The Joe Rogan Experience - #1363 - Dakota Meyer

Episode Date: October 8, 2019

Dakota Meyer is a United States Marine. A veteran of the War in Afghanistan, he was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Ganjgal on 8 September 2009, in Kunar Province, Afghanistan.

what's up dakota what's going on we finally did this i know finally we've been talking about it um i feel super connected to you man because uh all day i've been listening to you on jaco's podcast and what first of all anybody who really wants to know you in depth in your element talking with a fellow warrior i like strongly recommend that podcast um for for people don't what what number is it do you know which number i don't know what number it is just listening to it it's um jocko podcast 115 into the fire and beyond the call of duty yeah jocko is a fucking beast. And you two together talking about the incidents that happened with you overseas, it's insane. I mean, it is like I had to call a buddy of mine. I had to stop the podcast and call my friend Brendan just to talk to him.

I was like, this is so intense. It's like I was driving. I was getting nervous, right? You know? Yeah. Driving in my fucking car my tesla right my little electric car i'm driving my hands are sweating and i'm breathing heavy i'm like fuck yeah it was well if you hear all those like you know when you're listening to that

podcast that was by far the most i mean he like jaco just pulled it out of me like right like you know most everybody hits like the the high points of it but you know me and jaco just made that connection it was the first time we'd ever met and uh face to face yeah we just went like you know he picked me he actually picked me up from the airport and we went we went there and we sat down and did the the podcast and and i don't know i i think i think he knew the questions to ask because i think it was good for both of us because you know if you got to the point kind of in the middle of it, if you start hearing those silences, it was both of us trying to keep from tears falling, right? Like, it was like, it was like that moment you're trying to, it just, you know, it really, we really connected. And it was, you know, it was a tough podcast.

Well, you could tell because for Jocko, I mean, I listened to a lot of Jocko's podcasts, but that was one where he was really in his element. First of all, it's very obvious he has a deep respect for you and who you are and what you stand for. And then two, it brought him back to his own experiences and more. And so the whole thing is just, it's one of the most intense podcasts I've ever listened to, if not the most intense. It's fucking heavy, man. Yeah, it was heavy. It was a hard one.

Like you said, I think we both, I think Jocko was getting as much out of it as I was, right? And I have the utmost respect for Jocko. The guy is just – he's the epitome of a warrior all around from day in and day out. I mean, he wakes up every day and lives the things that he says. I mean, he does what he says, and he lives it, and he puts people first. And he's just – I mean, he's one of the greatest guys I've ever says. I mean, you know, he, he does what he says and he lives it and he puts people first and he's just, I mean, he's one of the, he's one of the greatest guys I've ever met. And I agree. I couldn't have said it better. And Tim Kennedy as well. You know, we're both friends with Tim and that same thing that kind of, it's a rare, rare human being. It is those

guys. It is, you know, and I think that's what like, you know, that's what I'm so fortunate about is like, I'm just, I'm, I'm surrounded by just people like that. I'm so fortunate to have a circle like that. I think that that's what makes us who we are. I mean, it's true the epitome is iron sharpens iron. And when you're surrounded by guys like Jocko and Tim Kennedy, I mean, you have no option. But even if you're last in that group, like, you're still above average, you know? Well, there's a cliche, you know, that comes up when people talk about military, you know, that people will say things.

And sometimes it's hard to understand whether or not they grasp exactly what they're saying, but that people make sacrifices so that you could be free. but that people make sacrifices so that you could be free. And I don't think people – it's hard to truly internalize that without having experienced what you've experienced, what Jocko and Tim Kennedy have experienced. When I'm listening to it, I know that it's correct. I know that it's true. I support it 100%, but it's almost like an alien thing to me because I've never experienced it. So when hearing you guys talk about it and climbing inside your head for a bit and listen to you describe it, that cliche, the land of the free because of the brave, it gets highlighted where you understand like,

this is why America's not like it is in other places because of this strong military. And one of the things you guys talked about in that podcast was this idea of us invading Afghanistan. You were fighting alongside Afghans. And most people who talk about war will have this peripheral sort of cursory understanding about what they would like the world to be like, that they would like no war, and that this is terrible, we shouldn't be over there. They don't truly understand what you understand. You know, they don't. And I think, you know, the perspective that I get to come back and I think all these guys telling their stories,

you know, from Rob O'Neill to Marks Luttrell, like I think every warrior out there has to tell their story to make people understand, right? Like it's so important for that because we've got a perspective of the world that a lot of people don't get. And, uh, you know, I mean, I stood next to, I stood next to people that, that we couldn't, like you talk about not believing, not being raised, not coming from the same place, not having, you know, we could have found every reason not to, to be on the same ground, but we stood next to each other and were willing to die for each other. We found, we chose to find the common denominator.

And that was because there's only two types of people in this world. There's good and evil. Yes. It really comes down to that. War is so simple. Life is so simple. When you try to complicate it, there's other reasons. And it's like this whole thing, we were all over there fighting for

this, for, for the belief to be free. This, this, this belief of democracy, this belief of, of what we all live for. And it's, you can't see it, but, but we live it every day. And we were willing to give our lives for, for, for people we didn't even know, people we didn't even meet. One of the things you talked about with Jocko, you said you didn't just lose four brothers that day. You lost 10 because you lost six Afghani brothers as well. Yeah. We like, you know, the, the, the Afghans were as close to me as, as the Marines were, you know, my, my team of Afghan soldiers, you know, I lived on a base. It was four U.S. and 80 Afghans. And every day I went out on patrol and I'm patrolling with them and they're no different than me and you, you know, they just want a place. I'll never

forget that really hit home to me is I had an Afghan, we were sitting up on the mountain, actually the cover of my book, it was that day. We were sitting on that mountain because we had chased some Taliban up that hill. And we were sitting up there, and this Afghan looked at me, and he just said, I hope that someday you can bring your family here on vacation. I hope that we can get it to that point. Wow. And it really hit home to me. It's like, you know, we're all just alike.

You know, we're all just alike. We all just want to live a great life, and we all just want to get along. I mean, if you don't get along, it's because you choose not to get along. For people who don't understand the conflict in Afghanistan, explain what is happening and why we're over there. Yeah, so, you know, basically Afghanistan, and it was the same thing in Iraq, too. I mean, you know, that's where these terrorist organizations were, right? And, you know, we're over there fighting alongside Afghanistan. We're over there fighting alongside Iraq. We're not fighting Iraq and fighting Afghanistan. We're

fighting alongside both of those countries and trying to rebuild it up and trying to get rid of these terrorist cells that are inside those countries. You know, like you said, I mean, everybody thinks that, you know, we're fighting Iraq and we're fighting Afghanistan. It's not the case. We're alongside them, helping them rebuild their countries. You know, when you go to Black Rifle Coffee in Salt Lake, those guys are awesome. Awesome. They brought a bunch of former Afghani troops over, and they work for them over there. Like a lot of the guys working in the factory.

Yeah. You're like, oh, okay. These guys are so close to these people. They brought them back and gave them jobs in America. Absolutely. I just think most people don't really have a full picture of what's at stake and why it's even happening. They just don't want war. They just don't want war.

war right they just don't want war but it's like you know i mean there's no way you mean you can go in your house and and lock your doors and and sit there and try to pretend that the evil that we fight doesn't exist but it exists it exists it's there it's there and if we don't go fight it over there it's going to come here that's another cliche that like seems alien to people you know it's it's it's a true statement it's always been true throughout human history but when you live in a country like america we're so fortunate it's so awesome here even when it sucks it's awesome in comparison to the rest of the world you know um it's very rare that you have a place where you really can start at the bottom and make your way up to be a successful person.

I mean, literally, you can start here and come from nothing and within your generation be the president of the United States. You could literally start from that, and it's the only country on the face of the planet. And I tell people all the time, like, you know, just because we get so caught up, like right now is like an emotional time for, for America, right? It's getting ready to, I call it the draining time, you know, from now until, you know, November, you know, until the election time, it's going to be draining, right? And everybody's getting so emotional and fired up and, and it's like, you know, like it's going to be whatever. fired up and yeah and it's like you know like it's going to be whatever um but the cool part is is that this country like from all of us in the military from all our first responders our

police officers you know we're the only country on the face of the planet that doesn't swear allegiance to a person we swear allegiance to a document to a piece of paper and that's that's what that's what allows us to be us that's what allows us to not have One person come in and be able to change up this idea that we have of democracy of freedom And and that's that's that's something that's just it's incredible. That's what keeps our country the way it is, right? Like there's not You know, the people will always be in charge here. And you know what most of america most 99 of america is incredible Is incredible and you know what they're of America, most 99% of America is incredible, is incredible. And you know what? They're going to, they're stopping and they're helping people. And it's just the loud ones that make us look, you know, make it look like it's all chaotic.

Well, people love to point out the horrible aspects and they love to ignore the good aspects. They love to dwell on the bad parts. And I think ultimately that's going to prove to be good for everybody because those people that are highlighting all these bad things, then everybody else has to think about it and will slowly but surely evolve

and come to an understanding and make the world a better place. It's a way better place now than it was 100 years ago or 200 years ago. And I think this is a, I mean,

Steven Pinker talks about this all the time in his books, but, and he's criticized for it because a lot of people don't like the idea that things are getting better. They want to dwell on the negative aspects. They want to magnify those and make it the most important focal point. I think the most important focal point, if we want to have a good world, is concentrate on the good aspects and how amazing it really is that we have this incredible ability to express ourselves, this incredible ability to prosper, to move.

And, I mean, you know, people don't get the same share or the same stake in life. A lot of people get a terrible opening hand of cards. Yeah. But you can improve. And this is one of the rare places in the world where you can. If you're so inclined, if you have the discipline, if you can figure it out emotionally, if you could figure it out in terms of what you want to do in your life, you can live a healthy and successful life in this

country. It's possible. It's 100%. 100%. Nobody's holding you down. You have the choice to be able to do that. You have the choice to go out. Every opportunity is here. There's no other country that has more opportunities than the United States of America, especially for anybody. And I agree with you. I think that society has gotten into this place of where we're trying to out-victimize each other. Like who can be the bigger victim? Who's had it harder? each other like who can be the bigger victim who's had it harder yeah and and you know it's it's the the thing that i also believe is that with technology and all this is the empathy like

like suffering has became normal for people right like like it's became entertainment like look at reality tv like people's messed up lives that's entertainment for people now right video games of you know and i talk about this all the time about war, right? We came back and it was like war has now been romanticized. It's been romanticized that it's this cool image of like I hear people say, I just want to go kick in doors and shoot people in the face. And it's like, well, you've probably never done it then. And it's like we've got our kids playing video games of the stuff that keeps me awake at night.

And it's like, you know, at what point do we start humanizing these things? When you see one of those crazy video games, those first-person shooters involving war, does that bring back memories? I mean, does it irritate you? Does it irritate you? You know, I think that what's not put out there is, you know, I hear kids talking about, hey, you know, did you use this or did you use this? You know, you hear people say, well, did you kill somebody, right? It's like kids. And I don't think that that's, you know, to me that bothers me because it's not, there's nothing cool about taking another human's life. And when you're playing video games and it's like, oh, I got this many kills, like these kids are just watching this screen over and over.

And the more, you know, the more graphic it gets, like the less desensitized that we have to another human being suffering. Right. The more desensitized. Yeah, desensitized that we have to another human being suffering right the more desensitized yeah desensitized right like the more desensitized and then you start you know the the more the movies go and the more i mean you know i think i think that like we've just like we've pushed ourselves away from you know from being empathetic to hey these are real people these are real people's lives like what if they you you know, we've stopped looking at, looking at people and saying, you know, this is someone's child. Yes. This is someone's mother. Right. This is someone's son. Like we've gotten away from that. And like, like the, you know,

the old art that I was always told to live by is treat someone as you would want to be treated yourself. And if you were in those shoes and every time I pass somebody, every time I see somebody suffering, I always look at that and be like, well, what would I want somebody to do if they see my daughter suffering or my son suffering? Right. I mean, look at all these times I see these people holding their video cameras up in their video and somebody like getting just beat. And it's like, well, how do you do that? Not help. How does that not just suck everything out of you to not want to do something? Yeah. There's a thing called diffusion of responsibility that happens to people in crowds, unfortunately.

And it's also the same thing that I think when you're filming something that's happening in real life is the same thing that you've seen in these video games and on television shows i mean we we have never had more violence in film form and in video game form ever ever but yet we've never had less violence violence like how many people who play these games that have seen people get shot over and over and over and over again have never seen a body, never seen anybody get severely wounded or shot? And so to them, getting shot and shooting people is always, it's almost like empty. It's like bang, bang, bang. There's the guy. He comes out of the budges.

Bang, bang, bang. You shoot him. Here comes this guy. Bang, bang, bang. You shoot him. And it doesn't feel like anything. And then you shut it off and you have a sandwich then you turn it on again you do it again yeah so you're you're experiencing this thing that's empty it's like you're pretending to drink water but

there's nothing in the glass you just keep doing it over and over again and then you get some real water and you're like oh this is uh this is different yeah this is that's not even a good that's a terrible analogy but the the analogy of numbing, that people are numbed to this fake violence and have no experience with the real stuff. So they think of the real stuff the same way they think of the fake stuff. They do. And then, you know, and sometimes when they see it, they still are numb. They still can't act, right? Like they still don't.

