was working full time and just trying not to check out, trying to convince myself. There was a French philosopher, I was reading an time and just trying not to check out, trying to convince myself. There was a French philosopher. I was reading an article on the plane here about a French philosopher in the 20th century that was talking about, you know,

should I commit suicide or have a cup of coffee, you know? And it's because a lot of us have this, like, dark sense of humor, you know? So that kind of stuff, I totally get it, you know? A lot of people don't understand, like. a coping war war is absurd man like and a lot of the things that uh servicemen and women go through in combat is uh it's really absurd and you have to laugh about it almost at certain points because all the the tenants that you're grown up with, you know, and you're taught as a child how to be a proper person in society goes out the window almost instantly in the worst situations, you know. You know, for instance, like it's like the Ten Commandments, you know,

thou shall not kill or treat others like you treat yourself. Well, you got to turn that switch off in some cases and it's unfortunate. So when you come back, men, men and women that are in those situations really struggle to fit in because people, they don't, they just, a lot, so many people come to me and like, man, people just don't understand. And I'm like, I know, dude, like I totally understand. I've been there as well. I didn't feel like I fit in society. You know, say you ODA or an A-team and you're in some get you killed as a civilian is what I like to tell people. You transition out and you're working for an 18-year-old at Home Depot when you just got – like you were doing the most crazy things and seeing the most wild things. And people struggle with that all the time and that kind of leads down that path of people you know what you know just having a difficulty that is is is not fitting back into society you know when you initially got

in though basically as a kid essentially you know you wanted to see the action. Yeah, man. Yeah. I've never talked to a veteran who did not say that. And it's not like you can know what that is until you do it, but something about then being there, as high stakes as it is and as traumatizing as it is when you're watching sometimes your brothers get killed right there in front of you and things like that. Like there is something about that – I want to be careful how I say this. But like that kind of rush in battle that can never ever – those stakes, there's literally nothing that can replicate that.

Forget the extreme example of working at home depot when you come back but there's like this this beast that lives inside of you after that and you can't ever turn the switch on and you know let the dog out or something not in a war zone how is there ever going to be a way to solve that because it seems like that's always been in things throughout human history with warriors when when they go to battle and they come home like it's not there for them like that yeah i'll tell you a good a good it's been going on forever um and there's there's a really good uh good fella um i i think i've dropped his name before but he's a former uh unit guy um his name is uh tom tom spooner he runs uh warrior's heart in bendera texas they're doing great things out there i've kind of plugged them before but it's because when i was still

struggling you know i was doing a documentary to get started and quickly you know we're still doing one now that we're not paying for um it's going to be privately funded so it doesn't come from our foundation um but that led me to do the foundation, set it up. So I was kind of in this position where I was still healing. I was doing five treatments through different nonprofits and the VA at one time because I knew when I got diagnosed with cancer in 2019, I knew I had to get my head straight. I knew I wasn't going to figure it out after 12 years. I guess I'm a slow learner, but I was like, oh, I knew I had to get my head straight. I knew I wasn't going to figure it out after 12 years. I guess I'm a slow learner, but I was like, oh, I can figure this out. You know, I'm going to work

out. I'm going to eat right. I'm going to do goat yoga with feigning goats, whatever. I tried everything, man. And I was still drinking and doing a lot of, you know, substances just to sleep at night. And I knew exactly what I wanted to do at that point. I was like, man, I want to spend the rest of my life serving the veteran community and being the good steward with other people's money to try to make a dent. The bigger I can grow this organization, the more people in turn that I can help. And if I, because I knew the pain that I was in, I was like, look, I've been through special forces, like, you know, selection process. I was a high level athlete that I suffered a lot. I called myself the professional sufferer. And it was like a term that I didn't

want to be coined. Like, you know, it's not something to be proud of necessarily, but after having my femur, you know, my hip, my glute, my quad removed, and then, you know, back just to maybe two years ago, in one week, right, I was diagnosed with stage four cancer after having my lung removed, my lower right lobe, after all these other brutal and radical surgeries. Well, that was like five and a half years initial diagnosis, my survival rate at that time was 25%. And when I went to stage four, which I probably was stage four a year before, it started in my hip and my right femur. Did a bone graft, got the news back that it was cancerous, that they would have to go back in the same leg and remove my hip, my glute, my quad, my femur, like three quarters of it.

They called it a brutal and radical surgery. I was like, you ain't fucking wrong with that. So when it went to my lungs, you know, in one month you can be dead. It just depends. Everybody's so different biologically. It's just like, you know, you can have something the size of a pea go to a grapefruit in a month. There's not a lot of data on it because my cancer is less than 1% of 1%. So it's super, you know, it's not as studied as like, say, breast cancer, things that are more common in society. But when I would, that week that I was, man,

I just found out my wife was pregnant, which was kind of a crazy situation. We were not obviously planning on it. I was nearly 50 years old. I just got diagnosed, you know, we found out like two weeks before I had to have the surgery come up. And my life's on the line. And my wife had children, my stepson, real young. And she had to raise him by herself. And I was really worried about leaving her to raise another child by herself. I felt terrible about that situation.

But I got excited. I'd never had children myself. It's one thing that I wouldn't say I have regrets on, but I was like, man, you know, I went from being nervous for a second in my head to being like, let's fucking go. Like I got really excited, went to the ultrasound, saw the baby's heartbeat. And I was like, dude, this is happening. Wow. Like it was still settling in. And then like it was maybe about a couple weeks later, still very early into the pregnancy, I find out that, you know, the cancer had metastasized to my lungs, and my lower right lobe would have to be removed. So I had that removed that week. Your lower right lobe? Lower right lobe would have to be removed. So I had that removed that week. Your lower right lobe?

Lower right lobe, yeah, down here. So I had a little dent. And I can't feel anything from midline to here today. And, like, I have no feeling at all. Like, because they put a nerve block, it never wore off. So it's a problem in the gym, you know, like, with a lot of things. I have nerve pain. Like, if I do this, like, just brush my hand, it's super painful. But if I press hard, it doesn't hurt. This is weird.

That's interesting. Yeah. I'm still trying to figure that one out. But then that week I get the surgery done. They're like, yeah, you're officially stage four. And then I find out my wife lost the baby, you know, like, and that was one week, dude, of my life, right? I've been through a lot of absurd things and I felt so horrible, like, you know, but I kind of talk about resiliency a lot. And I kind of went right through that. You know, I was trying to be there for my wife. She took it exceptionally hard and still, we just had Mother's Day. The baby would have been one this Mother's Day and in this February. So I didn't, you know, you don't want to pick that scab, you know, I don't want to bring it up. So it's, it's hard. It's real personal. I

probably shouldn't talk about it publicly, but you know, what, what, what it's about is resiliency too, for you got to put the work in, man. And had this happened like five, 10 years ago when I was still struggling, it might've been a really bad situation for me. Like, meaning I might've checked out, you know, because I feel like, I don't know, you're not in control. But tying it back to, you know, the commonality with history we were talking about. So I go to Warrior's Heart during this time. I was kind of set in the stage of like my mental health wasn't in the best position. I was doing better. I was kind of moving in the right direction, but I wasn't where I should have been. I was still suicidal, still battling depression and social anxiety. I could never do a podcast back then like this.

I would have been terrified. It was just weird. So I go to Warrior's Heart and Tom Spooner, I spent about 12 hours with the executive leadership of Warrior's Heart trying to understand what they do for veterans. And he takes me out to this Native American burial site that's out there in Bendera. And they have a circle where they had a fire and tom is a former unit guy he battled tbi and went through a lot of mental health challenges and he's a he's a legend in the you know you got different degrees right you can become a green beret or a seal but there's levels to the game i think jaco talks about it sometimes like i think i heard him talk about there's this levels,

you know, like, you know, you can just go through the, and get your, your tab. But then you have people like Nick Lavery who are like a warrior's warrior. Like I want to talk about him cause he's this freaking inspirational guy.

He's working with you guys now too, right? Yeah. He'll be speaking for us this fall and at our gala in Nashville on September 14th. But I go out there and he goes, see that, see that site right there. When we moved here, we, we wanted to, there was an archeological dig, maybe like 60 years ago with the native Americans here. We wanted to be respectful. So we kind of filled it in, but we put the circle here and And he's like, back when the warrior class of the Native Americans would go to battle, the elders would try to encourage the young, the warriors, to kind of tell their story about the battles. And it's fascinating to me because he's like, you take a glass, right?

When guys are struggling with mental health, men and women are struggling. Their cup is like this. It's three quarters full. And what he was trying to encourage people was he's like, basically, when your glass is three quarters full, if your glass overfills, you're going to break. You're really struggling. So they would encourage the warrior class to go around the campfire, and we do it still to this day. He kind of does it a little bit with the people going through certain, they kind of go through the similar situation, but the young warriors would take their glass and they would tell their stories and pour a little

bit of their water across the other people. And they could be men and women that would never be warriors. They've never seen battle. And when they're telling their stories, they're getting it off their chest. They're pouring a little bit into their glass. So their glass is going down. So he said, man, one day I wanted to put this thing to the test. And he kind of went, told me the story.

It was like, you know, I got was like I got an accommodation one time. I think it was a Silver Star for something and he really struggled with that. In the military, it's like an award. You're getting a medal for your valor but those situations aren't always good. And so he's like, man, I wanted to go out and put it to the test. And I won't share that story because it's not my story to share publicly, but he told me how he put it to the test. And I'll just touch on it that he wasn't sure how he was going to react, but he kind of told this story that he'd never told before ever. And to, he was doing like a shooting class or

something. And one of the guys called him the next day. He was like a roughneck, a man's man, you know, like, you know, from Texas handlebar mustache, big dude, whatever the situation was. And he like got a call from the guy the next day and he got through the story, but he's like, man, that really, that story really fucked me up, dude. Like, you know, he wasn't in the military, never been the battle, never been the war. And he was like, dude, that story just really fucked me up. And that's because he's pouring some of it, just a little bit of his story is getting told and it's uplifting to him. And I think he's told the story, maybe he said 11 times since then. And I just really appreciated him sharing that with me because I was still kind of feeling like, you know, look, dude, I tell people all the time, I quote Joe Rogan at every

event, I say, comparison's the thief of joy. And I'm like, if you compare yourself to others, especially guys in our community, like I don't claim to be some awesome, you know, yeah, I did like 13 deployments or whatever it was. I've been to Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, North Africa, I've done, you know, Palestine. I've done some things, but there's half of people in my network have done way more rad things. They're way more accomplished with their military service, but it's not about that. Because some people, like a Goggins, people give him shit because he's only done one deployment. I'm like, maybe he didn't get the fucking chance to do it, guys. Like, he's not out there saying he's the baddest motherfucker,

like Navy SEAL, most accredited, you know, killer, whatever, you know, that thing is. He's just trying to inspire people. And if you compare yourself to others, man, you never get help. So when I heard him tell me this story, what it did for me, it had a massive impact because he was in the unit, something that I never did. And I'm like, okay, it's okay for me to get help, dude, because this guy's done it. And he's way more accomplished in the military circles than I ever had been. And so it just led me the opposite direction to actually, you know, not be afraid to reach out to other organizations to get help for myself. Cause I

always thought I'm going to take that from someone else. If I get help, somebody who's done more, like I've got two veterans on staff that are amputees. One's a double amputee. One's a single amputee, broken backs, blind in one eye, just wild stories, man. man and i'm like they look at me like i'm some kind of like stud you know because you did this and you were in this group and you did these amount of deployments but i'm like dude you might have only done one appointment lose both legs you didn't have the opportunity to go to do other things in life in that in that career field but let me ask a question real quick, Alessi, maybe you can help me out here. Can you Google what percentage of the current U.S.

population served or has served in the military? Five million. That's where I'm going to go. You're going to guess five million? It's such a small percentage, but yeah, I think it's something like it's probably it's it's such a small percentage but yeah i think it's something like it's under five million i want to see what this is are you talking about veterans yeah yeah just in general any any war any any era who's currently alive that's all that's all i want to know are we getting anything yeah what do we got the share of the u.S. population with military experience has declined. In 1980, about 18% of U.S. adults were veterans, but all that share fell to 6% in 2022. All right. So that's perfect to make my point.

