The Team House - Regimental Recon Company (RRC) w/ Mike Edwards: Part 2, Ep. 96

Episode Date: May 29, 2021

In this episode, Mike joins us for round two discussing his career in RRC and this time his wife Kendell joins us to share her perspective. This was a super unique episode, both in terms of Mike's unusual career in a secretive unit and also the inclusion of his wife, and eventually even he daughter! Check out today’s sponsor: BOIKEY’S BILTONG Go to https://BOIKEYS.com and use the promo code “TEAM25” to get 25% off your first purchase. Think beef jerky but better and healthier! @eatboikeys Get access to bonus segments with our guests: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouse Team House merch: https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link Jack’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackmurphyrgr?s=21 Dave’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/dave_parke?s=21 Team House Discord: https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: 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/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links): https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSampleBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children. That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents,

and those with kids under the age of five, with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Special operations, covert ox, espionage, the team house, with your hosts, Jack Murphy, and David Park. Hey guys, we are live. This is the Team House episode 96. We are here with Mike Edwards for round two. We had him on a few episodes about three months ago now. So you guys should go and check that one out as well if you haven't seen it yet. But we were more than happy to have him back for a second time. Also joining us tonight is his lovely wife, Kendall, who probably made this episode happen. It probably wouldn't happen without her because we had some technical issues in the run-up to this. We're very very very, very good. We're very very. We're very. Very happy.

Got straightened out. Here's co-host Dave Park. Dee is producing tonight. And before we roll into this episode with Mike and his lovely wife, Mike, who served in, we served together in Third Ranger Battalion, then he served in the Regimental Reconnaissance Company and as a free fall instructor out at the Halo course. But before we get into all of that, I think we have a word from our sponsors. Yeah, we have a great sponsor tonight.

And it's really good. So our sponsors tonight is Boyke. that's B-O-I-K-E-Y-S and it's Bill Tong. Now, I don't know if you guys have heard of Bill Tongue, but it's basically, in a way, the South African version of beef turkey, but it's better than beef turkey. Beef turkey is kind of slow-cooked and dehydrated, where Bill Tong is kind of cured.

It's very tender. And the founder of Boykes is actually Tim Stapleton, who was a professional hockey. So I imagine the reason he created, you know, or created his, own brand of Bill Tongue instead of beef turkey. It's on the go. All of his buddies were hungry. They're like, we're hungry, but we're hockey players where you had no teeth, you know? And beef jerky is just, you know,

so rough, you know, and the Bill Tong is very tender. Now, if you go to Boykees.com, B-O-I-K-E-Y-S dot com, and use Team 25, you get 20% off your first order.

Jack and I have been... 25% off your first order. Is it 20? Yep, 25%. Now, Jack and I have eaten the hell out of this. They have their regular, and then they have their chili. Do you have the preference? I like the chili.

Yeah, I like the chili, too. The regular is really good. There are no preservatives in it other than vinegar and salt. There's no sugar, more protein than beef turkey, less sodium. Again, no sugar. You guys should try this out. Have you guys had built on? I haven't tried it yet.

I've heard of probably a different version of it before from, you know, foreign guys overseas, but I've never actually had it before. Hockey players don't have a lot of teeth. Sometimes, you know, because they get in bites. So if it's tender and it works for them, it should work for us. Exactly. It melts in your mouth. It melts in your mouth. So if you have tender teeth or you just spray some good protein, there's, I think, like, 32 grams of protein per.

That's good. Yeah, it's good. But anyway, try this out. It really is delicious. So, guys, we have the same question. We ask all of our guests, first off. We asked you on the first episode, Mike, you know, about your origin story. I think for this episode, I'd much rather hear about Kendall's origin story and your guys' story of how you met, how she became an army wife and how you took this journey together.

I'd like to hear that side of it this time. Okay. Well, I'm from Columbus, Georgia. I'll be 34 on Tuesday. And I did hair. I still am a master cosmetologist. So growing up in Columbus, Georgia, my parents always said, stay away from the military guys. They will take you away from home.

I'm like, okay. So I've dated a couple, like one other ranger. I dated him, but I never knew what a real ranger was until this guy walked in. And honestly, I did not know. He sat in my chair. He had a beard and like longer hair. I was like, there's no way this guy's in the army. And like, it just from there, it just happened.

And so he told me he was in the army. I was like, no way. I just thought he was a country boy, you know. He fooled me. Kendall, just so you know, we never knew what a real ranger was either until we met my life. Wah, wah, la. So we've been married going on 10 years in December. And we happen really, really fast.

And we've been through a lot of trials and tribulations. It is not easy being married to a special operations guy. Let me just tell you. You know, there's such a high volume of divorce in that community. And I just, I'm a warrior to keep on going. And God also has helped me through it, prayers. And, you know, so I give it to the glory. got on that one. And so, you know, especially when he retired going through the VA system,

it was a rigum role to say the least. And I just remember there was paperwork got all messed up or whatever, but I've seen this guy like just, he's a bad to the bone guy. I'll say that. I'm glad he's going to be married to a Ranger and I feel protected. That's for sure. did he ask you out of the first time like how did that happen? He just sat down in a chair and you put your hands on his curly locks. So what had happened was when he first came in,

he didn't say me that and like I was dating somebody else at the time and he just started to talk. Okay, I'm going to get real. I'm going to be like, I'm an honest person. But he's like, yeah, it's just so hard to date around here. These girls, there's something. And so I was honestly going to set him up with my friend Rachel. And it really honestly never worked.

They never went out. They never talked. And then he saw, we were Facebook friends. And so Facebook gets a lot of negative. But I'm going to say it helped me out. We got together on Facebook because he saw I was going like I was single. So he hit me up. And he's like, hey girl, do you do private haircuts?

I kid you not. And I'm like, I don't really know this dude that well. So anyways, we all went. to eat Mexican and like I just remember um he came my sister and a few other people and my sister was like he just is like into you so much so anyways I ended up giving him that private haircut and he came in the garage and I just remember him taking a shirt off and y'all this is when not that he's not still muscular but like he was in RRC and he was like shredded and I'm like look at like I've never been like with a real man before this.

now I think what Jack also is Rachel's still single I'll say that one more time Rachel that was your friend that you were going to set him up with yeah yeah we're asking for Jack is Rachel still single no my question was do we have any

I was going to ask if we have shirtless pictures of Mike that I can add to my personal collection but that I don't know that's a little weird this is when he's a little weird y'all this is when he used to drive when we were dating his muscles right here y'all you think papa i mean like it was just like i was just over here drilling like god you know he got me he got me so what what did your uh what did your parents think did they think would did they were were they against it because they thought he's going to take you away uh well we happened really really fast and um when i told well i was So I'll add a little bit into that. So we met, and I was getting ready to deploy again.

So we hung out. She came and gave me a haircut. And then we stayed in touch over like email and stuff. So I emailed her from time to time. They couldn't get me out of the time. And then kept talking to her throughout that, came back from that deployment. You know, at the time, I was, I think I was a single E8, you know, making tons of money. Nothing to spend it on.

Okay, I was E7. Single E7, tons of money, nothing to spend it on. So I came back, bought a big penthouse down on the beach, and took her down there for like a week. He weighed me. He dined her. And then after that, you know, we kept in touch. And we ended up dating for a while and then got married pretty quick and then had her daughter. And she will be nine next week.

Yeah. My birthday's the first, hers of the second. This is unreal, you know. And it's this, I'm actually really happy to hear this because it's like one of those Fort Benning, Columbus, Georgia, success stories that you don't hear so often. You don't hear so often. So it's actually really cool. And, you know, I would be interested to ask you, you know, both of you, but especially Kendall, there's something about Army wives that I didn't really understand myself until I got out of the military and doing, you know, as a reporter, I interview so many people, including military wives.

And I had a special forces wife tell me, you know, when you're an SF wife, and I'm sure it's a Ranger wife also, There's so much you have to do because you have to be the mother and the father and also everything else in between. I just wonder if you could comment, especially as a mother, as a wife, and everything else you have going on in life. I mean, how was that, how are you able to manage all those things together, all these different roles? Well, you learn really fast. Like, crap always hits the fan when your man's deployed. I mean, you got to take care of the bill. you call. Well, is Mr. Edwards

will know a little to say that you can speak? No, he's not. He's the point. Like, you run into several issues and so that's one thing. And then you've got to learn how to work a weed eater and you're just out there and look, I don't, I'm just

cussing to... She can drive zero turn mower. She can drive a Capota M7060 with a front end loader. Yeah. She can drive a trailer with a truck on it, you know, with a huge trailer and a track her on the back of it so she's a farm girl now. But you really have to learn

because like of course my family was in Columbus Georgia so I had help but when we made to Yuma Arizona I had really nobody and like his schedule was so busy or whatever. So it was really hard for the first time being without my family. How long were we out there like four years? Three and a half.

Three and a half it felt like four y'all. Anyways so you know I'm just used to doing things myself instead of asking for people to help me out and like loading groceries and people ask if I need help. I'm like, no, I got this. And I know it doesn't look like I lift weights.

I got it, bro. I'm a farm. You know, it's interesting because, you know, I was married twice in the military. And I think that people don't understand that it's actually easier for the people being deployed because we're doing what we want to do. We're doing what we love to do. And you're busy and this.

that, you're not the person that is home, still trying to hold down the fort, maintain the life, worry about their safety and welfare. Yeah, you're out there living the life. Meanwhile, the family's back home. Like, is he alive? Is he dead? Is he on a mission? Is he in the base?

Yeah. That's the key thing, too, because, like, for us, you know, there's times where I didn't have, I couldn't call home the entire time. And it was like we had Wi-Fi so I could message, I message over the iPad, that's about it. But yeah, I mean, you're right. We get the fun side of the game. You know, we're over there, not on killing bad guys or the dream job that we ended up doing. And then we don't really necessarily, especially when we're young, we don't think about the consequences that come with that.

And we're back home, like, sick on our stomach or having a virus and we still have to take the kids to school. You know, it's like, oh, suck it up, their cup. And I will say a lot of it, like, their mentality is, you know, y'all's mentality, take a pill, what is drink some water and have ibuprofen. Did I drink? Same. Yeah, really hard as a military wife,

when your husband has that mindset is, like, they don't, it's hard when you don't have compassion. And that's been a lot of our, like, struggles over that. Yeah. So, but I think he's getting it, but I've been there for him.

And, like, I will continue to be there for him through thick and thin. That's what I take that about for. Yeah, she's got my back. That's for sure. She's definitely a range of her wife. um like you know something something bad happened i'd like take somebody out she'd help me

hide the body so i know she's got my back she's listen though let's not go there you know let's not cross that bridge she's yeah because i don't want to she's my partner in crime though but she's uh she's definitely got my back but you're right it makes it easier because we don't have to worry about bills

you know not just heard my mom too when I was single she had my mom took care of my bills for me while I was gone um you know I'd give her a power attorney and that I take off and never have to think about anything You know, it's like we got to go on a vacation. That's the way I looked at deployment. It's like a vacation.

You're over there crushing the gym, eating amazing food. You know, sometimes, sometimes be crappy locations. But being able to pick what you eat and choose when you eat. And then just going out hunting bad guys and then just working out constantly. Yeah, no wonder they get to come home. They'll get buff or whatever. And we're still like having that baby bump. You know, trying to go away.

Yeah. It's kind of out of curiosity, I have to know, your first impression, the first time you hung out with his buddies, your first night out with the Rangers. Well, team three. Well, yeah, team three. There wasn't a whole lot of warts on that team, and I wondered why. And it was because they were always go, go, go, busy, busy. They didn't have time for it.

So these guys, they all were in phenomenal shape, just like athletic. and very smart guys. So I just was like, I never knew this existed, you know. Yeah, they weren't drunk the first time you hung out with them? No, they weren't Ranger Battalion Privates. These were like, by this time, what, E6 is E7s? Right. Yeah, and I was, I mean, when we met and started dating, I was already at RRC,

so it was like really late in my career. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, everybody that she's meeting is E7s or E8s, you know, for the most part. And real professional guys, yeah, we had some drinks and had a good time, that we all real professional about it because you have a lot more risk at that point done yeah yeah yeah i didn't see any bad behavior there fortunate uh here we got a question for you i think mike uh unless you want to take this kendall since you're a farm girl uh did you guys train in uh print and blood tracking i guess she's talking about like tactical tracking uh if so did you ever

use that skill during your career um yeah we did we did train in the tracking stuff but we're You got a really cool school out in Hawaii on the Big Island called T-Tos, Tactical Tracking Operations School. And it's really cool. The reason to do it on the Big Island, because you could track in like a savannic grassland-type environment, tracking the tropical rainforest. You can track in a desert-type environment. And then also, like, really rocky terrain.

