Sense of Soul - Veterans Day Special- A Soldier’s Pain to Purpose

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

Our Veterans Day 2020 Special Episode is the most heart felt episode we have ever done! Very personal to us, especially Mande. Please note that this episode contains depictions of violence that some people may find disturbing. This episode was very emotional please listen with caution! Meet Command Sergeant Major Thomas Campbell, who shares the painful last moments of Ryan (Doc) Baum’s life, Mande’s younger brother who in 2007 had been killed in action in Karmah Iraq, May 18th, 11 days before his wife gave birth to his only daughter. Sgt Major Thomas Campbell shares how Ryan’s death and his many life experiences, and injuries have impacted his life. This Hero turned his pain into purpose and now shares his story to help others, to reach out and get help. Sgt Major Campbell’s message is one on hope and strength! We also spoke to Hubert Picard photographer and author who arrived in Karma in May of 2007 the same day, who went on to write a book about the 10 day hunt to find the man who took Ryan’s life.  Our Last years episode highlights Sgt Campbell as well and the video documentary about Ryan. Check that out below. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sense-of-soul-podcast/id1468725665?i=1000457513315 Sgt Major Campbell shares that its brave to ask for help! So BE brave and reach out!!  www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/help-yourself/veterans/ Also check out our website and latest online classes at www.mysenseofsoul.com Please Rate, Comment and Subscribe!

Please note, this episode contains depictions of violence that some people may find disturbing. Please listen with caution. Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. I was introduced to nature in a good bar. And suddenly you got a call.

His face became white. I looked at him. He disconnected the line. I said, is there any problem, sir? He said, yeah. They killed a guy in Karma. Karma is the place you will go tonight. That was the moment when he learned that your brother has been killed.

That was that moment. In 2007, Mandy and her family received the most devastating news that her younger brother, Sergeant Ryan Baum, combat medic, 27 years old, had been killed in action in Karmah, Iraq, May 18th, 11 days before his wife gave birth to his only daughter. Today we have with us Command Sergeant Major Thomas Campbell, who shares the painful last moments of Ryan's life and how that impacted his life and how he now shares his pain in hoping to help others. We also have joining us from France, Hubert Picard, photographer and author, who arrived in karma in May of 2007, that same day that Ryan was killed, who wrote a book about the 10-day hunt to find the man who took Ryan's life.

Today's episode is dedicated to all those who have served this country and for all those who made the ultimate sacrifice and lost their life so that we can have the life that we have today. Hi. Hey, how are you doing? How are you? Doing good. I really enjoyed watching your new hobbies. He got into comedy a few years back. I loved that. And he was doing some standup in local bars and restaurants, right? Yeah. And then I did a USO tour. I've done comedy all around the country. Also, Shanna, his other hobby has been building cars and doing drag racing. Yeah. Oh, I know. And so your wife has joined you in that hobby, correct? Yeah, she races too. You know, just for starters, if you could even just tell me, because I don't know what your

rank is and what all it has been and how you started with your journey in the Army. Well, I'm a command sergeant major and I'm heading up to Virginia to the Center for Initial Military Training. This is my last assignment. They told me I'm too old and I have to grow up and get out and do something else as an adult. So this will be my last assignment, and that'll put me at 32 years that I've been in the Army. I don't know, it started, I guess, back when I was little. I thought I was going to be a Marine because my grandpa was a Marine, and he was my hero growing up. He had muscular dystrophy. And so every month, he'd have to go to the VA hospital.

And when I was real little, man, it was a pain in the butt because they had these long wooden benches in this big room and I have to sit on these benches all day and be quiet and be still. And then grandpa would go behind the doors and go do his appointments and what have you. And it was an all day event and just a pain in the butt. And when I became a teenager, grandpa had gotten bad enough. a wheelchair, but I got to push him. We would go to whatever clinic and I'd park him and whoever was sitting next to him. It didn't matter what branch of service they were in or what their job was or what war they were in. But they would start talking like they had been best friends their entire life.

That camaraderie was something I wanted a piece of. So then when I got old enough to drive, I would volunteer to drive grandpa down to the VA hospital just because I wanted that experience that I got with all those veterans next to each other. But I realized though, when I got a little older, all those guys in there gave up a piece of their body, mind at least, to preserve our way of life as we know it today. Just felt that was me. I wanted to do what I could to preserve our way of life as we know it today. So I joined the Army while I was in high school. Mom had to sign a waiver for me because I wasn't 18 yet. I came in on the split-off program. The summer between my junior and senior year, I went to basic training, and then I finished my senior year, and then when I graduated two weeks to the date, I went and finished my AIT part of

basic. First day was in Fort Polk, Louisiana. Fort Polk was only an hour and a half from home for me. My platoon sergeant, Sergeant Gunn, big muscle guy, 26-inch biceps, just scary. He was from Louisiana, country as he could be, and had an old beat-up Ford truck with holes rusted through it. He put me in his truck one day and drove me out to the Central Confinement Facilities, the CCF, which we called the Charlie's Chicken Farm. And at that time in the Army, a commander could sentence you to basically hard labor without due process and put you in a chicken farm. It was like being in jail, but with hard labor attached to it. He drove me out there.

He said, boy, you don't straighten your little ass up, you're going to be behind that fence over there. And in my mind, I'm thinking, yeah, right. That's a big, tall fence with razor wire around the top and there's guys running around knowing jump seats that's jail and i know i haven't done anything illegal and out of my mouth i said roger sergeant it wasn't two weeks later i pull in the parking lot the first sergeant is just turning over the formation to the platoon sergeant now i come running up and jumping formation the platoon sergeant. And I come running up and jump in formation.

The platoon sergeant turns around, tells the squad leaders take charge of their squads. And then he grabbed me by the back of my PT uniform, picked me up off the ground, and walked with my feet dangling in the air, walked me into the commander's office, and sat me down in a chair. And so the commander gave me 14 days confinement to the CCF. Gunn was smiling from ear to ear. He picked me back up, carried me to my barracks room so I could get my toothbrush and hygiene stuff,

carried me out to his truck, put me in his truck, and drove me out there and laughed the whole way out there. Boy, I told you you was that little goat-smelling ass was going to be behind there and dropped me off that place straightened me up i will guarantee you out of 30 years of being in the army that was the toughest 14 days of it they rode us and played the reindeer games with us till i don't know two three o'clock in the morning whenever the night cadre got tired of screwing with us then we'd get some sleep then five o'clock in the morning we'd wake up and then we'd play reindeer games with the bear kids there wasn't any tile on the floors linoleum

so there wasn't any lines and every morning they'd bring these long ropes and stretch across the barracks and all the bunks that had to be in line all our little pillows and collars and boots and and if anything was out we'd have to take everything out of the barracks outside and all the bunks that had to be in line, all our little pillows and collars and boots. And if anything was out, we'd have to take everything out of the barracks outside. And then we'd have like 10 minutes, bring it all back inside, straighten it all back up. We'd play that three or four times. Then eat breakfast, then hard labor for the rest of the day

with a MRE, a little bag lunch, a very horrible lunch. And then we'd get a hot meal for dinner. And then it was reindeer games till they got tired of screwing with us. That sounds like a full metal jacket. Oh, it was worse. It was worse. I got out of the chicken farm. I go back to my unit and Sergeant Gunn tells me, he goes, boy, you ain't in second tune no more. You've been working for the first sergeant. What? So I go into the orderly room with First Sergeant Williams. He says, come here, boy.

