The Team House - Retired SMU Operator | Pat Mac | Ep. 184

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

Patrick McNamara spent 22 years in the United States Army in a myriad of special operations units. When he worked in the premier special missions unit, he became an impeccable marksman, shooting with accurate, lethal results and tactical effectiveness. ​ While serving as his Unit's Marksmanship NCO, he developed his own marksmanship club with NRA, CMP, and USPSA affiliations. Mac ran monthly IPSC matches and ran semi annual military marksmanship championships to encourage marksmanship fundamentals and competitiveness throughout the Army. ​ He retired from the Army's premier hostage rescue unit as a Sergeant Major and is the author of T.A.P.S. (Tactical Application of Practical Shooting) and Sentinel.  Everything Pat Mac here: ⬇️ https://linktr.ee/tmacsinc?fbclid=PAAabWZ7z5lo5ydLXbE5PgpjJfoZtdtBPhxvVxFzbot-jObNuTXKMMEtlFvnc Today's Sponsor: BUB's Naturals ⬇️ https://www.BUBSNATURALS.com/ Use the code "TEAMHOUSE" for 20% off your order! Pick up their collagen protein, MCT oil, and apple cider vinegar gummies today! BUBS Donates 10% of all profits to charity in Glens honor, starting with the Glen Doherty Memorial Foundation GO TO: https://www.BUBSNATURALS.com/?discount=TEAMHOUSE  or Use the code "TEAMHOUSE" at checkout for 20% off your order! FEEL GREAT. DO GOOD. Words that we live by. Thank you for supporting the companies that support the show! To help support the show and for all bonus content including: -AD FREE AUDIO -AD FREE VIDEO -Access to ALL bonus segments with our guests Subscribe to our Patreon! ⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Team House merch: ⬇️ https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Social Media: ⬇️ The Team House Instagram: https://instagram.com/the.team.house?utm_medium=copy_link The Team House Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheTeamHousePod Jack’s Instagram: https://instagram.com/jackmcmurph?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/RemixSample Want to sponsor the show? Email: ⬇️ [e-mail] #jsoc #smu #patmcnamaraBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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why don't you just send us an email and we'll talk about it. Got a first sec, quick intro, and then we're right into it. Special Operations. Covert Ops. Espionage. The Team House. with your hopes, Jack Murphy and David Park. Hey, guys, I'm Jack Murphy here with David Park.

This is the Team House. This is episode 180-something. Four. Eighty-four. Good call. We're here with our guest tonight, Patrick McNamara. Pat served in special forces and in an Army Special Mission Unit. And today, he does some coaching through the Pat Mac, Keep the Blaze Alive program.

We'll talk about that in a little bit. Pat, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us on a Tuesday evening, man. Thanks for having me, guys. Appreciate you allowing me to grace your company and your podcast. Absolutely, man. So, hey, we're going to jump right into it, man. I'm going to ask you, what's your origin story? If you're a superhero comic book guy, you know, were you bit by a radioactive spider? Was there some cosmic rays that you got hit with? I mean, what was, what was your your origin story like growing up and the sort of pathway that took you towards military service. Yeah, that's a funny. That's, that's, I like that. I like the way you, um, you, you, you approach that. It's cool. Um, uh, I think it was kind of a slow transition because I was

an oddball kid. I was a, I, I'm going to say a gentle kid. You know, I did all, a lot of oddball hobbies. I, I'm an art. I still am, artist. Uh, uh, I'm an avid bird. Um, uh, I'm an avid bird watcher and so was i back then which you know didn't gain me a lot of popularity among the tough kid crowd the bird watchers didn't have groupies that would show up you didn't get mad girls bird watcher uh yeah yeah yeah it's funny how that works apparently chicks don't really dig bird watch it's funny how that works but um yeah i mean just a lot of oddball stuff um I had a metamorphosis, which, you know, so I guess my, my superpower, what'd you call it? What'd you?

Superhero origin story. Origins. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was a, what was a metamorphosis of sorts. Having, you know, just being a real gentle kid getting my ass kicked by everybody, bullied by everybody. And one of them was the older brother. my older brother bullied the shit out of me and pretty much tormented me and I was I didn't even like being in the under the same roof as him and my parents were they were sort of wise to it but they didn't know the extent because I wasn't going to rat him out um plus there was threats to me that you know if I ratted him out snitches get stitches yeah yeah yeah yeah um but um he went to to prison when I was four,

the first time you went to prison. I was about 14 years old and that's when I had like a second chance. That was my first second lease on life. First one. I'll talk about my second one later. But I had a second lease on life and

I joined a wrestling team at my high school. I sucked bad. I got beat by everybody. I started lifting weights and you know when you're 14, 15, 16, you're growing. I had a couple really cool mentors that would also teach me to fight and encourage me because they were the ones who said, dude, you got a year and a half, just under two years before your brother gets out, a prison. What are you going to do? What's your recourse?

How are you going to face that freaking monster? Because they all knew. Everybody knew. My parents were in denial. So they helped me out a lot. Then I got good at wrestling, and I started getting good grades. and I loved the, you know, the camaraderie, the team, the team conradery, and the physical turmoil, you know, and the personal gain, you know, the feeling of winning. I loved it.

I loved that. So I think that was one of my driving forces is when I graduated high school, I wanted to feel that feeling again. Oh, by the way, when my brother get back from prison, I kicked his ass. Nice. In front of my parents. Nice. Yep. And did that set up a new relationship between you two just out of curiosity?

Like, did it set a boundary? Did you guys have a kumbaya moment after that? No, hell no. I hated his guts till the day he died. Yep. Overdose. That's definitely probably the best superhero origin we've heard on the show so far about, like, hitting the gym, warning to wrestle and kicking your tormentor's ass.

That's pretty good. I mean, yeah, yep, yep. Yeah. But it really, I mean, I do owe him, right? So I do have to credit him to some degree for being just a total douchebag. But, yep, nah, we'd never bury the hatchet. Nope. And that wasn't going to happen.

He never changed, never changed. He was one of those, you know, leeches on society never worked, just got handed free shit. Yeah. Would it take responsibility? Yeah, yeah, yeah, in and out of the prison system forever. thought he was a tough guy cover with jailhouse tats just a real work of you know just a real piece just a real mixed bag of loose spare parts but um yeah so i knew i needed that again you know that that that uh that camaraderie that team cohesion that uh physical turmoil um winning uh winning and and losing too

right you know all that stuff uh uh And my dad was into it that I wanted to join the military. He was into it big time. So he helped me. I did go to the recruiter, the recruiters, because I went to all of them. I did go on my own without him knowing when I was 17. And the Army at the time had the best answer because there was like immediate action. I could go into become an airborne ranger or the SF baby program was a thing at that time.

here in 1983. And I came back and told my dad, and he said, did you sign anything? I said, not yet. I want to talk to you. He says, we're going down with the lawyer. Wow. Well, I mean, he knows, he knows, you know, that recruiters can do some slimy shit.

Yeah, no, it's great. Yeah. And so he adjusted the paperwork. The recruiter did. He adjusted it. He made some kind of, he erased something and penciled something. and I signed up for basically the brand new 18 X-ray program, which meant I had to go to infantry basic training.

So, 13 weeks, what, 12, 13 weeks there, and then to airborne school, and then to the SF course, if I made all that stuff. And then I get jacked up in airborne school. I was distinguished honor graduate in basic training. I go to airborne school, and my second jump, I'm a freaking toe jumper. Oh my God. All the way across Friar drop zone. I'm the second one out, the last one to land.

Thankfully, it came loose. Yeah, all the way across. What's that a minute and a half drop zone? Oh, my God. Pat, for those, for people who don't know what a towed jumper is, can you please tell them and describe your experience as a toad jumper? Oh, the experience is a soft, bro, man. Well, so when you first learn how to jump, you're jumping static line.

So a static line hooks to it. board cable and or to a to a cable that runs the length of the aircraft. And once you jump out and reach the end of the static line, it deploys your shoot for you. Well, in this particular case, that static line got wrapped under my reserve and around my arm. So I was just outside the door, thankfully, I guess, I think thankfully C130 versus C141. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. But it was bad immediately because this was also tearing my body apart. Right.

Because I felt it. I felt it around my body. And I was hitting the plane. Boom, boom, boom, boom. And I visibly saw people going over me right over the top of me. And I was just spinning in circles. And all I could vaguely remember, you know, the Jumpmaster briefing about, you know, putting a hand on a helmet and one on the reserve vaguely remember that but there was no freaking

way that was happened i was i was in an altered state of mind that was irreparable at that point thankfully it came loose i hit a few times and it came loose now under canopy that's when i realized i am jacked up i am jacked up i am jacked up i'm jacked up there was nothing but moans and groans coming from my body, just moans and groans. I was just a limp sack of shit underneath a T-10 parachute. Just a limp, limp sack of shit.

I hit the deck. I land on my same injured side. And at the time, I didn't know, but I had a lot of injuries, including broken ribs and concussion, dislocated shoulder. And I fall on that side. So there was no PLF,

you know, parachute landing fall. Right. I had two points of contact. Feet and my injured side. And then to add insult to injury, a gust of wind comes. Wooosh. And now I'm getting drug across fire drop zone, and I'm all bashed up. And then I can hear one of the black cats, one of the instructors yelling at me saying,

get up, leg. You over there getting drug. Release one of your cable loop type canopy release assemblies now, leg. And I'm like, mother fucker. except without that level of enthusiasm. But I did hear him and I knew he was yelling at me. And I popped a cable, boom, the shoot collapsed. And then I'm laying there and I'm going,

what in the, what in the fuck just happened? This jumping thing sucks. But I did pack up my parachute in a kit back, went back to the assembly area. Now, I still had no idea how bad I was. When I got there, I saw the black hats.

They were looking. They were looking for people. Because apparently I didn't know this. They saw that somebody was towed. Right. So now they're all looking. They're like, where is this dude? Well, I saw a buddy of mine and he goes, dude, are you okay?

