The Team House - From 10th Mountain to Army Ranger to NFL ProBowler | Alejandro Villanueva | Ep. 261

Episode Date: February 23, 2024

A graduate of the United States Military Academy in 2010, Alejandro went on to become a professional football player for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens. After majoring in Systems Engineering at the Academy, Alejandro was commissioned a 2LT in the Engineer Branch with a branch detail in the Infantry. During his five years of service, Alejandro served as a Platoon Leader, Executive Officer, and Assistant Operations Officer. His service included a deployment to Afghanistan with 10th Mountain Division and two deployments with 1st Ranger Battalion. In 2010, 2012, and 2014 Alejandro tried out for different NFL teams aspiring to land on a roster. After failed attempts with the Cincinnati Bengals, Chicago Bears, and Philadelphia Eagles, Alejandro made the final 53 man roster in 2015 with the Pittsburgh Steelers. During his seven-year career in Pittsburgh he made 100 starts and was selected to two Pro Bowls while completing an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University. Born in Meridian, Mississippi to Spanish parents, Alejandro currently resides in Miami, Florida. Fluent in Spanish, French, and Portuguese, Alejandro spends his free time with family and enjoys fishing.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------To help support the show and for all bonus content including:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse-AD FREE AUDIO-AD FREE VIDEO-Access to ALL bonus segments with our guestsSubscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseOr make a one time donation at: ⬇️https://ko-fi.com/theteamhouseTeam House merch: ⬇️https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963Social Media: ⬇️The Team House Instagram:https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_linkThe Team House Twitter:https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePodJack’s Instagram:https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?utm_medium=copy_linkJack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21Team House Discord: ⬇️https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6SubReddit: ⬇️https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here:⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links):⬇️ https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSampleWant to sponsor the show?Email: ⬇️[e-mail]#75thrangerregiment #steelersBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. We would really appreciate it if you guys went and reviewed us on Apple or Spotify. Those reviews really help people find the podcast and help it get recognized. And, you know, if you've been enjoying the show, we really appreciate your support. Another thing that you can do to support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad-free. That's the big bonus for that.

I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House channel and podcast if you'd like to. And we really appreciate that. So go in and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house. Special operations. Covert Ops. Espionage, the Team House, with your hopes, Jack Murphy and David Park. Hey, folks, welcome to episode 261 of the Team House.

I'm Jack Murphy here with Dave Park, and our guest on tonight's show is Alejandro Villanueva. He served in Ranger Battalion, and then he went on to serve, well, not serve, I shouldn't say, but play for the NFL as a football player. and we're really excited to have him on the show tonight. Thank you, Alahandro, for joining us. Thank you. Thank you so much. Great job with my last name. I saw you there in the moment of truth and you delivered.

It's a step into the darkness sometimes with me. So thank you. So Alejandro, let's start at the beginning. Tell us a little bit about what your upbringing was like and how that eventually took you towards military service. Okay, so I'm going to try to make it as short as, possible because it does have a lot of themes that I feel very passionate about that's okay go for it okay so I grew up in rhoda naval station and I think in the special operations world

you know particularly rhoda is a very known place it always goes attached with the place that I would like to get stuck on for 48 hours there's a lot of flight that were going during the war to Afghanistan and Iraq would have a layover in rhoda and then the soldiers would be able to go outside and interact with the community and go to the beach and whatnot. And so you can imagine as a child, it almost felt like a military version of Forrest Gump, you know, where my house was nothing by soldiers going around me everywhere. Marines going to the PX to buy a dip, you know, people running the formation, the taps, going through and out of the military gate.

And so I always try to tell people in the military that it was kind of like a kid, a local from Manas, you know, a local kid who was who was who was who was who was who was grown outside of a uh uh uh uh a u s base and and and had the the privilege i guess of the opportunity of interacting with with everybody on the base and so for me it was it was it was always um you know the the only thing that i knew but i didn't realize how special they were until i got older you know like going into a bathroom and seeing all the all the units of the military tucking smack to each other and and and and as they rotate and they're sitting there for 15 10 minutes you know they're writing things on the wall So I guess when I was a kid, service was the only way or the only thing that I could have ever aspired to be.

I wanted to become a Marine because Marines use Rota more than any other branch of the service. My father was Spanish and he was a pilot. And when they train pilots from NATO countries, they bring him to San Antonio, Meridian and Pensacola to teach him how to fly. So when the U.S. sells a weapon system to another country, especially an ally, they also bring the pilots in and they teach him how to operate. the plane. So during that training, I was born in Meridian, Mississippi. It has a naval base, naval air base in Meridian. So I was born, and that's sort of how I became a U.S. citizen. But then I grew up on a U.S. military base in Spain. So Spain was the country that my parents are from, my family's from, but I grew up inside a U.S. base. And this base is in a very

historical place. Every single civilization from the Western Empire has always been in a road. up for its geographical, geographic location. And I grew up, listening to a lot of military history from all civilizations, you know, from Julius Caesar to the Greeks,

you know, all the era of conquistadors in Spain, all the, the world wars. It was, there was something always related to the town that I was in. And so military history was a huge theme.

Being a soldier and what it meant was sort of like the only thing that I grew up, listening to Inhearing and then finally the U.S. military as being the conduit for this. So watching C-17s land every hour, you know,

the hour for 10 years of my life. There was no other option other than during the military, I guess, is how I'm trying to frame it. It was almost like the most romanticized version of a 21st century life of a soldier.

And my initial goal was to be a Marine. Like I said, I loved the culture of the Marines. I loved everything that they stood for in terms of not having any awards or patches in the uniform. And just being a Marine that defined them. As opposed to the Army, which had a little bit more of a division in terms of the assignment that you're going to do based on just how large the branch is. And unfortunately, when I applied to go to the academies, I was colorblind. And so that left me the Army as the only choice what I would have, a wide range of options.

as to who I was going to become as an officer. So that's sort of the quick story. What did your father think about this being a Spanish officer and you're joining the U.S. military? Was he kind of like go for it? Like this is your big chance? No, no. I think you can imagine two themes in this conversation.

One is being a father and having a teenage son, you know, and the issue that arrives between the father and the older son and the fact that my father was in the military. So he was always gone too. He was in the Navy too. So he would be gone for six months at a time. You know, he went to bother. Right now he's in Somalia.

You know, like he's all over the place all the time. So because of that, you know, because he was in the military, he also exposed me not only to being born in the U.S., but also we came back. You know, my father did the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. So I got to live in Rhode Island in the year 2001. went to the World Trade Center on a staff visit in August of 2001. I got a picture with my father.

This is crazy. So I think those two aspects, the fact that he exposed me constantly to the United and then my last two years in high school, I went to shape, Supreme Headquarters, Eli Powers, Europe, and Belgium. And then when I was in shape, I went to an American high school. So it was in his American high school that all my teachers were saying, you know, do you realize how large you are and how easy things would be for you in the United States? was like, please don't go to Europe and not play American football.

You know, this is what, this is what you're meant to do. But I always felt that I wanted to be a soldier. I always felt that the action piece of, I mean, in the year, I mean, I graduated from high school in 2006. So you can imagine all the movies that were coming out, you know, Blackhawk down, you know. I mean, I just watched all those movies. And so there was a component of being a soldier that was extremely appealing to me. And so regardless of whether I would have gone to one or the other, I think the U.S. military was the one that I saw as a sheer path.

You know, it's like 1,000 percent you're going to be able to become the soldier or see it the way that you envision it. Everybody has a romanticized idea about how their service is supposed to be. So that was mine. But my father didn't, you know, at first, you know, he was, but, you know, I made my decision. I came to this country when I was 17. I packed a bag and I said, I'm leaving, I'm doing this. And I think maybe he always thought that I would get homesick.

And so part of that was my family always expected me to return to not finish the academy, especially during the first two years. And that at some point I would say, okay, I miss home. I miss Spain. Let's cancel this whole journey and then go back home. Go ahead. You know, you have two big themes in your life. You have the military and you have football.

was it when you were at shape going to an American high school that you were introduced to football? Like, how was it not soccer? Right, right. So soccer, this is, you know, going into a little bit of like, you know, different sports and cultures. So soccer is the only sport in Spain. Right.

Meaning it's the only sport they're going to talk about in the news every day. There's no sports attached to a high school, meaning your education is completely separate from sports. So they don't make a streamline. They don't encourage participation like in the U.S. In the U.S. you want to at least everybody to have the opportunity to play a sport. In Europe, you go through club systems. So kind of like hockey in Canada maybe, if you don't start very early in soccer,

you're never going to catch up with the rest of the players. And so because I was always moving around the world, I was always, you know, one place the next, swimming became my sport. It was the thing that I was individual. And soccer became something that I didn't really practice. So I didn't play a lot of soccer. I played rugby towards the,

towards the end of my high school days. And when I went to Belgium, I was looking for our place to play rugby. But all the American kids that saw me there, because shape is such a small American community. They only had like 25 kids on the football teams. They'll have, do we need you, please? It'll be so much fun, you know. And, you know, I guess I saw football, and this is, I think, the biggest theme.

I saw football as a way of making friends, as a way of understanding American culture and the environment that I was in for high school. And then as a way of also, you know, enjoy myself during the tough period of time that it is high school for any kid. So I joined the football team in Belgium. We travel across around all the bases in Germany. So we went to Ramstein. We went to Hanau, Vilsek.

We went to London Central in London. We went all the way to Naples. So we were traveling. I was seeing Europe for the first time, not an American football. team and that's how we travel around Europe and that's how I got introduced to the game of football. So it was initially to get a lot to make friends. English was, you know, I had to speak English in the high school and I didn't speak English very well. Yeah.

So it was a very easy way of learning a lot of the slang, a lot of the culture and not be so awkward when you walk up to the scene that all European kids dread of, you know, the locker rooms on the on the aisles and the bullying that goes on on the sides and whatnot. So football was always really kind to me in that aspect. And it's a beautiful way of being introduced American culture, you know, for the values of American football for sure. And how big were you in high school when you were playing football? I was the same height. So I stopped growing when I was about 14 years old. And again, high school is only a period of time that is in the U.S. system.

In the European system, I don't know what high school means because there's not like a little translation. So when I got to Belgium, when I got to, I guess, That's what they call 11th grade. 11th grade. I did 11th and 12th grade in an American high school. In 11th grade, I was 6.9, and I was probably 225 pounds. 230 maybe. And I remember when I went to Westport, I was 245 pounds.

So I put on about 15 pounds of weight my last two years in high school. They're making them big these days. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's funny because now I think, you know, in the end of, like if you weigh, if you're 690, way 225, you're a basketball player. He doesn't know it depends for 125. That's all. It's crazy.

You've got to be crazy. Talk to us a little bit about that application process to go to a military academy because, yes, you're an American citizen, but culturally, you're very European. What was sort of that process like to get you over here? Right. So I think the picture that this is hilarious. So my first day in high school, it's Shape American High School. my father was working, so because it's a NATO headquarters,

so they assemble teams or units or whatever it might be called, using officers from different countries. So my father's working for a colonel in the U.S. Army. And then when he introduces himself, before we all showed up during the move, he said, oh, you got any kids, you know, typical conversation that you make with a co-worker from a different country, you got any kids, oh, yeah, I got four kids.

