The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 328: Johnny Joey Jones is Unbroken

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

The Retired USMC Staff Sergeant who lost both legs in Afghanistan to an IED talks Hee-Haw, laying brick, cakewalks, farm living, his "Alive Day," and his new book, Unbroken Bonds of Battle: A Book of Heroism, Patriotism, and Friendship.  

Hey, it's episode number 328 of The Way I heard it. Hello. This one is called Johnny Joey Jones is unbroken. Because he is, Chuck. He is unbroken. Yes, he is, which as you pointed out earlier, is a heck of a thing to say about a guy who's missing both his legs. But he is fully intact otherwise. And a really smart guy, really smart guy knows a lot and shares a lot of what he's He went through in the Marine Corps, which is different than the military, as he points out. And that was almost our title, by the way.

He said, I wasn't in the military. I was in the Marine Corps. Yeah. And he's not the first Marine to say that. I almost said former Marine, also of which there is no such thing. There's no such thing as that, yeah. If his face rings a bell, it's probably because you've seen him on Fox News. He's been a contributor there, and now he's on the five.

He just filled in a couple weeks ago in the 8 o'clock slot. I was a guest on his show. I've met him three or four times, probably more than that. And recently, I've had a chance to talk to him on the air, but it's never really satisfying to tell you the truth. I mean, no, you don't get enough time. It's like five minutes. You know, it takes me 10 minutes to say hello.

And he's a storyteller, too. I mean, this conversation you're about to hear is among my favorites because it's very honest. You know, look, this guy got blown up in Afghanistan back 2010, early August, lost his legs. His hand was dangling. Almost, almost lost his hand. Yeah. How they got that reattached? I don't know.

I don't know. The only guy I know who's been blown up worse than Triple J is Travis Mills, who's also been on this podcast. And both of these men are so similar. I don't care how many layers you peel back. There's just not an ounce of self-pity. They're filled with empathy. They're filled with gratitude. They're filled with life and passion and purpose.

And, God, I mean, it just sounds so earnest talking about them. I hate that about myself. But I love these guys. Joey's a funny guy, though, too. He can make some jokes about it as well, which is great. The first 20 minutes, I mean, we just go off on a tangent. And it is very funny because we quickly realize we each have something in common, which is a demented affection for inappropriate soundtracks that we hear in our mind.

He's just a dude. And he's on a mission. And all he ever did was volunteer to give his life for you. And he damn near did. So this conversation is worth every month. moment of your time. And I'm going to plug his book pretty hard at the end because it's coming out today and I just read it. So I'm going to plug it now too. It's great. It's called Unbroken Bonds of Battle, heroism, patriotism, and friendship. Pick it up. Read it at your leisure.

It's a terrific tribute to a true band of brothers. It's 10 profiles of people that he served with interspersed with his own memoir of sorts. Yeah. Right? Chalk full of observations about the state of things and what's important. Look, it's just impossible not to love the guy. I could have talked to him for hours. In fact, I damn near did much to Chuck's consternation.

But I didn't. I wrapped it up just in the nick of time, didn't I? Yeah. Yes, you did. You wrapped it up at the nick of time. He's a great guest, has a lot of wisdom to say there's a little bit of hillbilly all shucks in there, but this guy is wise. Don't be fooled.

And don't take our word for it. Listen for yourself. Johnny, Joey Jones is unbroken. Coming up right after this. Well, are you sick of it yet? Are you sick of AI hogging up all the headlines and sucking up all the bandwidth? You find yourself wishing we lived in a simpler time? Do you miss the rotary phone?

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Learn more at netsuite.com slash Mike. And while you're there, pick up their free business guide, demystifying AI. It's filled with super useful information. And again, it's free at netsuite.com. That's netsuite.com. Triple J. How are you, brother? Man, I'm fantastic. Honored to be on here with you. It is traditional here on the way I heard it to spend at least 60 seconds at the top of every show bitching about technology. Tell me about your pain today. Yeah, apparently my computer is stuck in about 2017, maybe 2016, and things have happened since then.

My computer isn't even able to be updated enough. So I'm having to use my cell phone, I guess. Well, look, man, if anybody can talk about the virtue of improvisation and playing the card you get, and adapting. It would have to be you. I don't know if it makes you feel any better, but if you look carefully here on my microphone, you'll see that I've removed one of my socks and put it over the top because Chuck has been very profoundly frustrated over the last couple of episodes because my popping peas are prevalent and preposterous. So yeah, man, the things we do. Having said all that, how are you? I'm fantastic, man.

I couldn't be more happy to be alive. Just, you know, I'm sitting here in my house right now. Both my kids are just outside this door. We're going to go get on the side by side and get our goat pin ready because some goats are coming this evening. I couldn't be in a better spot. Well, you absolutely buried the lead. Some goats are coming to see you this evening.

Is that what I heard? Yeah, you know, I bought a cow farm. I bought a 40-acre cow farm on the river in the middle of nowhere. And they had cows here before. My neighbors are like the blueberry. horse stables and what am I going to do? I don't have cows. I'm going to have goats and miniature jackasses. That's what I'm going to do. So I'm really classing up to join. Where exactly are you? And by that, I'm not asking for your address necessarily, but I mean,

paint me a picture. Yeah, if you, I'm northwest Georgia in a place. I don't mind to tell you. I'm in Gordon County, Georgia, and I'm on the Kusawati River. And so all you need to know there is that we have more hilltops and cows than we have people in this county and we want to keep it that way. So I just don't want animals I have to kind of keep up. So miniature donkeys and goats kind of take care of themselves. You know, we've had this conversation on the podcast before, but once you introduce donkeys into the mix, especially a miniature donkey, then you have to pause at least for a moment to ponder a mule and, of course, a jackass as well. And since you're the proud owner of at least some of those,

I'd be remiss if I didn't ask you to very briefly talk about the differences betwixt the three. So what's funny is if I get stud jackasses, so if I get male intact donkeys and my neighbors that have the horse farm, if they have female horses, we can have a problem. And so I don't remember which order, but if I believe a male, donkey and a female horse make a mule and then a male horse and a female donkey make a hana and so a mule or a hana is a hybrid of a horse and a donkey and they are sterile so you can't make more of them but they're the strongest and best animal a lot of times you'll see like a grindstone mill something that needs torque they'll use mules for that pulling a plow you need a mule for that pound for pound strong

I just want to jump in to say this all tracks, Joey, because I know on your Instagram account, your pronouns are he and haul. So this makes perfect sense. Listen, if you didn't watch He-Haw growing up, you don't get me. If you don't know Me and Furl, you don't know me. Oh, yeah. Well, I was just about to take a riff on Hannah and her sisters, but rather than go there, let's just double down on He-Haw.

True or false, Buck Owens is quite possibly the... the most underrated banjo and guitar player to walk the earth. Oh, that's absolutely true. And, you know, it's because it's shrouded in comedy. Yes. And so when you have, the problem is when you have more than one amazing talent signing through, you're not going to get credit for all of them. I think that's the problem there.

If he only played an instrument or maybe sang, it would probably be having that conversation. I mean, I love that. It's the whole notion of a hat on a hat, right? Yeah. A hat on a hat doesn't mean you have. have two hats. It means both your hats canceled the other one out. So you're basically hatless, you know, and it's just, it's just like talking beyond the joke, a punchline on a punchline. I hadn't thought about it that way in terms of talent, but you're right. You know,

double threats and triple threats never get the credit they're due because as an audience member, you don't know whether to laugh or just pick your jaw off the floor. I remember watching he-ha. And like the look on my mom's face typified exactly what you just said. She didn't know whether to laugh at his humor or weep at his sheer musical talent. And so typically we didn't do either. But by God, we watched. That's right. That's right.

It's so funny. The entrance music to He-Haul, which was probably him, I don't remember because it's been a while, probably him on the banjo. It kind of goes ding, lean, ding, lean, ding. And like, it's burned in my head. I can just sit here and see you. He-he-he-ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha.

Right? And it's a soundtrack to funny things that happen in my life. Like, I used to literally repeat that noise when somebody was like looking around for something and couldn't find it or doing something kind of stupid or airheaded or what have you. You know, it's like, ding. Okay, come on. Let's get it done. Come on.

Let's go. And I used to sing that to my Marines in the Marine Corps. Like, come on. Quit he-hawn now. Dude, I love that. That's something else. I hadn't really thought about, but the pure brilliant absurdity of the beginning of Benny Hill is that same thing, right? It's that crazy, I think that, that, that, that, that, that,

it's called yakety sacks. If you Google that, it's called yakety sacks. If you Google that, it's called yakety sacks, and it is one of the craziest soundtracks. And I hear that in my head sometimes, usually at the most inappropriate moments. I've heard it like right before I've walked on stage to talk to five or six thousand people. I've heard it in flagrante delecto. You know what I'm saying? For no good reason.

Like, why would you hear the Benny Hill soundtrack right when you're knocking boots? But it's happened. And so I don't know what it means. Floyd would have a lot to say about that. Floyd would fix you. Well, God knows what she was hearing in her mind. But I'm like, though.

It's better that you hear it than her. I think. That's right. She's hearing Reckley him for a dream. There's so many things I don't, I want to say but can't. I will say, I'll turn to page, but not turn to chapter. I have clown music, you know, I don't even, I've got too many songs in my head right now. But what you would call, kind of like the music that plays when clowns are getting out of their clown car, you know?

I've got that on my phone. And anytime anybody in my family is struggling, doing something that's super simple, I just start playing that music. I took my whole family to Disney and I've got four adults and four kids in a suburban, and I'm driving so I didn't get out. They're trying to put a stroller, four kids, and a wheelchair in the back of the car just to drive over to the hotel. And the problem is you've got too many chiefs, right? You've got too many people in charge. Everybody's got an idea and you've got to try everybody's idea and nothing's happening.