You look. Because I know I was ashen. I was shocking. I was shocking still. And I had blood, you know, coming down on this side of my brain bucket. And I said, bro, I am hurt. Something's really bad with my arm. And he goes, holy cow.

On my beat, he was I had rope burns. And he's going, what the hell? and he says take it off i says i can't i can't move this arm i cannot there's no signal from here to there there's none um so he helped me unbuckled my um um buttoned my blouse and pulled it down and then when i saw that bicep and i saw that it had been pulled down yeah my forearm oh yeah and like the skin was almost translucent that's when i immediately heaved right just heaped because now i know why bad why i was hurting so bad and then the ribs everything But then the black hat saw that came over.

Hey, you the guy? Yes. And they were, dude, like velvet gloves, you know, velvet gloves. They were like, bro, sit down over here. The, uh, um, the he just left with a guy who broke his leg. We got to bus you to Martin Army Hospital. Oh. So I had to bus there and it was a bumpy ride.

Right. Jiggling me all over the place. Broken ribs and jacked up bicep. And then there's more. Then there's more. The hospital's 1983. The hospital's filled with grenade vets. Who had real injuries from, you know,

airfield seizures and shit. Anyway, that was how I started. So did you, so, I mean, I know that having the bicep attached is a common injury with, with that when you get towed. Did they, do they have to do a surgery to reattach it then? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, you could see that scar there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this bicep is still a lot smaller than my other one. But yeah. Yeah, they had to dig it out of my form and put it back together. And the way he explained it to me, says, this is the size of your bicep right now.

This is what we could salvage. Wow. The surgeon's name was Perlick. I remember his name, Perlick. Red-headed dude. So that's cool that. I mean, at least they didn't chapter you out of the military. No.

or medboard you out of the military. Nope, nope, nope, nope. I was in the hospital for a minute. Yeah. You know, I was there. And then I had to work at the airport. Dude, it just sucked. You had to work at the, like, yeah, I had to work there.

I was on profile. I had to work at like 45th company airborne, whatever the hell it's called training thingy. And, yeah, I had to work there for a few months. Let me see, September, October, November, December. So through Christmas break, January, I think I jumped again in February. So you had to continue the course? They didn't just like- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I had to continue. Now, I already bent through all the other stuff. Right. So they just put me right on a plane. Right. They gave me a ground refresh. Oh, that's good. And, dude, they were cool as hell.

The instructors put me first in the door. And I remember this one jump master, you know, telling me, stand in the door. I handed him my static line, and he grabbed it from me. And he looked me right in the face. you know it's like i got this thing yeah this is not going to jack you up they were cool as hell they were cool as hell they were cool as hell so i did uh two first in the door because i had to get three more there so two first in the doors and then one in the middle of the stick yeah and then from there did you go from there right to the s f course which was i mean i'm not in peak shape now

when i'm doing the army i was in peak shape right you know i was a state champion right wrestler and weightlifter and I was badass. But now I'm out of shape. And I got to start the SF course. I started on my birthday in 1984. Yep, on my 19th birthday. And it wasn't like today where they have like SFAS. They had pre-phase, which was nothing more than just an absolute smoke fest for a couple

weeks and just trim the fat. Let's see you could put up with this shit. You know, they were just making it up as they went. For the rest of that, the rest of the SF course was similar to what is today. But that was filled with several different road bumps too. I mean, one after the other, even out of Camacall, I couldn't get hot shot. I think like twice or three times a week they would bring in hot A's, you know, and instead of C rations, because MREs weren't out just yet.

They were almost there. And in order to get hot A's, you had to do 10 pull-ups with your kid on and climb the rope. and I'd had no biceps still. I was still building this thing back. But, you know, I was young and it didn't take long before I was able to knock them out again. Which sucked because, you know, before that, I was one of these, like, I was a pull-up. I had to pull-up record in basic training. Right.

Now I couldn't do any to feed myself. But, you know, little, there was just tons of speed bumps like that. The S-F course sucked. I failed out of first phase. and it was for bullshit reason, bullshit reason. I think it was the cadre at the time, they weren't too keen of us 18 x-rays,

you know, as I said babies. Right. And, man, and back then they still had the survival program, you know, six days out in your worry,

and you're issued one ration, a live chicken or a live rabbit. For those six days, and then you got like 21 tasks to complete in this amount of time. But I did good on survival. I did good. And one of the instructors was, he was just jealous.

They would come out every night and check on you. And he wrote me up for some bullshit. And, you know, I already had a couple red tick marks. And that was that, that put me over the edge. So I had to do first phase all over again, the whole thing. So they were really gatekeeping with the beginning of that 18 X-ray program. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yep, absolutely. But I made it through. And then I went to a first group. And then I learned pretty quick that I'm not, I'm not so special afterwards. Because what the hell does a, you know, 19-year-old private first class? No. Not, you know, freaking asset to an 18. But I did get assigned to an 18.

And, you know, these guys were all either 82nd Airborne or First or Second Ranger Battalion. You know, they were badass infantrymen. You know, they all had all this infantrymen. experience. I had nothing zero goose egg. But it went well. I was fast-tracking. I had, by the time I was, I think I was a Bucksart. No, maybe Stas. But at the time I was 22 years old, I had two SF MOSs, 18 Bravo, 18 Echo, and I was a whiskey night. So combat dive and HALO. Right. By the time I was 22. So I was fast-tracking, fast-tracking, you know. I was high-speed, low drag at a early age.

And first group was fun, you know, but it was all fit stuff. It's peacetime army, you know, you're not going to do anything, really. There's a lot of a lot of Thailand, Philippines, Korea at that time. Thailand, Philippines, yep, bingo, yep, yep, yep. And I love those trips. It was great, you know. I immersed myself in the culture. But out of the blue, man, a bunch of us got pulled to this recruiting meeting.

you know like hey you meet the requirements go see this recruiting building number you know hotel 104 whatever that something like that uh and i went there and here's some dude in civilian clothes and long hair he's in a suit and he was so freaking vague i mean the the amount of ambiguity was ridiculous i i equate it to um will smith and men in black when he's in that room with the Right. With the half dome chairs. Yeah. And he's asking Rip Torn now, what are we doing here again?

He goes, because you're the best of the best of the best. You're not on some intergalactic cagger here. But, you know, so it was like, it was like, what? What is this? It was very vague. I don't even think he said, I think he said work in the European theater. You know, that kind of stuff. Mm-hmm.

And you're going to, you know, learn a language. It, you got to grow your hair out. You're going to have a civilian. clothing allowance and this kind of crap. And I'm like, well, damn, that sounds a hell of a lot better than foreign internal defense. I mean, that sounds like, you know, it's interesting. I said, hell yeah. Because that's a thing, you know, with the military, right?

It's all about leveling up, getting, right, doing the next thing. Right. Opportunity presents itself to say, yep, I want that. I want that course. I want that course. I want that school. Yep, I want to level up, level up, level up. I want to go to that battalion or that unit, you know, especially if you're spending a career at it. You want to level up.

Right. I mean, that's the objective. And that should be, that's a good metaphor for life, too. We should want to always continue to level up. It doesn't end, you know, that cycle. So, yeah, they sent me to DLI, you know, Defense Language Institute, Monterey, California, which is an eye opener. and then learn German you think you do

you know and you test out well you know yeah 3 3 in freaking German and then you get there in the ground you realize you don't know shit once again here we go again you don't know shit because you know actually speaking to people is a whole lot different than being in the

classroom environment and just checking talking to the teacher nice comfort zone but yeah I immersed myself in that too. I mean, I would, I would talk to small like merchants and I joined a oh, back to that, back to the

job. So that was PSSE. And, um, which was, it was cool in that. It was, it was, it was, it was cloak and dagger shit, right? So it's, it's peacetime army, but we're in the heat of Cold War. Right. So I had no idea that these things existed. Most people didn't, man. Most people didn't.

Um, but, but they do. And, and they still do. Shit like this still exists. Uh, so we were kind of, um, you know, we, we were the backup plan in case the balloon went up and Soviets invaded. So now we'd have a stay behind force in Berlin because that was kind of the epicenter for everything spy, right? It was right in the middle of all the shit.

Right. Plus Berlin sat in the middle of Soviet East Germany, too, you know. So, and it was cool. It was cloak and dagger shit. You're doing a lot. You're walking the streets. You're pounding the pavement a lot. You know, and you're working, you're working routes in case you have to pick up that double agent.

You're working routes. You're monitoring signal sites. You're loading dead drop sites. It was all that street craft, trade craft stuff. I think they changed the name tradecraft to streetcraft. But anyway. Pat, I just want to point out. viewers out there. PSSE was the unit that proceeded or came after Special Forces Detachment

A in Berlin. They had to, they had to kind of change the cover because it got exposed after Desert 1. And PSSE, correct me from wrong, physical sensitive security element was the name? Yeah, yeah, yeah, there you go. Yeah, okay. Pat, was there, was there a reason? I mean, when you think of that, when you think of that unit, often you think of 10th group, but they were pulling people from everywhere, I, it sounds like. There was no, So I think that was another change, right? There was no affiliation with 10 group with PSSC. Okay.

As there was with Dead A. Right. No affiliation. Yep. But it was, it was, it was, it was fun. It was a fun job. You know, it really wasn't that, um, I wasn't as deep into the Cold War as I thought I was until my next job there. Um, but, uh, it was great, man.

You, you really learned, you know, the streets, the subway systems, the espons, the merchants, the businesses, the bars, the alleys, you know, everything, the shit hole hotels. You knew it inside and out. You really got to know that place well. And it was just like one exercise after the other, you know, with picking up agents and, you know, fall off uh,

fought agents. Um, but out of the blue, um, my sergeant major at that unit, uh, he policed me up one day and says, hey man, there's a,

um, there's a guy here I want you to talk to. Because the writing was on the wall that PSSC was going to close. The writing was on the wall, right? So, um, that it,

that was, that it was going to be short lived. He says, there's a guy here. I want you to meet. So I went down. And now here's his master sarton. He's in BDU's.