You know, my oldest son is going to enter high school or whatever. He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, does he play any sports? Yeah, well, he's very tall, very large, but he doesn't like to play any sports or he likes to swim, you know, why not. Well, I got a son. Now, there's also playing sports. He's going to the same high school. Why don't you put him into America football? And then when they saw me, when they saw me play, then he was telling my dad to say,

applied to the University of Florida, go to Stanford, go to whatever university you can get into, your kid can get in. If you go through the process of the NCAA and playing American football. And so, you know, that's kind of how I was introduced to, playing football just to my dad's boss son who was in my class and he was he was asking me to join the team because you know the world would open to me like an oyster if if i if i decided to give it a shot and and i think what i didn't believe is the fact that you needed to be such an expert to play football football just requires you to run into a wall 80 times and and ask for some more and i think that's uh there's no other sport other than maybe fighting that that just requires that

simplicity. What caused you to decide to go to a service academy instead of either just enlisting or going to a regular college and going the ROTC route? Yeah, so that's a really good question. I think what really scared me was the fact that, so in Europe, the biggest issue that you have when you grow up in Europe is unemployment. So unemployment was 40% in my hometown. So if you look at the province where road and naval station is located, it's in southern Spain, it's right I'm five miles away from Africa and the strategy abroad there, but unemployment is 40%. So when you graduate from college, you have to sort of become an intern for many, many, many years, and you have to live with your parents.

So you achieve economic independence very, very late in light. The sure bet of having a job after college and having the streamlined academy life was extremely appealing. There was very little room for error. I was basically signing up to receive a salary after an education. So everything was done for me. I just couldn't go out on the weekends. You know what I mean? Right.

And maybe in the long term, it was the right decision to not fall prey of the, you know, American pie movies that I had in my head already. Right. Right. Yeah, I mean, you get to West Point. I don't think it was like, you know, Animal House or some of the American. Tell us about getting there. You said you were 17 packed your bags and went.

What was it like landing? at the military academy. Well, I let it in Newark. I let it in Newark, and then I took a taxi, a yellow taxi, all the way to West Point, and that's how I started my journey.

So it's kind of crazy, because you're landing in Newark and you see the Statue of Liberty, and then you see Alice Island, and you're like, well, I guess I'm doing a version of that, but, like, in 2006, you know, I'm going to come in here,

you know, with my dreams, and this is what it looks like. And so I almost feel like, as soon as you land in America, there's like a movie starts on you. It's like you begin a movie. And now you're completely by yourself and you have to decide, you know, which way you're going to go in so many different directions, you know,

which crowd are you going to hang out with, you know, in the mess hall, you know, what sort of people are you going to hang out at night when you have leaf and whatnot. So it was a very, it was a very surreal moment, you know, landing in New York, seeing the smells of New York City, the people, the pace, the activity. and then start slowly going up, you know, up the Hudson, you know, into the mountains, into the seclusion, you know, almost like you do get that feeling of the British kid who's being dropped off at boarding school, you know, when he's six years old,

and he sees the bricks, and he's like, no, you know, the gates close behind you, you know, you're like, oh, you know, yeah, you get a little bit of both on the same day. Yeah. And so when you, like, when you got to the academy, did they know that you could play football? Did you apply for like a football, you know, was that part of it? Or did you just decide I'm going to the academy and then I'll raise my hand for football too? No, no, no.

So I wanted to serve. I was very enticed by the engineering degree. I was very enticed by the fact that I was going to make, I think it was like, you know, $2,500 a month, you know, after I graduated. I was very enticed by the fact that I would have a job. So those were the things that I was focused on. I was not going to the academy to play football. When I got to the academy, then I realized that it would be very, once again, you know, it would be very, very useful to play football as I learned what it's like to deal with someone from Texas

or someone from the South, someone from California. I mean, it's not easy to get all the personalities of the United States all at once, all in the same place. If you come to the U.S. and you go to whatever state college in South Carolina, everybody from that college is going to be from South Carolina. So they're all going to act sort of the same way. It's very easy to interact. Learn how you play the game in this little school and then move forward.

But when you go out to the academy and it's everybody from everywhere, then it's like it's a little bit overwhelming. And football is a place where you can become friends with people. And so I walked onto the football team, but I already talked to the football team during my visit. And the team said, you're going to get into the academy, you know, due to your application. you know, will let you walk into the football team during the summer,

and then you can try it out see if you like it. You know, but it was American football requires an American to play, you know. And I mean this from the sense that I've seen freak athletes coming from Africa, for example. They do programs where they bring insane athletes. But they don't have that ability to see how American football is supposed to be played. I did not have that mentality when I came into the United States. When people start screaming and yelling at practice and pitting. people against each other and there's so much drama and tension on every single day of practice.

I said, well, I thought I was supposed to play a game here and have fun, you know. What is, you know, how is there so much, so many egos and football and people are getting in fights every day. And it's almost like, in a brawl, you know, I was like, what came here to make friends? So I didn't, I didn't do the adjustments very well in my first two years. And I was always, you know, more enamored with the weight room and working out and getting protein shakes up to, you know, and hanging out with my friends have to practice. That's what I like to do when I first,

when I first went to the team. Yeah. Well, I mean, the plea beer isn't fun for anybody, right? Yeah, I guess I guess, I guess you have to be, you have to create the story that things like Ranger School, you know, whatever they might be, selection, you know, they they're very difficult and they're very, they're a suck fest in order for you to get mentally prepared.

to expect the worst and then hope for the best. But you don't know anything else. You don't know, you don't know how, whether it's hard or difficult. You're just going through it. You know, well, I guess, you know, I don't, you know, but academically was not as challenging for me. Culturally, it was very, it was very fun to get to know

the people from different places and have my own independence to give you a laptop. And I'm like, well, my laptop. I'll have to share with my dad and my brothers, you know, and I can be in my room and I can have a cell phone. phone, that's crazy. I got my own cell phone. I mean, this is when cell phones are not, we're not very popular, you know? So, uh, I saw it as a, as a growing up period, plebe year is, is just a, is a adaptation year, you know, but I guess looking back,

it's not, it's not, it's not, it's not the hardest for sure. And then as you're going through the academy, uh, is there, because do you get a choice in the branch you go to? Do you get to sort of pivot for that? And did you decide on infantry? Like, was it the drew you to that? Right. So when you go to the academy, they rank you on, they evaluate you on everything that you do all four years. So if you, exams, military grade, physical grade, you do an APFT, they give you a grade, that counts towards your physical grade.

And so you have a class rank. And so they put you in order OML? Is that was, that was the, that was the term of my OML list. Yeah. Yeah. They put you an OML list, you know, one to a thousand or however many cadets you have in the year. and then it's the draft. Then they say, okay, number one, you pick your choice.

Number two, you pick your choice. Number three, you pick your choice. And I think I wanted to go to the academy more than I was worth it of going to the academy. I was not a, I felt that when I went to the academy and I saw what it took to be a cadet and the things that they were teaching. I didn't feel like I was worthy to be in the academy. I don't feel like I was one of those perfect students who did nothing. You know, I struggle, I struggle tremendously with simple concepts like the honor code and the fact of loyalty. Like, I got to rat out on my tea, on my roommate, you know, for lying on taking a shower or, you know, these crazy hypotheticals.

So I wasn't the sure cadet who's ranked top of the class, who's the teacher's pet on everything. I got in trouble a little bit here and there. I was hanging out with the football team. I was more curious than anything. So I think one of the ways that I felt I would overcompensate for not being worthy enough, in my opinion, was to say, okay, but I'll give you infantry. I'll give you everything.

You know what I mean? Like, I'm not, this is not, you know, I'm fully committed to being the best version of myself. I wish I would have felt that I was the typical cadet that shows up to the academy. But I guess in the end, we're all make up, what is an infantry officer or an officer in the army. And I think another concept or another theme was the fact that, you know,

because you're competing all the time in an alpha mill world, when you're listening to the stores of the NCOs, when they come to train you, and they'll have their CIBs, the largest award that there is in the military for a reason, you know. I think those things start getting, into your head a little bit as well. Yeah.

And you say, oh, no, no, I got to go infantry. Infantry is the, you know, that's where all the top, the top dogs and the class,

it's like top gun, but in the Army version, you know, that's what they're all going. I got to go in there too. I got to get in the mix. You know, I got to find out what the,

the, the, the PACs chart is for the deployment schedule, and I got to get going with this. You know, this is, this is how, this is how the alpha males of West Point were behaving all at the same time, when it came down to branching.

So I think those two things, you know, led me into the infantry branch. And you were also, though, coming into your own in football, you know, like your senior year, you were going to team captain, right? When did you start thinking that football was also a career that you could pursue? I never thought it was a career that I could pursue because I was so locked into the deployment thing.

I was, you know, for me it was the opposite. And I guess, to give a context, everybody at Westburn was like this. It wasn't just, you know, the ones. and Tuesdays. Everybody just wanted to be like, dude, we can't miss on a deployment. The deployment fever, the war tourism,

whatever you want to call it. Right. That was very, very, very vivid. You know, you get people, the mess hall stack with awards. I mean, you know what it feels like when you have,

you just sleeves on your arms and you have nothing and you just feel so inferior. That's, all that stuff, you know, is part of, part of what goes into it. So, yeah,

the the the the football was never even a thought football was like I can't miss on a deployment it's 2010 we got two conflicts Iraq is shutting down you know we got to get into Afghanistan what's right right and there and now we got to get into 10th now you know what I mean like yeah let's go never never ever did I think that I would trade in a deployment for a chance to play in the NFL you know I thought that I was I was born to do this you know since I was a kid you know my dream would have been to stop it I mean that would have been like the movie one you know stop and rhoda say goodbye to my mama she's crying take off and the C-17 go to war. That would have been like, oh, wow, you know, but, you know,

there was no way that I would ever change the opportunity to deploy with the infantry in 2010 over planning the NFL. And I was talking to someone just recently, actually, who's telling me, and maybe you know more, I'm sure you know more than I do, that West Point will now let a student, you know, when they graduate, if they have an offer from the NFL to go and play, and then afterwards come and serve their mandatory, you know, minimum military time that they owe after, you know, graduating. But it sounds like for you and your peers, it was like not even a question. Like, we're just going into this.

Yeah, yeah. It wasn't, no, you have to serve at least two years. The policy when I was playing, it was two years. Yeah. And so after I got done with my first deployment, it was when the first chance that I had to try out, and I tried out for the Bears. So after two years, I did try to go to the NFL. After I got down with a deployment, I was like, okay.

Yeah, there's too much to process. Either I'm back on deployments all the time with Ranger Regiment or SF, or there's no way that I can go back to the regular Army and not do deployments. You know, those two, I did not like the Garrison Army life. You know, I knew that I was not made for that. And so I tried out for the NFL for two years. But I think now everybody can go if you have an offer. I think so.

So you graduated, you went to Airborne and Ranger School. and then you got to sign 10th Mountain. And then did you guys deploy pretty quickly after you got that? Yeah, so that's the reason why. I looked at the Pax chart and I said, okay, I'm graduating. I'm waving my leave after the academy. No leave. I can't have a month to spare.

I got to beat everybody to the 10th Mountain because they give up platoons as the brigade combat team is getting ready to deploy. Yeah. So you want to be a platoon leader going into the deployment. You don't want to be in staff. You know, everybody was like, no, no, no, we got to get there as soon as possible. I didn't go to everyone school when I was at the academy because I was playing football. So I had to get rid of airborne school.

So I was thinking about failing the push-ups so that I could save a month to show up because the unit was leaving. I started Aybulic and Fort Benning in June. I graduated in May. I started in June. And then I finished in November. And then the next week I went to Ranger School, I had to go straight through because we had the Christmas exodus. Finished Ranger School. That same Friday graduation, I went to the Airborne School in processing.

finished airborne school and that same week they hate to say this now I was like signing the veterinarian I was out processing for Benning in three they were like minimum five days I was like we're gonna make it in two

in two days I'm going out to Ford Drum and so I went to Ford Drum and then a week later I was deployed so it was a very very quick thing but if I had missed that right then I would have gone to you know they would have sent me midway through the deployment and I would have only got

to do six months so it was a it was a great it was a it was a gamble. You're gambling. You're saying, okay, you can go to 80 second, you can go to 100 first, you can go to 10th mound. Those are the three, you know, divisions that are going to be deploying constantly all the time. Which one you want to go to? First brigade 101 just got back.