It's kind of like imagine the way I look at it is, you know, you look at all these simulators, like flight simulators. Like, I mean, there's all this these simulators, like flight simulators. Like, I mean, there's all this virtual reality, right, that people are using this for actually training. And so, like, you don't think that it's the same way when you're doing this. And then you've got games that come out like Grand Theft Auto. Right. Like where you're just running around and you're – Shooting hookers, running people over. Shooting hookers and running –

Yeah. Like how does that – how is anything positive come from that right right how is anything positive yeah it's um we're a weird culture and then weird you could see all the violence you want like i watched john wick three last night i finally finished it jesus christ three quarters of the way through i'm like how many fucking people have they killed this is so ridiculous yeah it's just a murder fest. It's murder porn. That's what it's like.

It's murder porn. Isn't it? Kind of? Yeah. But the crazy thing is, like, that kind of violence is unheard of. But yet, you don't show sex. Like, you could show people's brains exploding. But if you showed a girl's pussy and a penis going inside of it, people would, ah, get that off the air.

The one thing that doesn't hurt anybody that everybody wants, that would be horrific to show. If you had a film with Brad Pitt and, give me a hot woman actress, Jamie, you know hot women actresses. Who's the one? Scarlett Johansson. Okay. Scarlett Johansson and Brad Pitt have a sex scene and they actually fucking get after it yeah and you you see it and

you see her feet up in the air you'd be like what are we watching oh yeah this is crazy but yet you could see brad pitt spoiler alert if you see that uh once upon a time in hollywood is that the name of it the quintessential he beats a woman to, smashing her face against a mantle of a fucking fireplace. And you're like, holy fuck. That's okay. That's okay. That's okay. But just fucking, dodge, dodge.

And you're like, whoa. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. But if you fucked Scarlett Johansson, you saw her asshole. You'd be like, what? I see her actual asshole. This is crazy crazy Get this off

You should go to jail It's weird Yeah Things that everybody Wants to do Like we all want sex Everybody likes sex Everybody likes sex

But It's so bad Nobody likes beating Someone to death With their fucking head Off a mantle I mean that's a daughter too That's somebody's daughter

Fucking we're weird bro we're so weird we are weird yeah when you look at it like that so weird so weird you know how outrageous it would be if scarlett johansson and brad pitt had an actual sex scene in a movie they just fucked they said listen i like her she likes me let's do this yeah and she was like let's do it fuck it i'm ready i'm ready to method act that actually happened in a movie called brown bunny it was a long time ago there was a movie with vincent gallo and uh there was a an actress her name is chloe i forget how you say her name svenji how do you say it svenji she's a really good actress and he's a really good actor and for whatever reason they decided to do a sex

scene where she gives him a real blow job yeah and everybody who saw it in the theater was angry all these critics were angry they're like this is fucking outrageous this is terrible and it really killed his career i mean it killed her career a little bit too i think definitely derailed it but it fucking killed his career yeah everybody thought he's a creep after that. It's weird. A creep for something that everybody's done. Right. Meanwhile, everybody loves Keanu Reeves.

And he's like, he's shooting people in the neck and the asshole and the face and the eyeballs in the mouth. He's cutting them up and stabbing them and throwing them off motorcycles. Like, fuck. That's okay, and throwing them off motorcycles like that's okay though that's okay that's okay but vincent gallo actually getting a legitimate blow job that's outrageous that guy should be pulled out of hollywood forever done he's terrible who wants a blow job yeah it's weird like we get freaked out about watching people do something that everybody wants to do it's it's insane Very weird. Yeah. It's insane. Yeah.

It's super weird. That's funny. What do you got, Jamie? He produced, edited, directed cinematography of the video. Yeah, it was his idea to get his dick sucked. He made the whole thing. I know. He did make the whole thing.

Like a self-produced sex tape. Try getting somebody else to do it. Try getting somebody. Like, hey, in this scene, how about she actually sucks my dick for real? Oh, Vincent. No, no, no. Really. Let's do this.

For real. Everybody would be like, get the fuck out of here. He probably had to film it and not let anybody know what was happening until after it was over. The crazy thing is he talked her into it. You imagine she'd be like, wait, what the fuck did you just say? But he talked her into it and she went with it. But that would be fine. But, you know, there's a scene in Apocalypse Now where there's a water buffalo and they

killed the water buffalo with a machete. They used a real water buffalo and a real machete. They really killed the water buffalo for that scene. Oh, and people went nuts, I bet. They went nuts. And they go nuts now. When people find out about it now, they freak out. Yeah, like I wouldn't even post anything on my Instagram of hunting because PETA would just like people just tell you like, oh, we should hunt you.

We should shoot you with a bow and arrow. I mean. Yep. You know, but they can go watch people get killed. Mm-hmm. No problem. No problem. Yeah, I very rarely post things.

I posted the first elk I ever shot with a bow. I posted a picture of that because I was, it's hard work, man. It was hard for me to do. I was proud of it. Yeah. It was difficult, and I was going to eat that elk for a year, and I did eat it. And to me, that meant a lot to me. This is how I'm getting my meat now.

This is my nutrition. I'm going to feed my family with this. But yeah, the comments are just ridiculous. They're ridiculous, right? They just go crazy. But, hey, you know, that's their trip. This is part of it. Yeah, their trip is save the animals.

Everybody's got their own. It's interesting, like, the only thing that gives them a sense of purpose that makes them feel like they're doing something that makes a difference and makes a change. That matters. Yeah, and for a lot of people, it's that. eating eggs yeah stop eating eggs okay good luck with that my favorite is when they're rabid fucking vicious nasty vegans and then like eight years later they give up they start eating fish and the next thing you know they get hard-ons again and it's like it just it doesn't last you know it's it's so fucking hard to just eat only plants it's it's not the healthiest move for most people i mean everybody everybody varies biologically but for

most people it's not the healthiest move but you know you mean you gotta give respect i mean a vegan like you that's discipline yes that's discipline 100 and i've friends that are vegan my friend john joseph he's legit as fuck and he's he's been plant-based for more than 20 years i think more than that right 30 maybe even 20 30 years he's an animal but for him like it's part of his discipline that helped him clean up uh he was uh addicted to drugs it helped him um you know i mean he's uh he's done 10 iron mans you know so and then a bunch of Half Ironmans as well. So, like, you know, it's part of who he is as a man, like his discipline.

And part of his discipline applies to his diet. Yeah, being a vegan, that's something I couldn't do. You could do it. No. I'm sure you could. You don't want to do it. What you've done, you can probably do anything that people can do. You know, the way I justify it is, is like, I'm, you know, I'm a vegetarian through secondhand

sores. Right. You're eating vegetarians. Well, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So let's just do a secondhand sores. Yeah. I don't think they count that.

It doesn't? No, I don't think so. You know, it's, I don't know, man. It's one of those things where- Even when I drink, it's from corn, right? So- Anthony Bourdain used to get really angry about this. And one of the things that he said was this is a first world problem he's like we are so fortunate that we have this problem

and in other countries they're just trying to get enough protein to feed their family they're just trying to get enough food to feed people you know and he was it wasn't like he was indifferent to animals but he was deeply concerned about people about you know because of all his traveling he had like a great deal of empathy for all these different people in these different cultures and their cuisine and he did a tremendous amount of respect for it like he would talk about it like it was religious to him almost you know yeah like you know when we would go into villages and eat i mean if they if they had meat like that was a big deal like if they if they brought meat out to you then they you know that was a huge deal yeah um i mean, if they brought meat out to you, then they, you know, that was a huge deal. Yeah. Um, I mean, you look at it and it's just like,

gosh, you know, we, we, you know, we're over here complaining about stuff that, that most countries wish they had those problems. Like most 90% of stuff we're complaining about, most countries wish they had those problems. Right. But I get it. The people don't want those problems to exist too. They want those problems to go away. They want a utopia, and the only way to build towards a utopia is to improve upon the problems that we have, and we do have problems across the board,

but I would just love some perspective from people. I would just love some, and I think that would go a long way to help people have more happiness. How do you wake up when all you do is focus on problems, right? Like, it's kind of like, you know, when you're working or you're at a job, right, or you own a company. Like, everybody's, you're always just fixing, I call it putting out fires. Yeah.

And if that's all you do is constantly put out fires, like, at what point do you become grateful? Like, at what point of the day do people stop and look around? Right. And they're grateful for what they have. And they're appreciative of, I had a guy tell me, you know, when I was going through my divorce, I mean, I was, I was a train wreck, just call Tim Kennedy and he'll tell you, um, you know, I'll never forget a guy set me down and I was talking about all these problems and just nit, I mean, just nitpicking and fighting over the small stuff. And I mean, literally just, well, she worded it this way and she needs to do it this way. Like literally just

every little thing. And a guy finally sat me down and he looked at me and he goes, look, Dakota, he said, if you can make choices or decisions to change it, then it's not a problem. It's an inconvenience. The day that you can't make a choice, you've got cancer, you're a kid sick or something like that. He goes, that's a day you got problems. Until then, you just got inconveniences. That's a great way to look at it. Until then, you just got inconveniences. And I was like, you're right. It's a great way to look at it because there's levels of problems, right? There's insurmountable problems, cancer, injuries, things of that nature, car accidents, insurmountable.

And you know what? And the thing is, I think I'm so fortunate to have gone through the experiences that I have, um, because I, you know, each one of them, it, it, it's all perspective. It changes my perspective on the way I look at things. It changes the things that are important to me. I call it, um, I always call it, everybody's got their lens of life and that lens of life, you know, your lens of life looks different than mine. Mine looks different than yours. And it all, we all have our own lens of life. And at the point, you know, we get so focused and get into autopilot and it'll focus on, you know, it's kind of like your camera, you pull it up and you got on autofocus. It never focuses on what you want it focused on, right? Until you go back to the manual focus and you

push where it's at. And I feel like all these problems that we have are just made to, hey, we need to tighten our lens back up to focus on what really, really, really matters. Yeah. Well, I think sometimes people need to hear it from somebody like you or someone like Jocko. The beautiful thing about these podcasts is that you get to hear people's perspective, and a lot of them are eye-opening. that you get to hear people's perspective, and a lot of them are eye-opening. They literally can change the world because they change the way you behave and you interact with people when you listen to it. And that podcast that you did with Jocko when I was listening to it, I mean, it changed my whole day.

It changed how I was going to look at my day. Instead of looking at my day like, oh, it's a normal day, I was thinking, God damn, I'm lucky. God damn, I'm lucky. And God damn, imagine experiencing what you, and how old were you at the time? I was 21. 21 years old. Yeah.

And experiencing what you experienced in that insane firefight being locked down. And I mean, how many guys did you wind up engaging with? I don't know. You with? I don't know. I, you know, I don't know. I mean, every one day I got an opportunity with, right. And it just, you know, it was just, uh, you know, it was so chaotic. I mean, I, you know, I still, I look, I think about it all the time, obviously. Um, it's something I could have never experienced. I mean, I trained for war every single day when I was in the Marine Corps. I mean, it was what I, it was what my job was. And I still could have never imagined that day, the way it was or anything to turn out. I could have never experienced. I mean, I trained for war every single day when I was in the Marine Corps. I mean, it was what my job was, and I still could have never imagined that day the way it was or anything to turn out. I could have never pictured it.

I could have never. And I think every day it goes by, I think there's a reckoning of it, right? The way that I seen it that day is not the way I see it today. And I think that comes with, you know, just sharpening and just your body, you body. You change and you see different things in perspective. But, yeah, I mean, you know, that day, I mean, it still is just, you know, there's so many lessons that come from that day that, you know, I look at people complaining about stuff here in America, and it's like, you know, I've seen in one day the best of humans the worst of humans and everybody nobody thought they were wrong

and it's possible you know it's just it's just one of those deals of you know that that day was just that's an important point what you just said nobody thought they were wrong not them not you yeah you know i i but and it changed me that day like i walked in there that day and i was the guy who was cocky who would tell you you know i love fighting do you know what i mean like i like i just want to go fight like you know but every fight i had before that it was like you know i always had airplanes sitting you know or helicopters every, every fight I had before that, it was like, you know, I always had airplanes sitting, you know, or helicopters sitting, sitting around. I always had, you know, it was like, I'm going to go in there and start the fight. And then I'm going to call in all this other, this other stuff to, to, to win. Right. And, um, that day it wasn't there. And, and, and literally I walked out of there and, and I just think about all the time today. I just think about all the time of how many generations just that day were changed. How many generations of, of people's lives were changed. You know,

all my teammates died, so they'll never have kids. That generation's stopped Their families forever. So many lives were changed that day by that piece. And guess what? Everybody in America had no clue what was going on. Like right now, there are U.S. troops, somebody wondering if they're going to be able to come home and see their family again.

