Locked In with Ian Bick - I Was A DEA Agent - Then I Got Shot In The Head | Joseph Piersante

Episode Date: October 5, 2025

Joseph Piersante dedicated his life to serving his country as a DEA Special Agent — taking down dangerous drug cartels and leading high-stakes operations around the world. But while deployed to Afghanistan, Joseph’s life changed forever when he was shot in the head during a mission, leaving him completely blind. #DEAAgent #AfghanistanWar #CartelStories #TrueCrimePodcast #PrisonReform #DrugCartels #SurvivalStory #lockedinpodcast Thank you to PRIZEPICKS for sponsoring this episode: Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/IANBICK and use code IANBICK and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Connect with Joseph Piersante: https://joep.us/ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop Timestamps: 00:00 – From Detroit Kid to Future DEA Agent 03:00 – Family Influence That Shaped His Path 08:00 – Inside the Detroit Police: Rookie Lessons 19:00 – SWAT Raids: Kicking Down Doors in Detroit 30:00 – Becoming a DEA Agent: Academy Secrets 39:00 – First DEA Assignment: Hunting Meth Labs 52:00 – DEA Drug Busts You Won’t Believe 01:07:00 – Joining DEA FAST: America’s Elite Unit 01:17:00 – Afghanistan Deployment: Into the War Zone 01:30:00 – The Mission That Changed His Life Forever 01:41:00 – Surviving, Recovery & Life Without Sight 01:50:00 – Rebuilding as a Blind Bodybuilder 01:59:00 – Hard-Earned Advice & Motivation Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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and I probably been in at least foreign at meth labs. How different was it being overseas and what it was doing missions that you were used to doing? I vowed that I would give up my life for my teammates. if I had to. Do you still think about the last thing you remember seeing before you got shot and lost your vision? The EA Special Agent Joseph Pirsante was on a mission in Afghanistan when he was shot in the head and woke up completely blind. Today, he shares the story of working for SWAT in Detroit, taking down meth labs,

surviving the mission that changed his life forever, and rebuilding his life after losing his eyesight. Joe, welcome to Lockton. Thanks so much for making the trip out here to be with us today. It was my pleasure. And glad Matt's been able to provide the best hospitality we could offer around here. It's been grade A service the whole time so far. Have you been to Connecticut before? No, this is my first time.

Okay. Well, hopefully it's a memorable experience. Where do you grow up, Joe? I grew up in Detroit, Michigan. What was your upbringing like? I grew up in a pretty close family. It's my mother, father, sister, and my son. I grew up playing sports. I played hockey, baseball, and football growing up, and I was fortunate enough to go to a small Division

3 college in Central Michigan, Adrian College, and I played football there. What did your parents do for work? My dad was a police officer, and my mother was a service advisor for Mercedes-Benz dealership in Detroit. In fact, I was, I later became a police officer or some third generation police officer in my family. Was your dad the one that inspired you to get in the law enforcement? He did inspire me. He never pushed me to go that route. In fact, when I went to college, my freshman year, actually I started off major in sports medicine. I wanted to be an athletic trainer. but then going through that first year in college, you know, I always grew up playing like team sports

and stuff, and I really like the lesson sports teach you. They teach you how to win, how to lose, how to overcome adversity, how to be a team player, how when you get knocked down, how to get up, you know, basically how to face different adversity. So watching my dad and, you know, and his law enforcement career, and he worked conspiracy narcotics for a number of years, just seeing that team atmosphere and working together as a group drew me to it. So that first year, I decided that I wanted to get in law enforcement, and my dad supported it. And throughout his career, he worked on several federal task forces, and one being with DEA, the Drug Enforcement Administration.

So my dad said, if I was going to go in law enforcement, he suggested that I go federally, and DEA, he felt, would be the best fit for me, meaning that I've always been a pretty aggressive person, and DEA has always been known as like the blue collar of federal law enforcement. so he thought that would be the best route for me. So ended up graduating from college in December of 1990, went back home to Detroit, Michigan area. But the problem was DEA was on a hiring freeze then. So they were not hiring.

So I took a job initially at a boys home in Detroit, Michigan. It was run by several. former University of Michigan football players. In fact, one, I knew he was a manager and a buddy of mine was working for them who played ball at Adrian College with me. So I took a job with them. My official title was a treatment specialist. Didn't pay real great, but it was a job with benefits. I was still living at home.

And then I also subsidized my income by bouncing at several bars in the Detroit area. How did your mom feel about your interest in law enforcement and going into or following your dad's footsteps? She supported it by no, she was definitely nervous. Definitely nervous for me. So while I was working at the boys' home, Detroit Police opened up hiring. So I applied to the Detroit Police Department and got hired with them. in 1993, started the Academy February of 1993, it was class 93C. Went through the academy.

I did fairly well in the academy, and I graduated top academic. And I'm a pretty muscular guy, so it's not all brawn and no brains. There's definitely some brains here. So, yeah, I did that. And what they did was the top five in our graduating class, they ended up sending us to this unit in Detroit called TSS, it stands for Tactical Service Section. We were a citywide unit, like high-risk patrol unit.

We would go to different areas and precincts that were having problems in certain areas or overrun and runs, and we would saturate. the problem areas and help bail out the precincts and catch up on the runs. And we would just answer mostly priority one and two, so like shots fired, robbery and progress type of deals. We also did the crowd control stuff. If there was any riots or things like that, we handled that.

And we also did the outer primit, primit on barricaded gun person calls. So it was pretty crazy. Me growing up in Detroit, I knew what I was getting myself into. So it was not a culture shock with that. So I rocked through the first three years in Detroit Police Department on Tactical Service section. And you had to, at the time, Detroit Police Department, you had to work three years on patrol before you could, request to go to any kind of specialized unit. So I got my three years in, and I applied to try out for our tactical team in Detroit, our SWAT team.

It was called SRT stands for Special Response Team. My father, his last few years on the job in Detroit was on that tactical team. So I tried out, made the team and spent my last. year in Detroit on the full-time SWAT team. A lot of fun. You got to do a lot of stuff, tear a lot of stuff up, and not a whole lot of paperwork, which is cool. Your sergeant mostly did the paperwork unless you got to shooting yourself, then you would have to do paperwork. So I was rolling through. Then DEA opened up hiring. I applied and was waiting to get hired by DEA. What was one mission on the SWAT team that you'll never forget to this day?

That's a very good question. So I was just leading to that. So I was waiting for DEA to get on all this time. You know, I was just being patient. And we had a barricaded gunperson called. Actually, the precinct I lived in, the ninth precinct in Detroit, which is the most dangerous precinct in the city now. It's called the, it's a 48205 zip code. So they call it the 4820 die or the red zone. So we had to call, patrol, and went out there. It was a mentally ill person. They had been in the military, and they would go crazy once in a while,

and they would start shooting in the neighborhood or shooting at family members. So that's what happened that particular afternoon. So patrol gets out there, the person is barricaded in the house, won't come out. So they call us. We respond out there, get set up, get an interprimiter, get our armored personnel vehicle out there to start negotiating with them, to try to get them to come out. So we're negotiating and during the negotiations, they were shooting at the armored vehicle from inside the house. And times progressing. So my particular team, we were on a break, a couple, three houses down, in between houses.

So the suspect, they go in the backyard, out the back door. And one of our guys was back there. They started firing shots at one of our teammates. He can't get a shot on them. They go back in the house and the suspect had a car in the driveway. They're like, do not let them. them get mobile under any circumstances, but then we're going to lose control. So sure as shit, they go out the front door and go for the car.

So I'm in between houses with a couple of my teammates. I do only have all my gear on was we were taking a break. They're like, she's trying to get out, you know, get over there. So we jump in the car. I jump in the front passenger seat of the suburban. and I had at the time an MP5 submachine gun. It's a 9mm German submachine gun that's capable of going full automatic. So we jump in there, but this time it's dark out.

We pull them behind their vehicle and they start ramming us. But they're in a sedan, we're in a suburban, they're not going to win. So like, okay. and then I see a muzzle flash coming from inside their vehicle. I'm like, damn, they're shooting at us. So I get out of the passenger seat. I put my weapon on full automatic and just dump a magazine into the car.

My partner, he goes out the driver's side of the car. He's got his submachine gun on semi-automatic. He fires some shots into the car. car and it's kind of crazy. It's like we were trained. Like once you run out of ammo, that you want to make yourself a smaller profile to reload. So I remember I was in the process. I was like, cover me. I'm reloading. And I take one knee. And then one of the guys on a SWAT team goes, Joe, Joe, it's over. Stop. Stop. Cease fire. So we ended up killing the individual in the vehicle. And I'm like, you know, I spent all this time waiting to get on.

DEA is going to be all screwed up as I was there was three months before I was going to get ready to go to the academy with DEA but it was a good shoot and everything ended up working out and I ended up later heading to the DEA Academy in June of 1997. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. You and I make decisions every day, but on prize picks, being right can get you paid. Don't miss any of the excitement this season on prize picks where it's good, to be right. This week, I'm building a lineup for the Chiefs versus Jaguars game, and here's what I'm locking in. First, give me Patrick Mahomes more than 1.5 passing touchdowns. The Jaguars are allowing some of the highest receiving yards in the league, and let's be honest,

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With everything with law enforcement now, everything is being watched and critiqued and videoed and everything. I definitely think that officers nowadays are slower to react than we once were, but that's also a very dangerous game because being slow to react may cost you your life. And in a situation like that back then, there's not a ton of scrutiny and paperwork and whatnot afterwards? I guess you don't have the media like you do now over-analizing it. Well, you don't, but how it worked in Detroit at the time, if you got in a fatal shooting or it looks like it was going to end up fatal, you were immediately taken to homicide. Of course, you have to surrender your weapon you used. and then you have your union lawyer come down and your union rep and you have to write a report on what happened right then and there.

Now, times have changed a little bit and we realize that you remember things after the fact a couple days later that you didn't recall originally. So sometimes it makes the person look like a lie. He said, well, you originally said this on the report, but why did you change your thing? Well, I didn't remember that to after. So like DEA, we had a policy. You didn't have to make a statement or report for several days after the shooting. So you have a couple of sleep cycles to sit there and, you know, more things came back. You remember what actually happened.

So, yeah, you know, of course, you go through the shooting. They take your weapon. They put you on like duty. You have to go see a psychiatrist. they do an investigation. You have to sit through a shooting review board. And it was, even though I knew it was a good shoot, it was pretty, pretty stressful. And that's actually the first fatal shooting that I ever had gotten into. And you have such a, you know, you get fight or flight responses with all the chemicals, your chemicals and your body dumping into. And I tell you what, But it had such an adrenaline dump from the life and death situation. I couldn't even sleep for three days. All right.