Fourth brigade is there now. So you wanted to avoid Iraq as much as you can because Iraq, you were just shutting down bases. So you don't want to go to Iraq. So it was almost like a, you know, you're playing, you're playing crabs and you just at the table going like, okay, which was going to give me to the promised land. You know, and the risk with 10th mound was that it was

third brigade that was leaving, but it was a very tight window for me to be able to make it at the beginning of the climate. Wow. Wow. So you hit the ground at Fort Drum get deployed to Afghanistan. I mean, did you take a platoon immediately? No, I missed it. I missed it by a week. I missed it by a week. I was so depressed. I was like, oh my God. I'm there's no way. I'm sitting at the talk and I'm seeing all the lieutenant buddies all get their CIBs, all get into firefights all done. I'm like, oh, no, why me? Why me? But it's almost like when you're a backup also in the You don't realize how quickly things happen. And then all of a sudden, you know, a month into deployment,

platoon leaders are getting hurt, killed, you know. And so I went in as a replacement for one of the platoon leaders who lost his leg. And so I was like, okay, here we go. You know, we just lost a P.O. And I miss you and now you're the new guy, you know, start. And then I did the whole deployment with him. So, man, I mean, that's also like a tremendous responsibility that, I mean, you fought really hard to get there.

But, I mean, now you're the guy, right? And everyone's looking to you for answers. I mean, what was that like to be taking a platoon in combat? I mean, here's the thing. And we could talk about this forever. One of the greatest themes in the military. And maybe I'm, maybe I'm, maybe I have a short, I'll say for a couple. Okay, I'll say this.

I'll frame it to company command and below. One of the biggest themes is the relationship between the NCO and the officer. That is like the, you can write books, mommy and daddy are fighting, you know, whatever. There's billions of things that people say in the platoons. and especially in Ranger Regiment. Ranger Regiment is another level of psychoanalysis into relationships between two grown men, you know. That is crazy.

So two things. One is when you go to West Point, you automatically, especially in 2000, you have a reputation that you're a ring knocker, you know, you're a West Point. And so your reputation is automatically going to be, you better be the best at everything. You better smoke PT. You better, because if not,

You know what I mean? You're just like, you're going to get in trouble. You just have a bullseye behind you, and you have a, people will always make a comment when you're from West Point. You know, always,

they're not in a good way. Never in a good way to make a comment about you being a West Point. And I think it's a good thing. I think, I think that holds West Pointers accountable to always say, you know,

you cannot leave a bad reputation. So I think it's a good thing that the Army does that, for sure. But then how do you come in as a 21-year-old West Pointer, you know, so already people are like, oh, yeah, this guy's going to reinvent the wheel now when he shows up. Right.

And then you're facing, you know, 40-year-old men with four kids, you know, that are on their seventh deployment. Right. You're showing up. And you have to make it work from a position where you don't know. So that was the challenge. The challenge is how can you influence it? How can you lead if you don't know anything and you're relying exclusively on your NCOs? And then they have to trust you.

They have to like you. You know, it's not impossible. You just can't do things that are obvious. and you have to be genuine. And I think it's just a test of show these grown men that you're a good dude. And so that was the extent of the challenge. You're not afraid. You're not going to obviously maybe I overdid it a little bit.

You know, never put your men in a position where you wouldn't do yourself. You know what I mean? So I was one of those opportunities that was always at front, you know, trying to show people that I was, that we weren't in this together. But the experience because I had amazing CEOs and amazing soldiers was incredible. So all I can remember was nothing. but horror stories from my peers, whereas in my platoon, I had squad leaders that were insane, amazing, you know, they draw the route, never say no, you know, it's just incredible overall

experience with 10th Mountain. And what was, it was an active, it was an active tour for you guys. You got a Bronze Star with the V-device. What was it like when you were in your first, like, troops in contact? And, you know, growing up in Rota, Spain, watching all these movies. And now you're here, you're in it, and you're leading men. Oh, my God. The first five, 19 May, 2011.

I still remember, like, it's crazy. It was, it was, you have, you have a movie in your head as to, as to who you're going to become and who you're going to be. Just like I told you earlier, it's almost like you have this destiny, you know, Lieutenant Dan. You just, you have this lieutenant Dan in you. And then all of a sign, I was there for maybe two, three weeks. and then it was kind of, I felt like it was like the movie, like the movies from Vietnam, like where's Charlie? You know, we're looking for Charlie, we're looking for Charlie, you know,

and you're just looking for, you're looking for the Taliban, but the Taliban picked their fights. You know, it's not like every day you're getting into a firefight. Right. It's that, you know, you just have to be in the, in the, in the, in the AEO, and you have to sort of start dancing ball with the insurgents and see, you know, where are you going to go? What are they going to do?

What are your patterns of life? And I remember the first time that we were amb, Everything in Kandahar around the grapefields always always happened. And you would always hear about this. They come from behind a wall and they try to spray you and they try to draw you into an ID or they try to draw you into an area where you can create a mask out. And it's very easy for them because they have a scape route. So it's very, very difficult to cut them off or corner them off.

And it's usually two or three. You're not fighting more than two or three young kids with a couple buckets of bullets and a couple of AKs and they're just sitting picks around you. And so when we started getting, the first time that we started doing the cracking of an AK and the cracking in the sky, everybody hits down. And then you start going through almost like automatically, you start going through the motions of all the training that you receive. So you say, okay, we're taking contact with, you know, superglop 5. When everybody get in line, get in line, that's this situation. Try to get on the radio.

None of the radio is going to work. So you got to go, you know, side to side. And then you say, okay, we're going to flank. You know, we're going to flank. You know, this is about all drew 1 alpha. You know, react to contact. We're flanking. So you gather the element.

and you start going behind and you're going, oh my God, I'm doing this. This is for real life. This is crazy. But then it's nothing. You know,

you just completely did a training that was, no, they just want to shoot a couple of pop shots, you know, from the distance to see what you're doing.

And then they're going to take off. Yeah. And then I'm not going to try to flank, try to do the shift to fire, you know, and you're like, what am I doing? This makes no sense.

You know, just feel like, like, like, it was almost the wrong type of train. I don't, I don't, you know,

we train, but using principles. When I first got into West Point, it was all Vietnam. Vietnam was everything. You know, patrol bases, river crossings. Everything was about smells like stopping, you know, and listening. You know, when you go into urban combat, you know, there's no need to stop and listen to things.

It's loud everywhere, you know, and there's radios and it's Afghans talking the whole time. So I could tell that a lot of the tactics that you use your first time, especially during training, were a little bit behind, And there were not the same tactics in the same training environment that you would do towards the later end. You know, when we're doing, platoon live fires, we're doing against buildings now. Because you want to go from building to building. That's what you want to learn how to do. You want to go building to building.

You don't want to clear a large areas in the open. Where are you going to do a large area in the open assault, you know, where you flank in the open? You know, that makes no sense. You know, you always use cover, you know, when you're in Afghanistan. And so from there you learn. You say, okay, we're not going to do battle to draw one off anymore. We're going to try to use these 60-millimeter mortars that we have here. They seem like a great tactic.

You know what I mean? We can start carrying a lot of rounds with us, and then we just get down and we start loving motors. And then, you know, if we do see some more activity, then we can bring the M-14. And then all of a sudden that we start bringing different weapons, we start different SOPs, and we become a lot more effective. And so now we start using compounds to draw fire

so we can get into good fighting positions. We're not fighting in the open and in the great fields anymore. So it was a very, sort of silly situation the first time because I felt that it was a lot more about quote unquote popping your cherry you know what I mean and then you're moving on with life you know I said okay I got it off yeah sure I've seen you know you almost feel like you you're you're a man now and then you just continue on you know now it's about learning you know for your mistakes and and be very thankful that it was a silly

situation that you were so angst about and and now you can move on and think clearly because if it had been something ugly then you would have been with three casualties flank in the enemy, you know, and now you have to bring a helicopter, now it's a mess. You know, now you could potentially hurt a lot more people by trying to not think when you're supposed to be thinking. Right. And when you're, like, when you are a young officer in that situation in this kind of new

environment, how important are your NCOs who have had multiple combat tours? Like, how important are they to you? you in those moments. Oh, they're amazing. I mean, but the problem is that we started doing patrols in a way that we would leave two squats back and we would patrol with two squats because we had to bring an element from the A&A. So, and it was all about patrolling.

So patrolling was very physically demanding. So we would have two squats and then we would go out with a platoon of Afghans and we would go out and omissions and we were rotate. So when you were with two squat leaders that were very experienced and they knew what to do, then you almost kind of get next to them, you know what I mean, and you make sure that the only person you can listen to on the radio is him,

and it's very easy to maneuver. But a lot of times, the squad leaders will come from different units. So one squad leader will come from a mechanized unit, and he had a deployment out of an RC East that was all mounted, and then you had another, you know, NCO, who was from Iraq only.

So he only had urban warfare. So sometimes it was tricky because everybody had to be on the same page. Right. And in the beginning of deployment, it was always a lot of, a lot of questions as to how do we all operate. And for me, obviously, to learn.

Because I don't know. I just know the handbook. I know the handbook. It says right here, I got a flank. You know what I mean? I don't know that there's other options that you can do when you get into the situation. Yeah. Do you want to talk at all about the operation where you won the bronze star with V-device?

Or, like, I know that some people aren't super excited about talking about awards. So, yeah. So that's what I got out of a lot of award. I got out of a lot of award that awards are always very subjective and very, it's a very interesting theme in the military. You know, how do you give an award in the regular army versus the Renew Regiment? Renew Regiment almost felt like it was a candy parade.

In the military, in the regular army, it was also very subjective. Some units, you know, the pushing, you know, what awards get approved, what don't get approved. And I think that in the end, they help, the only objective is to help morale. You know, so like, you know, you guys took a lot of casualties in this mission, but you guys also fought bravely. And then we were going to give a couple of words to those. So I think it was just for the morale.

Yeah. But I think in terms of actions, you know, you can almost, if you were to freeze moments, if you would have, like, GoPro, every single soldier from every single battalion, every deployment, you would get footage of their actions that are unbelievable. And because one platoon is just getting smashed every single day and they're just in these situations constantly all the time. it's not going to compare with one unit that has not seen any action. One day sees the action. It's only that people can stop talking about it. It's like, oh my God, I remember when I saw this,

when I saw that? So I got that impression from awards. Yeah. And then when I was awarded that award, you know, I really didn't know how to feel about it. It almost felt like you winning a lottery. Like somebody touched in the show that I'm going to put you in for an award. And you're like, oh, okay.

You know, you're not going to say, you don't know what it is. You don't know those awards. You never stop to think about awards ever in these situations. It's tough because a lot of the awards come about because something bad happened that day, right? Right, right, right. So that's why I was the way to give me an award for somebody in my opportunity to dying and getting killed. Like, geez, you know what I mean? Like, it's hard, it's hard, you know, it's not what you imagine it to be.

You know, you want to be the guy from, you know, Aquinawa who's saving thousands of bodies, you know what I mean? or yeah those awards are very really difficult like odie murphy like taken off and it taken on an entire like you know german guy or whatever yeah yeah yeah yeah those those were like yeah dude that's awesome you know maybe you're happy about it you know you're a great example you know so yeah for sure so what were uh how many uh how long were you uh pl uh when you were with 10th mountain i was a but um you were the entire year So I got there. I was a PL for 13, 14 months, and then I rotated out, and then I became an XO, and I said, okay, what else is it out? Let's skip this XO thing. There's got to be another area for me out here, you know what I mean? There's no way.

And so the only two options were SF or Ranger Regiment. And so it was almost like the Harry Potter way they put the helmet on top of you and they decided whether you're SF or Ranger Regiment. And I think maybe I anticipated, you know, from the, I spoke a lot of languages. So I always thought that would be a huge asset in the SF world. You know, if I could end up in seventh group. And I'm an officer to speak Spanish. That automatically is a massive asset piece regardless. You know, there's no way they're going to, they're going to see that. And they're going to be like, okay, we're going to make it easy for the, you know what I mean?