That's reality. Whether you want to ignore it or not, that's reality. Whether you want to ignore it or not, like that's reality. And that was me, September 8th, 2009. And it was just a, gosh, it was a chaotic day. It's amazing how you could have thousands of days in your life and one day changes the way you look at everything. in your life and one day changes the way you look at everything one day changes the way you look at everything and you know and like the the further i go on i look at it different you know i always talk about this story of um you know whenever this guy came up behind me and i ended up i ended up killing him with a rock and i I always remember just like, I remember it, like I see it every night. Like I remember like, I just see his face and like, I just,

cause there was a point, there was a point that I feel like that anybody that when they, whether they're injured or anything, like they realize they're defeated. Like they're like, like, I don't know. I just think there's a point when you look at somebody and they know they're going to die. I don't know. I just think there's a point when you look at somebody and they know they're going to die. And I'll never forget that. And now I look at it and I see it and I always think that this guy is a son to somebody. His mother and father are going to miss him.

This guy, he believes in his cause as much as I do. He doesn't believe he's wrong. This guy, this guy, he, he could have had a wife or kids that are never going to see their father again. Just like, you know, my dad might've never seen me again if it was switched and really i don't even know i don't hate him i don't even know this guy we're just here at this place right now because we were born in two different countries were you out of weapons were you out of out of ammo so my no he had came up and he started choking me Um, I had shot him once before and he I was trying to pick my buddy dada lee My my one of my closest afghans dada lee had been shot He he got he had been killed and I came around this terrace to get him and I was on my knee and this guy came up behind me

and um So he didn't have a weapon either. He was no he did He he had a weapon and I ended up shooting him from the ground And I thought he was dead when he fell on the ground and I kind of moved down and got down With dada lee because I was still getting shot at from this machine gun up on this hill and I was trying to make myself small as I could and um This guy ends up coming up and choking me like I thought he was I thought he was dead and he ends up choking me out he starts trying to choke me out

and eventually let up a little bit and I ended up getting around him and I just got we were fighting back and forth and I can remember all I was thinking about was like don't let his legs get on me like you know these guys their legs are I mean they've been crawling up mountains their whole life and he was a he was a pretty big dude and um I just remember getting on top of him, finally got on top of him. And I was rolling on top of him. He didn't have all the gear on, I did. And I remember getting on top of him like I was straddling him. And I'm just reaching up trying to grab for anything I can. I'm holding him down with my forearm and I'm just grabbing anything I can. And finally I ended up grabbing a rock, and I just started beating this dude's face in. And I just started beating and beating and beating.

And I remember just, like, finally, like, after hitting him, you know, I don't know, three or four times, four or five times, whatever, I remember him, like, finally just kind of looking at me and, like, just it's like he's, like, I'm just looking him in the eyes, like, obviously closer than me to you right now. And you just see all the, you can tell, like he knows where this is going. And I always think about that, you know. Obviously, I would kill him a million times over again, right? He was the enemy.

Like I don't feel bad about that part of it. But I just think about like in that moment, if I can find a way to relate to him in that moment, a man I'm taking his life, we all in America can find a way to connect with each other. If we don't connect with each other, it's because we choose not to. I don't care what your differences are. Like, don't like find a reason of why we can get along, not why we should not get along. Right. And, and I always think about that moment, you know, of this guy and,

you know, he obviously ended up dying. And, and, and it, what it showed me was, is that no cause that you have that's built on hate will survive. I didn't hate this guy. I didn't even know him, but I was willing to take his life because of what I loved. And that's what we have to build our lives and our foundation on is not being angry and hating each other, but because we love the cause that we believe in so much. Does that make sense? It does make sense. I understand what you're saying.

The way they look at it in Afghanistan, so it's, is it Al-Qaeda or the Taliban? So Al-Qaeda is mainly in, so Al-Qaeda was in Iraq. So Al-Qaeda is the issue that's in Iraq and the Taliban is the issue that's in Afghanistan. And the Taliban, what are they trying to do? Are they trying to run a religious caliphate? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, they just want, they, you know, they want to run, you know, it the way that they want to, right? Like they want to, they don't want, they don't believe in, you know, women being educated. They, I mean, they don't believe in any, like, like they don't believe in, you know, they go back to that their beliefs of you know it's driven by religion of of all that control they want to they want to control and how much support do they have from the general population i mean i think it not not necessarily

the support but because i think that it's not necessarily support it's the power that they have right like they come in and they lead with a heavy hand, right? I mean, there's these, they don't, these, the locals run the place. But the Taliban is kind of like, look at it like a gang, right? Like kind of like a mob or like the Taliban is kind of like the cartel, right? And so that's where they come from, and they try to lead with violence and same thing that you would see with the cartel. The Taliban is kind of like a big cartel. And so the general population, they would like that to not be the case.

Yeah, I mean – They want a system of democracy similar to what we have i mean i don't know that they want that but i don't want something better than what they have of course like i mean i think they all see that they live in shitholes right they all see you know i i think that they they they know what could get you know how it could be better and how life could be better you know yeah um the cool thing about America is that we know what freedom is. And I promise you this, like, you want to have all the differences stop. If anybody ever invaded us, I mean, people don't want to give anything up.

So they would all start fighting. Everybody would get on the same page and start fighting if anybody tried to come to America because nobody would want to give up their stuff. Well, post 9-11, do you remember that? You were a younger guy at the time. How old were you at 9-11? I was in the eighth grade, and I always say I would never wish for another 9-11, but I would give anything for a 9-12.

I would give anything for a 9-12. It was crazy. People were friendly. People were letting people in in traffic. People had American flags were everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. People were proud like, American flags were everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. People were proud of America.

Like, it was crazy. It was crazy, like, how in sync everybody was. It's hard for people who weren't there on those days to understand the mood of the country. It was a different world. Like, we, people were patriotic. Like, everybody was. I don't necessarily remember what it was like before the day of 9-11. So I don't, I don't have much perspective on that, but I do remember 9-12.

I remember, I mean, everybody was proud to be Americans. I mean, you, I mean, it was, everybody was, everybody was proud of our country and who we are. It was like a switch had turned. It was. And, and in that the way it, though, like when something tragic happens? Like isn't that the way it goes? Like we refocus on what really matters.

Like all these differences go away. Yeah. But we come back to what matters. Well, that's something that a lot of people who experience war have said, that this is where they felt the most connected because their life was literally in danger and because they knew because they had lost loved ones to this thing they had lost brothers to this thing that this was real and that to this day that is the most exciting and happiest time of their life because they were so connected sebastian younger wrote about this in

the movie the tribe yeah have you read it i I haven't read it. It's very good. And it probably would speak to a lot of the exact same things that you say. But, you know, like I, I find the same thing, not the same thing, obviously, because my life's not in danger. And I hope that I never have to go a day where my life's in danger again. And I find the same appreciation back here in a country that, that I love. I can, you know, I, I narrowed it down cause I had to come up with a reason of like why, you know, I mean, it's hard to sit here and watch the valleys that you fought for. And then the government go and give those valleys back to the Taliban. You know, there's this one video,

me and my buddy were, were laughing about the other day, a base that he had been on, and he shows me this video, and it's like literally the treadmills that were in the gym there. It's a Taliban guy running on our treadmills, right? Like they had left it there. And we're just like, whoa, you know? And I always think about, you know, because if you get down in the weeds of it, you start really getting, you'll get upset about, you know, that valley. Did I really, did my teammates' sacrifice really change your life?

Like if they hadn't sacrificed that day, would your life be changed? Like, because that's what we're fighting for is America. And so I just, I always looked at it like this and I came to peace with it of, you know, all we were trying to do anywhere we went when I served and I wore the nation's cloth, like I got the best opportunity. When people thank me for my service, I'm like, don't thank me. Like, I appreciate you letting me represent America, be the away team for the United States of America. Like I got to wear the nation's cloth in so many countries. But I always, I justify it as all we tried to do, no matter whether we were passing out soccer balls to kids, or we were going in and providing security for a whale, or we were taking out an enemy combatant, all we were trying to do was make that part of the world that we were in a

better place. That's all we were trying to do. We're trying to leave it better than we found it that moment. And if we take that same concept and we apply it here, and we all go over and do it for the person on the left and the right of us, and if we use that same concept, you can apply it here in America every day. Every single day you can make this world just a little bit better. There's a lot of people in this country that don't think we should be nation building in other countries, including people like Tulsi Gabbard who served. But then you got people like Dan Crenshaw, who I've had on the podcast, who his perspective is you have to go over there. You can't allow these groups to get more powerful and gain more control. You just can't.

You can't. You can't. And if not us, then who? And the thing is, America is a beacon of hope across the world. America is a beacon of hope. And you can notice when America's strong, everybody hates us. When America's weak, the world suffers. And I'm not saying we need to go in and fight everybody's battle, obviously, right?

But on the backside of it, you know, we're not necessarily going in and fighting for other countries, but we do have an obligation to go and help people like you take Syria when they are gassing when they are gassing kids and women if nobody else is going to go send rockets in there if nobody else is going to go hold somebody accountable for it I'm damn there's nobody that's serving, that's wearing the uniform, that's not gladly doing that and going to go hold them accountable. It has nothing to do with anything other than good and evil. And if we don't go fight the evil, then who's going to do it? Who's going to do it? And we don't want the evil to get bigger. You don't want the evil to get bigger. You don't want the evil to get bigger.

You don't want the evil to progress. And you don't want the evil to think that they can. I mean, imagine, you see what they're doing right now, and I think the world knows that America will come and show up. And you see how they're still going. Imagine if they didn't have to worry about us doing it. Imagine what they would look like you know and i think you can imagine better than most that's part of the problem is that

you know when you're in calabasas you know going to the mall you know getting yourself a fucking smoothie it doesn't seem real you know and you can have all these opinions about what we should be doing you know and that we need to stop these warmongers we need to stop this and stop that and i've had those opinions myself in the past and gone back and forth and the only thing that's changed my mind is i listen to people that actually know yeah i think it's one of the most important things you could ever do and don't try to form an opinion if you don't really have any facts or any real understanding. And I've done that in the past too. I've made those mistakes.

I can tell you this. You look at 9-11. Thousands of people died and none of them volunteered to give their country for their life that day. Except obviously the first responders. You look since 9-11, besides a couple attacks that's been in America, but you look since 9-11, everybody that's given their life overseas has volunteered to do that. They volunteered to go fight the evil.

And for us to go over there and do that and keep it off the country, to keep it out of our country, to keep it to where, you know, our kids and our families and our mothers and fathers and don't have to worry about this. But I can't think that us being over there and giving them a place to fight us has not helped this country keep from being attacked multiple times if we had not gone over there. That's a hard pill for people to swallow, right? They don't want to think that. They want to think the reason why they would attack us is because we're over there. Yeah. Well, you know what? I mean, why did we get attacked on 9-11?

That's a good question. You know, like these people hate us just because they hate us. Like it's not about, you know, there was that one worker that said that, oh, we should go over there and get them more jobs and more opportunities. No, these people don't care. Like these people have, they wake up every day and try to think of a way to kill us. Like there's no negotiating with these people. These people are evil. These people will do nasty things to human beings that no, you couldn't even imagine. You couldn't make a video game about. I mean, you look at some of this ISIS stuff of what they're doing.

I mean, you look at some of this ISIS stuff of what they're doing. I mean, putting somebody in a cage and burning them, you want to be empathetic to that? Throwing people because of their sexual preference off the top, tying their hands and legs together and throwing them off the top of a building? These are the type of people that, this is type of evil like that we're going after. And if we don't do it, who's going to do it? Right.

Who's going to do it? Do you think it's possible that this all could be resolved someday? And maybe if it's not our children, our children's children, do you think it's possible? Nope. That's that. Everybody says that. That's, everybody says that. That's one of the most disheartening things about any kind of conflict. But I mean,

if you look at any of the books that came before us, this is what you get. This is just part of any, at any point in time, there's conflict going on. It'll never conflict going on it'll never be resolved it'll never be resolved it will never be resolved so it's main it's like a maintenance program that's hard for people to swallow right because people want to think that the reason why it'll

never be resolved is because the military industrial complex wants to keep us at war and this is just a big money grab and that's all they're trying to do is the reason why they have us over there is they're sending people over there to die so they can make money this is this is how people love to look at it i mean everybody wants to i think it's just because everybody wants to find a reason. You know, everybody wants to, everybody wants a reason that they can touch, feel, and blame. Like, they want something to blame. Right. And they, you know, there's nothing to blame except the people who are doing this. And it exists, and it's's real and these are real people and you know

what we're just so lucky that we have an all-volunteer military with some of the greatest people that's ever walked the face of the planet who are willing to go do this who are willing to do it on on mining your behalf i mean how cool is that it's pretty wild when you think about it right because it's a complete volunteer army. Volunteer. Complete volunteer military. These people are willing to raise their right hand to a piece of paper, to an idea of democracy.

Go over, they put their whole life on hold. Their wives sacrifice. I mean, you take military spouses and and they sacrifice if not more than than the people you know than than than the veterans and the service members and they're they're willing to go over and fight for my your freedom they've never met us but they're willing to give their lives for it. Think about this. I challenge people who are listening to this. Can you name one thing right now that you're willing to give your life for? Think about that. What would you give your life for right now?

