Kitbag Conversations - Episode 32: An Intelligent Life

Episode Date: December 11, 2023

We sit down with Ryan West (IG:rwyeasnt) a former MARSOC Intel sergeant turned real estate agent. Ryan was matt's instructor when he first became an intel nerd and we sit down to talk about life, war, and intel.

I'm a one I've been here for you all along I last one, no one knows the good of these We're just good friends, and you come to me for sympathy You tell me that I'm down to a side But still you call me late at night Every time it picks up by After all this sin and all this done I'm the one, I've been here for you all the long I'm the one, the shoulder you've been crying on

Keep the total dick, that's the truth and you know I'm right But everything you say is the will ever do you right Yeah, I've been talking for the way I sit it, but okay, so go ahead and introduce yourself, even though we've been talking for 30 minutes, but introduce yourself with the guests and tell everyone what background is or whatever you want to share. I did a little over 20 years in the Marine Corps. I was an intelligent specialist. It's always weird to say that to people because when you meet your average person on the street,

they ask what your job was and they've completely developed their whole world view on you based off your MOS, not your actual experiences, or getting another easy human. But yeah, I did 20 years as an intel specialist in the Marines. I predominantly serve with what people would classify as special operations forces units,

including Marine Reconnaissance, Marine Special Operations Command, and the Navy Seals. And I did dabble in instructing Marines and sailors here and there. That's where I met you. But it's really funny. I mean, it's true. If you tell someone like if you're a veteran or whatever, you go on to the wild, you're like, oh, you were a grunt. That's so cool. Like, did you have anything to kill?

And then, yeah, your logistics are like, fag, lame. Yeah, it's like a, I mean, if you look back historically, America has always had an involvement with marketing and propaganda with Hollywood. And if you really look at it, that people's worldview of the military is shaped by books they read and movies they watched. And that's how they're distilling their experience down with you. They're, you know, basing it off of something they watch to whether it's G.I. Joe or Rambo, you know? That's how they're basing their interaction with you on. Yeah, it's kind of funny that you mentioned that and then like what five minutes before we get

record that you were talking about the raid and you're like, it's literally like a movie. It's, oh yeah, yeah. So the keystone cops like to race race tripping over everybody and falling down and Can't get can't get right And that's true like who yeah, I mean it's necessary. I think it's like watching Top Gun You know, it's like Top Gun Top Gun existence for a reason Dude didn't like military recruitment go up like 175% as soon as that movie dropped. Like every day.

Yeah, and it's necessary and it's great. And, you know, thank God we have people willing to continue to make movies like that today's day and age with, you know, ESG scores and all that stuff. So, I mean, it is what it is. It's great. You know, my numbing entertainment. Yeah, I tried to form a to formally post on a kid bag, which is how the media in like video games,

you know, movies, some of that try to shape the public's perception before something happens. So like Black Hawk Down was in production before 9-11 and it dropped like what, like six months afterwards. And it was just like, oh, we gotta go get him. And then he could play something like Modern Warfare that came out right before the surge in Afghanistan, which is like trying to motivate kids to go and listen,

go fight and do black Hawk Down because they saw in the movie Five Years prior. Like it's... I mean, it looks... Yeah, there's some Instagram hauls like that. I think it's just unintentional. I think it's probably unintentional though. I think it's just an accident

because if you were a look at American's history, we're in a major conflict of some sort, every five to ten years, you know, I think that's what it distills down to, is like there's a new thing that we're doing that often. So I don't think it's intentional to like get ready for the next thing. I don't think that's what you're incinerating, but I think it's just how it is, you know, where the West is about arts and entertainment and creativity and I think that's just how it is. The West is about arts and entertainment and creativity, and I think that's wonderful and great.

And I think that's just kind of how it works itself out. Yeah, I think it's really interesting that movies and TV shows are now being made about the global war on terror era, because there's nothing better than just making a movie that killing Nazis. That's just fun. Oh, no. But that after a while.

It's like such a moral gray period it's just a moral gray period. And so I think it's interesting that both some of like video games and the movies sort of like walking that side by side because they're like, we'll make the her locker. I'm going to drop more warfare to in the same weekend. It's going to be a her locker hilarious. I get a funny story about that one because I was with a team in Afghanistan. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

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I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Dad, we had an SDN medium with us. Like our team, our special ops team got an SDN medium deployed with us, which for those whoever listens to the audience you have means you got a little bit bigger bandwidth, you know, you got more pipes. But we were literally like in a steer, middle of nowhere location, but what that allowed us to do was we could access Dropbox. So his dad would drop movies to us and we would

all cram into our key skiff and turn it into like a cigar and whiskey lounge. So we'd all sit around the laptop and you know wait two days, the download something off Dropbox and hurtlocking was one of them and it was one of the worst movies we have ever seen and we watched it. It was just god awful. You know, credit to whoever acted in it, whatever, but that was for us watching that we're just like, this was before the Oscar and everything like that. It was pretty new at the time. But it was just not a great depiction of anything about our life or anything. I think they were trying to cram too much into a movie to get everybody behind it to be like, oh look, it's a poor veteran,

like what they go through, you know, coming back from over there. Wait, didn't that come on the same time frame? It's like brothers with a Topic McWire. Where you can see it. Yeah, he's like, I don't watch, I don't watch modern movies, usually about modern stuff that I participated in

or was part of. I'd rather be on like something like Fury and be like, yeah, that's how it was. You know? Dude, that's your letter, baby. Look at that haircut. That's me. I'm doing that. Or like every other.

I'm gonna make all the same. That's kind of how I talk about it. I'm sure it's gonna be. You know, 20 years from from now they'll do the same thing Yeah We guys cannot prepare that there we got him I Got you I don't know. I don't know. I'm kidding.

Recorded continues. You guys can edit all this out, right? Yeah. Keep going. Yeah. You guys were talking about DICK winners, right? Yes. Yeah.

Cody, you were talking about DICK winners? Yeah. I was talking about Dick Winners and how every officer compares himself to a Dick Winners when they watch fucking baby brothers. That's he's awesome. I mean, he, oh, yeah, like that's going to be them and that's going to be their experience. Yeah, like World War II, World of all of the Western Front and they go train Rangers in Korea.

Yeah, that's the career. I mean, I think the reality is though is, you know, most people want to be Dick Winners, but they're predisposed to be, you know, whoever Ross from Friends character was, that's more than likely to be the winner. So, yeah. So, well, like that's, that's, that's the dimension you're earlier, like they're gonna, they're gonna be like that. What's that?

Yeah, you were mentioning earlier that when you go up in the ring, so you could be like a Lance Corporal or a Specialist together, think they're cool, dude. And then once they get like NCO, it just become a prick and you've realized that they are just the absolute worst. And they're the ones that, I mean, they're the ones that call you like a shit bag

or a bloody fucker. Well, they, I, because you're just like, I mean, they're the ones that call you like a shit bag or a bloody fucker. Well, because you're just like, I don't care. I'm marine half the time. It's 12-5. It's not used to call. Well, I think people become career minded. I think people become career minded and they start, I don't know, it's weird.

Like, I guess the only thing you can do is have your own experience. And you know, I don't know why you got not mad. guess the only thing you could do is have your own experience. And I don't know why you got out mad. We've never even really talked about that. I know it's hard to stay in, and I would have gotten out certainly because I wasn't compatible with the Marine Corps. I just kept finding myself around people in places

where I could be me and still do my job. It was never really like, oh, yeah, exactly. That's not most people's experience. And I don't blame you, you know, because most people's experience, it's like, you have to stab people's back. You have to conform to some weird, weird version of the standard of what you thought it was. But it's like some CO is distilled, you know, viewpoint of that, how they're interpreting the Marine Corps. And if you're not meeting that, then you're out. You know, it's like a squid game. Yeah, it's a very conscious of them with the mind.

It was a... I got soaring. So, there was a chick that I worked with who was like she and I were peers and then she got sergeant and immediately started like flirting with me and I was like fucking stop Don't want to do that get out of here and then so after that she's like he turned me down fine and so since I was like the security guy She would a nitpick every single thing I did and then called the SSO like Coral Mullins doesn't know how to do his job well over blah blah blah. And then when I was at third recon, we were at fun place. We're really like those guys, but the moment I said I was questioning about getting out,

they blacklisted me. They're like, don't talk to me. I was like, dude, I'm the intel chief. Like, what are you doing? And so they were like, we got nothing going on. Neither do you. We need someone to separate the secret books from the recital bins in Japan. I was like, thanks.