Yeah. But I always felt that in the ranger culture around those years, being. big, like being like strong in the weight room was like a, it was, it was a thing, you know. Yeah. For sure. And I was getting after in the way room. I was like, I was, I was into it, you know. And so I started, I started really getting into the fitness aspect of, of the army. And I thought that the army rangers would be a more fun and competitive environment from that aspect, knowing that both would be incredible challenges, you know, knowing that whether you were operating with small elements and you're speaking,

in different languages and, you know, you're more flexible or you're in the Roman Legion Ranger Regiment shaved every single day, screaming the Ranger created every morning. I think those would be very, very cool environments either way. So talk to us about going to Rasp as a, are you a second lieutenant by now? I was the first lieutenant when I went to RASC. Okay. You know, I've never thought about it because nobody really has asked me, obviously in the media ever about, you know, what I was like to go to RASP. But it's very similar. oddly to the Proble, you know, very, very similar to the Proble

in the sense that you walk in and then you know that you're competing, you know, with a very small group of people that are all in the same room and you're friends with each other because you have to be friends, you're going through a course together,

but the attrition rate is going to be there as well. And so you're becoming friends with people that are also, you're competing against. And so everybody, especially in the man world, everybody becomes very, you know, He's pregnant. It's a little bit of, you know, they made you arrest, the big you rank everybody in your group and then put comments next to it.

So it becomes a little bit personal even, you know, in these environments. And you're also dealing with NCOs that are already in the unit, and you're dealing with brand new second lieutenant's company commanders that want to come in as well, people that have had experience in the Ranger Regiment, people that have not had experience. And so I fell under the category of I don't have experience and I'm super big and tall, which is always going to put like a thing on you. And your personality is going to be a lot different from the rest. And so RASP was a very, very interesting experience. I had a lot of fun.

I felt like physically I could compete and I could also pass all the testing. And I was a very strong swimmer. So, you know, RASP is mainly a physical assessment in many ways. And I feel like I did very well in the Ruck Marge. So from that aspect, I feel safe. And then, you know, RASP is mainly a physical assessment in many ways. And I feel like I did very well in the Ruck Marge. So from that aspect, You know, the other more difficult test during RASP, I felt like I was doing the best thing that I could genuinely, you know, in terms of my cognitive abilities, especially my personality. You know, so I talk a lot. I use my hands all the time when I'm talking. Maybe I'm like, nausea. Maybe I see funny things.

That pisses off certain people. I would try to find a, you know, ways to connect with everybody and just show that I'm a good teammate all along and play the part. And so it was a very interesting experience from the standpoint of, you know, being. around straight-up alpha males competing in a way that is not necessarily you punching each other, but, you know, next to each other doing tests and running, and then at the end of the day, sort of seeing who made it through. Yeah, they're also looking at, like, how personable are you, how extroverted are you, your ability to lead, those types of things.

Right, exactly. Yeah, so it was, you feel like you're being like one of those dog shows, you know, where they just holding your head and saying, okay, contestant number three, we got Villain. Come on, Bill. you know, give us a brief. You know, I remember that was part of the board. Like, give us a brief or something. Start talking.

You're like, oh, okay. So now you graduate, you were second Ranger Battalion, right? First Ranger Battalion. First, I'm sorry. So you get assigned to 175. What's it like taking a platoon in 175? I mean, it's everything that I've told you about the Army, the relationship with, you know, you don't know anything, you're going into a different.

That time's a bazillion. because these guys have been in Ranger Regiment their whole careers now. They only know full go all the time. They only know perfection all the time. Now it's there's no there's no slackers. You can't you can't hide yourself with anybody. You can't. There's no relaxing in Ranger Regiment.

And so that was even more pressure. It's now thinking back because the how quickly lieutenants get fired. Now it's even now is the theme is that, You might take a platoon, but you might get fired the week after. You know, like, geez, you know, you make one mistake. And the NCO has a lot more power, way, way more power. You know, the NCO, the platoon sergeant is the guy guy, guy. You know, and then you have the company commander who's also a guy guy guy.

And then so you're like, okay, so where am I? Who am I? You know, what is my role? You know, thankfully for me, I had a platoon sergeant, starting first class Donaldson, who was from the 82nd. and he was from North Carolina and he was very, very small and scrawny. And that was huge next to it.

And we'll work out together. And it became like a very, everybody in Ranger Benjamin is always trying to be, you know, squar jaws, trying to look like the beret has to be perfect, you know, covering your half eye, you know, the uniform has to be perfect. That's where Ranger,

and then you have me and him walking around laughing, you know, with massive dips in our own mouths. You know, so it was a very, it was a very, we were a very personable couple. and then we like to, we had a lot of pride in what we did. So from a personality standpoint, when Rensy Regiment matches you

with your platoon sergeant, they just say like, okay, you know, Villanueva, we're going to match you up with, that match was like almost made in heaven. It was like, okay, yeah, this is a perfect match. You know, these two are going to get along. It's an amazing platoon. They have incredible NGOs.

And so for me, even though I knew it was very difficult, it was very, very fun because my guys, well, I hate to see you from my guys. The guys that I was with were phenomenal, And they were very, very, very fun. And we got a chance to deploy together as well. And then we got a chance to be in Savannah by ourselves. And so it was a magical experience.

I could have not asked for a better experience in first Ranger Battalion. And so you deployed one or two more times with Ranger Battalion. I deployed twice. One deployment, I was on staff. And it was a very interesting deployment. I was on the jock. So I was the, I guess, I don't know if I'm not allowed to say that. Am I allowed to say what I was?

You guys probably know more about it. If you don't feel comfortable, you don't have to worry about it. No, you don't have to. I'm just trying to play by the rules. I don't know. But I guess the war is over, you know. I was on staff in, man, what's the name of the, I forgot about the camp alpha. That was a camp alpha.

So it was in camp alpha. a very interesting deployment. I remember I watched. I saw a plane crash doing that deployment, a 747 that was a contractor taken off. So try to see how they can get out the MRAPs out of Afghanistan on a 747. All I remember that, and it broke loose inside the fuselage and came down with belly on bag room.

Yes. Yes. Yes, I was there. I was out of it. And then very interesting deployment as well to see sort of behind the scenes and see the bigger the big brains the big brains of the um of of of of the of the especially especially the um the kinetic strikes you know that that be that was becoming a huge thing uh and so i had to be up for all of them and i have to i have to sort of be there you know with game

of thrones minimize on the corner and just right sitting i mean sitting for hours until until the target would go outside into the green zone it was it was it was a very interesting that not Now looking back, it was amazing. I got a chance to hang out with people from all the units. You know what I mean? So I was like, wow, wow, it's amazing, you know, all the different J-Suck units, you know, meeting, getting into know, personally. It's kind of like the office.

So, you know, they had a barbecue shack. I remember they had a barbecue shack at Bagram. And I went out with a bunch of guys from the unit, you know, and I was kind of like, you know, trying to like pop up myself and, you know, everybody's so chill. And I was just, so I ate 53 ribs. I had 53 ribs of Barram. And the guys were like, what it's crazy. I was competing with somebody in the hotel hall.

So it was a cool experience to have the, being on the cop, my first deployment, being out in the middle of nowhere with, you know, just kind of with the Afghans, you know, sitting in a tiny base. And now being on a big base where I could fly out to different cops, if they had like a staff ride or whatever, where I could go to Camp Vance and I could eat with the S.F. you know, the amazing pre-scene that they had at the SF compound, borrow a car, go workout at Murphy's Gym, you know, every single day.

So it was a very cool experience. And then my second time, I went to Camp Docky and Fab Sheng. Go ahead. No, were you there as a PL or were you there? I was there as a PL for Camp Dock in Logar. And how was it different now being a PL in Ranger Battalion compared to being a PL in the 80s? A bunch of wound up. Or I mean, Teth Mountain.

Yeah. So, amazing question. The biggest difference that I found is that I did not need an interpreter in Ranger Regiment. Meaning, when I was in the regular army, you have to have an interpreter. And the main focus every single day was people from the village. You know, I got to go see this haji right here. And I got to ask him, everything was about guys. gather information or talking to the village elders.

I mean, you were, you were in a reconstruction. We're not a nation building. Yeah, yeah, we're nation building. I was a state department, you know, police slash police officer in a village. And I had to execute all these projects. We had to give vaccinations to the goats. We had to remove marijuana fields because we're trying to cut off funding from the Taliban. We had to make wells.

And in the middle of these missions, then we would get shot at. and then we were reacting. But it became to a point where, you know, I would almost be talking to the interpreter as I was going down the whole time, prepping ourselves for this and constantly speaking to an Afghan, you know, so I was always constantly speaking to an Afghan all the time. And then the Ranger Regiment is, you know, you don't have to worry about an interpreter at all. You know, it's kill capture.

This is you're going out, you're going on target, and you worry about just moving pieces and controlling assets. You're always going to have assets. You never had assets in the regular army, so you never have to worry about being on company fires or switching your radio. So there were definitely a lot of changes from the way that you conduct the mission. Now, in the regular army, I will gather the platoon or the two squads that were going on a mission.

And then as we were smoking a cigarette, we would just talk about the route that we were going to go into the village. What isn't that we're going to do? You know, we would do a couple quick checks to make sure that we had, you know, equipment. I would put a water bottle in my pocket and then we'll go out on the mission. And now in the Ranger Regiment, I'm cramming a pack. PowerPoint, you know, all the slides have to be, you know, two hours before you take off. You've got to brief the battalion commander. It's a lot more formal.

So definitely a completely different environments. The Army is a lot, is a lot better, a lot funner. Is it maybe a little more boring and not as exciting, but it's definitely a very enjoyable. I mean, both of them have incredibly rewarding parts of it, but you feel like you're working for Goldman Sachs when you're in the Redmond Regiment. You know, you're just sleeping three, four hours a night, and you're just constantly on the go, constantly on the computer. And so it's, it was more investment banking, less, you know, hanging out with the bros out there with some enforcement. Yeah, yeah. And also, like you mentioned, you had assets, like plenty of assets when you're with the regiment compared to when you're going out with 10th Mountain.

Right, right, right, right. Yeah, the assets thing was key. I mean, you don't have to do land-nav anymore. You just park with the building. There it is. You know? Yeah. I get a lot.

That's where we're going. Yeah. So you did two deployments. When did you start looking at, like, leaving the military? When I got back from my last deployment, it was time for me to rotate out of Ranger Regiment. So I spent two and a half years in Ranger Regiment. And so for the officers, you have to be a lot of the Army Regiment. you have to go into the regular army

and then you have to try to go into run your regiment, but then you have to go back into the army and then you have to go back with the regular army. So you have to go back into the regular army and take like an exo position or a company command? Right. You go back to the regular army,

you do your captain's career course, your staff time, and then you hope to get a company command time. So when I got back, I called HRC and the army was going through the BRAC movement. So each brigade combat team, each division was getting rid of one brigade combat team. So if they have four, now they were going down to three.

So when they did that, there was an excess of officers because now you have, you know, you don't have enough platoons or positions, and now all the timelines kind of get crunched in order to fit this massive sort of implosion. Of extra officers. Yeah. Right, right, right.

So when I talk to HRC to say, well, as an infantry officer, you have to go, the army tries to make you go light and then heavy and then light heavy as in light infantry heavy infantry so you have to go into a heavy unit right they want to make sure that you see both you see mechanized infantry that you see light infantry so because i did light infantry i have to go into heavy infantry so they gave me two options they gave me uh lewis and for hood and i said no way no way I got to be in a vehicle. I had never been in a vehicle.