So tell us about joining the DEA. So like I said, I got hired a DEA of June in 1997, 97, went to the DEA Academy in Quantico, Virginia. Basically, we are on the Quantico Military Base. When I went through, we used all the FBI facilities. Now, since we have, DEA has our own classroom building and several other buildings. So we do a lot of, most of the stuff in our own academy. We still use the FBI firing ranges and they're driving track. So what separated the DEA Academy as opposed to Detroit Police Academy, the Police Academy,

the Police Academy was a lot more paramilitary. You had to have, you know, your shoes spit shine. You have to have, you know, you have to iron military creases in your uniform. You have to make sure, you know, your hair was very short. You know, you had inspection. You had to make sure there was no, like, lint on your uniform. You know, you sit there being berated where the DEA was more of a gentleman's academy. You didn't have, like, you know, roll call to attention.

You know, you were, we wore like black BDU pants. like combat boots and polo shirts and different gear for PT. It wasn't as paramilitary, but it was very, I think it was a lot more thorough. We did a lot more shooting, a lot more practical exercises, and got more into like the laws and the things like that. And we have to learn, you know, drug pharmacolology and stuff like that. that but it was a good academy and like i said learned a lot and when i got hired with d ea you couldn't go back to where you were hired from and the thinking on that was if you go back to where you were the the chance of you being corrupt is greater i don't necessarily agree with that i think if you're

going to be corrupt you're going to be corrupt no matter where you go so what they did when i went through like three quarters of the way through the academy. You had so many people in your academy class, and they'll give you a list of openings throughout the United States. And you got to pick your top three of what you would like to go. And we got to kind of work it out as a class, like there's a couple people trying to fight for the same spot. Hey, maybe, you know, we'll compromise and yada, yada, yada.

But there's a caveat to that. You're not guaranteed any of those three spots. say you are a Spanish speaker and there's a lot of border spots, guess where you're going? You're probably going to the border. So being from Detroit, I was married at the time, had a young daughter. I was three. And looking at the different spots, I wanted to go somewhere where the cost of living wasn't that bad and somewhere was warmer. I did not want to go to New York City.

And I did not want to go to California, L.A. So we looked at the spots, and Phoenix, Arizona was one of the spots. Never been there. My ex-wife had a grandfather that went there seasonally. I had a grandmother that went there seasonally, and the cost of living wasn't too bad. So I put Phoenix, Arizona as my number one and was very blessed and fortunate to end up getting it. Phoenix, Arizona is a pretty nice spot. Yeah, it's like, you know, it was different in Detroit, meaning that it was a lot newer.

So you didn't have all that, like, dirtiness in the streets and stuff like that. Everything's newer. And it was relatively inexpensive at the time. But the only bad thing, you know, you'd deal with the heat in Arizona. So they say dry heat, but dry heat my ass when it's 120 degrees. You could basically cook an egg on the sidewalk. And I learned very quick that when it's that hot, if you're going to arrest somebody and prone them out on the sidewalker street,

they will get burned. Was it hard to operate your family and move all the way to Arizona from Detroit? Because that's kind of a big difference. It was tough, and the hardest thing is my ex-wife, she was married previous to me, and she had two small boys. When we got together, they were one and two,

and leaving her boys was very, very difficult. And it was tough. You know, lucky the government, you know, as far as moving itself, you know, the government, you know, they pay a company to box all your stuff up and move all your stuff out there and they'll ship a vehicle for you and stuff. So, but the toughest thing I think was my ex leaving her boys and then me also leaving my family. It was pretty much all my family was in the Metro Detroit area. And then my parents were real close to my daughter, you know, my daughter being away from them. Was your dad proud of you for getting into the DEA?

He was very proud. And in fact, if you had a family member in law enforcement, at graduation, they could present your badge, your DEA badge to you, and my dad presented me my badge. That was probably a very memorable moment. Yes, it was very memorable. And still have a picture of him and I standing up there, him giving me my badge. So it was definitely pretty cool. Now, even though you're stationed in Arizona, do you go to other states and out of the country when you first get there or are you pretty much stuck in that one location? If a case leads either to another state or overseas, they'll take you there.

But for me, I show up at Phoenix and they're like, Joe, you're going to the clandestinellandestine laboratory task force group and you're going to do nothing with meth labs. No, I never saw a meth in my life in Detroit. at the time and even now, it's not a real big inner city drug. And they're like, you're going back to the academy to go to Klan Lab School. I'm like, great. I just left that damn place, that forsaken place,

and I got to go back? Wait, they send you all the way back to Quantica? Yes. After you just moved your wife and kids out there? Wow, that's terrible. I know. Tell me back to the Academy where I just got out of, you know.

But you learned, you actually, it's a pretty good school, but actually teach you and you actually have to make meth in the lab there. And that is for, so you know all the different processes and everything. So when you testify in court, you can testify to the different, you know, the different steps and stuff. And when I meet people, even when I was on the job and now that I'm retired, I retired in December of 19. And I tell them I was a D-A agent.

They're like, I watch that show Breaking Bad. I'm like, well, I was on the meth lab group and I probably been in, I would say in a conservative level, at least foreign at meth lab. What's the difference between butter and butter made from real California dairy? It's the real California farm families behind it. Real people. Real care. Real intention. Why? Because real matters. So whether you're pouring milk, melting of cheese, or just, Just grabbing one more spoonful of yogurt. Keep it real.

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Kamen Jack is a premium malt beverage with flavors. Please drink responsibly. Kaman Jack beverage company, Chicago, Illinois. 400 meth labs. What is an interesting fact about a meth lab that you think that the average person doesn't now? It's the problem is these meth labs here. This meth is not being cooked by trained chemist. They, you know, find stuff online and stuff.

And a lot of time they speed the processes up. will they put things on an open flame which causes problems because a lot of the and not a lot of but some of the ingredients to make meth is flammable so that causes flashfires also they know that sometimes in law enforcement we go through trash and people's houses so they'll save all their their meth lab trash and they'll put it all together and they'll mix asses and phe's together stuff that's not supposed to be mixed together, and it off gases and causes a lot of problems, health-wise and stuff. It's just, it's crazy.

Like, most of these meth labs here back then in the United States, they were just small labs. They were making a couple ounces at a time. It was just to basically, they'd make some sell it, so they would get theirs for free. But what I would try to go after is the bigger labs. that were at least cooking a pound or so at a time. Didn't go after that. I was actually fortunate in a way to be put in the meth lab unit at first. Because I never really worked, I never worked narcotics before.

You know, I made, you know, narcotics buses on the street when I was working. But in that meth lab environment, you're working with a lot of informants. You're writing a lot of search warrants. You're learning the basics out of basic narcotics investigation. So I learned how to do it from the basic level. And me being a local police officer beforehand, we had a group with, you know, state and locals in it. I didn't have this attitude like, you know, I'm the big bad fed.

You're just the lowly local law enforcement officer and you're stupid. No, that's not how it works. Actually, we can't do our job without the state and locals. And a lot of the local guys, they have so much experience that they can run circles around a lot of people. So I didn't have that attitude, and I got brought into the wing, under the wing of some of the older guys that were local officers, and they kind of, you know, showed me the ropes. What do you think is the strangest location you've encountered for a meth lab?

Hell, they've been in cars, which is kind of crazy. Like Phoenix, Arizona, they have a lot of nice resorts, like in Scottsdale and stuff. they cook meth in those rooms. A lot of the hotel motels on the, like side of the freeways, they cook them in there. They cook it out in the desert. It's crazy. And the problem, when you're cooking meth in a residence or hotel room, wherever it is,

all that stuff from cooking to meth will off gas into the air and get into the carpet, getting into the walls. So when we come in, we have to. mitigate all that stuff with the cleanup company. So we clean up, you know, come in and do a lab. They got to tear the carpet, you know, tear the drywall out. But that stuff will sit in there and then cause later health problems to people later on down the road if they live in there. Do you think Breaking Bad was realistic? In a way, yes. I could see that happening. And in fact, it's not exact similar, but kind of a situation.

We, up in northern Arizona, there's a northern Arizona University. And there was a group of students there that was making MDMA ecstasy. And they were actually using the chemistry lab there to do it and help facilitate buying some of the chemicals and equipment to manufacture it. And we ended up going up there and actually busting those kids. How, they were young at like 1819? Yeah, college students, yes. Were they making really good money? Or it didn't kick off that fast?

They were, I would say, making decent money. But then again, you're a college kid with not much sense. You pretty much are, you're blowing the money as soon as you're making it. Type, type of deal. But, yeah, it was pretty crazy. How dangerous is it to do these search warrants on meth labs, especially while they're in the middle of a cook? It is very dangerous because there's, um, uh, when cooking mess, Matthew produces phosphine and phosphine gas, which could be deadly to you.

And there's been times where we've gone in there. And as they're cooking, they'll bust the flask what they're making. Just think they'll get rid of everything, but you're not going to. So when we go in, because a lot of times we don't know what the environment's going to be in the residence, what the oxygen level is going to be and stuff. So on an air of caution When we do a raid or warrant on it If we do it ourselves or use a local tactical team

They're all trained in doing Meth lab warrants or raids So we would go in under full SGBA Self-contained Breathing apparatus It's kind of those big tanks the fire departments use So at least you know you're getting clean air When you go in Then once you get insecure

You get hazmat in there they'll do samples in the air and then you can downgrade to other protective equipment. But the problem with those big tanks and stuff, it's bulky. It's hard to move. And there are smaller tactical tanks

that we would use that were a lot smaller in the back, but your oxygen time is limited with those smaller tanks. Do you think you guys were making a big dent in what was going on with drugs at the time, especially in that area? Or does it never end?

You bust one lab and another one pops up. Honestly, you know, we were doing a pretty good job, but you bust one and another pops up. It's like playing whack-a-mole. You hit one, then another pops up. You know, how would we would get them too? And it was, this is very sad. It's like I have a big heart for small children. And the problem when these people get hooked on drugs, that's their soul driving focus.