I got a freaking mullet in a stupid Fumanchu mustache and big fat, stupid German brown boots and a pleather jacket. And he said, hey, I work in another unit here. I'm like, come on. How many others are? Leveling up. And this one sounded way cool. This was USMLMOM.

United States military liaison mission. And he said, basically what we do is we spy on the Soviet army in Soviet East Germany. And I was like, you got to be shit, bro. Yes, where do I sign? And so I went through the interview process, and it was all in German, the interview process. And the first thing he asked me in German was, can you explain to me in detail how a 35 millimeter camera, I almost said function here, operates. And I was like, yeah, because I, yeah, I could do that.

But that job was cool as hell. So we had this, it was kind of like overt, you know, spy. You were in uniform, right, when you had to do this in uniforms. Yes, in a military vehicle. No weapons, no, no signal, no comms, man. It was so stupid. I had it. I argued with him about that, about the no-coms thing, you know, after I'd been there a while.

But, yeah, we had a soft cover for action, cover for status. And that was we were a liaison unit to the Soviet Army. And we actually did some of that. But that would get us into Soviet Germany. And we were issued maps by the Soviet Army. And these maps had big yellow, black. on them. And these blobs were called PRAs, permanently restricted area. That's where all the good shit is, though. You know, that's where all KGB comms and nuke SS-24s and, you know,

S-S-uh, uh, uh, what's, I'm trying to think of the other nuke ones, so not frogs. But, you know, the nuke's were SS-24s and maybe SS-21s. Should I forget, it's been a minute, but I used to know every piece of Soviet kit, every single one, because they sent you to a school in Kent in the UK, a British military intelligence school. And you'd learn, oh my God, man, you dream about Soviet kit in that school. You dream about it. And they have so much of it. I knew everything from Flatfish radar to Zill 131, to every variant of BTR, to every variant of BMP, to every variant of T80, you know, to the aircraft, you know, for every mig, every, every, helo, halo,

hip, you know, just all of the helicopters. And we were issued passes, and that would get us over the Gleinekebroker into Potsdam, East Germany. And we were basically given, like, you know, some, the missions came from higher up, you know, satellite imagery, that kind of thing. At the time, too, East Germany was, blend it to three quarters and we rotated through the quarters because the Brits were doing it and the French were doing it too.

And we try to collaborate, you know, change exchange information and stuff like that. But a lot of times, uh, interagency shit, just like anywhere else, you know, it's like knowledge is power. Yeah, I want to give it up. Yeah. Which is freaking bullshit, bro. We're freaking fighting commies, you know, give me some info here. Um, but that was like very, very, very exciting and fulfilling job.

Extremely. Pat, I, I don't know if, I don't know. I don't know if you can speak to this. And if not, you know, that's fine. I totally understand. But you have your cover for status, your cover for action as these military liaisons. You have these sites that are awfully, you know, obviously off limits. You're also under observation, I assume, all the time.

How do you manage to, to, like, do your job, recon, you know? Yep. Well, fortunately, see, we also went to military driving schools. hosted by the Bundesnachrischdienst. I think I got there, right? I haven't said that word in like 20 years. But most of our driving

was on like 10 trails and such. We were navving. We were navving. This was before GPS. Uh-huh. We were naving on one over 24,000 topographical maps. That's how we're naven. And trip meet around the dashboard.

You know, so you're nabbing. and down tank trails and shit like this. And they went forever, forever. Then you hit a hard ball. When you hit a hard ball, I remember this too. Anytime you hit a hard ball off a dirt road,

you go the opposite direction for a few hundred meters and then turn around. Because our tire tracks were very distinguishable and the Stasi was out there looking for us. You know, the East German secret police. But they didn't have people actively looking to. for us. Okay. But the Soviets knew what we were doing. So, and we would, we would actively go to training sites.

And a lot of times, we would try to, uh, elicit information from lower level dudes, you know, that weren't hardline counties. I mean, you, you tempt a freaking private with a penthouse magazine and some Marlboro cigarettes. You're getting some information. Right. And then you sit down with them and you, you, and you

share lunch. I remember sharing lunch with these two privates one day. They were caretakers for a training, training training training site training ground training area and they were living in a foxhole when we said and we travel in pairs and one of us speaks fluent Russian and I'm the German speaker

and the guy was asking how long you've been out here he goes oh this is our third week living in this foxhole just guard in the training area and they would get like rations delivered and I called it brown cabbage and cardboard flavored bread it was so comie

it was so typical calmly you know so we made a fire and I'm busting out like you know crackling oat brand and dany more beef stew these guys nearly shit themselves

evil temptations of the West oh dude I come from the big 7-11 in the sky bro that's where I come from that's right you know that conscript army shit man You know, we're so freaking spoiled.

We're so spoiled. We're so spoiled. We have no idea. You know, we have such first world problems. I've seen soves get freaking hammered. Hammered on antifreeze. Hammered. Brutal.

Yeah. I've seen, I went into a barracks once. All the troops were out to the field, SA 11, SA 11 compound. And we, we've watched them leave on buses and a lot of them were in formation. We snuck up. We observed for a minute. We made a little racket, too, to see if anybody was in there, you know? And nobody.

So we went in to this barracks, and there was bulletin boards, and we were snapping this shit, you know, chikin, chicken, chicken, taking pictures and everything. And the smell in there was putric in these barracks. And ammonia was killing my eyes and my nose and my sinuses. It was like, what the, what is this? What is this? And there was a stairwell that went downstairs to a basement.

And there was some windows, you know, uh we we walked down the stairs and realized the plumbing of this barracks shit the bed oh man i'm i can't believe i use that term with this story so they just they just drained all of the shit and piss right into the basement right into the basement oh my god yeah uh you know that so it's funny the shit we pissed and moaned about but um that was yeah it was it was a it was a cool cool uh time in in history for me pat One second. I'm sorry to interrupt. I just got to give a quick shout out to our sponsor for the show. Oh, right on. Good, good, good, good.

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Great, you know, great for your morning coffee. So bubsnaturels.com. Use the code team house to get 20% off. Bubbs naturals.com and the promo code is team house to get 20% off your order. All right, Pat, back to you. Pat, at the time, like, you know, you're a young Joe and, like, enjoying the high-speed life. Do you realize how much a part of history you are at that point in time? man no hell no does anybody when they're when they're when they're there i mean when the when the

when the berlin wall came down i was right there and during reunification i had no idea the gravity of that no idea can you tell us a little bit about that like you look like man dude listening to like front 242 and ein strunzende new botan out there the like industrial music as the wall comes down where your leather jacket and the mustache and the glasses it's badass what was i mean what was that like being there when when this historic event happened it was it was You know, it kind of snuck up on us, right? It was like all of a sudden one day. Right. Right.

This reunification is going to happen. Well, what's first step? First step is wall comes down. Right. You know, because Wall came down to 89. Reunification didn't happen until 91. Yeah. So I can't even imagine the logistics there what went on, you know, in between there.

Right. But it was both. I was partying at both. Now, Wall coming down. Not much of a lot. a party. Take the truth. Really?

Not like reunification, bro. 91. Reunification is when everybody started, you know, when the gates open. Yeah. Families are getting together that haven't seen each other. Yeah. I don't think anybody realized that they partied all the way through the night until the sun came up.

Because nobody was, we weren't in, nobody's in bars and stuff. People were just bringing booze from every corner and crevice and glove box and trunk. You know, so right there, uh, under the um uh uh the uh the uh not the godignis kiosha but the uh uh shit brandy bertore fuck right by the brand of bertore you know so that's where the big party was and just thousands and thousands of people and fires and fireworks and bands just setting up and i think david hasselhoff was there too i think he was responsible for it probably probably And with PSSC, I mean, were you there looking to like scoop up some documents or maybe find defectors?

I mean, what were you guys looking at? No, not at that point. At that point, like reunification, I was looking for another job. Because wall comes down and we're reunified. Well, huh. And that was the end of it, you know? Right. Now I have to, I have to find a J.O.B.

Yeah. That's what I went to selection for the unit. Okay. Gotcha. Yep. because once again level up what's what do i do now after this shit because this was cool as hell right what is there there was only one thing only one thing right and to me there was so much mystique there i knew i knew guys there i had some buds that went i knew nothing about the unit or nothing at all

um went to selection and i failed i was like well damn bro this sucks had to go go back to Germany, and then I volunteered to go to SWIC, you know, Special Warfare Center to be an instructor because I want, because they gave me a second chance. The unit said you could come back to selection. I had broken ankle. They said, make it a full year. Make sure you're ready that you're strong.

And I was like, hell, yeah, bro. Not only that, but it was a risk and a half volunteering for SWIC because it was a four-year commitment. And nobody wants to be in SWIFT. That's a dead. That's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, that's a, nail in a coffin. you know, that's a, that's a bad place to be. I mean, there are good places in SWIC, but I was on like the commo committee. Terminating traffic.

Yeah. And then when again, a year later, and I did well, I was like, oh, hell, yeah, man. And then planted, planted my ass there for 13 years. And then it was, you know, continuously trying to level up once. again level up level up level up and it not only in like team positioning or unit even against individuals because i i had a bit of an ego right about me because i was a i was a top performer most places where that i went top performer i get to the unit and i realized i'm mediocre i'm mediocre now maybe at the like top tier mediocre right but still mediocre i like how

And I continue to be that way for years. Just mediocre. Because it was, there's, it was amazing. It was the best, best place you could ever work at ever. But it comes with a price. You know, long work hours. A lot of, a lot of stress, a lot of risk, a lot of injury. And the stress was because you're always on the bum.

They reserved the right to fire your stinking ass any given second. And it was easy to get fired from there. So you were always on the bubble, always short string. No, I say short string. They gave you a lot of slack. You know, they put, tons of slack. But at the end of that slack, it's an abrupt halt. When you say, when you say it was easy to get fired there, like what were some of the reasons that you saw guys fired that they might not get fired in other units? Pons of them. I, I'll tell you, wake-up call for me was my first squadron training exercise right first squadron hit i don't know if i shared this with with many people this one here uh first squadron hit i see a fly standby oh yeah baby

um so squadron hit multiple breach points um we all i'm on that i'm on like the best team in the unit these guys were just top dogs in everything physical shooting tactics all that shit um multiple breach points simultaneous boom teams enter multiple breach points i go into the first room and i go click instead of bang i didn't think i mean my immediate action was fast right because i knew it happened so slap rack you know instead of transitioning i just slap rack slap rack and got to work and i was like i hope nobody saw that i troop sarmacier see i mean dudes dudes There's an omnipotent. You know, when you get to that level, they're omnipotent.