So it's 5% or 6%. 350 million people-ish, somewhere around there. It's under 400 million, I think. So this is where a civilian like me who hasn't served should be making this point more to guys like you and all the people who are within that community. The comparison that you speak of and the little like, oh, he did this or I didn't do that or maybe I shouldn't talk because he did this and I'm that you guys are such a small percentage of society that in today's time since you know after Vietnam elected to go do that and serve the country not knowing where you were going to go what you were going to have to see what you were going to have to do obviously there's some people who are insanely great warriors that kind of are the best of the best but still every person in there has done something that like I never did, Alessi never

did, most people never did to serve the country and protect the freedoms we have. And so I say this because when I see the military internally from the outside, when I see them having their little battles about, well, you didn't do this or you didn't do that it kind of breaks my heart to see it because it's like you guys have such a special thing and such a special bond that brings you all together and you shouldn't be more worried about who saw uh you know how many legs fly off from an ied versus the other guy who did it it's it's a very and and i'll use this word it's ridiculous in some cases and i've seen it, by the way, on a personal note. Like I've seen the dark side of the military eating their own with my friend Joe Tedai. What they put Joe Tedai through for eight years with no facts whatsoever was horrible.

They shouldn't do that, man. Yeah. Because it doesn't – look, man, that's the point. When I do this, I don't like doing media just in general. I started doing it because I have to get the word out for Brothers Keeper Veterans Foundation, all the good we're doing, we're uniting communities. But I see it within our own community, not only that, but I see that firsthand. And I'll give you a good example. Like I have this awesome dude.

So when people order merch offline, the guy that fulfills the order is my friend Dave. I hope he doesn't get upset with me. I just love the guy. He's one of the nicest people I've met. And I just stumbled on him. I talked to a local military group. I said, hey, man, they had me speak to everybody. And these are all retired sergeant majors, you know, people, you know, some of our career, but there's about only 30 people there. And they had this book with four veterans in it. And I said, look, I'm running a nonprofit

to help veterans that are struggling. And the way people can help today is just to help us fund the organization this year. So when I can go to the biggest platforms that I can get in front of, I want to be very careful in messaging because I don't want to break the machine. You know, this year is our really, it's our third year in business. Next year, I want to be able to go on a platform and say, if you're a veteran and you come to BKVF, you know, bkvf.org, just Google it, write help at. We got you from there. If you're strong enough to do that, we got you. But, you know, with these situations, this book had four people.

One already committed suicide. I said, dude, I need to call these guys. They all live local to me. I want to be more involved in the local community. Previously, I've been a bit of a hermit. I didn't leave my house. I had a lot of social issues. I'd go to the gym, go to the grocery store, go to work, and then I'd come home. I didn't want

to be around people whatsoever. And now that I'm coming outside of that with this, you know, this amazing thing to kind of do good work, I bumped one of the four dudes was this guy. So I met him, talked to him. I said, bro, he goes, yeah, I played, uh, you know, he was six, eight. He's a white dude. You know, I only say that because, you know, you look at the NBA, a lot of tall dudes, whatever. I'm not trying to freaking stereotype. Don't freaking troll me for everything, man. No one would have. Yeah. Okay. I know now I'm just freaking highlighting it, but he's six, eight, two 40 in high school, dude. Right. So he plays college freaking highlighting it. But he's 6'8", 240 in high school, dude, right? So he plays college football, college basketball.

He's like, oh, I wasn't a very good athlete. Plays for the Redskins for two years. Walked on. I was like, well, you're a pretty good athlete. I was a really good athlete growing up, but I could never play college football, bro, for a lot of reasons. Let alone the Redskins. They weren't very good at the time. Very self-deprecating

and that's part of one of the things so I'm like well that's pretty rad and then in 1993 he joins the military shortly after goes from the goes from Germany, he goes into Kuwait, push up, he was in satellite

communications, I wasn't really in the military I'm like you have no legs, you're in the club forever bro I put these guys on a pedestal and then they try to do that He was in satellite communications. I wasn't really in the military. I'm like, you have no legs. You're in the club forever, bro. I put these guys on a pedestal. And then they try to do that with me. And they're like, well, you were in Special Forces. You were Green Beret. And you went on to work for the OGA and blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, who cares, man? Like, it's not about that. I'm like, so I said, what? So I took him to meet Count Aries. I was kind of telling you before the podcast. Oh, this is the guy in my camp. Yeah. So this was this year, a couple months ago.

Well, we'll talk about that. So I said, well, dude, so I didn't know his complete story. He's in a wheelchair, right? He's a double amputee above the knee and everything he does, cause I can appreciate it and almost losing my leg at the, at the pelvis, like up, you know, basically at the pelvis three times between MRSA, don't bone degradation, everything else. I was like, um, I can barely put my suit, my, my socks on myself sometimes, man. I'm in a lot of, you know, my things don't work. So I, uh, we're doing a meet and greet. buddy's pulling security for for Keanu uh he was playing with Dogstar in Atlanta it was a couple months ago so I said hey man I'd really like to take

this guy you know I mentioned it to him that I was going to do a meet and greet for a couple veterans I only took him and my stepson and uh because he happened to be home and you know he knew who John Wick was right I was like finally I'm not that old where you don't know. Like I'm dropping like, hey, do you know who Humphrey Bogart is? Like, who? But so we drive down there. It was the first time I ever drove with a double amputee. I was terrified because I've driven with single amputees before.

But he basically had two. Oh, he's driving. Dude, he's driving me in the car down to Atlanta from where I live. It's about an hour drive through traffic, dude. If you've ever been to Atlanta close to the city, traffic's insane. Like when I was coming here, I was almost late because- He's driving with broomsticks? Bro, basically like the way I explain it is two broomsticks, one on gas, one on, and I'm like, man, you need to get a Tesla, son. So he's like throttling and i'm like wow this is wild man the things he has to do i think amputees uh don't quote me on this but it's around 60 percent more energy is expended

just doing normal everyday shit it's exhausting dude and like you drop a pen you can't pick it up and i i just i appreciate all those things and that's why I want to help people, right? So I'm like, he goes, man, I'd love to get some stuff. He has three kids, three young ones. He's got two kids in the military that are older. And we're driving down there. I didn't know his complete story. I still don't know the whole story because I don't want to pick a scab.

So we're driving down there. My buddy, you know, Keanu's doing like groups of six for photo ops. And I was like, with people you don't even know, I'm like, well, that's kind of nerdy. I don't know who's going to put that on. I don't know who this guy is and that girl in my photo with Keanu so Keanu was an hour and 10 minutes late to perform right he's behind schedule and I heard really good things I've google searched them I don't give a shit about a celebrity I'll never build an event around the celebrities because they're flaky a lot of them but if there are people that I think really care hell yeah I got time for that I'd love to get them behind our organization to bring eyeballs you know like everybody John Wick you know I know some people that didn't like the last one whatever I get it bro dude he's a really cool guy and if you ever Google him he has a really crazy story he's been through a lot of tragedy himself he's a good motherfucker is what i heard so we're up there he's like man

i'd really like to get some stuff for my my uh my kids sign for it so he he makes a hat you know that gave him a little grief over it because he has an embroidery business so it was a good alignment for us to do our merch and he lives 20 minutes from me and he loves being part of the company you know and he's like i feel like and he loves being part of the company you know and he's like i feel like i'm on the team i'm like you are you're on the team you are on the team i love this guy so everybody's done my buddy's like hey he's behind about an hour and 10 you know behind but you know i said can you bring him to us he's in a chair man we're up in the the stadium at the. And nobody was there yet.

So it was one-on-one. And Keanu comes up with the people from Dogstar. And I said, Dave, I got to ask you, man. I got to, you know, what happened in 93? Can you give me, like, a little bit more specifics? He's like, yeah, I was the sole survivor of an IED attempt in 1993 in North Iraq. We're putting in satellite dishes. We got hit and lost both legs below the knee at the time.

One was just hanging on by threads. The other one was gone. I was like, how the hell did you live back then? Because we didn't have TCCC like with tourniquets and things. The training that we now have is so advanced, you know, even for dumb people like me. Like I can throw a tourniquet on and plug holes they didn't have any of that not not as not as advanced as 2003 through 2000 you know 20 it just kept you know because it was happening all the time you know that's why we had so many people lost in

like vietnam that could have lived um they couldn't get the people quick enough they didn't have the life-saving technology and training so he's like yeah man um so people threw you know tourniquets on belt you know basically whatever they could do i was like you're so lucky to be here bro so i i tell keanu keanu comes over he makes him a hat and he put keanu on the back that's what i gave him shit on i'm like dude first of all he's famous as fuck number one and number two he knows his name like i was like dude that's so great so dude he kind of like keanu teared up dude like he spent about 40 minutes with us and was not rushing like had every most celebrities that are a lot of i'll say more the majority are gonna be like hey dude i gotta go you, because they get annoyed, you know, most, it's annoying, dude, you know,

to have people coming after you and want autographs and like, they got a life too, man. Like, leave them the fuck alone. And that's why when they come to our event, we just, they like working with special operations because we just let them, if they come to a shooting event, for instance, it's like they get treated like a normal person. Yeah. So we, hey, if you guys want to do photos, we'll do it at the end. Just leave them alone.

Let them have fucking fun and be a human being. So super fucking good dude confirmed how awesome that guy was. And he took a bunch of photos and signed everything. And, you know. I've heard amazing, amazing things about him. Super guy. And Dave's just a super exceptional guy. Then he goes on to start a satellite communication company in Nashville, sells it for

tens of millions of dollars, walks away with large sums, multimillion dollars, right? He spends it all trying to walk again. They made him six, eight. He fell off of it. His, his prosthetics in a bathroom. He got merciful like I did and luckily for me i knew what it looked like from doing jujitsu that's the only reason i have this leg i was one day from complete amputee yeah and you know so i really identify with these guys even though i'm not an amputee and i didn't have this happen in combat to be clear i mean you have like a i got titanium yeah full titanium yeah pretty close it looks like a dild got titanium. Yeah, full titanium. Yeah. Pretty close. It looks like a dildo on one side and a knife on the other.

I usually just say the knife, but then everyone's like, it kind of looks like a dildo, like your hip joint. But that was a really cool like event where, you know, that's what I'm talking about is like I only want to surround – I live in this world of just, you know, we're talking about geopolitics and all the things that are, you know, I'm like, if I can grow the sphere of control, like, or sphere of influence and bring, unite the left, the right, gay, straight, transgender, all branches. We serve all branches, men and women. And I wanted to be clear because we have four special operations guys on our board of directors out of five. We're all veterans. I chose that board strategically because they're good friends of mine. Most are career Green Berets, ones from the unit. Who's on the board?

So I got my buddy Rob Vaughn. I've known him for 28 years. He was basically a Green Beret for a large majority. Then he did 13 years in kind of working for the other group at Bragg. And a really good dude, very humble guy, very quiet. And he's been injured several times, shot several times. Doesn't really ever talk about that type of service because he's that guy, quite a professional, probably going to

get mad at me for this. And then Andy Lang, he's 25 year, Green Beret, mostly spent in fifth group at Fort Campbell. He owns a Leatherwood distillery, true patriot, good guy, equal opportunity kind of, he just says whatever comes to mind. He's a great dude, does a lot for us through his contacts with like, he's friends with like Kid Rocks of the world and Seether, Sean, you know, and just because of the Nashville scene, he opens a lot of doors for us. Then my buddy, Ron Griffin, who ended up saving my life, my first suicide attempt. He worked for me in SF, brought me into OGA. He was working overseas, brought me in. Then he founded Indigent Armor, armor vehicle company, which I ended up becoming the general manager of. We sold that for $35 million in four years. And then we transitioned from that. He went on to a Christian, he runs

Shepherd Full Ranch out in Oklahoma, helping kids through his nonprofit. He's been doing that for about 12, 13 years. Got some great people on there. Yeah, and he went there as a kid. His mom died of cancer, and he went to that camp as a child. So when he got out of the fray of all this nonsense, he wanted to give back like we do. And he has that nonprofit experience. He brings to the table. Then I have Dave Benar was a army dude, short kind of career there, but then he's a business guy. He worked with me at Janko Tactical Systems, closed about probably a hundred million dollars

in that time period. So he's got a good business mind, good strategy. So there are people that I trust to keep the business on the right trajectory so you know like next week i was in between two events when i came out here that's why i was rushing and i'm doing a golf fundraiser so i was saying like i want to bring eyeballs doing crazy stuff i find a i found a five-time world champion trick shot artist right i do not golf trick shot artist yeah so i don't even know like set world records and things like that i think he was on the pga possibly rocky shipes so you pull them up yeah yeah look up uh him he's gonna do when we open when i i like to connect at our events the biggest thing to me is

i want to build relationships not just shake people down for their hard-earned money i want to i want people to come out and see firsthand the men and women that serve the country that have paid the ultimate sacrifice that some people come that are struggling, but I'm trying to get more involvement on the corporate side, the big name people for like our gala in September. Yeah, absolutely. Hey guys, if you have a second, please be sure to share this episode around on social media and with your friends, whether it's Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, doesn't matter. It's all a huge help. It gets new eyeballs on the show and it allows us to grow and survive. So thank you to all of you who have already been doing that. And thank you to all of you who are going to do so now. Yeah, so he does this trick shot. Look up Rocky Shipe's ball shot. Oh, the ball shot thing? Yeah, he's actually, when I open up, he's going to drive a 300-yard, I don't know if it's 300 yards, but he's an exceptional driver,

kind of like a John Daly. I tried to get him to come out, but he was tied up. A little lawn dart John? Yeah, yeah, I met him last year briefly, and I got his contact details. Does he remember you? Probably not. does he remember you probably not he was he might have had a few dude he might have been on a couple things oh no look dude no so i don't know if your audience could see that but this is what he's gonna do to me and my wife is not no no no no yes bro you need that thing working. That's one of the things I'm still picking for you. I used to wear a steel cup and Muay Thai, bro. No!