It's all they care about is getting high again. So they would have these meth labs in homes where they had small children. So when we would do a warrant, once it was secure, we would bring child protective services in, and they would take the kids, and they would take them to the hospital and get tested. And nine times out of ten, these little kids would test positive for meth. Wow. And they would charge them with child abuse along with charging with manufacturing the lab. It just is very sad And you just meth destroys people

You would see these pictures of these people Like a couple years earlier Like you see this, you know, good looking woman Or handsome guy And you see how they look two years Afterwards, you don't even recognize a person They just look like a skeleton They got all these meth sores all over them

It's just very, very sad Is meth the only drug that's not getting supplied By say the cartel or a supplier outside the state? Well, actually, there's not many meth labs in the United States anymore. The Mexican cartels are making the meth now. Back when I was working earlier in my career in Phoenix, I said I got there in October, end of October 97, that mostly meth users, they called tweakers,

wanted the good U.S. glass methamphetamine, because it was stronger. And they thought Mexican meth, was garbage. It was a lower quality. But what it happened, we went after in the United States a lot of the suppliers for the ephedrine pills. You used to be able to buy them as many things in the gas station. That's one of the primary precursor chemicals of methamphetamine is ephedrine or pseudoephedrine. So we really went after these U.S. companies selling them. So it dried it up in the U.S. and then China started sending the ephedrine or pseudo-fetting straight to Mexico.

And then the cartel started making meth, and they started making very high-quality methamphetamine, glass methamphetamine, which was 98 to 99% pure methamphetamine, and at a cheap price. So they kind of, it was harder to get the chemicals in the U.S., and they kind of like put, what the cheaper prices and the high. high quality now in Mexico, kind of put a lot of the U.S. labs out of business. When you first started, was a DEA, what you expected it to be? It was. We were kicking a lot of butt. Throughout my career, it kind of changed a little bit. But definitely in the early years of my career, it definitely was all that I was hoping for.

How long were you on that specific team for? Around four years. And where do you go after that? After that, I went to a conspiracy group, which we worked mid-level to higher-level drug traffickers. We worked anything from cocaine to meth to marijuana. So I did that group for a while, and then got moved over to a high-intensity drug trafficking group, where we kind of work mid-level people also. And then my last group in Phoenix was I worked on a Westside Task Force.

It was based at a Glendale Police Department, narcotics offsite. And we worked mid-level dealers and stuff like that. A lot of people from the East Coast coming over to buy large quantities of marijuana or cocaine and stuff like that. And we would work a lot of those cases. Can you share an interesting story from one of those buss? Yes. So we were set up in an area where we knew the people from the East Coast would come and meet up with the Mexican sources. And a lot of the people from the East Coast to buy infestine marijuana were African-American.

So they come in this area and meet with the Hispanic sources. And there wasn't a lot of, let's say a lot of people, African-American people in the Phoenix area. There's a decent amount, but not like compared to Detroit where I was from. And you hang up in the area and you see some, I know it seems kind of racist. Some Hispanics meet him with some African-Americans. More than likely there's a drug deal going down. going down so we saw meet and we set up on them and um we set up on them and um we um see a transaction go down where vehicles were swapped so okay hey we got something here so we're

found this vehicle and then i had the primary eye on the vehicle i was behind it And it dumps into a neighborhood. I don't want to go in that neighborhood immediately as soon as it goes in, but is there going to know they're being followed? So I give it some time. And then I go down the street and I'm like, damn it, I don't see the car. And I'm driving down the street trying to pay attention to the houses. And one of the houses on my left, I see a garage door.

It was going down. It was almost completely down, but I couldn't see into the garage. So I'm like, that's got to be the house. so I set up on it and then in our group I was the acting supervisor of the group that day but our group supervisor was off or on vacation so in the group we had one of our agents Kim she was an African American lady so we have her use her a lot of times like we weren't sure the house we'd have her go I called her on the phone I said Kim I think this is the house gave her the address. I want you to go knock on the door and say you're looking for your lost dog.

So she goes up there knocking out of the door, the guy comes to the door, and she says, I'm looking for my dog. Have you seen him? No, no, no, I have not. Blah, blah, blah. Okay, cool. So she gets a strong order of marijuana from the house. Like, oh, we got it. So we use all our probable cause. The case agent typed up a search warrant, and we hit the house, and the house was loaded with marijuana, probably about 1,000 pounds in that house at the time. Wow. It's a lot of marijuana. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. You know, but they could double their money when they brought it back to the East Coast. What does a thousand pounds look like in a house? Is it just stacked in the garage like saran wrapped? It depends. A lot of the marijuana was actually backpack over the border. So they would have these bales, you know, whatever, you know, 20, 30, 50 pound bails of marijuana. You know, it was wrapped in Saran and stuff.

And then they would have it in these homemade burlap backpacks they would make. So if it was just freshly moved, it would be still in these backpacks. It would be like stacked up in a room or in a garage or, you know, wherever. And a lot of these houses just were stash houses and they really had no furniture in them. Would law enforcement take the photos and put it out on the news like we kind of see today with a big bus like that? Once in a while, yes, we do like press releases where you have everything stacked up on a table, you know, gun, dope money or in a room, you know, for publicity for press releases. Do you think that helps curtail crime or? I don't know if it really curtails it, but it, you know, it lets the, you know, the community know what, you know, we're doing and, you know,

showing them the major amounts of stuff that are out there, you know, but some people are just naive. Now, in a bus like that, all those people end up in prison? As long as we can either, you know, have no, you know, convict them in court or they, you know, they ended up, you know, pleading guilty. Now, in doing those types of bus, the paperwork has to be in order, like the warrants and everything, you're making sure you're doing the seizures correctly, so everything's airtight. Oh, yes. I tell people for half an hour of fun, you got three days of paperwork.

So there's a lot more paperwork in your SWAT days. Oh, yes, an absorbent amount of paperwork. So if you're not good with paperwork, you're not good with writing, you're going to have an issue, you know, because it didn't happen unless you documented properly. Now, do you think DEA has a lot more action than, say, some of the other federal intel or the federal agencies at that time? At that time, I would say yes. You know, FBI is a lot bigger than us, and they have a lot of different groups and stuff. But, you know, we were rocking a role.

And we were on that lab team, we were doing five, six, seven, eight lab warrants a week, sometimes a couple in a day. And, you know, it was just crazy. I worked throughout my career. I worked a ton of hours, we'll say that. Yeah, what was a typical work week hour-wise? Do you got any day off?

Traditionally, you would have, you know, Saturday and Sunday off. But say, like you're doing a wiretap or things like that, you know, those things are going seven days a week. So, you know, you would have weekend shifts and stuff and you would have to work weekend shifts or, you know, after hours, hours, you know, there's some weeks, hell, I may have worked 70 hours in a week. Could you ever shut off work? Like, when you do have off time, are you able to mentally? shut it off? It's tough, and that's what ruins a lot of marriages and things, really. You bring that stuff home.

But it's tough, you know, you go from 100 miles not at work, and then you're coming home, you're just supposed to be like, okay, average Joe citizen. It's tough. Yeah, it's probably, you're doing a meth lab raid in the morning, and then how do you go home and just have a normal dinner with your family? It's hard. Where do you go after Arizona? Okay, so that's a good story.

So growing up, whatever I've done in life, I've always wanted to try to be at the highest level, whatever it was. I was, you know, raised that you work hard, you put effort in. And if you don't succeed at something, you go back and look, okay, what I do wrong, what I do right, what can I improve? So I was ingrained with that type of work ethic, wanted to be the best of whatever I did, whether or sports, on the job, whatever. So after 9-11, the U.S. military goes to Afghanistan. We know that Ben Laden's running his training camps over there. We have somewhat of an intelligence picture.

We don't have a complete picture. So the U.S. military gets over there, and they soon find out that the Taliban and these other insurgent groups are getting their funding for their terror activity. by the production and sale of heroin. A lot of people don't know Afghanistan is the biggest producer of heroin in the world. And that's the question I get when I talk about. Why was DEA in, you know, Afghanistan?

Well, that's why. The military is not subject matter experts on drugs. So they call DEA, which is, hey, hey, guys, we need some help. At the time, we didn't. necessarily have a team that could go over with the military and operate under in a war zone. So the biggest benefit we had with the, you know, we could do investigations and we help mentor the Afghans at how to do an investigation. You know, we didn't really have arrest powers over there, but we'd mentor them and they could take people off the battlefield. And even though

heroin is Afghanistan is the biggest producer heroin in the world they're pretty strict if you get caught manufacturing it or possessing it so we could take people, pull people off the battlefield for a while if we caught them manufacturing

so we were great value added and you know the military didn't necessarily need any more strap hangers shooters but we could provide that you know because you're going into war zone and a lot of people thought that, like, hey, the U.S. military goes and their first clears it, and then the DEA agents come in? No, we're right up front. Exema is unpredictable.

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You know, here, overseas, we're... going to his country at war with, you know, and the fast team, we had access to all the military weapons. We had belt-fed machine guns, grenade launchers, passive explosives, grenades, the whole nine, whatever you would think, even like an agent in Detroit, which is a very dangerous, can't carry a belt-fed machine gun in the States. So you have to be learned and trained on all that different stuff. So for me, with no military experience, A lot of guys on the team had prior military experience, I was either sink or swim with me. So I definitely had to learn definitely on the fly.

And just to tell you like how tough selection is, I think when we started our selection, we started with mid-30s of people, I think like 35 or 36, only 11. and made it to the end. Oh, wow. That's how tough it was. I remember going through, our selection's broken down in different phases, phase one, phase two, phase three.

Like phase one is all done in-house. It's done in Quantico, Virginia. And it's kind of like we call our Hell Week. You're tested on these various events. You're also tested mentally, and your IQ is tested also. But you just can't be a dumb, big, you know, big oaf, you got to be able to think on your feet too.

And so it was a pretty tough selection. In that first phase, man, I got the shit kicked out of me. I was 39 years old. I knew I wouldn't quit anything, but just, you know, we get older. I want to make sure I passed everything. But our bodies just don't hold up like used to. And we don't recover like we used to. So I was worried about getting hurt and, you know, getting an injury.

And I wouldn't continue. But when you make it through something like that, you have a big, huge sense of pride after I made it through something. A lot of people can't make it through. I remember after that first phase, we had a break in between our first phase and second phase. We went back to Phoenix. Man, I was tore up. I looked like hell. I pretty much had a blister in every part of my foot, and I lost all the toenails on both feet.

Like actually off the toes? Yes. They fell off. Thank God they grew back, because I don't look like a freak. And in fact, the next day when I got home, I had to go to the ER. Was my foot got infected. And here I'm in the ER trying to explain to the doctors what happened, nurses. And I just saw them looking at me.

It's like, okay, sir, can you please tell us what really happened now? So it was kind of crazy. So I made it through that. And then the second and third phase is a part of it's done in-house. with current fast team members. And then the next phase is a training phase where you learn, kind of learn all the whizbang military stuff and the tactics, tactics, techniques, and procedures,

how to use the military weapons. And it's usually done either by the ODA Green Brays or the Navy SEALs. And the Navy SEALs did ours. We reported to Little Creek, Virginia. and we were trained by the Navy SEAL trade at, which is like their training group. And we did some training with SEAL Team 2 and 10 over there. So you really got to learn all that stuff. So it was by choice to go to Afghanistan and join these teams?