Great. Yeah, whatever.. I was like, thanks. Great, yeah, whatever. That's pretty typical, man. That's like a lot of people's experience, I think. And it's just like how much shit can you eat? And I was like, I mean, everybody ate shit at some point. But at some point, you gotta figure out like how to stop eating shit.

That's so easy. I know, no, it's not. I mean, I don't know. I was trying to go to, I wanted to be like a sock eye and I had a fernia. And so I was like, they're like, get that fixed first. And then after that, come back and try again. I was like, all right, cool. So then after I did like my recovery and everything, I got orders of third recon.

I was like, hold on, hold on. I'm trying to go to Mars. And so after that, I went back to the Mars, office. And I was like, yeah, I was working with, you know, Doug Smith or whatever. They're like, here's a work here. You anymore. We don't have a file on you. You're going to try to do the full re-application process. It's like, God damn it. So they made it hard. I'm sure it's funny because I'm part of a signal thing that I check every six months and it's all socks eyes on there. And half of them are guys that went through the course like that we I think had a positive impact on you know

Absolutely positive impact on that. I was like, that's what I want to do. That's it. That's the work to do and it was yeah It's it's almost one of those defined intervention things You're like you're hitting a roadblock every every single step and you're like it's probably not a half you should be on but Yeah, it was yeah, man I mean, I tried to explain that like I think back it feels like 20 years ago, you know instructing over there at the schoolhouse here and I think back on that and I'm like I always I think I told you guys like don't base your careers off of my career like that's unfair Because it's like you just stumble into

Rears off of my career like that's unfair because it's like you just stumble into Opportunity and it's you have to be ready for the opportunity when it happens and you have to be able to seize it People always view it as like oh, I'm it's because you're good or not good No, it's just that opportunity presents itself and you're good enough at that time And that's really what it just comes down to you right and? And it's not something you should ever think twice about. I think I have to regret the decision. I've done some pretty good things. I mean, I went back to DC or I moved to DC out of Wim. It ran into Ray almost immediately.

So that was fun. He told me. It was insane. It was like week three. And I was walking down the hallway and I just see like this short stocky guy. And I was like, is that, is that Goney Lindsay? What's up dude? Oh, it's funny. That's cool. How much guy. I was like, is that Goney Lindsay? What's up, dude? Oh, that's funnier.

That's so fun. How much of what I was trying to push on to you guys is true. All of it, I'd say, 95%. It was a very sobering experience. Because I just went to the course as soon as I got back from my deployment. And it was like, there was the optimistic side, and then the real aside.

And then after that, I went and hung out with you and, you know, Ray Lindsay for what three months, they came back and I was like, ah, no, Murray Court doesn't do anything. Like, we got to do something else. Mark sucks the way to do it. But yeah, a lot of what you talked about with the, um, how the intelligence taken so seriously. I remember that. You're talking about how a lot of people just blow it up or just get complacent because they see it as a thankless job and then that's when everything becomes normal. So really just staying focused on that kind of stuff is something I like still to stay like hold on to. Yeah dude that's I mean God it's I think it was easy for me to that's I mean God it's I think it was easy for me to have that opinion of things having the career I had because I got to see a lot of the incident impact

of what I was doing and then but also trying to carry that forward to make other people care because it does matter and you're never going to be thankful for you and nobody's ever going to care right like nobody cares about you there's no even if they made books and movies about you, which they did grow like growing up as a kid, like that's how I kind of gravitated towards that field was, you know, I was a heavy fan of top-plansi, you know, the Jack Ryan book series. Like I grew up reading that stuff and that's kind of why I gravitated towards that career field was that. And I was never a great student.

But they don't have anything nowadays like that where it's like, this is why this stuff matters. Even like Jack Ryan nowadays, they've made them into like an action hero. You know, they've tried to operationalize Jack right. Yeah, it's kind of goofy. I mean, I watch a little of that show. And you could watch the James Bond films. And you know, was it a tinker-tailor-sulver fly, which I think is like one of the most

Yes. Diled in intelligence movies. That and Sikari, the way they do coin. I was like, that's the most realistic coin movie. Oh, interesting. That's great. But I love this. Yeah, so they thought they'd make it fun. That has to be fun. Yeah, Of course. Like if there's nothing blown up, no one wants to watch it. Like who wants to watch a movie?

There's two hours talking. Like I was want to say who wants to watch the movie. Go ahead. Sorry. What? I'm coming in behind. I'm going to. I'm coming in behind you guys. So I'm gonna I'm gonna try to quiet it down but now you're good you're good, but I was gonna say like nobody wants to watch like two hours of Like two hours worth of a movie about MDMP and like IPB and all that stuff. Oh I think an interesting movie it'd be more of a series because we talk about movies

and we're talking about movies and art. An interesting movie would be like the Intel guy running a siop on his own commander of his team because the commander of the team wants to chase the big mish because he's going to get a bronze star or silver star. But you know like the direction you need to go. So you're planting the seed along the way to get them to like listen to you. Right? Like you're doing it.

It's inception, like it's inception. You're basically the movie inception, but combine that with like Panda Brothers meets, you know, Rambo. Let's see this one. We have another exception. And Rambo The other Reception of Rambo there we go I'd say this been the biggest issues I had with the militaries the people that just chase Frank like they just throw everyone Use bus

But they just throw a lot of people under the bus they chase the ranks and take some emotions the chase A wars and stuff like that and then if you like actually peel back the layer, you're like, you haven't done anything. You just take, I mean, when I was deployed, there was like a worn officer that was, this guy was just insane. He would have the junior analyst write up like an intel piece. And then he would shop on blast

his critiques to the entire ship to show him what he got wrong. And I'm like, what a day. It's like, what a prayer. Well, he's the, what a prayer. Well, it's probably a big problem. Yeah, it's a product of that somebody did that to him or some version of that. That's what that is. You know, it's just it's just carrying bad forward. I mean, not, I mean, I don't think anybody sets out to be a bad leader or whatever. It's just you really either learn from the bad ones you had or you To change and that that be that way or you mimic their actions and I think the majority of people aren't strong enough for

don't have the mental fortitude to Forge your own path and have their own opinion because it's hard because it's work Right, so it's easier to default to just copying what somebody else did to you So it's easier to default to just copying what somebody else did to you. I've got to point that to a lot of aspects in life because everyone always just looks at like line gots like they're like, oh, he's literally being a doss as personality and like what like drive or something like that. And it's like they just get become to like a shells of who they're supposed to be because they just adopt personalities. And I mean, that's just like

in general society. But of course, when it comes to like the military everyone, he's like dick winner. So like, I'm gonna be that. And like no bro, you're a senior in office or just pass myself. Like, come on. I mean, I get like having inspiration for somebody like him because he's a great man.

I've watched a lot of his, he has some interviews when he was older and he's got a ton of wisdom and a lot of his, he has some interviews when he was older, and he's got a ton of wisdom and a lot of perspective, but I think people are really probably more lonely than anything, and they're looking for inspiration, and they're not looking for it in their everyday lives. And that's fine if they don't have it, but you can probably find some people around you that are inspiring in themselves, but they're grasping at something to try to emulate. I mean, I get why it's there, because you need to have something to look forward to,

you need to have something to drive you forward. I mean, he's a historic figure that did a really amazing job. But again, he was kind of railroad that he was looked down on. He wasn't this hero that were retrospectively making him. He was made into that from not only his own merit from what he did and his men did, but also people capturing the story. I have this book club, dudes that I get together

with the successful business people, some of them are veterans. And we just got done reading the book, The Boys in the Boat. It's about the 1936 Olympic rowing team from the University of Washington. Really popular book, famous book, did it up to you via stock market. And you know, nobody knew about that story until that did wrote that book. He wrote the book because it's happened to be neighbors with one of the prominent figures in the book.

And now, you know, here we are years later, everybody is talking about this rowing team and everybody had forgotten about them. So, if we want to talk about something like that, I mean, I haven't read the book myself, but I do know that after a band of brothers came out that everyone just kept saying, like, can I have a civil peace of shit? He's the absolute worst, but then all the easy company men Oh no, because he ran us into the ground, we had incredible endurance when we had a run across the disease. And he was like, no, actually all that training he did actually paid off. So you should actually be nice to him. Yeah, for sure, man. Like, I mean, you probably had a dickhead NCO that you can think of right now that probably probably benefited you to, right?