This is Monday. That's happening to me. And this gentleman agreed to come. He's not charging us. He's coming. He's a patriot, not a veteran. Freaking great dude, man. And he's also making us these wood signs for first second place he has a

woodworking business bro what we're doing for the gala you're gonna dig this so i have a sf guy who has uh material from the world trade center at his house right what do you mean material from the world trade center from the debris i know gosh it sounds cringy when I say it like that. But they do things for organizations like us. He's a patriot. He's a fifth group special forces guy. I'm not going to drop his name. But he also has a statue in Arizona. He has material from the actual Statue of Liberty.

So the president of Troy. Did you steal that off there? I don't know. He's a firefighter. Take a little chisel right off old Lady Liberty? that off the. I don't know. He's a firefighter. Take a little chisel right off old Lady Liberty. So, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to get in a bit of trouble for this or get them canceled. But basically what we're going to do is to raise money at the gala, I'm going to have an MK11s being donated.

It's about retail for about eight grand. It's a sniper rifle, right? So Troy Arms has agreed to put that up for free for us. Shout out to Troy. Yeah. being donated it's about retails for about eight grand it's a sniper rifle right so uh troy arms has agreed to put that up for free for us shout out troy yeah fucking great guy man he just came to the salute and shoot and really supported us i just met him recently fucking great company he was like facetiming me the day before the event last week and it was like thousands of square feet this arms room and he's like what do you want us to bring to the event to support you guys and i was like holy cow i was just like in love i was

like man can i come over he's like how about a tops and submachine gun i was like yes he's like how about a sten like you know i'm like yes so he brought out a lot of suppressed sniper rifles he's like we're gonna donate one the last one went for auction about 17 000 and i got this other guy i said can you embed material from the world trade center into the rifle in a dog tag they're going to melt it down and and somehow they're going to put it into the rifle and that means a lot right right? Like, I don't care about the rifle. And so my idea is to have Rocky make a wood flag. He has a tribute to 9-11, which has the World Trade Centers in it. And I want to use some of the actual material and then also incorporate the Statue of Liberty. And I wish I could afford this for myself. You know, I don't make money from the nonprofit. I don't take any

salary. I never will. Um, because there's other nonprofits that have missed that. We're not the best on paper yet. Cause we're new. I'm kind of doing every, every dollar that we get donated either goes in the growing the business, you know, or, or on veteran services. So unfortunately got to play this nine 90 game. And so I'm focused now on making, that's how people evaluate you is your 990s. That's one of the ways they can kind of take a look at you. How are you spending your money? How many cents per dollar is going to veteran care?

And I love that part, but there's a lot of gamesmanship. I'm not about that. I have a, you know, everything I do, all I care about, I'm at the end of my life. I don't want to be ever perceived as doing something inappropriate because I don't have time to fix my reputation in life. It means the most to me is being known as a good dude trying to do good things. And that's part of the legacy. It's not about me or being, getting notoriety or money. Like, I'm clearly not doing this for money. I, you know, I'm on Social Security. I'm clearly not doing this for money.

I'm on Social Security because I'm terminally ill. I'm taking my own money to fund myself, which isn't a lot. But it's the coolest thing, man, I've ever done. But Rocky, if we do that for the gala, I was like, dude, how cool would it be to have in your office just talk about Americana, the Statue of Liberty, that, you know, it's just a part of American culture and immigration. The things we're talking about, dude, I just tied it into manhunt again. And then the World Trade Center, which was a pivotal part of my life. And, you know, dude, I know all the people are like well we're you know i'm not a you know look somebody just called a guy a warmonger the other day who's a double amputee he's missing i just

worked out with him friday he's coming to our golf event why they call him a warmonger because he's an amputee like oh you like war it's like dude i because he's an amputee do you think i fuck it there's there's these weird people out there. I'm like, you think that guy is – dude, I hate war. Like it's necessary at certain times. I'm not saying, look, you can get into all the politics of 9-11. I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about our freedom is critical and sometimes war is – it's been culturally around for millennia.

It's been around forever. It's been around as long as humans have been around. Those people can go fuck themselves. Well, you talk about that. I do not like war. You talk about that. But I will fight. Exactly. idea of having to bring the army in as a unit and you know the military itself is is a terrifyingly

torturous endeavor because you're going to bring death with it that's that's how war works you know hey uh good people do bad things and that's the absurdity of war that we were talking about earlier that's the complexity with the situation. Like, hey, man, if a nation ever needs even a cripple like me now, dude, you know, I'm all about maintaining our freedom. I know some past wars, if you look at Vietnam, you know, post 9-11, people have all these different, I get it, now. But at the time, being a young man, I'll do whatever I have to do for people's freedom. That's at my core essence of why I love this country. Even though it's burning right now, it is a bit of a dumpster fire.

You need people to be able to defend those liberties when the time comes. In the future, if the Constitution is at jeopardy, our liberty and freedoms, I just believe people should be able to speak their mind whether I agree with their position or not. I always use Colin Kaepernick. You remember the – Of course. Like everybody. Yeah. So people ask me, how do you feel about that?

I'm like, yeah, dude, like I have my own thought process on it. But it comes down to he should have the freedom to do that. I think he muddled the message of whatever his agenda was, whether that was BLM or whatever. Dude, you have $100 million. You're playing football. You got a five-year contract, whatever it was. I think it was $100 million. He made a lot of money, whatever it was.

He made a lot of money. You could have gone on the biggest platform in the country, and you could have taken a Super Bowl out and been very clear on directing your message and not coming across like you're just, you're disrespectful to the country, the flag and the, you know, the American, the veteran community. That's where I have a problem, but it's his freedom to do that, whether I agree with it or not. And I think people should be able to, the problem with social media right now is there's a very small demographic that's making the most noise and the

people the moderates in the middle feel like talk they're terrified that's right i don't want to lose my job that's right i don't want to get canceled people are always trying to pull you in different directions and you know that's one that's like one of the only places in my life where i truly feel at peace with myself at this point because I've been on that trajectory when I was younger, being pulled in every which direction. And now I can just kind of see through it. But I fully understand having been in that myself how people can't and what these algorithms do. Sometimes I'll say to somebody you know like we'll be out at the bar or something i'll be like y'all pull up your instagram or pull up your

twitter and i'll just have them go like this slowly on their algorithm i just want to know what it looks like i want to see what they're being fed every day especially when i hear them talking about certain things i'd i'd love to know like where they're getting that and then i see it and and it goes back to what you're saying about the social dilemma it's just programming yeah on people and actually you know as a veteran and someone who did so many tours and and i i do want to set the deck here at some point we'll get to it you you've been mentioning some of the things that we talked about in episodes 136 and 137 when you were here in december 32 in december 2022 i think

we put out that episode you made me cry in one of those man yeah yeah it was uh it was uh it was it was a hell of a hell of a sit down that day and what that was but like you know we'll go through fill in some of the blanks of your backstory but for now obviously like you mentioned you did a lot of different tours in a lot of places for many years you worked in the special forces and then you were even a grs contractor for the cia which is in the special forces capacity essentially and you know you've seen a lot of shit so you can speak to these different wars and what it's like on the ground and and and what's like on the ground and what about it is necessary and what about it in hindsight is unnecessary. But right now, we're at an interesting

point where we see something that's not politicized. It actually is different camps in both sides of the aisle. And that is you have people who are are left or right doesn't matter there are subcategories within each where people are either isolationist or they're like hardcore pro military industrial complex and i live in a world in the middle of those two things i think having a military industrial complex where all these companies are fucking funding the politicians so they can create wars not proxy wars i think that's a very bad idea because I think war is something that should be a last resort scenario. I also know because I study history that isolationism never ends well. There is no point where people were saying, oh, let's withdraw from the world and not do shit where that ends well.

Case in point, by the way, World War II, that could have been avoided if we hadn't had that attitude, but we were forced to have that attitude because Franklin Delano Roosevelt's opponent in the 1940 election was a hardcore rabbit isolationist at a time where the country was supporting that. So we didn't get involved while Britain was getting the bomb – the shit kicked out of them with bombs and stuff, and Hitler continued to go west and then eventually even east and then the Soviets. You get my point right i can go through this over and over again in history but as someone who's lived as someone who's seen it on the ground in every direction between war itself things that look like proxy wars or things being funded through the government how do you go about this conversation with people to make them realize reality but also understand like you know there is a time where it's necessary and, you know, sometimes that

is going to be the thing. Well, the, the, I think the problem in, in current in our culture today is those lines get blurred, right? Unless you're really tuned in. And when you're taking people at a certain age, especially people right out of, like myself, right out of high school i was a young guy um wasn't super educated at the time you know um it's you're you're very impressionable at that age yes and so i have a 20 year old in the military right now and hearing him talk you know as an infantry guy is a little interesting because i've been there and i know how he's thinking and the things that he should be thinking about. You know, what I'm telling him now is like, you need to be a little bit more informed on geopolitics, man. One, you get a little bit more of a heads up of things to

come and also the severity of the job that you're potentially going to perform in combat. So if I was him at 20 years old now with my mentality is like, you got to take training very serious. The guys on the left and the right of you, the reason we're so bonded is because you get to know people at their essence, man, because, you know, I use an example all the time. I know I'm not really answering your question straight up, but, you know, when you go to a bar, right, everybody has been, you know, is probably tuning in, has been to a bar and your friend, you know, kind of like in that bar fight situation, like I'm going to kick that guy's ass, right?

And you're like, dude, I've known this guy, but have you ever seen him in a fight? Maybe you haven't. So the words don't really carry a lot of weight. In the circles that I run in even to this day, if somebody says they're going to kill somebody, like I'm like, holy shit, this might be really serious, dude. Or I'm going to kill myself or I'm going to kick the shit out of somebody. When you're in these situations that are so absurd in a combat setting, and you've seen these guys actually enact violence in, you know, any means necessary type of situation, when you leave the service, those words actually hold weight in water, you know, and there's a huge difference. And because you've been in the most crazy situation, so you get to know people, those individuals more. It's not about the bravado at times. It's like you actually know what somebody is truly about at the core. And because

you're in the most unique situations that never can be replicated in civilian life. It's just very rare sometimes, but usually you'll end up in prison for doing something that in combat might be a day-to-day activity. That's right. And that's why I think our community is so tight. I've told people when my buddy John Zinn, he was a Navy SEAL, passed away, it was in business setting, right? But I was his partner in Iraq, right? We were in some crazy situations and I knew what he was about and he knew what I was about.

And like losing him when his wife was nine months pregnant and having to knock on our door just really had a profound impact on me. You laid out that story. Yeah, I mean he was just young, you know, he's 32 years old, but it was kind of like when you're running with those circles in business, it's like, you know what people are really about. And I think that's one is this one facet of like the whole conversation is, is the unique bond that people have. I'm closer with some of the people than I I ever would be with my family because once you get out of the house, you're kind of calling your parents.