Yes, it's a total volunteer thing. And going through selection, they let you know exactly what you're getting involved in. And they'll tell you it's not for everybody. And if this is not for you, it doesn't mean you're a bad agent or this and that. It's just not for everybody. So they wanted to tell you what you were getting into because they didn't want to waste a spot if it's not something that you really wanted to do or be in. Why did you want to do this?

Why did you want to go down this path? I think after 9-11, you know, everybody was pissed off of what happened. I felt a calling to serve, even though I was already serving. and I was already a DE agent, as I felt if I had the chance to represent my country and get, you know, I guess some payback for what happened or, you know, get some of the people responsible, I'd jump on it. So with the opportunity, with the fast team, presented itself, I took advantage of that. Was it hard to leave your family?

It was tough because the deployment was Afghanistan, and we had a team there all year long, and teams would rotate in and out. You were there for approximately 120 days, give or take some days. So, you know, approximately four months, you're gone from your family. It's tough. You know, be in a way,

and I would say thank God at the time for Skype. Different bases I would at, we had good internet, so you can communicate with your family back home on a video chat. Was your first deployment what you expected it to be? I would say yes and more.

So I did my first deployment. And March of 2010. Now, a lot of people don't realize that Afghanistan, they have winter months and they have seasons. And especially in the mountains and higher elevations, Afghanistan gets snow and it's pretty bad. So there's what's called a fighting season and a growing season for the poppy, which you, the poppy, which is used to get the opium from, you know, it's one of the primary ingredients of heroin where they grow that. That's the early spring and early winter months.

So that's when most of the crazy activities going on. So my very first turn, I was, for the first tour, I was getting thrown right into the mix of fighting season. So we get there. And every time we go there, things change. The different units we work with, you know, some are not available. so we worked with different units.

So that tour, we got kind of broken up, the fast team, and me and one of my good buddies, Travis Brooks, on the team, were sent to go work with an ODA Green Bray team. We were stationed at Kanda Arfield in Afghanistan, and the Kandahar-Panjewa area. That's the birthplace of the Taliban. So you have a lot of insurgent activity. It's also an area where they manufacture a lot of heroin.

So we're, Travis and myself, we're living with the green berets in their compounds, and we're going out. And basically, we were doing what they call in the military movement to contact. Basically, we were going to pick a fight. We'd go to an area where they had, you know, drug production activities, and we'd go pick a fight. We'd stay in anywhere from 28 to 24, 72 hours, and we'd see what they got, see, you know, if we had any land. to dismantle this and that, and then the conventional forces would come in after us. So we were getting a lot of fights, you could say. And my two tours in Afghanistan, I was probably on total like around 20 missions or so.

And there's only five times that I did not have to fire Mike weapon. because these labs are well behind enemy lines, and that's their money. So you take their finances away, they're going to fight like hell to hold on to them. So that's why it was pretty crazy. And then the IED threat in Kandahar was great when we were there. That's improvised explosive devices, you know,

you know, and stuff like that, you know, guys and, stuff we're getting tore up with IEDs all the time. So, you know, you're just walking. The next step is that going to be, you know, the last step with my leg. So it was, it was pretty nerve-wracking to say. How sophisticated are these drug labs over there? They're not at all. Very crude, but it's crazy to make the best heroin in the world. And that's what kind of blows your mind. I wonder why that is. You know, they have, they have. the process down, it doesn't, it's not super complicated, but complicated enough that they can do it. And, you know, they were just producing major, major quantities of heroin.

Now, in these busts that you're doing, is their money kept with the drugs, or it's always just the drugs and then they have a separate location for the money? Separate. On the raise and stuff that I did, the one, I never ran to any currency, just product. And your job was specifically get the product? Yes, our job was to get to mentor the Afghans, how to do an investigation, show them how to do it, get the product. And the problem was a lot of these things, you know, we can't seize everything we take. It's just too much. So we would take representative samples, take photographs, and it's destroyed in place.

How do you destroy it with fire? We blow it up with plastic explosives. do airdrops on it, we would burn it. We would bring like kerosene out there and burn it or burn it with thermite grenades. Yeah, we would destroy it. Now, do you think this was making a dent in the transportation of it to America? A lot of the Afghan heroin did not unless he come to America, a lot more Europe, but yes. And we could see when we were really hammering them in 2010, 11, they call it second and third order effects. We were hurting their money to do their terror activities and to buy their supplies for that.

You know, you could see we were affecting them. But the problem is since we pulled out, I understand the production is greater than it's ever been now. And that source comes to the U.S. now, too? Some of that, I believe, does, yes. Now, if you didn't deploy until 2010, was all those years prior spent training after 9-11? We didn't even start the fast teams to like a handful of years after 9-11 by the time we got it up and going. I didn't even try out for the fast team until February of 2009. Ah, okay.

So once you actually tried out, it was only about a year process, give or take? Yes. Well, I went to training in February of 2009, and then I got selected for fast October of 2009. Now, the DEA agents that were on this team, were you guys on the older side? compared to the military members? Some were and some weren't. I remember I'd be over in Afghanistan. So my first tour, in Afghanistan, I was 40 years old,

and I got shot when I was 41, like working with some of these special ops guys. They're like, how old are you? Oh, 40, 41? Okay, grandpa. So I got your grandpa for you. Were the SEALs used to being older, like in their late 30s, early 40s? The SEALs tended to be yours. younger.

Oh, okay. Because you could go, they had a deal that, if you got into your contract, that you could go to Bud's basic underwater demolition school, which is the seal selection, pretty much after boot camp. So you did have some older, older seals in. And like I said, we did quite a bit of training with them. They're like, you look at, you know, some of the guy, that's what I think is a seal. Then other guys, you would look at it's like, you'd never suspect, you know, some guys were a little on the heavier side and stuff. but looks can be deceiving. Those guys could rock and roll and PT like nobody's business.

Where the Green Berets usually tended to be older. Most of them were sergeants in the Army already and been in the Army for a while. So they tended to be a little more older and mature. And then the Marine Special Forces, the Marsok and Sots, tended to be older too, but you have to be in the core for a while before you could even try out for that. When you were working alongside the military guys, did it make you maybe think of why you didn't go the military route or have second thoughts about joining the DEA? It did, but like when I graduated college, we weren't at war. So I thought the best option for me to do stuff and different things was to be joined the police department and hopefully eventually get on to DEA.

Did you enjoy the DEA more than the police department? In some ways, yes, in some ways, no. I had a lot of fun on the SWAT team in Detroit. And, you know, I got a lot of, you know, value in patrol. But DEA, you got to work to higher level individuals, and I got the opportunity to do stuff like the fast team and stuff like that and had that opportunity that I never would have had on the police department.

And Detroit was fun, but the downsides, I would say, they had residency at the time that I worked, you had to live in the city. And it was pretty shitty then. And the pay wasn't great. And what the federal law enforcement pays a lot better, retirement's better. And you got a chance to, you know, work all over the world if you want, if that's what you want. So both had as good as and bad. After your first tour, were you thinking about retirement?

Were you thinking about where your career would go after that? My plan was when I got into fasting, I was going to try to do fast as long as I physically could do it. When I became a burden, I felt I physically couldn't do it anymore. My ultimate goal was to transfer back to Detroit, Michigan, where all my family, most of my family was, as a group supervisor in retire. there in Detroit. But after I got shot, the plans have changed. How long was the time difference between your first tour and your second tour? So I did that tour.

You know, it was March through mid-August of 2010. So I get to go home, decompressed, my time with the family, blah, blah, blah. We were scheduled to do our next tour to Afghanistan. again in the spring, early winter tour of 2011, which again is fighting season. So I was, but, okay, this was a loo of my thought process for a minute, that we had five teams and fast at the time. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and Echo, I was part of Delta team, and Delta was made up of some previous fast team members with some new fast team members. Our Echo team was going to be the Western Hemisphere team, like Central America and all that stuff. So they were short on individuals, and they were set to do a tour in Honduras in early spring of 2011,

and they needed some volunteers to bolster their numbers to go over there. And I volunteered with another guy and our Delta team, Justin Vanderbilt, to go over to, Honduras and what we were doing over there was called air tracks of interest ATRs basically we're working with joint task force Bravo the US military over there and they're tracking like smaller like Cessna type planes coming from cocaine source countries like i.e. Colombia, Peru and they would try to fly under the radar and this and that and they would land in Honduras. and like these remote landing strips, and I don't even call them landing strips, or like dirt roads and different things. And once they would land there, the drugs were taken to Mexico, either via by land or water.

And then, of course, from Mexico up the United States. So we were tasked with working with a tactical response team made up of Hondurans. and if it looked like a one of these type of planes were coming our way, we would launch in a C.H. 47 dual rotor helicopter, twin engine helicopter that held quite a bit of bodies. And they would try to vector us into the plane. And then we would get on the plane, stay back. They were watching them with their surveillance aircraft.

So the plane didn't know we were on them. and when they would land, we would land and then assault them and get the drugs. So that's what we were doing over there, and we did some training beforehand in Florida. My team did the special operations training in Destin, Florida. And we had sent another team there prior to us just to hold down the fort until we got there, and they happened to launch on one of these air tracks of interests and gotten a big shootout, where one of the Honduran TRT guys got shot and a fast team member saved them

and they seized quite a bit of drugs but the Joint Task Force Bravo was like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, we're playing a minor transportation role for you folks. We're not here to be in combat. So they kind of like were kind of backed off a little bit.

So we got there. So they're like, oh, we need to do all this training. You know how to you know day and night we go to these locations and practice what we're doing blah blah blah And every time like an air track launch they would be some kind of excuse oh the loom's not good or this and that you know just were bullshit So we actually had two helicopters from our wing air wing came to Honduras but they weren't huge helicopters they couldn't hold a lot of people we basically hold a pilot, a co-pilot. We had a couple fast team members and a couple Honduran TRT guys. So we launched twice and we got on the air tracks both times.

But the smaller helicopters didn't have a lot of fuel, so we couldn't stay up as long. So the first time we started getting low on fuel. We had to turn around and go back. And the second time, it was the same deal. and then it was a pretty big publicity thing. We were Honduras. So like the local drug lord that an area we were at

and he had got the hell out of there. So we were staying in this hotel over there and there was another hotel by us. This Christopher Columbus where a lot of the military guys were staying at and had like a small air strip there. and a lot of us would go out in the morning and run and do PT and stuff. So one of the main drug dealers, lieutenants, one of his, you know, people below him, had this idea that I'm going to get rid of DEA.