So I just turned a volume all the way up on the car and start playing clown music. So everyone in the parking lot sees these idiots that are very smart on their own being complete imbeciles collectively. And so anytime carrying a couch upstairs, you know, and they're like, do I turn it this way? Do I turn it that way? I start playing that clown music, you know. So let me get your thoughts on this then. Chuck's heard me go off on Travis McGee before, which is the greatest fictitious character ever created by one of my favorite writers, John D. McDonald. And of his many, many, many, many quotable quotes, McGee said one day, the only sensible way to go through life is with the unshakable. attitude of a vaudevillian clown, the man who knows that he's going to get a pie in the face, but nevertheless exits the vehicle with a smile, knowing full well that what awaits, right? To me, that's being in on the joke, and I wonder if you could riff on that, if you have any thoughts about, because clearly the soundtrack begs the question.

You know, for me, I think every time I walk out the door, I know some things are going to happen to me today. I'm going to fall down. I'm going to be in pain. I'm going to be disappointed and I'm going to disappoint. And not to get turned it all way too serious, but that is life. Like, I don't understand people. Maybe it's a pursuit of perfection I'll never achieve, but I don't understand people who let any of those things. You know, for me, it's literally fall down.

For other people, it's figuratively. but I'm going to stumble. My legs are going to give out because I'm going to try to do something I can't quite do. Why would that stop me from trying to do it? You know, why is the propensity for failure a reason to not pursue victory? And so for me, victory is quite simply going to get my son from school and having to park on the wrong side of the parking lot and walk down there. And like, I sweat too much.

My leg falls off. I fall out. I embarrass myself from the outside looking in. I'm laughing. I don't care, but like, it's something embarrassing happens all because of the elements of the day. Why would that stop me from going to pick my son up from school, right? You know, like that's a worthy task. It is. But to answer your question, if you were a normal person, the answer would be fear of embarrassment. It would be insecurity. It would be some version of self-pity. There would be a long list of reasons that the average person would sincerely give. If they were being honest to that

question, but you don't experience those things the way normal people do with respect. I don't know you well enough to make too broad assumptions, but anybody who hears clown music in the background when shit gets real, right, is somebody who's going to find a way to sidestep all of those other things. I'll tell you real quick, I talked to Chuck about an hour and a half ago. I was out. I got one of those rucksacks from a company called Go Ruck, right? Yeah. I got a 40-point pound plate in it now. And I'm hiking around the hills in my neighborhood. And it is kicking my ass. And I'm halfway up. Chuck knows the hill. It's a big, long sloping hill coming up to my house. And I stop and I got a Charlie horse in my calf and I got flat feet, right? My right foot hurts. And I'm

standing there drenched in sweat. Listening to you on some podcast, right? I'm trying to do a little bit of prep to create the illusion of, you know, competency. Just as you start telling some story about how over there you get up one day and run around like a soccer field, as many laps as you can, until your feet bleed, because you're worried that one day you might lose your legs. I'm just bringing this up because I think I'm pretty dialed in. I surround myself with people who inspire me, but there I stood not an hour and a half ago, on a hill, feeling bad for myself because my ruck was heavy and my feet are flat. And there you are in my

ear, right? Pre-saging the sudden vanishment of half your body. So I think if that doesn't kill you, dude, then it turns you into somebody who hears clown music when the going gets tough. And that's what I love about you. I really appreciate that. That's giving me cold chills because not because I want to be someone to inspire, but I'm glad I was there. In the Marine Corps, we say, crap's getting done. You're in a moment where crap's getting done. Work was being had. Worthy work, worthwhile work was being to had, and whether I knew it or not, I got to be there. And that's where I want to be. I just told you, I live in North Georgia, North or South Georgia, come June through September, it's hot. It gets real hot. And to bring this full circle, something I bring up with you all the time,

my dad was a brick and block mason. I primarily laid. laid brick and block with my dad in the summer because I went to school in the winter. And about July, it gets real hot. About the end of July, close to my birthday, it gets real hot here and there's no rain coming. When the rain gets here, you get those moments of breaks. So those last two weeks of July, it's just all sun and you're outside working. From the time the sun comes up until literally you just can't work outside anymore. And for us, back then, that was about 3.

About 3 p.m., man, you're just done. Your skin can't take any more sun. Your head can't take any more sun. and the craft of your labor is struggling. So 3 p.m. you cut it off. And the reason why I tell that I kind of want to set the stage, you're at 1 p.m. You've been out there for eight hours already. The sweat's coming at such a propensity or such like volume that it's filling your eyebrows up, right?

And then it's coming down into your eyes. And you've got to quit wiping it because you're going to rub your skin raw on your forehead from wiping it. And you try to wear clothes. You've got to wear a loose-fitting long-sleeve shirt. Back in the 90s, we didn't have this dry-fit fishing shirt material. year old. It's like magic now. We had cotton, you know. Cotton can only get so cool and then it gets hot again. And you're picking up a tone of brick and the tone is this metal contraption that when you pull up on the handle, it compresses on each side. And I think there's 11 brick in there.

All right. You got one in each hand because it's like carrying buckets. Carrying one is more difficult than two. So you're carrying a tone of brick in each hand. You got to create up this hill where they've dug out for a foundation. So the ground is loose. You slip, you fall, right? You hit your knee or your leg or your shin on a brick. The brick fall out. You got to pick them up, put them together, pick that back up. Keep going up this hill because you got to get 100 brick up there so your dad can lay at least 100 more brick before we leave today. And in that moment, you realize nobody cares and nobody's ever going to know. The only person who does care is the person working harder than you, right? They're the only ones that know. And all they know is your job's easy.

You've got to move brick from point A to point B. They've got to put brick in a wall. that's true plum and square. And they've got to do it 100,000 times today. So the only people that know how hard you're working don't care how hard you're working because they're working just as hard and there's more depending on their work, there's skill involved in their work, there's just brute force and will in yours.

But if you can at 16 years old learn that the pride and the fulfillment in having bleeding hands, now a bleeding chin, a raw forehead and burnt skin, get home in time to eat supper and rest, and come back and do it tomorrow. Come Friday, we're going to have this job finished because dad said we're going to finish this job by Friday because a builder's waiting to put floors on this house, to put walls on this house, to build this house, because there's a family waiting that just hit, they had their bumper crop year, they got the job they're looking for,

they've saved the money, and because this was before the first economic problem that caused the first economic crash in 08, is in the 90s, right? And all that saying is you're building a foundation that a family is going to be, build their life on. And it's just a few days of your life, but it's forever to them. And if you can connect those dots and take pride in something that is nothing more than walking around with a 40-pound pack with flat feet, sweating, doing the hard work, not because it's going to make you stronger, but because something inside you, something in your spirit says, this is what I'm supposed to do. This is how I'm supposed to live life. This is what life's supposed to be. It's not

supposed to be easy. It's supposed to be work. And that work means something. It means something to me and it means something to someone else. Your work, Mike, means that you're going to be on this earth longer and here for people longer that needs you. That work I was doing in that summer of 99 meant that that family was going to have their house and my dad was going to put food on the table. And if you can find fulfillment and pain with a purpose, the rest of life is enjoyable or boring. I've been recommending a book by Michael Easter. He was a guest here a month or so ago. It's called The Comfort Crisis. You'd like it if you haven't read it. But I only point it out because, you know, I take cold showers now. I go for long walks with weight on my back. We all find ways to

get out of our comfort zone. You were dragged out of yours. You were blown out of yours. You were blown out of your comfort zone. This isn't you waking up going, how can I push myself today? Right. This is you flying 20 yards through the air, conspicuously void of your legs. And so that to me, I don't want to really ask you to tell your whole story. It's an amazing story, but I know that you've told it so many times, and I know you live it day in and day out. But I got to ask you to at least maybe just keep going from where you were because I'm fascinated by the past, at least in the sense that sometimes, the most informative moments of our life don't feel informative when they're happening, right? When you're carrying 11 bricks in each arm, up a grade, drenched in sweat, knowing that nobody

cares except you, did you realize at that point? No, that's a dumb question. Of course, you couldn't have. When did you realize that working for a Mason was actually laying the foundation for your work in the Marines. Probably second day after boot. No, this is the best way. The first time I was put in charge Marines, that's when I realized.

And so the first thing I did to be in charge Marines is it was, and I was not a supreme athlete by any means. I was 165 pound, 5'10 offensive linemen because I didn't have the skill set to do what most 510, 165 pound kids did. I just had to be tougher and faster than the fat body across the line from me. and hope that I got a hit on him clean enough that I wouldn't get in trouble for cutting his knees out from him, right? Because everybody I lined up against was well over 200 pounds.

This is North Georgia. We got cornbread, you know. And so, like, for me, the first time that it really connected the dots was when I'm my job, and I use the term fat bodies affectionately. It's a Marine Corps term. And we use that term when people are deemed to be overweight for their height. And that's a gauge that the Marine Corps uses. 90% of the time, it has no bearing whatsoever.

on their physical fitness. It's almost purely aesthetics, and you've got to look a certain way in a dress blue uniform. And so at lunch, if you were deemed a fat body, you had to go PT. You had to go run at lunch. And I'm running these guys up a hill, and they're back there just dined.

And I stopped, and I had to catch my breath, but my legs would not tire going up a hill. And it was because my quads were so strong from all the lifting I had to do for my dad, climbing scaffolds and stuff. And I realized, you know what? what? Like, this doesn't get to me, and that's unique, but it doesn't get to me because I've already had to do it. And I had to do it for a purpose, and there's a purpose here.