You're just, you know, it's your formative years, but you're, as an adult, you're not, you're kind of more, a little bit more distance. So, yeah, it's just more, unfortunately, it should be a last, I mean, fortunately war unfortunately should be a last – I mean fortunately should be a last result. I agree with you 100% on that. But at times, it's going to be necessary. And when those times come, you got to make these moral decisions. And those lines get blurred quite a bit. Hold on one sec.

Let's just pause and go to the bathroom so this asshole outside his fucking car off we'll be right back i want to touch on that point all right we're back the soundproofing in here we spent a lot of time on it it came out really really good but like if there's an ambulance right outside the window or someone with their fucking car going off like that there there's really nothing I can do. So we just got to pause on that. But we're talking about this whole concept of going down the rabbit hole of being in the middle of either war, war, war or no war at all in any cases. And you just touched on it at the very end of that last point where you were saying like, yeah, it is a last resort.

But it's a resort. It's something that does have to be used. point where you were saying like yeah it is a it is a last resort but it's a resort it's it's something that that does have to be used i understand some of the anger of the say isolationist crowd right now when they look at all the money though that is going to wars where we don't necessarily have our boots on the ground right it's going into ukraine it's going into fucking israel right and it's all these bills are being passed for billions of dollars hundreds of billions right like right that while people here you know the middle class is is dwindling there's a greater and greater wealth gap there's people who are struggling to have

families and pay their bills and they i understand when they see all this money going out and they're like what the fuck is this for so how do you how do you curb maybe the righteous anger of people like that to say yes on these cases you got a point like we probably shouldn't be spending this much money and we need to figure out a way at peace but like in the future if some shit went down or something and we had to get involved, you guys got to be ready to support that if it's really at that last resort type situation. Well, I think it comes down to politics, unfortunately, which I don't ever like to talk about. Like I said, my goal is to unify people and things like that. However, I think people really, people want to need need to be doing better job when it comes to uh looking at the representatives you know the government works for us that's that's the model

unfortunately everybody you know in in politics seem to have it backwards yeah you know it we elect officials to run the country and people need to be doing a little bit more due diligence, spending more time because what happens in – and I've been victim of it myself in the past as a young guy. If you go across the line, maybe those people don't represent your beliefs, your wants and needs. And if you just go straight down the line, maybe those people aren't as aligned with what your belief system is or the way that you want to see the country go. That's number one. I don't know, you know, is doing due diligence, actually taking the time to get out and vote, and especially local stuff. Like, you know, everyone's busy, man.

There's some times where I haven't voted, you know, for local elections. And I don't even know who my representatives are in my state. That's important. But then you go up to the federal level, you know, one, we don't have good options. Look at the elections right now. You know, we're stuck with the same types of people. That one's a hard one for me to kind of weigh in on as far as what's the fix for that, to get better representatives for us to represent this country that would be more making better decisions. Because part of me is an isolationist in the sense of we're a nation of laws. We need to take care of the people in this country because we have a great country. When we're

spending hundreds of billions of dollars on other causes, and that's why I'm doing, trying to combat, you know, raise awareness and destigmatize veterans' mental health, because the federal institutions that are supposed to be doing this are not doing a very good job. Therefore, we need private institutions or nonprofits to come in and firm that up. And it's out of necessity. It's not, you know, they're just failing. The VA, they do some good things well. I try not to just slam on the VA, but if you talk to any veteran that has been through it, like myself, there's a lot of things.

Why is that money, $100 billion goes over into Ukraine, another $100 billion, another one, you know, Israel. You go across the board, that's an absurd amount of money that could be going here into our country to do better things. So it's a complex, you know, situation when it comes to the solution. But I mean, it starts with, you know, people being informed, doing due diligence, actually going out and vote, because a lot of people don't do that. I mean, you know, I'd be very curious on how many, what percentage of this country has actually taken the time to go out, you know, to kind of weigh in. I don't know. Yeah, I make sure I go do it. And there was one election, actually, I talked about on a podcast with John LeBecky back in episode 114. But there was one election I on purpose did not vote in. And he actually had a really good argument that changed my opinion on even that,

like where that was like a protest, like not voting. Because he had lived through something that you probably saw a little bit as well up close in some of your deployments. But he lived through like when the Iraqis got their voting rights back and what a big deal that was. And he's like, I don't give a fuck who you vote for. Go in and vote none of the above. And when he said that, he's like, there's nothing wrong with writing that in. And that's actually like what i've been doing but i do think when it comes to local elections it gets a little tough because you know people including myself we do have lives we got

things to worry about and shit i'd be lying if i told you i could name my fucking alderman i don't even know what an alderman is the way I look at that is like I go outside in Hoboken. The streets are clean. Every time I see a little problem, like I remember last fall, I started seeing on my walk on Sinatra Drive, there would be rats going across from one side of the cement towards the river by the trash. I was like, ooh, starting to get a lot. And the next thing i know i don't know who the fuck did it i don't know what politicians were responsible but there was like a

thing in hoboken where you reported the rats or whatever and they're they were gone like i literally haven't seen them since i'm sure there's a few out there but like when i see stuff like that i'm like okay whoever the fuck is in charge right now you know they're doing a good enough job i don't know who it is. I'm not going to worry about it. That said, if I went out there and shit was falling apart and there were problems, yes, I would probably take the time to learn who my people are and go vote for someone who could do a better job. So I think there's a balance there. But when it comes to our government and the people who are legislating at the top end, especially on a national level or at the top of the state level, like governors, stuff like that.

I think you're right. There's a responsibility for most of us to try to take the time to at least know some basics on like what they're doing. And if there's an option on there that you think is best that most closely aligns to what you think your priorities are, vote for them. Yeah, I think, you know, for me, I'm not an expert in the field, right? So I try not to kind of weigh in too much on, because if I don't have a solution, I don't like to complain about the issue. But there's several issues that are things that everybody, even that's listening, can do and make changes, right?

Like one, man, you're getting me on the hot button topics but there's nothing hot but you know this you're fine one is you know if you look the things that concern me is the slow burn you know if did you see it you ever see that 1984 interview with the uh was it kgb oh yeah i should know his name i always forget his goddamn name i've watched it several times we will beat america from the bottom and and they will slap it or whatever the fuck he said. You know, that was kind of like, man, nailed it. And I think there's been, you know, that strategy. One of my concerns is with – is the education system.

I think we touched on it a little bit with colleges as a good example. Yeah. with colleges is a good example. I think, you know, colleges should be a place where young men and women coming out of high school learn to sit across the table and become critical thinkers for themselves, not being indoctrinated to some nonsense to kind of pollute their minds. They need to be free thinkers, man. Free thinking and critical thinking is a skill set that everybody can work on that's listening to this. And that drives, you know, better candidates and things like that because you're thinking for yourself on whatever the topics are in the world and potential solutions for them as well because you're thinking outside the box, you know, as a problem solver. So that's something that everybody that's tuning in can actually do is like dude you know be open-minded and and learn as much as you can and be a sponge when it comes

to and and it's hard because everything that we're force-fed when it comes to media and like we're talking about manhunt you know like it's hard to know what's real and what's not real because they have to sensationalize things for people to tune in. That's right. Because people's attention spans are like gnats. We went from Facebook and then, you know, which is more typing and content. And then that got all political. Then they went to Instagram. And then now TikTok, you know, where you have eight seconds to hook somebody. You got less than that.

They're like, I can't sit through this podcast. A podcast? Holy shit, I don't know how people make, you know, we're talking about Sean Ryan has a good platform. I love some of the content that he puts out, but some of those podcasts are for five hours. Like who's tuning in? Like I will sit through that because I learn a lot of stuff about people,

their experiences, maybe some good takeaways that I can apply in life. The second thing that I think people can change, which has been talked about is the demasculization of men in the country. Like it's very interesting to me because like, you know, I've told some people before when I was growing up, look at, you know, when it comes to relationships and having an ability to communicate to somebody else about your thought processes. So you have the critical thinking skills that should be getting taught. They're not there. But young men that are coming up now, you need to get the fuck after it, dude. Who wants to be – and that's what I was talking a little bit about Nick Lavery.

Anybody can be average. You can sleep in until 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a Saturday. That's great. And that's what I was talking a little bit about Nick Lavery. Anybody can be average. You can sleep in until 3 o'clock in the afternoon on a Saturday. That's great. But you got to challenge yourself to grow. Like I was talking about earlier, it's like you got to suffer a little bit to do exceptional things. Who the fuck wants to be average? Everybody wants not to be average.

But if you're sitting on a gaming station for 30 hours a day, you know, you're not educating yourself. You're not going to the gym and working on your body, your mind, your soul. And, you know, those things are in your spirituality too. Like those facets of life, it's not a lot of things, but you got to put some effort into those and get after it. And it comes down to relationships with women, for example. Like, there's all these studies on young men coming up now. And what I see is like, you know, they can't have a conversation with women. Back in the day, you have to have game, right? What started with like pornography, right, is thrown, like you got Pornhub and all the things. Now guys are like, oh, shit. You know, OnlyFans, these influencers are making, some of them, absurd amounts of money, like $100,000 a day.

Well, that means there's a lot of people tuning into it. And then they're not giving that attention to their girlfriend, their spouse. And young men, you know, across the board are getting kind of polluted by the tech and all the other things. And life's a lot easier. But, you know, when I was a young, young guy, you know, you had to steal, like sneak into an, you know, attic and get like a playboy and trade it. Right. And then it transferred to that. You, you go to the bars and you'd have to actually, you know, care about how you looked physically. You also had to have a brain and carry a conversation with a young lady that you're talking to or whatever your thing is and you sit there and you're trying

to like you know there was a competition it was like all your boys there was a competition to who's going to get the girl now it's like guys just jump on you know so you know porn at a young age and it puts your mind right yeah yeah when you're older you understand that that's not real life but you have these expectations of women that aren't really you know you that might not be a real a real cross-section of reality and that whole area concerns me too because that's your fighting force too you know what do you think caused that i think it's a

combination you know we hit uh i was listening to a lot of things what another area that concerns me is ai i listened to rogan's podcast whether that was um sam altman one of the uh the crap uh creators and uh of uh chat gpt which i use for business but I'm not a big fan of AI. I know, dude, watch Terminator, man. Skynet's real, right? Like, dude, you guys watch Terminator and we're doing it right now. It's like there's so many different things with AI that are concerning, but it's coming the genies out of the bottle. And same with social media, like the algorithms we talked about, the social dilemma. There's all these different things. I also listened to one recently.

Kurzweil? Yeah. There was three, Sam Altman, and then there was a guy who's been working on AI for 60 years. Kurzweil. Yeah. That one was just mind-blowing because you got these nerds just focused on one thing. Like this guy wants to live

forever he's like seven years old he's like drinking fucking almond milk to stay alive yeah and he's just like i who doesn't want to live forever and be the smartest guy if you're a million times smarter everybody wants that i'm like yeah i you know i understand some of that i'm terminally ill i don't want to live forever like i, you know, yeah, sure, it would be great. I want to live – I want a quality of life over a quantity of life is important to me. But what you are as a human being is also, you know, a concern with AI. And they're talking about exponential growth. You know, if you take 10,000-year cross-section of humanity, right, just 10,000 years. It's like a straight line curve. And then you hit 1960 when you, you know, you get the advancements of computer technology,

the curve's going straight up and you're going to have exponential growth at some point where it's just going to change. They're talking about 2029, what that's going to look like from today. It's too far. Yeah. It's year over year, all these things, but it's impacting people's behavior and how you do business. The reliance on tech, you're saying. Yeah, you're kind of relying on it. And it's like whenever you hear the biblical quote, like the meek shall inherit the earth,

initially I was thinking how that might apply to Silicon Valley and the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world having billions of dollars. They're kind of meek guys. Now he's a big jujitsu yeah now he's doing jujitsu so i'm like oh okay let me let me transfer now he's gonna go fight like at the ufc oh my god someone said he's he's encountering every stage of of a of a growing young man about 20 years late or something like that but then you look at mike tyson man i was so bummed out with the mike tyson i'm just jumping all over the place i have add but uh he's not a 50 you know eight year old unfortunately it looks like it's getting canceled now um because he had that ulcer i don't know if it was real ulcer but yeah something's

going on you know originally i was like man i don't really want to see that that's um you know the elder abuse type thing like you take this champion and but i'm like yo with all the hormones and things that he's taking right now he's not your typical 58 year old dude and i know he's just hitting pads i fight the follow the fight game but that one was kind of things are just weird you know like things that 20 years ago could never happen. You're not going to see a 50-year-old former world champion like Muhammad Ali, bad example. It's like we're moving forward and backwards at the same time. I agree with that. You're kind of talking about the absurdities of war and things that are really strange. It's like I don't know if you ever take the human element out of it. We're more reliant on tech that is – it doesn't have the same repercussions.