How are we going to do this? I'm going to kill two agents. So they planned on killing me when I would go out and run. I would go out in the morning and run. I was the big guy. And there was another agent, the guy with the funny shorts, which is, Dave Klaus and he wore these like goofy colorful shorts when he would run. But the TRT team that was working with us was staying in town and one of the guys from the

cartel didn't know what they were doing working on a TRT team. So they talked to them about help, talking to them about kill, helping kill us. So we got word that that was going to happen and then we got to hell out of there. and went back to Sotakana, which is the main base, and went back to the United States. And then the main drug dealer found out what was his lieutenant was going to do. And the drug dealer had them killed because the last thing these drug dealers want to do is kill a federal agent, the main guys, but they know.

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Yeah, the Taliban didn't get. of shit. Yeah, they had no fear as far as as that went. So yeah, we did that. We got to hell out of there. And then my next tour in Afghanistan is coming up. But going into that tour, I had just a bad feeling that something was going to happen. I didn't know if it was going to happened to me and one of my teammates, I just had a very bad feeling that something bad was going to happen. So like I said, every time we go over there, things are different. Now, in 2011, a lot of the U.S. military was doing, which was called these village stability programs, where they would go and live with the locals and try to get them to kind of come around to see our ways of living,

our values, beliefs, teachings, blah, blah, blah. that's a whole other discussion there we could talk for days on that would it work would it not work kind of doubtful you know so much is ingrained with the people over there and their Muslim religion and stuff it would be a great challenge so the U.S. military wasn't available to work with us so the Australians they volunteered one of the Australian units called the Australian Command They're a very capable special ops unit in Australia. I will kind of put them on power with our U.S. Army Rangers. But they were operating in the Helmand province, which is another province in Afghanistan,

which great Taliban activity or insurgent activity, along with manufacturing heroin. We had a big Marine Corps base there called Camp Leatherneck. So we were working with them, and they were based out of a base. called Ternkout in the Helmand province. And we had our fast team Bravo was there before we got there working with them. Now in the special forces community, like with the U.S. teams, we had a good reputation. We had worked with them a lot. But in the communities, like if they don't know who you are,

there's what I call a lot of private part measuring going on. What can you do? So it usually took a couple missions working with them, we never worked before, to kind of feel us out per se. Now, we're not special forces for say, like U.S. military special forces, but we're the best DEA had to offer, in my opinion. So we could shoot, move, communicate pretty good, because we had to be able to do that. But we also brought that investigative piece. but with the Aussies, them working with our Bravo team beforehand, we didn't have to go through that.

We hit the ground running. Actually, so much so, our second mission in Afghanistan, we had seized the biggest heroin lab to date in Afghanistan. It was just crazy. And the thing about Helman, as opposed to Kandahar, we were going into areas of Helmand. They weren't used to us being. So they did not have a lot of in-place IED set up, but still a lot of gun fights because, like I said earlier, that's their money and they're going to hold onto it like crazy.

You know, there's times over in Afghanistan and people ask, were you scared? Were you nervous? Hell yeah. You know, but that scared, nervous keeps you alive. There was times bullets were flying over my head and bullets make noise when they're close to you. I'd be like, Joe, what the hell are you doing here? Are you out of your mind? but I tell people that it's like you being at an amusement park.

You ride the biggest, baddest, meanest roller coaster. You're kind of scared when you're doing it. But then when you get off, you're like, what are we doing this again? So it was kind of, I'm kind of sick in the head anyway, so kind of adrenaline junkie. But so we're rocking through that tour, making some pretty. good seizures. And then this Pake Bazaar pops up hot.

Bazaars are like these outdoor flea markets in Afghanistan are kind of look like storage facilities over here, kind of. There's mud huts with rolling garage doors, doors or the, you know, gates where they chain shut and blah, blah, blah. They sell everything from sundry items,

some water, you know, live, you know, chickens, you know, shampoos, things like that, but they also sell chemicals and equipment to manufacture heroin, IED bomb making material in small arms. So a Bravo team that was before us there, they hit this bazaar with the Aussies, and they seize quite a bit of evidence items, and they got in a pretty big firefight. And in fact, another gentleman Brett Hamilton, who him and I were the two oldest guys in our selection, and Brett was the team leader of the fast team on that particular mission, and they were fighting their way back to the helicopter,

and Brett got what I call the Forrest Gump wound. He got shot in the ass. A B jump up and stung him. It's on video. He's a hardcore dude, shot right in the ass. He was a Marine officer. Marine recon, scuba qualled,

gold jump wings, the whole nine. He stayed in Afghanistan. So he was a hardcore dude. So, you know, he got the forest gump wounds. So it's our turn.

The bazaar pops up hot again. So we knew we were going to have a fight on our hands. And we like to do things at night, usually using our technology with our night vision and lasers. and the enemy usually didn't have that, but the problem being the particular time where we could hit this bizarre with the Aussies and our partner forces, there was no airwain that could fly us that was night flying capable. So we had to settle for this special mission airwing unit that was training the Afghans to fly for when we left so they could know what they're doing. So we set up to do this this warrant or raid or whatever you want to call it. It was going to be Halloween Day 2011.

So we knew we couldn't go at night. So the plan was we were going to hit this bazaar just after first light at Halloween day. We're going to use this air wing. And the day before they come, we're going to do our briefing. and they're like, by the way, one of the helicopters is going to be all Afghan crew and piloted. We're like,

uh, time out. There's going to be no Americans or no Aussies that are going to get on that helicopter. We will use it to transport our partner force in and out because of the pilot decides he wants to start his jihad that day and fly into a mountain. We want none of our personnel on there. So the plan was,

um, we're going to insert, with four MI17 helicopters. They're older Russian troop transport helicopters. Pretty fast, and they can hold a decent amount of people, and they're pretty well armed. On one side is a Gao mini gun, the other side is a PICM beltbed machine gun.

So the Afghans were going to be taken in on Afghan crew and piloted one. DEA agents with a couple Australians are going to fly in another MI17, and then the Aussies are going to fly in on during. remaining two. The plan was we land in separate areas. The Australian set up an outer corridor around the bazaar to keep the insurgents from moving in on us. The problem being that the bazaar was like in a valley and they had high ground with mountains around us. So anybody knows anything about tactics knows that if you have the high ground, you have the advantage. The Afghans were going to fly in the other helicopter, the fast team with a couple Australians and another one.

The Afghans are going to search this little village area right before the bazaar, and then we're going to link up and go clear the bazaar. So I was in charge of one element made up of fast team personnel with personnel with our Afghan partner forces. another one of our past team members, Justin Vanderbilt, had another force made up of the same mix of people. He was going to start at one end to the bazaar with his group, and I was going to start at the other end. We were going to clear the bazaar.

So we start clearing the bazaar, and it was empty before it opened, which we wanted. We wanted a bunch of people in there. So we started receiving an incoming gunfire, not very accurate. it. So I was standing outside one of the stowls in the bazaar, which our Afghans were shooting, I mean, it's not shooting, searching, and there was an old broke-down car behind me. So I hear a shot being fired off. No big deal. Happens all the time over there. But then I feel the back of my neck

burn. I'm like, oh, shit. So I dive into the bazaar stall which the Afghans were searching. and I put my hand in the back of my neck, see of any blood. I didn't see any blood on my hand. I had one of the Afghans look at it that spoke fairly decent English. He was like, oh, so, so, you're okay, sir. But I tell you what, that bullet got so close to my neck, I could feel the heat off of it. So you better believe I had my guard up after that.

I'd use all the things I learned as a police officer, a SWAT team member, a DEA agent, and prior deployments, you know, with the FAST team. Empire missions. So I had my guard up. So shortly after that, the Taliban insurgents made what I call was a call to arms over this crappy loudspeaker PA system. It's like an ear echoing throughout the valley. I can't understand a word they're saying. They're speaking in their native language. So I had one of the translators tell us what they're saying. And they were saying, today's your day to die. We must rise up.

We must rid the infidels out of our land. So the incoming fire drastically increased on us. We heard the Aussies really getting into it with them. And we had the Marine airwing the mall and helicopter gunships providing close air support for us. We heard them rocking and rolling and getting into it with them. So we were in a process, like I said early, we can't take all the stuff that we seize. So we are in a process of taking photographs, taking representative samples, and destroying the rest in place. So we're doing that.

And we actually were going to hit another location after we hit this one. So we're starting to wrap up. So we call for our helicopters to come pick us up. And we only have to move about 400 meters to get to our pickup locations, which is not far. So we're moving out. Helicopters are inbound. But then we get bogged down in the gunfight. So much so that we can't get to our spots in time.

So we have to wave the helicopters off, tell them just to hang out in the area, and we'll call you in ones for secure. So at this point, you know, we have a lot of gunfire coming, including belt-bed machine gunfire. So I'm in my head and I'm starting to freak out a little bit. hey, you know, we're going to die here. We're not going to be able to get out. The longer we wait, the longer the enemy has a time to en masse in on us.

So, but in combat, you can't show your fear. Fear, you can't show you're scared. I kind of, like, had a self-talk to myself, Joe. You need to get your shit together right here, right now. We need to get out of here. So you need to take your head out of your ass and we need to function. So I got myself together. and we have to kind of leapfrog from building to building to get set up in our positions to get the hell out of there.

So we set up at our respectable locations. Four helicopters are inbound three land. Guess which one doesn't land? The one taking you? The Afghan crew and piloted the one. And talking to the pilots afterwards, they felt because of all the incoming fire. and a brownout condition with the bigger helicopters coming in,

it kicks up a bunch of dust and it's hard to see. And it's just the facts that our pilots aren't a skill, their pilots aren't as ours. So we run out to our helicopter, and lo and behold, who's on ours? The Afghans. Instead of waiting for their helicopter, they just take off to the next one.

It's not like Uber, you just can't take anyone. You're supposed to get on yours. So we're arguing with them to get off the helicopter, and they're not moving. I don't blame them. I wouldn't want to go back into that hell hole. So instead of being in this open field and getting shot, we just tell them, okay, just take off.

You know, we'll catch the next bird. So we take cover in a ditch. Fast team members with two Afghans. Three helicopters take off. So now all the incoming fire is focused on us. So we're laying in this ditch. Then lo and behold, a short time later, Here comes the helicopter.