Who also is another very large guy. Nobody talks to the first sergeant back then. I mean, the platoon sergeants, they're the only ones that talk to first sergeant. Private? No. So in my mind, I'm thinking, what the hell? I just did 14 days hard labor in the chicken farm. Now you're going to punish me and make me the first sergeant driver.

What the hell? My first task was I had to go armor all his freaking Humvee. And now I'm just, this is really going to suck. But First Sergeant Williams, though, is hands down the reason I'm a sergeant major right now. And because every time me and him were together, there was a life lesson involved in there. He had always talked to me about goals and about what makes a good man, not just a soldier, life in general. I mean, when you get old or pitfalls that you're falling. So it got to where I looked forward to every time I would have to drive him somewhere or me and First Sergeant Williams would go somewhere, I would look forward to it. And then he's a big hunter and fisherman. And so I would go, would sneak out at lunch and go find a fishing hole on Polk and just have a blast at it.

Years later, I bumped into him. I was a Sergeant Major at the time, and I was in uniform. I said, First Sergeant. And he said, I'll be dog. Who would have ever thought Campbell would be a freaking sergeant major? But I was able to thank him, though, for those lessons that he taught. He was just being a leader. Didn't realize the impact that he was having on young Tom Campbell's life with those little talks that he'd have.

That's always been in the back of my mind from then on. Whenever I deal with soldiers is careful what you say because you never know what that impact is gonna be. I love your stories. You say them with such passion with your soul. So thank you. I love that story. So I started doing the public speaking engagements and actually how that came about was Bo Irvine. He's a comedian in Hawaii and one of my comedian mentors. And he invited me onto his stage. and I just wrote a joke about my brain injuries and it was the first time I actually told that joke and Bo told he goes man that is a phenomenal

joke it's a long joke and it's got a bunch of bunch of punch lines in it but he's the one he goes you know what y'all you should do is you ought to tie public speaking into your comedy he goes man if you could share your story, that would be phenomenal. So I started it. But what came out of that, when I started doing the public speaking engagements, people would start coming to me that was having problems. And one thing that I learned, and this is one thing I share with everybody, in particular with suicide awareness, somebody might be thinking about going off the ledge, and you intervene. Once you intervene, you own that problem until it's not a problem for the other person, and what I found is one of the worst things, and one thing in the Army in particular that they talk about when they canned Army training is, I mean, you go get help, notify the chain of command, get them to the ER or a psychologist, whatever.

But then when you walk away is if you've gotten them to open up to you, they've probably opened up to you stuff that they've never told anybody else. And you've got their trust. And now you drop them off at another stranger and walk away. Holy crap, that's detrimental. And just an example, there's an NCO, senior NCO right now that I intervened with, like had to go to his house, had to drag him into the truck, drive him to the hospital.

That happened, I don't know, four or five weeks ago. But every day, I call him every day, I still talk to him because I still own that problem until he gets through it. And it's not a problem for him anymore. But it's been a lot of fun, though, going around and speaking. And it's therapy on my speaking part, too. Yeah. Holy crap, man.

It's really helped me out. Yeah. Just being able to talk. I feel the same way. And I love that. you know, sharing just really helps. It not only helps yourself, but it helps others. I totally agree with that. That's kind of how I feel about sharing my story about recovery. One of the psychiatrists that I talked to, she was good. She's the one that picked up on the TBI and got me checked and what have you.

Just did a therapy session with me where I had to, for my homework assignment, I had to go think of the most traumatic thing that I'd ever experienced and that was like an all-nighter task. Like, well, I don't know that one, I don't know this one, that one was probably, I don't know. So I finally picked one that was pretty traumatic. So I go in our next session and she has me tell her the story. So I tell her story. And the story was, I mean, it's pretty traumatic. An old friend of mine, he was not in my unit. He was in an adjacent unit, but his vehicle had got isolated and overran.

And they drug him and one of the other soldiers out of his truck. Then we had to go try to find him. And we found him. Found his body minus his head. Shit. I was with the group that found him when we found him i mean there was the dirt with colors which meant that his heart was still beating when his head was removed i told the psychiatrist story i mean there was parts of it that's just tough to get through i mean still, it's still a hard story to tell, but tell the story. And she says, all right, now tell me the story again,

but tell me more detail about the Humvee. What did it look like when they attacked? So I started to begin and told the whole story, told more detail. All right, now tell me the story again, but tell me more about this. So I tell the story again and tell it more detail. Okay, now tell me the story. So after telling, going through that story about 10 or 12 or however many times, I could tell it from start to end without breaking down.

Not that it made the story any less important or that situation, but I could talk about it. When you talk about it, there's a, it's almost like a relief valve that you open up. Yeah. One day I did one, two, three, four, six speaking engagements. Wore me slap out. There's a video that the Army had made, an interview, focused on Ryan. And so I kind of filled him in on the rest of the story with that. And kind of weird because there's six times of telling it to six different groups.

And I would choke up but at a different place interesting and that's the first time I've done it like back to back to back I mean normally I'll do it a month or whatever but that one kind of surprised me of uh I mean I'll try to get through it without choking up at all, don't get me wrong. It was kind of weird that all six times it was a different place in the story that I'd choke up or a different topic. It was in that same story that I'd choke up. Why? Why do you think that?

I really don't know. I don't know if it's just every time I tell a story, it would spark a memory. And then that memory is already in the head. And then I tell it again. And then something else, I think about something else, I guess, another memory would get sparked. It's the only thing I could guess. I think our minds and our bodies are so amazing that sometimes they'll just release different things and you'll feel it for the first time. Because if it was all released at once once we would be a super hot mess right

at the end of that day after telling that for six times straight almost like a different person well and by the way tom i have seen that video i had no problem crying every single time I watched it. Tom, for our listeners, can you tell them what TBI is? Yeah, it's a traumatic brain injury. When I got, I mean, I've had a few, not even just the Army, but definitely the Army. Didn't know a lot about brain injuries early on in the wars. And I think due to the wars, though, we have learned a lot about brain injuries got blown up bell got rung I still had all my limbs and no holes in me I thought I was good headache could go away and then I got my bell rung again and then got it rung again my last one though was

we were doing a patrol on the edge of a very steep ridge, and it was a bunch of slate rock, and the slate had gave out from under me. I fell and slid down and fell off a cliff, and a rock followed me over, smashed me on the head. I had my helmet on, thank God. Smashed my helmet, knocked me out. So that was towards the end of that deployment.