And I did use that a lot, actually. People probably didn't know it, but, you know, learning how to pick up tracks and stuff like that, you know, we later in the war, We started having issues with IEDs or pressure plates. Guys were walking in. You know, we weren't doing a lot of convoys. They're flying in and walking the target. So guys were stepping on these little pressure plates and these trails.

So what I use those tracking skills for legitimately in the war was at nighttime, I'd use my laser sometimes. If it was a congested or odd-looking area, I'd use my laser, it shined on the ground and cast a shadow of tracks. So I can see where the foot traffic was, and I just made sure I walked where the other foot traffic was. because there would be odd little spots that would just be completely bare of foot traffic. So I tried to stay away from those spots.

And I think it saved my legs at least for that time period. But yeah, it was really handy. And there were other guys that used it to track down bad guys' blood trails, you know, after engagements and find them and kill the rest of them. So it was a handy skill to have. But now it comes to handy. Yeah, no, y'all. He has taught me a lot of stuff about gunhand. I remember the first time I went hunting with my rifle.

He cussed me out. Like, legitimately, I handled it wrong. I wasn't holding it up or holding it down. I was pointing to my back. Hey, guys, I got a rifle, you know. Yeah, I was wrong about that, you know. But now, shoot, I go up in the woods by myself and get in the tree stand and all that good stuff. You know, he's taught me a lot of stuff.

Now, I will tell you, though, I get lost in the woods. So he, we can go deep in the woods. He always knows where he's at and can get us out. I remember one time calling him, I tried to do this. I'm so sorry, I let you down. You know, can you come help me and get out of here? I don't know where I'm at. That is so bad.

Like, my direction's bad. Land-nav, no-go right now, Mike? Yeah. Yeah, she is. If she could navigate, I could probably get her doing some side surveillance work and make a little bit of money, but she doesn't know how to navigate. She's got a good eye for surveillance. He tells me I should be, I could totally do reconnaissance. since she would be good at.

She's a natural. She's got a natural eye picking up, you know, that stuff that's just a little bit off, you know? I don't pay attention to it. I miss it. And she'll harp on stuff all the time. Like, whatever, whatever. And then I start paying attention. I got to get into it. She's right. Yes, she's got a good intuition for me.

For sure. Oh, let's see. This dude here, Mr. The Barracks, he says, oh, actually, he's saying, you deserve all the credit for your hard work, team house. I thought he was going to say, you two deserve all the hard work. work, all the credit for your hard work. Seriously, a question for Mike.

Army ISA or TFO versus RRC. And also he's asking, have you ever worked with JTF2? Yeah, so I think is JTF2 the same as what we used to call Cansloff? The Canadians, yeah. Yeah, yeah, I worked with those guys in 2007. And I think that was pretty much the only time I worked on was in O-7 down in Candaard. But as far as like that other organization, those guys are talking about, I never worked there. I know guys that did work there.

They did a lot of similar stuff to what we did. But they really focused in areas that we didn't focus in. And we focused in areas that they didn't focus in. So it had a lot of overlap. But those guys were more in a different aspect of the job than we were. But we did that as well. But then in other aspects, we kind of have more overlap in that direction or more focus in that direction. But we also overlap in the middle.

We have good organization. There's a lot of good guys there. One of my good buddies is up there. Actually runs their free phone program. It's so funny. These acronyms, I start learning what he's talking about. Like, decode notes as a wife for so many years. But you don't even know.

I just came for Fort Polk. We've been training there, like working with regular army guys. And the regular army has a lot more acronyms than we ever dreamed of having. I learned new ones every single day. What the heck is that? you know but i i guess we just don't use a lot of acronyms in the ranger asment uh at least compared to what the army does it was uh shocking kind of how long did it take you to start like picking up the lingo and and the you know the jargon and understanding what was going on

well i will say like you want the saying you learn something to every day is totally it's legit. But through the years, like, I think I picked up on it or like at Yuma, they would talk about it or whatever. And I would go, I did hair out there in Yuma. So I cut like all that. We, we're around a lot of SF and Air Force guys out there. So they all, they always chat with her ear off in the chair, you know what I mean? I would know something before he would. She would. Oh, Sergeant Major's going to do this. Like I always got all the good stuff, all the good juicy stuff. I'm telling me, being a hairstylist is like a psychiatrist, I guess.

Yeah. Anatoly asks, how much did your shooting proficiency go up in RRC? Was there a big focus on advanced marksmanship? Oh, yeah, significantly. I shot a lot of rifle before going there. And then when I got there in the OTC pipeline, we did a lot of pistol shooting with Jerry Barnhart

and got really good. Good interesting story there, and a good friend of mine can confirm this is true. But in our OTC pipe, a buddy of mine, Dan, I won't say his last name, but he was a really good shooter, better shooter than me. We actually both beat Jerry Barnhart momentarily during OTC, and Jerry being as dedicated as he is shot all during the lunch break to beat us and set his own new record, basically. So, like, we held the record against Jerry. We both beat him for like 10 minutes. And then he just ruled us after that. But we got to do a lot of shooting, pistol shooting.

I mean, we shot enough to where I actually broke a block during that course. I'd like to ask him for that. Legitly, like, I really started seeing more of his skills when he came to the land. And this is before we built our house. We were living in a camper waiting to build our house, whatever. And there was this dog, well, coyote, whatever. It doesn't matter. Whatever.

Wow, there's a wild dog that's looking at rest. Mike thinks with his brain and not with his heart. Literally, I saw him turn the corner, right? Like, like that fast. The thing was dead. And I'm like, God, he is a bad to the bone, dude. Like, excuse my language. He's a badass.

You know? I'm like, wow. We were standing our camper, and I saw this dog creeping up. I heard our dog barking. And I shot it with a 22 Magnum, bolt gun. But I'm a righty, and I shot it left-handed, because I knew if I exposed my son. self, it would bolt.

So I just popped out and had to be pretty quick because he had already gotten away at once. But he didn't get away that time. He's taught me too, like, when he's on business trips and stuff, I've had to get the AR and pop a dog. And I didn't want to. I love dogs now. He's like, if you can't kill a dog, you can't kill somebody this intruding. Let this be a warning. Yes, I can.

Humans intend me harm or thicker home into my house. I will drop you. But a dog, you know, my heart's for dogs. Anyways. Well, that's the only thing about living out in the country is there's, I think there's people that drop off problem dogs, lots of pit bulls, and they're extremely aggressive. And they'll come up and start attacking our dogs or, you know, our animals. And then we try to run them off and eventually you've got to take care of business.

But I jammed when they are. I don't know how you do that. I mean, he's never talking about to shoot and, like, with moving targets. But I did get that dog in the paw, and it rang into the woods. And Mike came home three days later and found it and took care of it. But, I mean, I've had to learn how to do tough things. Like, I've had to learn how to range your up. up y'all i know i believe it and you know because of your you know your your your accent or you know

your you're you know your southern charm there i think that a lot of people would kind of assume that you're from the country but columbus georgia is not the country at all totally i was a city girl okay i was like you're moving first of all you made me to the desert okay yuma arizona middle of nowhere There's some Area 51 kind of stuff going on out there. Like, Mexico is, what, 25 minutes away? Yeah, roughly. It's hot, y'all. It's so hot.

And then he makes me back to the middle of nowhere. And I'm like, at first I was really mad about it. But then I start seeing what's going on in the world. And, like, that's my safe oasis. And I love it. It is, if you guys ever need a trip, you got to come visit us. It's, you get rejuvenated out there. rewind, re-aligned.

Yeah, if you ever go to the panhandle to, you know, Florida's most beautiful beaches or to South and Alabama, swing by our way because we're right on the way. We're just right close to the beach out in the middle of nowhere in the country. We live a little peaceful life, have our own little chickens. We've got our own garden, all that kind of stuff. So it's peaceful. We really enjoy it.

She enjoys it now, too. The city girl had to get her out. And, like, he leaves a good majority of the time, but I'm very comfortable with a guy, and he's taught me well. Yeah. Yeah. Caleb asks, I know the CIA must have reached out to you.

Would you tell us about the common pipelines to the CIA from the military? Yeah. I mean, I don't know like what people would want out about that stuff. But yeah, I know people there and I actually was planning on going to do, go work there for a little bit as I retired. But, you know, she started me being gone all the time. So I decided to stay home. And, you know, I actually went through the process, ran into a little hiccup for a second, was going to finish up.

I got so busy doing work on my own doing the contract stuff that, you know, it wasn't worth going back at it. And then at that point in time, she's like, you know what? Maybe you just shouldn't do it anyway because you're home war and you're actually making pretty dang good money being home. So that's what I just gave it up. But, you know, it's always one of those things I always wanted to do, you know, did some work with those guys overseas and stuff. and then always wanted to do that stuff, but, you know, I found what I enjoy and I'm doing it now.

I mean, he did this same thing in a reconnaissance company, honestly. What do I know that? I'm a wife, I don't know. I'm not supposed to know that stuff. I don't have a security. I mean, she's not completely wrong, though, either. I mean, there's some truth to that during the war, everyone kind of got like, all the colors of the task force and OGA got kind of put into a bowl and mixed up, you know, and ended up kind of doing the same job.

Everybody's just doing everything. Yeah. That's true. To a certain extent. It really was. There was overlap in really every field. And I did work with those guys a lot. And there's guys that work with them a lot still.

And it was great to be with those guys. There's a lot of great guys there that came from, you know, different units that we all worked in, you know? Yeah. Well, on that note, can you talk a little bit about the kind of work you're doing now, you're doing contracting? Yeah. So I've kind of slipped away.

from the free fall stuff. That was having me travel a lot too. And I guess it's hard on the body as well. I do miss it and I really enjoy training those guys. But what I'm doing now, it's kind of like a little bit more of the big picture piece of it. We develop

tests and evaluate equipment for the Army, regular Army, special operations, everything. It's a good company. I love this company. Yeah, it's a really good company. I'm super blessed to be with this company. They take really good care of us. It's a small company. And I mean, the, you know, I talked about last time, but it's called ACI, Augustine Consulting, Inc.

And they're great people. All the people in the training command are super supportive of us. They've taken good care of us. And I enjoy the job. Our team is phenomenal. We've got a lot of Rangers on the team. And we've got a guy that wasn't a Ranger, but he's probably one of the square away guys on our team. He's built a company for a while. But yeah, it's a great team. I enjoy the work, some of the programmatic stuff of it. It's always like that with different things. It can be a hassle of times, but, you know, I can't complain. You know, there used to be this huge disparity in gear between, you know,

the tier one units and tier two units, tier three, and the conventional army. Is that kind of going away where even the conventional army now has, I mean, stuff that works, a lot, you know, things that work and, Yeah, that's the case. There's a big push to modernize the Army with every aspect of technology they have. And, you know, it takes a lot longer. It's a much bigger force. It costs a lot more money to do it.

And the testing has to be a lot more significant because you're buying a bigger or larger purchase before you give it out. You know, where it's like special operations, you're not going to buy a huge purchase. So if you have some flaws in there, you kind of tweak it in the next batch. But yeah, they're getting some good stuff now. They're getting dual tube nods. like we all had for the entire war pretty much, but they're getting it now. Some really good technology that's above and beyond what we even had in soft when I was there.

I'm sure they have something similar now. But really good stuff. They're getting some great technology. The Army's spending this money in the right spots. They try to sort these guys out and get them the best kit. I mean, they're starting to get better body armor, a lot better body armor, better helmets, better night vision. I mean, just all and all better kit.

And I'm glad to see it happen. Like I was talking to one of the platoons aren't out there. I said, you know, the way I see it is if we have an army, you know, we should determine our numbers off of how we can outsource these guys. Because, you know, yeah, special operations, it costs more to train us to get us to that level. So you want to protect us to give us the best kid. But is my life any more valuable than this regular army do this is an 82nd airborne or whatever? No, it's not.

That guy deserves just as good a kid that we have. Right. and same war. So if we have an army that's so big that we can't give all these guys the greatest equipment, then we should probably slim it down and actually have a more fit,

more elite, more squared away army as a whole rather than a ton of people that are running around on rag tag equipment. That's my fit. Alejandro says, I was talking with Felipe P. He wanted me to ask you

to tell the story about the walk to your objective on the first FPX and OTCRTC minus the Sear part. How lost were y'all? And was it really your point man's fault? Being a parent can be really challenging. Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five

with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. At Bakers, no matter where you order free pickup, you get the same great deals as you'd get in store. So you can save when you order during band practice or at the dog park or wherever. Start your cart with the Bakers app and save from wherever today. Bakers, fresh for everyone.