I remember telling them. I remember the words coming out of my mouth because, you know, your Marine Corps, you yell at people, even if you like them, you yell to them. You know, expletive, expletive, get up, keep going. We're going to hit the top of this hill. And this one kid's dad, like, was rich. He drove an infinity, but he was a good kid. And he kind of said something. I said, listen, son, I joined the Marine Corps to get away from hard work. You don't. don't know what hard work is. Get on this hill. All you have to do in your whole life right now is move your body from this point to that point. You don't even have to bring anything with you or do anything when you get there. This is not hard work. This is life. Get up this heel. I probably said it

almost verbatim. And to that point in my life, I was 19 years old. I didn't know anything about wisdom. Wisdom wasn't a part of it. It was repeating something that my dad said in different words coming out of me to this kid. And I probably, if I'd have realized the full extent of it in that moment, I'd probably said, dang, I should have done something different because I'm going to turn right into that guy that raised me. But your dad was wise, right? He said wise things and didn't know it. My favorite thing to quote him is he used to say, son, don't complain about the rain, complain about its timing. And the nuance to that is I could only work with him on the weekends during the school week and I needed to earn my gas money and it would rain every Friday through Sunday and I'd always get

mad. Like, why can't it rain on Tuesday? I need to work on Saturday and Sunday. And I'd cuss about the rain. I'm like, God, I wish it wasn't going to rain. And he'd say, son, don't complain about the rain. Complain about it's Tommy, you know. And I don't know if he knew how wise that was, but I've used that in so many layers of my life over the years. Well, I read it in your book, which we're going to talk about at length in a little bit. But I love the homage you pay to your dad. And I think one of the best ways to do that is to quote them. I do it all the time with mine and my grandfather. I think that I think the words matter an awful lot these days. I think I feel that way in part because our language is under assault. Words don't always mean what they used to mean. And I wonder, are you seeing that

in the military? And what's going on with our military today, if you don't mind me, just kind of leapfrogging around a little bit. Is it still the meritocracy that I always hoped and imagined and assumed it was? Are you concerned? I have a couple of things working against me to answer dishonestly. You know, in my line of work, when you talk on television for a living about things that people are passionate about, the hardest thing to say is, I don't know. And so I always take like a little bit of like, I take solace and being able to have the courage to say sometimes I don't know. When it comes to the military, I got a couple of things working against me. I wasn't in the military. I was in the Marine Corps, and there's difference.

You know, and that's just the truth of it. There's the Marine Corps and everybody else. And I don't mean that to be disparaging towards everybody else. The Marine Corps only survived what it has because it told itself, you're going to do things harder with less and be special for it. And that culture is hard to tear down. There's always been this riff of, well, the Old Corps. Like the Marines that came before you think they had it harder than you are so much different than you. And what I always tell people is go to Parasilis.

It doesn't change. Well, Parris Island's changed. And the other thing there is I got out 12 years ago, so what do I know anymore? You know, my experience of knowing the Marine Corps is I know what I went through, and I know what my best friend's son who just graduated is reporting to me. And two things can be true at the same time. I think he's just as proud to be a Marine as I was the day I left Paras Island. I think he got all the tools you're supposed to get.

And I also worry that it's on its way out. the idea of suck it up buttercup, get a straw, you know, like, and it's not to be insensitive, it's to understand that being sensitive has its place in time and it's not all the time and it's not here. So it's two different things, right? The void of one thing is not the presence of another. You can be sensitive to people in their humanity and be tapped into that and know that sometimes you got to put that on the shelf and push yourself till you almost die or you kill the person trying to kill you. Like that's a thing. Yeah, of course. I mean, there's an old lyric.

I forgot who's saying it, but cruel to be kind, right? You got to be cruel to be kind. You can't enable the thing that you're trying to work out of the recruit, to work out of the Marine. And so I didn't wear a uniform, Joey, but because I'm fascinated with language and because I'm in the recruiting business today, we're trying to get more Masons. We're trying to get more steam fitters, more pipe fitters and so forth, as you know. And I think about how the military recruits. The Army is be all you can be. It'll be great.

The Navy is, hey, it's an adventure. See the world. Hop on a ship and see the world. You know, the Coast Guard has its thing. The CBs are, actually, the CBs are pretty badass. You know, we build, we fight, you know. Yeah. But all of the messaging is based on you're going to come out better and more equipped to

function in society than you were when you went in. And it's going to be kind of fun and it's going to be a big self-improvement thing. So give it a shot. The Marines, on the other hand, that's probably not for you, right? The few. That's right. That's right. The proud. Beat it. And so that's what I loved about it. It was just the recruitment proposition right out of the gate just was designed to like double dog dare people to take the next step. I hope we haven't arbitraged that out of the transaction. I mean, I think you and I have a similar outlook on life, and that helps. But I've said a version of this for a year now, and I highly doubt you've heard it because

I haven't said it everywhere because I haven't had this conversation a lot. But I've said, listen, the whole attraction to joining the military was the bar's here. See if you can meet it. And now it's turned into let's grab this and bring it down to wherever you are, over to wherever you are. Let's make serving the military conducive to your wants and needs. It's the craziest thing I've ever heard in my life. Ultimately, because the military is not designed to be a reflection of society. It's supposed to be the last battering around used to protect society. The last, it's the trench you dig. You don't live in the trench. You dig the trench outside so

nobody can cross it, right? You don't live in the trench. You don't become a trench digger. It's there. It's a necessity. It's not a part of your. everyday life. We have segregated military from society for a good reason. And so what's so difficult for me here is that the recruitment process has turned into, like for example, I'm the first generation, we're serving a four-year term, was done so in a promise of a relationship for the rest of our lives. My father-in-law served in Vietnam. He didn't go to the VA until he was 70 years old. He did not go to Vietnam, and he volunteered to go. but he did not join the army and go to Vietnam under the promise that the army would be his big brother

for the rest of his life. He did it. Honestly, he did it because he was going to Georgia Tech and home was two hours away. He was on a full-ride scholarship and he couldn't afford to drive up there and turn in his deferment papers. So he said, you know what? You're going to get me one way or the other. I might as well just join so I have a little bit of say in it. Then once he became a soldier, he went to Vietnam because he felt obligated to because his brothers were going.

And so he volunteered to do that. And when he came home from Vietnam, it wasn't about a ticker tape parade. You know how they were greeted. It wasn't about the external gratification. It was about knowing that flying that Huey while people were shooting through the floorboard meant that five more men made it home that day. It was about knowing that the sacrifices he paid literally gave the rest of the life to other people. And I don't know what better recruitment tool message you could have.

if you'll give a piece of yourself, you can make other people whole. If you'll give some of your time, you can give other people the rest of their life. If you'll give some of your security and comfort, you can provide 330 million people with security and comfort. Like, there isn't a better deal out there, right? And I don't know why we would ever veer away from that. And there's got to be something to this correlation that not only as a recruiting tactic, but as a society, the further we move from that, it is to accomplish these goals. Do do, do do do do do.

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I think there's a paradox. My shorthand for it is micro macro. The most interesting challenges have very, very small components juxtaposed with very, very large ones, and you just said it perfectly. Part of the proposition is come in here, make a sacrifice, make a decision that will benefit 330 million of your fellow countrymen. But equal to that, and maybe even bigger, is the micro part of it, which is who's the most important person in the whole wide world when you're out there in the thick of it? From everything I've read, from the books I love about the military, the great Santini,

the things they carry, is the guy next to you? Yeah. And is there something there to unpack, the smallness and the hugeness of it being two sides of the same coin. Absolutely. The best way to put in perspective is I admire Gen Z. I admire them. Because I don't know who I would be with that much distraction in front of me. And there are several of them who are getting it done. And those are the people that are deserving of being handed the mantle.

And finally, they'll be the ones there ready to grab it. Unfortunately, that's a minority of them. the entire generation. If you served in Vietnam and you came home and you married the homecoming queen and took over Dad's Hardware Store and bought that house on Main Street, you made it. Man, you hit every dream you ever made and you multiplied that by 10, right? You wanted to do one of those things. And now you're doing all three.

You're not Al Bundy. You're Jefferson Smith. I don't know if you seen Mr. Smith goes to Washington. Sure. You know, like all you wanted was a place for boys and now you've become a senator and you're designating a whole half a state, right? And so my generation comes home and if you gave them the exact same accomplishments, homecoming queen from your high school, dad's hardware store, house on Main Street and small town Iowa, all three of those are failure to launch, right?

What do you mean? You just married a girl from back home? You just move back to your boring town. You're just going to run your dad's business. That's the problem. We're comparing real life things to social media things. We're comparing what's in front of us, a life that is there for us to live to the fake lives, others live coast to coast. And it's not to say information is bad.

It's not to say connectivity is bad. We've lost our compass. We've lost our ability to appreciate the tangible things because we're inundated with the intangible things. We've lost our ability to appreciate the beauty in a smile because every other part of a woman's available by our thumb.

and I don't mean to be graphic or off color. It's just true. We've lost our ability to provide nuts and bolts to a community because we can get on our phone and read about Mark Zuckerberg or somebody that's providing fake things to everybody. But here's the thing, Joey, this thing, and I'm holding up my smartphone now, it's not really a phone. It's a portal into 98% of all the known information ever gathered.

right? And in that myasma of data is everything from Euclidean geometry to porn, from Instagram to Einstein. I mean, it's just, so, you know, to me, I think I said this on Fox. I forget who I was talking to. God, it might have been CNN. That's how weird my life is, dude. I was on Fox and CNN in the same week and the earth didn't come off its axis, right? But I said to somebody, actually it was CNN. I said, I wouldn't have said this 10 years ago, but I'm pretty sure this thing in my hand right now is more dangerous, more deadly, more impactful, and more consequential than NAR-15. And then a nuclear bomb in Japan. Okay. Yeah. You know, because I mean, we're armed, brother. We are armed. I mean, I get it.

there are a lot of guns in circulation, but everybody's got one of these things. Everybody, I can hit this right now and go live on Facebook and start broadcasting this podcast. I could have done it when I was talking to you three weeks ago on the set. I could start broadcasting whatever it was we were saying to six million people, which is just stunning. I mean, it's just mind-boggling power. And so I don't know how to get that genie back in the bottle, but, you know, make no mistake, it's a genie.