I had a bruise in my front left lobe, which is that's where the rock smashed me on the head. Within that, a little bit about the size of a 50 cent piece, dead tissue, just dead tissue. And so what the brain doctors say is the bruise probably from the rock smashing me on the head. And over time, the bruise will heal. The dead tissue is dead tissue. It will never heal. Some point in time, I had an aneurysm that never got tended to. And that's why I have the dead tissue.

What I learned, though, was a lot of people were up to this point where diagnosing me is just PTSD. I'm just an angry, distraught guy that hates everybody. But depending on what part of the brain is injured depends on what the symptoms are from it. There's not a set of symptoms for brain injury. It depends on because all the functions in the different parts of the brain. So where my brain was injured, it was my emotions, short-term memory, names, numbers, and places over I had, they screwed me up bad, so because I couldn't control my emotions, that was driving a

lot of PTSD, so a lot of early on, a lot of soldiers were diagnosed with PTSD, which was a misdiagnosed, which was actually probably some brain injury in there somewhere that never got treated. Wow. How many tours have you done? I did five. One in Iraq, four in Afghanistan. For our listeners, I just wanted to tell you guys that Tom is very special to me. If you listened to our episode last year, he was my brother's master sergeant in 2007. And I am forever grateful for him, for his love and friendship that he gave to my brother. And shortly after my brother was killed in Iraq in 2007, I was blessed to be able to go to El Paso to visit him. Just a really amazing experience and offered

me and my family a lot of healing. I don't know that I've ever been able to express the amount of healing that offered me and we've kept in touch, probably not as good as we should, but we do know that we are always there for one another and that we hold space in our hearts for one another. And so that's how I met Tom. You know, I think for our listeners, they'd love to know just how you met my brother. And, you know, maybe we can go from there. Yeah. So when I got selected for Master Sergeant,

they sent me over to Baker Company, 3519, to be the first sergeant over there. So when I show up to the company, Doc Bohn, he was the company medic. And so there's a company senior medic, and then each platoon, rifle platoon, has a medic as well for a total of four medics in the company. Doc, he was being the senior medic. And we were just standing the brigade up, the airborne brigade up in Alaska. And literally 12 months exactly to the day from unrolling the flag, we go into Iraq. And so in those 12 months between unrolling the flag and going to Iraq was all train up, trying to get to Iraq. So a very young organization with very young group of men headed into Iraq. Baum was an exceptional NCO.

And in fact, when he got killed, his death impacted the entire brigade. And there were six battalions within that brigade. It's just his professionalism, his personality. It was just a phenomenal guy. Being he was a senior medic, the company medic is always hand in hand with the first sergeant. So whenever we do, if we do company missions, whatever, the casualty collection point,

the first sergeant is in charge of establishing the casualty collection points, prisoner of the EPW, the prisoner of war collection points, and what are detainee collection points, as we call them now. So the medic out of the resident CEOs in the company, the senior medic, is probably the one that's going to be closest to the first sergeant. We went into Karma, Iraq. And Karma was a very unique place. We had a fighter way in. We had to take back an IP station. Al Qaeda had overran and then we had to build a defense and then we had to fight Al Qaeda and then try to take back the town of Carmel. And while we were in the city, we averaged five to seven firefights a day,

seven days a week. I mean, just that in itself puts a toll on you like you won't believe. I mean, eight months of being in Carmel, we had all aged probably 10 years physically. A unique part of Karma, though, was even though I was the first sergeant, I was the senior sniper in the brigade. And normally a first sergeant wouldn't do sniper business, but just the situation that we were in there, it allowed it to happen. And so I did a quite a few sniper missions, I guess you could call them, or tasks there in Karma. And so Doc Bomb ended up my spotter.

I would say the best damn spotter that I've ever had. But what that did, though, was that put me and Ryan together all the time. And not only together all the time, but hours on top of hours of sitting in hidesides, watching. And also he was the truck commander for my truck. If the truck fired up, me and Bob were in there, along with Fingers and Bach.

Fingers was the driver and Bach was the gunner. If we were out of the truck, it was me and Baum were in there, along with Fingers and Bach. Fingers was the driver and Bach was the gunner. If we were out of the truck, it was me and Doc, side by side. Of course, he always was on my left side for two reasons. One, I'm deaf in my right ear. And the other reason is, if we moved into a position to shoot, the spotter is always on the left. There was nothing that he did not know about me. And I'm going to guess that there probably wasn't much that I didn't know about him. And we spent hours talking about family, about hobbies, about, you name it, by God, we talked about it.

And then he found out that his wife's pregnant. That brought on a whole another slew of questions on raising children. Then found out it was going to be a girl. I had two girls. He was nervous as everything about raising a girl. You got a sister. I mean, how did she turn out? I mean, you raise them like you do anybody else. Well, shit, if you compared him to me, he was probably terrified. We just I mean, not just first sergeant sergeant, but we had become very close friends. I mean, if he was

still around today, I guarantee you, we would still be friends like brothers right now. Yeah. Hey, can you hold on for a quick second? All right. Hold on. Hey, Tom. Yeah. I want you to meet somebody that I picked up from the airport yesterday. Come here. This is my dad. Hey. So that's the daughter I wanted to know about. Man, you have grown so much. Yeah.

The last time I saw you, you was probably about a foot and a half long. Yeah, I was tall. So just so you know, Leia is an adrenaline junkie. She loves jumping off towers and bungee jumping. And she's feisty. She's smart. And she reminds me so much of Ryan. Yeah.

Good deal. It's so good to see you. It's so good to see you too. You know, I know you carry a piece of her dad's heart. Yes, I do. And this is to Leah. I don't know if you've seen it or not. I wrote a letter to you. It was before you

were born. But over the years, though, I stayed in contact with your mom as well. And I watched you grow and I apologize it's emotional for me just to see you I warned her I'm so proud of you and I know your dad would be proud of you or he is proud of you as well. Yeah.

This is awesome. Yeah. Yeah, he's been so blessed because she has another father figure in her life. He's been so wonderful at raising her. And, you know, Tom was in the Army as well. 11 years been so wonderful at raising her. And you know, he was Tom was in the army as well. Yeah. I know how much he honors that. And he loves and respects that Amber and Leah on my brother all the time and make sure and includes Ryan in their household and in their memories. And I've never met him, and I hope to.

I love that. I think Ryan would be very grateful for that. Yeah. Good deal. Yeah. I know Amber went through a hard time, understandably. I'm really glad that she was able to find somebody. Yeah.