But he sucked as a person to work for with. So what does that all say? Where it's like usually the shit bags are the best Marines where it's like, you have like, oh yeah, the picture, the picture perfect carbon copy of just like the poster child of Marine Corps is usually just the war store with but that kid that Smoke 75 cigarettes a day dips in his bed and then passes out watching like cartoons with beer all around him is probably gonna be pretty solid when it comes like push comes shift Yeah, I mean there's that that's true throughout history doesn't even have to be the Marine Corps I think that's just life like when you're talking about hard work I think the people they're willing to do that. I mean, they don't have to have all those bad habits or whatever and I

Certainly try to I think I would put myself in that camp of somebody that wasn't viewed positively Within our community sometimes or even nobody knew Anything about me or I didn't try to. There was no end state for me. There was no end goal. I wasn't trying to obtain a position. I wasn't trying to obtain a rank. I was never in it for whatever. Some people probably aspire to become senior and listed advisor of X, whatever. And what shaped my mindset for that was,

the experiences I had as like an E4 and I rack, losing people in our unit and thinking about that and thinking about how that impacted me every day and the thoughts I had about it and seeing how it impacted my every day and the thoughts I had about it and like seeing how it impacted my friends around me. You know, it felt really off to be chasing things for the purpose of obtaining more money or whatever.

Maybe that's a weird way to think about it. But I think that's how people think about gaining positional authority is like, oh, I get paid more to do this or whatever and like that's fine there's nothing wrong with that but I just personally had a had a problem thinking that way and my usually my actions and what guided me in my everyday life on my job and everything I did I tried to think about that person that's not able to be there and you know you hear it nowadays a lot it's like live a live a life worthy of their sacrifice and you hear it from a lot of people and it's so true It's like why am I doing this? Why does this matter?

Even when all that has stuff happened with Afghanistan and Iraq you know like how everything ended and everything like yeah It was disheartening, but it's also like What control do you have over and did you do the best you could in the time that you had? You know that's all you that's all you're left with that then and that's all you can do and think of it's like if you're having this existential crisis all the time about what it at all mean because I felt that way certainly at the end of my career then You're always going to be left feeling empty No matter what because you're going to be living in a world where decision makers are making decisions that they don't give it

They don't care about anything about you or your your buddies So yeah Cody so I'm not trying to cut this off. Yeah, that was that was poetic. I just had to take a second No, you're good and to add on to, and I knew we're on a delay, so just give it a minute. But I was gonna say that that is right. Like you just do the best you can with what you got. You're gonna see things and things are gonna happen

no matter what profession you're in, you're a cop, you're a tailor, you're a soldier, you're whatever, but it's like somebody used to do your job and somebody wants to be there, but they can't. Or you know, they have a medical disability or something like that and I mean There's many things in my career that I wish I would have gotten to do but where I was and looking back on it And you know, I mean I deployed five years ago and sometimes I still sit there in the front lawn And I'm just like Jesus Christ. I can't believe like we did

X amount of missions, you know, well over hundreds, literally hundreds of missions. And I never lost anybody like, and there were many guys and there were many arguments and there were things like that. But it's like, you know, a lot of people on the outside, they sit there and they look exactly like you're saying, like they look at the action. But now, you know, five years later, I'm still the only the only reason I haven't broken down and quit is because it's like, you know, five years later, I'm still the only the only reason I haven't broken down and quit is because it's like, you know, hey Everybody got out alive and everything was good and you know At the end of the day, it's like can you live with yourself in the actions that I know there are many majors and there are a couple generals I can name right off my hands who honest to God probably can't they can't look back at their army career and be like, I gave it 110%

when I could based on the circumstances and what was going on and around me. As long as you give your best and you do your best with what you got, nobody can ask more of you. And so, you know, not everybody's gonna get to be the Delta Forest Seal Ranger CIA operative. Things are gonna happen. You're gonna have have kids. You're going to have bad leaders.

You know, and you just got to do the best you can. But if you've got like six bad leaders in charge of you or your units notoriously getting killed and getting people killed in training, like yeah, you're probably going to take some mental hits and you're probably going to get out or want to get out. But you know, that's the role of the dice. Luck plays a huge part of it. I always say the military and life, military and life are 10% preparation, 90% luck. And you just got to be prepared when that look shows up. And so yeah, Ryan, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

Like it's not going to be like the movies. It's not going to be perfect. But all you can do is the best you agree with you wholeheartedly. Like it's not gonna be like the movies, it's not gonna be perfect, but all you can do is the best you can with what you've got, and that's about all anybody can ever ask of you. And hopefully, when you look back at it, that's what you see is like you don't beat in yourself up, but you're like, you know, I did the best I could with what I had given the circumstances

and move on with your life. Yeah. And another thing is like, don't complain too much either. Like, you know, it's cool to complain like at times because it's camaraderie. Like, think about all the hardships you had in your military career. And like, you're like, oh, this is terrible. This is this sucks. Like, whatever you're complaining.

But that's more of just like the history of mankind of like, when you're in a situation where it's not comfortable, you're doing that. But like when looking back on it retroactively or like, even when you're in it's not comfortable you're doing that. But like when looking back on it retroactively or like even when you're in it's important to remember like hey also be a good steward of your position and what you're doing and what we just talked about and what am I doing to improve the situation and what am I doing to make things better with what we have available to us right. Like when I got into that teaching job where I met Matt, you know, I knew things were not going to be easy because I knew I was going from a position where I had everything that I needed on my disposal. And I had gotten to do a bunch of stuff and then I looked at

what I was coming into you. And I came into it because personally I was selfish and I wanted to be around my family now. I've done a lot of stuff for years and I wanted to be more consistent with being home and being with my family. And I knew it wasn't going to be easy, so I took measure of the situation. I looked at what was available to me and I made do with what I had. And I was able to do something that was pretty good that I feel like would have held water at any unit organization, three-letter agency, it would have been an elite course for people to go through no matter where that was at. And I did that with zero dollars.

I did that just from experience, knowledge, and creativity of taking advantage of the resources I had available to me. You know, just being a good steward of what you're doing and trying and caring resources I had available. You know, just being a good steward of what you're doing and trying and caring and giving a crap. Yeah, I mean, that is such a great point. I mean, just caring. I mean, just caring. And that's, so I had this story.

And I tell this to like, because people ask, what was it take to be an officer or whatever like that? And I said, you know, we had this guy, a real fucking tri-hard wanted to be like, doubt the force ranger in Cadetland. And I'll never forget this because he was being a dick during this whole road march. Like, hey, quit, quit, Lolligan quit doing this.

He was like a junior or a senior cadet and I was like a sophomore. And we get done. And one of the captains is talking about how to be, you know, a good leader during this road march. And he's talking about, you know, just check on your guys, make sure they change socks, make sure, you know, they're drinking enough water. And I shit you not. I remember because like one of my buddies who would go on to just be like, he was a lieutenant and got an MSM when he got out. Like, he was

very impactful. Um, he was a logistics guy. and he's been on the podcast a couple of times. But he was getting yelled at by this turd sandwich. And I nudged him. I'm like, Tobin, look at him. He's writing the shit down in his notebook. Like he's having to write down how to care for people. And it's like, yeah. Exactly like you said, it's perfect.

You know, most people think like, oh, there's all these things I gotta do. It's like, no, just give a shit, bro. And people will make it. I don't know if it's like, you could be a, you could be a fat, slimy turd. And like, just be, you know, your cargo pockets filled with snacks and skittles. But if you look at me with that look in your eyes, like,

sir or Sergeant, like, please help fix me. And I know you're listening, like, I can tell if you're listening. And it's like, holy shit, like, he does want to change, like, he does want to quit being that fat turd from Alabama in the trailer park, like, he wants to change everything and turn it around, like, hell, yes, like, let's, let's do this. And so, I mean, same as like the schoolhouse sir, I mean, we've got a discord with guys that we teach free shit to all the time. And like all it is is just us giving a shit and caring and taking the time out of our days to be like,

oh, no, you don't need to read like the whole fucking field manual. It's like right here. Like this is what you need, like this little fucking paragraph. And it's like, oh, I mean, I just, just today, was talking to a kid who's writing a paper and Los Angeles for a school house. And he's like, hey, what are the seven phases of like pre-invasion? I'm like are you talking about the seven phases of UW?