We're never getting on. Lands about a couple hundred meters away from us. And I remember saying to myself, you know, we can't, again, we can't stay here. This is our ride. We got to get the hell out. You know, it gives more time for the enemy to amass. So I remember saying to myself, this is going to be a very shitty run, but we got to get out of here. I remember getting up in a full sprint that fast as my old asking sprint and all that

gear and running for my life towards the helicopter. I remember firing a couple shots on the run towards the insurgents that were shooting at us. I guess I got to the helicopter in the front of the pack, and the Afghan doorgunners weren't even shooting, even though we're getting shot at, helicopters getting shot to hell. So I don't remember any of this, but it's definitely something I knew I would do. I vowed that I would give up my life for my teammates if I had to. So I guess that's what I did. Once all my teammates got on or near the helicopter,

my team later tapped me in my left shoulder, said, let's roll. That's when I turned left to run onto a helicopter. That's when I was hit. I was hit, we believe, was a PKM. I was around from a PKM belphell machine gun. The round went through the right side of my ballistic helmet, through my right temple, through the frontal lobe of my brain, and out my left temple. And I, I guess, fall forward like a ton of bricks.

A lot of people think I got one of those wounds in the head where the bullet hit my skull and ricocheted around. No, it went straight through my brain. So we'll kind of jump back to another thing. Like when I talk to different groups and people, they asked me, if you knew it was going to happen to you, Joe, would you have went over there still? And I said yes. Because when we're at war like that, it can't always be somebody else. It can't always be somebody else's mother, father, sister, brother, husband, wife. Somebody has to do it.

Freedom isn't free. You know, it's the, we're the land of the free because of the brave. Somebody has to go do it. So I felt a calling that that's what I needed to do, and that's why I went. So my team leader thinks I just tripped and fell, but they noticed that I didn't put my arms out to brace my fall like you normally would. So I'm face down. He comes over to me, tries to rouse me, I'm not moving.

He rolls me over. He sees the ballistic glasses I were wearing and was shattered, and there's a hole in my head. thinks I'm dead. So another one, our fast team members runs over with two Aussies. They grab my big ass and throw me on the helicopter. They think I'm dead. Helicopter lifts off.

These helicopters, it's a lot of noise and a lot of sound. It's hard to tell if somebody's breathing. So one of my teammates, Justin Vanderbilt, he gets a better assessment on me, and he's like, he's alive, he's breathing. So they get my gear taken off me and they begin to work on me. They stick, which is called combat gauze.

My head wounds in either size is gauze with clotting agent impregnated in on it. So they get my head wounds stopped. And they do another medical maneuver. Like a lot of times when you're injured, they want to try to get you a better airway. So you could do it a couple different ways. You can use what's called the nasal pharyngeal airway NPA. which is a three or four, about four,

maybe four or five inch flexible tube and one end looks like there's a funnel on it. You take it, insert it, and your patient's nose, and it goes under side in its cavity, and they get a little more oxygen, or you can do what's called a crike. You can go down to a person's throat in a certain spot. You cut it, and you put it implement in there

to help them breathe. Now, they decided to do an NPA on me. Now, I don't like these things. On training, we have to put them in each other and we can use lytocane. They still suck. Or if you're training with the seals, they allow you to spit on it and shove it to each other's nose, not the most hygienic way. Or in a battlefield condition, you can use the patient's blood. So one of the Aussies begins shoving this down my nose, and I guess I come too.

I don't remember this. I guess I set up like Frankenstein and come combative. I don't know what hell's going on. don't remember any of this. So they got me calm down and did that, began to treat me for shock, and then I said I got to move my left leg. Now with all this incoming gunfire,

they think I'm shot in the lake too. And like I said earlier, it was a miracle. I was only one to get hit. I wasn't shot in the leg, but I was carrying my carbine on the mission, and I had a suppressor on my carbine, and I had been shooting,

and the suppressors get right. hot and when I got knocked unconscious I had laid out of the suppressor and it burned the inside my left knee real bad so they they treat that they fly me to the base that we were saying at taren kow now there's a couple things I like to talk about now why I survived no I not it's no it's not the most popular at all times I believe number one reason I survived was God. It wasn't my time to go. I believe the Lord had more for me to do, and I think part of that is going around doing my motivational speaking to help encourage people when they're thinking they're having a rough or bad time in life. The minute I became a police officer,

my mother gave me a St. Michael's medallion. St. Michael's is the patron saint for law enforcement officers to keep them safe. I actually had one of those on me when I got shot. Also, I would say the Psalm 91 prayer, and I had a copy of it on me when I got shot. It's the prayer for the Lord to protect soldiers going into battle. I also had one of my grandfather's dog tags from World War II on my person when I got shot. So, like I said, that was one of the big reasons the Lord had more for me to do. Another thing, I was in really good shape when I got shot. So when I talk to different law enforcement groups or military groups or whoever, it's very important in the kind of line of work that we have to try to stay in the best shape as you can because it may save your life.

I'm not saying you have to be an Olympic athlete, but just try to keep yourself in shape. Because talking to the medical personnel, the better shape you're in, the greater chance of survival from a traumatic injury and a better injury and a better recovery usually is. Also, mindset is a big part. You have to have that mindset. If I'm in a fight at work, you know, fighting for my life or maybe I'm just at home, a civilian world driving and getting a car accident or fall for a ladder at home, that you've got to have that mentality that you're in a fight or you get hurt, that I'm not going to lose this fight.

I'm not going to die. I'm going to fight. I'm going to do whatever I can to get out of this fight. I'm going to scratch, claw, gouge, whatever the hell I got to do. I'm going to survive. You're not going to kill me. You're not going to beat me. I kind of call it that winning mentality, that warrior's mindset, you know.

And also my teammates were, we're really trained in battlefield medicine. And unfortunately, we had to use it a lot more than we wanted to in Afghanistan. So my teammates, once they found I was alive, they didn't panic. They just got to work on me. So they flew me to Terran Cowell at, which the base we were. staying at. The ambulance came out to meet me. Now, the ambulance thought that they had me, my team had me on a stretcher. We had stretchers, but they didn't. So they didn't bring a stretcher out to the ambulance. So I hear them arguing. So what does Joe do? I'm shot through the head. Joe stands up

to walk off the helicopter, shot through the head. And I guess my teammates, I guess I don't remember any of this. Said, no, no, Joe, we got you. They carried me to the ambulance, brought me to the medical facility there, did what they could do for me there and then got a medevac helicopter to fly me to Candar Airfield where they had a neurosurgeoned an ice and standing by to receive me. So I flew with one of my fast teammates there

and being it was Halloween day there wasn't a lot of activity going on as far as missions so there wasn't a lot of casualties at the Roll 3 in Candar Airfield. And I guess talking to the medical staff afterwards, I'm still good friends with the neurosurgeoner worked on me, when they brought me in there. And at that point, they were actually doing CPR me to keep me alive. So they have to obsess at hard time saying a damn word.

See what my situation is. You see if it's worth using their resources and time to save me, or am I unsavable? And that's a very practical concern overseas. So Dr. Rosenbaum thought if he got in there in reverses what was going on with my brain swelling and everything, he could at least get me back home alive to see my family. Didn't know what state I would be in. Could I talk? Would I even know be the same personality?

Things like that. They didn't know. But at least get me home. his commanding officer didn't agree so they had to fight back and forth and finally the my surgeon's boss said he could work on me but if he tells me tells him to stop at any time he got to stop the surgery so he got on there and started working on me he spent approximately four and a half hours working on me they remove my whole frontal skull cap I have have a titanium plate there.

He put in a ventricle catheter to regulate the pressure, what was going on in my head, so they could release pressure as it builds up. So he did his part, and then the eye surgeon came in. Even though the bullet didn't hit my eyes, the velocity and pressure of the round ruptured both eye globes and attached both retinas. So the eye surgeon spent approximately 11 hours piecing my eyes back together with a microscope, which is crazy. So her work in theater, and I'll talk about later on, what she did gave me the chance to get more eyesight here later. So they finish up their surgery there.

They notify my family back home, what the heck was going on. and then one of my best friends on the fast team, Travis Brooks, he volunteers to fly home with me. So I'm going to fly back home to the States. We stop in Lawnstool, Germany, which they have a good medical facility there, because the pressure in my head was rising. I had to spend three nights there until they got the pressure down. And then they flew me into Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, just outside of Walmart. Washington, D.C. and they transported me to Walter Reed National Medical Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. So at this time, they have my family there. My fiance at the time, who I later married,

who's my ex now waiting to receive me. Now, my ex was a intensive care nurse, so I saw a lot of trauma on things so they let my family come in there and my dad knew what kind of expect being in law enforcement all the years and he briefed my mom up pretty good what to expect but I was a mess I had no frontal cranial piece of my head

my head was all sunken in my eyes were swollen shut I had tubes coming out of my body so I'm a mess so my ex sees me I guess she puts her hand over her mouth screams, runs out the room and passes out. And her dad has to help her off the floor. Now, she later explained that, you know, when somebody else, it still sucks and sad, but when it's somebody that you love and care about it,

it's 10 times worse. So they got me in there, got me situated and did a couple more surgeries on me there. They reattached my retinas. And then they built up the frontal bone reason on my forehead in anticipating putting the plate in later on. So after you did that surgery, they put me in an induced coma using that profile wall. It was that drug that ended up killing Michael Jackson. It's very good for putting somebody in induced coma, but you can reverse it real quick, but not so great. It's not indicated for sleep. And you see what happened to Michael. So they had me introduced coma for about a week. They told my family because I have a frontal brain lobe injury that affects your decision making and your emotions, whether you get angry, easy, or sad.

And they told my family that could never be trusted with a credit card again, we'd spend a bunch of money, would possibly be at work and just take all my clothes off. Why, just take your clothes off at work? Maybe, was this hot? I don't know. So they said, I wasn't going to make good decisions. And my mom, I love her to death. She said, well, he didn't make good decisions anyway, so he's not going to lose much. I'm like, thanks for the vote of confidence, mom.

But thankfully, it didn't affect me to that point as much as they thought it would. And they wouldn't know if, even though I was talking and making sense after a helicopter, after I was shot, they didn't know if I could still speak. Would I remember anything? Would I be the same person? personality. But I was a little confused at first. They were like, Joe, what do you live? I said

Detroit, Michigan. What do you do? I'm a police officer. What's your dog's name? I said Max was my very first dog when I was a kid. I was a little confused again at first, but I got my bearings pretty quick after that, knew who I was at the time and what I was doing and what happened. So now starts my in the hospital. So I'm blind as a bat, can't see. I was put on, when I was in a deuce coma, I was put on a feeding tube. But they couldn't remove the feeding tube until I passed a couple swallow studies. I could swallow food properly. Failed the first couple, then finally passed, then I would start getting regular food again. And just to let you know how toll it takes on your body, when I got shot, I was a very lean 230.