If you looked at war 200 years ago, it was very up close and very personal. Like you were – Bay hand, even World War I trench warfare is very different than asymmetrical warfare. And you get into using, like now we're using drones to strike. The human impact might be different. And the more removed you are from humanity, that's a whole other challenge that comes with the advancement of – could be AI, could be tech because you're not seeing firsthand the atrocities of war. Yet you have more access to seeing it secondhand online than ever before in a way almost to desensitize yourself to it. Yeah. When I first saw Ogrish.com, when that came out, I was trying to see if I could

find my own IED. One of the IEDs I got hit with to see if it was like posted by the people that, you know, Hezbollah that, uh, that tried to, uh, you missed me, bitch. Well, you got me, but you didn't get me. I was looking at that and I was like, dude, you start seeing all the content. And I don't know that that's good. And a lot of the first shooter games that came out, there's a reason behind some of that. I know for certain that some of it was designed, the first shooter games was the kind of, you're getting young men and women kind of in the mindset that applies to the military. There were some incubators that, you know,

put some of that stuff out there for a certain reason. But yeah, it's very complex, man, especially when you talk about politics today. And yeah, I don't like what I see. That's the bottom line. Yeah, I mean we got into this talking about the lack of masculine nature that is kind of a problem with young men these days. And you righteously brought up technology and what that is. And obviously AI is like the ultimate dawn of things where we're losing potentially our humanity. And it has a lot of potential good to it too.

We've got to figure out how to harness that. But when you look around, I look at like generational examples. And I find myself more and more, you know, like my life is making content and watching things back and you know editing things and whatever and like that means when i'm not working i'm trying to get the fuck away from that at best i'm throwing in airpods and listening to like an audiobook or something you know where my phone is it's in my pocket i'm not looking at it but when i go to places where there's a lot of people and i look around i always look for parents before kids because i want to see what the parents are doing and every fucking time without fail just like this baby and it makes me think because

one of my heroes is Steve Jobs. He was a very imperfect guy, but he was a real genius and someone who did some incredible things for the world. But I really do wonder what he would think if he were around today and knowing people are using what he was creating as a simple technology to make things easier as a crutch at all times. And I think when you're constantly grabbing that dopamine hit. Yeah, that's what I mean. It comes down to dopamine. But I think the technology is advancing quicker than the way that we can kind of process it. I think that's – and yeah, it's a bit on the capitalist side.

You know, you want to develop a technology that might make life easier, communication. Maybe Steve Jobs was thinking, hey, wouldn't it be cool if you could carry around and be able to talk to your family? Same with Zuckerberg when he created Facebook, you know, I watched that documentary on him and that was another one where he didn't know how big that was going to get and that technology now is fueling you know like we said it's like that engagement is fueled by anger that wasn't as an initial you know no i don't think they figured that out straight away but they had to monetize it and when you monetize it the genie's out of the bottle so it's kind of like

this you know i think all tech's going that direction right now it's faster than we can understand the human impact of the tech and that's part of scares me man is yeah i'm like there there's arguments now whether ai is salient and i'm like whoa dude sentient you're sent. Yeah. I'm like, that's a little concerning. I think if I had gone to my head, I don't fucking know, but I would say it probably is. Considering how far ahead the technology is that we know someone like the deep government has. And whoever gets that tech first is going to be the czar you know like you know uh elon musk recently did the neural link which they actually the the next generation of that is what terrifies me you're going to have

a bigger problem when you have an iphone in your brain you know and you're now now i have the same fear but i i've wrestled with this one too because i'm like, will we? If it means that our heads are up and our eyes are in front of us, maybe we have a bit of a distraction because we can turn on a screen there. But like at least we are still more forced to look around rather than be stuck like this. Do you think that's a fair possibility that it could be better? Yeah. I don't know. I'm old school, man. I like to bake, you know. I'd rather break big rocks into little rocks and do something like.

I'm more of like, you know, rocky one, two, three kind of guy. Yeah. Like, you know, that's the things that I think we're losing some of, you know. It's like if you're looking at the UFC, you see these guys coming out of Dagestan, like them, hate them, whatever. You know, their athletes is they're growing up different. They don't have the soft life, man. And the wrestlers, they just, it's nonstop.

The way they train is different. And it's not to say they're better. It's just like if you take boxers as an example, some of the best boxers of all time, most come from really poor means, you know, and it's kind of like going back to Rocky is like, I love Rocky, but you know, it's like that mentality. It's like, dude, you know, you just want to, the thing that I love is the human spirit. And when you're doing it, when you're, when you're posting stuff on Instagram, you're, you're taking a snapshot of your, you're fabricating some things to make yourself appear, you know, Oh, this is the best angle and things. And that fear of missing out is impacting kids

like unprecedented rate. And kids are getting depressed and anxiety at like such a young age. I'm like, dude, that you're getting anxiety over that? Like this person has a $100 million plan. I'm poor. And it's like, well, even like you take one influencer, they work their ass off. They don't see the behind the scenes grind. And that's the part that's missing out with the generation that's grown up. There's a grind to it, man.

You can achieve anything in this country that you want. You just got to get the fuck after it and apply your brain and willpower and be resilient and never fucking give up and you will accomplish that goal, you know, nine times out of ten. But that's not what is being demonstrated on social media. It's fabric. A lot of the stuff's not – they're not seeing the behind the scenes of like – you take somebody like The Rock, you know, it's like – Oh, The War that goes into it. Yeah know like them or hate them it's like that dude's probably fucking grinding you know he's probably getting up at 4 a.m he's probably hitting the fucking gym for two or three hours he's probably studying he's probably honing his skills and his craft and and good for

him too because it's hard to do that the more you get right like there's an old i think it's marvin haggler who said it the fighter he's like it's real hard to get up and train you get, right? Like there's an old, I think it's Marvin Hagler who said it, the fighter. He's like, it's real hard to get up and train for a fight at 4 a.m. when you're sleeping in silk pajamas. Yeah, it's like Conor McGregor, man. Like once you hit that level of success, and I feel like generationally, a lot of people have good comfort needs. They're like, man, I grew up poor.

I'm like, you have an iPhone, dude. Like it's not the same level of poor when i was in north africa and i would pass this lady every day to give her food and water she had no fucking clothes standing in a mud puddle literally for three days in the same fucking mud puddle i'm like what the hell like is this mind-blowing like that no stitch of clothing that's a whole another you know you have 10 tvs in your house and you think you're fucking poor? Yeah. Yeah.

And it's not – I remember my friend John Borek in episode 57 had a great takeaway about the change in the mentality of society. He said, when I was a kid, if you pulled up as a teenager next to a ferrari your thought was damn that's an awesome car i wonder what that guy did to get that he said now when kids pull up next to that car they go damn that's an awesome car why don't i have that yeah right it's like people one of the one of the things about social media that sucks is people, like you were saying, they only see the end result or the good things. And they, and you know, they also don't see the work that goes in for so many people to sacrifice and toil for years to be able to get somewhere. And so they have this assumption that like,

especially when they're living in a world where one flick and they get their next post meaning they get their hit of dopamine like oh that's how my career can be too and that's why you see people jumping around careers changing jobs every five months yeah i think the average is it was five um you know and it's like what i tell um tell kids growing up i'm like hey man it going to take you a minute to figure out. My biggest, you know, kind of, I guess, you know, my physical body is probably like 300 years old at this point, beat the hell up, right? Not like a broken down Impala. But I'm kind of fast forwarding in life to have a little bit, you know, looking at things from a different optic, you know, with the situation that I'm in. And it's kind of cool because, you know, again, it's perception. Everything's about perception's reality.

And the way that I look at it is I'm like, oh, no, you know, woe is me. I look at it as it's an opportunity. The opportunity for me when I'm talking to these young kids, I'm like, I'm going to lose my train of thought on this. But if you want something, you just got to go get it. I had a good point I was going to make, but I just totally spaced out. Hashtag TBI. Well, let's take that opportunity to set the deck like I was saying a little bit ago. Because for people that didn't see episodes 136 and 137 where you laid out a lot of your military career and then also the battle

you've been in you've touched on it throughout the day but as you said you were diagnosed with cancer in 2019 very rare kind of cancer that i believe everyone you serve with in one of your units is either dead or has cancer right now meaning you guys were subjected to some sort of substance over there in iraq yeah it was um there was just a very – initially when it started coming out, I didn't fully believe in it because things happen in life. But yeah, it was a very large number within the people that – especially that I was in Iraq with. Of course, I served in different places. So there's a lot of bad things from an environmental standpoint. And we were doing some things around substances that were highly not good for you and toxic. So yeah, like even out of the initial 30 of us is a huge number.

I don't know the exact number, i probably lost you know i just went to another funeral like two months ago um most seals green berets you know took care of themselves all dying under 50 like 40 and under in the kind of their peak um and brain, pancreatic cancer. We've had five guys that I know die of ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease, which is weird. You're getting ALS? Yeah, five guys. I don't know anything about how that develops. So I think, I think some of that might be attributed to being around blast, right? So you have microterrors in the brain.

So if you're door breaching, for example, and those cumulative effects of blasts has an impact on your brain, which can lead, you know, to neurological disease and things like that. But the amount of cancers, if you're just in the military, you're 50% more likely to have colon cancer, just regular military. So when you get into the people that are door breaching, you're using explosive breaching, you're shooting, some of the weapon systems that we use are definitely proven to have massive impacts on your brain. But also just being around depleted uranium, the environment that you're in, in a a war setting lends itself to a high degree of cancers. And, you know, so it's the amount of people where it's a staggering. And then we also had a high degree of suicide too. I known, um, a lot of, so if you look at the 22 days statistic, it's, I just read an article on the plane, again, in psychology journal on the way here. What, what doesn't get counted in that when you talk about 17 to 22, you know, it kind of

fluctuates a little bit here and there, but you also have, um, overdoses, right. Which is self inflicted. It's, it, it, it doesn't get put into that category because a lot of us do go use substances, um, for various reasons. For myself, it was the sleep. I drank myself to sleep because I couldn't sleep for about 13 years. Maybe get two or three hours if I'm lucky, but I hadn't had a dream. I just recently had a week where the first time in nearly over 13 years, I've had one week of dreams

because I'm actually sleeping now, like through the night. And it was wild, bro. What was stopping you from sleeping for all those years? Substances impacted that, but I just couldn't fall asleep. Like in 2011, I was on Ambien for two years to make myself sleep. But then I was doing Roseanne Barr stuff, like sending emails out at three in the morning because I would stay up. I wouldn't go to sleep and lock my door, so I wouldn't go do weird things. And that was pretty wild. But substance abuse is part of it. You're taking substances to kind of

drown out the static to get a little bit of peace. And you have to do more and more of those substances over time because your tolerance increases. So next thing you know, you have legal situations happen or domestic or whatever the things are. You're not present in life. And yeah, going back to that, it's just a massive amount of my close friends have died from cancers or again like Lou Gehrig's and things like that. It statistically is off the chart. It's probably like 70% of the people in my group. last time about specifically after your service when you were in the contracting business and what was it you guys were doing were you doing armored vehicles was that right yeah after i got out yeah yeah so after you got out of cia and special forces you were doing that

and you mentioned today as well your partner partner, John Zinn, died under very mysterious circumstances in Jordan. And then, you know, you went, I guess that was 2014. So you went through years of horrible, you know, suicidal thoughts because of that and everything. And then you get diagnosed with cancer in 2019. You also mentioned how by the beginning of 2022 you were then officially diagnosed stage four you had part of your lung removed obviously your whole leg is basically like a metal rod and yet somehow you are still here you still look amazing and i told you this in december 2022 i said you're going to be sitting there. I was questioning it at the time. I thought you were full of shit. And it was like 18, we're 18 months later and you're sitting here looking even better than last time.