They're going to see every freaking thing. And my troops are major saw, and he docked me my proficiency pay for the month. Oh, shit. Wow. So he hit me right in the pocketbook. And that was a big race. Right. It was like $200 or something like that.

I forget. It was substantial. Right. You know, on a G.I's paycheck. But that fast. And he also said, he goes, hey, you're on a shorter string. You're on a shorter string now. Right.

Something like this happens again, we're going to have to let you go. So it wasn't because I was like being negligent or doing something idiotic or moral and ethical, but they're going to fire you. There's a difference, right? So when dudes do that shit or like NDs, they happen. They happen. Right. Especially when you're when you're training that much. Depending on the circumstance, a lot of times they'll fire you for a year and bring you back as a relook.

and allow you to come back again. But anything moral or ethical dilemma, anything like that, you're gone, easy. You're done. So compared to other units? Yeah. Jesus, dude, I mean, that's easy. You're out of here, fire.

Anything, any kind of moral, ethical, you know, so lying, DUI, cheating, you know, any of that stuff, you are freaking absolutely gone. Also, if you wane, or if you're falling behind, in performance. Now, if you're a good dude and you're falling behind a performance, they might find a job for you in a different part of the building. You're not going to be a door kicker.

You're not going to be an operator. But yep, very easy to get fired. And I love that. I love the accountability portion, you know. I loved it. I loved it. I mean, it was heartbreaking sometimes having buds, like, because I knew guys who would, I knew three people,

similar story. This one, though, was kind of. of extreme. Guy was in on the weekend, because dude's winning all the time and trained. Went out to train, came back, went into his vault. Nobody's there. It's like, I don't know, seven or eight in the morning.

I think he was doing night fire, you know, and Sunday comes back, he's putting his guns away, and he's freaking, he sends one right into the floor. Boom. A, Andy. You know, he could have put some freaking putty on that thing. He turned himself in. You know, nobody was there.

I know three dudes who have turned themselves in for NDs. Three of them, three guys turned themselves in. Nobody was there. They turned, one guy was a siminitions round. He turned himself in. Wow. Wow. Yeah.

Yep. But, uh, I mean, it's, it, it was nice working in that type of environment. Very nice. It was so cool. So freaking cool. Pat, what, uh, what, what, we're just sorry. Um, what, what year did you get to the unit and to the. the extent that you can talk about, like, what was, what was sort of the, um, atmosphere in the

unit at that time as far as like what was happening in the world? You mentioned the wall had been down by now. Like, what was the mission set that you were kind of training for and looking at? So I got there 92. And immediately, so a year later, I'm on this hot shit team in May of 93. I get ones on my pager because we're going to get ID'd. You know, we're going to get IDed and Somalia. We're going to snatch him up or kill him. I think it was didn't matter. Yeah. I don't think he needed to be captured. Is that the capture kill? Right, right, right. I mean, oh, you give me an option there? Right. Right. Capturing somebody's hard, man. Yeah. But capture kill briefs fine, even if you, you know, well, he got he killed, he resisted, but it was a capture kill up. Yeah.

So we trained our asses off, man. We went, you know, strictly priority for all unit assets, three weeks. And then it got passed to another squadron. And then it got passed to another one. And, you know, we were just passing down, hey, this is some of the stuff we learned and doing this and that. And we just pass on the info. And so C squadron went.

So after that, a big focus, this was kind of cool. Wait, let me think about this. Let me think about this. Nope, I'm not going to talk directly about that. I will say the next boogeyman that we were going after was Gaddafi. Yeah, so he was on the radar. So cool stories associated with that, but no, not super comfortable talking about the deets on that one.

So Gaddafi and then there was we were doing some and I'll be kind of vague on this one. We were doing some undercover stuff, which put us into parts of the world that we didn't have complete autonomy, right? But, but the next thing that emerged was, you know, Bosnia and this new thing called Pipwicks, right? Right. Right. Right. So that the, that war had finished 95, 96-ish, you know, I think 96 that was it. That was it.

Done, done, done. Not even sniper fire. You know, I was on Hillary Clinton's detail in 1996. Yeah, when she was under sniper fire. So you can confirm snipers. Dude, it was Tuzla. Eagle-based Tuzla. It's like one of the safest places in the world.

Ah, shit. And on that trip, too, Cheryl Crow hit on me. Really? Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. that's back when she was hot too yeah when all she wanted to do was have some fun boom yep yeah yeah yeah what was that like a u s o tour like some yeah yeah yeah yeah they came over with like i think it was sinbad sherro and then hillary came over with chelsea um but yeah there was i've met a bunch of

uh like goofy uber-lib politicians um in the mid 90s over there I'm like Geraldine Ferraro. Oh, Madeline Albright. She was kind of cool, even though she was a Uber-lib, but she was kind of cool still. But anyway,

so the, so later 90s, you know, the Piffwicks come to play. Person's indicted for war crimes. These guys are badass, man. You know, so now we're back to,

oh, we have to actually scarf these guys up and they got to go to the Hague. You know, we can't just send out a drone or put a sniper in a in up in up in up there uh um you know a hide site this shit's got to be surgical as hell uh and i got a few of those guys um yeah i got the first one his name is christic uh general christic and then a couple other big names uh but real freaking neat

shit i wish i could talk explicit about that but eh yeah no need to no need to this is something that was really right up your alley just from your previous missions in Germany, right? Yep, yep, yep. Yeah, it was cool, you know, because it was all playing clothes. It was cloak and dagger shit. Right. Yep. But it was, it was kind of like, you know, what the unit was made to do. You know what I mean? Right. This kind of stuff. And that was, that was, that was, man, it was just bad. It was bad. Badass. Yeah. And that, that, that fizzled out. Um, because we got them. We got them. And then I was an S&T selection and training for a couple years. The bummer of that story is while I was an S&T, 9-11, 9-11,

which means everybody's deploying, but a schmucks in S&T. But S&T. We're not freaking going anywhere. Nowhere. By the time I got over there, dudes had, 150 combat hits, you know, in country or more. Yeah. And here I am, I was at, oh, and I was, I made E-9 by that point.

So here I am an E-9 taking orders from a staff sergeant, which I didn't mind at all, bro. Right. E-9, a private E-9? Hell yeah. The unit was probably one of the only places where you could be a private E-9. You know, make me a door kicker as E-9. Hell yeah. Pat, I mean, you're actually a great authority then on this because being an S&D,

how were those guys that were going over and then coming back how were tactics and training involving were they getting fed directly to you guys were was were was the training course evolving like on the spot sort of in that it pretty much stayed it was it's it's so perfectly designed it pretty much stayed exactly the way it is okay pretty much exactly the way it is yeah because it was it was designed for that in mind that kind of shit right counterterrorism stuff So it did not change one freaking bit. What did change was the influxing people wanting to get to the unit. Right.

Because we were getting some, man. Right. I mean, people were, you know, there were a lot of like special forces teams and stuff getting some and other special ops unit. But we were like, it was nonstop, nonstop. So guys really want to get there because a lot of, a lot of people weren't doing shit, you know. but yeah the OTC the operator traders course stayed stayed pretty much exactly the same

yep and so what was it like by the time you got over to Afghanistan I didn't go to Afghanistan oh I'm sorry Iraq then yep twice to Iraq real short trips it was it was still target rich you know because it was 04 and 05 oh yeah yeah

04 I didn't do shit man because Oh, man. It's kind of cool, though, too. The unit sent me over because I was at the, oh, man, this was a shit detail. But I did it. It was at the end of my S&T. I had no team. I had no squadron.

I had nobody. And they set me over to Iraq to, to check out what the support element was doing. The mechanics, the engineers, the logistic. logistics guys, the cooks, all that, you know, to check them out to see how their security was. And, man, it was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. So I did a lot of OJT on the ground with them because they were doing high-risk shit, man. They were getting shot at more than we were. And then the unit brought me back and I built a course for the support element.

I built a course for like a mini OTC. dude it was two weeks very very intensive yeah all of the basic tactics stuff of shooting right so right from BRM to multiple target engagements to to pistol work and then to the uh all of the crucible weapons dammit man i don't use these terms often anymore but so all the crucible weapons so anything that was belt fed or shoulder carried. We train them all on that. A lot of driving, a lot of vehicle-based scenarios, a lot of first aid. So now these guys are going back over.

When I went back over with my former squadron, we were taking them out with us. And they were like on street corners, cooks, bro. Yeah. A man in a mag 58, which was cool as hell. Yeah, cool as hell. but uh i and i really like that time working with them because do you talk about appreciation because they idolized us you know the support element idolized us operators and now you're chummy chummy with them and you're teaching them all this cool freaking commando shit and they're like what the fuck

this is the best thing ever and then they're doing shit with freaking operators on the ground yeah granted it's manning it's manning freaking security positions but that's big freaking nickel for a engineer for a cook yeah or a uh uh a mechanic Yeah. No, you're on a freaking, a Ma Deuce, 50 Cal. And some of these guys, like, got into firefights, like, you know, ripping rounds down, down alleyways. The mechanics can be so salty because, you know, we just break all their shit and then give it back to them. Now they're getting to go out on the opportunity.

Well, and cooks are the hardest working people in the military. I mean, you know, so to get some love is like, yeah. Brilliant. Yeah, so good. So good. But that's what makes the unit so freaking just absolutely. absolute badass, man, you know. I spent a lot of time training my,

my support element over there. I would shoot with them every week. I would have an open range day, and they, where they could come out and I run like scenarios for them. And, yeah. But, uh, yeah,

so I stayed, uh, till 2005, I retired in 2005, 2005, who. And then life started. Right.