$35 order minimum restrictions may apply subject to availability. You can save an extra $10 when you spend $40 or more on a great selection of participating items. Just look for the signs and save at Bakers. I don't even know what he's getting at with that one. um just tb i he's forgetting yeah but but i do know it was a crappy walk and it was um you know that was the one the one he's talking about was in the summertime um i'm thinking more of the wintertime but yeah it was a crappy walk we walked and walked and walked actually the picture that that you that i sent you one of the tiles i sent you you said that's a really small rucksack that you're carrying

that was on that mission his rucksacks like big enough to fit me and dave in it's ridiculous yeah it was huge i think uh no I didn't carry the heaviest ruck on that one because I was in the RTO, but it was still, all of us for to, I think Jason Granger, who, you know, passed away a few years ago.

Great buddy in mine, great Ranger buddy, one seven five dude. He actually worked at the free fall school, and then he's the one that kind of made me want to kind of go to the free fall school on the way out. But Jason, I think was the RTO on that mission.

So he was probably to a rut weighing close to 120 pounds. And those mountains up there in eastern, eastern Washington State, it's kind of like the Appalachians. Obviously, you're much further north, but it's similar terrain, except it's a little bit more arid, more kind of like piney,

like ponderosa pine type stuff like out west. But it's still some significant terrain. That dude, beasted that road, the whole way. And just for the people who are listening who might not be familiar with everything we're thrown around, OTC is the operator's training course. It's the train-up phase when you get into RRD

and it's still part of it's still a selection phase or RC I guess did I say already anyway I'm old and then when he when he says RTO he's talking about the radio guy the radio radio telephone operator yeah

who in addition to all the gear that everybody else is carrying is also carrying a radio which weighs a lot So when you're the RTO, you're kind of hating life. Yeah. You got the heaviest pack out everybody. That's for sure.

Oh, I've heard about that before. Hey, girl, you want to lose some weight, put on a rope. Let's go. I'm like, you're always, y'all, I have to remind him, not a Ranger. And I'm not one of these females that wants to go to Ranger school, okay? But maybe I should go there to, like, if I want to tone up a lot, you know. But I've heard the stories, like, again, no compassion when you're working out.

I can't work out with him because he wants to kill him. Right, he's like, suck it off. Yeah, I mean, I'm just used to that. Like, we did the Cambrian patrol. I don't know if I, did I talk about that last time? If so, I don't want to talk about this time. I don't recall. Please do.

Please talk about it, even if you did. Okay, so we did, when I was on Team 3, we did the Cambrian patrol. And it's in Wales. It's in the area called Breckons Beacons. It's where the SAS does their selection and stuff. and, you know, we spend a team every year, if we can, when I was in RRC, but it's kind of like hit or miss. Like, every other year, maybe a team will go. And you compete against teams from all over the world from British guys, British infantry,

British, you know, special ops, special ops and infantry guys from all over the world. I mean, hundreds of different countries. And you basically walk about 55 miles, I think it is, with about an 80-something-pound rucks, so not super heavy. but a tactical rock with your food in it and you have to do it's kind of like EIB at the same time

which EIB is like expert in between humans badge for those that don't know it's a test to learn to prove that you're proficient in a certain levels or set of skill sets. So we did that we did like a tactical reconnaissance we did like a clear a mind wire obstacle we had to

evac a casualty which you know I pride myself I'm being able to pick up a lot of weight and like carrying it but so when I went to RRC, I realized that all the extra muscle that I was tootin is probably not the best thing to have. So I started trimming down and trying to lean up and, like, ditch a little muscle as well,

as well as lean up. Because you're carrying that kind of weight. You have to have efficiency to build and cover that distance. You got to be like Clydesdell, you know, or like a greyhound, not like a, you know, like a, like a panther or a cheetah. So anyway, we go out and do the camera patrol, and we're cruising out there. and I go to pick this dude up and this casually

he's like a British soldier who actually lost his legs in combat and then he's got body armor on not to mention the dude's the stockiest man I've ever seen in my life so he's like this wide so I'm like I got this guy mind you I got to pick him up

with my rucksack on right so I try to get this dude up and I swear my intestine is about to blow out my guts blow out the front of my stomach I'm like god dog so dudes help me get this dude up and I'm careful him this dude is so heavy with full kit on I mean the dude was this is as wide as he was

tall I mean I just missing his legs or at least from the knee down so and one of them was completely gone so he's lopsided weight wise as well so I get this dude on my back and I'm running with him and I feel my two ribs on the right side just kind of like clacking together I'm like that's just odd that these ribs are clacking it oh man weird so I'm like hey uh I have to this guy down So I'd try, I ease him on the ground. And one of the other guys on my team was about the same size as me. He picks him up, carries him the rest of the way. But I was like, man, feeling kind of weird.

I found out later on, I actually tore the inter-possal space between my ribs there. And I have a big scar on my rib from it now. But I didn't know at the time, sucked it up and kept moving. Speaking of suck it up, y'all, I've had to tell them towards the end of his retirement. And this is for all the soldiers or people that are listening. I highly recommend that you don't feel prideful. If you've been to combat and you fought for your country and you keep on sucking up your pain, you deserve your retirement, your medical disability, okay?

This guy right here, I had you make him go to the doctor. I had to make him document things. And to this day, he still sucks up things. You know, I worry about him. You know, I never know if he's okay or not. He's always in pain. but it's just it's sad

in the mindset not just in the RAC but in regiment and the special operations community you go you just don't stop

she's right she's right the bottoms of your feet are bleeding oh who cares you gotta keep on go that bottom here like that mentality

really jacked his whole body up like at the end of his career like he's like he's 40% but he's like in a 60 year old body and And like, it's just really sad

and it breaks my heart. He's always in pain. And so, I always squirm. Yeah. He's always going like this. So, y'all, he's not, he's not on drugs.

He's just always popping his neck because he's got something going on. Yeah. He's like, what's more back on the neck. But, but yeah, the Canary Patrol was a unique experience.

I remember we're cruising along and any of there would be like British regular army dudes sitting on the side of with smoking cigarettes. And we come by and they'd be like, are you bloke's the ranges? And we're like, yeah, yeah, we're the Rangers. What's up?

You both are fast. I'm like, okay, that's what we're supposed to be, right? We're supposed to be fast. But we said we were faster than any other team there. We finished faster than anyone else. But you know how EIB is? You have to train for those tasks to really be good at it. We didn't get the train on those because they're British skill set tasks.

So we ended up taking the silver medal. We had like the fastest time, but we like were a little bit off on some of their stuff like weapon assembly to assembly. but physically it's a really good challenge and that's really what we cared to get out of it. But it was great though. I mean, we represented the United States internationally and took the second highest award. And it's kind of weird how they do the awarding.

You'd have to look into it to see how it goes because I couldn't even explain it. So you can get a gold medal, but I don't think there's just one gold medal. I think there's like multiple gold medals, multiple silvers and multiple bronze. But we took the silver the time that I did it. But it was a good trip.

I had to swim across the lake, I think it was in like October and Wales, you know, so it was pretty cold. The lake, I think the water was around 40-something degrees, so we just stripped down and was put on just like a light silk weight layer through the ruck-on and swung across the water with it. I mean, it took my breath away. I was the lead swimmer. Saw it went in and I was like, you know, you're just hanging on. They had like a rope, you know, for safety so you can shimmy across. Man, it takes your breath away. But it was a good little trip. We walked 50-something miles and we covered that distance pretty quick.

I think we got completely done under 48 hours or so. I'd like to add, I'm so proud of him, y'all. And, you know, he's retired. But what he's been taught in the awesome schools that he's went to, there's times, and I'm sure a lot of soldiers struggle with, like, when they retire, they got to remember that mindset. I'm retired. And there's been times where I'm like,

calm down. You don't have to kill him. Don't do it. You know, like, we live on a dirt raid, and there's these motorcycle, or was a motorcycle gang, and they're called the devil's disciples. And y'all, I like to wave, and where we live in South Alabama, you better be ready. Hey, how's your mama? How's your brother? You know, you got to wave. So I'm always waving, and I get so offended when people don't wave, and I'm like, okay, well, help me not get mad. But, like, there's this particular guy, and they think they're all that in a bag of chips and deep down. I'm like, if they only knew,

you know, so he always, he kind of keeps that suppressed, you know, and I'm just, like I said, I'm so proud of him. I don't know if y'all know that he's got a Silver Star, Purple Hearts and Bronon's, yeah, I'm going there. He didn't like to say that. He gets so embarrassed, but I really am. I'm proud of him.

And like, I know, like, maybe souls get to write books and get to talk about their experiences. and I know regiment hadn't really went there yet. So I'm just hopeful for the day that he can talk about some of this stuff and go deep. No, me too, Kendall. And, you know, I don't want to embarrass Mike. I'll just say, you know, you're emblematic of the professional soldiers that you find in the Ranger Regiment. And I was very lucky to work with you and with all the other guys that were there in battalion, you know.

And you kept me alive. I'm here today because of you guys. So thank you. Kendra, what? Yeah, you're welcome, dude. And I enjoy work with you guys, man. I mean, I couldn't have done it that whole career. Dude, it's just you have ultimate,

and that's one of the notes. I was kind of like trying to think about some notes that I wanted to talk about. But one of the key things, it's like the consummate professional, man, in the Ranger Ritaine, like S-1, the cooks, the parachute rigors, I don't care who it is.

Like, you name the, like, the most different oddball job. If I need something from that guy, the guy's going to perform, and he's going to get it to me as fast as humanly possible. And you can count on that there. When I went out to Yuma out to the Free Fall School, there were a lot of guys that still were like that.

But there was a lot that were not in it surprised the heck out of me. And I see now that some of these programs, and I'm having involvement with regular Army and stuff now, and I'm seeing a lot of that. And it's totally different. And I couldn't have staying in the military with what's going on in the military nowadays. I mean, they're trying to teach everyone, you know, what their race is and how to respect other people's races, which we already did. I've never seen racism in my military career.

I didn't think there was a problem with it. And like, I mean, you know, in Ranger, retaliation, there's like tons of country boys. If there's any place that would be racist, it could be that place. But we all got along. We loved each other like brothers, man. It didn't matter what color you are. No one cares about that stuff. And that stuff, I believe, doesn't exist in the military.

and now you've got, you know, some crazy people out there kind of pushing that stuff down the next. I've talked to some of my buddies who are SAR majors trying to retire, and they're like, man, I don't know if I'm going to make it to 20 years, man. The stuff is being pushed within the military, and they can't speak out about it, so that's why I'm speaking out about it. But that stuff is being pushed, man. It's just, it's a radical agenda that's going to do nothing but undermine the military in my opinion. Yeah, it's tough when I remember, like I started out in the Marine Corps, reserve. And I remember in Marine Corps

in boot camp, they're saying, like, there are only Marines. Like, there's no white Marines or no black Marines are only Marines. And, and, you know, and I saw a lot of that, you know, throughout my time in the military. And at Ranger Battalion, too, like you said, like, we had guys who had more shoes for a Ranger Battalion, two pairs of boots and a pair of running shoes, whatever, and a pair of dress shoes, there's more shoes than they'd ever owned.

Yeah. You know? Yeah, I mean, that's what it was for me. I mean, we didn't wear a shoe that at the time. But, yeah, man, I don't know where things are going. And it's not really looking like it said in the right direction. Hopefully somebody snatched some not and some stuff before, too. I mean, they're talking about, they want to talk about taking away guns and stuff now, too. That's one thing.

You know, one of my buddies asked me, they're like, hey, man, they're talking about taking away our guns. Do you think we need to worry about that? Like, in Alabama? No, we don't need to worry about it. When we do, we're going to stand up for our rights. Not to mention, you know, I train a lot, you know, train with some of the cops in the area, do a little bit of sidework with those guys. I mean, they like me. They're not going to come try to take my guns in. If anybody did, you know, I'd say come and take them.

If you want to try, it'd be the worst mistake you ever made. You know what I mean? So anybody watching this who's thinking about it don't think about it. Ken, what for you, like, was there, was there, obviously there was Mike when he was deploying and Mike when he was home? Was there a Mike when he left the service? Was there a period? of time where it was like where he felt different or he seemed different because he didn't have that

you know adrenaline and that purpose and everything honestly I'm just now seeing that that Mike like he doesn't know how to like to retire you know I believe like he's been taught so much and it's instilled with him

I feel like I call him I know this is I'm just going to be honest I'm like stop being a robot, like emotionless. I want to see, I want to see compassion. It's okay to cry. Like, let it out. That doesn't mean you're a real man.

His regiment teaches you, or like I said, the community teaches you. You can't cry, tuck it up. And I believe, like, that's, like I said, why a lot of marriages fall because they can't open up and stuff. So I believe he just now started like, okay. okay, I can retire. But like I said, he gives 100% to everything.

He still has that Ranger mentality. He doesn't want to let his fellow brothers down. Like tonight, we were having such a hard time. We're at my mother-in-law's house. And we couldn't connect to the internet. And he's like, oh, my God. Like, if I don't get on there,

I let you down. I've already promised. I said, calm down, calm down. It's going to be okay. He just. That's what it is, though.