And you've managed to turn your own story and time that you have left that you seem to keep extending because all the work you put in the gym and you're no excuses attitude but you've managed to turn that into trying to as you've laid out today help so many other veterans who are going through the things that you know are still thoughts in your head right when you're dealing with that ptsd you're dealing with those difficult intrusive thoughts if you will that that that leads you around a long way like how do you how do you keep the presence of mind to dedicate your whole life to things like that when you do kind of live with at any moment the death knell that can come and suddenly like, oh, all right, it totally metastasized. You got a week to live. Yeah, grit, man. It's I think finding a purpose, man, that was what I was going to, my, my loss of thought earlier was with young people. I tell them you got to find something

that you're passionate about. It takes you time. When you find something you're passionate about, you typically, in my case, the money's not going to come with it. You know, I don't care. My, my payment is through other veterans that come back and they're like, Hey bro, I was not a good father. You know, I was not a good father. I wasn't a good husband. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for some help. Dude, that payment to me means the world to me, man. And having those friendships where I can see these men and women getting better, like, dude, that's all the payment, but it's the most rad thing I've ever done. And that's what I tell young people where I was lost my train. It was like, find, it might take you a couple of career changes to find it. Don't chase money.

Like money's great, but it's not fulfilling. And the answer to your question is the purpose, finding a purpose in life that fulfills you. That's what lacks when people transition out of the military, the problems that they have often is they lose that sense of purpose. And for me, I always wanted to protect other people. In some capacity, that's why I got an executive protection for the last four or five years after running three defense companies when I got out. I was lacking that. I was making good money, making life-saving materials that were serving men and women that were still doing it. So I had that purpose.

But I wanted to do more. And this was like the ultimate one because if I can be a force multiplier, that's what gets me up in the morning, man. I love like even Saturdays and Sundays, I work seven days a week. Most of this year, I've I work seven days a week. Most of this year I've been working seven days a week. You know, I take care of myself, get in the gym, self-care, all that stuff. I'm going to go on vacation for the first time, you know, with my wife next month. I'm stoked about that. Just kind of, you know. Where are you going? We were originally looking at Greece and she wanted to go to some island, but then we found

out it might be exceptionally hot and, you know, it takes a long time to get there and this and that. So we kind of shifted just like, hey, let's do something laid back. I think we're going to go to probably St. Thomas. We're going to book something this week. Yeah, but St. Thomas, and we're looking at Grand Cayman too. Just to, you know, unplug, you know, kind of what we're talking about. Get a little bit of break. Just, you know know focus on us and

our relationship and things like that and that's super healthy but um yeah i get fired up dude about the the work that we're doing though and that's kind of if anybody gets anything from the podcast it's like dude find something that you're truly passionate about man that gets you fired up and it's not work and typically you get rewarded for that because you're going to be successful because it's just going to come, you're going to work harder. You're not going to, you're going to actually enjoy it. You're going to be pleasant to be around, you know? I don't know if I'm always pleasant to be around, but I try to be, man. You are with me. You know, but yeah, I just, that to me is a key, you know, of where I'm at in phase of life was like,

dude, I want to do this literally until I die. God willing, man, I keep doing good things and making good business decisions and things like that. That's what I plan to do. And I would like to get this, like like we're doing an event in november called enough we're gonna we're working with two medal of honor recipients we're gonna have two teams work walk from north carolina like or south carolina from the north to the south another team a couple teams uh south to north converge at usc stadium and have these these guys hand the game ball off, you know, in front of like,

I don't know, 80,000, you know, get on Fox and Friends and things like that and just get the word out, you know. And it's cool doing these events because you're around these exceptional people. These are the people that I idolize. I think people, everybody idolizes different people. Like I said earlier, I don't idolize like celebrities and people that are, unless they're really good dudes, but these people's stories, these medal of honor recipients, like, dude, I look up to these guys, like, holy, like, I'm not worthy to be in your presence. And they're all kind of cuts from the same cloth. There's everyday people. A lot of these guys are just small country boys. Very, they got a lot of humility.

They're like – they almost don't want these types of – the attention that comes with their actions. Because one of the guys I was looking at jumped on a hand grenade. And I told my friends, I said, look, I can imagine doing a lot of things. But Kyle Carpenter is one of the guys that had jumped on a hand grenade and crazy, you know, imagine a hand grenade comes up on the roof and you're with your unit and you just make the decision. You know, I'm like, dude, I think I would pick it up. I thought through the process, right? I was like, I think I'd kick it would be number one because it would be quicker than trying to bend over to pick it up. But to have the presence of mind to like jump on it, you know almost without a shadow of a doubt that you're going to die.

Yeah. And like everything else I can envision doing myself, like, you know, taking a bullet for a friend, 100%. I wouldn't even think about it. But a hand grenade is just so violent. And, you know, Kyle Carpenter was one of those individuals that laid down, you know, his life for everybody else and he survived. And I'm just like, whoa, dude. Those are the types of people I surround myself with. And it just elevates my game, you know, with like, just trying to do more. Cause I'm like, you see these people when you're like, when I was watching Manhunt again, I'm thinking, man, even if I could grow, have the biggest nonprofit in the country and I could save millions of, you know, or, you know, say thousands of tens of thousands of people's lives, change them, get them on the right trajectory in the driver's seat of life instead of being a passenger where they feel like they're out of control, that's fucking awesome.

But then I'm thinking of like the Lincoln. I'm like he reshaped the country as it is, came nearly to collapse collapse and we'd all be living in some weird you know yeah two state you know two states you know just like wow yeah so it makes me want to do more it doesn't dishearten me it actually i'm like i gotta work harder like that's the mindset is like you got to take other people that inspire you and just get get after more you know and try to level up not you know just be stagnant or go backwards well when you're around those guys like those middle of honor recipients like a guy who jumps on a hand grenade which you just laid out obviously it's hard to even fathom doing that but

at the same time like what was your when you were going into heat of a battle type situation during your deployments, what was your mentality as you hit the field? Was it, all right, I'm going to go to what I know. I'm going to go to my motions, my setup, everything I've been trained to do. I am trained to be here to accomplish this task and we're going to get this done and hopefully we don't die, but I'm going to go with whatever happens. Or like, is there still the constant adrenaline of like, oh shit, we might die. Like, are you able to separate yourself from, from that reality? I've told people I could never do what I did in the past now because I would overthink things, right?

I'm going to be almost 51 years old, right? I'm an old man now. But it's not like the physical stuff wasn't the issue ever for me. The mental aspect, I was switched on. And that's one of the issues with people. There's a really good read for men and women that are veterans that watch this. Read the Operator Syndrome. It's a really good article.

And it's about being switched on. Whether you pulled a trigger in combat or not doesn't matter. But if you're in combat, when you're switched on all the time and you come home and you, like, for me, I'd be home two or three weeks and I'd punch back out. By the time you start to normalize, people are like, man, you seem like you're on edge. I'm like, yeah, I got blown up yesterday. We're in a firefight or whatever the situation was. And by the time you start to decompress, you get, you gotta get your head straight on, you know, to go back over and living that lifestyle. You know, for me, I worked in some capacity like that, whether it was executive protection, the agency, or my prior service with SF. I had to be switched on, and that's a large period of my life, if you look at it, my adult life.

And your amygdala, your fear center, gets hardwired. And that's what lends itself for people having anxiety and depression, and that fear center is hardwired and that's what lends itself for people having anxiety and depression and you know that fear center is hardwired so you have to train retrain your brain to kind of you know for me I was very hyper vigilant I was easily agitated walking around at eight out of ten so like if I got in an argument I would go full bore like on the flip of a switch because that's what kept me alive in combat. But at the time, I never thought about – I was like if I die, I die. It was very – for me, it was just like that mindset was just the way I was. I don't know if it's the same for other people.

I didn't think about it. Today, if I went through similar situations, I'd be like, dude, I don't know if it's the same for other people i i didn't think about it today if i went to the similar situations i'd be like dude i don't even want to drive on the street like like cadizia expressway at the time was an exceptionally dangerous road to travel you know i had two ids on that um what expressway it was called uh route irish or cadizia expressway in iraq and at the time it was the most yeah it should come up like the most dangerous road i think in the world at the time because it was so laden with explosives you know the bomb makers were taking out vehicles yeah yeah it was you know and that's how every day we'd have to drive down that road to get out of, you know, the place we were living and housed, you know. In Iraq, our base was like there and we'd always have to go down that road to go to work.

So it was kind of like you're rolling the dice just going to do an operation. It was a little dicey, which we knew. But I couldn't think about that. You know, you're thinking about the objectives. Everything's about securing the objective and accomplishing your, your, the mission that you're, you're doing for the day. So yeah, like I said today, I don't think I could work in the same capacity because my mindset's different now, you know, I'm focused on other things and I'd be like, that's pretty insane.

You mentioned it a couple of times today, but there were a couple of different IEDs that hit you guys. But what happened there? Well, my first, I think it was my first. I can't remember because I also have TBI, so my memory is not what it used to be. I can't recall a lot of things, like even people that I was really tight with. I can't – names and, you know, situations. There are certain guys that I know that can remember every fucking detail, and I'm always so impressed by that. And I kind of attribute some of that as probably because I got punched in the face a lot, you know, for fun.

So I'm not that guy that remembers all the details. But like my first, it was either my first or my second deployment was my first ambush that I was in when I was in Special Forces. And I was in North Africa near Libya. And that one was pretty bad because you're talking about mindset. Like that one, it was just happenstance just driving down the road i did not have an ar i was in civilian clothes with just two teammates and some ngos and we got lit up by ak um and they shot the tire out i was driving and i shot the guy that was shooting at us and we ended up rolling because they shot the tire front tire got shot out. And there was this big ravine on both sides of the road, like a drainage ditch that was real deep, like maybe four feet, five feet. So when we hit that, we ended up rolling and ending up in the air.

And so out of this training, because I was a young guy, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I was like 25, 26, somewhere around there. I went through selection when I was in E4. So I just got my E5 when I got like 25, 26, somewhere around there. I, I, I joined, I went through selection when I was an E4. So I just got my E5 when I got to my team. So I was a fucking new guy, FNG. So I was just learning, you know, and I switched my mag. I dumped about a half a mag towards the muzzle flash. I just got lucky. Honestly, I'm not like, you know, there's levels to the game at that time. I wasn't, you know not like, you know, uh, there's levels to the game at that time. I wasn't, you know, the, you know, certainly I wasn't the best shooter on my team. Um, but

anyway, I hit the dude pretty much center mass. We've got luckily what I found out later. And when we rolled the guy next to me, um, my captain was gone and I was like, where did he go? And we're stuck up in the air and it was like a Toyota ambulance we had two two front doors and in a rear hatch and so I changed my mag I climbed out the window because I couldn't I didn't want to get out the side of the ambush because there's there's about five or six guys walking down with AKs and PKMs or bell-fed machine guns and I got on the roof of the car and I was like, holy shit, these guys are, uh, they're, they're closing in. They're only like a hundred meters, you know,

and it was dark out and it was very early in the morning, like maybe around two in the morning. And I was trying to take, you know, orders from my boy. I was like, Hey, do I need to light these guys up or do I, you know, hold fast? And he's like, hold fast. And I was like, well, we're going to be surrounded by the time you guys get out. Cause they were trapped in the vehicle. So as soon as guys rolled up, man, they put a fucking AK to my head and I put my pistol to the guy head, you know, one of the Africans and we had, I probably shouldn't say, you know, a Mexican ambush. I don't know. We're just all pointing guns at each other. I think that's what they call it. It's not like a thing. Um, But yeah, that was a really, like, if you talk

about like me today, first of all, I probably would have shot at the guys and not give them the ability to close in or who knows what I would have done. I'm in a totally different place in my life. And I didn't get nervous at all at the time. It was just kind of going on instinct. But we were there for like two or three hours. You know, we had a letter from the president that we were there training their military. We didn't know who these guys were. One guy had like a 7-Eleven shirt and flip-flops and BDU pants. Another guy, you know, they're all mismatched.

And I'm like, who the fuck are these guys? And that situation, man, like going back to it, we were there for about three hours trying to – and I didn't – some of them spoke Arabic. Some of them spoke French. I was a French speaker in language school. That's what I studied. But I wasn't fluent fluent. Like I'm not going to talk our way out of an ambush fluent. So luckily the NGOs, they kind of were trying to deconflict.

And, you know, some of the guys wanted to give up weapons. and I was like, no way, they're going to fucking smoke us. I was like, don't tell them I was the one that shot their guy because they wanted to know who shot their guy. But because we eventually gave up our weapons, they were actually – my gun was still hot, meaning it was on fire. And I changed my mag so I think they were kind of looking at the guns when they took them from us. And he was smelling the barrel with his finger on the trigger. And I was like, man, I hope this dude smokes himself because I don't take care of one of them. Like, it was absurd, man. That's what I'm telling you.