It's like, what do I do? now after I've grown up what the hell you know in that transition could be spooky now I did have some groundwork set already I picked a little hanging fruit and took a job even before I retired I got offered a job corporation doing military contract stuff uh pay me more you know I was like you know in familiar territory I was like yeah yeah good good um and it it sucks man now that you know since I'm out on my own even When I was on my, so I worked for that corporation for about four, four and a half years, and they laid me off.

Best thing that could ever happen to me. One of the scariest moments in my life, too, because I had family, little kids, all this shit. But probably one of the best things that could have happened for, growth, right? Right. We need to be very uncomfortable in order to grow. Right. Because we need to, we get uncomfortable. We need to, we need to shit that exoskeleton and put on another exoskeleton.

That's a little bit bigger. Right. But when I got laid off, I was like, dude, what in the, I mean, I, I confided at a bunch of buddies of mine that had their own businesses and they all said that they could get me work, but they all said the same thing. Just do it on your own. Just do it on your own. And man, I did. And it worked out. It worked out.

Now, ebbs and flows, right, when you were on your own. Right. I mean, deep, dark holes, highs, just one freaking thing after the other. It never stopped, ebbs and flows. I mean, but I was doing well, but I knew I was working a lot too. This was you were doing tactical marksmanship courses and things like that. Yep, yep, yep, yep. And I had a full, you know, slate, man.

Everybody wanted it. I was doing something that nobody else had. I was doing what I called performance-based training. So I was training dudes kind of like a sports psychologist would train. a professional athlete. I mean, it's like, what's the difference, man?

That's what I would tell you guys? What's the difference? You're basically a professional athlete when you're at that level. So let's train like professional athletes. But so 2010 is when I generated T-Max, my company, and I was working my ass off. At the same time,

going through just an absolute bludgeon fest of a marriage. Uh-huh. Tail end, tail-end. It was real bad, real bad. I married something, you know, at the beginning of this, it was a 16-year relationship. At the beginning of it is cool. She disclosed to me that she had some health, mental issues. But she was taking meds and everything.

But pretty soon, you know, with bipolar. So, but pretty soon she started abusing the meds. Right. And drinking on them. Now, that fucks up the neuroreceptors in your head real bad. You know, when you're abusing prescription meds, which are absolute poison. If you're on prescription meds, try to get off. of them. There's plenty of alternatives out there. Mother

nature knew us how to take care of us. Oh, man, that shit drives me crazy. So she became a rave, absolute raving lunatic, just delusional and paranoid. It was bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad for years. I lived in a bonus room above my garage for five years. But I finally, that one came to then thanks to the police in my town. Long story, I could go on for freaking two hours on that.

that one. And that was 2013. 2013 was my worst year and my best year, all wrapped in one, all wrapped in one. See, those of you out there listening who did any kind of government contract stuff in 2013, you remember this thing called sequestration. Sequestration. bro my calendar was full 2013 you know secret service border patrol

80 second airborne just one after the other sequestration happened in January 2013 light switch click no work wow you got no work and I mean you know and I'm at the tail end of a divorce

right that's January March I move out and I'm assuming this debt because we already been through a few mediations. And I've been through tons of mediation already, right? Tons of them. I am spending so much on lawyers and trying to clear this debt. It was a asteroid.

It was an absorbent amount. I'm not going to mention the number. It was ridiculous. Because I didn't even know that you could run like a debit card as a credit card, you know, because my ex was doing this shit. I had no idea. I had to assume all this shit. Oh my God.

Because I thought it was just debit card. You know, it's debit card. But some of them come with, you know, $30,000 worth of credit. Surprise. There was a lot of them. But so 13, all that shit happened. I move out. I'm close to my kids.

I'm 500 yards away in a condo. Sequestration, not getting paid. just just one freaking shit storm after the other uh september 2013 is when i met when i meet my current life which was which has been it's been it's been a it's been a dream come true remember earlier i said second chance on life that was the first time i got a second lease on life i will tell you about the second time later this is the second time not many of us get that you know second lease on life so in order to get a second lease on life.

Shit's got to be pretty bad. Right. You know, you got to be down and out. You got to be maybe a junkie or, or go completely bankrupt or, you know, shit's got to be bad. You know, you've, you've, you've suffered major loss. Right. So that's when I meet Rebecca, too.

And, uh, man, I just started life all a bit, but at the time, that was 2008, I was 48 years old. I had to start life all over again at 48 years old. but um it's been great and you know what pains me i've said this on podcast before i've said this this this is this is a scary thought this gives me this makes me cringe knowing what i have right now knowing you know what i have right now yeah and being as happy and content and satisfied and busy as i am right now i would do all that shit over again i would do all that i would do i would i would I would 100% do all that bullshit.

I would live in that bonus room for five years. I would be accused of cheating six, seven, eight times a day, having the cops come over, showing them how I'm a bug in the house, how the TV's bugged, how I'm operating the TV from El Paso through my cell phone, how, you know, the accusations were just freaking stupid. It was so, there was so many of them. But I would, I would change it. I wouldn't change any of that. because of what I have you know a lot of guys especially a lot of a lot of guys coming from those high performing units um you know have a difficult time transitioning into the civilian world to begin with yeah you know you go from from 60 to zero as they say yeah um you know not only did you have that going on that you had these you know really challenging issues at home where probably your own reality was being challenged on a daily basis right like you're trying to deal with you with this transition to begin with.

And then you have somebody who's like trying to impose this sort of psychotic frame over your world. How did you manage all that at the same time? Were you dealing with it well? No, no, no. Now, I'll tell you how you manage it. You got to stay busy, right? So you said 60 to zero.

You can't go to zero. You've got to stay around 60. You've got to stay. I don't give a shit if that's working, if that's, you know, becoming an entrepreneur or plow in a field you've got to be mission focused there's got to be meaning in your life fulfillment you've got to have it because you've had it for so long especially career military guys you know career military they've got they need that they need that camaraderie that teamwork that fulfillment that work with meaning um i i i didn't i i was dealing with it well initially

but when I when I was going through the last five years of that marriage it was it was bad it was real bad I was um I found myself in a very very deep dark hole um it was like the the pit of despair I like to say that I could joke about any portion of my life any injury any mishap the one this one though is hard for me to joke about But it's important to talk about. I ran into a massive three to four year long spell of depression. I had no idea what depression is. But I was almost quitting.

I was quitting on me. I was quitting. I was quitting. I was accepting mediocrity. Did you know you were quitting? I'm sorry? Did you know you were quitting or was it? No.

Nope. I had no idea. I was so tired of hearing and having to, you know, you know, hearing, I'm going to take a fall down the stairs, call the cops and tell them you pushed me. You know, it was just nonstop or having the cops come and say, hey, we found your wife in the village and she's drunken on drugs. I was so tired. I was just tired, tired, tired. It was nonstop. There wasn't not a day break.

There wasn't a day, not a day break. I doubt there were a couple hours of break. in there. Because even when I would go on trips, I'm in, like I mentioned already, like El Paso training the Border Patrol, and my phone would ring non-fucking stop. Non-stop.

Yeah. After a while, your nerves are shot, you know? Yeah. Your neuroreceptors are shot. Yeah, yeah. I was almost done. But then I had an epiphany moment. And I've mentioned this before in a couple podcasts,

but I think it's worth remenching. I had an epiphany moment. And it was mainly because I was talking to my son. He was a sweet little cute as hell boy at the time. And I was shit-faced drunk out of my way because I was drinking all day long, every day. And I realized, I told him, I said, James, I don't just love you. I am in love with you. And he started crying.

I don't know how old he was. I forget. I could do the math. I'd figure out probably eight or something. like that but um maybe younger six uh and i realized man and i put him to bed i realized this kid needs me man he needs me i have to be around and um i said well i don't know where this came from but um i put out my running shoes uh set an alarm clock put out my um i pod uh got up early it was a Saturday or something. It was a weekend day. And I just started, I just started running. You know,

it was like a forest gum thing. What do I do? Let me just go for a run. And dude, I ran for like an hour and a half. I mean, it was a long time. I didn't run across Greenbow County. But, you know, I ran for a long time. And then I came back. And I did not want to go inside. I had to go inside to get food before I go up to my bonus room. But I didn't want to go in there. And then I realized, well, I'm going to work out more here in the driveway. And as I'm working out, a couple things came to mind. One is I felt relief, you know, after that run. Relief.

I mean, good. Like I was remembering who the fuck I was. I was remembering this. And I said to myself, I will not, you will not defeat me. I will not be defeated. There was no freaking way. There was no way. And that's when I made up that mind, right?

I just gave myself goosebumps. I go back in my neck. Yep. I will not. And then, and another part of me was saying, yeah, but bro, you're buried. You're buried. And I said, nope. I counter argued.

I said, nope, I have been planted. I'm going to grow out of this shit. I'm going to fucking grow out of it. And I'm going to get better. I'm going to get stronger. So worst and best year. Worst and best year. But that was one of the highlights right there.

That changed, that old school mindset, you know, just a, uh, You know, good sanity check. But it's back to your origin story, right? It's that, yep, is that you're not going to break me. Nope. It's so, it's so, like, I mean, I'm really glad that you're able to share that story. It's just so strange to think of, like, a depressed Pat McNamara. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

I'm used to the high, high energy. Faking my ass off. The dude who's in better shape than guys half his age. I mean, that's Pat McNamara. Yep. That is true. You know, I think one of the things that it's hard with vets, what other situation, and not even people who aren't vets,

you know, even our civilian friends is people who are really deep in it, they're often faking it, right? A lot of the people who are crying out for help. Oh, yeah. Like, they're not quite there yet, but it's when a dude or when a person is faking it, that we have no idea where they're at, but they're spiral and hard.

a lot of times you know if a guy is suffering from that like depression or alcoholism they're not going to you're not going to notice a call for help you need to either really know them know them really well or or assume yeah because i i've talked to guys i've talked to guys out you know who got out after i recovered from all the shit and got my shit together and i just saw something you know they were bitter you know what i mean better um um and it kind of couple guys looked at me like I had a dick grown out of my forehead, but they, I was so appreciated it. Where I pulled them aside. I say, hey, man, come out sometime.