Honestly, I feel like he's always given his brothers and the military 100% and he's still trying to learn how to give me as a family 100%. He's a good father and a good husband and a great provider and a hard worker and I see that, but marriage is hard and it's not easy.

And like I said, I give it all to God because God helps me be patient and, you know, sit back in and have the tools that I need, especially with traumatic brain injuries and stuff. like, you know, he has times where the average person

that is just ignorant, pissing some off, and I'm like, calm down, calm down. Oh, you know. Can I tell him

that one time we're on the road? Uh, no, okay. That was out of character for me, but, uh,

no, I mean, I just, you know, anyway, somebody tried to run me off the road and he just, both I was driving before I knew it, when it was down,

guns out, like, you know, oh yeah, I was like, we ain't playing this crap you're gonna get the heck of and they got out of our way too Mike they did but I just like explain that I was at the TBI clinic um getting checked out for TBI and they took me off the two meds that I was on which was like our all and like ambient for like

bedtime and they're like by the time you live here you're gonna just be so we're gonna streamline your beds yeah they're like we're gonna streamline your meds so you won't be on as much meds we can rule out what's causing your pain mental issues and stuff like that so when I leave there I'm on 16 meds. I have a trap, a brown paper bag this big. And so, and they put me on,

like, antidepressants. Which makes him depressed. Which makes him depressed. Because I'm never depressed. You know what I mean? So they have an anti-depressants. And I was just like,

sucking man. And so as soon as I, but you're not supposed to cold turkey quit taking those. So when I came out, I just fill them in the trash can. I never took him again. And so I was a little off my rocker

when that issue happened. And I probably wouldn't have done that normally. But I ended up, you know, rectify a situation. Yeah. I mean, they look, these people legitimately were trying to run us off the road. I have no clue why.

They almost rammed our car three times. We went in the ditch. Our daughter's sleeping in the back. It's like 10, 11 o'clock at night. I was like, I'm done with this crap. And I was in the passenger seat, so I just, yeah, it happens to fast. But I will say, like,

I wish there was more of a community out there for guys who suffer from TV Automatic Brandry, you know, over, uh, presser, what is it called when you Overpressure blast injuries from doing demos. That stuff, you know, the guns that you guys shoot and stuff like that

it's toxic and I really wish there was a program out there to take it like serious and detox him like 100% from all this stuff because he has lots of nerve problems and I'll say this like the war's over but yet it's not over in his mind because his body

hurts all the time and it's just a constant I'm ready for him to feel joy. I think that I'm going to talk in a deep level about that. That is the hardest thing is the pain that he's in all the time. From the time he gets out of bed, he literally walks, like to get gone, he's stiff and he walks like an old man. And it breaks my heart. And it's like, people forget about these guys. And number one, he still doesn't have time to go to a doctor.

Then getting a VA appointment, don't get, don't even that. I will I'll introduce you to some people if you're interested, Mike, and hell, I'll just say it out here because it's not some sort of secret. My buddy, Todd Apolsky, who is a recon Marine. He did a stint in the unit also.

He runs like a retreat for veterans down in Costa Rica and you can go down there and he teaches like PT, meditation, all that different kind of stuff. But there are programs out there. There are things you do. Hit the little reset. button. Yeah. There's another

thing too. And I'll mention his name because I think it might would help him out. And you know him, Miles Grantham. Oh, yeah. Miles is doing some good stuff. He's been doing a lot of good stuff for the SEAL community. And he's getting the Rangers involved

into it, like SF guys as well. But he's doing a lot of good stuff there. It's, you know, some of that stuff that's all on that, you know, fringe there, but it's, it actually helps guys out. And I, you know, I tried some stuff out in different programs and definitely helps me out a little bit. But there's a lot of stuff out there.

And I'm definitely open to other options as well. Because like she said, you know, I'm just amped up trying to do good things. And then at the end of the day, you know, the pain starts kicking. It's hard to sleep. And I have a lot of pain. And then waking up in the morning, everything steps, it's even more painful. It's hard. It's hard for you, Mike, and for a lot of guys.

And I think anyone who serves in those kind of positions to make that. transition to civilian life where you were in a job where every decision you made was so important. If you screwed up, somebody could very well get killed. I mean, the stakes are so high. Now here we are in civilian life. What's the worst thing that happened to me today? We almost didn't get the internet up. That's the worst thing. Okay, okay, that sucks. But no one was going to die. No one was going to get hurt. Everything was going to be fine. It was going to be okay. Yeah, exactly right. But the nervous system, because it's been transformed. So long.

Right. The nervous system still responds to that, you know, in that way. And, you know, you talk about these people trying to run you off the road. That's kind of an extreme case. But even when you think about your job, like, your answer to a threat was to eliminate them. Immediate depth. Immediate depth. Yeah.

I got told him, like, if you're a threat to me, there's only one type of threat. That's the one that's going to end my life. Right. If you just want to fight me, that's not a threat because I still got a chance to kill you. you know what I mean but if you want to end my life after in yours immediately before you end mine you know what I mean so it's those are immediate threats and the only solution to that is immediately neutralize it you know and there's a lot of things in the civilian world that don't quite make that threshold right right right but it's like where you put them right where you put that thing right right yeah right right so I red line on

this thing or do I just let it go you know right so that's the hard part and I worry about like I do help, like, calm him down? I really do. I worry about him when he's traveling when he doesn't have me. Yeah. I'm like, oh, Lord, please give him peace and calm, because it's not going to be good. And I do not want to build him out of jail. You know what I'm

saying? Guys, a little bit switch it up a little bit. Tell me, what are you drinking here tonight? I actually got some of my step-dez liquor there. It's an old forester. All right, all right. It's kind of cheap, but it's actually pretty good. Oh, yeah. The second green,

I was a little forcer. I just had regular Pepsi. My uncle, so we're here, we got a family reunion going on here. A birthday. And my brother's birthday. He's 40. Happy birthday, Rob. Yeah, my brother, Rob just turned 40.

So we got his birthday. Her birthday's coming up on June 1st. My daughter's birthday. Oh, yeah. June 2nd. He got him a young girl. I may not, I'm not young anymore, but like, I'm like nine years younger than him. So, yeah, the birthdays are coming up.

I can't remember what I was going on. Sorry, my bad. He's a to me. what were you what were you drinking young lady I'm just going to say Pepsi Zero She's got she's got her story She's got her story Mr. Dave

Oh I'm drinking the same thing you are This is Jeff Miller A friend of ours Guest on the show a few times Retired Special Forces Toxic masculinity whiskey Because everybody needs a little toxic masculinity Is it good?

Yeah it is It is very good Yeah man Hit me up the link of that I'd try out a bottle, man. Yeah, absolutely. Or at least buy one for some friends. I got a neighbor who's a really big whiskey connoisseur.

I mean, like, you go to his place, you feel bad drinking the whiskey because every bottle's like 300 plus. Yeah. And I'm like, dude, man, he's like, oh, I've tried this one out. He'll tell you the whole history on the thing. And you take a few sips off of it. You're like, oh, my gosh, it's delicious. He's like, yeah, they only get one or two bottles in the whole state every year.

Wow. And he gets like the first haul. I mean, he's got bottles of bourbon that are like four. hundred and something dollars, man. He can keep that. Yeah. He's a retired officer, though, you know, so he's got a lot more money. Exactly.

Let's hit up a few more questions here. Brad's, I think was nice. Yeah, Brad, what was the big change when RRD turned into RRC with funding and mission focus? You know, I didn't really notice a change. It was technically still RRD when I got there, but by the time I got to the team, it was really kind of

technically RRC at the time. So I think the biggest change was it was all enlisted. So the senior enlisted advisor was really like the commander, I think, like when I first got there. But then after that, when they made it a company, they put officers in charge. So we had a company commander. We had an executive officer. We had ops officers. So we had like a mini little staff too.

So it really helped us out when it became RRC because we had like a little micro staff that really helped us plan a lot of stuff training events wise. They were great. a lot of officers that really did that job that didn't have any paths on the back. I mean, these guys are selfless work. I mean, they're sitting there like planning training or assisting us planning our training events on the teams.

And they're not getting to do fun stuff, you know? These guys, like, when he was like, I got to go train to New Mexico. I'm like, what do you mean? He went to go do dirt bikes. I'm like, and I saw the video of them like. Run like pro-motor cross. Yeah, and like, show her and stuff. I'm like, you're just playing.

And that's the hard part as the dude that's out there is like, your wife's like, oh, you're skydiving. So you've seen the pictures when I don't have anything on me but a parachute. But imagine those pictures you can see that are at nighttime with night vision and 115, 120-pound ruck, you know, or whatever, or a human being trapped in the front of you. You know, those are the not fun parts. Or when you're walking 40 miles of that rucksack on, yeah, we get to ride dirt bikes,

with professional motocross drivers. Yeah, I get to jump out of planes with professional pro, you know, exhibition skydivers, you know. You know, and then I got to work with these guys later on. We get to do a lot of cool stuff, but there's a lot of hard stuff that's involved

to give you that, there's, you know, there's benefits. I mean, they even have, can I say something you have? Okay, he even got to have, like, cool wigs and stuff. Like, I'm like, what? And, like, I don't know.

Did he have the sunglasses? with the fake nose and the mustache? Say what? Like the sun the sun glasses that have the fake nose that have the fake nose and then it comes down

of the mustache. Yeah. Let me tell you this. I had a person at my work still for me and I told him about it. And he built me. He borrowed from the...

I had some extra parts and stuff like that we had. But I built her... I took her lunchbox and built a hidden camera system. them into it. So I totally got the part and recorded them and he got it from the James Bond shop, we call it

from RRC. That's pretty cool. He goes out to those guys. They're awesome. For our listeners who and viewers who might not be familiar with it, our ideas was the regimental reconnaissance detachment and it was the

recon element of the Ranger regiment and then it became the regimental reconnaissance company at a certain point of time. and it was just, like you said, you got officers. Did it expand in size? It did expand in size a little bit, too. They ended up increasing the number of teams that we had.

Then it was still even harder to fill the teams that we already had. So, I mean, the size didn't grow that much, but I think the supporters and the, what do we call them, enablers, the enablers. We had a lot more enablers, which made our jobs a ton easier. Anna Toli asks, is RRC the most physically fit unit in J-Soc? I mean, that's hard to say. I mean, there's some dudes that are beast mode in like, I mean, all the different units, but I will say we had some, we had some exceptional athletes in that place, man. We had dudes that would come back after like a three or four month deployment.

And they, you know, all they have is a spin bike in the gym, maybe get to run a couple miles around a track or something like that on an elliptical and then come back and do i mean there were guys that did full iron mans and actually place you know reasonably against pros and stuff uh we had that wasn't me now i did half iron man that's the biggest i we did was a half iron man um did a lot of triathlons and stuff like that and and i and i i placed really well too but but there were guys who were much better than me i mean and i was you know, in good shape, really good shape. But there were guys in that company that were just absolute anomalies, man. I mean, there was a lot of guys like that.

Danny, thank you. He asks, what are the roles on RRC teams like RTO, medic, etc? So for us, we had a team sergeant, which is typically an E8, and then assistant team sergeant, which is typically an E7. But I did it as E8. at that time we had excess guys and rank wise but then we have like a senior reconnaissance sergeant

which is like the number three guy he's like the most knowledgeable guy outside of the team sergeant and the assistant team sergeant and the assistant team sergeant then after that you got your RTO you got to have that guy you know have a JTAC assigned usually an Air Force guy and then if you have any extra guys you just put those guys

they're just recon sergeants so they just do whatever the heck you need and they could be any seven and be the new guy on the team and you know they're just taking the trash when you tell them to take the trash but for the most part they we it wasn't like what i'd heard about guys going up the road to fort brag guys would go up there and it was like your tree like garbage when you get to your team because you're the new guy but they have a lot more new guys um in rc wasn't really like that at least on my team you got to the new team you know i was at e7 when i got to the team and nobody treated me like garbage you knew you were

the new guy and you had to respect everyone else but nobody really treated you like garbage you were incorporated as one of the team right away and now you'd be told if you're wrong or you needed to work on something obviously but you were treated like a family member like right off the bat

what were the lowest was there a rank requirement when you went what was the lowest rank that you guys had there I think I think the lowest I think on paper it's like an E4 or E5 you know with a Ranger tab but you have to have a amount of time under your belt in a leadership position. So really E4E5 is kind of hard to do.