You know, maybe I got into a Max Pro, you know, 10 times, you know, the whole time I was in the Army. I never, I was always dismounted, always. Yeah. And so for me, me, yeah, man, I got to be in a vehicle now. And then I got to go, I got to wait six months of Fort Benning. And then I got to go come this career course. And then I got to wait 18 months in staff. And then I'm only going to be a company commander for one year in Fort Hood or Lewis, definitely not deployed.

neither of those units are going to deploy. So all I'm going to be doing is inventories. I'm going to be doing inventories, and I'm going to be trying to figure out. I'm going to be staring at soldiers that don't know kind of what we're going to do because everybody's so trained to deploy it constantly all the time and the deployments were slowing down.

So that part of me just, I just became, I was very turned off by the idea of going and being a heavy infantry mechanizer, you know. And I've regretted many, many times, you know, looking back. but you know I don't want to be moving around and and trying to figure it out and wait for the next opportunity so very very quickly I was at St. Patrick's parade in Savannah, Georgia and I found one of my teammates from West Point who was in the NFL because he had tried out after two years and he said they have this program called the regional combine if you go there and you do a couple of events then maybe you have a chance to go into the NFL so I try to do it just just before I would, you know, get out of the Army to make sure to see if I could do it.

And then if not evaluate what my options were, because getting out after five years, you've got to start from zero again. You know, you don't have that much experience where you're going to jump, you know, everybody else is coming out of college. You're kind of competing with people that are coming out of college as well a little bit. And so that's when I decided that I would maybe try out to go to the NFL as the first when your battalion was on leave. I went out to Georgia and I did a combine event thing and then that led to an offer from Philadelphia.

And so that's when I started the separation process. But always, always regretting leaving the Ranger Regiment, you know, because I had to tell myself that even if I stayed, I would have to leave the Ranger Regiment. Even if I would say, okay, I'm not going to the NFL, the Ranger Regiment would have kicked me out regardless. You know, there would be no guarantee of me coming back. So that's that's such an interesting like dichotomy there because like these are like two dreams taking place at the same time, right? And they're both at very very elite levels. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But but I wouldn't say that there were dreams.

I don't think in terms of dreams. I never dreamed that I was going to be in the Renew Regiment. I never dreamed that I was going to play in the NFL. It was just it was strictly economical decisions. What am I going to do when I got out of the Army? the same group of people that wanted to go infantry, the five-year mark, also wanted to get their MBAs from a top school.

So I get an NBA, which is the silliest thing in the universe. You know what I mean? Yeah, like, I eat MBAs, the worst. You know what I mean? You can learn everything on YouTube. MBAs. But I want to get my MBAs.

I was like, I got to get my MBA. It's $100,000. How are you going to pay for it? You know, I don't have money. So, like, maybe if I go to the NFL and I get one-year salary, then maybe I can pay for, I can pay for the NBA.

Yeah. And so I was always compared myself with my teammates, my classmates from West Point. That's who was the driving force behind a lot of the decisions that I was making. And so it's funny that now I think about, you know, so these institutions, kind of like Harvard. You know, when you have small classes and you kind of know your classmates, there's so much competition internally between the classmates to put yourself in a better position because that's all you used to do at West Point. Yeah.

And so get into my MBA, get an out, get a corporate job, whatever, whatever the next thing was. You know, whatever the next thing was, you know, it was supposed to be for a typical West Point graduate from 2010, who did five years. That's what I was willing to do. Yeah. But I wanted to see if I could pay for it by playing in the NFL for one year. Just one year.

You know, that's all I wanted. Now, you're, are you around 27 at this, 26, 27 at this time? 26, yeah, 26. Is that, I don't know, is that old to be starting in the NFL? Super old, super old, not. It was the stupid as this, looking back, It was a lot of, you know, I felt like I was, you know, I was delusional. I just, what was I thinking?

You know, I mean, I have a lot of confidence in my abilities. I do feel that in terms of athletically that I can figure things out. And so maybe I'm not going to be very good at the first time, but I'm going to get it. I'm going to learn and I'm going to get it. And I think that's what football is all about. So I always had a feeling that if you just, again, if you try harder than the guy next to you and you're willing to sacrifice more than the person next to you. So you're willing to stay longer hours.

You're willing to get hit in the face harder. Then things always work out. It's almost you're playing the odds. The odds are that if you work harder, you're going to know the play and you're going to make, because you talk about one or two plays per game. I mean, that's what separates. Same thing as baseball is. Right, right, right, yeah.

Very small percentages. So when you play football, everybody can do the basics, but who can make one play, play every 20 or 30 plays? Who can make one sack, you know, get off one block or whatever. So I always thought the football was very, I almost thought that was the code for football. You know, like I crack the code. The code is this.

You just have to look around the same thing you did during Rask. The same thing you did at West Point. Same thing you do everywhere. You look to your left and right. You see who you're with in the room and you say, okay, let's go. You know, that guy right there is very fast in the two miles. So I'm going to have to try my best to beat him in the push-ups, to do it whatever. But it's the same thing when you play football.

You look around the room and you say, these are the strengths and the qualities of the competitors that I'm competing against because you're always competing with people in your room when you play football. You're never competing with somebody outside. Really, you're competing with your teammates, always in football, because you're trying to get paid as the goal to be a starter. So that was sort of the approach that I took in the NFL, and I thought that it would work,

and I guess it ended up paying out. I guess it ended up working. But it was very, very naive of me to think that at 26th, I was going to be able to play. I mean, that's crazy. If somebody came up to me, said, hey, I'm 26 and I want to go on the NFL, and I was average bad in college, and we never won games. I would say, well, you know, odds are stacked against you. You know, it's not, it's not a thing that's going to happen.

Something a miracle has to happen for you to play in the NFL. So you come off this deployment, and, you know, like, on a deployment, especially with the Rangers, like, there's generally, like some gym time and stuff like that. but you're not necessarily like coming out ready for a combine, right? Did you do anything to prepare yourself for that? You know what's funny is that the strength coach that Ranger Regiment had at the, I guess they have a new, I'll call it Jim, but I guess they have a different name in the Ranger Regiment, the gyms of there, whatever.

The gym at the Ranger Regiment had a training. And his job was to help and assess Rangers as they were getting as further PT because everybody that's PT individually or small groups. However you want to do PT in your platoon, there's going to be somebody that's going to guide you if any help. I mean, this is the culture of the GMs of a Ranger Regiment.

You have a personal trainer out there that is just telling you to do nothing about cleans and hand cleans and squats. So his background was football. His background was Cal and Exso. So he knew the combine training. And so him and I, we started talking and when I said, hey, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to try to, I'm going to try to do this combine, you know, and in Atlanta, and around the 40, then he started helping me.

He started training me, and he started timing me, and he started giving me feedback. And then I would go on the weekends with my wife, and she would fill me around the 40. But I would have to say that the effectiveness of all the training that I ever did was slim to none. And it did not work out at all. And it was not like I was, it's the reason why I was always trying out for. positions like tight in or defensive end that I had no chance in play you know there's no there's I don't I'm not powerful enough I'm not I'm not I'm not explosive enough I don't have the reaction my my muscles are not made compact and and so there was there the

training that I was doing was was completely wrong but through Philly and through the Steelers I found out that I was going to be playing tackle and tackle was a better position for me yeah and the only the only adjustment was just to gain weight but the the the the cardio because you're playing 80 plays. You don't ever come out. So it doesn't matter if you can bench 500 pounds once. Can you do it 80 times? Right.

And so the push-up, the squat, I mean, things that have endurance into them are way more beneficial for an offensive lineman. So being able to play a game three hours and play the first play like the last one, that was my advantage. That's the only thing that I had going for me is the fact that I had an incredible cardio for an NFL play. So you go to the combine, you get picked up by Philadelphia, But then, then you get, how did it happen that you got scouted by Pittsburgh?

Because we played a preseason game against each other. So in the NFL, you play preseason games. And for our third preseason game, we played the Steelers. And then when I played against the Steelers, they saw me and they were intrigued by it. And I think Pittsburgh has a history of selecting players that have military backgrounds or the serves. Pittsburgh is a very the veteran population in Pittsburgh is a huge component

I mean it is the I think it was at one point the highest concentration of Vietnam veterans in the U.S. Oh wow And so the Steelers are very aware of who is their fan base

and they knew that there's a lot of veterans and so I think they've always tried to cater in that aspect which is surprising because I would have never thought Coach Tomlin was not, I mean, I knew that I was going to try to get, I knew I was going to get a shot in the NFL because back in 2014, the NFL was so popular and the military was so popular in the NFL that they just loved them. Every commercial for every beer was all military, military, military.

So the coaches were always on in the military. So I think, man, one of these coaches going to give me a chance. And so that's who I thought was going to give me a chance. Somebody like the Harbaugh brothers, you know, they're super pro-military. There's thousands of coaches that, Chip Kelly with the Philadelphia Eagles, He was a big pro-military guy. But the Steelers weren't. But then I found out that the fan base is.

The fan base is a huge. They're very pro-military. And it has its links regarding the war in Vietnam. You know, you got Pennsylvania. You got people from Ohio. It's either you go to the mills or you go to war. You know, you get drafted or you enlist. And so the city was a very cool transition into civilian.

life because so many people from a different generation that was Vietnam had gone through it and you can have a lot of people to talk to regarding all your struggles coming out of the military. And Pittsburgh fans are passionate. I mean, a week ago we had one of the first Ranger J-Tax on Eddie Chavez and like he mentioned on the show like what a huge Steelers fan he was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot of passion, a lot of passion of, you know, being a Steelers, Philly, you know, there's fan base. that are very, very proud of their team, and they're truly devouted to following the season,

the players, and whatnot. I mean, I live here in Miami now in Miami. As soon as they lose a game, everybody goes to the beach. You know, they can care less. Yeah, right. But not in Pittsburgh, not in Cleveland, not in the cities. Yeah, they go to bars and drink themselves into stupers, right?

Yeah. So you played your first year in 2015. What was that like for you? I mean, you're this kid from this tiny Spanish town, right? Rota Spain. And I know, like, soccer is big, and soccer draws these massive crowds. But now you're playing American football. And what was that like for you?

What was it? It felt very awkward and weird because nobody ever knew who I was. And so I was always like a, you know, when you meet somebody, you can categorize people really quick, right? Oh, he's so and stuff from Texas. It's dads of a rancher. He likes them drive big trucks. Oh, he's from California. He likes rock climbing.

He drives a Subaru, you know, etc., etc. But when you got somebody who's from Road and Naval Station, and very difficult last name to pronounce, you know, he has an accent, but you don't know exactly what type of accent it is. Right. I'm very difficult to categorize. And so I never felt that I never felt that people realized just how surreal this whole thing was for me. You know, the fact that not only wasn't a probable that I was older,

but the fact that I come from a place where I never people would always talk to me about Hall of Fame coaches and games and players and this and I had no idea You were not from the traditional NFL pipeline Right, right, right, right, right, I was not from the traditional But by now I'm a professional actor, you know, now I can get into any group of people and I can, you know, I've done this so many times

You know, whatever is they need me to do, I can do it I know how to survive in social settings now and so Right But I think Coach Tomlin was the only one that that realized that I was a little odd duck in the group. And the things that I would say and the things that I was interested in were a little peculiar. Right. And it's funny because, you know, I never even thought about it.

But, you know, for kids growing up who played football, they probably watch football. And they probably know, they'll know who like Walter Payton or Bear Bryant, you know, who these people are. But you didn't grow up in the culture at all. Like it was all new to you. Yeah. Yeah. No, nothing, nothing. or the stadiums.

I don't know which stadiums were, you know, this is Green Bay, this is Lambo. Yeah. Okay. You know, yeah.

It didn't register at all. I was always very worried about making it. That's a lot. I was in, I was in that RASP mode, you know, it was, I was at RASP for eight years.