Get out. I know you said you don't come out. Come out and get a pint. Here's my number. Give me a shot sometime. So I'm not, I'm not saying that I know. You know what I mean? I'm not putting them in a bad position.

Right. But I am opening the door. And so many of them have taken it. And afterwards, they've gone, dude, I cannot fucking tell you how much I appreciate it. how much I appreciate this because the guys who are crying for help I don't think they have a real freaking issue I really don't the guys who are seriously fucked up you're not going to know it unless you know them right or assume or you assume dude you've been through a lot of shit you know I will assume to the point where a guy's happy and he's out um because I just did this recently

I was chatting with the guy at my local pub yeah I'm retiring I say hey bro do do yourself a favor Um, stay connected. Stay connected. Stay connected with your old butts. Just stay connected. Just do that. Because I didn't. And the connection is the cure. Yeah. I stole that, uh, line from, uh, Josh Collins, buddy of mine. But, um, that connection is definitely the cure. Yeah. Did you find yourself isolating a lot during that period of time? Hell yeah. Dude, I wasn't, I knew nobody. I knew. I knew. Yeah. I, mm-hmm. But any, time I was out and about, um, or, you know, on a, uh, training gig, I faked the hell out of it. Right. Right. Faked day freaking hell out of it. Woo! Get you some blaze arms, baby. You know,

all the freaking pat mac shit. Um, just bloviating. That was all freaking theater. All of it. So tell, tell us about the second lease on life. What, what was, the second second lease on life? Uh, what, what was, what was, what was that next lifetime life period that you went on to live? Dude, it's the one I'm living right now. Now, it, it's, I'll give you the Reader's Digest version. So meeting Rebecca changed, changed my life, right? So now I had meaning again. But I was working.

I was busy again. So 2013, I found work. I found more. I was able to regenerate. But I felt good. I had this renewed enthusiasm, you know, and, and I just felt good. I was motivated. And I had the discipline to, to, to, to, to, uh, kind of nurture the motivation.

And when I met Rebecca, I was, dude, there's so many corny lines I'm going to say. But one of them is, I never, I never knew what it meant in my adult lifetime until I met Rebecca to truly fall in love with somebody. I never knew until I met her. Never knew it. And now that I have it, I like it. And it's, dude, we've been together almost 10 years. We haven't had a crossword. She's my best friend.

She's at school right now. She's going to school full time for it to be a psychologist. And I'm like, dude, I can't wait for you to come home. So we could drink a glass of wine together and watch some TV. But worked, we both, we worked our asses off, man. But sweat equity, you know, with freedom through discipline. Yeah. With discipline comes freedom.

So we both worked and worked and worked. So for 10 years, 10 years, I did four courses a month traveling on a plane for most of them. 10 years. Brutal. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. With two big public in cases, shitty flight, shitty rental car, shitty hotel, shitty range. Get back on a Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday maintenance. Thursday, you plan your trip.

Friday, you're back on a plane. 10 years. 10 years. And then what happens? The virus from China, China. China virus. So the lockdown happened. I refused to call it a pandemic. The lockdown happened. And that was, man, that was a gift. That was such a freaking absolute gift for me. Because that allowed me to adjust my life. Right. And your business plan. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't travel anymore to do work.

It's all local. Generated a couple new businesses. Like you mentioned at the beginning, I have an online coaching squad, the Pat Mac Keep the Blaze Live coaching squad on Patreon. About over 400 members on that. It's really that. Talk about fulfillment, you know, job satisfaction,

because it's not like a job. The folks, I have developed a relationship, you know, with 400 some new people, several of whom I've met in person, because we'll do biannual meetups. It's an extremely eclectic group. The skill sets are all over the map. So I have that. I, you know, I had the fitness program and the combat strength training and I sell those

resistance bands. And after, you know, coronication, everybody was doing a home gym. So I was like, dude, I could, I could just be the rubber band man. I was making a living selling rubber bands. I was like, damn, this shit, people want, because I developed these bands that are tubular instead of the flat ones. Uh-huh. You know, so they just last long. They're so versatile.

If people wanted to buy some of those bands, where would they find them? I just off. I don't have any in stock right now. But they're off of my, like, link tree. on my T-Mex Inc Instagram or up my website T-Max Inc. But yeah, and then my buddy C.J. and I have this podcast, University of Badassery. We do a bunch of mini-vlogging and on my Pat Mac YouTube channel, which is a lot of fun, you know. So I'm very busy because you've got to stay busy, right?

Yeah, you got to. I'm writing a kid. book. I am doing more drawings. I've opened my calendar up to doing private one-on-one classes. I'm still doing the fitness training, online training and programming. And trying to stay fit as shit in the process, which, you know, it gets tougher. It gets tougher. There's no doubt if this shit don't get easier, you know. Now you get older, don't get easier. But you know what? You know what I have you have this advantage. I have a and I always want to tell them my so my fan base, my, my, my, my audience, right? So like half a million on insta shizzle and 50,000 on LinkedIn and,

you know, I don't know that millions and millions of views on YouTube channel. They motivate me because they always ask, how do you stay motivated? It's like, bro, you motivate me. I'm doing this shit for you because I know you're looking forward to it. counting on me. I have to post this workout because you're counting on me. So I always have to thank my, my fan base because I got it's, it would be real hard to do it without them. Real hard. So yeah, you know, that I think that anybody that that came from, you know, the spec ops community would have something to teach people that that hadn't been through that. But you really have outside of that.

right outside of that special operations experience you have some real life experience some real times of overcoming adversity and what that means and continually doing it and like being there like we can like you said we all fake it at some point in time right we all fake it but you've been about as deeply down as a human can be. That close to capitulation. And, and, and, you know, and you say, you know, you say two leases on life. And it's, it feels like you've had at least three because the one with your son sounds like another one where. Well, that was part of it.

Oh, that was part of it. That was part of the second one. Because that was all, that was a lead in, you know. And, and it, to me, it's just such. inspiring and amazing story. And somebody doesn't have to be a, you know, special operations want to be in order to find, you know, inspiration from you because it's a very human story. Yeah, yeah.

And you know what? You probably seen this about me. I don't pound my chest and talk special off, special ops and Delta fucking uses up, blah, blah, blah. I don't, I don't, I'm not one of these rest on your laurels, ma' jambas. I was a badass yesterday. But I'm a badass tomorrow. So I'm not going to talk a lot about that.

Right. You know, I mean, I mean, you know, if guys are interested, hell yeah. But that doesn't define me. Right. What defines me is me right now, right here. And what I'm going to do tomorrow, which is get drunk. Can we talk about your pontalism a little bit? Oh, sure.

Yeah. Pointalism. Yeah. Pointalism. Sorry. I mean, I have several. They're all, most of what I do are, I have a bird of prey series. so I'm bird you know bird guy I don't have any right here oh I got one on the wall there

it's got a glass frame but this is an example this is one I did a few years back so this is a military one so not bird of prey uh SF one like before and after you know or then and now but if I were able to get it close enough you can see that this is all comprised of dots I don't think the yeah there it is yep yep yep so the whole thing is dots you know it's all for your dots that's amazing so with a you know with a point uh 20 point 2 5 repidio graph drafting pen but yeah it's fun is that is that sort of like a meditative thing pat that like you're in the zone it is very i have a bunch of i am hobby heavy hobby heavy hobby heavy and they're all therapeutic yeah they're watching the gardening the fishing the drawing the photography

Oh shit, it goes on. There's more. I do everything. Or, and if I don't, I aspire, I want to do everything. I don't aspire to do everything. I want to do as much, as much as possible.

I want to learn, you know, or learn to do things. I think it's good to be interesting. You don't want your brain to become stagnant. You know, when you see something that's interesting, and you say, it ought to be cool to learn that. Well, go, fuck.

can learn it, man. You know, put one, just one foot, just one foot in front of the other and see what happens. You know, because a lot of times we'll say that shit, but we won't start. Right. And he's a start point. You don't have to commit, but if you, if you start, right, that'd be cool. That'd be cool. I would like to learn how to do that. What's the next step? Let me watch a YouTube video on this, but just easy as that. It's as easy. You know, and then, and then you can take it one, step further. You know, if it appeals. But yeah, I like to do shit. I like to do things. I like to do the, I have to say this one, you know, the basic dude stuff. Absolutely. What, what do you, what were, where would you like to be? I mean, you're a young guy still. Where would you like to be in five or

10 years? Um, you know, I, I think I would like to be like, uh, retired, retired, but busy. But, What I mean by busy is doing something with my hands, plowing a field, building a dam, you know, doing something grandiose. I always thought it would be cool to build a castle, you know, to live by a river and use the river rock to build a castle. I want to be, I want to defy age. I want to be as fit as hell for as long as possible, too. Because I know what it's like to not be fit. I know what it's like to hurt. Yeah.

And I think we take for granted what feeling good feels like. Oh, yeah. How about this? I think we take for granted what not feeling like shit feels like. Yeah. Because a lot of people don't know what feeling good feels like because they've never felt like shit. You know, they've for an extended period of time. but um i think you know um i'm an outdoorsman i want to spend more time just walking around looking at

stuff taking photos um fishing in streams that no white man is fished out of you know getting way up into the mountains and just ripping freaking lips with the smallest you know 22 size 22 fly and And, yeah, just that kind of thing. But I still want to be busy. You know, people say, yeah, when I retire, it's going to be a sandy beach and cigar, that kind of thing. Screw that, bro. I call that a two-day vacation. Right, right.

And then after that, I'm like, dude, I have to do something. I got to stay busy. You know, I could, I've thrown around a lot of ideas. When I retire, I might go back to work. I might go back to school. I thought it'd be cool to get a teaching degree. Mm-hmm. You'd be good at that.

I don't need to teach full time. Yeah. Just put me on as a substitute teacher. Put me in, coach. Yeah. That's awesome. I would make some shit interesting. I could make a boring subject interest.