I guess they would weigh me on my bed in the hospital. I guess I got down to the high 160s. And my ex-win wouldn't let them tell me what I weighed, but you knew I'd probably throw a hissy fit. But yeah, just being inactive and stuff and just how quickly you can lose the weight. So we would do different things in the hospital. Like, for example, one time I was in the room with my ex-in-therapist.

And we're like, today, Joe, we're going to have you put your shorts and t-shirt on. How long is it's going to take you, you know, five minutes, whatever. So I'm sitting on the edge of the bed with my clothes, and I'm feeling these shorts. And I'm like, man, these don't feel like my size. I'm like, what size are these? So my ex is sitting in my church mouse. She's not saying a word. So the therapist is like, let me see them.

I'll tell you. So she takes the shorts and she go, they're medium. I tell you, I took those damn medium shorts, I threw them across the room, I said, I'm a big fella. I were extra large. But I had to put those extra large on then, they would have fell straight to the floor and all my business would have been showing. So it was, you know, crazy times, and I was kind of a, I guess not the most cooperative patient at first, but I eventually won everybody over. And it came a point of time when I was there for a while and they're like, Joe. we need to give you a shower.

And for some reason, I don't know, I thought where my forehead was, my brain was, I thought for some reason there wasn't skin there, it was this mesh? I don't know why. And I'm like, I can't get my brain wet. And the nurse is like, you have skin there, Joe. And Max, like, you have skin there.

I'm like, oh, I do? Okay. All right, I guess we're going to do this. So then you lose all your dignity. You got to go in a shower with a nurse who you don't even know. And they're in like this full rubber like rain gear and you got to take a shower. So but I guess I had to get clean, so I did it. So I ended up spending two months there.

During my time there, I would hear my teammates and my parents talk about all these wounded young service members coming back from overseas. Torup bad. You know, whether it was multiple amputations. burned up real bad, wherever it may be, the young kids. Now, being young, some of me not have had kids yet, maybe some are married, maybe some are small kids, maybe some are not married. They ever lived life to the fullest yet. When this happened to me, I was 41 years old.

I lived a dang good life. My daughter's getting ready to graduate high school. So when I'd have a pity party for myself, I'd be like, Joe, you know what? you could always have it worse. It always could be worse. You know, you lived, like I said, a good life. So I made a commitment to myself right then, right there. I was going to try to do as much blind as when I could see.

Didn't really know how it was going to look, but I made that determination right then, right there, right there. You know, and I tell people when bad things happen to you and a lot of bad things happen to good people in life. It just seems like when you climb one hill, you get knocked down, you've got to climb another one. It's just life. You have to find a way around.

You have to figure things out. You can't give up. You can't quit. Now, some people choose to live life in a corner and hide from the world, or you can make another choice and get out there and do as much as you can do. And I made that choice to do as much as I could do. I'd be lying to you if I said it was easy. It's tough.

I have to live with. blindness every day and I have some pretty severe PTSD that I have to deal with every day and it's got so bad that I had a gun to my head numerous times or several times it ruined my marriage it ruined a lot of relationships but I finally got to the point where I can't live like this anymore and I tell people especially people in the kind of like the special forces community they think it's not cool to say you have PTSD. It's actually the opposite. It's actually cool to say you have it and get help.

For the longest time, I knew I had it, but I didn't ask for help, but my mental game was a disaster. So once I got the help that I needed, you know, things started to straighten up. So, and later on, I'll kind of talk about some of the things that I'm doing now today. So, you know, it got kind of mentored by these guys and had. I was used to operate it on the tip of the spear at a high level. So I wanted to know for some of these other special forces, guys. You know, how do you go from being at the tip of the spear to not anymore? So I had a green beret.

He came in and blinded in Iraq. He runs marathons now and taught me out of run blind. They had talked to another army guy who lost his sight in Iraq. He's teaching at West Point. Just, you know, getting little tips and tricks. you know how to do this thing so like i said spent two months there and then they sent me down to the mcguire v a in richmond virginia and spent to another month there and was living in fredericksburg virginia at the time which is halfway between richmond and dc and when i was down in the richmond via i

got to go home on the weekends and it was around christmas time thank god you know i got to spend a little time at home and learned more how to operate in the blind world there, how to use the blind cane and navigate and things like that with that. So I was very fortunate with DEA, our administrator at the time, which is head of the DEA when I was in the hospital. She came visit me several times and asked my partner, Travis, what does Joe want? He said, Joe would like to stay working with the DEA, however he can. and they figured out what I would make taking a medical disability as opposed to retiring as a full-blown agent.

And you do a lot better retiring as a full-blown agent. You know, you get a break on taxes at first with the medical disability, but then it kind of goes up. So the administrator said Joe can be a full-blown DE agent as long as he wants, even though I didn't meet the medical requirements anymore. So they were going to find a role for me. So I was very fortunate with that. But a lot of agencies of departments, you know, an agent officer gets hurt, and they kind of leave them out to dry. But I would say DEA, when the chips were down, they definitely took care of me.

So I was very grateful for that. So did my time at McGuire VA, and then I still had to go back once a week for blind training and was, you know, temporarily back at work at whatever. I could do. Now, during this time, I still didn't have a plate in my head. So when I was in the hospital, they made me wear this stupid, like, foam helmet. But when I was at home, I didn't wear it. I didn't think it would have to do a damn good a bit of good anyway, so I fell. So Dr. Rosenbaum, my neurosurgeon in Afghanistan, he was stationed at Walter Reed when he was not deployed. So when he came back home from Afghanistan, I was his very very very, very important. first patient that he saw. So I remember going with my ex to meet him at his office there at the

hospital and he said he remember seeing me walking down the hall, blind as a bat with my cane holding onto my ex, but big again. He's like, he must have got back in the gym again and then we're talking and sitting and talking to him. I'm sitting and talking and making sense and he started crying, but he knows of all people how it could have went. So he was the way. He was the one to put the plate in my head and you figure I got shot Halloween day 2011 and we're into August of 2012 now and decided to put the plate in my head. So they put the plate in my head and then before they'll release me, they kind of did an intervention on me, I'll say. You like Joe? before we agree to discharge you, you have to volunteer to go to an inpatient blind school.

Now, inpatient means inpatient. You go there, live. Now, who wants to go to blind school? Nobody. Especially me at this point, I've been deployed for, you know, the last two years and way for my family. Now I'm blind. You know, what do you want?

You watch your family. You want your loved ones around you. So I did a lot of scary things in my life, but I was scared to death to go to blind school. So they were pushing a blind school out in Palo Alto, California, a military one. I was like we called them. Didn't get a real warm and fuzzy. Now, we heard people talking about and recommending the Heinz VA outside of Chicago, Illinois. They said, this school has a lot of the younger individuals from the Iraqi,

Afghanistan wars and they're really good with technology. Call them and do get a warm and fuzzy. And they were able to get me in pretty quick. Like, remember I'm going to do this? Let's do it. And this is a school. You have to stay there for at least 12 weeks or so. So I said, okay, we're going to do it.

Let's do it. So I volunteered to go. And then a short time later, I ended up going to the Heinz VA to blind school. now they kind of even though I was very reluctant to go I'm glad I went but they teach you how to be a lot more independent you know how to do

you know use your blind cane how to use all the different technologies and stuff and they don't baby you there everybody has their own room it's kind of like a dorm room type of setting you have your own bathroom you have a child hall where you eat all your meals you're expected to sit in the same find your spot

sit in the same spot every day find your way to the different classroom for different classes and it's a two-story building with elevator and stuff. Of course, they help you at first, but they're not going to keep handholding you because they want you to become more independent. And then they talk about, you know, some of the myths people have about blind people. A lot of people never interacted with a blind person. You know, they see a blind person.

They think, you know, what you think of a blind person. They got dark glasses and have a cane. And a lot of people think that you're blind, that you also can't hear. so they talk real loud to you. I'm like, I'm blind as a bat, but I can hear real good. So please turn down to decibels a little bit. Like I said, teach you how to become a lot more independent, teach you how to use the iPhone and iPad with the voiceover,

so I can do all that jazz. I can search the web, send text messages, do emails, worked with the blind software on the computer as a talking software. So definitely glad that I did it. And then DEA, they placed me in a unit that was in the same building as our fast team. It's called personal recovery. What they do is they train agents and support staff before they're going overseas. It's kind of like a minor dumb down.

survival and evasion school, kind of the military puts on. You know, we teach them how to navigate, how to, you know, use a compass, how if you're captured, kind of what to say, what not to say, how to get out of handcuffs, how to get out of restraints, different things like that. So I would, you know, teach a class about overcoming adversity and, you know, talk about what I've been through and what I ever came. And then when they would do the thing with getting out of handcuffs,

I, you know, blind as a bat, I would show them how to do it. You could do it blind or, you know, in a situation when they're held you as prisoner, you may be blindfolded or you may have no lights. You may have to do these skills where you can't see. So, you know, just give them the confidence that, you know, hey, they could do this. So, you know, I'm glad that I did that. You know, I went to blind school and did that. and so was still working at DEA and muscle memory is a hell of a thing.

When I started working out and lifting again, I gained my weight back pretty quick. And at the time my ex-wife was competing, so that's going to kind of get into the things that I'm kind of doing now. So basically I had competed in bodybuilding before I was shot several times. So my ex-wife was competing. We were thinking about hiring this new coach for her who was in the Detroit, Michigan area. We went home back to my house, I think, for Thanksgiving. And we met this coach, Shelby Stearns, at Powerhouse Gym in Detroit, just to see you would be a good fit for my ex.

So we were working out. And, you know, I was talking to Shelby and telling him my history. And he knew I competed before. And he's like, man, Joe, you need to compete again. I'm like, Shelby. I don't know, man. I don't know if he had the confidence to do this blind. And he goes, here's what we do.

I'll put you on a cutting diet for free and just see how you shape up. So he did that. And he's like, after about a month, he's like, oh, no, you need to compete. eat show. So I said, okay, I trust you Shelby, which do this. So we had planned to show to do the Virginia Grand Prix, and this is 2015 now, and North Rock, Virginia that year, it's a local MPC show, and I decided to sign up for the old people's class, which is 35 and over, depending on the different shows. And I did the open, which is all ages. So I was into young people and old people. So got me in probably the best shape of my life, went there, and won everything.