Right. Never relaxing. Every day selection. Every day selection. That's literally, that's how it is. Because that's how the NFL works. You have 53 players,

and then they're bringing a roster up to 90. And then now you're competing every single, you're with 40 more players into the roster. So every year they're doubling the roster and then you have to compete against them. And they always take the best. So it is a constant competition mode

that does take a little bit of the joy away from it all. And you're not living through it. Now you live through it. You know, when you retire and you can look back, then you can say like, oh, wow, yeah, that is crazy, man. I'm from Rod up. You know, people call me big out.

You know, is that even my name? Yeah. You know, that's not who I was at all, you know? You know, but it is what it is. I mean, it's an amazing experience, you know, to be able to experience those stadiums and that, that, that, that, the passion that people have for, for a game. I wouldn't, I mean, I can never see myself sitting down in the stands for three hours, freezing, paying $40 a beer, you know.

Right. Barely seeing. But people do it, you know. Yeah. So it was awesome. But, you know, you mentioned this, this competition and how you're, you're, you know, constantly competing for your position, but for the years that you played after that first year, you started every single game, right?

Right, but I'm on draft it. So you're not coming from, when you come into the NFL, you have different status. You know, if you're a first round pig, you're the golden child. The organization did a lot of research to select you. So the organization's name is at stake with your performance. Right. So you're going to get a thousand chances. You know, you're for sure going to play.

Your money's guaranteed. but when you're undrafted, you're trying out. You're trying out for the team every year. So they have you for cheap. You know, they have your rights. And then you can play. You can try your best. But at the end of the day, you know,

they're always trying to replace you with a player that they think is better. So, you know, as an undrafted player, you're fighting your clon. I mean, you just, you're on the goal the whole time. You know, you cannot go down. I mean, that's the reason why I never even missed a game. Yeah. I couldn't go down. If I went down, somebody else would go back behind me and take my job.

Yeah. Yeah. How did the other players, did they care that you had been, that you were a veteran, a combat veteran, a former ranger? I mean, did that play, were people interested in that part of you? No. I mean, most of the, very few new, I mean, a lot of times to say something like a veteran, they're associated with issue. They're associated, you know, they want to know PTSD. They want to know if you kill somebody.

That's all they care about. You know what I mean? as the things that are very in their heads. Right. But the thing is that I was, one of my best, one of my teammates that I have my entire time in Pittsburgh was from Stanford.

He was an immigrant from, his parents were immigrants in South Africa. And he grew up very close to Fort Lewis. So he knew a little bit about the military. And he was obviously went to Stanford. So he's very, very smart. And he understands the, you know, the, the geopolitical situation of the United States,

and it's interesting to hear from people. And he was very interested in hearing what a veteran thought about the war in Afghanistan because we were still fighting the war. We were fighting the war the whole time we were together. Right. So a lot of times people just stopped covering. They just stopped talking about it.

But for him to have the firsthand knowledge of what I thought was Afghanistan and why or why did it not end up becoming a victorious campaign that veterans can feel proud of. It was very interesting. So he was very, he was very, very interested in that aspect.

And then my position coach, who was a Hallfam coach, he was from Pennsylvania and he always felt the same. He felt that call of duty because he thought he was going to get drafted in Vietnam. And so being from Scran, growing up watching the movie, The Deer Hunter, you know,

it was just sort of, like the same thing, same thing that I talked about earlier, you know. You want to serve. You want to be a man. You want to be out there. So he was also very interested.

But outside of that, you could tell that there was a complete lack of understanding, not just from a geographic standpoint of where things are, you know, but of the complexity behind it, you know. Right. It was not like you could just drop bombs and carpet bomb everything in front of you and then start, put an American flag, you know, and continue to go to the next village. You know, it wasn't like that at all.

Yeah. You know, one of the things that, so I'm not a football fan. in terms of, you know, I watched the Super Bowl of Friends, but you did come into my awareness. I think in, was it 2020, or like 2020, when you wore Alwyn Cash's name on your jersey? Because, you know, there was this ground root effort, you know, or, yeah, this sort of, yeah, this groundroot,

grassroots effort, yeah, thank you. This grassroots effort, along with, you know, a couple of, you know, Congress people, I think, to get Allen Cash the Medal of Honor. And not many people knew about it. Can you tell us how that came about for you? Because it did bring some awareness, I feel like. Right, right, right. So I think that during that year, it was COVID year, number one, I think.

So we started with it, it was empty stadiums. And we were allowed to use our platforms to sort of highlight injustices that we thought. were worthy of a cause. And my brother-in-law, who's a tremendous historian, lover of the military, he pointed me out this story, and he said, man, this guy's been waiting to get a mail of honor, you know, for, you got how many years, like 10 years or something like that, and just it never gets the attention that it deserves.

And then when you read this story, you're like, what? This is crazy. You know, I'm insane. And so I thought it was a very interesting, I mean, I never thought that put his name in the back of my helmet was going to get as much attention. But obviously because of controversial issues in my background and with the Steelers and this movement that was going on the NFL,

it got the attention. And then he got the middle of the same year, which is surreal. It was incredible. But I think that the opportunity that I had to talk to people that were serving with him, his unit and his family, and how much his actions resonated in the community was incredible. I mean, small town America, you know, everybody in this town knew about him. He was a legend in that town.

And I think that when you're part of that community and you have somebody who's done something like that, it brings an incredible amount of pride, you know, and legitimate pride. Not, you know, a singer came from my talent. I know this type of character came from this town. This is who we are. And it puts you on the map in a very interesting way. So I was, I was very humble and honor to. to have come across a story and I was very, very excited,

obviously, when you got the middle of honor because it was so deserving. And also, yeah, I was even, they were actually, when they were renaming the post, I said, man, it would be amazing if they called for old four-bending, you know, for cash, you know, just, you know, as a suggestion, obviously.

But, yeah, no, so an amazing story and very, very cool that I was able to to use my football platform as a veteran, I guess, to bring some light to his story. Yeah. No, it was, like I said, you really came into my awareness. And I know that just to give, like, it was Dan Crenshaw and Michael Waltz and Stephanie Murray who really kind of spearheaded a lot of that. And then a lot of the Gold Corps guys, you know, on Twitter.

Like, it was just this grassroots thing where people were trying to make this happen. Even I think his battalion commander was trying to get it upgraded, because when he wrote the initial award, he couldn't interview anybody because they were all sort of, they were all out of it. And later, when he found out what had happened, he was the one,

even though he wrote the initial award, tried to get it upgraded. Right, exactly. I think there's like some bureaucracy, we had to wait 10 years or whatnot for consideration and whatnot. So, yeah, but amazing, you know, at the end of the day,

let's make it about his story. If you never heard it, it's surreal. Yeah, definitely you owe it. yourself to look up his story. It's incredible. So, you know, you played these, you played, was it seven years? I played, I was in the NFL for eight years, but I was playing for seven because the first year was a practice squad year. So I was a, I was a tackling dummy for practice my first year in the NFL. And then after that I was able to play the games. And that includes the Pro Bowl, which is pretty prestigious, prestigious, right? No. No. It was not prestigious at all.

No. No. Everything becomes subjective. I've always, one of the things about American culture that I've always, that I've always loved has been debates about Cobian Michael Jordan, you know, who's better. And in any circumstance, you'll find, I mean, even now, the media television for American football or sports in general is exactly just that. It's that argument as to who's better, who's this, who's that. And this subjective conversation leads to names that get mentioned. I think the pro bowl is that. But I think if you know football, if you know the game of football,

if you're just not lying to yourself about what it is, then you start realizing that the offense, the quarterback, the magic that's in the room is going to make the players better. You know, there's no, you cannot put a player on a terrible defense and expect them to get sacks. not going to happen to throw the ball a lot quicker than the defendant is going to be able to get them. So I'll play with incredible players. I was with Levian. I was with Antonio Brown. I was with Ben Robertsberger. So we had an incredible offense and usually that's what happens. He shine

because everybody around you is so good. Just kind of the same thing as Ranger Regiment on 10th Mount. That has been a theme of my career that I've always had very, very talented people around me that have made my story almost a little unbelievable at times. But the fact that I went to the problem is silly. It's the weirdest time of insecurities of all the players or whether they're worthy to be there or not. It's very, very funny. Very humble answer, and we appreciate it.

And what, like, what were some of your greatest moments if you, you know, in the NFL? In the NFL? Yeah. In the NFL. Yeah. My greatest moments. So when I was going through Ranger School, I mean, through the NFL, I was also going to business school at Carnegie Mellon.

And Carnegie Mellon was an incredible institution that was fully civilian. So the transformation from being somebody who had never left the gates of the military until the age of 26 to becoming a civilian in the city went through a moment where I was in a classroom never thinking I was going to make in the NFL but sitting in a classroom learning what America is that is not regarding you know involving camel uniforms or B-17s right just learning what how American business works right what are the foundation in the principles that make this country go and then you start learning a lot about capitalism, you know,

and you learn about what the free markets. And I had a teacher who had served for Reagan, served for Margaret Thatcher, served for many, many administrations around the time of the McCarthyism when communism was in the institutions. And so he was 98 years old. Then was Alan Meltzer. He passed away the day,

he passed away the day of our final exam. And we got all A's. And I remember thinking about, you know, MBAs, right? Like, I'm paying this much money for an NBA. And then I just got to sit and listen to this 98-year-old man talk for as long as he could talk. You know, sometimes it'll be 30 minutes, sometimes 45 minutes. And then he passed away and there was no even testing or anything, you know. And how course is that?

Then when you examine what he was saying in that class, you think to yourself. That was the most insane privilege. that I've ever had in my entire life. And listen to a man who was combating against the ideology of communism and the Cold War, which the Cold War became a huge theme in my life as I started to learn about the way the things have shaped this country, especially because that's the most recent period of time that we got out of. And to listen to him talk was a crazy moment.

You know, to hear him say everything in America, is about management of expectations. This concept of this theme of management of expectations, if you're doing business with somebody and you can expect something, then you can manage the expectations and you can create a business. So everything is about this Trudeo Christian value of treating others like you want to be treated. It derives exactly from that. And that's the foundation of business and everything.

You create trust and everything around it is created. Everything is like the concept of money, the concept of credit, the debt, everything is just made up and it boils down to this management of expectations. So very, very, very enlighting moment for me being able to go to Carnegie Mellon and fully understand, you know, the why of it all, you know, when you chase the money all the way to its foundation, there's not an evil creature guarding it behind it. It's just our trust, you know, and the right.

Our faith in the system. Our faith in the system, yeah, example. So that was that was the moment of like. I'm now a civilian. I now understand how the world works. The military is not always going to get what he wants. And I think I was able to pair that up with the only thing that I think I got from the military academy from West Point in terms of these sort of lessons, which was the relationship between the military and the civilians.

You know, the civil-military relationships is a staple of America, as a staple of how we do, not only how our military is design and its purpose, but also how we run politics in this country. So to put all those three pieces together was very, very, very cool as I was playing games and seeing it all play out and thousands and millions of dollars and add revenue for the NFL and stadiums, cars, this, that, you know, you're seeing it all. You've seen the whole magic of the country working towards, you know, towards his goals. So that was, that was a very cool, cool moment.

Alan Meltzer, Carnegie Mellon. Did you, when you were in the NFL, did you feel as though, you know, one of the things we talk about a lot of the military is that, that deep sense of camaraderie and brotherhood, you know, amongst your unit. Did you feel that on your NFL teams or did it, was it more individual? It's more individual, but you, when you play offensive line, you depend on each other incredibly. For all the success and failure of your actions, there has to be somebody that works with

you or that allows you to happen. So in offense, you have to work in sync. And I got a chance to play with the same offensive line for seven years. So I felt a lot of the same, you know, care and. commodity between the offensive linemen and then, you know, your platoon when you're eating an MRI in the side of the hill. Sure. Very, very, very similar.