He's like, yeah, I'm like oh here you go like and Yeah, he's a patron and he pays to be here and it's like you know, hey, you get paid to give a damn Yeah, get paid to give a damn and that's what good leaders do Well, seriously, they just care. I think it becomes a multi-year there's a lot of discouragement that goes into it because say if you're on like duty or whatever, you just urinate shift, you just run around the job making sure everyone's taken care of and then you can go back to your desk and realize no one's gonna do that for you. No one's ever come up and ask if you're having a good day or if everything's okay. And then from there, like, because, you know, that definitely happens. I definitely experienced

that. And then there's also like this professional discouragement where, I mean, Ryan had mentioned a few times, but when I was deployed to Olivia, we were doing a mission. And then a little bird showed up in 160s. And I think it was third group showed up. They're like, this is ours now. And it's like, I can help. So like, if we needed your help, you'd be doing this. And it's just a process. And so it's just like that, even if you want to keep like moving

for it, you're like, I'm doing good things. There's like that mental pull in the back of your mind. You're like, this sucks. And so it's, yeah. I mean, I definitely know I'm going to Yeah, no, man, I did I appreciate that But again, it just goes back to like a lot of people I've had this discussion with a lot of people throughout like the last five to ten years People will like they put a lot of weight on like what service branch you're part part of or what training you've been through, what schools, all that stuff. I tend to think

the people that tend to do well, one, it's not based on what branch they're part of or whatever military service they do or even their job. It's usually some light-either-life experience they had or whoever raised them and what kind of impact they made on their life. That's the true bootcamp. The true bootcamp is kind of like what things you're you caring for or as far as your work ethic, like why are you doing what you're doing? Those are the things that are kind of like what carried people and like what made people not like, oh I went to bootcamp for three months and I went through this school for this you know training for a year and then it went

through this other school for a year. Like yeah, that stuff matters and you have to do it for standards. But there's turds and every thing you do. I mean that's that's really nothing. It's just like a check in the boxing. It's almost like going to college nowadays. It's like oh yeah, I got a degree. You know, what really matters is usually people's you knowos, like what's their code? What are they subscribed to and are they willing to push the I believe button and care with you? Yeah, that has something to do with watching the Kabul collapse. And so veterans suicide rights have jumped in 22 to 44 today.

And I think it's crazy. It's insane. It's double in the last two years. And it's talking about the like the give a shit mentality. It's like there's still your friends do just make a phone call. It's not that hard. It's yeah, just that's a conversation. Man, this is a tough conversation dude because there's like there's realities of a lot of this stuff with like suicide like nobody talks about the other side of it. Like it's tragic, yes, and there's people are killing themselves that have real issues, but there's also people that are unwilling to participate in society post their service. Yes, yes.

If you look at World War II, World War II veterans work. Good. I was going to say is that that need for longing, you just want to be the part of something and contribute. And the mentor definitely gives you that. So even if you're like first and last mentor, 20 year careerist, as soon as you're out, I don't say like everyone has this, but then you're like, now what? You're like, and then it's just a regression back into society because you know that they don't understand you. And then everything going on in the background from your own experience.

You have to get over that at some point. You have to, you have to get over that at some point. And again, this is where I may be able to different and be controversial to some people is because a lot of what I base my view on this out of it I look at my own grandfather who's a World War II veteran, you know engineer and the army It was at Normandy detail that stuff and you know, I look at him and I'm like he got back from that You know, he did his time in Europe and got processed back and he came in as a private left as a private, you know Built the bridges across Europe into Germany, you know, across the Rhine, you know, paved the way for Pattinson's third army to get in there.

And he came back from the war, and he went to dry cleaning school, and he came to dry cleaner, and then he was a janitor after that, you know. He wasn't writing books and making t-shirts and becoming an influencer. He was just finding a way to contribute back to society and plug in.

And I think at some point, that's a societal thing where people have to make an election to go, yes, I'm going to do this job where I'm going to be identified as this person in my community. And I understand the belonging for community. I've read Tribe like 50 times. Like I agree with what Sebastian Younger has to say on that stuff.

I think it's great. But you have to make a choice. Like you have to decide. You have to decide here to be like Rocky movies are to me the greatest easy way to understand life. Like if you watch all the Rocky movies, like he gives like these great speeches about life It's like you know, it's not about hard hard to get hit and it's about getting up and what all that stuff, right?

You know it with with all this stuff that's a tragedy. Yes, and it sucks and I've known people and we all do you know people that have Chosen to not move on with their you know life and there's some that It's probably deservedly so because they've done a lot of heavy lifting. But some of these people, they also have to participate. You can't say, hey, reach out and call a buddy. So as I'm sure there's people reaching out to some of these people that are still doing it,

it's just they have to choose, yes, they have to, they have to, I'd be a willing active participant in their own life. And they have to, they have to, you know, do the thing. And I don't want to get into the whole thing about this generation's ad or that generation's ad because that's a slippery slope. You know, everybody's been saying

that since the beginning of the man. Mm-hmm. I was, it's funny you say that because I got out of the army and I got out of the army as a captain, as a soft intel captain and I went and opened my own fucking carpet cleaning business. And so, uh, yeah, you... I exactly what you're saying. You can't fucking not everybody gets to be Tim Kennedy, not everybody gets to sell t-shirts and be the next Matt Best. Like, you got to find your own niche and what's funny is that even

after service and there are some friends I have that are doing exactly like you're saying. I like how you explain that. Like you have to give a shit and actually get back in, like get back up on the horse and your horse may have your old horse that you were on. Like yeah, you were in Marsauk and all this stuff. But at the end of the day, back here and back home, like, my in-laws don't know what I did. And yeah, like, my in-laws don't care. They don't care what I do or know to care. Like, they don't care about the details. They just know that I'm married to their daughter. I was in the army and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, most people just don't care. And you got to find a new horse and you got to ride

that horse, you know? It's not going to be the big Clyde stale you got free from the military. You know, you got to find a new one and, you know, you can either get the new job, you can create a business, you can do so many things here. And you just got to figure out that, you know, hey, I used to ride that. And now I ride this, you know, it's just nature of the beast. That's life. And, you know, maybe a entitled to a little bit of depression you know you know used to be cool like yeah we all everybody is though it's relative yeah everybody has the right to feel how they how they how they can feel or how they should feel or how whatever their life is like you know and it's relative to everybody's position and nobody gets to own grief you know

like you don't get to own grief you don't get to own I like that you know what it's relative to everybody's position and nobody gets to own grief you know like you don't get to own grief You don't get to own like I like that. You know, you know what I mean? They're like Nobody has like the rights on all that stuff But at some point it's like you got to either got to choose the work. I'm not dude. I'm in real estate agent like I could have done a lot of things not real estate. I get people yeah, don't I don't I don't He's in when I meet people, I'm like, hey, I did all this really cool shit

and I'm really qualified to, you know, do all this stuff. No, they treat me like crap. Like people treat you like crap, like you're trying to like hoodwink them. It's so bizarre and it took me a while to get used to, but it's like, hey, this is what I chose, this is what I'm doing and this is,

I'm gonna try to do the best that I can and because it's about serving, like for me, it's about serving people with purpose. And if I can serve somebody and what I'm still doing, and, you know, I chose not to become part of the military industrial complex or continue on with that, because I was this overweight over, you know, it didn't really mean a lot to me at the time. This is what I chose to do. And if I can continue to serve people in whatever capacity, whether it's even real estate or I could be working at, you know, a manager at Walmart, whatever, like you got to find whatever it is in your day, every single day to continue to go that keeps you going. Like people are just going to be people. That's it. Period.

Yeah. I think you're just doing a really big thing. And and I think I'm trying to say this. I guess like gallows humor is such a like a popular thing. Yes. I'm like, it sucks. And so just integrating or just going to meet with your family after doing whatever and just having the most morbid protest sense of way of looking at the world. It's all optimistic, but there's like underlying like I guess like slap, like slap in the face of those people who could find just like difficult to work with. So, I mean, I jump right back in the military and social conflicts. That's what I do. So it's

like it's, there's like a cushion, I guess I could say, but it's like, I mean, I'm from the Midwest, man. Like every time I go back there, they look and be like an alien and so it's just from Ezra's Detroit. Oh sweet. Are from South Dakota. Yeah. So you don't know what to ask? No, I remember you used to wear the Michigan state liner. Yeah. No, Michigan, not Michigan state. Hey, watch your mouth. Oh, Michigan. Oh, I'm wrong. But watch your mouth. Oh, man. But yeah, it's like something like that. Just like you're saying, it's like finding that niche, finding that calling where you're like, it's herrers Cody saying like, get off that horse, find a new one. It's, I guess you have to like come to, it's something

to come into Jesus moment where you have to say like, that's not what I do and who I am anymore. I got to figure it out. And the more Cody and I do this kind of like, just like Instagram talking to the average guys. It's it's amazing to see that there's like a couple different career paths people take when they leave the military And one is either Stoner and the other one's gone for hire or it's just like the other just show off Yeah, or they go right back into it even harder and so like yeah, it's like you said it's a slow slow but It is man and like there's a famous saying by it But it's pretty cool. It is, man. And like, there's a famous saying by it, there's some author.