And they raised this little booger. Yeah. That's awesome. Man, y'all are fucking killing me. Well, you know, when we planned this interview, I didn't know she was going to be here. And I was like, I can't. I mean, it's just always perfect timing that day I mean every minute that day is etched in my mind what happened was we had just moved the company headquarters over

to OP3 from the Iraqi police station and we kept kept getting harassed. They'd shoot at us, and we couldn't see where they were shooting at us from. So one day they harassed us. And so I'm like, you know, by God, we're going to go find where these guys are shooting from. And next time they do this, we're going to just level it wherever they're shooting from. Sergeant Persley's squad, he's going to get his squad together, and we're going to go out there. So I'm in the top, and Persley comes in there and goes, hey, first of all, we're ready. We've got everybody out there ready to go.

And I go out there and Doc Baum's out there with his kid on. What the fuck you doing? He goes, we're going on patrol. I said, no, dude, you're going on leave tonight. Dude, go pack your shit and get ready. He goes, I already got my stuff packed. I said, said well then just go relax man i mean you're leaving you're going to leave tonight and the reason that he was going

on leave at that time was because beautiful leia was going to be born while he was on leave he said something to me that it echoes he said first on it when have you said, first of all, when have you ever gone out of the wire without me? He goes, I don't leave until after dark. And I said, all right, let's go. We go around and we're talking to people. They can't tip their hand because then I'll kind of come attack them.

So I didn't see anything, haven't heard anything. We stopped at a mechanic shop. I was talking to the mechanics and Ryan had took a knee at the corner of this little wall and was facing up the street. I was talking to the mechanics and Sergeant Varner's team was the lead team and they had pulled, they got behind this wall back point facing back towards op varner called on the radio say hey there's piles of brass up here i think that's where they're shooting from probably every bit of 25 yards so i go over to varner and i squatted down so i and i wanted to see what they are seeing when they look at op3. So when I go back to OP3, I can direct fires back to that place. When I squat down, one shot rang out.

And the dirt between my feet, underneath my butt, kicked up. So the bullet had hit the ground right underneath my ass so we all get behind cover as a sniper now I had been chasing this guy there was three snipers that was brought in the car to get to try to get rid of me and it's almost like getting me at the gate stuff two of my killed relatively they weren't snipers they they were just marksmen. Louie, though, was good. He was a freaking sniper. They brought him in from Syria to try to get rid of what they called,

Al-Qaeda called the Karmic Sniper. We're trying to figure out where that shot came from, and then somebody calls over the radio that Doc's down. Now, there's another medic out there, Doc Shohan, second team medic was out there with us. In my mind, I had my mind pictured Doc Shohan being shot. So I look over to my left to get Ryan and Varner sitting there. I'm like, where the fuck's Doc at?

He goes, well, he didn't come up here with you. I make my way back to the mechanic shop and that's when I see Ryan laying on the ground. We drag him behind that wall and Doc Shohan shows up about the same time and we start trying to get a medevac out. We handed Rhino to the medevac, and then he ended up dying en route to Fallujah. the survivor guilt that I had with this was one, why in the hell did I give in to him?

He was not supposed to have been out there. He talked me into letting go out there. Why the hell didn't I just stick to my damn guns and make him stay back? The other part is, I am pretty sure Louie knew who the hell I was. And we've been chasing each other around in this godforsaken village. I think Louie made a common mistake that snipers make. It's what they call burning through to the target.

You get so fixated on the target that when you're looking through the scope, obstacles in between, you won't even notice them in the target. You get so fixated on the target that when you're looking through the scope, obstacles in between, you won't even notice them in the scope. And I think Lou A was focused on me and had burned through Ryan who just happened to be in the way of that stupid bullet. And so when the bullet hit Ryan, I think it deflected. And it's why it hit low underneath me instead of hitting me. So that is hard to live with. But then you add to it, he's going on leave because his first child is being born. My kids were old enough to have lifelong memories of their dad.

Leah would never know her dad. I was long in the tooth as far as the Army career, and my goal in the Army was to be an Airborne First Sergeant, and I was long in the tooth as far as the Army career, and my goal in the Army was to be an airborne first sergeant, and I was one. Everything after that was free chicken. I had already met my goals in my career, where Ryan had a very promising career ahead of him. Definitely a future Sergeant Major. I mean he was still young and so what drove me over the age was just the thought of why the hell

was it him and not me? That haunted me to no end. And it still haunts me now, don't get me wrong. I know I've told you this before, but I don't know if it resonated. But I know my brother wouldn't have wanted it any other way. He would have said, I'll take a bullet for him. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put you through. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just grateful that you were able to share that story.

I know it's hard for you to get through. And I'm just sorry that you had to carry that. And I'm so grateful that that day that you were on that ledge considering taking your own life that your angel was there to to call and um that you've gotten help you know because yeah i i think a lot of people and especially men in the military and correct me if i'm wrong struggle with asking for help over the years there was a stigma about getting mental health. It was a sign of weakness. When I grew up, I mean, people went to mental health and that they were trying to get out of something. And that stigma is still there. And we've made tremendous leeway

in trying to get rid of that stigma. But it did. I mean, it took me all the way to the edge of I just didn't want to live anymore to get to that point. And at that time, I mean, it took me all the way to the edge of, I just didn't want to live anymore to get to that point. And at that time, I mean, I was, I hated everybody. I hated the world. I hated myself. I hated everything. I hated life. They medicated me, which is another thing that I was adamant not to do.

And I still do, even now. I hate taking medicine. But what I found out, though, was life's not to do it, and I still do, even now. I hate taking medicine. But what I found out, though, was life's not that bad, and life's actually pretty good. On that same note, sitting on the side of that mountain was a life-changing event for me. If you get that feeling that you need to check on somebody, don't pass it up, because had Teresa not called me

probably wouldn't be here right now I mean you know you get that feeling where somebody just starts weighing on you and when I get that feeling now I make it a point to reach out just say hi yeah if nothing else yeah but don't pass that opportunity up because you never know that intuition. Yeah. You know, unfortunately, the suicide rate for soldiers is really high. And a lot of soldiers also get addicted to things to help numb them out. What advice would you give to these veterans or to these people that are in that sort of pain? The best advice that I can give is get help. Don't try to swallow this by yourself.

I was at the point too, I mean, when I was having my bad headaches all the time before I knew why I was getting headaches and now I've got a medicine to help me with my headaches. I would, I had started self-medicating out of a bottle. What I found out is nothing good comes out of a bottle except for nitrous. If you put it in your race car, don't, don't have it. All you're doing is suppressing it. It's going to make it worse because now on top of whatever that issue is that's driving you to that point is now add on top of that. You just now added the substance addiction on top of that. Getting help isn't easy at all. The hardest part of getting help is walking through the freaking door.