The lowest ranking die we had on a team when I was there was probably an E6 maybe. I mean, yeah, we definitely had a couple E6s on teams. And then we had a lot of E7s and a lot of eights. But we ended up getting kind of top heavy there for a while. And the bad thing about that, would it be in such a small unit as when it got top heavy like that? They kind of had like, you know, we got some extra outside external pressure, you know, push, kind of make guys that's why I went back and did the mortar platoon sergeant time over a third range of time, which I didn't really really think I wanted to do, but then after I did it, I really enjoyed it. It was actually one of the more, you know, one of the bigger highlights of my career, actually.

I didn't think it was going to be when I first did it. Jacob asks, what did you enjoy most about a reconnaissance-focused-focused-focused mission set with RRC versus a DA door-kicking mission like the other Rangers? the the reconnaissance type missions that most of the stuff that we did um the the what i liked about that i didn't like that to my stuff at first when i got used to doing it um i found out that you know everything was on me like i planned my concept of the operation you know the mission back if we set up i planned that i coordinated for my own QRF and most of the time when i was doing the reconnaissance stuff i'm doing it in the daytime and you got to realize like most of our assaulters, you know, Rangers

or Delta Force guys that are going to come get my tail, you know, if it's a crap, it's the fan, or seals, whoever's going to come get my tail, if I get to find, they're asleep because they're, you know, they've got to get rest for the next day. So me calling them to come help me is not going to be the quickest thing.

It's not going to be as quick as it could be, but we plan for every aspect of everything you could possibly think of, every detail of every mission. Like I was talking to one of these guys out here the other day, one of the younger guys, and they were like, well, you know, how do you guys coordinate? How would you do this range or whatever?

And I'm like, well, you know, and I started breaking it down and stuff. They probably bored the guy to death. But, like, you're going to plan everything. For example, you need to know math. Like, I talked to some of these young guys. You need to know math because math comes in handy with demo, doing explosive charge calculations,

military free fall calculations, sniper shots, you know, doing all your different couch that. You know that, Jack. And, you know, all that kind of stuff comes in. handy, but we actually plan every aspect of that to include how far my sounds traveling from my helicopter or are applied in. You know, little stuff that you wouldn't even think of, am I going to need more ammo out there or do I into space stay over 24 hours? You know, all those little things, and you can think like the amount of elevation climb you're going to do

into the target. All those things we actually take into consideration. And I can go in much more depth, but I really, you know, I don't want to give up those details necessarily, not for they're classified or anything, but those are TTPs that I don't really want to talk about on the internet. honestly like my mom always said Kendall you need a nerd and I'm like I really I have a nerd he's a good looking nerd but um y'all I'm telling you like bless his heart he has to play charades with me all the time because I'm always like you know that thank you bob that thing over there he's like what thing I'm like that thing and he'll name it he'll finally figure my blonde top out but um he is a he is a he is a genius I think and Don't you usually, for the guys over there that come up there, don't they have to take some kind of test or something? Yeah. I think it's, yeah, it's at the beginning of selection, a first week or two.

They do psychological evaluations. They do mental aptitude tests, IQ tests, all different kinds of stuff like that. And they really get down on the weeds in it. And, you know, that's a determining factor later on. You physically cut it, but then they may use that, you know, not necessarily against you, I use it for the unit, for the unit's benefit to choose the right person. So it's good stuff that they do. And it definitely, I think it sets us up for success.

We don't really have a lot of guys that have crazy like PTSD or like issues like that. You know, we all have issues. Our body's broken down. But I think guys that are in that category have less issues afterwards, I believe. Kendall, we have a question for you here from Casey Loveless. what does it mean to be a master cosmetologist? That means I am licensed to do hair, chemicals. I can do facials.

I can do nails and anything below the knees. I can do cuticures and stuff like that. Is that, how long is the training for some like that? Honestly, I went to night school and I was there from like eight to 233. And I think it was nine months, I think. It's been since like 2007, 2008, I graduated. That's a lot of training.

I mean, because everything's very regulated in that field, isn't it? Yeah. I've messed a whole lot of people up when I started. Let me tell you that. Like, I have, you know, it's the profession, and I've learned to really,

especially females, they're psycho, man. I really, I like to do, cut hair is my specialty. Like I'm good in that field. God's given me a good gift. So I really specialize in cutting hair. I don't do nails or anything like that. So,

and men are the easiest. Let me tell you, no drama. So you've had women come in and they want to throw hands or like, how bad is it get? So let's say I have a woman comes in. She did a box color on her hair

and she's expecting you to make her look like, you know, Jennifer Lopez or something I'm like listen here you should have used that box die I can't do it I can't like work a miracle on you girl and then you'll have people

who want to go like like blonde and they have like dark hair like mics and it takes it takes a couple of sessions so you keep the hair healthy you know and it's just like women are psycho so I ain't got time for all that

No. I can only imagine. Jackson asks, how rare were DA ops usually for you, either as an RRC team or attached to an SMU or Ranger unit? Do you miss kicking down doors at all? Or was AFO just cooler? No, I actually really do miss the DA stuff. I mean, the DA stuff's super fun and cool. That's why every special operations unit out there has somewhere in a DA as they're mission set, whether it be Navy Sealed SF, you know, whoever. It's in there somewhere, and everyone is going to choose in any way possible that route to get them to that mission set. You know what I mean? So it's a good mission set. And I really enjoy it. And I got to do a lot of it. I actually asked that question for one of these younger guys I was talking to the other day. But so I came up in the third range of retirement. So I knew all those guys. I learned guys from first bat and second bat from, you know, when I was in PLDCA and out of Phenox, stuff like that.

So by the time I got to RRC and now I'm tagged along with 175 or 375 or whoever, I knew people so I had credibility and trust and I went on missions to those guys. They would always usually ask if I wanted to do this or do that. And I would go and try to find a spot where I was the most, you know, when I was contributing the best that I possibly could. Because, I mean, I never want to go on a mission so that this guy gets to stay home. Like, you know, I always made sure to point that out. is a private not going on this mission because I am because if that's the case that I'm staying home.

Right. I never wanted to kick anyone off a mission, but if I could add value to that mission, I wanted to go. And I got to go out a lot to this guys because there was usually plenty of room for the standard missions. And I got to roll out a lot, do a lot of fun stuff, and I enjoyed it. Yeah. But not everybody necessarily had that opportunity. There were guys that came from outside the regiment through selection OTC, and they didn't know anybody in the battalines. They didn't have the network that we had.

So, like, you know, we have a network with Rangers, but also have a network with dudes at Fort Bragg and Virginia Beach and stuff like that, too, because I've bumped into them over the years and worked on them. These guys didn't, and some of those guys were not able to get out as much as I was. Some of them did, some of them didn't, but I was fortunate in that aspect. It's still waiting for them to make a Ranger maybe, like, you know,

kick it up, make some cool Ranger stuff. Like, you know, I'm just going to go there. The Sills get all the glory, y'all. It's time for Ranger's been to decontent. cross, bro. You know what I'm saying? Now, my mama loves watching this, what does that show she's into? It's all

about themselves, but it's time for some Ranger action. They did make a movie for Ranger, uh, Con Air with, Nick Cage. That's probably the best one. A little Nicholas Cage, man. We got Black Hawk down and that's about it, you know.

Not too many, not too many Ranger movies. I'm sure there will be in the future, but go ahead. What's right? I mean rainbow. Oh my Lord. Rainbow Ranger? No.

He was a green beret. Green break. My bad. Yeah. Guy, you make me read this weird name that you have here as your handle. Zedix. Zadix. We want to know your most dangerous or exciting or favorite or best or worst war story.

And did Fabio cut your Greek goddess hair as well? Does Fabio cut my Greek? Maybe that's a question for your wife. I'm not entirely sure. That must be Fabio, man. I think the worst story is, yeah. It's so hard. He doesn't want his haircut.

He wants to keep it long, so I'll dust it. So I'll keep it clean and dusting is just taking the ends and making it shiny. But like, he just likes it long so he won't let me touch it. And like, we're in a race to say you can grow it out. Well, I've already grown. I grew on down to about here. about a year and a half ago and then I shot it all out because I got tired of it. But this time I'm doing more desk work, so it's not as bad.

It's like a mechanic that don't work on that car, but what's your best mission? Talk about that, the mission. You know, there was another cool and then I got to do that. I don't think I talked about the last one. Yeah, I did some, some AFO stuff cruising out with an element, you know, a small element, me, usually me and one other American, and then one or two indig driving our vehicles so that it's easier first to pass through certain areas. But we would go to bad guy houses prior to the assault force, just us. I mean, you're talking like two actual shooters in the car.

And we went up to this one house, pulled down a road, and the target we had was affiliated with the Afghan National Police. You know, they were dirty. and the Afghan National Police there was a bunch of who was standing at the door wearing the Afghan National Police jackets carrying A-Ks and so we pulled out and we figured we're going to have a confrontation with these guys so they come up our indige or talking to them

so that we don't have to talk so I don't even know we're in the vehicle and I'm situated in the back and this is one of those little Toyota vans so we had it situated so in the back I could sit there in like a jump seat nobody can see me and I can hit this handle the whole hatch comes up and I could come out there really fast tactically.

So I was sitting in the jump seat in the back. And then anyway, these guys were like, yeah, we're calling the Taliban. They're going to come get you. And we told them we were kind of just checking around the area for IEDs, you know, but it's not why we were really there. But anyway, so all of a sudden, they're talking this. We call back to the assault force. The assault force was like five minutes down the road stage, right,

rock. And we called back to them. We're like, hey, we're going to need your help. Because they're calling Taliban. There's like two or three done, you know, guys with AKs here. We can probably handle that, but they're calling more. And we don't know how it's going to be until they get there. So they're like, all right, cool, we're headed that way.

So they're rolling. You know, it's like five minutes out. So five minutes is a long time. Things start getting kind of tense. So, you know, somewhere after that, all of a sudden, you know, I hear one of the guys in the front, you know, one of the Americans, like, holy crap, look at this. And I turn around and look to the front.

And there's like a platoon-sized element of dudes running with PKKs. RPKs, machine guns, RPGs, everything, AKs running at us down the street. They were like 150-tur yards away. And I'm like, holy crap, man, this isn't going to go good. So I told the other guy in the vehicle with me, I said, hey, man, I'm about to pop out the back. When I do, I'm going to lay down some hate. And while I'm laying down that hate, hey, I want y'all to get the heck to the highway and haul butt to the south.

And I'll break contact and I'll leak up with you a click down the road. So, like, I was this close. I was like, man, I don't know if I'm going to survive this, but I'm about to just lay waste as hard as I can so that our vehicle and those other dudes can get out of there. As soon as I grab the hatch to pop it open, it swings open, and here comes all the gun trucks rolling up 50 cows and everything, and those guys sky are like cockroaches. Another similar mission to that, similar thing. We get up there, we get out of the vehicle, sneak around the house, you know, determining what we need to determine before we go in there.

and you know it's always usually one or two guys with minimal firepower going up there trying to sneak but we go up another house had a and a guy or a and p guys guard in the front gate and they come up gunned up draw the guns up on our our drivers so they're you know our drivers are legit afghans you know they live there grew up there so here i'm in the back in the jump seat again and they're they're talking getting kind of aggressive with their afghans and uh and i pop the hatch out and i come out and immediately throw that laser on that dude's head. They had, tell what,

what de-escalate in the situation. They had no clue what they were involved in at that point in time. They were talking crap to our endage and I pop off the back and come up with a laser on the forehead and they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, okay, we're not ready to fight. And it was a pretty chill target at that point in time.

But those are some of the ones I had thought about that I hadn't talked about last time. When it comes to the RRC stuff, the low-vis stuff, ideally when you're doing that, that wrecky stuff, the little bit of this stuff, if you don't get into a gunfight, that's obviously ideal, because you're trying to be out there

gather intelligence, gather information, atmospherics, whatever it may be, bring it back and ingest, take it out, create some sort of product out of it, without anyone knowing that you're out there doing that. That's the key in reconnaissance. It's not like telling the story, I'm like, hey, hey, look at me, you know what I mean? You're out there doing all this stuff. You know,

I'm doing a TV interview, but whatever. different topic. But yeah, you're out there trying to do stuff and you don't want anybody really knowing that you're doing it. So a lot of times there's not gun fights involved. Yeah. But I got to do some fun DA stuff too. And I mean, to make you look real hard.

Like, he doesn't look like a white boy sometimes. I mean, that's the thing that I think that maybe people don't understand is that sometimes in those situations. Like, it goes from zero to 60 and no time flat. and you have to preempt the situation. And so it's constantly like kind of judging yourself, what's the right move here? Maybe this would go away on its own. But if I wait for that to happen,

maybe it escalates and is out of our control before we can do anything. And you're exactly right about that. And that's a good point. You bring that up because if you're looking at this and you're like, should I go out there? Should I put, you know, think about it. Should I get out there and I'm pointing a gun in the dude's face? Right. I mean, that's a pretty significant event.