It's like everybody is the star of their own movie, right? Have you ever heard that saying? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And it's true, because everybody feels, and especially nowadays, right? The society, and I'm learning this stuff now, because I'm learning in business where you have to be on social media.

I'm not comfortable with it, and I'm learning how to be comfortable with it. And I'm like getting out of my own crap because in the military, certainly, and you guys know this, you wear a mask. Like, I joined when I was 17, I don't know what I was doing. I just like idealized like, oh, I'm gonna be in marine, they're cool, they're awesome.

Right. And then you were like, oh, I'm gonna keep doing this. And you get out and you're like, oh, it was just 17 yesterday and now I'm, you know, 36 or 37. And you don't even know who you are anymore. So, you're having to play catch up because you were gone the whole time and you're just you're dipping your toe back into the society and a society is like I made the Shawshank joke to Matt before I got on here about the zooming chariots that are made of steel.

It was like getting out of the military for me it was almost like that. Like you got out of Shawshank and like there's these zooming chariots made of steel. It was like getting out of the military for me was almost like that. Like you got out a Shawshank and like there's these zooming chariots made of steel. But the zooming chariots are like social media information overload. It's like I open TikTok, I just got a TikTok account like a couple weeks ago. And it's like you're belaring at you when you open it. It's like, oh, it's in your face. Like people are yelling to get their point across in the 15 seconds they have, you know. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a lot of things all at once. And honestly, I looking back at it and like looking at it from just like an officer standpoint,

I've noticed that a lot of the guys who stay in for at least for the army officers, it's because it's easy to, you know, like that, like you're saying, like if you get out of the military and you become a real estate agent, well, don't get me started. We could go for an hour. Some of the guys that I worked with who have stayed, I'm just like, really, you're, you're rough for major. Oh, like, but I mean, turns the guys. Guys, turns float to the top, dude. Oh, the turns float to the top. Yeah, because I'm scared. Dude, it, uh, some of those guys, man,

but long story short, you know, hey, transition's tough. Transition is the toughest thing you can do because you literally, like you said, you had to drop everything you did. Now you have a TikTok. You know, you're, you're a former marine soft intel guy. Now you're on a Chinese fucking app, trying to, you know, sell houses and you gotta do it away. Yeah. You know how it's, you know,

how it's, you know, you want to hear the reasoning of bargaining, you know, the bar, the bargaining ideas with myself for that to happen because I was part of the opium data breach. Like what more can they learn about my life, you know, it's like, but it's active gathering, you know, it's, but it's active gathering to blackmail you I mean as far as everybody, again, it goes back to the everybody's the the center retention of the universe. Who the hell are you to think that Anybody cares about what you're doing your product like you're like all these people are worried about China and TikTok. It's like The 0.00001 percent of incidental collection that they care about getting like you are not it buddy Like you're to sell a t-shirt from Ali Baba like that's what you are to them Yeah, you're data to be collected so they can guess what you want to buy next Pretty much yeah, just data for making money

That's and that's the weird thing is like when you get out of the military It's not about trying to like you know kill each other. It's about just, just data for making money. And that's the weird thing is like when you get out of the military, it's not about trying to like, you know, kill each other. It's about just, you know, data and making money. It's all about making money. That's literally a period. And it's weird. It's super weird. Now that I've like, now that I'm caught up in the span of this, um,

I have, I do have a question for you. Since you did teach at the school house since you did do You know you went to the highest levels of intel you can within the military If I sat you down and I forced you to teach somebody on the Instagrams Where to start learning Intelligence like you know they can't join the military But they want to learn this as a hobby,

like learning how to speak intelligence, learning how to speak with us. When I sit there and I say, support zone, battle zone, disruption zone, about Russian doctrine, and they look at me funny, and they're like, well, I bought a Ukrainian flag. I thought I was making a difference. You're like, well, ATGM teams think differently than, you know, Amazon, Ukrainian flags. Where would you start if you had to tell somebody like, hey, if you want to know the path to truth, follow this yellow big road? Yeah, that's a super tough question to ask.

Like, I mean, I could break this down to a bunch of pieces. One, I think understanding good trade craft, like trade craft, like when you hear that word, people typically gravitate towards human, right? Counterintelligence human or human intelligence. But I think trade craft is something that actually applies to anybody in any profession and applying a process

to what you do, right? So I think applying, having a good firm understanding of authorities and tradecraft, not so you could follow them all, certainly because if you start applying, you know, laws and governance, everything you do, you're never going to be get what you do. So you always have to find a great area and be able to operate within that because anybody that's worth a salt in what they do is going to find a way to push boundaries. So I think having a good understanding of tradecraft and like applying a process is good. I think time management is understanding a time management is really important to you.

A lot of the times of how I learned how to do Intel early on was very individualistic. You certainly do need to have individual skills, but I think it entails a team sport in my opinion. Because you're never really doing things off on your own. If you're alone doing intelligence work, you're usually at some level where you're collecting a piece of information and pushing it up the chain. You're not really providing information that's going to be dependent on the decision. So I think understanding how to work with others is really important. So like tradecraft, understanding time management, understanding how to work with others, information

management is really important. So because you're going to be bombarded with information, right? So, they're especially nowadays because there's so many sources of information that you're constantly being in a data with it, and everybody's trying to sell you a new system or whatever, but having at the core, like, your own system that you put in place of how you're managing your workflow, and I think Matt could probably probably remember this and what I would preach in, like, workflow, right? App your workflow. And I think Matt could probably remember this and what I would preach in workflow, right? Applying workflow. Intelligence work is like quantum mechanics in a way.

I think if you ever think about it, it's like, if you ever try to describe like quantum computer quantum mechanics even, it's like this jumble of everything happening all at once, all at the same time and everybody likes to look at it neatly, like there's this process. There's always these cycles and these processes, but the reality is, like the adversary gets to choose too, and you need to be able to adapt and understanding what's happening while it's happening, you'll be able to plug that into

where you're at and understanding what's happening. So that's why information management's key as well, because you're going to be so overloaded with information that you have to have some type of process in order to understand what you're doing and where you're at I don't know if I'm hitting any of the points or if it's making sense Yeah, I used to look at um, yeah, so when was younger, I used to want to be an architect, I thought that was really cool. I had a really big infatuation with it. And when I finally got the intelligence fear, I don't know if this is a controversial statement or anything, but I used to look at, say like in search and groups, like building

a house. So every group has a foundation. You could look at the management of savagery, which ISIS use, which is a text that was written by Mujahideen Fighter in the 80s, the Soviet, the power fight, the West. And so they all read that. So you can look at that as a foundation, and then you can just build the walls and build the bricks.

So instead of looking at, I don't know, a doorway or a window, as that that you can look at it like you know like a key political figures like an abom or I'm using like ISIS as an example but you could look at like a like an entryway or like a smoke stack like Al-Bak daddy and so when I was I was like 19 or 20 when I came up with this idea of looking at especially intelligence it was like there's a foundation everything is like a building there's always a, everything is like a building. There's always a foundation. There's always a window. The window just lets you peek in just a little bit

and that's just one window to the full house. And so, I don't know if that's a good way to look at things for a lot of people, but that's the way I used to look at. And I still look at it that way because I used to read Blueprints and everything like that. And I was like, yeah, I think it definitely helped me out. And you're talking about time management,

information management. It's, you're right, there's so many things I can't help. Yeah, because you have to come up with organization because there's so much to know about. There's so much to know and learn. And if you're not an active reader or active listener, then it's gonna be very tough to do the job because you have to be able to key in on stuff and be able to to do the job because you have to be able to

keen on stuff and be able to recall stuff and then you have to be able to find it quickly to be able to aid because you shouldn't be doing anything without being able to point to stuff and corroborate, right? And that's a whole other conversation for another time about as far as like the sloppiness of the intelligence work early on in the GWAT to where I came to understand it. The level of refinement I got to and was capable of doing. But that was because again, you develop systems, you learn from each other,

you rely on a team, right? There's a lot of weird stuff where you probably encounter a team at, and I'm sure you two code you do an extent where people are like riceble, they are afraid to share, and that's counterintuitive to actually good intelligence work, right? Because they're taking to account the career

is in that we talked to earlier, so they don't want to share because that piece of information they have is what's actually going to help them get promoted or they think, that's going to get them to the big adipoid and pat on the back from the commander. So that's like already contradictory to good intelligence work in practice because you're taking these Things you learn from the rest of the military and what you observe in the units you're part of and you're applying that to your job

Which that job Should not function that way and it's like bad habits are being carried over into it and function that way. And it's like bad habits are being carried over into it. And no amount of like an e-n-i-chery around saying like, you're doing a great job and giving you a coin, it's gonna fucking ever make up for that. You're just gonna be a creature of like, oh, I gotta keep this piece of information

because this is gonna be, and they know most people don't even realize they're doing it, but they're doing. Mm-hmm. Well, not sharing is a huge thing that I identified on my first deployment where I found out that the previous mute deleted all of their share drive. So we walked in, outlined and so we were just recreated the wheels doing it all from day one. And so when I got back I went to your course, went to

Japan, and I thought of a great little idea of making a distro of all the little analysts that met in the Navy, the Army, the Marines, the Air Force. Let's start together. Mass emails. Yeah, I was like, why don't we just send each other emails? So it's like third recount is right in this sit rep. We're going to kick it out.