I think someone of your position also, you probably felt like you really had to hold it together to set an example for, you know, men under you. So you probably had that. But now you have set the most important example ever. And that is that someone in your position, that it is OK to ask for help. When I do the public speaking engagement, I always start off before I show in a video, before I do anything. First thing I do, I always have a board up there I can write on. And I ask them two questions and we make a list. First one is signs of suicide, isolation. And then we make another list of why not to get help. What's the repercussions of getting help or seeking help and losing security clearance? Job performance expectation. I mean, those are kind of the common things that come up. Being looked at differently by your peers. So I'll make these lists and then I'll put the list away

and then I'll go through my spiel. When we get done with my story of suicide, I'll bring the list back out and we go through that list that we made and we debunk a lot of it on there. But then the next part of my talk is what do you do if you're the intervener? I'll talk about that. And I've got some stories of some of the interventions that I've done with guys. And then I'll bring the list back out again and we'll go through those. But what happened though is, I mean, I see mental health right now. I've been in mental health.

I did inpatient treatment, medications. Guess what? I have a top secret security clearance and it's been renewed twice since I started going through this ordeal. I'm still in the army. I mean, I'm going to retire at the maximum time that I can be in the army. I mean, I'm going to retire at the maximum time

that I can be in the Army, and they still deployed me again after all this crap. My peers, I mean, I just had lunch with the other Sergeant Majors yesterday, and they gave me this really phenomenal gift, going away gift. My peers always look up to me, not that I'm tooting my horn, they look up to me as, I'm the guy that will tell it like it is. I'm the guy that will give the shirt off my back to help them out. And they know that no matter what problem they're trying to solve, they can come to me and I'll bend over backwards to help them solve it. So my opinion of my peers probably is stronger now that I've come out of the closet saying, hey, I'm getting help. I'm seeing a psychiatrist because I can't do this by myself.

My brain's too screwed up. But let's say I didn't get help. Let's say I wasn't successful with suicide, but I never got help, and I was still just hanging around. Would all that have been true? Probably not because I almost got kicked out. The first person to ever get kicked out of some major academy for other than academics would have been me, and I was right on the verge.

I doubt I would be in the Army right now. Probably wouldn't. If I was alive right now, I'd probably be in jail somewhere, and I would probably be addicted to everything you could think of, still trying to subdue the pain that I had inside. So that's a long way to say the best advice is even though it's hard as hell, I could get help. Reach out to somebody and share your story. You are seriously, you're such an inspiration. You offer so much hope to people. And, you know, my brother's death was one of the God knows how many horrific things that your eyes can never unsee. I'm just so grateful that, you know, you were given this chance to offer this hope to people and let them know that there's nothing that you cannot overcome. You know, you truly, there's just so much hope, not only in your story, but in your voice. You're right.

I mean, it's, I mean, just like, I mean, back to the, I mean, with Ryan. I mean, Ryan probably hit the hardest out of all the guys that I've lost between Iraq and Afghanistan. Ryan hit the hardest just because we were so close to each other. Not that he was any more or less important than any of the other soldiers. Yeah. But the stuff that we have experienced, and not just Army, and I'm just talking in life, traumatic experiences that we experience in life, they're part of us. You can't go undo time, and you can't go back in time and undo it. It's part of us. People say, I mean, I would just get over it. You don't get over it. It's part of it. It's part of

your life. Either you can let it destroy you. If you don't have the coping skills in hand, go get some help, find somebody that does have the skills. And there's no shame at all in getting help. There's probably shame at all in getting help. There's probably more shame in not getting help than there is in reaching out and getting help. Yeah. You know, I also love watching you with these new hobbies too, because in my own sobriety and recovery from my own pain,

I also realized that finding things that fill your soul and surrounding yourself with people that love you with no conditions are very important part of recovery as well. You're exactly right. Teresa is just a godsend for me. I mean, I love to fish and she loves to fish. This is my record bass, 15.2 pounds. That's awesome. And Teresa was out there with me when I caught it. That's a nice piece of bass. Yeah. So you had told me about your love for the people in Iraq. You used to actually spend a lot of time with these people. You even enjoyed at one time you would dress like them. And at one point you even said something to me about you wanted to go back and spend more

time and that you missed them. I think that's a really intriguing and beautiful piece of your story. Can you talk about that for a minute? Yeah. So that was Afghanistan when I was with the Afghan border police. For a year, I lived with Afghans. I ate with them, slept with them. Whenever we have functions, parties like Sattar, I mean, he's one of my best Afghan friends.

He's a sergeant major over there now with the Afghan border police. When his twins were born, he had a party. And so I go and we're dressed up. And that's why I've got a picture of me and Sattar together. And we look like brothers. If my dad ever had an affair with an Afghan woman it was Sator's mama. But we do the patrols out there in the mountains of Paktika and the little small villages out there and that was one thing that I had noticed was the people in Afghanistan are the most hospitable people I've ever met in my life. To include in the United States. Afghanistan is the most hospitable people I've ever met in my life. Two, including the United States. Afghanistan is the most hospitable country in the world.

And now outside of the government, the government's corrupt, but the common Afghan that lives up in the mountains, his family has farmed that little piece of land for the last 5,000 years, will give you the shirt off his back without even thinking about it. It's just the nicest damn people I've ever met in my freaking life. And very ingenuitive too. Oh my God. You blessed me with a copy of a lot of your emails that you had sent home that were almost

day by day, what you were going through over there. They show like the bigger picture of the emotional rollercoaster it's like to be there. And it's raw and it's not filtered and there's parts that were hard and their parts were so beautiful and one of them that stuck out to me was about this little girl can you talk about that yeah so this is probably get emotional and ryan was out there with this was in in iraq it was the night time and we were going house to house and getting information kind of like doing a kind of like a census i guess be the easiest way to explain it the guys were in the house they were doing their thing and asking questions getting

fingerprints and all that stuff and i had taken a knee at the gate facing the road and this little girl maybe five years old she'd walked up to me so i'm talking to her and she wanted to look through my night vision goggles i gave them to her she thought that was pretty cool and wanted to play with this gadget wanted in this gadget what have you and i had a little piece of candy i gave her a piece of candy out of my pouch and she walked off and she came back with uh there's a stuffed animal now right now i can't say it's like a monkey and she held back with a stuffed animal. Right now, I can't tell you. It's like a monkey. And she held it up to me. And I said, no, I can't take your monkey.

I mean, that's yours. You keep it. I thank you. Thank you, though. So she walked off. She came back with a doll. And she tried to give me her doll. I said, no, no, no.

Your doll needs you. I mean, you're the doll's mommy. She needs you. So she walked off. She came back with nothing. And I was squatting down and she squatted she's this so she squatted down next to me and she put her hand on my leg and just sat there

with her hand on my leg and just squatted down next to me for about two hours. Just sat there next to me. She was about the same age as my youngest daughter was at the time. And there was just the most calm feeling that came across me that I cannot explain. I don't know what it was. Thinking of my daughter or what it was. And she sat there for about two hours. Wow. A very volatile time there in Carver.