And then how did your NFL career sort of wind down when did you decide that, because you were still going strong when you left? No, the body starts breaking down. You get to levels, you know, all these things are, all these things are taught and they're not a secret. You know when the testosterone and males starts going down. You know, it's roughly around 33 years old. That's when you peak.

And then after that, the body is not the same. Because I was so eager to never let anybody take my position, I also took a lot of snaps over the years. And then I had a lot of injuries that I had to play through because I couldn't let anybody take my spot. You know, I just always had that mentality. So the body started becoming a little, a little, started showing signs of old age.

And then it was a matter of asking myself, do you have enough to continue to play? Do you have enough to quit? And would you forgive yourself if you got a major injury that would affect your quality of life for the rest of your life? You couldn't go on a five-mile run anymore. Shirtless in South Beach, you know, is it worth it? And then you cannot argue against a pragmatic decision.

You just can't, you know, it's a money question, first of all. You know, the NFL, you're not playing the NFL. you know, to have thousands of followers on your social media accounts. You're playing in the money. Right. That is the only reason why people are playing in the NFL. That's the only reason why people love it and it has so much appeal behind it. It's changing your life, you know.

Yeah. And so when I did the financial things that I wanted to do and I analyzed and I looked at the state of my body, then I didn't want to be playing football if I was in, if I was in, kicking ass. You know, if I wasn't coming up the ball, if I wasn't playing at my best, I didn't want to play football just to say that I was playing football. Right. I don't want to get an injury at 35, a 20 ACL, and then have damage on my knee.

And, you know, you got to remember that if you, when you play offensive lineman, I was 350 pounds, if you quit playing and you don't immediately start shedding weight, you will be in the 400s within two, three years. Right. Because your metabolism is slowing down. So you're going to get a lot of weight. You're going to get a lot of weight. And then heart failure is next.

And you're going to have all these things, but you're not going to live very long. Because your body's 500 pounds. So mobility was huge for me, maintaining my mobility. Being able to run, being able to do push-ups, be fine. There's a war tomorrow. I got my RPFT in and I'm in. There's nothing that's preventing me from doing anything. And so I wanted to preserve that.

I had a good run. I felt that the experience that I had were almost getting to a point that was too much, you know, that going from one team for the next and always living in that uncertainty when there was no need to just seem like a not a very smart decision for me. Yeah. And so did you have a plan? Because you had gotten your MBA and did you have a plan when you left the NFL? Did you know exactly what you wanted to do, where you wanted to go?

I had the same plan that everybody has in the military when they're going to get out and everything's going to work out. It's so easy. My cousin told me I'm going to do, I'm going to buy a pickup truck and a lawnmower and I'm going to be a millionaire landscaper. It was just like that. I said, I'm going to go to Wall Street and I'm going to work as an investment banker. You know, whatever. Did you throw out a thing that somebody told me to make a lot of money and it's very easy? But then I started realizing that.

that life was not for me. There's no way that I could sit around environments, like banking environments or business environments. If you're not born to be a businessman, business becomes very, very difficult. Very, very difficult. You're a very difficult. If you're not a merchant,

if you don't know how to collect money from people, it's very, very difficult. And so for me, I started realizing that I was not very good at either handling people's money or collecting people's money, you know. And so that limits your business options to basically none. You know what I mean? Like you're not going to find success if you don't have that drive behind you.

So I have four kids. They're little. I didn't want to spend a lot of time away from them just to be able to start another career that would, you know, you're chasing. At this point, you're chasing things that are not even making you happy in any sort of way. you're trying to put more pins on your uniform, you know? Yeah.

You're maxed, you know, what else would you want? But the problem is that you're 35 or when I retire was 34, you know, what are you going to do? You got to do something, you know? And so, just like in the military, the first year is very difficult,

very, very hard. You, I told myself, I've done this before, I've done this before, I got out of the military, I've already gone through this. You go through the FOMO, you know, when I was in,

the NFL, the platoon that I was in was deployed and they were, you know, taking names everywhere. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm here. Right. You know, wearing these tight clothes, sweating on top of other men, you know, and I could be deployed right now in Kona. Like, oh, my God. You know, and so you get rid of the FOMO. Yep, not playing on Sundays. It's not happening anymore.

I'm not going to be, you know, eating breakfast with people every morning and sharing stories about what we saw last night. Now what's going to happen is that I'm going to try to find something to keep me busy so the kids see me working and something that fulfilled me, find a new purpose. You know, and so it took me almost a year and a half. And then I came into farming. Farming became something that I not know was available here in Miami where I decided to move after the NFL.

And I picked up farming and now I'm a farmer. So that's been what I've been doing for the last year. What crops? tropical fruits so uh here in homestead there's actually a military base out here in homestead um there's a there's a there's a specific uh micro climate uh that never freezes or subtropical so you have the ability to grow a lot of tropical fruits that are very very rare and that uh they they they tend to they tend to go bad uh within three to five days which limits competition from Central America or other countries that can ship them.

So there's a huge demand for this type of tropical fruits in the vegan community, for example. You know, like we spend a lot of money for a Waggoo steak. You know, what does a vegan spend money on? You know, a vegan spends money on a sour sap, on a very rare fruit that goes bad really quickly and you must have through online you can only sell online business be delivered to your house.

So that's the industry that I get into. And it's been incredible, amazing transition. Yeah, yeah, it's the best. Farming in the military

like this, you know what I mean? Yeah. It should make a law, you know, any count that every single veteran goes into farming.

It is, it is, I really think it's the reward, you know, from being a soldier. You're a soldier? Yeah. You should be rewarded

with being a farmer afterwards. Do you do wholesale to restaurants or some sort of retail? Like, how does it work? I'm a horrible businessman. I'm going to preface that with that. I'm terrible. But I sell mostly to online retail businesses that then sell to customers online. And I also sell to local distributors and local restaurants.

So when I bought the farm, it was organic. It was an organic farm. and I did not know anything about the organic world or even agriculture as a whole and so when I started researching you know sort of the the landscape of the organic industry then I started

honing in to who sort of the customers are and who's interested in buying those products and it happens to be something that is growing very quickly and the demand out you know there's not enough support for the amount of demand. So the prices are ridiculous.

You know, and so it's a very interesting business. And I'm learning so much about all the different things that you can do at a farm. You can start growing gourmet mushrooms. You can start doing chickens. You can start anything that makes money and the people won, you can just, you can grow it. And so that's the beauty behind. That's amazing. And it's really interesting to say how veterans should be tied to farming, how there should be this thing.

because the veterans that we have taught to who have gone into farming have been very content. They've loved... 100%. They've loved what they've found. That's what Maximus wanted to do in Gladiator. All he wanted to do was go back to his farm

and Hispania and Caresto, the wee. Yeah, you're by yourself. You're by yourself. You're putting things in perspective. You're doing something that matters. you're doing something that, you know, you're not making emails. You're making food. Yeah.

And there's something, there's something to it. And now, for me, it's even more fascinating because as I continue this journey of American exploration, now I get to hang out with, you know, vegans from Brooklyn, you know what I mean, who are the only people. And so they have a completely different ideas and completely different culture, but you get to, you get to know them and they're super interesting people, it's super cool, you know. And so now, you know, I got a little, I got a little. disc golfing, you know, at the farm. So, you know, when they come pick up the food, they can play

a little bit, you know, it's, it's interesting, you know, the, the, the different segments of the population that I would have never known had I always stayed in the military and in the NFL. Right. It's fascinating. And what else are you into nowadays? I mean, I see the squat rack behind you, so you just stay in shape. Yeah, so I, I give up and going to the gym. I think that was a transition that I can no longer go to a gym where I got people looking at themselves in the mirror the whole time. I look at myself in the mirror by myself

but I'm not, you know, like the LA fitness types you know where it's like 30 teenagers on a bench, hoarding the bench, making videos, being loud, you know. I was like, now I'm getting old, you know. And then it becomes harder to work out, you know, and you know that it's a commitment, you know. It takes,

it takes an inner energy to say, come on, we're going to work out today. We're going to get it done. I'm going to try to work out at least three, four times a week. Because I used to work out four hours a day. And so when you stop working out, you start losing all your muscle mass. You become achy. And so I try to work out.

Obviously, that's always a thing that's a theme that has been in my life. I fish a lot. Fishing is my passion of fish. Since I came to the United States, and I realized that in America, They got stores like Basper shops, but they have five aisles of different plastic worms. Yeah. And people buy them.

You know, people buy them. People buy specific color or specific shape plastic worms. So there must be something interesting behind it. And that's what I like to do. I like the fish. I like to be outside in the farm. And then, you know, whatever, whatever things I can find here in Miami that are interesting, like during a softball league.

You know, I never play softball in my life. I know that baseball is a huge thing in Cuban culture. The Cuban community in Miami is amazing. It's so unique. It's a tiny community. It's the only city you can find. The Italians, you can find Italian Americans everywhere. You can find Italian restaurants all over the place.

But the Cuban community here in Miami is so, you know, it's overwhelming that to learn from their culture is amazing. Their journey is over, you know, their grandparents over from Cuba in the 50s and 60s, picking up, you know, things like baseball and then playing baseball and nonstop. anything and everything that is, you know, community is something that I'm very interested in. Well, a lot of, you know, you mentioned your professor, the lecture, a huge

anti-communist sentiment in the Cuban community. Oh, yeah. Oh, crazy, crazy. But you know what? That is also a theme that has been is reappearing now, I guess, a little bit in my life. You know, I'm Spanish.

So I speak Spanish. I come over to the city of Miami. Most of the immigrants that came from Cuba are of Spanish descent. They can track their descendants to a city. And just like the Italians can do in New Jersey and New York. Spain has a communist socialist government right now. The whole entire family lives in. And then Cuba, which is, I mean, I'm closer to a,

totalitarian regime that I am to Jacksonville. You know, when you're in South Florida, you're out there. You're out there. You're just completely far, you know, so removed from the rest of the United States. And the conflict of the Cuban missile crisis, speaking of the Cold War that interests me so much, was so, I mean, we had nuclear bombs pointed out of the United States. This is crazy. Like, the only time that anything has ever threatened the America was from this place of Cuba.

So the tensions between Cuban-American, in Cuba is super, super fascinating. I mean, you cannot talk about Fidel. You cannot travel to Cuba. Only New York Cubans are the ones that go there. But the ones from here, they say, we don't want to give a single dollar to the communist regime. Yeah.

But I'm fascinated. I mean, I love history. And Spain and Cuba have so much history together. And Cuba was so instrumental for the independence of the United States and have been allies for most of its history that, you know, for me, I feel like there's, it's almost like a, it has to be a reconciliation between the two. I don't think there's anybody in Cuba who's happy to be under their regime. Right.

So, I asked a previous guest on the show, Rick Prado, for cigar recommendations, and he was very adamant, like, I don't buy Cuban cigars because I will not give them my money. Right, right, right. So I go Dominican, you know, but. Cuba and the United States have had, you know, such a interesting history. I didn't realize that the history between Cuba and the United States were so mind-boggling, you know. Crazy. You always think that the history of the United States is more shade by England and more shade by maybe, you know, the Dutch out in New York City or whatnot.

German immigrants that, you know, constitute the biggest, you know, migration group, Italians. but Spain and Cuba have had a huge legacy, especially in the south and the west of the United States. I mean, I just came from California. I was there this weekend, and I was in San Luis Obispo, you know, and you go to the mission, you know, from 1772 or 1702, the Spanish were here, the Mexican War, you know, there's been an exchange.

The Florida flag is the Spanish Empire flag, you know, with the Red Cross. It's kind of crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very odd. And so Cuba now is a place that is getting my attention. But I do feel that I cannot have any conversations about Cuba with anybody from Miami because they have such strong feelings about it. So I guess if you want to have those conversations, you have to go to New York and then you have to have the conversation with the New York Cubans.