Like, these situations are really absurd. And then eventually they just marched us down the road, you know, and there was a dude with a Belfed. And I thought they were going to execute us, honestly, time because i was like hey man i told one of my guys on my team who was like senior to me i was like the young guys some of these most guys were in their mid-30s i was like i still got a spite of co man he's like shut the fuck up new guy like you what are you gonna fucking like stab these dudes they got like all right john rambo yeah shut the fuck up and they put us on our knees man behind and i was Like, you could have fucking, like, stabbed these dudes. They got, like, eight days. All right, John and Rambo. Yeah. Shut the fuck up. And they put us on our knees, man, behind.

And I was like, dude, they're going to fucking execute us right now. And I just didn't, you know, at that point, you know, you're just rolling the dice. So my mindset at that time, you know, we finally had a guy. They turned out to be military. And we got out of that situation around 5, 6 in the morning when the sun was coming up. And that's when I knew they brought, you know, the dude. The dude was still walking that I shot. And I was like, how the fuck?

I had a ball ammo. How the fuck did I carry ball ammo in that kind of situation? And I had a Bretta 9mm. That's all I had. I had one more mag. I had three mags on me. And I had a fanny pack. So I get made fun of a lot for that. But I didn't tell anybody about that story until recently because I didn't want to get in trouble at the time. It became an international incident. Yeah. So it was kind of a shit show, but like, it all comes down to mindset, like all these different situations, like, you know, with the

IEDs, like I got near misses, man. I got really lucky. That was in Iraq. Yeah. So when I transitioned out, that's – I never had any issues with IEDs when I was in the military. It was few and far between where there was any – the op tempo was not what it became post-9-11. So this was in the late 90s. Right.

So this is when you're now CIA, GRS. Yeah. So when I went over there post-9-11 with them, it was a completely, it was a war situation, you know? And, you know, I had two really close near misses. Like the first one was in like South, you know, Baghdad where the IED, we had four vehicles, a lead, follow, lead, follow. So we had like suburban, then a CAT team, you know, basically people that respond with heavy weapons and they're all armored vehicles, but not against an IED. It's not like driving an MRAP that has, the problem with MRAPs is they stick out like a turd in a punch bowl. You're like, you're a jet. So they just make the

bombs bigger and bigger, but you couldn't, in an urban setting, an MRAP, there's limitations on where you can go down the road. The vehicles we had were smaller like Suburbans and other armored vehicles. But they attracted a ton of attention because there was no – one time I was in a G5 wagon, a Mercedes. Like obviously there's somebody important in that vehicle. There's not a lot of those running around the roads. you know, a Mercedes, like obviously there's somebody important in that vehicle, you know, it's not a lot of those running around the roads. And that was because everyone was scrambling to get armor. But in that one in South, you know, Baghdad was like, it just missed the lead vehicle. It was the biggest IED I've ever seen personally. I've seen ones online, but it was like two lanes of the highway. They buried it underneath the asphalt. And when it went off, it was just like it took up two lanes of both lanes of this road.

And, I mean, it came just right in the front of the vehicle. And had they been there maybe 50, 25 meters further, they would have all died, 100%. And we couldn't see anything after the there was a smoke and we were spaced out so it's like either drive through the ambush you can never stop on the x man you'll you know it's kind of like everybody knows like you gotta you gotta get off the x because that's the kill zone so it's either drive through or turn around and driving through, turning around takes time. So we ended up pushing through it. Yeah.

There was a, there was a little, you know, ambush after that with, there was about 12 dudes opening up with, you know, they, they,

we got lucky, you know, the RPGs missed the vehicle and it was a small arm stuff, but we didn't take any casualties, no injuries, but it was kind of like a wake up call of like, holy shit, dude, we're in a protective posture. We're not there to fight. We're there to protect individuals.

So that kind of was a wake-up call. That was pretty much a close call. War is chaos because if it hits a lead vehicle, then you've got to cross-load people. You've got to get into a gunfight you don't want to be in because we're not equipped like the military with our weapon systems. We had some belt feds that we weren't probably supposed to have because we knew an AR against PKMs and other kind of beltfed, you're outgunned. So anyway, like long story short, like, yeah, then I had two back-to-back on Khadija. One hit me pretty good broadside.

We were going about 70 and got in a little skirmish after that. Well, what happened? So it hit you, but it didn't injure you? I had a good armor, thankfully, but it disabled our vehicle. I mean, instantaneously. We were driving about 70. How many of you were in the vehicle? Just two, a driver and myself. And my buddy was a former force recon guy.

And it was right before you go into the CPA. There was this overpass, and there was another American vehicle. I think it was a Suburban that was hit in the morning of. And I saw these potholes and I literally just said, man, it looks like that's fresh, dude. And this other vehicle was still burning. And because it was still in the road, we had to get over to the left. And there was a guardrail there. And they set up a, we're not 100% sure on what kind because they were using EFPs at the time, which are explosively formed projectiles that – they take like a little copper disc. Iran was really good at making those.

Real thin disc, kind of like a shape charge, like the tip of an RPG. It's kind of like a little bit of a cone and when the explosives hit hits that it liquefies it and turns it almost like a teardrop and it goes through i mean it's moving exceptionally quick it'll go through a lot of big armor systems the bigger the discs the more you know casually producing it becomes but yeah just hit the the driver's side of the vehicle and just pushed over the axle, and we lost all our fuel and oil. So smart vehicles had just shut down, and we're sitting there in the kill zone like, oh, shit. You're on the X. Yeah, so my buddy just got out and started just dumping rounds.

And so I was trying to make comms, and we were getting jammed at the time because I think Paul – not Paul Bremmer. General Abizade was in town, and they were jamming because of him. Later became a board member for the company that I went to next. And I was like, hey, sir, remember back in such and such year, like 2004 and like April, you know, you were in, yeah, you kind of fucked me up for that day, bro. Like I couldn't make comms. We had no QRF.

It was just two of us. And I had an AR go down on me on that one. So that kind of created some nightmares for me down the road. You had an AR go down? Yeah, I just got off the range that morning. I shot about 200 rounds. I didn't clean my weapon. It was 200 rounds, man.

It shouldn't be a big deal. That's why I hate on ar sometimes and occasionally carried an ak because it was a little bit more reliable in a dusty environment but yeah dude mine was like it was like dump a half a mag and it was like click and my buddy goes bye he starts laughing at me like motherfucker like this shit is funny dude we're on the fire yeah i'm down to a freaking you know a freaking glock you know this is dumb so anyway um but then the next time i went out bro like it got really bad that that time was when right before fallujah went down and the next time i got in a vehicle my buddy was putting ear pro in we were in a suburban again i

was like god i gotta get out of these fucking vehicles are terrible man it's like a bullet magnet i was like why does everybody want to kill me I'm a really nice guy these motherfuckers and you know we just got out of the base and there was an overpass I don't think they saw it that way by the way I think they did man I think they didn't like me they're like this motherfucker he's not a you know yeah we hate him he's not a nice guy yeah they called me's right. They called me the golden BB, man, because every time I went out. The golden BB? I don't know. I just attracted freaking big BBs. Did you have the beard back then?

Yeah. It wasn't as gray as it is now. That might have been it. I earned these motherfuckers. That's a good beard. I earned all these grays, son. That's why I have no hair. They always told me my hair was going to fall out.

Well, yeah, the next time he was putting ear pro, and I'm like, hey, man, stop being a bitch, man. We's why I have no hair. They always told me my hair was going to fall out. Well, yeah, the next time he was putting ear pro and I'm like, Hey man, stop being a bitch, man. We're in an armored vehicle. Like I gotta be able to, we gotta communicate, you know, whatever. My ears were bleeding the other day. So it's about a week later or something. My, because we weren't allowed to go out for a bit because it got that bad. And so I'll go out and he's putting the ear pro and we had, I don't know, four, three or four people in the back. We were, you know, there were our principals, people were protecting. And the first overpass, we only made it like 300 meters down the road and it just missed the vehicle, man, by like a foot. And I was like, hey, man, you got any more of that ear pro?

I was like, you were man, you got any more of that ear pro? I was like, you were right, I was wrong. Happens quick. But I mean, yeah, the mindset is a lot of the game. And it's the same with me today, you know, with the things that I'm going through is just like, it's all about resiliency, man. Like, it's um, I tell people, man, like all the time, not to focus on the things they can't do. Cause I have all these physical limitations I never had. And part of my identity was tied to, we were talking about like what happens when Goggins can't be Goggins anymore physically. And it's a mind fuck when that happens, because even at 45, I mean, I was like, dude, I'm doing jujitsu. I was 230 pounds strong, keeping up with my

skillset, rolling with 25 year olds. Well, you know, I'm not claiming, you know, I was just like, I just did it for sport. I just really enjoyed the brotherhood of it. It helped me. I have a really good gym at SPG in Georgia. And the guys were just awesome to deal with. None of them, most of them weren't veterans. They were just, you know, you're trying to strangle each other every fucking day. And one day, you know, it taught me a lot of humility. You know, I did jujitsu for like 15 years on and off and, you know, I wish I had to hang it up when I got cancer. Cause they said, if you dislocate, we might have to amputate your leg. I was like, I don't love jujitsu that much. I'm not like a black belt dude. So like, I'm just like doing it for sport.

And, uh, they all came to the hospital when they took my femur out. My coach is like, my coach, Sean, who's a black belt in jujitsu. Um, Wu, um, he was a Marine, uh, master sergeant. And I think he's a black belt now. And so these guys and strength and conditioning coach, Philippe Gentry, who runs that school, they all came and they're like, I was only two days after my surgery, and I should have been in the hospital for like fucking a month, dude. I mean, honestly, because, you know, they said,

if you can perform these tasks, you can go out, like walk upstairs and do these things. And they were all fucking firing me up, man. Oh, yeah. I was like, I ain't going to be a bitch. Like I'm going to walk up these stairs, even though I haven't done it in six weeks and did it, got home. And then I was like, I think I made a bad decision. I don't think I can go to the bathroom. Like I can't get out of this chair, man.

And, uh, so it's like the brotherhood, man. It's just like, you, you gotta do things that are hard. Um, I think that's really important. We're talking about demasculinization of men. I'm like, do hard things, man. Not just gaming. Like, that's cool. You know, do things that you're passionate about, but challenge yourself physically and mentally. And it goes down to politics and be, you know, open mind, creative thinker, then we're going to get a more talented pool of people that are going to be eventually the leaders of this country. You know what I mean?

Right. And I just think across the board, you're just seeing like a large swath of people that are growing up now. It's just unfortunate to see. It's just like you got to keep – that mindset is important on all walks of life. Even if you're not doing physical things, challenge yourself with like business and get good mentors too. I tell people I'm like somebody has a really good relationship with their wife. Learn some shit from that guy.

Like how can I be a better husband or boyfriend or girlfriend, whatever the thing is. Yes. girlfriend or girlfriend, whatever the thing is, then, you know, you're like really dialed in on and really interested in subject matter that I might not be. And I can learn things from you, you know, financial, like they don't teach that shit in school and kids get out of school. They don't know how to like manage finance. Yeah, we're not. I don't know why. It's so interesting.

We don't teach people as they're growing up how to be a productive citizen. That's one level. And then the next level is the first thing you're talking about where we are deemphasizing the need to feel the pain of hard work. For competition. Right. Remember the participation trophy thing? I was watching the Champions. We're not all winners. It's okay.

I was watching the Champions League last month, the final, right? It was Real Madrid and Dortmund. And they literally, there were signs on the side, like, you know, where the advertisements are on the side of the field that said, I believe it said, every child is a champion. That's bullshit right there. No, you're not. This is such bullshit. Like you are not teaching anyone any – like I learn from my losses much more than I learn from wins.