Like somebody pulled a gun out. You know you're going to die. What would you give your life for? I mean, these people are willing to go do it on the idea of democracy, on the idea of me and you, on the idea of good. It's incredible. It is incredible. You, when you signed up, how old were you? 17. You were 17. Wow.

Had my 18th birthday in boot camp no shit yeah wow so you can do that i didn't know i didn't know you i thought you had to be 18 no no i graduated high school at 17 and my dad signed for me oh someone can sign for you yeah wow and did you have any other aspirations or was that something that you knew you were going to do no i like honestly a marine recruiter channel told me I'd never make it as a Marine. And so like, yeah, yeah. Like I was just walking through my lunchroom. Like, I mean, I don't have any cool stories.

Like, oh, I woke up and knew I was going to be a Marine. Like, you know, I was walking through the lunchroom and this Marine recruiter was there. I started asking him a lot of smart, smart out questions and just, you know, being a typical high school student. And he's like, look, you're wasting my time. You'd never make it as a Marine. And, you know, look, I was up for the challenge. So I signed up. So him saying that was what really stirred you?

Yeah, that was it. Wow. I didn't even really know what the Marine Corps was before that. Really? Yeah. What did you think you were signing up for you know i just told him i wanted to go fight wow yeah yeah holy smokes you know but you think about that like our whole life is built off decisions you know our decisions our control we are we are today

where we're where we deserve to be because we made the decisions up to this point like and that's a hard pill to swallow too yeah it's variable right there's there's some things that are out of your control there are but but a lot of it but a lot of it yeah you you can't control situations and circumstances but you can control how you take it. You can control your response. You can control your response. Growing up like that, I mean, you're growing up in combat. I mean, you're growing up at 18 years old. I mean, I was a fucking baby when I was 18. You're growing up in combat.

I did, yeah. I guess if you look at it like that, yeah. And you are here now 10 years after what we were talking about yeah and you said it still keeps you up yeah i mean i wake up you know a couple a couple nights a month and just you know an anxiety attack throwing up um i was actually speaking last week i was on the road it's the first time you know i always like i always nervous. Like if in the middle of the night, my daughter gets scared or she, you know, she comes down and gets in my bed. Like, I'm always really like nervous about that because like, I don't, I would like, like, it was so, I was so nervous about it because I was just,

gosh, I never want them to see me in that, in that, that state. Right. And the other day we were on the road, I was speaking out in North Carolina and, um, she was obviously, we were in a hotel, so she was staying with me and I, I don't know, I didn't feel good that night. So what I did is I put a, um, I put a pillow between us and gosh, I had, I had one, I knocked my tooth off. I knocked my veneer off. Like it was so terrible. And, uh, she just looked at me, she's three and she just looked at me and she said, it's okay, daddy. You're not, you're not a bad dad. Wow. And, uh, three and I was like, gosh, you know, but yeah, I mean, you know, you still, I mean, this is, that's, that's why you look at it. And I see these people who,

who play these video games and they, they from like there's no emotional attachment to it and it's like this stuff's real like there's nobody who i would go out on a limb and say there's nobody who sees this stuff and and they don't you don't come back and deal with it stuff and and they don't you don't come back and deal with it like it's it's a normal process to to being part of not normal situations what kind of resources are available to you when you do come back like how how do they treat people that are suffering from ptsd and well you gotta be careful with it right because i mean the the last track you want to get on is, is all the, the pharmaceutical drugs, right? Like the pills and stuff. Um, and you'll get on that real quick. The VA is notorious for it. So, you know, we, what do they try to give you? Um, I mean, I, colotipin, Xanax,

I've been on tons of blood pressure medicine. I mean, you go down the list, right? And, uh, blood pressure medicine. I mean, you go down the list. Right. And, uh, and I, like, I went down that, I went down that road and, and it got me nowhere. Um, but now, you know, like we're, you know, there's tons of nonprofits out there who are doing a lot of great stuff, uh, trying, trying to help out. Um, you know, we're, what's one thing that we found out and actually studies are starting to show that this helps is is it's called a stella ganglion block. It's called SGB. It's a stella ganglion block. And you get a shot.

It goes in your neck. And I'll tell you this. When I got that shot, it instantly, before the needle came out of my neck, Dr. Sean Mulvaney is the guy that's putting all this together. When the needle came out of my neck, it instantly took me from being like my whole life was downtown New York City in rush hour traffic, 15 minutes late to a meeting that my life depended on, to instantly being driving down a quiet country road with nowhere to be. Real. Instantly.

Instantly. What is it doing? So basically what it does is, is, is this is how it was described to me. And you have like two systems. You have like your, your, your automatic nervous system and then you have your manual, right? So your automatic is like your eyes blinking, breathing, things like that. Your manual is like, Hey, I need to reach over here and grab this bottle of water. And what happens is this fight or flight gets stuck in

your automated, like there's no longer do you say, I recognize this as a threat and now I go into fight or flight. So what it does is you've been in that so long that it gets put over into the automatic side. And so what this does is it's kind of like a restart. Like it, it, there's no, nothing that lasts long in it. It, it goes in and it, it basically, I think it gets on, it's called the sciatic nerve and it basically gives you a restart. And it just, it took away all my anxiety. I mean, it, it, it just, it instantly like just melted it away. How long does it last? Instantly, like just melted it away.

How long does it last? So it comes down to, I mean, sometimes I get one a year, one every six months. But it just comes down to, do you go back and expose yourself to these chaotic situations, right? Like do you go keep making bad decisions? But for me, I look at it as like it's a solution to, I call it the flashbang of anxiety. So like it's that flashbang that gives you the moment, the separation to where now I can make decisions that I don't feel like I'm out of control. Now I can make decisions to get things back together. What is the actual chemical that they're using?

I don't know. I would have to look. He's got an article about it. That's crazy that it's so effective. Using stellate ganglion block to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Make that a little bigger, Jamie. Post-traumatic stress disorder develops in response to being exposed to extreme stress. Okay, the sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight, has been known to play a part in PTSD. It's believed that extra nerves of the system sprout or grow after extreme trauma.

Wow. Leading to elevated levels of norepinephrine, an adrenaline-like substance, which in turn overactivates the amygdala, the fear center of the brain. This chain of events results in PTSDtsd symptoms that may be that may persist for years so part of the sympathetic nervous system called the stellate ganglion a collective of nerves in the neck seems to control the activation of the amygdala a recent innovation offers potential and rapidly treating symptoms of ptsd for a prolonged period of time placing an anesthetic agent on the stellate ganglion in an anesthetic agent on the stellate ganglion in an anesthetic

procedure called the stellate ganglion block can relieve the symptoms of PTSD in as little as 30 minutes. And for you, it's just a few seconds. Before the needle is out. And lasts for years. The SGB reboots the sympathetic nervous system to its pre-trauma state, similar to a computer reboot in the brain. Norepinephrine levels are rapidly reduced and the extra nerve growth is removed. Wow. SGB is an anesthetic procedure that has been performed since 1925 and is considered a low risk pain procedure done under x-ray guidance.

That's insane. Yeah. They use a, so Dr. Sean Mulvaney is the guy, I've been to other doctors and he's, Dr. Mulvaney is the only guy I would go to who does it the way, he's got the whole procedure set up. He was a Navy SEAL. He's a doctor and he does it out of DC and, but nobody, you know, most people hadn't heard of this. I've never heard of this. Yeah. you know, most people hadn't heard of this, you know?

I've never heard of this. Yeah. And it's, I went in and he called me the next day and he was like, so how do you feel? I said, man, I caught myself singing in the shower this morning. Like I caught myself singing in the shower. What were you singing? I don't, I can't remember. But I was like, man, I caught myself singing in the shower.

Like I actually, like I walked out of there and I, and to me, you know, I got to a point at that point, like I got to a low point and I just, there was nothing, like there's nothing in my life I can complain about. Like there's nothing I have, this country has given me a life that I could have never dreamed to ever have. I have no problems, zero. And I just woke up every day and i was just like i just don't want to wake up feeling like this and so he's like come do this come do this and i came out there and did it and it it changed it changed my whole life that sounds infinitely better than therapy or talking through it or any,

any of the other methods I've ever heard of. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think all that, I think you, I think all that matters. I think the therapy,

like if you want to go do talk therapy, that's, that's good. Like you, you should do that. But I always tell people who go do talk therapy, like go in there with a plan of where you want your life to be. Like,

it's like going to a nutrition coach or a workout coach and not giving them goals. Right. You know, don't go in there just to go in there. Go in there with a plan and have them help you get to that plan. But this, this is instantly just like that. That's incredible. Now, do they try to do that in conjunction with medication?

Is it a standalone thing? Standalone thing. Wow. Standalone thing. The only thing I do to help mine and my anxiety is like, it can get bad. Like I'm talking bad. When, when, and when you say that, like what happens? Like what's, what's the process? You know, I usually feel it building up, um, over days. Yeah. Days. Like it's almost like a, like it'll come and it just builds up. And then it's like, it'll, you'll have like a little, little bit of an anxiety attack or whatever.

You'll start feeling anxiety or anxious and that becomes your new baseline. And then it keeps building. People don't recognize it. And for a long time, I used to drink a lot and I didn't know what anxiety was. I mean, what do you mean? Like this is how I feel all the time. Right. And then, you know, then what usually happens is at night, it'll just, when I go to sleep, it'll just, it'll rock me.

It'll rock me. I'll start throwing up. I'll be sweating. I'll be crying. Like, I mean, I'll be in the floor. Now, are you thinking things when this is happening or is it just an overwhelming sense of anxiety just all encompassing? I just, I don't know where it comes from. I mean? I don't know where it comes from. I mean, obviously, I know where it comes from.

Are you thinking about war while this is happening? No. No, I think it's just in my subconscious. I think, you know, obviously your brain is always trying to, like when you're asleep, trying to file things and process things. Right. And I think that's what happens is like consciously, you know, consciously it doesn't bother me to talk about it.

Like I went back and I was in another gunfight four days later. And I mean, literally, I was packing up all my teammates stuff and getting ready to go back to fight again. And I got into another gunfight. And I think that, you know, coming home, your brain's still trying to process all that stuff. And I think it happens to anybody. You don't have to go to war. You could be in a car wreck.

I mean, you look at the October 1st shooting in Vegas. You know, you can go through anything, right? Like, whatever. I think that's what people are dealing with. And it's just, I think that's why you see so much anxiety across the world is because of all this desensitization consciously. And people are processing it subconsciously. That makes sense. That really makes sense that they're taking in all this information.

They think it's not affecting them at all, but it really is. It is. And I think that's why you see all these people feeling like their lives are out of control. And it's because consciously, like, we're not sitting here talking about it. Like, well, yeah, yeah, you know, I've seen a car wreck the other day or, you know, so-and-so died or, you know what I mean? And it's like they're not ever processing it consciously, but their body will, like your body will. I always say you can either exercise your demons or they're going to exercise you. That's a great way to put it.

What do they recommend when you, I mean, do they check on you to see if you are having anxiety or do you have to come to them and explain it? Yeah, I mean, you just, you go to them. Does anybody get through it without anxiety? I mean, like I would worry about the people that got through it without it. I mean, I, I, like I, I would worry about the people that got through it without it. I mean, you know what I mean? If you can go kill people and not get through it without nightmares or anything, you know? Um, but I think, I think some people do. Uh, I mean, I think, I think people just deal with it different ways. Right. Um, but me, you know,

like I used to drink a lot and, and, but I was doing it not because I was an alcoholic. I was doing it as a, I just, I had rather, I could regulate my drinking better than I could the effects of what medicine would do to me. Now, do the Marines have a system that they, will they check on you and make sure you're okay or guide you into a specific type of treatment when they know there's something wrong yeah yeah but you know the problem is for all these war fighters is like they don't want to go talk about it or tell the marine corps because then they're you know you're you're or the military i'll just say military wide you know they they look at you as well now this person can't operate everybody everybody's too worried to talk about this because they're afraid of not being able to do their job. Because they're afraid that somebody will look at them and say, oh, well, you got PTSD, so you don't need a gun.

And it's like, you know, most people that have PTSD are car wreck victims. Really? Yeah. That's the biggest source of PTSD? Yeah, you can Google it. See, the biggest source of ptsd you can you can google it see the biggest source of ptsd is car wreck victims wow well there's probably a lot of those right tons of them yeah so when you do have an issue how how do you go from having an issue to getting treatment what's the process well you mean if you if you if

you tell your command i mean you know there's there's all types of resources there i mean you know um but you have to speak out yeah that's the problem right that's the problem is nobody wants to talk out because you know you start talking then you know how quick's your job going to be gone you know i got out i was out before you know, I was out so fast after all this happened. I was out, you know, seven or eight months afterwards. And I didn't realize what was going on until I probably never started dealing with my PTSD until 2016. You know, I just, I thought this was just normal. What made you change?

My daughters, my daughter, Sailor. I can remember the day I was actually in the floor just having an anxiety attack like crazy. I was like, I got to do something. I've got to do something because my daughters, they deserve the best father possible. They had no choice in coming in this world and you know I might not want to I might not want to deal with it and face it for myself but I they deserve for me to wake up every single day and give them the best father that they could possibly have and and that that is my responsibility to them Is that when you first got this shot, this block?