We don't put it back in the bottle. We learn to live with it or it destroys us or it allows us to destroy ourselves. Now, I'm an optimist, man. Look, you tell me how hard times are. I say go talk to my great-grandfather. I don't know what the Great Depression was like. Think about this. They may be all gone at this point.

I don't know the exact date on the calendar. But in our lives, there were people influencing us. that grew to be adults not looking at this country as a superpower, as too big to fail. There were people in our lives that we talked to and were influenced by who were their formidable years, all of this could go away, and that would not be a surprising thing. Who turned all the scrap metal they had in for a war effort because the opposite was Pearl Harbor comes to California, who stood in a government ration line because the dry season of the 20s meant there was actually no food.

And so, I know there's a term for it at the Dust Bowl. Dust Bowl. And so what they lived through, Social Security wasn't here for that. Wick wasn't here for that. And I'm not saying these are bad things. These are things that millions of Americans rely on when they can't go out and do it or the opportunity doesn't feel like it's there. You know who did do it?

Their community, each other themselves. Micro, not macro. Micro. There you go. you know in my community growing up and they probably still do it when somebody's house burns down people don't drive by roll their window up turn their favorite song on turn it to their favorite degree and go thank god they had insurance they go to the local barn and we have what's called a cake walk where everybody brings a household item or they go buy one and everybody makes a cake and each

cake is donated and you do this or they play music you walk around like a train and they stop the music whatever number you're on, they draw a number out of a hat. If that matches the number you're on, they'll pick out a cake. And you paid money for every time they do that cakewalk. So it's like $5 a head every time. They do it 10 times. Everybody's paid $50.

All that money goes to help them and everybody else brought a cake home. They auction off the household goods you brought. And at the end of the night, the people there get the money and the goods, right? You're just enjoying pretending to auction to pay for this lamp knowing you're going to give these people a lamp. And so, like, the community was the first one. They went and lived with a family down the road. And that still exists in this country. We just ignore it.

And we give people reasons not to invest in it. And, you know, as passionate as you are about skilled labor, which, of course, I have that in me, I'm just that compassionate about community, about making yourself involved in the lives of the people around you. I mean, I love this country. You're talking about you're on Fox or CNN. I'm glad you're on CNN. You know, I love those people too.

I don't have to agree with them to appreciate the place they hold in my life and my community. I'll suggest that, you know, and I'm fundamentally an optimist too, but in this regard, I think you've understated it. We don't just ignore it. We besmirch it. Yeah. We turn it into a punchline. Yeah.

But it's that scene in witness. It's the barn raising scene, right? Yeah. It's like you were so specific just now when you were talking. about little things, micro things with a macro impact, a lamp, a cake, a thing, because there are no little things, right? And when a neighbor acts like a neighbor, it's just almost impossible to articulate it unless you've lived through a hurricane or a natural disaster and been there to help and to pick up the pieces, right? I don't know how you impart that to somebody who has never lived in a small town or visited a small town. But, dude, that's a show.

If you're looking for something to do when you're done whatever it is you're doing, I tried to do it with returning the favor. I tried to do it with dirty jobs to a certain extent. And I think we did. But it's hard. It's hard because you need a network to pay attention. You need a production company who gets it. And you need people who trust you because people are rightly suspicious.

of the camera crew who shows up ostensibly to make a show about, you know, a nice neighborhood without turning them into a punchline. But boy, this country could benefit from seeing someone like you, I.E.U. Celebrating that kind of community. That'd be amazing. You know, I'll do it in the ways I can from the places I have access to and the platforms that I'm blessed with. And, you know, I live in small town, Georgia. I don't live in New York. I live in small town, Georgia, I work in New York. That's on purpose. I have the distinct honor of bringing cow country to the airwaves, and I'll do it every chance I get. I told somebody actually today, I hosted four hours radio this morning, and I had lunch with a political consultant from Georgia

afterwards. I'd said something that was hardcore hillbilly. And she kind of laughed, and I said, yeah, I'll be honest with it. The TV voice goes away with the TV. I turned right back into the guy I was raised to be, you know. But that's okay. Like, you know, to bring some of that to America. because they all have it in their own way. Go hang out in a small town in Minnesota. Go hang out in a small town in upstate New York. If it's not the vernacular, it's just the common mentality. We're starving for it, Joey.

We're starving for it. We are because it used to be the only way, and now it's got to be the chosen way. And it takes courage and sacrifice to choose to get away from the hustle and bustle. But is there a world where an apartment building in New York City has the same sense of community? Maybe. I hope so. I really do.

I don't fault people who don't agree with me politically because I didn't live their life and I wasn't raised where they were raised and I didn't see the government's role in their lives in a positive way like they feel like they did. And so there's a lot of relevance in that. I don't know if there's more than one way to, I don't know, you're supposed to say skin a cat anymore. That's like I think. But I don't know if there's more than one way to get it done, you know. But there's relevance in all of it. What we have to do is remember to listen to each other and spend time sharing it, you know. I don't know about the skin of cat, dude.

Maybe not. But, you know, I mean, you're... You're frying egg, maybe. More than one way to fry an egg. More than one way to fry an... Yeah, but how's the chicken feel about that, Chuck? I mean, honestly. That's exactly right.

Be the chicken looking at the egg. That's your offspring, all right? Being split open and turned into some sort of, yeah, whatever. Delicacy. The language matters, you know, and it's fun to hear you sometimes play with it. What did you just say? You said it was the dry season. No, dude, it was the dust bowl, all right?

But I mean, that's an affirmatively optimistic way, right? It's like, ah, yeah, the dust bowl, it was just a dry season. I heard you somewhere. You were talking about, like, reuniting with an old girlfriend. Maybe it was your high school sweetheart. And you were like saying, I something called it stalking. I called it staying in touch. That's exactly right.

The language matters. Yeah, you're exactly right. You know, luck, I used to tell people, hey, man, it's your story. You can tell it however you want to, you know, when somebody was telling me about something amazing they did and it's just about Atlantis, you know, kind of like the fish was this big, you know? Yeah, yeah. It's like, hey, man, it's your story. You tell it how you want to, all right. I'm listening. I want to hear the story of what you did specifically in the core. A lot of people have seen Hurt Locker. A lot of people understand IEDs, EOD.

There are a lot of acronyms with you guys. but what exactly were you doing and why did you volunteer for that gig? Yeah, that's a great way to ask that question. There's a reason why you're a legend you are, I guess. Hey, listen, I'll buttered biscuit all day. It just happened to be true and I happen to believe it. Listen, when we're fighting this war in Afghanistan or Iraq before that, 2003 is the best time to start this. The first IED, the first improvised explosive device that we all came to know as a road

side bomb goes off. What is that? Well, it's like a landmine, but it's made out of homemade parts. Or it's like a landmine, but it's non-conventional. It means no two of them are the same. They're uniquely built. Well, why is that important? Because if you're going to defeat something and there's no standardization to it, you've got to learn not just what a thing is, but what a thing can be. Not just what it's made out of, but what it can be made out of. So now you're going from specific tangible components to abstract functions. What can turn on a light? What can ring a bell? What can move a lever. Those are the things you're fighting now. Well, what can do that? Everything can do that. So what do you got to learn a little bit of everything? You got to learn electronic engineering. You've got to learn

chem and bio, chemical and biological weapons. You've got to learn physics. You've got to learn chemistry. You've got to learn a little bit of it all, at least enough to know what's being used against you. Well, why do you do that? Because these improvised devices were the favored weapon of the enemy. They couldn't get a hold of enough AKs. And they didn't have enough people to use them, but they could make a bunch of bombs, and if one of them went off, they accomplished their mission. And guerrilla warfare in the desert is basically the way to put it, or in the desert mountains. And so EOD explosive ordnance disposal, our job wasn't just to take bombs apart.

It was to be the chess player, right? If we develop this tactic, the enemy developed that weapon. I got to see that coming so I can tell the guys, hey, they're going to use this bomb, this way now. They're going to make this bomb function that way now. Every time you used to take a step right, now you've got to take a step left because they're anticipating that step right. The responsibility that comes with that is amazing. Fulfillment isn't the word for it. To be able to influence the way men at war think in a way that keeps them alive, man, that's where it's at, you know? That was the fulfillment. Walking down

on the bomb that might kill me or take my legs, the bravado and that's kind of like walking up that hill with two tones of brick. You know, if I do it right, nobody knows. The only problem I have with the hurt lockers is the most intense moment in being a bomb tech. Nothing happens, right? You're leaning over. You're about to take an action. You take that action. If you do it right, it's all quiet. If you do it wrong, something happens. But the most intense moment is very quiet. People aren't shooting and stuff around you. It's you and what's in front of you and the knowledge you have of what could happen. There's not fulfillment as much in that as there is taking the 30,000 foot view and saying, okay, I walk down on those bombs to collect data, to get information, to play this

game of chess, so one day I don't even have to walk down on those bombs. Or one day I know my Marines won't even go near that bomb because they saw it from a mile away because I gave them the information and trained them to think. How many people, Joey, how many people are doing that job at any given time? at the height of the conflict. In southern Afghanistan, which includes Marja, the Helmand province, where all the poppy was being grown and all the bad guys were hanging out, we had 86 of us in country, broken down into two-man teams, so about 40 two-man teams,

and about 35 two-man teams spread around the country. Each two-man team was covering an area as far as you could run in a day, and that's it. So it was a different war than Iraq. In Iraq, we could take six of us cover the area of the 80 of us because we could get in a truck and drive down a highway. Afghanistan didn't have trucks or highways for the most part where we were. Not just a different war, but a very different war. People can flate Iraq and Iraq and Afghanistan all the time, night and day. Yeah, it's a different place, different culture, different people, different enemy, different weapons for a different purpose.