Look, I would take geography from you. Yeah, I can see Pat Mack, US history teacher. I think that would have. Well, I think that's one of the things I want to do. So I have a target demographic with a lot of the stuff that I'm doing, and it's younger people. Yeah. I want to have a positive influence on younger people. you know kids to teenagers uh because yeah they need it they need it right now yeah they need

that's cool man do we have any questions for pat we've got quite a few so um oh shit questions questions from the viewer yeah yeah yeah for sure uh i'm gonna pour a little bit myself uh so in your face uh uh uh thank you very much um winner uh pat mck larry verkers paul how and kyle lamb I'm going to do the most epic podcast ever together. Yeah, that'd be a hard one to coordinate, huh? All those guys are busy as shit, man. I mean, and you know what? They're all great.

I know those guys. And, man, they're all really, really. People don't pay them enough credit, I don't think. Or here, no, let me back up. People in my industry, my community, don't pay them enough credit. I mean, they have paved away, you know, Larry and Paul and Kyle. They have paved away for so much. shit in the gun industry in the kid industry they paved away for me because they started before me

doing this i owe them a debt of gratitude not for what they've done in the military but how they've succeeded outside of the military right these guys are bad ass bro uh paul harper thank you very much uh what lessons for future urban conflicts should taiwan be learning from detachment a in berlin interesting question yeah whoa this is thought provoking say it again because you were a little bit Muffled. Sorry about that. What lessons for future urban conflict should Taiwan be learning from Dede in Berlin? Yeah. Well, should who be learning? Taiwan. Right, right, right. Well, the one, this is this one always gets my go is, um, you can't rely on technology. It's going to shit the bed. That's a big one. It's even for urban ops, all that shit. You can't rely on technology. You got to go old school. You got to know cardinal direction. You got to know how to freaking read shit. You got to know shadows.

You got to know street craft. You got to know all that crap, you know. You got to know old school communication. You got to know dead drop sites, signal sites, how to do a PM. Because we suck at that now, too. Personal me, you know, we suck at communication skills. Inter face-to-face communication skills. Get back to the old school shit.

I'm right on this, by the way. I guarantee you. What's going to happen? Yep. Any of thanks again A pat I have Oh this is something we can talk about also I've got rheumatoid arthritis

And got med boarded I'm trying to stay fit but it's a challenge How would you adapt if you were me And you know you can kind of talk Dude I've got something way worse To fucking rheumatoid arthritis man I got this stupid gay disease called polymyosurumatica

So I'm almost at two years right now Bro I empathize who is this what's his name uh ania facie and your face ania and yeah and yeah i i empathize with you so i mean uh wait what was that name was that a pseudonym i think so yeah and your face all right right yeah all right anyway i wish i could really address him because it would be more personal but i empathize um because chronic pain uh sucks bad and i had to get to a point oh man this was bad it was really bad where I could no longer rely on motivation because I have no no enthusiasm, no motivation. So I had to rely on discipline, on discipline.

I had to rely on my routine, my daily planner. I live off of white boards. I got a year there. In my laundry room I have the next couple weeks. And on my refrigerator, I have what's going on tomorrow. Every night, every night right now. When I get off of this, I'm going to go down and write my workout on that board. of that first thing in the morning that I see because motion is lotion, mobility,

survivability. So your body's telling you don't work out. Your brain, I mean, your brain is telling your body, don't work out. Don't do it. Sit on that recliner because that shit hurts. It hurts, man. I had no, you know, you see these commercials and shit, rheumatoid arthritis. I'm like, whatever.

A bunch of pussies. Dude, that shit hurts so bad. You're constantly fiddling with hands and wrists. your shoulder well with the pmr it's shoulders hips joints muscles it's jaw line it's back of the head it's arches of the feet brutal it's everything it's everything um you deal with it the best you freaking can here's a thing though i wish i had his name because i want to talk to um is give it a name and give it a bad place to live give it let it live in a shit hole work out you know when it tells you to eat healthy when it tells you because you have a you probably have a lack of appetite because

you might be taking like prednisone or something nope fuck that eat healthy it's telling you not to it's telling you you know eat stuff crust pizza yeah tell it fuck you give it a name i called mine the demon i'm at almost two years tonight now i'm beating this thing i'm beating it oh and that's the other thing i went off all prescription meds oh here's another thing dude i wish i had his name once again, infrared sauna. Magic for this shit. Magic. Infrared sauna.

I bought one for my garage. Guarantee you, dude, in your town somewhere, there's a salt spot with infrared sauna. Go sit in one. Make it hot as shit because infrared sauna doesn't heat the air around you. Heat your body. Are those the personal? Those are the personal ones that you sit in, like, that are around you, right? Not like a big room.

Right. Okay. Yep. Yep. So that, that's my advice right now on that. Can you, you know, you said motivation for, you know, you don't use motivation, use discipline. Can you really quickly kind of tell us what the difference is for you? I'm getting back to being motivated now because I'm beating this thing. So look out world. Because in the past year and a half, two years, once again, faking it, any post that you've seen to me doing workouts and stuff, totally fake.

those are my best reps. If you go back in my archives and you see the workouts I'm doing, you'll think, oh yeah, Pat Maxen shape. I mean, he's not good as shape he was two years ago.

That's because of this shit. And what you were, because I still had to post freaking workouts for my fan base. And they were getting me motivated. But they were seeing my best freaking reps. And those reps for the most part sucked. They sucked. But now you're going to see it.

You're seeing a difference already past couple of weeks the people who really have noticed but but um yeah i had to rely on uh discipline so my whiteboard planning um uh solo searching just you know i because so many times i'm drawn to the recliner and so many times i say let me just sleep for half an hour and so many times i would say nope i'm not so then i would start the process because i know i have to work out i have to if i want to move for the rest of the day. Yeah. And every,

every ounce of my being is saying, don't do it. Don't do it. So you have to dress the part, number one. So I have to put my Batman outfit on. And for me, it was like a headband and, you know, just whatever. Put the headband on, put the watch cap on.

It's your costume. And then you show up. It's your superhero costume, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you show up. You got to show up. It would take me, oh, sorry.

Half an hour to an hour to warm up. And then that's it's incredible, Pat. Clint, thank you very much, a friend and former guest of ours. Pat Mac, looking forward to this one. Jack and Dave, you guys have been killing it. Keep it up. Well, thanks, Clint. We're killing it because of people like Pat.

Like, if we're just Jack and I, nobody would fucking watch. Jack and Dave getting drunk every Friday. Exactly. Jameson Price, thank you very much. Pat, let's take it. off the gloves and tell all. Do unit badass dudes operate within the Connell U.S. and drive lead into, oh, and drive lead into a whole terrorist? Do they, well, yeah, they do. No, no, but before you say, yeah, they do on it, make sure you get the whole question. Do they operate within the continental

U.S. and drive lead into a whole terrorist? Oh, oh, oh, in the continental U.S., no, no, no. Staff Sergeant Oman, thank you very much. Where do you think you received the best trade craft training while you were prepping for assignment in Berlin or during OTC or somewhere else? I would say, yeah, Berlin, they were the masters at it, you know, so I learned from those guys. And I remember there was one guy, I won't say his full name, but art. Art carried me around in the city for a few days. And he would even tell me how to walk. you know yeah and he brought me to second hand stores he says you can't wear all that

madrican shit bro you need to wear his stupid german clothes tight really tight pants yeah just yeah just you know like 20 years behind and the fanny pack yeah yeah sprockets yeah and now is the time on sprackets when we die but no definitely definitely in berlin uh jackson thank you very much uh is there a cultural difference between squadrons yeah it's funny um there is but I don't think it's as pronounced as the guys there think it is I always tell yeah because there still is and it's still it's it's still the same banter because I know current unit guys now and they'll talk about it and I go guys that's all fake news man it's freaking fake it's stupid and I know how this materialized I was there when it materialized

and it's fake but yeah they're they're There is, but I think it's more up here. Right. It's not. It's more like an image thing than an actual functional thing. Yeah, because I know dudes right now who are in A, B, C, D, Squadron, and they're all the same dude. Right. They're all the same.

Joe's got you. Thank you very much. Was Freeflow CQBO thing when you got to the unit? Was that something the British SAS created and the unit improved upon? Yep, that's yes and yes, 100%. Jackson, thank you very much. What was the hardest part of selection for you, and what would you have done differently if you had to do it again?

Well, this is going to sound weird. The hardest part for me was at the end, after stress, was the board. That was the hardest part for me. I wish it just went away. I remember sitting in the board thinking, man, I'd rather do a 40 mile or at night right now than this shit. That was the hardest part. What would I do differently?

I wouldn't dig my, I dug myself into a hole, you know, and it was because I was, I was telling the truth, but I was using, there was a question guys were asking me. And it just, it was so fucking stupid, man.

I was using some military cover to answer a question about a previous unit. And they know the truth. Right. They're not, I mean, they were there probably. But I was kind of naive and I thought to myself, well, maybe I shouldn't talk about it even to these dudes. Right. And I stuck with it. They pressed me and pressed me.

And so now that they're pressing me, I think they just want to see. am I going to stick with them? Am I going to stay in my circle? Right. You're circle. No. Am I going to stay in my circle? Right.

Right. Because they pressed me and press me and press me on and I stuck in my circle. Yeah. They, I just should have, I just should have came out and said, oh, yeah, yeah, that's what I was doing. You guys know all about that. Yeah. And then it would have been a 20-minute board instead of an hour and 20. Right.

So they, the board asked you about like PSSE and you gave them the cover story of like, oh, we're an MP unit that does training for the legs. and bingo and then once you had that out there then you can't you can't let your circle go you can't there was no taking backsies at that right yeah yeah yeah you gotta stick to your guns you stick to your guns they're like

they're probably like like rubbing their hands like like oh really yeah dude well at least you know Pat's not an obsequit violator they turn it into a they turn it into a serious session yeah so that that was easy one that was easy yep Jackson, thanks again.

Oh, a little bit of a little bit of salt, maybe. How did the unit view Dev grew and HART? Spicy, little spicy. Yeah, well, the unit viewed him very well. There you go. How about that? I just stayed out of that one. That was really positive.