So I ended up getting it in 2017. Yeah, 2017, I think. And I didn't know anything about it until, you know, once I found out about it, I did. How did you find out about it? Just another warrior that had gotten it, and it worked for them. Wow. another warrior that had gotten it and it worked for them wow and um i also use so i use i use three methods to maintain all of it i use the stellar ganglion block which is it's kind of when it gets real bad i'll go get that that's like the whole reboot right um for maintenance i usually use

it's called an alpha stem and so it goes on your earlobes i've heard of that and people quit smoking with that right i don't know about i don't know about that it's for usually for pain anxiety depression um but i use i use an alpha stem and it goes i put on clip it on my ears and it like i usually do it every day and it just it melts it melts it away as well and then the last piece is and this is not obviously in in our community it's probably not the popular side of it, is using a pan at night. A vape pan? Yeah. Yeah.

Do you use CBD? So it's the indica. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that pretty much eliminated all my drinking really yeah why is that not popular i don't know i think it's kind of like still like the taboo right like the town i come from they just made alcohol legal in it what a few years ago what town are you from man columbia kentucky that's crazy they just made alcohol legal? Yeah. Wow.

That's a good place to study. That's like an uncontacted tribe. Yeah. Well, you know, if you make it legal, the bootleggers will go out of business. Right. Oh, okay. It's Dukes of Hazzard style. That's crazy.

Yeah. Wow. They just made alcohol legal. Holy shit. So, yeah, vape pens are out of the question. Oh, yeah. Show up with a pot leaf t-shirt they'll shoot you oh oh listen yeah yeah that's so crazy yeah that's yeah it's a it's a weird taboo but that that combination particularly like indica it helps a lot of veterans yeah the indica is like it's it indica is like, you take like two or three puffs of that and, man. Makes you conk out.

You're asleep. And you don't wake up with a hangover. Right. That's the cool part of it. Yeah, it's a different kind of sleep. And CBD has some great benefits for people as well in alleviating anxiety. A lot of people like to use the two of them in conjunction. But at least it's good that that's available to you.

Yeah. Where are you living these days? I live in Austin. Oh, okay. So you can get it there, right? It's not. Even if it's legal. It's not legal, right?

It's not. No. Yeah. But it's still there. Yeah, it's still there. Austin's filled with hippies. It's the weirdest place in all of Texas, right? They are.

They're keeping it weird. They definitely keep it weird, but it's a weird combination because it's like hippies it's the weirdest place in all of texas right they are um they're keeping it weird they definitely keep it weird but it's a weird combination because it's like uh hippies but there's also a lot of guns yeah like it's like yeah you know what i mean it's like a hunting culture and a second amendment culture and there's like a lot going on there and then hippies it's like you want to it's like um it's like people wearing fanny packs with guns in them. Yes. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, man. Yeah, you see a guy with a fanny pack in Texas. Assume. Yeah, assume he's carrying. Yeah. It's a different animal. And Arizona's even weird. Like, Arizona's one of those open carry states, right?

Yeah. You could just have it on your hip and go to the supermarket. Yeah. All right. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. Right? You know, when you carry it on your hip and go to the supermarket, I mean, that's obviously

the first person that they would shoot, they should shoot, right? Right. Right. Like, okay, well, I know he's armed, so let's go ahead and make sure we... Yeah, right. I think people think of it as a deterrent, but sometimes deterrents are also attractants. Absolutely. Yeah.

Well, at least you can get a vape pen there. While you're in town, I suggest you stock up. Yeah. This place is ridiculous. California's got it everywhere. California's got too much. It's crazy. Jamie, what did you just read about the company that's got a bunch of fucking pesticides and shit in their stuff?

Pesticides? Yeah, they just tested it. They just tested some shit that we used to have in the studio, but Jamie went and threw it out. That's the real problem with this. It's wild, wild west out here. And unless you're testing things on a regular basis, you might be selling something.

I had a guy named John Norris who wrote a book called The Hidden War. And the book is all about how he was a game warden. And during his normal duties, like making sure that people aren't overfishing or hunting without a license, that kind of stuff, they started finding these cartel grow-ups. And these cartel grow-ups are extremely, the weed that they're putting out is extremely dangerous because it's got these super toxic pesticides to keep animals away and to keep bugs away. And so they're putting this shit on weed, then that stuff winds up getting to the hands

of people, particularly in other parts of the country where it's illegal. Oh, wow. And it's just filled with pesticides. And, you know, you can get sick from that stuff, and people can get real sick from it. That's terrible. Did you find it, Jamie? Yeah, so they had a Petro-solvent extraction. Let me see.

I'll just let you read it. Okay. It's the wrong part. So California vape maker Cushy Punch caught making illegal products. Dun, dun, dun. Tip. This is in, what is the website here? This is Leafly.

So it's like a weed website. Weed. They have websites. So what does it say? The tip what? Consumer Affairs served a warrant. Prompted by a tip. Investigators at the California Department of Consumer Affairs served a search warrant Thursday, October the 3rd

in a light industrial space northwest Los Angeles Canoga Park District. That's over here. They found an illegal cannabis product manufacturing operation apparently operated by Cushy Punch. A legal state-licensed company authority seized a number of finished products, including gummies in the Cushy Punch packaging and disposable vaporizers in Cushy Vape packaging. In photos obtained by Leafly, the facility appeared to be performing petrosolvent extractions, where a technician concentrates the active ingredients in cannabis THC. Petrosolvent extracting is legal with a permit in California. The extraction method can sometimes have the effect of concentrating pesticides

along with the THC. But it says it's legal. Hold on. Scroll back up, Jamie. Yeah, that part did say it was legal. So it said it's legal with a permit in California. So the problem was that they didn't have a permit? I think maybe this place that they went to didn't have a permit.

Edibles and vape cartridges seized. Dun, dun, dun. San Fernando Valley facility appeared to be in the business of putting those extracts into professional-looking THC foods as well as disposable vape pen cartridges. Tall file cabinets held thousands of boxes of cushy vape pens and cushy punch edibles. I don't understand this because it says if it's legal.

Source familiar with cushy punch accused the adult use licensee of maintaining two facilities one licensed and one black market okay leafly is granting the source's request for anonymity they could have actually been used using the packaging maybe too to you know package some stuff that was well it seems like they have one license at one place and the other place not. A source alleges that the cannabis that tested clean went through Cushy Punch's license facility and into the license supply chain. A source also says the cannabis might fail the state's stringent pesticide standards, went to the illicit extraction lab, Pen Factory. Okay, so some of it, but it doesn't say it did fail. It says they were using untested black market oil that is heavy in pesticide.

Yeah. Yeah, I think something got tested and they didn't know what was up. Federal legalization will solve all this shit. That's what they should do. Federal legalization Solve all this shit That's what they should do Federal legalization And nationwide standards You know make it Make it so it's

It's stupid to Grow shit illegally Yeah You know Yeah make it to where it's not a Dude it was a great South Park episode I was watching about this

It was fucking hilarious The new one? Yeah Yeah with the Mexican Joker Okay See that one? I did not

I heard their new episodes Are really good this year Mexican Joker It's that one? I heard their new episodes are really good this year. It's fucking hilarious. This guy gets pissed because other people are growing weed. He's got a weed operation, and he's giving people weed, and everybody's happy and selling weed and doing great. But then people start growing their own weed, and he gets furious. He's like, you stole my fucking idea. He's like, you can't grow weed.

He's like, I thought I was gardening. He's like, you can't grow weed. He's like, what? I thought I was gardening. He's like, fuck you. But I mean, that is the problem, man. It's fucking, it's easy to grow weed. Yeah, there's the Mexican Joker. The problem is that was a different part of the episode. The bee story was that Cartman called ice on his friends because he just, just like he found out that you could just call ice and and like have people suspected so he called it on kyle and had kyle fucking arrested

and his whole family arrested it's such a fucking lie in there mad at cartman and then cartman got arrested himself it was so ridiculous what they were worried about was one of the mexican uh kids growing up to become the mexican joker taking like and killing everybody so they had like like an ice agent i'm giving away a lot of spoilers it's worth seeing though it's fucking hilarious it's just so ridiculous that's funny yeah what's it's just so ridiculous when you find out like but you can grow your own weed that's the point but you can't legally federally and you should be able to it's fucking stupid it's stupid yeah well especially when it helps cops and firemen and first responders and soldiers and it helps a lot of people man look at how much money we spend trying to fight it yeah yeah that's the problem though there's a

business and trying to fight it you Yeah. Yeah. That's the problem though. There's a business trying to fight it. Particularly like the prison guard unions, they always fight against it. There's a lot of people who actually fight against legalization which is,

it's a pretty un-American thing to do. We got that restaurant that just opened up in Hollywood you can smoke weed at now. That restaurant can go fuck itself. I'm not going anywhere

near that place. Listen, smoke a little weed at home and go to a regular goddamn restaurant. I don't want, go to a regular goddamn restaurant. I don't want to go to a restaurant people zoned out of their fucking mind. You're taking gravity bomb hits at the table. Fuck that.

Can you imagine? I can. Everybody's freaking out. I can't imagine. The conversations are probably real stupid. Everybody forgets what they're talking about. These are rookies. You can't be smoking that much weed with rookies.

these are rookies you can't be smoking that much weed with rookies showing up at these buildings where you got restaurants filled with people smoking weed that's a recipe for a disaster they have to make you order before you smoke too oh my god you'll never get out but not only that after you smoke you're like what who the fuck ordered pizza bitch you ordered pizza it's so high you don't remember what you ordered 10 minutes ago yeah it's all those public places like people are used to getting drunk in public they're used to go to a bar you can have a couple of drinks you're fine right two three drinks you're fine you're just you with a little tipsy yeah you're fine but you can have a fucking psychotic spiral if you have a pot edible at some establishment we've all seen people lose their marbles especially if you got some rookie from out of town like comes over from

south dakota i can't believe you guys have free weed what is that what is that a chibichu and they chew that thing in an hour later you're trying to peel them off the ceiling like like what happened to jake ah The fucking guy's still high It's 48 hours later Just make a room for that in the back Yeah a big padded room Like the drunk tank at jail But you have the same thing

Same thing in the back With soft music they just play the carpenters And they just burn incense for you And just try to bring you down Slow down you're gonna be fine But I'm not Yeah it's too risky burn incense for you and just try to bring you down. Slow down. You're going to be fine. But I'm not. Yeah, it's too risky.

Like I want restaurants where people are straight. Everybody's fine. You just order a steak. Regular restaurant. People are getting loaded in those too, though. Oh, before they go. Oh, drunk. Yeah, getting wasted.

But for some reason, I feel like that doesn't bother me as much. Because we're used to it. Yeah. Yeah, that's true we're used to it. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Just used to it. Right. Like, do you remember when you were a kid, when you first got drunk? Like, how old were you when you first got drunk?

Were you in the military or when you got out? I was young. Long before. Yeah. But you remember when you first tried, you don't, first of all, no one's there with you. It's not like your dad or your uncle's going here you have two shots that's it no you're drinking with your friends and you don't know how far to go and so i remember throwing up in the cab i was drinking jackdams with my friends we were listening to music and i remember i was laying i was like in a bean bag i was 14 i was laying in this bean bag looking up

the whole fucking world spinning yep i was like this. I got to get out of here. And I called a cab to take me home, and I threw up in the cab. I was like, oh, my God. I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know how to do it. Nobody taught you how to do it. No. You just wind up figuring out with your friends. And you're just lucky if you don't drink yourself to death.

It's just luck. It's pure luck. Yeah. I was 14, probably weighed 134 pounds, drinking like a fish Had no idea what I was doing Probably had 5, 6 drinks Plastered It's terrible But we're used to that by the time

You go out with someone in their 28 if they don't know how to drink Get rid of them Don't hang out with them I remember when I first moved to LA I was like 27 I went on a date with this gal First date was great Second date I met her at a bar And when I first moved to LA, I was like 27. I went on a date with this gal. First date was great. Second date, I met her at a bar. And when I met her there, she was shit-faced.

Just shit-faced. Stumbling off the fucking stool. Couldn't keep her shit together. Dropped a glass. Broke it. I was like, I'm out of here. See ya. I left her at the bar.

I was like, fuck this. So you ghosted her? Yes. Hell yeah. Those were the glorious days when no one had cell phones oh beautiful time to be alive yeah she had to call my house good luck bitch she didn't have a cell phone very few people had cell phones in 94 you know very few people there's nobody had i mean i had one. I had a Motorola StarTAC.

It was like a big fat boy. It lasted like, you could talk on it for 13 minutes before it ran out of batteries. It had an antenna. You pulled the antenna up. Click, click. You remember those things? Dude, you thought you were Captain Kirk with those bad boys. Yeah, yeah.

I was six. Yeah. Yeah, man. In 94, were you six? I was six. Yeah. That's when I first moved here. Click, click. In 94? Was it six? That was six. Yeah, that's when I first moved here. Click, click.

Hello. You hold it up to your ear like the detachable battery. You get the fat battery. You get an extra 40 minutes of talking. Where'd you keep it at? How'd you carry it around? I don't remember. I probably had one of them holsters on the side because it's too thick for your pocket.