People don't know that, and that's okay. We fought really hard for them not to know it. Ignorance isn't just bliss. It's paid for in blood. and that's just part of it. But the job was to understand any way the enemy could use an explosive or chemical biological hazard against us, anticipate it, and be prepared with minimal tools to eliminate it or render it safe. That was the job.

What the hell happened? August 6 was it? 2010? That's it. August 6, 2010. Yeah. So the uniqueness of that date was extortion 17 happened. same day a year later. And so it's just a date that lives in infamy for a bunch of reasons for me.

But August 6, 2010, we call that our alive day. When you're blown up and you should have died, you know, after the bomb went off, I was bleeding out of three limbs, had a punctured lung. If people don't save me, I die. I am dying by fact in that moment. But I live. So that's my alive day. For me, my live day comes with the pain of knowing the guy next to me died. And so that's the best way to explain war, you know, it's not fair. It doesn't even make sense. It just is. And you either survive it or it kills you in the moment or years later. And so what happened that day is what happens to guys and gals thousands of times in those two wars. It's not all that exceptional other than the people that it hurt and changed. And so I always tell people what happened after that day

is the important part. So what happened that day, I was responding to a call, responding to marine engineers who were tasked with clearing a building in a road. They found parts of a building bombs in this room because it was a storage facility. I don't mean to jumble my words here, but we were responding to a storage facility, and they were going in room by room of this storage facility and looking for something, and they finally found it, which was IED components. Now, they didn't find a room full of them because the bad guys knew we were coming. and they took all those components, and they made a minefield out of the town. So we cleared 207 IEDs and two square kilometers in two weeks.

The first five days, I'd made it through 38 of them. On the sixth day, August 6th, 2010, we started clearing this storage facility. Daniel Greer and his team find components to IEDs that look different than other things, and they knew we needed to take information, data, forensics on it. They called me and my teammate over, my teammate and I. prosecutes what we called it. It's just a word we stole and used in a different way. We methodically go through the checklist of finding out what this is and how to document it and make sure we don't do it again. My teammate moves a conventional piece of the United States ordinance that the enemy

had recovered off the battlefield and was trying to make a bomb out of. He picks it up, puts it on his shoulder, moves it from a storage building to a behind a small wall, just a waist-high wall that kind of made a courtyard 20 meters away across a back-out. alley. I understood that pieces of ordinance that he moved from earlier instruction in school could be very dangerous if you moved it. We call that a no mover. He probably never saw that piece of ordinance in school. He did not see it. I did. He picked it up and moved it. I told him how dumb he was in Marine Corps fashion for moving it, a lot of four-letter words. And he kind of walked away because he understood we both need to cool off. In identifying that piece of ordinance as a potential

hazard, I felt the responsibility to go inspect it and see if that hazard was there or if it was an empty shell. I walked over, sounded a flashlight in it, leaned over the wall. He had done the right thing, what we would normally do, put it on the backside of that wall. So if something did happen, there was something there to push the blast and shrapnel away. I leaned over to see if it had fusing and explosive material in it. And I don't remember what I saw because when it took a step to the right away from it, I stepped on an IED we didn't know was there. I love stories like this. Seven years ago, a guy named Ben Still was a musician.

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It blew me through the air. I landed on my back and my legs were gone. My right arm was all but severed. And my left arm was twisted behind my back. As a matter of fact, in the moment, I didn't know if it was there anymore. I couldn't feel it. and I kind of went through the checklist of, okay, I can't put a tourniquet on because when I reached it with my right hand, my elbow came up and my hand stayed my lap.

My left arms either not there or not there in any kind of meaningful way. My legs are gone. What can I do? I can make sure the Marines that are coming to help me and the guy next to me don't step on a bond themselves. So I, in my mind, started trying to communicate with them. Finally a Marine got to me and started trying to work on me. And he hadn't been there very long. I'd been there months longer than he had.

He was nervous. It was his first incident like this. I'd seen this happen a dozen times, just not to me. And so finally, I said, look, more guys are coming. Quit trying to put tourniquets on because you're wasting my turnicates is kind of what I was thinking. And I said, just say the Lord's Prayer with me. And we got started. And I always tell this joke, and people think it's rehearsed and not true, but it is.

It's like, our father, who art in heaven with liberty and justice for all. And he realized in that moment, lying. You know, maybe we should have went to church at a time or two. Oh, my. Oh, that's not funny. But if you're not hearing the Benny Hill soundtrack right then, that's right. I mean, here you are. You're down two and a half limbs. It's got to be the most surreal, frightening moment of your life. It sounds like you were completely conscious and present, though. Yes. And you start to Forrest Gump your way through the Lord's Prayer. Did the guy with you know it? Did either of you know it? No. He didn't. didn't. I did the liberty and justice park to make fun of the fact we were stumped after about two lines, you know? And I said, listen, just, and it

got a little serious. I said, listen, tell these people I love them and, you know, check on Greer because he was a guy with me. And I thought he was just knocked out. He wasn't bleeding or missing limbs. He was 20 feet away from me. The truth of it is he had been injured and his head had been injured and it took his life.

And so they usually carry the most hurt person out first. And when I saw him go by before they got me, out of there. I knew something wasn't right, but it hadn't quite registered. My eyes ended up swelling shut. Like, you might get this, Mike, just a little bit. Somebody in your listening audience will. My lips felt like they've been blown open from the inside out. So when I'm telling this to a, maybe a group down in Southern California, I'd be like, it felt like a full syringe, you know, and they get it. They get where I'm going to that. So yeah, my face felt, I thought my face had been

blown off. I really was. I thought my face, and it was just a blast had busted every blood vessel in my face is what it was. When you're hurting so many different places, you don't feel all of it at once. And so going through my mind at the time wasn't, will I live or will I die? It was, am I helping these guys to where if I die, they don't carry that responsibility? Am I communicating with them properly? Can I keep my head straight? I'd seen so many guys going to shock and then I saw this doc would get his legs blown off to the point he knew he was going to die. And I didn't see it happened firsthand. I arrived on scene right after they flew him out, and all the Marines were talking about how Doc Wood was conscious, and he was telling them basically what to do, and when he got

to where he couldn't really think that straight, he was just giving them his blood type, so they would remember. And what it was, and what I realized, even before I got blown up, was he didn't want those Marines feeling responsible because they were taking care of the dock, and they didn't have the knowledge he was supposed to have. He didn't want those Marines feeling like they let him down. So he was communicating to them knowing he was going to die. I mean, his legs were blown off to his pelvis. There was nowhere to put a tourniquet. And he bled out and passed away. But in his last act on this earth, he saved the sanity of four Marines working on. And I didn't think I had that in me. I didn't, but I had my version of it, which was to tell a joke or keep the guy busy focused on

telling my mom I love her because he wasn't going to be the guy that got my tourniquets on, right? And I knew that, but I knew more Marines were coming. I don't know if I thought I was going to die. I just thought I was living in that moment, and we both had a job to do. He was to take care of me, and mom was to make him feel like he did. First time I saw you on Fox News, I really liked you. I mean, and then like, I just like now. Not so much. Now that I'm getting to know you, Joe, I don't know. Jury's out. No, you remind me of my friend Travis Mills. Yeah, Travis is a good one. I mean, but the interesting thing about some people who have endured the level of calamity that you guys have endured is, I can't really speak for anybody but me, but I stopped

seeing your prosthetic legs about two minutes after watching you. And you were wearing short pants, right? I mean, it was like, there was no pretense. I very quickly just didn't notice them anymore. Same thing happened with Travis. That doesn't happen with, everybody I meet who has survived this level of injury. So I think that's interesting, but I brought it up because after the segment, I googled you and I found, I think it was CBS had footage of you being taken to the helicopter. You were on a stretcher and guys are running with you. And that just made it so real for me, just as a guy who, once again, the power and the wonder of this infernal device, right?

Yeah. I just wanted to have a second screen experience to see who the hell is this Johnny Joey Jones guy. And there you were on a stretcher without your legs getting saved by your buddies. Have you seen that footage? I'm surely you must have. And what's it feel like to watch that? Well, I have seen it. I've seen it a million times at this point because sometimes I go back and watch it to remind

myself I'm lucky to be here. We all get jaded. Like you, you know, I don't say anything I don't believe, but the say that I believe it 24-7 would be a lie. You know, there are days that just kind of suck. But you have to remember it's the days that suck that make the days that don't suck that much better. I used to go back and watch it to remind myself the events of that day to make sure I didn't mess up facts or cloud things. And I'm a firm believer that how we remember something is more important than how it happened because that's how it affects us right now in this moment. So I quit doing that.

And if I mess up a fact, it's not intentional, you know, you can plagiarize and become the president. Who cares? And so I have seen it over and over again. Careful there, Johnny, Joey Jones. You slip this show in just a little bit. I've watched it because I want to remember the emotion on those men's face that they interview. Because I have to remind myself it's possible for a grown man to love another man he's barely even met. Because that's how I need to feel.