I like that positive. Positive upbeat attitude. See, you're. You're good at these board questions now. Dude, I got some real, I got some real good Bernie's at DevGrew. And even, you know, out here, you know, out in this world, some retired guys that I really love. So same cut of the clawed dudes, bro. H.R.T, I don't know many of them.

I don't know many of them. Yeah. But that was a good, that was a good question. And I'm sticking with my answer. That's a good answer, too. Definitely learn from that board. Alejandro, thank you very much. Pat, when you were there, did you grab a chunk of the wall? My folks still have picks of my sister and I chisling off pieces.

We were living in Romstein, Romstein, in West Germany, and happened to be visiting Berlin, staying at Templehof Air Force Base. Yeah, yeah, I chiseled off tons of it, and I would make people, these little plaques with, and I would, you know, like epoxy them on to this plaque and clear coat them all. And within that, too, I had some of the original, there's a fun German word to say, some of the original Stachlgrad, which is barbed wire. So it was all rusty, you know, but once it's clear code, it's cool shit. But yes, absolutely. 100%. That's very cool. And every time I see Romstein, I think, Duhas.

Yep. Once again from, Anya, thanks. Hey, Pat, what do we have to give? to do to get a video of you working out with Rudy Reyes? I don't know. That ain't going to happen. I should see Rudy here next month. I'm going to an event and he should be there.

I think. I think he'll be there. But now that ain't going to happen. We're two different styles of stuff, you know. Ahmed Octab, thank you very much. Thank you for their service brother. Can you please comment on some contemporary issues, recruitment problems counterterrorism the future

the festering domestic anti-americanism keep on that's a lot that's a lot that's a lot it's a lot it's supposed to solve America and international politics what am I running for office I'm running for office here you don't want to announce right now

you can announce right now if you've got a if you got a political platform I don't have the stomach for it I hate politics and I hate politicians I despise them on both sides Yep. But yeah, I didn't even

Most of those questions I can't remember. Well, we can talk, maybe not general recruitment problems. How do you see like recruitment in like the special ops community right now? Your friends that are in there, is it still healthy? Is it, are they having issues? It's still healthy there. Yep. The military though, their numbers are down.

Yeah. I mean, what, 75% of today's youth is unfit to be in the military. 75% there you go recruitment uh kenneth jones thank you very much for the donation Steve court right

thank you I found Pat at a vital crossroad in my life I will forever be I know Steve I will forever be grateful for his advice and what it has done to recourse my life right on yeah he's a good dude

I've been fishing with Steve well I he's a part of that Keep the Blaze Live coaching squad. Yeah. So for people who might be like looking for something outside like a normal like, you know, from somebody who's really been there.

And I don't mean there like special last, have been there and like has faked it until they made it. Can you tell us again where your coach is on Patreon? Yep. And the name. It's called the Pat Mac Keep the Blaze alive. Guys, check that out.

Um, Alejandro, uh, thank you. Being a fellow metalhead, what bands are you really digging right now? Are there any up and coming ones that you think people should give a listen to? Uh, yeah, let me think about this. Oh, great. Dude, thank you for that. Um, so I just started, um, because they're coming out with new album, uh, born of Osiris. I'm, I'm going to go obscure here.

I'm not going to go, you know, another one that I dig is plague years. I hope they do so. I hope they, I hope they do so. I hope they get some traction, man. I just, ah, they're really, really dark and sludgy, you know, sludgy and dark. Because I don't like it, I don't like it super fast and just nonstop double bass. I like, you know, sludgy and dark and, you know, like cobblestone streets and and rusty metal. And like a gong, bum, bum, if I had a metal band, I'd have a big freak.

I'd have an anvil in my metal band. Bats on the belfry. Yeah, right. Let me see. Plague years. I said, uh, I, hmm, dude,

you put me on stuff. I wish I could have studied that one, you know, because I would have had a laundry list. Well, I'll tell you what. When you get a chance, if you want,

like the, the comments below the video, you know, sometime in the next couple days, if you want to leave that list, I'm sure, I'm sure we have a lot of people above that.

Can you share, thank you, Leon Jones. Can you share your workout playlist, basic dude stuff? That's good. Motherfucker, the next time somebody asks me that, I swear to God, I'm going to jump right through this phone. I put it on every one of my posts for the past. You know what I built that playlist? 2020 during coronication.

I built that because everybody wanted me to build a playlist. So you know what I do? Every post, every single post. I put it in there. You know why people don't see it? Because they don't tap on dot, dot, dot, dot, more. So you Instagrammers, dot, dot, dot, more. That's where the notes are.

Dot, dot, dot, more. So no, I'm not going to share it right here. You do know that you're going to get about a hundred more requests for this now, like throughout. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because now they're getting to go. They don't want to poke the bear. Yeah, exactly. People have found that.

I'm going to tell them. I'm going to tell them. So it's metal macableness. attack Spotify playlist. Metal back attack. And last question, I believe, unless we have anything new. Oh, we do have one more. Okay. So two more. Jackson, thank you. Top five high speed

LEO guys or units you've trained with. Whoa. Let me see. Let me think about this. Wow. That damn, man. Oh, shit. You put me on the spot because see a lot of them i don't even remember the county so i i work with these guys in uh wisconsin and i i believe it's dane county you know sheriff's department dude they were always freaking badass um really good shooters and fit dudes and just fun as hell um who oh my favorite my favorite eleos are fed are um the um bortac boardtack board patrol guys yeah yeah is my favorite Yep. Dig the Secret Service Cat team.

I know that's, they're still LEOs, but it's federal. Yeah. Because I worked with them a bunch. Ooh, let's see here. Man, there's so many of them in Texas. You know, let's just say Texas in general, because there's so many, whether you're going to Houston, Austin, Dallas. I mean, wherever it is, there's just tons of them, tons of teams, you know. North Carolina's got a bunch.

I work with them. here. Not yet. That one there, I would need to, I would need time for that one too. Sorry. But I, but I did mention a couple. Yeah. Yeah.

Wasn't it the Bortak guys who got out in Uvalde? Maybe eventually. Eventually. Eventually, yes. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. The ones who actually, yeah.

And then I think last question here is from Jameson Price. Thank you very much. Pat, is it true that the unit, I'm not going to, is organized in a way where operators can be redesigned. For instance, as a contractor, GS, federal employee, military, civilian, as mission dictates, are you able to elaborate? That's probably like more into the weeds of. Yeah, that is definitely in the weeds, right? Yeah, yeah. 100%.

Yeah. I appreciate the question. but yeah, it's in the weeds and man. Yeah, that, that's what, how about,

how about this? How about this? How about this? How about that? Fair enough. Yeah. And I apologize to dude for that, but yeah.

The brevity. Yeah. And, and that's, that's it. Do we have any questions from Patreon? I don't think, I don't think we did.

Did we have one D? Yeah. Can you pull it up real quick? So, uh, I'm on my phone. I don't have it on mine either. Sorry, Pat, we're not prepared.

All right. No worries. So one more time, the website or the Patreon to find it, it's Pat Mac, keep the Blaze alive. They find your coaching service there. Yep, coaching squad. Links will be down in the description. Can you get on the Patreon or on the question?

I'm sorry, I don't have it up here. And it's off of my link tree on my Instagram, too. Everything's, you know, on my Instagram, my T-M-A-C-M-A-C-N-C. T-M-A-C-S-I-N-C. Cool, man. And this Friday, we're going to have a regular episode. We'll be back. We have Ken coming on, who was a psychologist that worked for the U.S. government,

including some of the three-letter agencies, doing profiles on, like, foreign world leaders and stuff like that. So he's going to be a fun interview coming up Friday. I'm on. I don't know how to find it, though, man. I don't get on that. We have a catastrophe. going on here. Yeah, we, a couple of grunts. Uh, okay. I don't see any questions here.

Who? Yeah. Yeah. Did you find a D? All right. Oh, wait. One guy saying, okay, I think I see it. Despite the unit being and other tier one units being flush with money and support, mental health, specifically suicides continues to be a problem why. I mean, I think we kind of mentioned a lot of this, like, throughout the entire interview. But any closing thoughts on, like, perhaps why suicide is an issue, even in, like, well-supported special ops units? Remember what I said, that guys were having issues? Hide it. If they're, if they're crying for help, they probably don't.

They're hiding it. And you have to assume. I think we have to assume more, you know, because I, just in the past, in the past two months I've lost two. Oh, man, I'm sorry. Two buds, yep. And it's my, it's like, no, no, no, not this guy. There's no way.

There's no way. You know, there's no way. There's no way. So, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't know. But I think we have to assume, and not everybody, man, you know what? It's overdone. A lot of it's overdone. And, yeah, we got mental issues.

PTSD. A lot of that's over freaking done. A lot of it is. Does it exist? Hell, yeah. It's a real thing. But more, more so, it's not that. It's that separation.

You know, it's that. Separated from the culture. Yeah. Yes, it's leaving something where you, that you, where you had true passion, true love. You know, you had a relationship with people that is intimate on so many different And I'm not talking freaking, you know, sex. I'm talking just very intimate relationship with other human beings. And then you lose that.

And then, you know, yeah, you start spiraling, spiraling. Yeah. Pat, thank you so much for taking some time of you Tuesday evening. I mean, I think you told us, you said earlier, this was the second podcast you did today. So, man, I appreciate. Yeah. I appreciate you go, you know, tuning in and doing this with us tonight. And, you know, we'd wanted to have you on for a long time.

So, I mean, it's awesome to finally do it. If there's anything we can do, hit us up anytime, please. Final thoughts, anything I failed to cover at all that you want to throw out there? Yeah, no, no, no. I want to thank you guys because I do a lot of podcasts. You guys are great hosts and just you made me feel very welcome. And your questions were great too. So, yeah, great.

Because it takes it because some guys don't know how to do this shit. And we want it to be fun, too. We want you to have a good time. Yep. Thank you, everybody who tuned in to watch this. Again, thanks, Pat. We will see all you guys on Friday.