You can't keep that fucking fat bastard in your pocket. I remember when the Razor phone came out, everybody was like, holy shit, we're in the future. It's a credit card. Yeah, I remember that. You're talking on a credit card. That was the shit. That little thing was so small.

But then that was like six minutes of talking. Yeah. Yeah, the Razer. Yeah, that thing. And nobody had a cord. You couldn't like, it wasn't like today like hey you got a charger like most people have iphones or androids it's either usbc or it's lightning most people have chargers somewhere right yeah especially iphones in america back then if you

didn't have a charge you're fucked you can go to a rep nobody has a goddamn cable at a restaurant for your fucked up cell phone it didn't exist it didn't exist most people didn't even have cell phones until like 2000 like when did you get a cell phone for the first time I was like 17 or 18 like my senior year high school it's like 2000 yeah like 2000 ish somewhere around there yeah I had one in 94 I actually had one in 88 I had one that was attached to my car it was like the box like the little box had the cord on it yeah well sort it was actually bolted into the car it was in the center like it looked dope like a pimp he driving around i had a honda crx and it was like right there in

the middle of the seats like the the phone but it was it helped me because uh i used to get gigs because like booking agents, if someone couldn't make a gig or somebody fell out or got sick, they would call me. I actually had a phone. So I was in my car. They'd call me up. And I got a number of gigs because I had this fucking cell phone. Were you in the right age where you had pager codes?

Oh, yeah. Did you have pager codes? You know who had a pager was Joey Diaz forever, deep into the 2000s. And if he owed people money or if he didn't like talking to them, he'd just throw his pager away. Hey, I got a new pager, dog. He would get a new pager. He would just lose that pager. He could never get a hold of him.

That's so true. Because he had to call you back. So he would call you back from just random phone numbers. I'm going to the pager. The pager was the shit. But then what happened was some people got pagers that could send text messages. I was going to say at first they expanded it to like you could get sports updates for summer.

Like everyone needed to get sports scores all day long. That's right. They paid an extra five bucks a month. But I remember I was at the comedy store in the back kitchen area and one of the people that worked there had a pager. Maybe it was a comic. I don't remember. But they had a pager with a keyboard.

I'm like, what the fuck is that? And they're like, you could send people messages. I'm like, no. They're like, yeah, if you're at a club, you can send them a message, and they can know where you are. I was like, that is crazy. Like, that's crazy. You're sending messages?

And I remember thinking, I should probably get one of those. But then I never got around to doing it. But people were, they had pagers. This was before everybody had cell phones. They had pagers that is what before everybody had cell phones they had pagers that you could type messages on that bled venn diagram bleed over into the next tell oh yeah walkie talkie eddie bravo had one of those very close time period i would always give him shit i'm like you have a phone why the fuck would you put a walkie talkie on a phone a phone's

better than a walkie talkie like why not put smoke screens on how about you know have a drum signals this is so stupid you're gonna smoke signals on your phone you hear that sounds everywhere it's a phone everywhere dude yeah you don't have to say over a phone's better you don't have to say over you know i told things like you can only one person can talk at a time and the other thing about the walkie-talkie was I was like, okay, can someone listen? Do you have to press the button or could someone just listen? That was the concern. Your girl could call you and just listen.

You're talking shit with your friends. And she could just do it. I had a thought the other day, too. This was a 90s thing. You might remember this, too. When you would turn on Your home cell phone Wireless phone Sometimes you'd just hear

Your neighbors talking Oh yeah And like they couldn't hear you Yes Like you just listened To a half an hour conversation Yes Like randomly

Yes So where I lived at We didn't have neighbors Close enough Okay I remember that Clearly when I was living In an apartment

I heard the neighbor Talking to me Like a sock But I would hear their whole conversation. That was like you picked up on their frequency. Yeah, the wireless thing just got connected real bad. There was no encryption back there. You didn't have to be a hacker.

You just had to have a fucking antenna. Yeah. Those days. Simpler days. But at least people, for the most part part were talking to each other face to face. Face to face. That was the vast majority of communication was face to face. Now I would venture to say it's flipped on its head. And the vast majority of communication is probably through text messages.

Well, a hundred percent. I mean, text messages, emails. I mean, people can build their own reality now, right? Like I can never, you never have to look at me and I can build my own reality through Instagram, Facebook, through all the social media. I mean, people can build their own reality now, right? Like, I can never, you never have to look at me, and I can build my own reality through Instagram, Facebook, through all the social media. I mean, literally, I can build my own filter. Yes. My life can be filtered. Sure. Like, and people don't want to look in the mirror of unfiltered realness.

Yeah. Yeah, they just want to be in a bubble, communicate with people that have like-minded views. Make their own reality. Yeah. Yeah. You know. It is an extremely strange time when it comes to the way people communicate with each other.

And there's no accountability, right? Like you communicate through those things. Like you can say whatever you want and there's no accountability. There's no accountability for what you say to people, for, you know, the shit you talk to people. There's no accountability because I can just hide behind a computer screen. I can hide behind a screen. I can hide behind my Instagram profile.

You can't find me. You can't see me. You know how people can like your posts, like put a little heart, they like your posts? Imagine if they give you electric shock. Oh. If people thought you were cunts, there's like a little lightning bolt next to the heart.

Like, this guy's a dick. I'm glad they don't because then I'd probably get more of those. We all would. I'd probably be dead. Probably shocked to death. I mean, imagine if someone could just reach out and shock you anytime they want. Oh, that'd be terrible. It'd be fucking terrible.

That'd be terrible. But, I mean, the emotional pain that people cause anytime they want, where they could just reach out and say something terrible to people, especially people doing it through anonymous accounts. Oh, that's the worst. You know what? And it's like people you're saying this to, like they're real people. Yes, they're real people.

Like the people that you're judging, the people that you're criticizing their lives, that the media chooses to put out there, like they're real people going through real problems too. Do you think that you have, and this is going to be a crazy question, but do you think that you have more of an appreciation for life because you've taken life? I think that I have more appreciation for people in life because I have seen what suffering looks like. I have felt suffering. When I look at people and people have their problems and they come to me or they tell me their experience,

I don't try to compare the experiences. It's not a game. It's not a, it's not a game. It's not a, it's not a, you know, it's not a, it's not a contest. I try to look at them and when they tell me their experience, I just instantly go to, well, gosh, like I know this person's suffering. How can I help them get through it? Cause I know what that feels like. And that's where I can, you know, I try to relate to people on that level of not the, not the experience because look, I look at people. Yeah. My day, it sucked. People gone through way, way worse, million times worse. You know,

you look at, you know, sexual assault victims, you look at, you know, you look at domestic violence victims. I feel like they've gone through way worse than I could ever experience, right? Like they've gone through just this stuff and their PTSD is astronomical, but it's like, we can all find a way to relate on that empathetic side of, gosh, you're going through something. Like, let me help you get through that. Like, if I can help you get through that, I want to, I want to help you get through that. And I think that I've, I know what it's like to suffer. And I've seen suffering at such extreme levels that I appreciate. I just want to help people. I just want to change the world.

What do you do with your days most of the time, these days? So I do a lot of public speaking. I work with Hiring Our Heroes, with helping veterans transition back, getting jobs in Toyota. And I'm also launching a website on Own the Dash. So Own the Dash is kind of like my brand of what I believe in, of owning your dash. Dash? Dash. What do you mean by dash?

So Linda Ellis wrote a poem. It's called The Dash. Dash. What do you mean by dash? So Linda Ellis wrote a poem. It's called The Dash. And so she talks about, you know, on your tombstone, you have the day you were born and the day you die, which are two of the most insignificant days of your life. They're both the only two days in your life that aren't 24 hours. But what matters is that dash in between.

And you don't have control of the day you're born or the day you die, but you have control of what that dash looks like and how you made people feel and how they're going to remember you the day that you're gone. You have that control every day. And so I'm all about owning your dash. Own your dash. Be the best you. Don't try to be the best somebody else. Be the best you. Wake up every day and put it all on the table and put it into making people's lives better

and so i'm i'm i have i'm launching this site to where it's like it's helping people empowering people to owning their dash to being okay with being the best them i think people want to be the best them i think people want to be positive best them. I think people want to be positive. I just don't think people have anybody showing them how to do it. I think there's a lot of truth to that. I think there's a lot of people that are frustrated because they really don't know how to live life in a positive way. And they're spinning their wheels. Too many people are out there. People are out there surviving instead of succeeding.

They're just surviving. And you said Toyota with Hire for Heroes? Hire for Heroes. Yeah, so I teamed up with Toyota when I got out. I mean, Toyota has been, they, you know, everybody at Toyota has just been so incredible. But I teamed up with Toyota in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and so we built this platform.

It's a resume engine engine so basically it helps veterans translate what they did in the military to what corporate you know what corporations are looking for and so toyota just sponsors this that's awesome yeah and so that's most of your time is these speaking engagements yeah and then i have a canvas company flip side canvas so we we basically do digital art. Oh, so that's why you were asking about these images that we have. Yeah. So we have Flipside Canvas.

So we do digital art and we put it up on different media types. So we do infused metal. We do canvas and we also do floated paper. Did we order those things already? I was going to. That's why I was asking. Oh, perfect. Yeah, we'll do it through you.

Yeah. Yeah, we're getting a bunch of shit made, we're about to, just now. Yeah, it'd be awesome. Yeah, we'll do it through you, 100%. I love it. 100%. We love it. So I do that, and then also, I was telling you earlier, we just launched Discipline Go with Jocko, right?

I've got a signature flavor coming out called Dax Savage. Oh, wow. Yeah. So this is Jocko's energy drink? Yeah We were just talking about this Jocko should not have a goddamn energy drink Keep that money

Dude, he drinks tea He drinks like herb tea If you could just bottle up Jocko's energy Runs through walls Right? If you could just bottle up Jocko's energy and pass it out Yeah He's an interesting dude

But the world's better that he's alive 100% People like that First of all They're a tremendous source of inspiration and information. Yeah. But inspiration, particularly important because he leads by example. And what he does with his life, what he does with his days, you know, like he took an image the other day on his Instagram of the sunset.

And it's like, this is finite. Yeah. Go get it. Go get it. A few of these. You don't get many. And he does it so simple, too, right? Yep.

Like everything, it ain't complicated. Yeah. It's simple. It's to the point. We played his video, Good. I played it probably 50 fucking times on this podcast because I love it so much. It's a video where he's talking about his response to anything that goes wrong. Good.

Here's a chance to grow. Good. We learned. And there's this video, and it's so intense because there's great music and animation to it, and the video's on YouTube. I've literally watched it 100 times. Yeah, and when I get my hardest hardest times, that's what I watch. I watch that good video.

It's done so much for me. That video is amazing. It's amazing. It just puts it in perspective. It's like, I don't know, what is it? Two minutes long? Yeah. That two minutes, if you're driving down the road, afterwards, you just want to kick your

windshield out. Let's do it. It's fuel. Let's do this do it, right? It's fuel. It's fuel. It's inspiration. I mean, it makes your fucking hackles raise up. It gives you goosebumps. It makes you want to go.

It makes you want to go. It makes you just want to go. That's why guys like Jocko and Tim Kennedy and David Goggins and these fucking dudes that are out there that provide so much inspiration. Yeah. Iron Goggins. He said that he did the one the other day. He's out there running, and he said, I don't know.

I'll slaughter it. But he goes, you know, he goes, it's hot out here. And he goes, this guy pulled up to me, and he said something to him about, why are you running? It's so hot. And he's like, you know, we need doctors. We need lawyers. And we also need hard motherfuckers.

We need fucking savages. We need hard motherfuckers. He sends me random text messages out of nowhere. I'll read them to you because they're so ridiculous. Because he's so fucking savage, man. But he means it. Like, he sends you these text messages. And I get them just randomly like like here's one no need to respond hope all's well brother continue to

live in the grip of life as you know nothing gets done by being a bitch stay hard brother it's a random david cox text message i'm like it's tuesday i'm at home just watching tv or something i get this message like what the fuck jesus christ and you know he's out there it's probably 115 degrees outside he's been running for 18 hours stay hard stay hard oh yeah yeah those guys are a massive source of inspiration they are they are then and you know what and like i i just love them all so much because they're real yes like they're just they're real like it's not an act it's not a performance right it's not a it's not a show it's not you know they're just they wake up every day, especially Jocko, wakes up every day.

Tim Kennedy. I mean, these guys just wake up every day and live everything that they say. Yeah. And Jocko wakes up every day and takes a picture of his fucking watch. He does. Look, it's 4.30, bitch. Here we go. That's not the way that somebody like me would do it.

I would take 10 of them in one day, and then I would put them on HootSot suite and they would come out one day you wake up at 4 30 yeah that's just not that's just not you know but they they crush it and and that's why you know the world needs the world needs them they the world does and also people with the kind of experiences that they've had, their inspiration means more. There's a lot of people out there giving inspiration, but they haven't done shit. When you get inspiration from someone that you know is living it every goddamn day, pushing it every goddamn day.