You've got to fail, man. Yes. I fail all the time. I'm not here talking like, oh, I did all – you know, it's like, no, man. I fail all the time. Like I talk about when I was green beret i went through i wasn't infantry before i went through i fucking sucked i didn't know anything about small unit tactics i had no idea what i was doing but i had to learn that and it was terrifying because i was like all these other guys know shit i don't know

and i'm at a disadvantage well how do i level up? And I feel land navigation, man, like one of the harder things. What's land navigation? Well, we had to do like a star course, which it's really, you know, it's hard for everybody, I think. But unless you're just like, you know, fucking Daniel Boone or some shit. But I didn't have any land navigational skills before I went in. So I was learning how to to work you know operate and they still teach you know compass protractor super old school like hey if you have gps and it fails you got it you got to know how to do this if you're in a jungle you got to be in the desert

you're going to have to be in different environments um how to get from point a to point b to accomplish the objective and when i did that if they put a GPS tracker on me I was a physically I was really I had a lot of good qualities because I was a distance runner I could you know I was very accomplished runner I you know I had that going for me but dude they would have seen me run I probably ran twice as you know far I was running not like fast walking and we we get inserted I don't remember it was like about 11 o'clock at night. And they start you at a point and there's like five points that you would have to find. And I started in a swamp and it was zero loom, meaning no moonlight.

It was pitch black in a fucking basically a swamp near Fort Bragg. And yeah, I was like, oh, this is a bad situation. A little fucking dipper. Yeah, my ass, you know, you don't want to parallel a draw like the swamp. You know, it was like I paralleled it and was running through swamp where I should have just went across and found my first point. And I got to my first point and I was like, I'm going to fail this freaking. And I just kept going, man.

And I had to redo it, which was miserable. And it was a lot of pressure because I'm like, if I don't fail, if I don't pass this time, I'm done. I'm going to have to come back and do the whole thing again. And luckily for me, I had some good mentors that were helping coach me a little bit for the little bit amount of time that I had between. And I redid it. But but yeah another failure man like you know it's not like I'm trying to paint a picture that I you know fail all the time yeah what do you do when you fail that's the important part yeah you're just gonna fold are you gonna like keep going to get what you want I saw I saw a quote from churchill recently because it was the anniversary

of his speech where he was where he was like we shall fight in the beaches we shall fight on the sand we shall fight in the father you know that whole thing and the quote was something something don't remember what the beginning of it was but it was like it's the – it was success. It was just success is the ability to go from failure to failure with the same enthusiasm, right? And so I was thinking about that to the next level and it's like to have that enthusiasm means to me, the way I take it is not that you're like, yes, I love failing. Let's go. Let's get another failure. But it's more like, like okay this is a reality of the process they're going to happen when they do oh shit all right what can we learn from this

and how can we do this better how can we use that so that the next time we face something that has some sort of obstacle similar to what i'm looking at right here we're going to handle this thing and that like that that's changing the mentality That's like that glass half full versus glass half empty kind of thing. It's perspective again, man. Yes, 100%. People look at it, they're like, oh, man, it's all perceptions reality in your mind. If you allow those negative things, it's like you've got to look at situations in a positive light, man, and take the opportunity to get what you want. And we're talking about Nick, man.

Nick Lavery? Yeah, what's cool because I wanted to talk about him because I was so impressed. He spoke at a previous thing for us, and I swore I'd never have two people speak, and he's going to come out to the gala. It's a black tie event down in Nashville on the 14th of September, shameless plug. Plug away, baby. He lives down there. And I read his books. He put a book out called Objective Secure.

And he signed copies for everybody that was our guest. He's going to do it again in the fall. And I was so impressed. First of all, he's, you know, I look at him, I'm like, he's 6'6", probably, I don't know, 250, 26. He's a big dude, imposing Boston accent. He's from a Boston guy. And so he's physically, you know, imposing kind of character. And, you know, he comes out and I'm listening to his book on audio because I'm driving to Augusta where we have this event.

And it's an eight-hour listen, but it's fucking rad. It was really a good read, good listen. And so anyway, like, you know, story starts out, you know, he was in Afghanistan and got into – he had hand grenade shrapnel. I don't know if the month was September or whatever. But one month in like, say, September, they get into it and he has like the size of a lemon hole in his shoulder. He refuses to go home. The next month, he pulls his team sergeant from an IED-initiated ambush, gets shot in the face with an AK, nicks him, right? Again, refuses to go home.

He's like, no, I'm good, dude. Let's keep carrying on. Then, you know, one of the Afghans that he trained that, you know, like I said, the Taliban were really effective in trying to get the people that were not, you know, supporters of them. And it's like either you do this or we, you know, we kill and rape your family or we can murder you and take care of your family forever. And they come through on those promises. Well, this guy gets up on a Belfed on the back of a truck, almost point blank, starts hitting, you know, killing members of his ODA as well as some Afghanis, just mass casualty event. He hits Nick five, six times in his, in his, in his thigh. He doesn't have skinny legs like me because I can't do, I have no more leg days, but severs his femoral artery, knows I got minutes to live. You know, it could be two, you know, tops eight minutes when you have a femoral bleed. Put the president of mine to like put two turns.

Well, first, it's first turn of kit. Didn't stop the bleeding. Then he puts another one. The medic comes to him. He's like, hey, I'm fucking, it is what it is. I'm a write-off man. Go take care of the team. Like who fucking says that right i

mean then he takes like a handful of gauze like a powerball loosens the tourniquet wads it up into the cavity of his injury re-cinches him down which probably ultimately saved his life but how do you even do that like you can talk about it like this but the pain was probably exceptional. And then resulting of this, he has to go through physical therapy, lost a bunch of weight because he's such a jack dude, has to learn how to walk again. He's like, I want to go to, he goes back and they keep in the military. He's like, goes to combat diver school and here it comes to failure. He's like, man, I prepped for this thing. They rushed my prosthetic in the book. he's talking about like – and he's actually reading this thing. So it's his voice, which I think is a really awesome part of it.

Yeah, I love that. I'd rather do that than actually read it. And because he expands upon these experiences. And he's not doing it like for bravado or like I'm a badass. He's just talking about like – the inspirational part of him is what I identify with and just be like, dude, there's levels to the game, man. And he's a warrior's warrior. And he's like, I want to go to dive school, one of the Army's hardest schools. And they rushed his prosthetic.

He's like, I was, you know, prepared as I thought I could be, but they rushed my prosthetic. The easiest thing I could do was the first thing, which was an open swim for whatever, I don't know, a mile, a couple miles in open water. And his prosthetic falls out like right in the beginning of it. And he's dragging it. Like, it's like having a bucket of water tied to you and you're swimming. And the leg was already a disadvantage because it's not propelling him. It's just kind of like a little thing. Yeah, it's pulling back. So I guess the instructors came over like hey dude you good he's like yeah

roger that and he's like by roger that i mean i hope you don't let me fucking die out here because this is fucking bad and he's like serious right so that's how fucking motivated this guy is right he also failed on you know and i might say I say fail, I'm like, dude, people that are able-bodied fail this all the time. This guy has a massive disadvantage that you can't even quantify. You know, they kind of like replicate one of the events, the second event that he struggled with was like, it's like you're getting hit by the surf. They're pulling you upside down. You're blacked out in your dive mask. You can't see. They turn off your air.

They pull your regulator and all this shit. And you got to self-correct before you fucking drowned. Well, you fucking drowned on the first one. And then you had all the pressure like I talked about, me failing land navigation as a fucking pogue going through selection. Another failure that I had to over, but it's nothing in comparison of this. Like, and I tell, you know, don't do that. The comparison's not, not anyway. So he passes dive school. Then he wants to go back to ODA. You know, he passed that event the second time with all the pressure goes back. They're like, I want to be, and I think he's the only person ever to

pass dive school as an amputee at all. But above that, it's above the knee. That's crazy. Then he goes back and wants to go to, you know, go back to the unit. And like, there was no standard. They like created a standard for him to achieve. Does that, goes back to Afghanistan, is above the knee. Like, I think the first and only to do that as well and just and now you know he's transitioning

out motivating you know motivating other people in light of a situation similar to me and he's like get the fuck after it dude and i need young men and women to fucking tune into those types of inspirational people to kind of get to the the goals they want to achieve in life and not tune into the nonsense of like the people that are out there you know what i'm saying like yeah there's a lot there's a lot of people they're wasting their time on things that are should not be important to them you know in the grand scheme of life yeah and i think people also you know you mentioned this earlier but they they're worrying about things they can't control

i remember way early on in the podcast when i had my cousin anthony bookie on the show he was like if the first thing you're thinking about when you wake up in the morning is who the president of the united states is that's a you problem and a listen he's right about that that's true you know and that's just one Be careful who your heroes are is my point. Oh, yeah. That's a great line. I look at Nick and even in the situation I'm in, I'm like, they're the type of guys that motivate me to go, man, am I doing enough in life? Like, can I do more and, like, actually put some good out on the planet? That's what we need now is people to start, you know,

and also being good to other dudes. Like, you know, the circles, the people that you encounter, and also being good to other dudes, like, you know, um, you know, the circles, the people that you encounter, man, like treat them well. And that stuff kind of, it's kind of like, I'm not trying to be preachy and like a hippie now, but that's where I'm at. My phase of life is just, um, doing a great job. My goal in life is to serve others, man. And I'm trying to put some good out, man, in light of all the negativity and division in the country. And if I can just do that for, you know, 100,000 or 100 or 1,000 people, fucking it's going to make an impact, you know. And I want to do much more than that, you know.

I just got to keep grinding and, you know, expand that sphere of influence. That's why I don't get into politics on my, uh, like Instagram page. You know, I'm, I want to do better on that. And I'm, I'm this year, my goal is to, to influence people in a positive sense on like Instagram. Let's I'm not on Facebook, but, and through the company, you know, but I got to bring eyeballs to it, man. So if people like can do anything is just follow you know bkvf or even my own because the more i can grow it i'm always posting stuff about what we're doing how we're giving back or my personal you know uh journey which is a cliche thing to say but no you know honestly like it's a reality check when you're putting out your updates and stuff, I look at that.

I would highly encourage people to follow. We will have the links for all of Chris's socials and Brothers Keeper Foundation in the description to this episode. So please go follow that. But you guys have accomplished a lot in such a short time too, which is really cool because you've really thrown yourself into this over the last three, four years of your life, full throttle. And it's inspiring, man. I mean, I think about your story sometimes when I'm having different struggles and it helps put things in perspective 100%, not just because of your background and who you are and what you did, but how you're facing this latest battle now. And when I saw you walk up to the door today and you're looking like a brick shithouse it's like god damn what's my excuse just trying not to look like the

ladder to the shithouse you know it's like oh you look like a shithouse nah that's a compliment you lost the brick you're looking good man and it's uh you know you're still working out and shit and you got to man i mean you gotta i to beat back Father Time a little bit, man. You're beating them. You know? It's crazy. You got to get it. It's crazy to see.

But everyone go follow those pages. It was great to bring you back in here again. I'm going to say the same thing I said last time. 2026, we're going to see you sitting right there. Okay? Oh, man. Keep that rolling. I can't think about past 20, you know, this fall.

Well, I got to give you something to look forward to. Let's go, man. That you're going to work for. but keep doing what you're doing the foundation would love to see that gala get completely sold out to the rafters on september 14th that'd be very cool on that real quick it's uh saturday september um 14th at the city winery in nashville it's right downtown near broadway so it's a good thing to do for the you you know, the wife, the husband, you come to those events, but we have like a live auction, silent auction keynote. It'll be a Nick Lavery, live music, three course meal, black tie type of event. I don't care how people address them, not the fashion police, but, uh, yeah, it's a, it's a,

it's a rad time, man. And when you walk away from that, my goal is to have people fire the fuck up for a good cause and get a break from all the nonsense while you're doing something good to promote and help other people that um are struggling in life you know and help help fund an organization do great things so it's a good yeah cultivate encourage brothers september 16th so holy crap that's all good i'll put we'll go to the website pkvf.org we're gonna we're gonna have the link down below i'm sure people in the comments already corrected that earlier in this episode so we're good but chris it's great to see you brother yeah man keep doing your thing thank

you so much for coming back and everyone check out episodes 136 and 137 with chris and his full story it the link to that will be down in the description. Those were two really, really good podcasts we did there. So anyway, I'll see you again soon, brother. All right. Appreciate it. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to me. Peace. Thank you guys for watching the episode. Before you leave, please be sure to hit that subscribe button and smash that like button on the video. It's a huge help. And also, if you're over on Instagram, be sure to follow the show at Julian Dory podcast, or also on my personal page

at Julian D. Dory. Both links are in the description below. Finally, if you'd like to catch up on our latest episodes, use the Julian Dory podcast playlist link in the description below. Thank you.