The poor girl, I mean, hears gunshots most every night. I really don't know how to explain it, but that's another one of those weird moments that is etched in my mind that will always stay there. And I can picture the little girl right now. I think that's why I loved the story because you would think that what's etched in your mind is all these horrible things you've seen. I mean, you've seen people's heads blown off. You've seen fingers gone. You've seen people die in front of you. And I loved that you added that into your email. And it was just this beautiful story about a soldier out at night and this little, like, almost like angel just coming over and bringing you this peace and calmness to remind you

the life can still be very beautiful in the storm. And you're right. I mean, that's exactly what it was like. I mean, it's like a little angel just come up, squatted down next to me and put her hand on my leg, kind of like saying everything's going to be okay. Yeah. You shared this paper that you wrote with me.

It was very touching. I still have it. It was about how after you went on a 10-day revenge to find the person that killed my brother, you had felt like you had carried a little bit of guilt about putting other people's lives in harm to heal yourself and to get this revenge. Do you still hold on to that? Or have you found a place of peace knowing that during those 10 days you did what you felt needed to be done? I let my personal vendetta get in the way of being able to, I guess, logical thinking, I guess I could say.

I wanted Louis so freaking bad. I wanted him already. But now that he got the drop on me first and took what I call my right hand located on the left side of my body away from me, I was so freaking angry and I wanted Lewis so freaking bad. Every night I was grabbing a squad and we'd go out and we're trying to find this guy. And the one leg bastard was one of my informants. We called it, he had one leg and he used to bring information for whatever reason he liked me. And Al Qaeda had killed his wife and his son.

And so he hated Al Qaeda. And so he was helping us by being an informant. When Ryan got killed, the one-legged bastard had come up and said, hey, I heard that one of your soldiers got killed. Where the hell did you hear that? Well, that's the rumor in town. He goes, I might know who killed him. I said, really?

I had to get a picture of the guy. I also found out from a shake that this guy had moved into this house with his family. And so me and Pursley jumped over the fence. And this is an example of how much the vendetta got in the way. Every night I'm putting lives at risk. And we're doing hasty patrols. They're not well planned out. They're not, I mean, it's just, let's go.

Had I lost anybody else, it probably would have made this even freaking worse. In the summertime, they all sleep outside. There's, I don't know, six or seven males, men, sleeping outside. And we're walking around trying to look, trying to find somebody that fits the description of Louie. We found a guy, and I still really don't know if it was him or not. This is going to sound horrible, but I wanted to cut his throat. But if I did, though, and those other guys would have woke up, me and Percy sitting there by ourselves.

We knew he drove a black Corolla. The car was under a cover. Picked the cover up. Sure enough, it's a black Toyota Corolla. So we're going to come back to this house and uh so we do a batson hives mission kind of what i was talking about with their little census and we go through every house in the entire neighborhood to include louis i got a picture of louis i mean and in the picture his sons are sitting on my lap this is going to sound probably kind of cold and louis is leaning into the picture with this look on his face like oh my god i don't want to take this picture but i can't say nothing i don't want to tip the hand and i told i say let's take a picture i'm trying to be all fun and dancy and what have you even though i want to punch it right in his freaking throat and so i take that picture and show it to the one leg bastard and

he confirmed yeah that's the guy that killed your guy. So that's when, then we did the mission. And then we went and got Louie a few nights later. Hindsight is I should have used tactical patience and planned this thing out. Instead of just blindly going out and putting more lives at risk to cure a vendetta, a personal vendetta that I had with one guy. Yeah, it was strong. Well, and I thought it was even stronger that you were able to see that later on and that you took that accountability and that you were like, well, you know, because there's a lot to be said, you know, between responding and reacting. And your paper just really touched me, that accountability that you held for yourself in those decisions. But it's also extremely understandable how our emotions can get a hold of us.

It is. I guess you can call it tactical patience. I mean, not just dealing with tactics. I mean, life. Yeah. It is. I mean, and that's, I guess you can call it tactical patience. I mean, not just dealing with tactics. I mean, life. Yeah. It is. I mean, rash decisions, very seldom do they turn out well. Normally they turn out horrible. Yeah. That's some really good advice. Rash decisions really hardly ever turn out well.

It's not a fact. I have a question for you, and it's a hard one. War is not a pretty thing. No. You know, there's a lot of kids that lose fathers. There's a lot of people that lose their mothers. There's, you know, it's just, it's an ugly thing. Your emails touched me. You showed and talked about some beauty in it, too.

That these are beautiful humans over there as well. I truly believe that we're all connected, that we're all children of the same source, same God. It's just, it's an ugly thing. And unfortunately here on earth, it's just, sometimes it's, it's what needs to be done. How do you handle that piece of it? You know, knowing that there's other lives lost that you've had to unfortunately be part of that. Where does healing come for you when it comes to that? That's a real tough one. And it's something that I've actually asked myself quite a bit.

I mean, actually, that's one of the things that's kind of pushed me to the edge too and I'll say this is and please especially for people that's listening in please don't take this the wrong way young guys coming into the army and then the young guys we had out there and not just Iraq Afghanistan as well the young soldiers that had just got out of airborne school or just got out of basic training and showed up to the unit had a really difficult time with that. And I would say out of an infantry rifle company, we had 149 people in the company. I would say probably about 12 of that 149 people could shoot another man and keep moving without having it affecting them a lot. That was one type, what I call the three types of killers. Then I had the second type of killers, the number two that would do it once and would never, it just screws their mind up and they will never do it again. And then the third class was the group will never shoot another human being, regardless of the threat. And so we get a firefight and people shoot at us.

They will shoot trees, cars, buildings, ground. They will make noise with their rifle, and they can shoot expert at the range, but they will not bring themselves to shoot another human being. I was getting frustrated because when we'd get an attack, we would shoot 15,000 rounds of various types of ammunition and would have no bodies to account for. I thought, what the heck's going on? Why, how are we shooting all these bullets at two guys and they run off? What I figured out though, the older guys that have been in the army for a

while, such as myself, I think over the years, I won't say we're brainwashed, but it just, we have been accustomed to, that's our job. Kill the enemy before they kill you. The targets on our ranges are shaped like silhouettes for a reason. It's to try to attempt to desynthesize the effects of having to shoot another human being. But I can still remember vividly the first person that I killed. And he was trying to kill us. I can remember exactly what he was wearing, what he looked like.

I can remember this situation. I can remember everything about the first person that I killed. But the 20th person, I couldn't even tell you who the hell the 20th person was. Or the 21st, or after that. My dilemma was, man, are you some kind of barbaric son of a bitch? But reality is there's a difference between murder, fighting for your life. And I would never go out and just murder somebody.