Pushing it every day and finding, they got every reason to not do it, but they always find the reason to do it. Yeah.'s recently gotten into bow hunting now which is pretty exciting how was that how was that bow hunting with him it was great well i i wasn't hunting with him i was in camp with him he was hunting with my friend john dudley who's uh who coached me and has helped me and he's coaching he coached jaco to his first elk and um you know so but we all got to share camp and talk we did a podcast together it's available on knock on archery and it's also available on my brother andy stumps

podcast which is cleared hot i love andy i love andy too he's a shit he was in camp as well and um we we were there for five days in uh utah we had a great fucking time it was awesome that's awesome. It's gorgeous up there, man. God, it's so beautiful. Andy's an awesome dude, too. He's crazy. He's legitimately crazy.

I mean, anybody who has the world record for the longest flight suit in one of them flying squirrel fucking suits, that guy's out of his fucking mind. But he doesn't do the flying squirrel suit anymore. He doesn't? Nope. No, he had a buddy die. Well, he's had several but yeah one too many i believe and then base jumping he's had a bunch of friends died did he quit base jumping yes he's still skydiving yeah no more base jumping we're supposed to skydive together i skydive a lot too so i love it i don't skydive i mean i'm

not nowhere near handy stump dude that looks like a ridiculous thing to do. I don't get it, but I was just in a hot air balloon recently. That was as close as I get to skydiving. Yeah? Yeah. You wouldn't do it? Come on. I mean, I definitely would do it, but I don't want to. I don't want to jump out of a goddamn plane.

I would do it. Yeah. If I had to do it, I would do it, but I don't want to do it. You wouldn't volunteer to do it. No. Just some crazy thrill. Look, we're almost going to die. And then we landed.

Woo. Don't you feel better that you didn't die? I can imagine that. I'll lie in bed and close my eyes and pretend I'm jumping out of a plane. I'm good. You're good? Yeah. But Andy, that's not enough.

He's got to get in that goddamn squirrel suit. And then fly close to all those, you know. Yeah, and you can calculate that shit wrong if you don't know every goddamn nuance of the surface of the earth. Or just, like, the wind. Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, how about that? I mean, there was one that we played on this podcast that's horrendous

where a guy was trying to bridge the gap through the Golden Gate Bridge and he slams into the bridge while these people are watching. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And the sound when it hits the bridge is like a car accident. That sounds terrible. Oh, my God. It's so terrible because you realize that people are realizing this guy is going to hit the bridge. Because he just, you know, you're floating. It's not like you have, like, controls.

You're just kind of guessing. And it's like you guess wrong. Slammed right into the side of the bridge. It's horrific. Yeah, if it's all about guessing, then I'm not usually good at guessing. No. Not interested, man. One of the greatest jiu-jitsu guys of all time,

Hollis Gracie, he died sky gracie he he died uh skydiving not skydiving um um what's that called what's it called when you're on the those things paragliding yeah the you know the triangle thing and flying around those things that's how you died yeah he died slamming into a mountain wow Wow. Yeah. That would suck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, again, he's goddamn savage. He can't get enough adrenaline. I like Andy.

I love it. I love it. Andy's like, I blame him for me getting into it. I was interested in it, and I did it. I love it, though. I love it. He's gotten a couple of friends of mine into it. Goddamn psycho.

Yeah. He told me though that I can't. He said no base jumping. He did tell me that. He's like, no base jumping. He's like, don't be base jumping. Yeah, that one doesn't work out all the time. It doesn't, does it?

No. No, there's times it doesn't work out and when it doesn't work out, it's terrible. Yeah. I get it, but those things, those cheap thrills, you know, it seems like a cheap thrill. I get it. I get it. I mean, I'm not telling anybody they shouldn't do it. It definitely should be illegal.

I'm not saying it should be illegal. You should be able to do it, for sure. You should do it. Fuck that. So you're not even on the fan fuck that not interested oh come on what else you doing with your time these days that's it raising my daughters you know i got two and three year old they're awesome that's always fun yeah man um flying my helicopter you got a helicopter yeah so i i got it holy shit my buddy Holy shit. My buddy, Tim's introduced me to a guy named Shane Steiner, and he got me into flying.

So I love it. Like, I'm addicted to it. I love it. It makes my life a lot easier. I mean, it also, whenever I, you know, if I go to Dallas or Houston, it's a difference in me getting home that day versus me staying another night and not being able to wake up in the same house as my kids, right? So I love it. I love it. That's pretty cool, man. I've been up in them before. I was in them in Hawaii. I've flown in them when you do the tour of the volcanoes. And then recently, my friend Bill Burr, he's gotten really into flying helicopters

and he took me up and we flew around downtown la and it was crazy we went uh around malibu after the fires too oh wow well you see it from the surface or from the sky rather you get a totally different perspective of like how bad the damage was but yeah he loves it he flies all over the place i love it yeah i love it seems like a lot of fun yeah you come to austin we'll go fly around fuck that no i'll fly with you for sure how long you've been doing it for a couple weeks a few weeks no i should be taking my um i should be taking my so you know if i do anything like is this you yeah that's me right here yeah so did you buy this thing you bought a plane holy Holy shit. Yeah.

I mean, a helicopter? That's ultimate freedom though, right? Oh my gosh. You go wherever the hell you want and you can land in a small area? Yeah, like sometimes you're flying over the lake, Lake Travis, and just like eight to ten feet off the water. Wow. And it's like, yeah, there's Shane right there.

Today's his birthday, actually. Happy birthday, Shane. Happy birthday, Shane. Happy birthday, Shane. That's pretty dope. That was the day I did my first solo. Oh, wow. Yeah, the first day. How far did you fly?

So basically, you just go up and you do three takeoffs and landings. So that's his helicopter over there. Oh, okay. The red one in the background? Yeah, we're starting a helicopter club, you know? Oh, really? Yeah, Helly's Angels. No, I'm just kidding.

Have you ever been Hella hunting I have I have pigs Have you Yeah I've watched Ted Nugent There's a show

That they did Called the Porkalypse now The Porkalypse Where he's hanging Ted Nugent Hanging out of a Helicopter Gunning down

These wild pigs Yeah And for people who don't know It's really Actually a necessary evil Because these wild pigs yeah people who don't know it's really actually a necessary evil because these wild pigs in texas in particular they've overrun the state there it is yes uncle ted a poor eclipse oh god this is so ridiculous and he's just taking them out tink tink tink i mean there's so many of them like yeah it has to be done it does have to be done

it's fucking crazy the video is goddamn crazy you got to see him doing reload and they're just gunning these pigs down from the sky and that's uh they're doing a talk brian quacko's pig man he's got a a show called pig man yeah it's in the same type of helicopter it's our i think it's r44 yeah this is a fucking crazy video man it's so crazy it's so awesome they shot i That is a fucking crazy video, man. It's so crazy. It's so awesome. They shot, I think, something like 250 hogs in a day. Oh, my gosh.

Just flying around, gunning them down. That's a lot of bacon, a lot of barbecue. It is. Yeah, they just round them up, and they actually feed the homeless with them. The thing about pigs is they're destructive, and they're terrible, and they're terrible for the ranches, and they're terrible for these farms, but they're damn and they're terrible and they're terrible for the ranches and they're terrible for these farms, but they're damn delicious. They are.

So if you, especially those, the wild ones actually taste better than domestic pigs. It's a far superior meat. But it's, you know, you got to. A lot of times you get to them and they're all nasty. They all eat up with stuff. That can happen too. Yeah. You know, you got to watch them. Yeah, infected.

Because they eat everything. But they'll come in like a pig will tear up. Like, and it's crazy how fast they reproduce, right? Like, I think it's like a pig's gestation. So I think after a pig is born, I don't know how long it is when they, but when they, after they, you know, they have their first litter. Like, it's like every, I don't know, six months or if it's six weeks, I don't know what the period is. I think they can have their first litter at six it's like every, I don't know if it's six months or if it's six weeks, I don't know what the, I think they can have their first litter at six months.

Yeah. Six months. And then I think it only takes them like, I don't know how it is, but like usually after they have their litter, they're pregnant the next day. That's crazy. Like,

it's like there's this whole gestation period of why they reproduce so much. Right. And that's the problem with them. You know, they're, they're everywhere in Texas. They're everywhere in California now, too. They're in San Jose and people's front yards chewing up their grass and stuff.

And they're all over the place, man. What do they do? What do they do about them out here in their front yards? Well, you can hunt them. The place where I'm hunting elk, you can hunt pigs. That's Tajon Ranch. And there's, you know, in Northern California, I mean, it's a famous place where Hunter Thompson used to hunt with AK-47s. He used to go out and hunt pigs.

That's awesome. There's a famous picture of him with a pig hanging from a rope that he's quartering, you know, and gutting. That's so awesome. Yeah, they were brought to California by William Randolph Hearst, believe it or not. Really? California by William Randolph Hearst, believe it or not. Really? Yeah.

You know, he had Hearst Palace up there, or Hearst Castle, and he wanted to bring a bunch of wild animals up there. So he had all these wild animals running around on his lawn, and some of them were Russian boars. So he brought over these Russian boars and sows, and they bred, and now they're all over the place. And here they are. Particularly Northern California. They get about as far south as Bakersfield, the Bakersfield area.

But eventually they're probably going to make their way to the San Fernando Valley. They'll probably link up. They'll probably just keep going and link up in Texas. Probably. You know. Well, they're fucking everywhere, man. They're going to. People don't know.

If you've never seen it before, people on the outside are like, oh, why would you want to shoot pigs? But if you just saw the kind of devastation and millions and millions of dollars worth of property damage every year for these farmers. And for farmers, they're on a tight margin as it is. If you're a farmer, a rancher, and you're trying to grow crops, it's tough to make a living. And you've got to worry about weather and everything else, much less pigs. Millions of pigs, too. Millions.

Yeah. I mean, people are people like wait a minute millions are you exaggerating no millions i think they estimate what is find out this what's the number of wild hogs estimated in texas just in texas alone i would bet let's take a guess i'm gonna say four million yeah i'd go higher i'd go five five. Five. What does it say, Jamie? 1.5. No, they don't know shit, liberals. Yeah, yeah.

Goddamn hippies. Is that real? Yeah. That's what it says? Texas government website. Texas government. They're corrupt. Yeah.

It's the government. You can't believe it. You can't believe the goddamn government. Well, we were a little off. Yeah, we were a little off on that one. Also, Ted Nugent's out there. He's probably 15 million if it wasn't for him. Yeah't believe the guy named Godman. Well, we were a little off. Yeah, we were a little off on that one. Also, Ted Nugent's out there. He'd probably be $15 million if it wasn't for him. Yeah, Ted Nugent.

He's awesome. He's an interesting cat. I enjoyed talking to him. I had him on the podcast. A lot of people. He's a polarizing character. But I don't think people understand him. You talk to him.

He's actually a very good man. He's a good guy. He's got this outrageous side to him. He's actually a very good man. He's a good guy. He's got this outrageous side to him, and he says a bunch of outrageous shit, but that's also part of the way he gets attention for some of the things that he believes in. I don't think he's a bad guy at all. Yeah, I mean, you've got to make a statement to get people to pay attention, right? Yeah, and also you've got to realize this guy's been fighting the same fight for a long time in regards to hunting rights for a long long time back when people

didn't really have the the same information that they have today like now today people can understand like oh conservation is actually very important and it's important to remove certain numbers of the population of these animals and also the money that you spend on these tags and on hunting licenses and even on gear a percentage of that goes towards protecting habitat and hiring game wardens. And it's a very efficient system, and it's a system that's actually managed by wildlife biologists. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's a system that's very managed. Just like in Alaska, their game wardens up there, I mean, it seems like if you killed a moose or you fished with the wrong thing, the wrong hook, it's more important than if somebody got killed or something. You know what somebody told me, though, which is interesting?

You know they have that game wardens TV show? You know, there's like a show about game wardens. they they you know there's like a show about game wardens and uh somebody was telling me that game wardens are like some unscrupulous game wardens are actually setting guys up just so they could be on these shows oh really yeah they're trying to set up stings and set up these things just so they could be on the shows they might even be entrapping people they um i know like where i was from like they would put this deer out it's put this deer out If you get in trouble If you can't shoot from the road And they put that fake deer

They put a robot deer With a camera on it That could film people trying to kill it That's hilarious I just had to watch out Watch out for robo deer Make sure it's a real deer It actually moves it its head and shit

It does I've seen that thing It'll move and stuff And they put it out in the field Like where like people drive by And they see it in the field And Well you know

On one hand I'm like that's hilarious On the other hand Fuck poachers Yeah So good Yeah You know

Good If you're out there doing that If you're out there doing that It's not fair right Yeah well it's crazy too And you know There's so many people out there That don't follow the rules you're out there doing that It's not fair, right? Yeah, well it's crazy too And there's so many people out there that don't follow the rules That are out there shooting animals they're not supposed to shoot And there's a reason why we have so many animals

It's because they have this stringent set of rules That they want you to follow And if you can get a tag for two animals Great, that's what you're allowed to get You get two animals, that's it And if you get four or five And you're storing them in your freezer And not letting anybody know what you're allowed to get you get two animals that's it and if you get four or five and you're storing them in your freezer and not letting anybody know you're a criminal and you're part of the problem and if everybody did that there would be no animals left and that's

really what this country had at the turn of the century when market hunting was in full swing they mean almost wiped out black bears almost wiped out white-tailed deer almost wiped out elk to this day elk To this day Elk in this country are only in a small percentage Of the population that they Including grizzly bears Small percentage of the place where they used to be California has a goddamn grizzly bear

As its state flag There's a grizzly bear on the flag There's no fucking grizzlies here They whacked them all, they killed every one of them But they did that because they were killing people. The last guy to get killed by a grizzly bear was in, I think his name was Stephen Levesque. And there's a town named after him. When you're headed up north, if you're on the way to Bakersfield, there's a town called Levesque.