I need to feel like I love these people that irritate me. in the airport because they asked me how much my legs cost, or they asked me a question that I deem stupid, and they meant genuinely. And I have to remind myself that these people cared that day because they saw what happened to me, and it's the exact same care that lives in those people that come up to me in the airport.

And I have to remind myself that if that responsibility lands on my shoulders to take somebody from a dire situation, a car wreck, or what have you, or somebody passes out on the sidewalk, I have to remind myself, I have the responsibility to be there for them because there were men there for me and women. There was a female corpsman or doctor I don't remember there on site that day. And so I've watched it over and over again, but not out of vanity, not to be like, you know, look, what I survived, but to remind myself how many people it took to get me off that battlefield and keep me alive. That's why I asked, right?

This podcast is called The Way I heard it. You'll find no bigger fan of what you just said. We have our memories, and we have our past, and we get to choose the way we tell our story. Maybe the fish was this big. Maybe it was this big, right? There's a bunch of stuff that doesn't matter. But when the stakes are this high and there is an actual video record, that really interests me because you're able to have your story and you're able to see it through the lens of the sun of a mason, but at the same time, see it in living color. And so there are some facts that aren't really up for debate.

There are some things that we have to see clearly for what they were, what they truly were. And I hope that's to your advantage to be able to look back and see precisely what that was. You know, the truth is, men that day sacrificed peaceful sleep for the rest of their life to save mine. That's true. Which means they're still sacrificing today something. so that I can get up and walk out the door and smile and get the accolades and the paths on the back and the kind words, even if they're genuine, even if they're true, they can't mean too much to me to the point that I forget where they come from and who sacrificed for them.

I didn't sacrifice for them. Yes, I lost my legs. But there were men that day who ran into the fire, who ran towards the bomb, who saw my legs bloodied and mangled and put tourniquets on me with my blood all over their hands. and went back that night after it was all over with and recounted that in their head and that memory was burned in a way that will never leave them. And the only solace I get from it is I hope they see me on TV and know that all their efforts meant something. I hope that they sleep well at night knowing that that nightmare from last night gave me

peaceful sleep tonight. And I hope that that means something. It means something to me, of course. But I just hope that those sacrifices that people make every single day that people don't know about. I always like to bring it full circle. For me, it was combat. Have you ever met a fireman? Think about what it's like to be a fireman in a community. And when you take your wife to dinner, you drive and you go, this is that intersection where that three-year-old was killed in a car wreck. This is that house where I resuscitated a man's mom just to come back

next week and she died of an overdose. That's that house that burned down and we didn't get all the pets out. And that's on the way to dinner every single day. That's your community you live in. And we talk about first responders and back the blue and support these people like it's a trend or a divisive thing. It's a necessary thing. And they carry those scars for the rest of their life. And so for me, it's easy, you know. Well, if it's going to be a full circle, then take it back to the Mason. How many times did your pop drive through your community and go, that brick, that wall? Did that one? Did that one? Right? How many times did you do it, Joey? How many times did you look at a wall and say, I helped my dad build that? You have to forgive me. Technology took over for a

minute. My AirPods decided they wanted to be in on the conversation. I've turned them back off now, but I missed a little bit of that and I'm sorry. You know, we made it for an hour without AirPods, without. We did good and we're going to land the plane soon, I promise. But I was just thinking, I know lots of firemen, and you're absolutely right. They can't drive through a town without remembering, you know, the incident. But I know lots of skilled tradesmen, too, including some masons. And I just wonder how many times you and your dad, you know, took a similar drive and saw another wall with another brick in it that you put there. That matters. I say this about my dad. I wrote his eulogy sitting beside him in the hospital. So my dad worked real hard, obviously.

and he smoked a lot. I didn't take care of his body. He lived a life as hard as he worked. He was a very flawed man. And that's an important part of his story. We need flawed people. We need the best of what anybody has to offer and we can't let the worst of what they are within confines eliminate them from the fold. And so my dad was an alcoholic. He was a social recluse. I'd bring him a plate home from his own birthday party. He'd show up, but he'd give it the Irish goodbye every time. He couldn't be around a lot of people. He probably took my mom out to dinner three times, and they're 30 years of marriage. And obviously, she got the short end of the deal there. All he knew he could do was provide and protect, and that's what he wanted to do. But he was a very lonely man his whole life. And his work was the most important thing to him, not because it was more important than his family, but it was the only way he knew to connect to his family. I didn't know my dad until I was old enough to go to work with him.

And so work left scars on him. I'll never know. But I say all the time, my dad died in 20. 2019 in my house, in my arms with me doing CPR on him. He was down there for Thanksgiving. The week before my mom's mom died, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, so they waited a week, came down for Thanksgiving. He was 63 years old.

His heart gave out because he ran out of oxygen. He should have been on oxygen a long time ago and he's still smoking cigarettes. He went to the bathroom, came back, fell out on the floor and that was all she wrote. And the paramedics kept him alive, me doing CPR, my sister, and then the paramedics got there. and they do this thing where they keep you alive on a machine, they cool your blood down, they try to stop the brain swelling, but all that was foregone, this protocol. So I was sitting in the room beside him.

It was my chance to say goodbye. They were going to take him off the machine, and I felt like somebody needed to be in there, and my sister and mom couldn't do it, and I wouldn't ask him to. So I said, I'll stay in here when they do it until he's gone. And I sat down in our road as eulogy, and it's the most important words I've ever put in the paper in my entire life. And it's not a whole lot of words.

It's less than 500. but in there I talked about how a man with monuments, everywhere you look, doesn't need a tombstone. And it's true. Everywhere you go in that town is something made of stone that's a monument to him. And most of people know it. And I wasn't trying to be predictive about the future,

but that was 2019. We just put his tombstone up about a month ago. So there was some truth in it. That's his legacy. His legacy is literally written in stone but not at the graveyard under the feet and under the beds of people who have built now three generations on his work. With respect, you're his legacy too. And I don't know that your book was intended to be a love letter to your dad, but it feels that way to me. It was certainly a love letter to the band of brothers with whom you served.

So tell me about it. when you were saying before you hope they see you on TV, they, I hope they read this book, Unbroken Bonds of Battle. Why'd you write it? I try to be humble. Modesty is out the window, right? I work in television. I get a tan. I get a haircut. Modesty's out the window. But I try to be humble because humility was explained to me as sitting at a table across from yourself and seeing yourself clearly. That's humility. It's more inward than outward. Do you know who you are? Do you know your shortcomings?

And can you be honest with yourself about your gifts? And so humility is a constant struggle for me because it's easy to see a rose-colored version of myself or a worse version than I am. And so when people ask, when are you going to put your story, when are you going to write a book, when are you going to tell your story? My answer was always, well, my story's been told, but there are a lot of them that are more important that aren't. And I knew I had a responsibility to people that had a vested interest in me,

call them a fan or a viewer or maybe a crazy person to care that much about me. I knew I had a responsibility to write something in word that they could have and read and get to know me better. And the best way to know me is to get to know the people that have left an impact in my life and how they did it and what led to them being the type of person who could do it. And so this idea of unbroken bonds of battle was if I get one chance to write a book, I'm not going to make it about me because there's a shelf full of those books. And there's great men that have written them, but that's not me. My combat experience isn't exceptional. It's the rule, not the exception. And so this idea of collecting these relationships that were important to me from before

service, during service, and after service, and how so many of these points of contact in my life were so instrumental, just like my dad. So what's cool is everyone in the book, either was a service member or one gold star wife, Daniel Greer's widow, actually, who's here in my house this week. She's the only one that didn't go through boot camp, but she served. And so my best friend growing up, Keith and our other best friend, Chris McDonald, and their dad, Chris's dad, Jeff McDonald, that was our technology teacher and football coach who served in Desert Storm as a Marine and his son, Chris, goes to Iraq with the same reserve unit 15 years later.

And so much of this book is telling my story through the lens of the people that influenced me were there for me, built me. there was no way to leave my dad out of it and I didn't mean to put him in it. There's three themes in this book that have no place in it but make all the sense in the world. My dad, football and hunting. And all three are in this book because those are the things that have formed me outside of the military and they just happen to be what me and so many of the guys in the book have in common. And so it was such a fun thing to do to sit down and interview these people so close to me

and hear them say what our friendship is, and hear them say what my impact on their life is, and to hear them frame what their impact on my life is, and to see over and over again how buts they undersell it, because they were so important to me. And so when you read this book, you take two things away, I think. One, relationships are more important than we know. And two, there's nothing you can go through

that you are going through alone, because if nothing else, there's a thousand people out there that you don't know going through it too. You know, you got a guy Amos Benjamin who, and I don't mind telling parts of history that's not even in the book. Adam's brother, I recall. Yes, this guy joined the Marine Corps because his older brother was a Marine. He looked up to his older brother, which is crazy because Amos is a mountain of a man. I don't know how he's ever looked up to anybody but like the gravedigger, or the undertaker, I mean. And so, Amos, you know, we're like rassling around here, you know.