You guys can take a look at it. If you don't focus on the Indo-Pacific, it is what it is, but you can at least get a little information on it. And I remember one time there was an, there's an officer that grabbed me. And he's like, why are you mingling with other branches? It's like, dude, we're gonna tell him. Oh my God. We're supposed to share.

It's like we're supposed to share. I think, too. That is such a systemic problem. Oh my God. We did it for like three months, I think. I definitely grabbed a couple of Cody soldiers. And so I would like rope them in and we'd shoot back and forth. And it it was kind of fun back for like 90 days

I was like I'm the only one doing this. This is and then you know, it goes right I did I did quit this is years ago This is like yeah, when I mean this is I mean that that happens in like the office right? So you have like officers like the office, right? So you have like officers, like the S2 actual not talking down to the enlisted, and then the enlisted don't know what they're looking for when they're reading reporting and shit. And then, you know, officers don't talk to brigade, because they're like, well, if I tell brigade, then this won't happen.

And then you have it like divisions. And then you have like, I mean, my favorite story for like the sharing thing is like when Marsox showed up in Helmand, and we were the aviation element for tax health, tax health, West and tech West. So half, half of Afghanistan, if they were doing an operation with aviation, they had to come with us and we would sit down, we'd go through like their frago and like we'd plan all these intricate aerosols and shit. And when Marsox showed up, they would just like come into our office and be like, hey, we got 48 hours to do this

iValue target mission. Just be this awesome targeting packet. But like, everything on God's green earth would have to move. I'm talking like State Department missions, all that shit. And so we'd have like seven day planning, like seven day plannings. And then like, everything would shift right and left because, you know, JSOC would be like,

nope, this mission does take priority, the Marine, Marsock got it. And so we had to sit down with them and with tears in our eyes, beg them, please, we don't give a fuck about your intelligence. We have two to three missions a night. Stop doing this to us. I promise we won't show the Army Special Forces

you're targeting back at. I don't care. I just wanna go to bed. It's the thing, dude. It's like the deep thumbs. Yeah. A lot of it was like, I used to call it the Commander's Glory campaign. Like, you would come in on a rotation and then you'd replace like the outgoing unit.

And everybody took the left seat, right? See, rides were almost like a formality of like, yeah, bitches, like we're here now, like it's good, we're better than you, right? That's kind of like the feeling you got sometimes, not on all of them, but some of them. And then you would completely look at everything that that last unit did, or that last whatever, squadron,

platoon, company, whatever. And then you'd go in the complete opposite direction and not build upon their successes. You won't look at what they did well and actually analyze it, do a task, like a mission, some type of mission brief on like, oh, here's what they got right and here's what we think they got wrong and continue to build on successes. It would literally be like, no, our fucking 04 has like every idea of what he and it's his turn now like he's been waiting for this chance and you know this is his opportunity to prove himself instead

of like oh I respect what you did and like let's keep building on these lines of effort and that's basically summarizes the complete failure of probably the Vietnam war and every war we fought in the last 40 years, mail you. That's effective. I'd say, so we do a, looking at the scan. A compare and contrast between like, rule, rule, rule, rule, rule, rule, rule, rule, rule, rule, rule,

to kind of Korea and everything post then, is the way yours is awkward and terrible. The share of the stock. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're the time. And so you have continuity, there's no issues. It's, I mean, Cody and I talk about it,

we're Iraq 2014. It was special operations focus, and they were issues. It's, I mean, Cody and I talk about it. We're Iraq 2014. It was special operations focus. And they were about every like what 90 days. I was just in Somali with SEAL Team 10. And those guys weren't even talking to the Marines in the South. I was like, dude, why not? There were Marines, don't want to know. They haven't been through close.

I was like, yeah, right? So I was working with those guys. And I was like, we can literally talk to each other. We with those guys. And we can normally talk to each other. We can do this. We have that. And we don't do it. Yeah, it's weird. I mean, that's, again, I think that's

another podcast he has to do talking about the weird relationship we have with, like, history and services. And it's like the member varies. I don't know if you remember that man. I used to tell that joke about the South Park episode There was like the it was like the Trump Hillary Clinton election year in South Park made this awesome Season of them everybody was eating these like blueberries and they were they would talk and they'd be like yeah a member and they talked about how great things used to be and everybody was eating it and basically and make them remember how great it was back in the day That's kind of how I view

The weirdness of our services and everybody dipping their like everybody has to have like a piece of the pie, right? Like, oh, everybody's special ops now, everybody's part of the team, but then when everybody's part of the team, it's like everybody's trying to make a name for themself and like, oh, well, it's no different in the intelligence community because everything those people are doing, and as far as like departmentist station people, they're trying to generate clicks, they're trying to get people to read the reports with an IC because that equals funding, it equals money, and it equals promotion for those people at that station.

So, it's like this weird corporate blending of monetizing, slash, putting influence on our pressure on people that are in positions of authority to get them to produce because that equals more pay, more influence, more whatever they're seeking power of some sort. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that was, that was the, that was night and day. And you, you hit that, and that could be a lesson all its own, right? Is like how the, the military and the DOD and the department of state both do that where it's like, they're trying, they're,

they're fighting internally for funding as well, right? Like, Rangers are competing with special forces. Recon is competing with Marsauk, you know, God fucking for, I would kill to see what the inside of Afsauv looks like, you know, you got special recons and JTAC, CCT, pair of rescue all over there. And they're just fighting over a pot of money. And it's exactly like you said, like, or a surprise. Combined, it's not as pot of money. It's money with like the ability to do the big thing they trained for their whole

entire life, right? Like, oh, we got selected for the mission. Yeah, right? Like, and then what's funny is like they're all over there, but then the support guys all roll up together and they're in the back kind of whispering like, Hey, man, what do you got? What do you got? And we're talking and then like they're arguing in the, yeah,, the children are arguing in the playground Well support guys are smoking meth and do it lines of crack trying to make mission and my favorite phrase that I ever Favorite phrase that I ever got told in special like special forces support was get to yes How can we make this happen? You're a salesperson you just described your job as a support person. Yeah, right. I was a salesman, do it without realizing I was a salesman because I was trying to sell

information to somebody to get them to make a decision that was favorable to what I thought the situation was. You were selling information of yes or no. Okay, this isn't a good idea and here's why I think it's not a good idea. You're literally like in the business of sales. And I started putting that thing down. It goes right to my retirement. Like, holy crap, I was a sales person.

Yeah. It goes right back to that whole aspect of just analysts being overlooked. So if everything goes good, no one talks about you. But if everything goes bad, it's your fault. And so, I mean, I remember, oh yeah, you have a fault. And I was, you have that Yeah, of course, of course,

it's always the two. There was like, hey, two, where are you? Why do we lose 14 guys in the site? And you're like, I said not to go off the trail, dude, with the fuck, like, it's not my problem. But the, I do remember when I was deployed, we were I coulding Syria. And so our, like, our guys got like redirected and we're getting sent to Syria. And so I spent like three days making this whole in-depth, like, 45 minute brief for the ship's captain. And then he turned around and looked at the crowd and he was like, is he ever seen the movie Speed 2? It's kind of like that. I was like, what are you talking about?