So maybe are a little more open-minded to share, you know, what potential. I want to hear from somebody tell me a potential story or an angle towards, you know, reconciliation. Because I would love to go to Cuba at some point in my life. But I think it would be amazing to go fishing there. It would be amazing to explore. I mean, I'm in the farming, tropical farming world. And Cuba is the most beautiful farming land in the world. You know, it would be incredible just to visit, you know, to see how they grow them iname,

which is one of the fruits that I grow and that is extremely popular in Cuban culture. Alejandro, I mean, this has been like an amazing interview and so much fun to talk to you. Does there anything you want to tell us that you want to promote or anything where people can find your produce or anything in general that you want to put out there into the world that people should know about? No, I just think that the only thing that I do wish to promote is one of the things that I've always felt about America that is very special is that patriotism is not nationalistic. It's always been about gratitude.

And the military has been able to have an incredible relationship with its people where there's been no aristocracies to feed officers or generals into the military. It's always been the common man. And I think as we go into this all-voluntary service sort of model, I think that the military should always take a very high place in our society when it's a very high place in our society. comes to the state of it, what it means to serve, and obviously the encouragement and the

participation of younger generations, because sometimes I do think that the recruiter numbers of the military, you know, are the only things that keep me up at night a little bit, you know, in terms of, you know, how is the United States going to be in the next 100 years? And how is that going to affect the life of my kids? So there's only one message, you know, just to encourage all the young is out there to make sure that they can show their their patriotism by gratitude and serving. Yeah.

We have a couple questions. M. Corbyn, thank you very much. If you could put yourself in any battlefield from history, which one would it be and why? Oh, wow. What an amazing question. What an amazing question.

Okay. So there's one battle that my father obviously always told me about battles of the Spanish empire and there was one battle that is very very significant. The Spanish never, they don't promote war like the British. They don't write about the French, you know.

Humility is the number one thing, but the story they're insane, you know. So the battle of Le Panto, that is L-E-P-A-N-T-O, was a battle between the Holy Roman Alliance against the Ottomans. for the control of Europe. So the Ottomans were going to invade Europe, basically, and push out. And it was a naval battle that took place in a very small straight. There was something like 600 ships. So 600 ships, they have sails and they're maneuvering.

And so they had a marching order of battle between the ships and the flagships. I think seeing that or being on, you know, being a drone, a 4K drone, watching a naval battle of 600 ships around the year, you know, 15, whatever, I think that would be completely mental. And then the other battle that I think will be that I think I would I like to see just for its significance and the scale would probably be Stalingrad. I think Stalingrad would have been from the German side. You always see from the Russian side.

Not horrible to say, but just the curiosity standpoint, General Paola's and, you know, what is like to go through the attrition that the Nazis of Aramac went through in Stalingrad. Yeah. Also, thank you very much, Corvin. How much have you used, how much have you used to guide your decision-making process? How much have you used? I'm not sure what he meant, but how much have you used to guide your decision-making process? Corbyn, if you can add to that,

we'll go to Jim B's question. And I know you don't like being controversial, so feel free to answer this or not answer it, however you want. Can you provide some insights on the behind the scenes of the anthem kneeling drama? Yeah, the internet, man, it was the media. I think the media around at that time was becoming somewhat like the like social media. It was about viral moments and viral images. And images, images and headlines was the goal. I mean, if you could get an image in the headline, then it goes viral,

then it gets passed. And that was the business model of big media company. So I felt that it was not good to be caught up in the snowball that it is, the new media model where things go viral and then everybody's talking about it. And it gives so much amazing debate between people. Stand up, Neil, you know, for the anthem. So that part is not comfortable. You don't want to be on a wave crashing, just tumbling around.

Right, right, right. But then I think the thing that I got out of it, a lot of people, they got from the end of the anthem. I'm so used to people talking about how tall I am all the time that I have to have uncomfortable, awkward conversations throughout my day nonstop and answer, why am I so tall, do I play basketball, la, la, la. But now sometimes every down then,

somebody talks about the anthem and whatnot. And, you know, I guess as I reflect on my American experience, I do think that, you know, when you compare yourself with China or Russia, you know, you want to say to yourself, how would the Chinese or the Russians would have handled that situation? And would you want to live in China or Russia? He said, no, you don't want to live in China, Russia.

You know, you want to much further live in Brooklyn or in, you know, Berkeley, you know, than China or Russia. So I think at the end of the day, it allowed me to experience the freedom of diversity and opinions and to have the entitlement of saying, I can do in this country what I want. You know what I mean? And nobody can really stop me from doing X, Y, Z, and I don't feel any repercussions. and, you know, if I want to put the American flag in the garage while I'm pumping, you know, to, you know, bad bunny and I'm looking at myself in the mirror, that's what I'm going to do, you know what I mean? There's no, it's a really cool feeling at the end of the day to be able to exercise your freedoms, even if it's, you know, with your peers or your, you know, the pressure of the media or movement and whatnot, it's, it's, it's an interesting, it's a cool, you know, sort of experience. Yeah. out of curiosity, do you think that it's a sign of the times at all?

And look, I think you put it perfectly in that this is America and you're free to do what you want. Do you think it's a sign of the times where somebody who refuses to kneel, like maybe Copernic or whatever, they get lionized and sort of this sort of glow and, you know, this hero thing because they won't kneel. and then somebody who chooses, who has that respect and does, how it becomes maybe this very controversial thing. No, no way. You understand the signal from the noise. That's what they used to say all the time in the Ranger Regiment.

The signal from the noise. I mean, most people, and again, I was learning all this. All this was happening as this 98-year-old professor was explaining to me, you know, the secrets of America versus Russia. I mean, it's crazy. So you have an understanding that everybody in America has to work. Americans are very hardworking people. And people want to make economical decisions all the time.

And they want what's best for their families and for the well-being. And that's what most people want. Otherwise, we wouldn't have America. Otherwise, we would not have a market cap of trillions of dollars and we would not be the most powerful country in the world. So we're made up of very like-minded people that are all trying to make it. We're all trying to buy a new F-150 and go on vacation to Cape Cod. You know, everybody's trying to do the same things.

Right. And so I never had any doubt that the underlying majority of people, you know, have no, no issues with somebody exercising their freedoms. But I did know that obviously the cliques lie on the crazy minorities that do something that is exception, you know. Right. So, you know, it's a story of themselves, so it sold, you know. And it was a debate that sold in the media quite a bit. But, I mean, in the meantime, nothing really was changing. You know what I mean? Nothing really was changing either way.

And again, everybody's trying to make their best economical decisions to pursue their happiness. And at the end of the day, you were kind of an innocent caught up in all this. You're just like doing what your heart is telling you to do, not trying to really make a statement, not trying to be political. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, America, give me everything. You know, America on the flag, everything is giving me everything. There's no way I'm living here in Miami, Florida right now, you know, if it wasn't for the service. Yeah.

And I think that sometimes the symbols, you know, they're silly in a way, in an existential way. It's a cloth of colors, you know, and, you know, what is it? Yeah, but, you know, but you need those, you need those symbols a little bit of life to give yourself a little bit of meaning, you know. And those are the very powerful things that, you know, I don't have a trophy in my garage of the Afghan campaign and how we live here the country, acquire new territories or whatever. You know, I got to sit there with the feeling that, you know, I did what I thought was what was best for my country and I did it in the best possible way. and sometimes, you know, looking at the flag, you know, makes me feel like this one of my guys. It's, I'm home, and it's kind of like good to see it. You know what I mean?

You like to drive around the United States, seeing American flags everywhere. So it's a flag that makes you feel proud of being American, you know, proud of it yourself. You're not American and I'm better than everybody else. It's just I'm American, and this is awesome. It's awesome to be in America. I'm gambling my way until, you know, whatever dreams I have. Yeah. Awesome.

So, Corvin, thank you. How much have you used history to guide your decision-making process? I don't know if my... I love military history. I love military history. Military history is my passion. It's... But I don't think that it can apply to things such as the decision-making and the first

time you get ambush, the first time you get a hidden ID. I don't think you're thinking about. Ulysses as Grant, you know, what it told is, you know, buddy Sherman, you know, to flank for... No, no, no. You're thinking what I've got to do right now, what is what has common sense tell me, and I think your personality is a much better indicator that has got in my decisions. And I think me being really impatient, I've always been a guy that is always at a very high pace, you know, and making quick decisions as opposed to being a thinker.

So my love for history, I don't think, has ever applied. I've never tried to compare myself in battles, you know, with, you know, other great, you know, what would have been Napoleon would have done, you know. I'm not a man in troops out there. And last question. Thank you, Luis Vasquez. What meals did you eat both as a ranger and in the NFL? Meals?

What meals? Okay, so when I was in the NFL, I was very insecure by my weight, and then I wanted to be as heavy as big as possible in order to overcome the lack of, technique that I had. And so the device, the plan that I came up with was to eat the worst things, but that I could eat the most of. So I was only looking at caloric intake, caloric intake. And I remember that the easiest thing for me that I could eat forever was crave cereal because they gave those in those boxes when you're in Afghanistan and they had those those

cardboard boxes where you would just dig through like a little rat for the best cereal. And I remember Crave Serial as being the one that, you know, I could die of a coma from eating Crave cereal. So that's the food that I used the most to gain as much weight as soon as I left the derangers. Yeah. And in the Army, it was MRE number 11. What was the number 11? I forgot.

I don't know either. I just throwing it out there for fun. Yeah. Did you guys I mean, did you miss Ripets once you got back to the civilian world and couldn't find ripets anymore? I was, you know,

it's funny, I'm going to say that I was a little bit of, you know, there's I was laughed about this, but, silly joke, but I was a more snobbishish in my addictions. So I was a skull mint, only for

the most, only for the most explicit palates. Most sophisticated. Most sophisticated. And then I was a monster zero. Okay. I was a monster zero guy. Or a rock star, sugar-free rock star. Yeah.

But the ripets, you know, send me the care packages and load it up with monsters and loaded up with sugar-free red bowl and sugar-free rocks. So those are the three the three drinks of choice. Now, like a good infantryman, you dipped. but obviously you didn't grow up in Spain dipping school or Cape and Hagen. Where did that, did that happen in West Point or did that happen in Ta-Townown? The habit of West Point the first time, the first time I'm, you know, we're doing Buckner or whatever. We're doing Beast. And there's a typical thing that they're teaching you how to do.

They're going through the motions of a patrol base. And so they put you next to somebody. You sit in your rucksack for hours and you're just looking out for hours. next to somebody, you know? And then they pull it out and they put it in and you say like, what's that? Yeah, I'll do.

It's just you'll lock in, you know what I mean? Your time will go by so much quicker, you know? It'll be awesome, you know what I mean? You want one? You want one? I don't know what, how do I do this? You know, I put the lip out. Yeah, you proceeded to vomit all over yourself.

And you're vomiting like crazy. You get dizzy. Yeah. And then the next day you're like, I want more. Yeah. I was cut all my money on this. Yeah.

more of it. Yeah. Did you ever have an opportunity to try the Afghan, like the Niswara? No, no, no, no, no. Because somebody told me that they had opium in it. I think somebody, you know, it's funny, somebody in my deployment did. And the story was that he was with an Afghan on a tower.

And we had joint tower duty. And he fell from the tower. Oh, really? He took that thing, and he, yeah, and he fell from the tower. No, no, I never tried the, the, the, the Nowhere, no. Yeah. I talk like this. I talk like this.

Awesome. Alhanda, thank you so much. We deeply, deeply appreciate your time. Of course, of course. Thank you so much for inviting me into the podcast, and I wish you guys the best. Yeah, man, thank you for sharing your experiences. And on Friday, we will have a pre-recorded episode

for you guys with Jay. He was a team sergeant and third special forces group. That was an awesome interview. You guys are going to love it. A lot of fun, yeah. Yeah. So. Alej, thank you again.

and we will see you guys on Friday.