Am I going to cause them to be more angry and cause more problems? Or am I going to resolve the situation? So you got to, you really have to weigh that stuff. And you're talking like the cops in our country these days are having all these issues. Dude, that guy's by himself. He doesn't have back one. Or she's by herself. Or they may have one partner.

They don't have a ranger strike force on their back. They don't have a dang, you know, Delta Force troop on their back. You know what I mean? The guy's out there by themselves, the guy or girl. and they have to rectify that situation and protect themselves immediately. And, you know, we had it a lot easier than that. But you have to really think through these processes.

It's a very intricate system that you have to think to. Because if you make the wrong decision, you could be throwing your career down the toilet or go to jail. You know what I mean? You're ending someone's life potentially and you need to make sure it's a legitimate reason why you're doing that. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of zero or hero moments.

Yeah. You know. Big time. We, further up, I think we didn't get Jackson, did we? You're too low. We haven't gotten there yet. Oh, okay. Will Davidson, it wonders, does Regiment or J-Soc own RRC?

And who didn't buy the G-shocks? I guess he's asking who bought the G-shock watches? I'm not sure. Yeah, I don't know what he means about the G-shock watches. But as far as, like, who owns RRC, the Ranger Regiment, and owns RRC as part of the Ranger Regiment. Somebody for Ranger Redmond. We do work within the task force that we're assigned to

and how that plays out. I don't know how that hierarchy exactly works now. It's probably changed a little bit since I was there. But so it works well together. You know, all the different elements that, you know, the groups within that J-Slock element, it all work really, really, really well together. So, you know, our guys are trying to provide what they can provide.

I don't know exactly how things have changed for them now. But when I was there, man, we worked great together. Michael Hendricks, thank you. Andrew Dunbar just wanted to point out The Great Raid is about the Sixth Rangers in World War II. Also a book called Ghost Soldiers. If you haven't read it, it's about American POWs that are being held by the Japanese and Rangers went in and rescued them. Awesome, awesome book. And the movie's really good too.

Yeah, we got to watch the movie at Fort Benning. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, because it was a Ranger movie, we got to watch. the preview before anybody else did at the theater on 4Bring. It was a really good movie. I mean, really impressive movie. Really impressive mission. Oh, yeah. Saving Private Ryan, Andrew

says that was a movie about Rangers. The squad with Second Ranger Battalion. Alejandro, wanted to ask a question for the gun nerds watching. I heard you'll have G, have G, G, have G-G-G-G-G-G-G-G-19s and G-G-22s. Did you have a preference for either the 9-millimeter or the 40 and why? Thanks for coming back

on, Sue Espantza. Yeah. So we had the Glock 19s when I was there and, you know, for concealed carry stuff and then Glock 22s, you know, if I wanted to, if I needed to shoot a person with it and I wanted to make sure they were down it, obviously I want that Glock 22. But they serve different purposes and different roles. The Glock 19 is smaller. It's a 9-mell ammo, easier to come by in the military. The Glock 22s, we usually carried that for like tactical stuff, tactile reconnaissance or tactical DA missions and a different type of holster. And they have more stopping power, but it's a much bigger gun.

you're not going to, you know, squeak that one through places you could squeak that little in Glotton 19, you know? And the Glotton 18 is big enough that you still have enough power, you know, out of a compact gun. And you were right, Dave, I skipped over a few here, getting back to. Jackson asks, reading between the lines, it seems like you worked with the CTPs in Afghanistan.

What did you guys make of the ground branch guys you worked with? There's a certain aura around them from civilians. Yeah, I enjoyed working with those guys, man. they were good guys. I mean, a lot of, you know, I'd known from the past, some of them were good buddies among from the regiment, you know. So it was pretty easy integration of working with those guys. You know, dealing with some of the politicians in the headshed

was, you know, another aspect that it didn't even worth spending time on. But yeah, the tactical guys were good guys, man, for the most part, the ones I saw. And, yeah, I enjoyed working with them, man. And their guys, their indage were solid. I mean, some of the best. Adam White, previous guest on the show, if you go back and watch the episode we did with him. He says, thank you so much

for an honest, meaningful conversation. Mike, you have no idea the tremendous good you're doing as such an admired superhero being this open. Great job, y'all. Keep up the great work. Is who said that? Yes, Adam White. He was an Army counterintelligence dude that we had on before. Yes, I saw his episode, man. That guy's hilarious.

It's hilarious, man. Yeah, so I watched his and I watched the girl that you talked about you had on there. What's her name? Ilana, the other CIA? Yeah, Alana was another counterintelligence of NCO. With the prosthetic? No, the girl that was the reporter. Oh.

Oh, Jessica. Yeah. Jessica. Oh, my gosh. She's the baddest son of gun you've ever had on the show, man. Yeah. That girl, I mean, she got to do stuff on envious. You know, like, I mean.

Oh, me too. She did. And I know you did it, Jack, as a reporter. You know what I mean? Like, nobody cares if you live or die. So you get to do some cool stuff. Yeah. You got no... Her story was amazing. No air support, no nothing. I have her book at home. It's a Jessica Donati's book is Eagle Down about special forces in Afghanistan. And yeah, everything Mike said is accurate. You guys should go give it a read. Jack... She's bad to the bone. That girl, I scared nothing. She's like a kid like Kindle that just comes out of a town and, and... you know somewhere in the united space and just gets tossed in a war zone and has to figure it out yeah she was in sketchy she's been in sketchier situations that i've been in probably i'm for sure uh and actually adam will i think adam will be joining us for a hundred right i hope so adam uh i don't know if adam's around or not um yeah once we'll see who shows up uh how much shooting do you guys get to do during workups what was your favorite part of training, how did your former RRC friends who are behind the fence compare

the units and lifestyle? Yeah, so I don't know. Most of the guys that I know there's still there within that organization are not like on teams. There's civilians now doing contract work for them. And I do need to reach out. I think they got a range rendezvous this summer. I'm going to try to get over there and see some of the guys. Maybe I get some of the date how how life is for the guys, you know, but... I got a wife whose husband's on there. It's smart. He's pretty bad to the bottom, I hear.

There's two wives. I won't say any names because they're still in there. So, yeah, and there's some guys that I know, but I actually haven't talked to me in a while, but what was the other part of the question? How much shooting do you guys get to do during workups, and what was your favorite part of training?

Yeah, we, so we got to do a lot of shooting. I mean, it was really as much shooting as you wanted to do. We, you know, obviously there's training that has to be done. And, and what I really liked about training, so don't forget that part part is, um, it was always something different, man, jumping out of airplanes, you know, doing military free fall stuff. Then I'm doing sniper stuff, long range shooting, high angles, sniper shooting stuff, driving dirt bikes, doing explosive breaching, you know, learning how to make my own explosive type of stuff. Um, you know, it just never changed to them to pure stuff, which I really don't, didn't like that much. But we learned,

a lot of different stuff on computers. We learned how to talk to people. There's different aspects of talking to people. And your Intel dude that you had on here, he hit on a lot of that stuff. But you got to learn how to talk to people. How can I talk to this person and get what I want out of them information-wise? Or how do I talk to this person and portray the information onto them that I want information-wise for them to spread how they see fit?

You know, different things like that, different aspects of people to talk to people. So it always changed up. But we did do a lot of shooting. It was really as much shooting as you wanted to do. And we had a lot of good shooters. The barracks. This question seems like it keeps coming up over and over again. And maybe you've already answered it.

We don't want to go over again. But he's saying how would someone choose between going to Kag or RRC? I mean, that's it. That's a personal decision. And it's a challenging one too because the physical aspects of it. And yet there's probably people would argue this back and forth. but RRC selection was built off of, you know, Delta IV selection. So it's very similar.

And then you go through that to go to an organization that a lot less people know about. You know what I mean? So like nobody really is going to know what you're doing when you go there. It's going to be kind of under the radar. So, you know, you got to look at what you want to do. Do you want to go do some stuff so that you can just be in a unit that where you can pat yourself on the back? Because those dudes have the credibility that they're out there to widely acknowledge.

and it's an absolutely phenomenal great unit. But the work that they do 99.9% of the time during the GWAT, now, just during the GW, was what the Ranger Battine dudes were doing. So it was like, if I go do that, it's at a better level. You got more square way guys, more proficient guys, and they get those 1% missions too. Those are pretty rare. So I was like, I wanted to do something different.

For me personally, I chose something different. I'm going to go through that same physical struggle and maybe not even get quite as much extra pay because they get a little extra pay more than we did. But just to do something that I wanted to do, man. And it was different and it never stayed the same. So I really enjoyed constantly changing it up. And Mike, we actually kind of talked about this the last time you were on

that RRD and RRC used to have a real, they used to have a marketing issue where people thought. It was just some guys out there in gilly suits with binoculars like reporting on enemy activity, right? and that was what they were going to do. Yeah, and there's a lot more to it than that. And obviously, there's reasons why you can't find out everything before you get there because there's certain things that go on there, you know, just like other places that

not everybody really needs to know about, you know what I mean? And it's for a good reason. But there's a lot of good capabilities there. Yeah, just like there are on a lot of the units. Honestly, you have to be ready to be Clark Kent. Like, all the soldiers there are, like, I have to. to keep, like, they're doing great things. They're doing bad at the bone things.

They can't talk about it. And they're like, do Superman stuff. And they're Clark Kent. You know, that's what I'll remind him of. Like, you know, one day you'll get to talk about. Yeah. Could, were there ever situations that you wanted to, like, put, like, tell somebody, like, brag about him or, or, or, like, put somebody, you know, tell somebody what was going on or,

you know, show them off or whatever, and you just couldn't. Yes. some like the things that he's done honestly it sounds like it's off a movie and people they don't believe yeah honestly like the small town that i live in they don't get it they just yeah that's the true too i mean even talking to some of the the regular army guys or even some of the younger kids i try to focus my my my effort so i've been trying to like mentor some younger guys nowadays um i kind of got tied in with this one guy who actually lives down close to my mom, really solid guy.

One of the smartest young kids I've ever met my entire life. I know for a fact, this kid would actually succeed if he went to the range of regiment or any other unit. And Kendall's met him too. It's super solid guy. But I've enjoyed kind of coaching me guys on like fitness programs and how to get ready, how to prepare, how to mentally prepare and stuff like that. But I try to harp on these guys too.

Like if you're still in school, focus on school, make those good grades. Math. You know, I like math. I hated it in school because it was just too slow. But when I came in the military, it's like you could do whatever you need to do with the math. You know, there's all these different things you could do. Sniper stuff, jump stuff, you know, whatever. And it made it fun.

It's like, oh, this map gets me to be able to blow up some stuff. You know, this math makes it to where I can shoot a bullet and put it straight in that dude's face at 1,200 meters. You know what I mean? And it's a greener windbag. You know, whatever it is. So there's benefit to having all that knowledge and being prepared for it. But I think spending a certain amount of time in the Ranger Regiment, I don't know where that time is. but anybody I think that did more than five or six years has achieved that time maybe maybe somewhere longer than that but it really sets guys up for success to see the guys that that worked with me everyone's out there being successful I mean everyone's being successful look at you two guys are there you're being successful there's a lot of the guys out there being successful because of that strict discipline that we got grilled into us in the beginning and I don't think that really exists in most other units when you on Tesla or something like the coil

that was a TV show I did for the Discovery Channel a few years ago yeah that is awesome I loved it I mean I thank you brilliant I love and then you were cool and they're like that was that was awesome Santa Feather Ranger on there I learned so much about Tesla doing that show and it's funny you say that because um you remember of course Kapacheschi um I had his his wife reached out to me at one point and was like

oh I watched this show with my kids and like you're in it What's going on here? It's really funny to hear those kinds of stories, but I'm glad you liked it. Yeah. That's awesome, man. Yeah, and I saw it, and we watch that stuff all the time, too. Oh, yeah, we love that stuff.

I believe Tesla's about to come out, like, some more stuff. Some pop. I hope so. Caleb asks, what percentage of your recon consists of finding, developing sources, and networking within the local population? I'd say it depends on who you are and where you're kind of at. But I didn't do a ton of that stuff. We had other guys that focused on that stuff.

We were trained to do similar, that kind of stuff. But it wasn't like our primary thing. So I did do a little bit of that stuff. But we did a lot of it in training, actually. But in real life, only did it like on one trip. As far as like talking to informants, I guess you could. call it because I wasn't a source handler so I didn't actually you know handle sources I was going to go to some of that work that that training but you know me that is that's a whole other rabbit

you're diving in and I was kind of stuck on that free fall rabbit hole at that point in time and so you know I try to stay that focus but you know kind of looking back on I kind of wish I had done some more of that stuff because there's a lot of big paying jobs and work out there for that stuff you know you talked about all the different skills that you guys had to have but you also just kind to talk about like these rabbit holes. Did you find that guys would kind of geek out about different things and be sort of experts

in a way, like even though you knew demo, like there was a demo guy because he just lived for it and there was the intel guy and there was the sniper guy. The sniper guy. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You had dudes that were kind of rock inside.