Amos joins the Marine Corps because his brother was a Marine. Amos becomes an infantryman. His brother becomes an EOD tech. Amos wants to eventually become an EOD tech. So he hangs around his brother and his brother's EOD friends. His brother goes on deployment and gets killed. Amos is a Marine waiting to deploy. And the Marine Corps comes to Amos and says,

You don't have to deploy. Your brother just died. You're a gold star brother. You don't have to go on this deployment. We're not going to put your mom and dad through that. And Amos is stuck with this insane responsibility and choice. Do you fulfill your responsibility to these 50 men who rely on you to have their back in battle that you've made that promise to? Or do you fulfill your responsibility to your mom and dad to not make them suffer the consequences of losing

a second son in war. It's not Sophie's choice, but man, it's a choice, right? And how do you land on that? Well, here's the truth. Amos doesn't even fully discover until years later. He's right either way. It's his character and who he is in his soul that makes the decision because he's got justification either way he goes. And what does he choose? He chooses to go on deployment. He chooses to go with his Marine Corps brothers and be there for them and make sure they make it back home. In doing so, he gets injured himself. He comes back home and he doesn't want to be honest about his injury because his brother lost his life. What injury could Amos have that could amount to that?

So he lives the next few years struggling with these demons of having a traumatic brain injury, which literally changes the reality in which you exist. It's like being high all the time, right? Like everything just doesn't do what it's supposed to. You don't process. And it's subtle, but it's important and impactful. and it takes going back to those men he met through his brother, who knew his brother best other than him, and then looking at him and saying, hey, crazy, the only way to honor your brother's sacrifice is to get yourself well.

As simple as that is, he was living in existence that could not see that, and it took other people that he respected to tell him that. He and I became friends after his brother was killed. We became friends because his brother worked in a very small job field that I was in, and I knew of his brother. and I was friends with his brother's friends. And from that, Amos and I became friends. And not to give away too much, but he had a very important role in my life at a very important time when I needed it. And I was that outside influence that had credibility who led the horse to water

and got him to some organizations to get the right kind of help. And we're still texting together every day along with two or three other guys in the book. And that's just one example of 10. that are all just as inspiring. But when you read these books, you don't look at it like you're reading a book about professional athletes, although there is one in the book. You look at it like you're reading a book about 10 versions of yourself. And you read it and you know you can figure this out.

The federal government is not going to close America's skills gap. They have an important role to play for sure. But if we're serious about reinvigorating the skilled trades on a national level, We need more organizations like Skills USA making a real difference on a local level. These guys have been around since 1965, and today they are relevant like never before with hundreds of chapters in schools all over the country and hundreds of thousands of students participating and competing every year. Nobody is doing more to train the next generation of skilled workers than Skills USA.

And I'm encouraging you to at least consider being a part of the this movement. Skills USA advisors and volunteers aren't just teaching trades. They're launching careers and strengthening the backbone of our country by mentoring the next generation of industry leaders. In high school, you could be among the people who are making this movement explode. Join the skilled trades movement. Support career and technical education programs through Skills USA. There's no better way to do it. You can volunteer at a local chapter. You can start a chapter in your own town. Or you can just go to their website and see the impact for yourself and see too how easy it is to get involved. Thousands of kids are being introduced to the trades in a way that's absolutely

positively moving the needle. The goal is a million members by 2030. I think it's doable. I'm doing what I can to help them. Learn more at skillsusa.org slash mic. That's skills usa.org slash Mike. I'm talking Skills, US, Skills, USA. Yeah, it's not really a book of lessons, but there's a lesson in every autobiographical story.

And people should know that it's not just stories of people you've met. It's their story juxtaposed with your story. It's kind of a back and forth throughout. But Amos, you know, his story reminds me of, I mean, there's a great lesson and we hear it every time we fly, right? When the masks come down, should we lose altitude, what do you do first? You put it on yourself. Yeah. Because you're no use to anyone if you're passed out, right? You have to tend to yourself.

The book is bursting with lessons like that. It's also really a love letter to Shakespeare, who probably said it best and first. We few, we have to. happy few we band of brothers, right? I mean, it's just tough. It's tough to beat that, but to hear it repurposed from a guy who had a front row seat to it. It's just a great read, Joey. I hope you're happy with it. I hope you didn't hate writing it too much. Having written a book, I know how this works. You love it, and then you hate it, and then you can't wait to be done with it, and then you're finally done with it, and then it's time to talk about it. it's the hardest thing to do is to read it that second time in full i've read every word in that a

thousand times but to go back and read it as a complete work that second time is tough but it's important because the first time you read it you're surprised by it but you also see all the things yeah well i wish i would have said this i wish i would have batted that it it takes going back and reading it that second time to appreciate it for what it is you know this is not about religion, but my mom says, you know, whatever the arguments are about the Bible, what is there is what was meant to be there. And I feel the same way about this book. The parts of the story that are there are what needs to be there. And the amount of each story that's there is what needs to be there. You don't need every detail, which is hard for a guy like me that's a storyteller

to not give every detail. But you got to give people the ability to fill the void sometimes. You know, it's like movies that have a bad ending have the best ending because you get to decide the ending. And you get to decide how these people are going to impact you. The constant is every one of them will impact every reader. And you get to decide how grateful to feel, how humble to feel, right? How amazed to feel. We all get to decide these things, you know. Work ethic is a choice.

Patriotism is a choice. gratitude is a choice, right? And so all of that kind of throbs underneath the surface of your book. And I love it. I hope you sell a couple billion of them. I don't care if it makes any kind of bestseller list. I hope that it ranks up there on personal list for individuals that need it and read it, you know? If a thousand people read it and it becomes one of their favorite books, that to me is important as a million people reading it and forgetting about it. And I don't think we'll have that problem. Probably on either. side, but... We'll see. What's your favorite book ever written about the military?

On Killing by Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman. What's your favorite movie ever produced about the military? About the military? Well, a war movie. Yeah, you know, here's the thing. I struggle with war movies. I think my favorite war movie, and this is not a very poetic answer, but it's called Battle Los Angeles. And let me tell you why. The movie is literally, about, I think, reserve Marines fighting aliens. And it's a badly

crafted version of an alien. But the genius in the movie is that their tactical movements and communication is exactly what the war in Iraq was like. And what the lesson I learned from is we never really

saw our enemy. Our enemy could have been bears and clown costumes. The bombs they left behind is what killed us. The bullets they shot at us from sniper hides is what we feared. And everybody else that we saw could have been our enemy, but we treated as friendlies because they were just townspeople. And so the enemy was so faceless and so shapeless. And the presence of the enemy was 100% in the harm they could cause you.

And if you watch that movie through that lens, it really gives some poetic meaning to what we went through. Like we struggle knowing we didn't get to line up, a thousand of us and a thousand of them and see who won the day, like wars of old. We went out and we fought bombs every day. We went out and we fought staying alive every day. We didn't go out and try to stack up the bodies of our enemy every day. And when you watch that movie, those Marines are simply trying to survive, but by surviving,

they win, not by killing as many aliens as they can kill. And so I think that movie, whether they meant to or not, is a perfect, um, analogous representation of the war I fault. Because you don't get a clean ending. You don't get it all wrapped up in a bow. Yeah. How in the work, dude, I could talk to you for hours, but I mean, when you watched the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a year or so ago, a year and a half, I guess, what did that

feel like? I didn't have the honest and emotional reaction in the beginning that I think was dominating the headlines I think a lot of men and women felt because we knew for 10 years we were leaving all that stuff there. We knew when I was there that we weren't taking those trucks back home. That was always a part of the plan. And it took me a while to realize how dishonest politicians had been even about that fact. And how, okay, what came from the way we left Afghanistan was a realization of how unimportant my life was to the people that made the decisions and how infinitely important it was to the people I was fighting for. Very few people in this country were not upset

seeing those 13 people die. Leaders of our military and government really had no qualms about it, so much so that their reaction was to kill a bunch of civilians with a drone and to gloss over that. That's still glossed over. That's not even a scandal. We live in a world where our government strategically murdered, and I don't mean to be to, let me take that step back. Our government pointedly killed by accident. a half dozen more civilians, and it's not a scandal because the actions that caused that reaction were the scandal. And what I had to do was I had to do a lot of time

because I didn't just have the experience and responsibility of a veteran to learn for myself what that war was going to mean to me after the fact, but I had the platform and voice to help other veterans decide that for themselves. That's a greater responsibility than I ever thought I would have sitting in a chair on television. And I had to be very specific and very intentional about my words. Do I inside anger or do I lead people to peace? Do I look for justice or do I live without it and live a good life without it? What did that war mean?

That war meant that a generation of Americans was still willing to die to keep our country safe. That's what that war meant. It's different than the outcome, but that's what it meant. and I hope we have one more generation after us, and I hope they have one more generation after them, and that's how we get through it. I hate to end this on a heavy note, but the stakes are too high to pretend these numbers don't exist. But am I right? Have more people died of suicide since the war than died in the war on the American side? Since 9-11.

Since 9-11, yeah. Yeah, you're right. but also, let's frame it correctly, not to diminish the point, but to understand the point. When it comes to a war of attrition, technology and medical advances meant that we were going to have a pretty small number of deaths, but the number of people living without limbs, of people living, riding in a vehicle that a bomb went off, and any other war would have killed them, but they didn't even have a physically visible injury. it just literally drove them crazy from TBI. So how many of those suicide deaths are actually, in my opinion, killed in action?

Probably a lot of them. And so you got to kind of connect those dots a little bit before you can really compare. That's the thing, right? My buddy Dave Lynde, he's not a suicide. But just to show you how this war works and how the new medical advances we have works, this guy was blown up just like me, same injuries, months before me, recovered, started using prosthetics, developed a company, was helping EODTex, prosecute IEDs without getting hurt, developed kits for that. He was actually doing some international things, trying to bridge a divide and bring people together.