I just respect so much that I feel like we're close enough that we even have this space that I could ask that question and that you're willing to answer it with just being so genuine because it was, it's a tough one. And you know, part of me was like, I don't know if I want to ask him this, but I just also know that you're so you're such an open book. So thank you for sharing that because I just think it gives a real perspective from someone who has been through this and it helps people to understand what this looks like for people. And you know what I thought about my grandfather, I thought about my uncle, I thought about, you know, people I know, who have had that same experience. And I thought about how have they had this space and opportunity to share

that and share their emotions or did they keep it within them forever and how painful that would be for people as well i've thought the exact same thing i mean between my grandfathers, my dad, but just that era of people, Vietnam and earlier. Nobody want to talk about this. And those guys really didn't have any vents or help. I mean, and they had a much tougher time than what we experienced between in the global war on terror. And that's one thing that always kept me going was whenever I thought life just sucks and can't get no worse. And I don't know if I can keep going. In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, you know, grandpa had a hell of a lot harder time in Korea. And my other grandpa had a hell of a lot harder time in World War II than what I'm experiencing. And when he was freezing up in Poland, this ain't near as bad as what he experienced. but you're right those folks had to take that stuff to the grave

with them i mean i'm glad that as a society we're more tolerant now yeah i mean like in the vietnam war a lot of them were drafted too had never even held a weapon before and they go and they do their best and they come home to people hating at them and protesting against them which was a whole nother mental you know thing I can tell for you even though for sure there's so many stories and you're you said they're still part of you but you're able to share them which you can tell how much healing is within that. You're right. I mean, before I started talking about it, I mean, everything was just a big lump. Right. If you hold on to this sort of pain and you don't get help, not only will it cause you

to maybe have to get confronted with some addictions, suicidal thoughts, ruin relationships, but also it can create illness in your body. Like you have got to find a way to release this or who knows what you're creating with that pain and resentment and whatever the emotions are in there inside of yourself. I'm very close with some firemen and, and it's interesting because they go through a lot of the same thing on a totally different level, but they're just kind of desensitized by death and desensitized a little bit. They're just doing their job. They carry a lot of this around and they, they don't get a lot of help. And a lot of firemen become alcoholics after they retire and they all have a lot of pain and they carry it around in

their joints and arthritis and fibromyalgia. And if there's one thing that comes out of this episode today is that I love what we originally talked about. And that is the asking for help is not weak, it's brave. You're also offering someone else an opportunity to be of service to you, which is you're gifting them that to help you. And then on top of that, that we are in a society where now we can speak about it and talk openly about it. And so there's people there for you out there. Our firefighters and EMS, the experiences that they face daily. Daily, yeah. Is horrendous. For our first responders, by God, there's nothing wrong with going and getting help.

And thank God for what they do every day to preserve our way of life as we know it today the same reason i joined the army those guys and gals are out there every day facing them you've seen a lot of other places in the world what would you say to people out there about the united states of america and our country compared to places you've been you know the civil unrest within our country right now is too unfortunate, partly because of my experiences in other countries. My thought in it is, I mean, we are light years ahead of where we came from. Are we done with our? No, we're not.

We still got a long ways to go. And I've had a lot of discussions recently with the brigade that I just left as Sergeant Major and talking with some of the soldiers. And some of it was really, I mean, their thoughts on there. Some of the stories that they told me, some of them just makes you scratch your head. And I'll share this one with one of the African American soldiers, NCOs. He told me, he goes, hey, Sergeant Major. He goes, you know what? And he pointed, he was out in the parking lot talking.

He pointed at his car. He said, you know why that uniform's hanging in the backseat of my car? And my thought was, well, yeah, so when you get out of PT clothes, you don't have to go all the way home to get your uniform. You just go run into the shower and you change clothes and he said no this uniform in my bag is for that that uniform never leaves my car i said really why he said so when i get pulled over they know immediately that i'm not a thug that i'm a soldier me because of the color that I was born, would never have thought that.

When he told me that, it just blew my mind. I will tell you this. If you've never seen outside of the United States, then I can fully understand right now how you can feel that the country's divided, which I guess it is, and the civil unrest makes you unhappy. But if you have ever experienced, and take your pick country outside of the United States, then you will understand just what freedom is. Even in the middle of our civil unrest that we're facing right now, I still count my blessings every day that I wake up in this country,

that I'm a citizen of this country. Do we still have a lot of work to go? We do. And I think we're getting there. It really breaks my heart, though, that I really am glad that I was raised by a mother that thought that people are people and people should be treated as a person regardless of what color they are, their religion, their ethical background, geographical location. It doesn't matter. A good person by God is a good person and a bad person by God is a bad person. I'm so grateful that you got to see and know the side of my brother that I unfortunately never got to know because he changed a lot. I'm grateful that you were able to share stories with me, stories that I would have never have

known. So I feel so lucky to have you in my life because you let me in to a space that I didn't know my brother in. And it sounds like he was really fucking amazing at what he did. He was. You know, just a couple weeks ago, I went down to Florida and see an old friend. He was actually our battalion sergeant major when me and Ron were together. Drew put him around.

Me and Drew was talking about Ron. And Drew shared something with me that he had never shared with me before. And we've stayed in contact. And when we were in Kentucky, he had just retired from Fort Knox, but still lived in the area. And we've seen each other quite a bit. But he shared something with me he had never shared before. He said when Ryan got killed, he was in his office. His driver came in and said, hey, Sergeant Baum, Baker Company, has passed away.

And Drew, he said, I appreciate it. When the guy exited and the door shut, Drew said he broke down like a baby. For a sergeant, an E-5 sergeant, to have an impact on the battalion command sergeant major. I mean, that whole night, his wife thought we probably lost our mind. Two grown men sitting across the table from each other, bawling like a baby. There are guys that are alive right now. And the only reason they're alive is because of Ryan Baum. And so Ryan is sewn into a lot of people around the country.

142 people at least, but it's even more than that. Around the country that has Ryan Baum in them right now. That's kind of expressed the impact that he had. I mean, and he was, I mean, not just a good friend, just a tremendous person. I count myself lucky that I was friend, just a tremendous person. I count myself lucky that I was able to get to know him, lucky enough to have him as my company medic and my spotter. Wow, that got me. I mean, I guess I just never thought of it that way.

I mean, I'll tell you a quick funny story. Louis shot Levy, shot him through the leg, and the bullet severed the artery on the inside of your leg. So they bring Levy into Ryan's aid station. What do you need me to do? And Ryan said, first of all, just keep him awake. So I'm up there slapping him and keeping him awake. And Ryan ended up had to go up in his leg to get that artery to pull it because

it had retracted up into his leg to pull that artery out to be able to clamp it to stop the bleeding and so i'm standing over labey and i'm asking him questions i asked you what's your name my name is is labey all right where you at i mean all right who's your first sergeant oh oh crap it's a that that asshole i said that's right he's a fucking asshole that's right when ryan gets done doctoring him up i guess the bleeding stopped and everything we take him out we put him in the back of a of a humvee to get him to fallujah and uh so when we get him out there, I told Levy, I said, Levy, you got to keep your ass awake, man. Don't fucking go to sleep.