It's like, this makes, this is not, this is complete bullshit. And then internally, I felt like I just wasted all my time because everything I said, they were just going to just part anyways. And I was like, yeah, you know that American dad clip of Roger, the alien just goes like, I didn't fix anything might as well get drunk. You know, like that's the entire until it's like, that's it. Hey, and for, I don't know what kind of audience you guys have. Yeah, I've got that on that, but for all the people out there, they're like, yeah, but those are the guys out there risking their lives. Hey, dude, I've been blown up and shot at as much as the next guy,

depending on whatever your MOS was. So if that's your like approach on things, like it doesn't really matter. Like, yeah, there's people doing stuff and it doesn't, no, the bad guy doesn't care what school you went to and what MOS you have. Like when things are happening, they happen. They're not like, oh, I'm only shooting at Navy SEALS. I'm only shooting at, you know, O311s, you know, that doesn't matter.

Nobody cares. I was about to say. So I was going to say one of the most combat performing MOS's, at least by data points that we collected in the army. Yeah, it was, yeah, was the 88 Mike was the truck drivers. They didn't, they know the Taliban and like the insert Iraqi insurgents didn't give a fuck about special forces or the infantry.

I've heard large, the people who ambushed, yeah, they just wanted to and they knew who would look like. I mean, I even remember reading publications by the Marine Corps saying like they knew like they would avoid Digi-cammo because they knew that was the Marines and they would fight and so they attacked like army pokes they were like the primo to attack for them was the pokes in the army if they could get their hands on army pokes 9 out of 10 times they would fight them and it was very reflected in their. Like by foreign large, the ADA, they were the most army-truck to IO too, because dude, like insurgents and Iraq understood social media and IO before the times we're in now, because I remember seeing videos prior to going in Iraq at all.

There was like these videos put together of like the Flutus sniper, and like there was like a sniper and bagged out and all that stuff, and they were circulating within the ranks. Like everybody was watching them, and like it was like a sniper and bag down all that stuff and they were circulating within the ranks. Like everybody was watching them and like it was almost like, you know, like the fetishizing like the death porn like stuff. But you're watching them and you're going like, Oh, fuck, that's scary. Like nobody is admitting it. Nobody's like,

like actually like saying they're scared, but you're watching these videos that were going around and circulating on the internet back then of like the flu just sniper like taking dudes out like Santa throughout's or like dudes driving their trucks and like blown humbues up and stuff like that right and they they were masters of it before and we obviously can't do and that's what we suck at counter-insurgency because of authorities and red tape and you know politicization of everything because we can't actually fight that stuff the right way.

They can just do whatever they want. Everybody understands this now. I mean, that's why it's weird that we would ever get involved in any kind of conflict like that ever again. Do you ever watch the videos of the old Vietnam vets that could interview in the 1980s, 1990s and they're like, I don't see America ever getting involved

in like a pro long counter-insert is gun flicked because Vietnam was a mess. In the mid-ten years we did it again. I've never seen those videos, but I've talked to those guys. I've had conversations with a few of them, and I have books sitting on my bookshelf right now of Vietnam War talking about the same shit.

And it's, you know, even when we got involved in Iraq, like when I was going, we, I had a really smart second lieutenant that brought the, there was a, before the counterinsurgency field manual existed that Madison, whoever the Army General was that helped, you know, co-author it. There was a small where's manual the Marine Corps had published in like the 20s or 30s. And it was almost exactly. Yes. So he brought that with him as like kind of a guide. He was very smart to bring it. Somebody probably gave him the wisdom to bring it.

Whatever he was fresh, I'll enable Academy. Fresh until ground until officer. He brought that with him. And he had the foresight to bring that with him. And because if you look at the history of the Marine Corps, like that's what we were used to do, fight small wars, right? And he was like relying on the history and knowledge to bring it with them. And we used that as a guide to dictate how we operated during that deployment.

This is before clicks. Clicks didn't exist. And they were like, we literally were doing clicks before clicks. This is it. So they pushed our us down to the point. They're kidding. Because based off of this history of the small wars, man, I'm going to bring it full circle here. So going back to the Vietnam thing, like we oftentimes ignore history and

faults and failures we have in the sake of whatever, right? The smudel, everything boils down to smudel, but there's speech, words, or racket. Everything boils down to that. If you really distill it down, like everything really does distill down to his speech that he gave that he went on a national tour talking about. That's literally it. That's literally everything we're doing and you're talking about these small conflicts, special operations, low-intensity conflicts, whatever you want to call. Right? That's, there's nothing new. There's nothing new under the sun. There's nothing news ever going to be done. You just overlay technologies and different organizations on top of them of how you're addressing them. There's nothing new.

Well, let me and I in the past talked about like the 1990s and all of the conflicts we got in fall from that. And so there's that quote that came out in like what 2004 or 2005, this is America's at the mall, Uriah War, or something like that. And that's, that was somebody that wrote that, I'm a rainhead wrote that on a white board and Iraq or something. It's so, I wanna say, that's where they wrote it. I don't wanna say like, yeah, it was something like that. I've seen the picture. And so it's like the US got involved

in so many limited wars in the 1990s. And so we were riding the high of Gulf War 91. We just smoked Czech the Iraqis, the fourth largest, third largest sars in the 1990s. And so we were riding the high of golf for 91. We just smoked jack the Iraqis, the fourth largest, third largest sergeant in the world. And then we got bogged down Somalia in a new-go-slobby and everything. And then everyone just like, oh, right under the rug, we're just gonna keep going.

And then it's just like the, I mean Cody and I talk about this a lot. Like America's sure-sided in this. Like we just, who the fuck talks about Kable nobody That happened to you. Yeah, nobody talks about that. I mean, I don't want to be a lap pathetic about shit though because we have to do something I mean, it's it's not all apathy and shittiness like because if you talk about you just brought you just lobby it like my wife's family You know you just lobbying. I mean she was born raised in Sweden, but like her family history and lineage and they we still go back there We got married there. We got married in Macedonia

But I mean people there, I mean that it made a difference like, you know, it's not all bad, you know like some of what we did You know what I mean, so it's not always all bad you also got like some of the good stuff we've done We we have and I think that's the funny thing is like So it's not always all bad. You also got some of the good stuff we've done. We have. And I think that's the funny thing is like, if you talk to the guy from a strategic point of view, absolutely, it was a failure. But if talked to some of these guys, like, I mean, there are these moments of lasting, ever lasting success, you know, like the command, the Afghani commandos that we trained and got out of there, you know, they're contributing members of American society now, you

know, for better or worse, and we'll figure that out as time goes on. And I mean, these things are difficult. But I mean, exactly like you're saying, I mean, what part of the counterparts that I worked with in Afghanistan were the Lithuania's and the Polish. And forever and always now, they will be from, you know, I still talk to them to this day, they'll always be NATO allies. Like Russia has, that's two soft teams

that Russia cannot break in. Because when you tell them, like, oh, American suck, it's like, no, no, I've worked with one. And he, you know, he's my best friend. And it's like, you know, that's 28 dudes, they don't get the hat. And so it's small micro successes. And it goes back to what we were talking about

midway through the podcast is just give a shit a shit and caring and having you know small little impacts add up. But at the end of the day every time there's a weird We're in the last like I'm not super involved in the community. Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah, if I were we're cutting it in out, but I was gonna say it uh, yeah, I was gonna say it's just to end it Yeah, it's the it's the small little micro victories that we have to you know add up and we'll get there We'll eventually all add them all up and they'll make of success one day, but for now it's like you know Contra blessings count the small things because you know, there are these little victories hidden in there blessings count the small things because you know they are these little victories hidden in there. Yeah and sometimes it's just like having a positive there's a weird feeling I get like and it's only because of your wherever you're getting your information from and like I'm a fan of like a

Twitter right like I didn't wasn't on it before but I like it now because I I can get quick information that doesn't mean it's better or true, but you're getting a world view from somewhere, someone somewhere quickly, right? And that's why I like it. I think it's a pretty valuable tool, right? And I think what's important to keep in mind is that, it's like there's a weird feeling

you're getting from the world right now where it's like isolationism, right? You know, there's this weird like feeling of isolationism you feel politically that you hear and I'm not into politics I don't really care about them. I don't care about Republican or Democrat anything. I'm just shit about that stuff But there's this overarching like theme I'm feeling shoot up my ass stuff. But there's this overarching theme I'm feeling from people about almost moving towards like an isolationism mentality. And I think that's very dangerous to adapt to, right? Like you don't wanna adopt that as the United States of America

cannot adopt that. We have to be actively engaged in the world in a positive manner. Whatever that looks like, I don't know. And like it certainly can't be like, let's go start a war somewhere. You know, I don't know. That can't be it, but you have to have like engagement with societies. And I don't know what the answer is. That's the tough thing, right? That's the tough thing that I think that we're always, we're talking about here with societies. Like, you look at Iraq, there's an interesting documentary I watched from a French news station.