The old people stuff and the young people stuff. I remember being backstage after the show, just thinking, crying, just thinking, I can't believe I'm still doing this. It kind of gave me a purpose and stuff again, but it's something I used to do. And like I tell people, like if you're blind or have some disability, you just want to do what you used to do. You know, what's comfortable for you. And those things are important. So went on and started competing at the national level and started doing really good. And in 2021, I became the first blind IFB Pro Bodybuilder in history. Later went on to do several pro shows. It did the Chicago Pro Masters, which is older class in 22 and got second place and then went back in 23 and got.

first place and ended my bodybuilding career on top I don't compete anymore but still eat well and stay in shape and I'll do that the rest of my life yeah you're still jacked you got the veins bulging through your arm yeah I'm still about 240 pounds pretty lean the heaviest I got up to an offseason the bodybuilding was like 270 pounds but that was a little much because I was walking around you know losing my breath tying my shoes so that was a little much so um did that And I hunt and shoot blind. You're probably thinking, Joe, if you got a gun in your hand, I want to be 10 miles from you. But technology is amazing with special optics and things and even regular old-fashioned optics.

We figure out a way how to shoot. And I can pretty much, long as my breathing and trigger presses properly, proper, I can pretty much hit a pie plate target of 300 meters. since I've been blind, I've shot nine deer. Actually got two with one shot. It's all in video, if you don't believe me. I have also got two alligators in Louisiana. Now, prior to losing my sight, I used to watch that show Swamp People,

where they're going out hunting alligators in Louisiana, and I said, they're nuts. Never in a million years would you catch me doing that. but when the opportunity for gator hunting came up, I guess it's part of my brain injury would not making good choices. Hey, Joe, you want a gator hunt? Oh, yeah, sure. But believe me, buddy, when we were out there,

gator hunting, we're in this little John boat and how you catch these gators, you put like chicken or other bait on these trumbled hooks, and they're hanging up, so the gators have to go up to get it, and then they eat the bait, and then they're hooked. So then you have to go, and you have to pull them up, and you have to shoot them in the head. So we go to our first two lines.

They're not down. We get over to our third line. And he says, oh, crap, we got a big one. He's on the bank. He's got the bait, you know, swallow the bait, and he's at least a 10-footer. So we creep up to where the gator is, and he goes in the water. Now, in that show, they yank on the line to get the gator to go crazy for dramatics for TV. You don't want to do that necessarily.

You want to pull them up slow and they breathe oxygen, so they have to come up every so often and get air. So I'm sitting in air. We're using a Glock 40 caliber pistol with a laser site. And basically I'm on my knees on this boat, and then when he pulls him up, I'm going to press the pressure pad to activate the laser and guide me in, I'm going to shoot.

So we're doing that, and the gator's under the boat. And I start thinking to myself, Joe, what's hell you doing out here? you're blind. I said, this gator snaps at you. You can't even see him. And I said, you're going to end up getting your arm eating off. And then the locals are going to be like, serves that blind guy right. He ain't got no business out there hunting alligator anyway, blind.

So believe me, I had some pucker factor going on, but we ended up getting that gator. I think we had to end up shooting him a total of four times in the head. We already got three shots in him. I think he's dead. go up, push him on the bank to help get him in the boat. We had myself, the guy, and another de-agent that I knew from the fast team. He was currently working at the New Orleans office. They pretty much got him on the boat, and there was no room for anything else.

So as we're yanking this gator on the boat, I hear another shot. The SOB was still alive and opened his eye. And I had to plug him again and brought him back to shore. Then we'd go check other lines. We had another one on. He was a smaller one. I had an eight and a half footer or so, but put up a good fight, shot him twice in the head, killed him, and got him. So it's pretty crazy, but I do it again probably.

I also killed a black bear in West Virginia. Killed a couple wild hogs in central Florida. And I'm going to be headed to Montana here at the end of October to go shoot a buffalo. So I do all that crazy stuff. I've been tandem skydive jumping blind. The DE agent's wife owns a skydiving facility in Monterey, California. And the opportunity came up and they're like, how high you want to jump, Joe? High as we can go.

Of course, right? So we jumped at 16,000 feet. That's the highest you can jump without oxygen or prior FAA approval. I had a group that went and we were the first two to jump out of the plane. It's all on video, and it was a pretty cool experience. What I do it again, probably so, because I've got a brain injury. Also play golf blind several times in blind school.

Probably play golf better blind than when I can see, but you don't have to worry about taking your eye off the ball is you can't see the damn thing. So they kind of see how you swing, line you up, and most often not, I hit the ball. So I did that. It ran a 5K race blind. I've been kayaking in the Chicago River Blind

and grew up playing some hockey. They have blind hockey. So I may be doing that in the future. So, you know, the kind of the skies, the limit, you know, just a lot of blind people who lose their sight who have other disabilities with blind. They think being blind is a death sentence. It's not.

it is what you make out of it. If there's a will, there's a way. It's very true. If you want to do something, you can figure it out. It may not be the same way you did it before, not be as fast as you did it before. But if you want to, you can figure it out. You know, it's, you just can't give up.

You can't quit. You have to keep going in life. You have to keep figuring things out. and, you know, constantly evolving, you know, and moving forward. You know, as far as my eyesight, a lot of people ask, okay, what do you have, Joe's sight? My right eye, pretty much nothing. My left eye, I have artificial cornea, my left eye, and I have a little bit of vision. Basically, what I have is light perception.

I can see lights. I can see movement. And if there's a big color contrast between light and dark, I can make out some shapes. I can't see any detail at all. And on an eye chart, anything worse than 2,200 is legally blind. On the eye chart, I'm anywhere from 2,400 to 2,500, depending on the day. Now, having that artificial corny in my left eye, that's why I can see a little bit.

but what's limiting is my optic nerve and retina are still very damaged, but they are working on stem cell to help try to regenerate that. They're also working on bionic eye implants. They have nothing right now at the moment that will help me see any more than I can already see, but they feel pretty confident in five to ten years I could get quite a bit more sight back. So, you know, there's some hope in the future. if it doesn't happen, I'm still not going to just quit on life. You know, people ask me, you know, what's the hardest thing about being blind?

I would say losing your independence. I was a big type A personality before. You want something done right. You do it yourself, blah, blah, blah, you know. But being blind, you need help. You have to ask for help. I have to learn to trust people and ask for help, which I think. think was good for me. You know, I'd have to learn to slow down a little bit, not being such a

rush. Was being blind when you rush, you're going to run into things and you're going to get stitches, which happened a couple times. Also, another activity I forgot, which I did, it was on my bucket list when I was in Sun Valley, Idaho, getting hyperbaric oxygen train retreatments for helps with PTSD and stuff. I used to snow ski when I was young. Opportunity to go snow skiing. And I also snow ski three times blind. But it's kind of weird because blind, you don't want to lead with your head.

And skiing, you want to lean forward. So it's a little awkward feeling, to be honest with you. So, yeah, losing your independence. And then being in crowds at first, I was very uncomfortable. Being in law enforcement for how long as I was, you're always taught to be aware of your surroundings. Who looks shady, who doesn't.

where are the entrances, where are the exits, where can you take cover and or concealment? And I was a nervous wreck. The sounds seemed farther or closer than they were, but eventually I learned to trust the people that I was around. So I don't get as overwhelmed as I used to, but sometimes big crowds, I can only stay in so long. People ask me, do I ever get headaches?

No, I'm glad I don't with my headache. injury and stuff, but I don't get any headaches. So I'm just very fortunate with that. You know, like I said, I'm going to keep going through life and keep kicking butt, you know, and trying new and different things. And I tried a lot of things I used to do before I lost my sight and some things, new things and old things. And I tell people one of the things that I did growing up was we have a cottage on the lake and northern part of Michigan. We always had a boat and I grew up water skiing since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. In 2021, after I won my pro card, we went to our cottage up north and I decided, I'm going to try to water ski again.

So my dad's, we had like singles worked out. My sister was in the boat. My dad was in a boat. We had, you know, single hand signals and stuff I was going to do. So my dad's like, Joe, why don't you try to get up on two skis first? It's easier. and me being stubborn and hard. No, no, I ski on one ski.

I'm going to do one ski. I popped out of the water three times, and I just had a little problem with balance trying to get my rear foot in the rear boot, and I fell three times. And honestly, I got scared and didn't want to try anymore. But I tell people, just because you try something and you don't succeed at it,

you can't let that ruin all the positive other stuff you did. you know at least I can you know I can't look myself in here I can't see but if you I could have to say

look yourself in the mirror and know that I did I tried my best it didn't work but you can't let that ruin everything else so that's what I like to tell people

and you know life is short you know if there's things that in life that you haven't done that you would like to do do it before you die but you don't want to be in your

death bed saying would it coulda shoulda, this and that, you know, get out there and do it. Push yourself. Push your limits. The only way you get better is pushing yourself, you know, going up against better competition and whatever career you do or whatever, and that's how you grow, you know, and just don't quit, don't give up. You know, it's kind of cliche. Like the Marcus and Charles says, stay in the fight. You always want stay in the fight. Don't give up. Don't quit. Do you still think about the last thing you remember seeing before you got shot and lost your vision? Yes, that's a really good question. Yes,

then that nasty, dingy, bizarre, and laying in the ditch, and I see in the helicopter come in and kind of, and then getting up and running and shooting towards the direction, the insurgents were shot at. That's the, yeah, that's the, yeah, that's a, the last thing and I can remember seeing and it kind of sticks in my mind. So it's also kind of crazy that if I knew you before I lost my sight, that's why I think you still look. But that's not necessarily the case. I was messing with my fiance the other day and I said, good thing I don't have any gray hair, babe. She goes, your hair is all gray, Joe. I'm like, well, when I got shot in 2011, it wasn't.

And if I never saw anybody, if I didn't meet you before I was blind, I put an impression on my mind which I think you'd look like, but that's not always true. Sometimes it's very far from the truth, which you actually look like. What do you think I look like? I picture you as kind of like a chisel guy, maybe like John Cena. I'm not that. Thanks, though. I'm not about that. I'm dorky. I got glasses. 5-11 tattoos. No facial hair. I can't grow facial hair for shit. But no gray hairs yet. I got a couple. That's cool. Yeah. But Joe, I really appreciate you taking the time to come be with me today and be so vulnerable and open up about your story. It was my pleasure, and I really appreciate your folks have me on here. And,

I do do motivational speaking, and anybody listen. If you're interested in that, I have a speaking website. It's basically J-O-E, Georgia, and then P, my first initial, my last name, jo-p.us, and you can find information on me there and how to get a hold of me. And we'll put that link in the bio for everyone as well, so it's clickable and easy. Thank you.