And Levy, I mean, of course, Ryan has already got him hopped up on morphine and everything else. So Levy's out of it. And Levy said, hey, you know, you're a really cool guy. I really like you. And people I think is cool, I like to call them by your first name. Can I call you by your first name? I said, dude, you can call me by whatever fucking name you want to.

Just don't go to fucking sleep. He said, all right, first, you're the best, man. That's right. My name is First Sergeant, God damn it. I love it oh but levy is one of those guys that the only reason he's alive right now is because of ryan bone and if it hadn't been for ryan levy would have bled out i just adore you i love you thank you for being so open and keep doing what you're doing because you are starting a trend to help other soldiers and firefighters and police officers

and anybody. You don't even have to be any of those. Anybody to have the strength to stand up and speak their story and speak their mind. And you should just be so damn proud of yourself. Yeah, I really appreciate that. I really do. The thought that I've got, I mean, the reason why I've been open about it is I've experienced a lot of horrible things. If I didn't share any of it or use it as teaching tools, then it's just horrible things. Nothing good come out of it. I mean, those saying are trying to make lemonade out of lemons. Right. If I kept it all in myself, one, it's just too much to keep in. But if I saved one person from going over the ledge, it's worth it. We did have the pleasure of speaking with Hubert Picard yesterday. He came in shortly after my brother had died and you and him built a friendship. And again,

he had so much amazing things to say about you. Have you read his book? I know it's in French. I have. If I get it translated, I'll share it with you. Please do. How does he play into your life today and the impact he had on you? I mean, he's a freelance photographer and writer. He got embedded into our unit that night. I mean, literally, we had just flown Ryan out, and we had just got back into the OP3. I'm taking my gear off, and a helicopter lands. Who the fuck is this? They come in. Hey, first of all, there's a journalist out here that's getting embedded with us. But one of the big news stations, I don't want to name them. I just got burned by them.

They did an interview with me. When they got back to the States, they cut pieces of that interview out and put them together. Had me saying stuff completely opposite of what I actually said. Had to go stand in front of a Marine general officer and explain why I was saying that crap. Luckily, one of the guys had a camcorder and he recorded the video. They thought it was cool. First, I was getting the interview. And I had to go back, get that and take it back to show the CG that, no, this is what I really said. Those fuckers fucked me. So I just got burned by them. So they said, yeah, some guy i said what a frenchman

that son of a bitch does not leave the wire until he gets bored enough to leave get back on a helicopter and go back wherever the fuck he came so every time platoon uh platoon to roll out hubert would try to hit your ride with him and they're like hey first officer said you can't go with us and they'd take off i was eating dinner one night. I was sitting at a little table and eating and Hubert got his plate and sat down across from me. And we just started talking. Ended up, this guy's a pretty cool

guy. And hates France. And hates. But loves America. Loves American soldiers. And one night was about 2300. I was sleeping. Tom came to me, woke me up. I said, we go on the field. You want to come? Yeah, okay. He said, don't take your cameras with you. Oh, no problem. I said, no, no, no, no. Wherever you want to go, I go. I don't care. I don't go

for the camera. They go for the experience. And I was with them. I said, you know what? I said, I'll make a deal with you. When I go out tonight, you can go out with me. You go out at night, but you're not taking your camera. You just tag along. After those 10 nights, and that's what Louie wrote that book about, OP3 with the 10-day manhunt for Louie. We actually became really good friends by the time he left.

He spent about a month out there with us. We redeploy. I go to Afghanistan and Hubert happens to be in Afghanistan and then finds out. He sends an email, hey, I just got to Afghanistan, yada, yada, yada. I said, hey, actually, I'm in Afghanistan. So he finds me and spends two months with me in Afghanistan. Then I go back to Afghanistan and he was actually in Libya. This is right when the fall of Gaddafi. And this is actually my prized possession. So he has been to every deployment since Iraq.

Hubert has linked up with me. When he was in Libya, though, he was staying in Gaddafi's compound. And this is what that prized possession is. And he found out that these cars that had been shoved into the corner was the Libya Secret Service cars. And this one car is the car that Gaddafi rode in. So he goes out there at night and he rips the license plates off the car. I have the front license plate and Hubert has the rear license plate to Gaddafi's car. Wow. Oh, my God.

And so he brought it from Libya, smuggled it into Afghanistan, gave it to me when I was on the provincial reconstruction team. Then I had to smuggle it out of Afghanistan to get it back home. He has been to every conflict around the world. I don't know if he shares this. He did. Since Vietnam, that guy has some stories. Yeah. Oh my God, that guy.

I mean, I could sit and listen to him talk all day. Okay, so here we go, Tom. For Veterans Day, any words that you have or anything that's on your heart right now? And now it's time for break that shit down i'm gonna tell you as a veteran and this summer comes up every veteran day is veterans are are upholded as heroes to the veteran though we haven't done anything heroic we were asked to do a job i ain't gonna say we did it right or wrong. We did it the best that we knew how. But I will say this to the veterans out there, though, that even though personally, you don't see yourself as a hero, I don't see myself as a hero. I did my job. And I did it the best I knew how. But our veteran folks out there are heroes. And I think that our veterans is our nation's treasure. They made the decision to preserve our way of life as we know it today,

knowing the risks that's going to be associated with it. And in particular, our veterans that joined our armed forces after 9-1-1, they joined knowing what they were getting into. Guys like me that had already been in the Army for a while, we joined the Army out of whatever reason, patriot, college, and there's no wrong reason on why you join the military. But for our younger veterans out there, they joined our military knowing exactly what they were getting into. Those are our heroes. In the back of every veteran's mind, though, on both Memorial Day and Veterans Day, what weighs on us on those two days? It's not a celebration for us. It's a day of reflection on back to a lot of stuff that we just talked about today. The Ryan Bonds in our lives.

The experiences that I've had, I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. I would ask, though, everybody out there on Veterans Day, if you see veterans, just thank them. And not necessarily for their service or thank them for their heroism. Just thank them for doing their part to preserve our way of life as we know it today. Perfect. And thank you for doing your part. I appreciate it. I really appreciate that. I just want to say before I start crying again, thank you so much for what you've done for our country.

I appreciate it. Thank you for your support as well. I love you. Thank you. My pleasure. I'm just grateful you're part of my life. So thank you. Same here. And thanks for what you guys are doing too. Especially something like I'm in a podcast. You'll never know the impact that you're making in somebody's life out there that just happens to just tune in you'll see that i'm in a sense of

soul and just curious so what the hell is it and it goes back to that intuition or fate that it might be some of the curiosity and you guys would just help them get through a problem or an issue that they're facing as well so thank what you guys are doing as well awesome thank you so much take care © B Emily Beynon