Well, I mean, yeah, we did have a dude on my team. You know, I'll say his last name, but I'll say his first name. Oh, Fred. because I know he probably get a kick out of, but the dude is a genius, man. The dude was like, no joke, graduated from like Emory Riddle, I think with like a rocket scientist degree. But we had guys like that we had physicists on teams, man. There was a lot of knowledge there, a lot of intellectual power within that organization.

And the cool thing is we had the freedom to use that intellectual power and kind of step outside the box. That's what I've thoroughly enjoyed about the mission set when I was there. I don't know how it is now. and I'd like to see how the guys are liking it. I was trying to figure that out this summer, but I thoroughly enjoyed it when I was there. And the guys that work there, again, are brilliant. Their minds are just out there.

So anything that they are taught, they excel in every single thing. Like you just said, like... And that's kind of a Ranger thing in general. I mean, they're just so good at everything. It's just crazy. I mean, it's kind of a soft thing in general, but more uniquely a Ranger thing.

I work with the SF guys out there and EOD guys, and there's great guys out there, but I've seen, you know, I think it's that core discipline that a lot of us hate initially. You know, but it really, it's a good thing. It's a good core thing. And, you know, I was a butthole about enforcing it when I was rip cadre. And, you know, a lot of those guys probably hate me still of this day because I was such, you know, such a stickler.

But that stuff is what set us all up for success, man. That's the key, I guess you could say, what do you call it, the cornerstone of the foundation? I believe. Kennell, growing up in Columbus and around the Benning era, did you have sort of an idea or, yeah, an idea of what the military was like or what soldiers were like that changed when you met him and the people he worked with? Yes. and I'm not going to, I'm not trying to offend anyone, but I just thought it was all regular infantry, and they're going over there and, you know, going out in their tanks and stuff like that. I never really thought about the kicking it.

I'm sorry. I'm not trying. I'm just going to be lying and truthful. I never thought about, like, the intel part being dropped off in the middle of nowhere and then like, how many miles, not thousands, I'm so sorry. And I mean thousands, but rucking in. Yeah, 40 miles. You know, 40 miles with a rucksack and like or going undercover and looking like your hodge. Like I never thought about that until I met Mike. Honestly, when he talked about it, I thought he was full of crap.

You know, I really did until I started being married to him, started seeing this stuff. And then I know there's some things that I can't talk about. And see, that's another thing. As a wife, you know, like some things that you can say and some things that you can't say. And there's wives out there, blanche. their heart. They go straight to Facebook and they talk about things that they're not supposed to know about. So bless their hearts. Why is good to, you know, they get to hear about certain things that we do that it's not common knowledge, even within other ranger, you know, outside of the company and the ranger retines. And, you know, they have to keep close hold on that. Because they, I mean, they live with us. So they're going to know some of this stuff. Right. And I know where she was going with that. We definitely can't talk about that stuff. But she got to help you one day. But yeah, I got to help them with some stuff and study some stuff.

And I was like, oh my gosh, this is like James Gond, like movie type stuff we're working with, like, legitly. Like, I think they named him Rambo. Didn't they name me Rambo? That was a little machete or whatever named Rambo. And I just started thinking about it. It's a Rambo nice. Right?

Nice. He just, he gets more and more sexier all the time. And like I said, it is such a privilege being married to a man. that can who's got my back. You know what I mean? During end times, like, I ain't worried. How did RRC treat you? Did they bring you in on a lot of stuff?

Did they try to make your spouse's part as much as they could part of it? Oh, no, they were hush, hush on everything. They don't play around. And like I said, a lot of people, a lot of the guys there were not married. It's hard to be married and be there. That's the thing. It is. And you're gone a lot.

And there's just not, you don't have time to play around. When you're there, you're there to work. And it takes discipline on a whole other level where you're there. So I'd say that a lot of divorces happen there. Because wives aren't patient. But yeah, they're secret. And you don't really know anything. And I know one of his deployments, he could not even contact me.

It was so frustrating. and I was just always worried that particular deployment and it just was hard. Here's a point though. Think about the World War II veterans or the Vietnam veterans. Dude, they could, I mean, this instant gratification we have with cell phones, come on that. Like, I could do without it. I wish we'd just kind of go away because it bugs me, honestly,

because I have to deal with more than I want to. But imagine those wives. And from Vietnam, Korea, you know, World War II World War I, They didn't get to see their man for like years. So years. Like now they're getting letters back and forth. But those letters are taking, you know, like nowadays, it takes about eight weeks, eight days to get a letter to Afghanistan or package. Back then it probably took two or three months, you know.

And you're talking the transition time, if you're talking, you're getting correspondence probably once every three months. Right. You know, you're shutting a letter. And then by the time it gets there, they read it right one and send it back. You know, they had it so much worse than we do. We had it easy. We had it freaking easy. Yeah.

I don't know about that. Like, I'm, I didn't have it easy. It was hard for me. Yeah. Just saying, Hey, you had an easy credit of the World War I ladies. Yeah. World War II ladies, by the way.

It's not World War I anymore. It's like the 20% right now. Well, and that's the thing is it, I mean, we adapt to what we know. And yeah, I mean, when guys went to World War II, they were there until it was over. And they might, and they might be on the move. And who knows when mutters reached them where in these wars, we were at bases, that often they knew where to. send them

yada yada yada but still I mean I look I understand it was it doesn't matter what they went through in World War II what you went through

was equally as hard for you in that moment yeah I mean Mike also what you probably deployed like a dozen times whereas the guys in World War II deployed once came home

and it's over yeah and that's the true too yeah we did have hardship they didn't have but they're pretty few of our between compared to what those guys had we didn't have to endure absolutely but yeah i mean the rotation's like cranking out like 18 deployments in 20 years and and i missed the appointments there's guys that were in the regiment as long as i have i've got plays there are

22 24 deployments deep at this point that's crazy they never missed any you know probably more than that now who knows um but we we rotated a lot more a lot quicker a lot faster so our training cycles had to be a lot more smooth and quick so you know we're turning and burning we're coming back home for six months and you're fully ready to rock again six months later which is pretty easy if you've done it a ton but you think the newer guys trying to come in and swing that six months and then going to combat for the first time and at the time the training that we drill into them yeah at the time all the ladies would be like no news is good news and I'd be like listen my people gonna call me yeah you got what I'm saying so it was that was hard for me being that's when

we were freshly married it was just you'll you'll you'll learn. And you guys, y'all know how to get over there and disconnect totally, just disconnect. So for y'all, y'all don't have to talk to us. Y'all can not talk to us for a year and be good. Yeah. And we game on. We come back home. Right. She's like, hey, what's up? I'm back. Yeah. I forgot about me. I hadn't talked to me any year. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I mean, it's a total, it takes a hardcore woman. It really does. To stay with a man who is.

of this. Yeah, it really does. And I know you said there weren't a lot of wives, but was there, the wives that were there, was there a community? I mean, did you have support? No, no. When he was in RRC, there was, on his team, there was none. Yeah, we had a couple, we had a couple married guys. But when she, so when I got married, or when I started dating her, I was kind of at the tail end of my time on Team 3, moving over to Team 2. so the team three guys really didn't get to really receive her and give her their reception. Yeah. And then I'm going to team two and like everybody was single.

Everybody on the team was single. But me, I think one other guy, I think it was one other guy, Mandy, you know, Mandy Brian and, you know, and those guys. But she had, she had some friends, but it wasn't as robust as it would be in a normal unit. And a platoon, yeah. But, I mean, nobody ever went to that. It was hard to get information because of that too. but when we went to Yuma, Arizona, like, that's the SF community, and I learned a whole lot more things, and the wives were they did receive me there.

It didn't matter that we were Rangers, and they were SF or Air Force. So they were nice to me there. Michael Hendricks wants to know. He'd love to know what you think about the Taliban recapturing territory, specifically the Baglan province. Oh, Boglan? Yeah. Is that what we said? Yeah, yeah.

That place has always been a little bit rough. We've never really had a huge presence there. So, I mean, it's kind of always been kind of like Indian country. And I did a lot of work and stuff in there. But, I mean, bottom line is we pull troops off, they're going to kind of take that space back. I mean, that's just the way it is. And, you know, we can't keep people over there fighting for freaking ever either. Yeah, like, we're just killing dudes and making more bad guys.

their children become terrorist and kill them too. You know, we've got to end that cycle at some point in time, and there's got to be another way to handle it, you know. Jim says the U.S. is transitioning from a counterterrorism focus to a near-peer focus. Has RRC trained a role, or did they have a trained role for a more conventional warfare scenario? I have no clue.

When I was there, we did not. But, yeah, that's not to say they don't. now. Sorry, I don't have a better answer to that question. Andrews asks, what is the funniest story you can share about your military service? Oh, okay. That's a good one. That's a good one. So, I'll tell a couple of them. They both revolve around a cow.

So here we are in Iraq, and we're ex-filling off the targets. We already took care of business. We're rolling out. Helicopters are coming in. and I hear this noise and I look over on one of my team leaders and I talked about him in the last video and he's a good guy but anyway he comes flying by me being drugged by his leg from the tether of a cow

so there was a cow that had been tethered and when the helicopters came in it freaked the cow out he ripped the steak out and the steak was just perfect enough to where when it went by one of my guys' legs it wrapped around and driftished itself and here he goes to his back being drugged by the cow. He's like, oh, my God. He's trying to cut it, probably cuts himself loose. And then fast forward about five years or so from that.

Here I am with some Navy guys. We're in there clearing some rooms, you know, and it's one of my first time working with the Navy guys, you know. So you want to have a good impression. Like we all kind of like, this guy from that, you know, let's see how this guy performs. And if you perform good, they accept you like a brother, you know. So we're on this mission, and we go in there,

I'm trying to look square away, you know, I'm clearing rooms with the SEAL Team 6 guys. And here comes a cow. There's a cow in the middle of courthard yard, that son of a gun is cutting circles. As far as that rope will let him turn, he's going around in circles. But I don't realize this.

I'm kind of coming in, I see the cow going around this way. And then he comes around this way. I got him on my peripheral all over here. And then I see him come back in front of me, and I start feeling something to rubbing against my leg. I'm like, what the heck is this? And I go to take a step,

and I'm like, uh-oh, I'm stripping on. something. Meanwhile, he's already been made the 360. He's got me straight hog tied. You can kill him? No, I didn't. But, uh, so this, he's got me hog tied. It's just wiggle, wiggle, boom, straight to the ground, like the tower, a piece, you know, like a dang tower that's collapsed. And I just reached out and grab my knife, going to and cut the cord. Now the cow's like running wild on the objective. But it's super embarrassing, man. But that kind of stuff happens. I've been the fast rope master on a helicopter Had a team of Rangers one of my guys

You know one of my teams fire teams And a team of Delta Force guys going out this side And I'm like I know as the rope master I'm like ropes rope rope strokes dudes go down I come down there on the rope and as I'm coming down I see a pile of human beings at the bottom There was a huge puddle of water And everybody just slipped and busted their butt in it

And we're like oh man it was freezing cold too And I got so lucky I was last one I landed on my feet and the wind was blowing me and it just blew me sliding on my hills until I got to the dry ground. I'm like, hey, what are you doing rolling around the mud? Let's go. Let's just off this target. Everybody was kind of pissed off because they're all soaking wet and uncomfortable. Here and I have somehow didn't fall in the mud.

I just want to know, like, did you ever get like nervous or have diarrhea feelings? Yeah. That's good. Because, I mean, like, I would stop. Yeah, I mean, I never really did. It's always, it's like a football game. You know, you're ready to rock, but then after a while, you played so many football games. They're like, whatever.

Yeah. Plus, you take your pre-game dump. Say that again? Plus, you take your pre-game dump. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I always think it's funny.

Like, he needs his flip-flops. You know, I've got to send them his oversee packages or whatever, and you hope that they get there on time. But, like, he needs his flip-flops, so he don't get in the nasty showers. I just look back to the guys that's up there. They're really living. hardcore. Sometimes. So Ziddick says I can call him true. Thank you for that. But his question is very,

there's a Zen-like quality to this question, I should warn you. What makes you wake up? What are your new goals in life? How do you make your souls sing? Hey, that's a good question, man. And like, I don't know that I'll actually have a good answer for it, but I'll try. But you know what? Since I've retired and my wife, you know, like always, you know, she's more, I'd say, involved Christianity was than I was. And then, like, since I've retired, I've had more time.