He lays down on a bench machine to do bench press, and a blood clot comes into his heart and kills him. This is six or seven years after he got blown up. It was deemed that blood clot was a direct result of his injuries. That man was killed in action. And so much of this war is still with us. So much of those injuries are still hurting and harming and killing. Suicide is an epidemic among our generation of Americans. It's not just something that's centric to our veterans,

but it is acutely affecting veterans because there's catalysts in our lives and things we're still trying to understand that giving up becomes an option quicker, I think. And so it's tough. I try not to talk about suicide. in a past tense. I try to talk about it in a preventative way. It's not about how many people have taken their lives. It's about how many thousands may steal, but we can save. And that's the work I try to do. Okay, then, I lied. I'm not quite done. What are you doing in furtherance of that work in the philanthropic space? And can I be of use in any way? Because look, absolutely.

I don't live in this space, but my foundation has tried to help create vet-friendly on-ramps into many, many businesses, in particular the skilled trades. Because so many people who come back, there's no reverse boot camp, right? There's no program to get people prepared to assimilate. And I just think the opportunity in the skilled trades for so many who are coming home is just an unrealized opportunity. You know, my buddy Luke is a big influence on me, and when I explain why everybody's going to question any wisdom they ever heard from me. But Luke and I serve together in the Marine Corps. We lived together before.

And Luke is a war hero. He went in, they responded to Hurricane Sandy. They were on ship, getting ready to go to the Middle East. Hurricane Sandy comes through, and this is the most Marine Corps story you'll ever hear. They bring them all on boat. They drive them up the East Coast. They take helicopters and drop them all off on Long Island, I believe it was, or I believe it was Long Island. and they put shovels and axes in their hands and said, go to work.

That was all the direction they had. Go to work. They go out. They start saving people and fixing things. And so this one lady was strapped in her house or she was afraid to leave her house. Her basement was flooding. Her water heater was there. There was a potential for an electrical fire.

Something could happen. Luke's the smallest guy there. He strips down, dives into the basement and turns the water heater off, flips to break her so that there's no longer a hazard there. Gets back out and stops that. from happening, you gets an award for it. It's crazy stuff, you know. You don't think about risking your life like a, you know, right here at home in camouflage. And that's the most Marine Corps thing you've ever heard. And, uh, but Luke's a big influence on me. And he's, he's a big

influence on me because he knows who he is. He doesn't go anywhere else with it, right? And I say all that to say, well, I've lost my train of thought a little bit because my mind went somewhere else for a minute. I apologize. He's a worker. He went in to fight a different sort of battle. It was a humanitarian case. And so I guess what I'm getting at with Luke is Luke's living his life in a way that he's still trying to find himself. And it's tough for me because he lives with me sometimes.

He is a veteran who has gone out of his way to be homeless. He is financially secure and he's homeless. He lives in the back of his truck and he's driving across country to see the sunset in every place he can. He carves spoons out of wood and sells them for $35 a piece. That's how he funds his day to day. He's 100% disabled from injuries he received as a Marine. He carves spoons out of wood. He takes an axe.

He doesn't use any power tools whatsoever. It's all got to be done by hand with a blade. And I think about him all the time. And I think about why is he doing what he's doing? What is it in his mind that makes him scared to death to enjoy the indulgences of our society? Why does he feel like he's not worth it? Or does he feel like it stops him from truly living? Is it a positive thing?

Is it a negative thing? What is it in Luke's life and in his mind? And it said, now I've asked permission to talk about him so I can use his name. But why is it that all of his experiences, being a war hero, being a hero at home, having a box full of metals that nobody ever sees, got him to take all of his clothes and narrow it down to this is the outfit I wear if I'm going to go into public to dinner. This is the outfit I'm going to wear if I'm going to go for a run. And he goes through the work of washing those clothes every week or every day. He lives in the back of a truck that he has the money to pay for. I mean, he's not financially insecure.

He is homeless by choice because he wants to get away from all of this. Why is Luke living that way? Is there a blessing in it that we can bring into our lives? Is there a worry in it that I should reach out to him? Why is Luke where he is? But one thing I know he isn't and isn't going to be is a statistic on that veteran suicide. Because he's found peace, but it's peace without. I don't know what it means, but I think about it every day.

Well, a consummation devoutly to be wished. Peace, macro and micro, for all of us, for each of us, right? I mean, in the end, that's what the best among us fight for. I stumbled telling that story, and I don't want to keep you longer, but I think it's important. My best friend Chris McDonald was a Marine, and he came home from war in 2008, same time I did, and same time our friend Keith did. And I was working at the House Veterans Affairs Committee because I was an honorary Marine and I wasn't going to be just a wounded warrior. I hate that title. That is not a profession.

And so I went and finagled my way into Capitol Hill. And in doing so, I had access to important people that had oversight over the VA. And Chris started struggling with painkillers when he came back. He struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was in charge of a checkpoint and a family did not understand any of the hand signals and were doing exactly what a vehicle bomber would do, which is keep coming when you tell him not to. He gave permission for the machine gunner to machine gun the car like we're starting. supposed to, engine block first, two bullets made it in, killed the wife and daughter, the dad and

son survived. Chris was investigated for it and cleared of all responsibility. He did exactly what the Marine Corps told him he was supposed to do. But in his mind, he should have done more. So he comes back, he struggles, he uses painkillers to medicate himself, and then that gets to the point that he becomes ashamed of himself, because this is a guy that did everything at 110%. He was all regioned every sport. His only problem was his only 5-8. Fidman 6-1, he'd be playing on Sundays or every day of the week. And he was my best friend in high school and I looked up to him and he came home and he's hooked on painkillers. This is 2009, 10, 11. There aren't a lot of jobs in an industrial town like Georgia that was, or Dalton, Georgia that was still hit from the

economy crash of 2008. He went to school to be a school teacher and he had to be a parapro. He wanted to be a coach and he had to, you know, be a volunteer coach for peewee, softball or something. and he felt like a failure. And so these painkillers were self-medication. And then he was ashamed of that. He got hooked on him bad and went down that spiral. We tried to get him help. And so the VA didn't want to help him

because on paper he didn't have enough going on to need help for them and they didn't have the resources for him. They turned him away. And so his dad and I and our other friend Keith ended up going to the judge advocate and getting him detained for a detox, purpose, which is something you can legally do. It's not punitive. It's to save somebody's life. And basically you treat them like they're a hazard to overdose. And so they brought him in.

They detox him for two days. And I was mad at him because he had stolen painkillers from myself and my grandmother next door. And I was really mad at him. So I didn't talk to him. And long story short, he ended up taking his own life. I didn't have a couple of conversations with him. I wish he would have had. And so in retrospect, I don't feel responsible for his death. like I don't feel responsible for the death of the Marine that was next to me. But there's a difference between being responsible for something, but also having had the power to stop it. And so I couldn't save my own best friend.

And I couldn't save the guy next to me in war. And so you asked me what I do, like how do I help in any capacity and can you be of service? I tell their stories. I speak honestly of my shame and guilt, not because it's dominating or even that it's, controlling, but because it's real. And there are men out there, mostly men, but some women, who feel a similar guilt.

And they need to know that there's life with it and even life after it. And so much of these men and women who are taking their own life aren't taking the steps and courage that somebody like even Luke has taken to remove some of those catalyst in life that create that shame and guilt. I mean, war is something you never leave. You just learn to live with it. And so for me, it was the two wars I fought abroad, but then the third one I fought here at home and lost as many friends from.

And so what do I do to combat that outside of working with boot campaign? Is I keep their stories alive, and I'm honest. It's hard to be honest. It's hard to live to retell that story every day in my life that kind of sucked. But if I do, it might save somebody. It might inspire somebody to know they're not alone and to live one more day. And in that one more day they live, something else happens that adds another day. And eventually you're 10 years down the road and you found a way to be happy.

I don't always tell that story. And I felt like I should, but there's never a good way to say it. Chris isn't here. Daniel Greer isn't here, but I am. So what's about responsibility? I can live guilt and not make much of it or I can make it mean something. Brother, you said that humility is important. Well, you've got it.

your book is laced with it. Chuck, hold it up again in the spirit of a shameless plug. Because look, this thing is going to be coming out right about now. It's called Unbroken Bonds of Battle by Johnny Joey Jones. Pick it up, read it, share it, celebrate it, and know that you'll be better for it. I enjoyed every second of this. It's always a treat to come on your shows when you invite me, but we only get to talk for three and a half or four minutes. It's like Fox and CNN have you know, headlines. The podcast world is the place to come to actually have, you know, whatever we just did. And I really enjoyed it. Joey, thanks. Thank you, brother. And thank you for all you're doing. You said earlier to that my dad's legacy and you're a big part of that. You're opening people's eyes to

what that can be, to live a life of service to your community and doing it with a trade skill. It's something I'd admire. Every time I drive by a job site, I'm a little bit jealous of those men and some women out there doing it because I know they have a silent happiness that's hard to find. They are also a band of brothers in their own way, you know? Absolutely. Maybe we should end with Mack Davis since humility has been thing. You'll recall his famous. I don't think he was ever on he haul, but wasn't he the guy who said, Lord, it's hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way? I can't wait to look in the mirror. I get better looking each day. To know me is to love me. I must be a hell of a man. Oh, Lord, it's hard to be humble, but I'm doing the best that I can.

I love it. I love it. All right, man, I'll see you on the TV. Next time you have me on. Don't hang up. I'm curious to see if this thing uploads from your cell phone, which must be down to what? 1% at this point? We're at 17%.

Unbelievable. I'll plug it in, though. I'll put some juice to it when we get. done talking. So this thing will upload. Good man. All right. We'll say hey to the gang over there at the mothership and I'll see you when the stars next the line. I'll tell you when I'm hosting again, you'll get an email. Adios. If you're done, please subscribe. Leave some stars ideally five. Five lousy little stars. If you work in university, if you work in maintenance, Granger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always

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