And that's where that guy got whacked. So they named a town after him? Yeah. That's the last place where a person got killed by a grizzly bear in California. And they just gunned them all down. Like, enough. Got rid of all of them. That's awesome.

Have you ever been around a grizzly bear in real life? Not a grizzly bear. I've seen brown bears, black bears. Well, a brown bear is a grizzly. It's the same thing. Unless it's a color fairy's black bear. Yeah. But isn't there like a little bit, like there's a little difference between them? The difference is really their diet. Yeah. But in there, like, a little bit, like, there's a little difference between them.

The difference is really their diet. Yeah. Grizzly bears are more aggressive because they're out there fucking up moose and deer and shit. It's a hard knock life for a grizzly bear. Well, I think that, you know, so the brown bears, I mean, they're out there. I mean, they're out there crushing moose too, right? I mean, they're. They are.

But they're also eating a shitload of fish. Yeah. Brown bears are coastal bears. Gotcha. And, like, in And like in Alaska. Yeah, so that's where I was at is Alaska. So that's where I was around them is in Alaska. There's a crazy picture that went viral a couple days ago.

This couple of guys are fly fishing, and they don't even realize that a bear is right behind them. Oh, gosh. They're standing there in the river, and this fucking huge bear. See if you can find the picture. These guys are in the river, and this fucking huge bear. See if you can find the picture. These guys are on the river. Viral image. Men don't know bears behind them. They're fishing around this river.

This fucking huge bear is just right behind them looking at them. They don't even know it's there. That's awesome. I'm glad. Bears are something else. They are something else. They are something else. You seen it?

There's another video I was looking for you Look at that They don't even know They're fishing Like hey guys Oh my gosh They had no idea

There's a fucking 900 pound bear Right behind them Yeah I mean And then you're kind of Screwed right there Like Like do you think

The guy's yelling at him As he's taking the photo Or do you think he took the photo And then told him The guy probably stayed there For hours taking pictures And never told him He probably was hoping

That the bear ate him And he'd get the best picture There's one crazy video Of these people riding these bikes Down this trail Oh the men in the photo Were barely bothered When they realized The bear

Oh well they must be Alaskan natives Yeah God damn savages up there They're crazy These people don't give a fuck Those are different That's a different breed

Of human up there Yeah that's like They're hard people in Alaska Hard people Hard people Yeah Looked over his shoulder And continued fishing

The bears in the park Regularly walk up and down the riverbank Searching for food And will dive into the water dozens of times per day See the thing is those bears have so much salmon They get so much meat That they just think of salmon as food Like people are just a pain in the ass

That might shoot them and kill them They're not interested in that as much That's what he said Yeah they probably would have jumped right over me Or walked right past me To get the salmon Yeah there's I mean

That's why they're so big They get so much protein There's an insane amount of fish That's crazy That come up that river And that's That's why the salmon are there There's a great video

Of this guy He's Got a camera set up And a bear walks right next to him And just sits down And it's like as close as where Jamie is And it's fucking huge It's so big

This guy's got a lawn chair there He's like hey bear come on man get out of here The bear is like 900 pounds or something And sits down right next to where Right where Jamie is Just chilling And they look out onto the river itself And it's filled with bears like 40 bears in view because they're all just going through the salmon run that's insane it is insane that is insane um yeah i lived up in alaska for a

year and um it was a whole different world it's a different world a whole different world it's barely america yeah it's like it's a really nice place to visit. I love Anchorage. I've only been once, but man, I really enjoy the shit out of it. When did you go up there? I guess it was two, three years ago. My friend Ari Shafir and I, we did some salmon fishing. Then we did a couple shows up there.

We had a great time, man. Yeah, I think April to probably September you know, probably September is really, it's awesome. It's hard to sleep though. Yeah, I mean, because it's. You got to cover your eyes. Like it's weird. Yeah. Like you're tired and it looks like it's two o'clock in the afternoon. Like this is fucking strange.

That's pretty cool though. Yeah. It doesn't get too warm up there. It doesn't, obviously. But those mosquitoes are gangster. They're like, they should be like the state bird those mosquitoes should be so big they're terrible they're so big and so aggressive they don't even make sense yeah yeah we uh we got out of the car we got to the river and you know

you pull up the trailhead and we uh we got out of the car and we hadn't sprayed the bug spray on we opened up the door i was thinking thinking, well, we'll get out. I'll put my clothes on. Then I'll spray myself with bug spray. The moment we opened the door, the car was filled with 100 mosquitoes. How the fuck did they even know we're here? They just found us so quick.

Fresh blood. Just open the door and it's like, what the fuck, man? We're both swatting. We're spraying bug spray inside the truck. It's ridiculous. That's so awesome. Yeah, it's a crazy place to live.

But it's also like when you're up there, you recognize like, oh, these people have a way closer relationship with the natural world than we do. It gets cold as fuck in the winter. They're surrounded by grizzly bears. Moose are everywhere. Deer are everywhere. It's a different different relationship with wildlife yeah it's it's like you know and everything up there like the one thing i noticed is if whether you're going out to there was a cabin um there was a cabin at mount denali and so what we would do is we'd ride snow

machines you'd have to park and then you'd have to ride snow machines out to it and it's like everything you do up there is it's it's like serious you know i mean it's not yes like you better take it serious or you could die yeah everything everything everything everything you know if you want to go fishing or you know on the river or whatever like it's all it's all serious but it seems like the people have a different attitude what is this the mosquitoes there oh my god that's in alaska yeah they they can kill baby caribou. Caribou calves, literally mosquitoes will sting them around their eyeballs and their assholes until they die. Swarm engulfed scientists who recorded a god-awful phenomenon.

That's crazy. Man, that's nature, right? That's what happens when you only get to live for a couple months. Yeah. You just got to go for it. Go all out. Yeah. That's why in la there's

fucking zero mosquitoes they're like they're just like chill oh my god look at these legs are just covered they'll bite you right through your fucking pants they don't give a shit about your pants look at that guy's foot oh my god look at click on the foot covered in mosquitoes that is crazy oh that is crazy Oh my god that gives me a The heebie jeebies just looking at it Why is that guy letting that happen Backpacking with monster skeeters Yeah they're doing it for the gram

Imagine getting your feet lit up just for Instagram It's not worth it man Keep your feet protected bro It's too crazy They'll go right through your socks They don't give a shit about clothes clothes are not going to protect you clothes nope not up there do you get a chance to do much hunting these days you know i haven't i haven't hunted much um i haven't it's not

something home um i used to i grew up hunting i grew up hunting and uh you know we've got a farm in kentucky and so I grew up there hunting with my you know my whole life and I haven't hunted the tons since I've been home I've hunted I killed a um a neal guy down on the king ranch oh wow that's a big animal yeah that's an elk sized animal it's like a horse with horns yeah right yeah it's beautiful yeah apparently unbelievably delicious that's what I hear yeah beautiful It's a beautiful animal. I killed a bear up in Alaska. I've killed some deer since I've been home on the farm. You killed a black bear?

I killed a black bear. Yeah, they're delicious too, oddly enough, right? Yeah. People don't know. Yeah, they taste good. Yeah. That king ranch is crazy. How many acres is that thing?

I think it's almost a million. I think that's what it is, right? I think it's almost a million, right? I think that's what it is, right? I think it's almost a million. Texas is so strange. I think it's like, I think it's almost a million acres. I think it's like the largest land. 1.225.

Yeah. Yeah. And the crazy thing is, is like you're talking about, I got so fired up because, you know, I mean, I come from a farm and, you know, the deer there, it's not like they're, they're, you know, they're not, we don't feed them. You know, we don't, we don't, we don't grow deer there. Right. Right.

And, um, so you're driving out and literally you're getting out to open the gate, leaving the King ranch and you look over to your right, you know, 10 feet off the road and there's a, you know, a non-typical huge deer right there and you're like uh i'd give anything to have that on my wall yeah but it's a weird thing right because they do feed them oh yeah it's almost like agriculture yeah they i mean you know they put out food plots and stuff like that and you know food plots make sense that's just plants the animals eat but feeders oh feeders yeah that's where i draw the line i'm like okay what we doing here? Is this agriculture or is this hunting? Is it killing or hunting?

Even if it's a million acres, if it's a million acres in every 800, 900 yards, you have a feeder and all the animals gather in the feeder, so you got a blind that you hang out by the feeder. Yeah, that's a Neal guy. What is this, the King Ranch? That's a Neal guy. Yeah, that's a Neal guy. Yeah.

How good were those things? They were good. I hear they're better than elk. It was really good. I hear it's insanely delicious. Oh, it is so good. I hear they're better than elk. It was really good. I hear it's insanely delicious. Oh, it is so good. I've never had elk, but it was good. Oh, I can take care of that.

How long are you in town for? I leave out tonight. Oh. Well, I'll give you some in the freezer bag. You can bring it home with you. They were. So the thing about them is when you see them, they're running. Uh-huh.

As soon as. Well, they used to be in and around lions. That's what's so crazy about Texas. Like, they take all these African animals. Like, you can hunt a fucking zebra in Texas. Yep. Zebra. What?

Yeah. Zebra? What? Why is there a zebra here? And the zebras get out, too. That's what's really fucked up. They keep them in these high-fence ranches, but those fences break.

And then you got zebras just running around. Running around. around yeah i got a buddy who has a farm who has elk you know down in texas he's got elk yeah on his farm because they got out you know they just came down the river well that's a real common thing in west texas now yeah is is elk there's quite a few of them and you know you look at some of the ranges where they um where they hunt them and you it looks like you're you might as well be in colorado or something like that it's weird yeah i got a buddy who um he has giraffes on his farm two giraffes what is he doing with them they're just there for just to go you can go feed the giraffes i had a bit of my act a couple years ago and my uh triggered netflix special triggered

about texas and about how there's more tigers in captivity in Texas than in all of the wild of the world. Really? Yep. More tigers in dudes' backyards. In private collections. That's crazy. There's more tigers in Texas than all

of the wild of the world. So these giraffes I think the story behind them was and don't quote me on it, I think the story behind them was, and don't quote me on it, but I think the story behind them was the zoos couldn't afford to feed them anymore, and so they brought them in and let them run. Oh, okay. And so they feed them. That makes sense.

Yes, like the zoos, I guess they couldn't afford to keep up with them or something. That makes sense. Yeah. It's just something oddly perverse about bringing animals that are not supposed to be at a certain place to a certain place you got something jamie what do you got in texas it's easier to own a tiger than a dog than a dog that's been labeled dangerous it's estimated there could be from 2,000 to 5,000 tigers living in the southern state of the united states meaning texas could have more tigers than roughly the 3,800 tigers living in the southern state of the United States, meaning Texas could have more tigers than roughly the 3,800 tigers living in the wild globally.

Yeah, if you have a dog that's dangerous, people think you're an asshole. If you've got a tiger, like, oh, you're just in the wildlife. That's crazy. That's crazy. That is such a fucked up thing to have in your yard. You've got a fucking tiger? How much do you trust your fences i mean what kind of fence control they have they have fence regulations they surely they have

to right i don't know man it's pretty nuts but there's a lot of them a lot of them there and again there's in so many people's backyard no one really knows how many tigers there are some people put the united states tiger population around 7,000. Others say it's inflated by animal welfare activists to raise money. Oh, of course. That's what it is. Of course, that's what they would think. Making money.

There's a lot of them there, though, man. I know a bunch of people that have seen tigers in people's yards in Texas. And, in fact, there was a crazy story about these kids were smoking weed, and they went into this abandoned house, and they went into this abandoned house. And they go into the abandoned house, and inside the abandoned house is a tiger in a cage. And they're like, wait, what? What? So they walk into this fucking abandoned house trying to get high, and they find a tiger.

That's almost like The Hangover, right? Yes. Really similar. Yeah. I mean, did you find that story? Yeah. It's a fucking Crazy story

These kids are just Trying to smoke a little weed Escape from life Tiger found An abandoned house By a person Who just wanted To smoke pot

That's crazy Yeah That's Tiger baby That's Tigers in Texas That's so awesome So listen man It's been an honor Having you on

And a privilege I really I'm glad we finally got a chance to do it and um let's get you out i want to get you out with uh john dudley take you out on one of these hunts that we do it'd be great i'd love this um let everybody know if you have social media i do i do what is your i'm on instagram dakota meyer uh 0317 um i'm on facebook uh dakota meyer so yeah and of the information about all these things you're involved with is all there. Absolutely. All that's there. Beautiful. Thank you, brother.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks so much, man. Appreciate it. Bye, everybody.