You know, one of the coolest things I've found out, you know, I just never had the time before I've read the Bible while I was overseas, you know, appointments. But, you know, I've been reading it more lately. Dude, that thing is mystical, man. It is a, it's like a little puzzle. There's, like, codes in that thing. Fantastic.

And it's amazing, man. And I've actually been getting a pretty good enlightenment out of reading that thing lately. And, you know, it kind of sets the whole, your heart. whole life up straight. And I wish I had that earlier. But, you know, I give courtesy to my wife for that because she's the one that kind of drove me in that direction. And it's benefited my life for sure. And I'm like, I'm like this, this baby bird that barely has feathers trying to fly, you know, in that realm. But it's, it's been intriguing. I really have gotten some delight in how to read the Bible lately. And, but now I just try to focus on us and the family. That's what I do. I get up every morning

and think about focus on my family, how I'm going to take care of my wife, how I'm going to take care of my kids and make their life the best I possibly can and spend as much time with them as I possibly can now that I was always gone. Was there a point when you retired? Was there a point when you woke up one day and had to like consciously make that shift and said like when you're on the mission and when you're you know you're like this is who I am? And then did you wake up one day and say who am I now? No, not really. I mean, I had an easy transition because I stopped So I stopped going overseas and killing bad guys, right? So I go to Yuma out there in the free fall school.

And it was kind of one of the hard pills swallow. Like, man, I'm not going out. And these guys are still going on. I'm bad guys. What am I doing? I'm being a POG over here. And living with me full time. We're trying to kill each other.

Yeah, we're trying to learn to live together for full time, first time ever because I was always gone before. And so that was challenging. And then I finally had to realize, you know what? I have a lot that I can teach these guys. And maybe I, that's my piece. You know, I'm teaching these guys to be better. And so that's how I just thought not still being in the fight.

And then when I retired, I rolled right into the same thing I was doing, I'm teaching the free fall stuff. So it was pretty easy. You know, I do kind of miss it. But, you know, I'm over that at that point. Yeah, I'm over that at this point. Yeah, it was fun. And I was good at it.

And I miss it. Same thing with the free fall stuff. It was fun. I was good at it. And I do miss it. But I think, I don't know, I think it's one of those things ready to ship ears, you know. You let the young guys have it, right? Yeah.

I'm going to use my brain instead of my body all the time. Yeah. And the crappy thing is my brain's deteriorated worse than it's ever been. So now that I need it, it's like, come on, man. He's like hanging out there, clapping. He's still smart. But our goal right now is to be self-sufficient and to make our farm prosperous. That's awesome.

It's been really hard because he's been gone. So it's my first garden that I've been taken care of. and I hope he's proud of me. I always live to make him proud of me too. Like that's a hard thing. Like the accomplishments he's done, I always try to make him proud at the end of the day, like with the little things in life.

And like, I know when we used to go on bike rides in Columbus, I don't know if y'all ever been to the rails and trails. The River Rock. Yeah, the River Rock. We'd always love riding bikes and stuff. And like, let me just tell you, I've always been athletic and like,

but I've, I've always been like, I'm going to beat him. No, you're never going to beat a Ranger man. Like, it's never going to happen. So, but like, I try to begin everything. And I'm like, God, is there anything I can be good at that he'll be like, yes, you're better than me. And it's like, haven't found that yet? Well, you guys should, like, sit people down in chairs and do their hair.

Oh, yeah. I can actually cut some hair. I can actually cut some hair. He can do our daughter's hair. Like, he brushes it out really smooth. And I just honestly like Yank it a little bit because she's my kid. And I'm like, girl, you better toughen up.

And then like that's another thing. Like you would think that he would be all tough and like, let me tell you. Because of our daughter, he is wrapped around for family. This is baby girl. Like it's so hilarious to see him. And he's going to probably kill me for this.

But he goes upstairs and plays party with her. How awesome is that? Like, yeah. Hey, she's the coolest kid, man. That kid's the rich. one of the richest kids around too. She does her own homework. She doesn't,

we don't even have to tell her to do her homework. She does our own. And she made all these. And so I made a really big bet with her. She made a B last year. So I was like, hey, if you make all these kids, she'll be $100 an $100 an A.

Yeah, she breaks. And I didn't really, I didn't realize she had eight classes. So she just made $800. That's awesome. I thought it was like four or five classes. I was like, man, third grade, they got eight classes already.

Holy crap. Oh, well, I'm committed at this point. So she just got $800. bucks. I want to say like every Ranger kid that I know, like they excel. They're smart. They're brilliant. And our daughter is like a runner.

Like she can run. Oh, yes, yes. So I think she gets that from him. She won every running match and field day this year pretty much. So there's something about Ranger kids, man. Well, yeah, I know we're getting kind of close to then. I know we're probably tight here too.

But I would like to add one thing, man. I think the biggest thing I like to talk about is how like, doing stuff in the military and being in a special operation. It really sets guys up for success. And anybody that's inspired to go out there and do that stuff, by all means, if some guys hit you guys up, whatever, reach out to me, put them in touch to me, man, I'll help those guys out. Because we need young guys to step up and be men these days.

We need them to quit being... Stop wear your skinny jeans, okay? It's not key. You know, we need guys that actually, like real men, you know what I mean, to defend our country? Because if not, the old guys like us, guys and us, we're going to have to re-enlist if the crap is the fan again. I don't want to do that. I'm too old.

The military does want me, I'll guarantee. Mike, we've got a couple questions, but we'll go through this. It's got to be like the mad minute. We'll knock them out. Yeah, it works. Have you heard of SF-18 series guys going to RRC? Not 18 series, because

your 18 series turns into whatever employs you end up being in the SF. But it is open to SF guys, S-F guys, 18 series guys, who have already made it to a team and get whatever M-O-S-that-18 ends up being like 18 Bravo or whatever it is or the, you know, their comms guys or engineers. Those guys can come. They're eligible to come. And I don't know that they've had any. You know, they had a one-guy trial when I was there back in the day and I don't think that worked out that great.

But, you know, there hasn't been anybody that I know of since then. But it's open to those guys. It's also open, I believe, to Naval Special Warfare so they sealed the boat guys. Marsaq, Marine Recon, and then all the other organizations going on the Army as well.

And a guy that talked to that would be a guy named Rob Trumbull. He's a recruiter slash S&T guy there. He's already hitting me up about the last video. He's like, man, my phone's blown off the hook. Now he did the video. So if you guys are interested to contact that. Oh, that's great. That's great. T-bar

says, can my comment on the challenges of smartly employing capabilities like RRC as far as like what mission should you do which should you maybe not do that kind of thing employment I guess you know I mean we can do whatever you just have to have you know the guys that were there when I was there the training that we had we were pretty much capable of almost anything but there were certain things we did a lot certain things we didn't do a lot but ultimately it comes down to then once you have the training is do have the numbers and that's where we were limited at in RRC because we had four to six man teams, typically six-man

team if they're full, but they're almost never full. So you're limited at numbers then. So ultimately, we could do whatever we wanted to, but our limiting factor would be how many guys can we get to do it, you know, pull up whatever mission. Caleb says, what do you think about the decision to pull troops out of Afghanistan?

You know, I don't know all the atmosphere because I don't know the high level stuff on that stuff, but, you know, me personally, we got to come up with some other option. You know, we're sending dudes over there going to the same little thing. S-up dudes are going over there leading N-Ditch and getting smoked. Dudes are still dying to the country over there. It's 20 years later.

Rangers are doing the same thing. We got to shift focus. There's got to be a more efficient way to do that. And if I had all the Dsals, you know, I can probably figure it out. I'm surprised the guys that are up there aren't. But who knows, it could be more complicated than that. I don't know. All I know is that those people over there, they live like it was 2,000 years ago.

And if we left them alone, if the whole entire world ceased to exist, they would still survive. So they're going to continue to survive. And as long as we can give something beneficial, I think we should give something beneficial, legitimately beneficial, not this fake stuff that we've been given as a country. Give them some legitimately beneficial stuff

to help boost that country and give them something to look forward to. Because that country's beautiful. Afghanistan is anyway. Alejandro says to me that I mentioned a $100 donation requirement would get me to sing the ballad. I guess he means the ballot of the Green Berets.

How much would one have to donate or we raise for you to let Mrs. Edwards style your hair, frosted tips maybe? I mean, you don't have to raise anything. I mean, for Mrs. Edwards to style my hair would be a drastic improvement. So, yeah, no, no issues there. Frosted now. This is just prematurely gray, okay? Oh, sorry, I thought it was a.

It's not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a fashion statement. It's not a fashion statement. Well, guys, I think that's pretty much an episode. Mike and Kendall, you guys have been awesome. I just want to remind everyone to like, share, and subscribe to the channel. Check us out on Patreon if you want access to the bonus segments. And let me say, next episode. Who's up next episode?

Let me see you here real quick. Oh, old fifth group buddy. Caleb Phillips is coming back for round two. Mike, final thoughts? or Kendall, final thoughts, anything you want to say? Yeah. Hi, little girl. How are you?

Kids say hey. Hello. Hello. Hi. She's been out swimming in the pool with a cousins. That's awesome. Oh, yeah? Thanks for coming on the show today.

I'm glad that you can come here with your daddy and mommy and make an appearance on the team house. You're welcome. Super cool. I mean. So quick question. Well, your dad plays Barbie. with you. Does, do Barbies, like, do room clearing? Do they do a five-paragraph operative? No, not a lot of the time. Usually, he, like, one time I came home and I had this paper that had,

like, money on it. And he said, well, once you get home from school, we can play Barbies and have money, like, have a store. Yeah, so it took all the fake coins and stuff we had, and I had her practice. Come here, princess. Do you want to say hi to a little girl? Oh, yeah. Oh, look at there. This is my, this is my daughter.

Hello. What is that beautiful girl? She's saying hi to you. Okay, hi. How old are you? Here. Oh, she can't hear me. I'm blonde on my...

How old are you? I'm 10. Awesome. When's your birthday? May 20th. Okay, well, Monty's related. Birthday to you, sweetie. Thank you.

It's so nice for Niche. What's your name? Alice. Oh, that's beautiful. But what's her name? My name's Annalie. Taylor can visit and y'all can play Barbie and she's into it. Okay. Yeah, come visit us and you guys.

I don't know if you're into Barbie, but we can do some four-wheel-or-or-rime. Well, she'll get you to play dragons and dragons. I can give you a few Barbies. I still have them. At our house, I think Barbie has met G.I. Joe. Okay. Swept her off to another country.

I can't hear anything they're saying. No, no, no. It's okay. It's okay. Well, thanks again for having us on, man. And if you guys got any other questions, let us know if not. I appreciate everything, letting me have the wife on. I know she had a different perspective that probably added some value

to the whole thing. If there's any wipes out there that need to talk or anything like that, like we all go through things and to pretend like it's perfect sunshine, no clouds, that's just the ultimate lie. Like, you're going to get some storms. So if anybody needs to talk, I'm here. Thank you so much, both of you really. Kendall, you are awesome.

Thanks so much for coming on the show and lending. It is kind of a family journey, without a doubt, this whole career, this whole line of that we're talking about. And like this is, we've never had the wife and the little girl with dad here on the show before. So I'm really glad we were able to do this. We really appreciate it.

Thank you guys. And thank you guys for your service too. Thank you. Yeah, but this video is going to blow up now because it's got them two on it. So this thing's probably going to be like an all-time record, huh? Yeah.

So, yeah, I just, I think, Kendall, you've really illustrated kind of, I mean, you know, people talk about like our service, our service, but really what we do is kind of selfish. It's what we want to do. It's what we love doing. Yeah.

And at the end of the day, the spouses are the ones who are left to hold it all together and keep it all together. And I think that too often, you know, spouses are ignored in terms of people understanding exactly what it is they go through. we're out living the dream basic. Yeah. Yeah, I feel that way too, but I don't know. There's just, like I said, Christ has helped me,

and he's kept me strong through this. If it wasn't for him, I don't, I mean, like, I don't know where I would be, but he's kept me really strong to keep on going and persevering through hardships, you know, and I'm glad, I'm happy and proud of my husband. Either you all going to be a rendezvous this year?

No, no, I won't be down there. probably won't. When is it? I think it already happened. No, it seemed like June or July. I can't remember. I think you're right. I have no best Ranger have. Ranger Rondebo. I haven't been.

I've only been to one Ranger rendezvous in my entire military career that I can recall. Yeah. So I'm trying to get to this one, hopefully. Yeah, I've only been to the one that I was in battalion De Niro showed up. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, I've only been to one. So I hadn't thought about it, but maybe I will.

Maybe I'll think about it. If you do, let me know. I will. I will for sure. And you are always welcome at our place. Please come check it out if you need to get away, okay? Thank you so much. We will.

All right, so I think that's an episode. Thank you so much, everybody. Take care of all three of you. Thank you so much.