They went back years later, it's on YouTube, and they do pieces on Iraq talking about like where it's at now compared to where it was at the height of the conflict. And there's a lot of good takeaways there. There's a lot of good things happening in that country. And you don't think about it, right? You think about only the bad. That's only what gets talked about. So I think it's just hard to find like, victories. We could look at something like the Romans, that will thing with soft power. And so,

what is soft power? Yeah. It's like McDonald's, blue jeans, stuff like that music is huge. And that's huge. It's a huge country. Yeah. It's influenced, man. And so like you can go to an uncontacted, uncontacted tribe in like Amazon. And they've never heard of what God has, but they know what Coca-Cola is. You're like, that means you're winning. And I guess I guess, I mean. I mean, you could look at the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

There's a band Kino. They all just started learning blue jeans because they were like Americans where that, they started playing rock music and all other shows. Who was like, two or three ratio of FSB or KGB hands, like music goers. But since McDonald's shows up, it's like you just gotta go for what the people want.

And soft powers, I think the Americans do really well, but hard power is, I think we're very lackluster at it. Because we just, I mean Cody and I have mentioned it before, America is really good at destroying things, we're not really good at fixing it. Well, I think there's a lot of reasons for that. Yeah, I'm not educated at all. I barely graduated high school, but I have a lot of life experience and world experience.

And I think there's a lot of things we can get into at that at some point. There's not enough time in the world to talk about it now, but I really always go back to like why the West, not just I don't wanna talk about just America, but the West in general is because I think human beings that they're very base, we love creativity. We love artistic expression. We love the ability to create. We love the ability to be happy, right?

I think a human beings natural state is to seek happiness, whatever you find comfort in. And I think that's what generally the West does pretty well. You know, we create conditions that we try to set conditions where people can, you know, find whatever that is. It create an opportunity for you to forge what you view your own path is. And I think that's good, I think that's wonderful.

And I think that's what we're really talking about here, soft power is, is that, is allowing people to kind of, whether you want to call it the illusion of choice or whatever it is, you know, people having somewhat of a choice that they can at the end of the day, you know, be happy. And whatever they're doing, they're not being forced to do something or down a path or do something against their will necessarily. I think that's what wins, always. But I'm not I'm not trying to cut this short by no means because we honestly we could probably we talked for Yeah, we're at an hour 15. Matt do you have any other questions you want to run through it before we cut her off? How do I say this? So Ryan, you worked at the Intel Schoolhouse. Did you see the declining quality of people

in the intelligence sphere? Because I know for a fact that some of the dumbest people I ever met was at Intel School. And then you could think to yourself, you could just think to yourself, you're like, those are the guys who are gonna be careerists. Because as Cody says, it's easy. Like those just find mundane schools

or whatever to fuck off to for 20 years and not really do anything, but they're like an intelligent or whatever. So I mean, you worked at Fortitude away, you worked at Serres, but did you see like a over the course of your career like a declining quality of intel professionals? I mean, I'm just going go, I wanna say no, because I don't want, I don't, I guess I didn't pay attention, like human beings are human beings, right? The, the, the client and people

is the same across the spectrum of like, wherever you're at, probably in your service, right? It just is what it is, like, it goes back to what we were talking about very at the very beginning. It's just a matter of giving a shit and trying to inspire somebody in a positive manner. Like how I approached instruction was, I didn't care if anybody listened to me, I only cared if one person listened to me, right? I didn't care if like, you know, I had nine people in the course or I had 20 people in the

course, as long as one person was listening and Carried and tried that was my metric of success and I don't think anybody's different over the time that I served I think it's the same no matter what it's just you it's the circumstances you're in Like for instance, right? Like I think people were better like the opportunity for them to be better was there. Not necessarily the quality of person was better. I can't quantify that. There's no way for me to actually quantify it and say people were better when I was younger or people were better when I was older. There's no way for me to dictate that. I think it's the same, actually. I think, you know, somebody in the 20s was probably the same. It's just your, it's your circumstances and where you're at. And it's just making the most of it and being

provided the opportunity that we talked about earlier. And whether you're going to rise the occasion and take the challenge or you're gonna shrink and say like screw this person and some of that Responsibility is on your senior people too because I certainly had instances when I was placed in the courses or opportunities I had where the people that meet the you know Expectation I had as a person. There's an expectation that I have as a student That they didn't meet. You know, and I thought about that too, it was like, I need to not let these people down

because they're here, they're taking time off their lives from away from their family, their kids, their life, whatever it may be to be here. So it's my responsibility to come in every day and care and give my all back to them too. Just like, it's their responsibility to come in and care and give my all back to them too. Just like, it's their responsibility to come in and care every day, and not all of them are going to, maybe one person does. But I don't think it's a matter of people are good or bad based on when you were born.

Nobody gets to choose that man. Like you're just alive, you know? Yeah. It's good boy. But any final words or anything you wanna say before we cut out of here, you want to like blast your real estate business and steal all the fucking. Yeah, sure. Yeah, so if anybody's never buying a house in Virginia or North Carolina, trying for

a reality, it's literally my wife and I that we own and operate it. And I, you know, we try to take the same approach like I was just talking about is I will give everything to anybody that's willing to try and care and do my best, absolutely best for them. You know, so that's pretty much it, man. Like, just do the best you can, be the best you can every day, be kind. I don't know. That's it. I don't it's weird like coming on and stuff like this because you don't ever think anybody gives a crap. Like that's how I might. Certainly how I view my you know existence in the military. Like it's weird because you see you watch YouTube and you watch all these people and like there's

people that have made a living off of like their proximity to units they were part of or things they did. And I've never thought about it that way. And I'm certainly sure I could get on somewhere and blast everything that I've done or who I am and why you should care, but I've just never tried. You know what's funny is, as we've done this podcast,

it guides like yourself and many others who weren't, you know, the special forces Delta operator of, you know, the year 2015 or whatever that you want to call it. And they didn't write six books. They usually have a book's worth of just things to talk about. One of the, to give you an idea, like one guy who doesn't think that he has a story to tell either in the 90s, he went and did a mission with the British army in Siberia to investigate fresh water seals in a Siberian lake.

And it's just crazy. It involves, it's a story of like KGB and seals and the British lords and the house of commons and shit like that that went down He's like, no, just a regular guy. I'm like you are anything but a regular guy and I mean And you're a intelligent teacher and you're were and you've done all these things and I mean it's weird But you know what you've got a lot more stories than some people out there who like you said made a living and wrote books about, you know, four events in their life, but hey, people love to hear this. Yeah, I mean, just do the best you can every single day, man. That's literally the only thing I tell you because that's the same thing I'm doing, you know, it doesn't matter who you are, where

you came from, what you've done. It just matters like if you're day, this moment right now, like what you're living in this current second, the decision you make, the actions you take, that's it, that's all you have. Yeah, nope. I mean, thanks for coming on. It's amazing. It's, yeah, definitely. We'll have to have you back.

I feel like I didn't touch on like a million things. Like there's so much dude, like I don't even feel like I talked about anything. Like, dude, I'm gonna touch on like a million things. Like there's so much dude, like I don't even feel like I talked about anything. Like, you just want to get a third seat just to ask us. Like, yeah, yeah, there's so many things to talk about. And it's not all bad. Like I don't want to, like some of the stuff can come across like us worse than like, I don't try not to frame it

as like support versus operators or whatever. But majority of dudes I've ever worked with are top notchnotch, grade A individuals. It's always just the one person that always grooms everything. There's always like one person. And that just everybody's a good person and trying to do their best and do what they can. You know? Yeah. It's just that one person that leads them. Isn't that that the I do we could keep talking it's always that one person and that one person speaks for forever right like he's the guy that's

always talking and always on the pedestal and you're and nobody agrees with him but somehow he just finds the microphone and you're like how how did he get up there it's like well they're the same people on LinkedIn that are it's the same dudes that are like Intel, national security experts now on LinkedIn and they have their, you know, preferred gender pronoun of their title, you know. It's just first used to be the same people. It's, I mean, what that show Piki Bladder said that everyone's a four, they just sell a different part of their body. They're like, yeah, they're just selling them, they're selling their name.

And so they have to gas like themselves, feel like they were important. And sometimes they were, sometimes there weren't. But I mean, amen, cool story of self-books. So yeah, and I support them if that's the route they're going to take. It's be honest about it, be who you are, be authentic, you know. I'm for you, but yeah, cool.

So cool, guys. be honest about it be who you are be authentic you know. Yeah, but yeah, cool. So cool guys. Thank you.