Unsubscribe Podcast - 185 - This Operation Was Legitimately Insane ft. Griff - Veteran's Month | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 185

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Griff from Combat Flip Flops is here to talk military stories, living in Hawaii & the inspiration for his business. ALSO a very exciting peek at something we've been working on! Veteran's month shirts: https://www.bunkerbranding.com/pages/unsubscribe-podcast Pre-order your shoes & flip flops! https://www.bunkerbranding.com/collections/unsub-shoes ONLY A FEW LIVE SHOW TICKETS LEFT: https://unsubcrew.com/liveshows Watch this episode ad-free and uncensored on Pepperbox! https://www.pepperbox.tv/ WATCH THE AFTERSHOW & BTS ON PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/UnsubscribePodcast ------------------------------ THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! GHOSTBED Right now GhostBed is offering 50% off everything if you use the code –UNSUBSCRIBE at checkout or go to https://www.GhostBed.com/Unsubscribe MANSCAPED Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code UNSUB at https://manscaped.com PDS DEBT Get a free debt analysis right now at https://PDSDebt.com/unsub ADAM AND EVE Go to https://www.adamandeve.com and use code UNSUB for 50% off + Free shipping + Rush Processing! ------------------------------ UNSUB MERCH: https://www.bunkerbranding.com/pages/unsubscribe-podcast BUY US A DRINK! https://paypal.me/UnsubscribePodcast FREE TO USE MEDIA (Please tag Unsubscribe Podcast) https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1uppmQHMGf8uI2OuOatp932e3S2VGy0PE?usp=sharing ------------------------------ FOLLOW THE HOSTS: Eli_Doubletap https://www.instagram.com/eli_doubletap/ https://www.twitch.tv/Eli_Doubletap https://x.com/Eli_Doubletap https://www.youtube.com/c/EliDoubletap Brandon Herrera https://www.youtube.com/@BrandonHerrera https://x.com/TheAKGuy https://www.instagram.com/realbrandonherrera Donut Operator https://www.youtube.com/@DonutOperator https://x.com/DonutOperator https://www.instagram.com/donutoperator The Fat Electrician https://www.youtube.com/@the_fat_electrician https://thefatelectrician.com/ https://www.instagram.com/the_fat_electrician https://www.tiktok.com/@the_fat_electrician ------------------------------ unsubscribe pod podcast episode ep unsub funny comedy military army comedian texas podcasts #podcast #comedy #funnypodcast Chapters: 0:00 Veteran’s Month Charity Shirts
 3:35 Welcome To Unsub!
 7:16 Griff Brought Gifts From Hawaii!
 18:17 AD
 19:30 Griff Brought Gifts From Hawaii!
 24:50 Combat Flip Flops
 32:48 AD
 34:11 WE MADE SHOES
 48:45 Combat Flip Flops In Afghanistan
 49:53 AD
 50:59 Combat Flip Flops in Afghanistan
 54:08 Water Ain’t Got No Taste
 1:02:27 Accountability In The Military
 1:05:08 AD
 1:06:21 The Inspiration For Combat Flip Flops
 1:14:45 Griff’s Military Training
 1:21:18 Starship Troopers
 1:24:21 Joining The Ranger Regiment
 1:30:21 Operation Winter Strike
 1:42:06 Dysentery Is Fun
 1:49:47 Coming Home After Combat
 1:56:00 The DShK
 2:02:11 T.S.T Missions 
 2:10:56 Rangers Vs SEALs & Army 
 2:15:20 The Powerpoint
 2:24:07 Trauma & Humor










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Whoa! Is that the new Kia Sportage? Yeah, I just got it. I love the updated styling and the distinctive LED lighting. And check this out. No key needed with digital key on my phone. And I can check it remotely on the Kia Connect app. I heard it also comes in a hybrid and a plug-in hybrid? It does, with a quiet ride and unbelievable fuel economy. The new Kia Sportage is here. Visit Kia.ca

to learn more. Kia. Movement that inspires. So my whole thing is if you shoot at my guys, I'm just going to f*** your whole world up. One team, one fight. Done. I just wasn't prepared to see that. Yeah, it's called fun. Contact left.

Those military guys. Boys will be boys. Boys will be boys. Boys will be boys. Everyone, it has been a while since I've sat and talked to y'all. It is Veterans Day month and we have something for this month. First, just as we did in April where we raised together $110,000, we are going to do the same for Veterans Month. The entire month of November, we are dedicating it to the amazing men and women that serve this country. This is our way of saying thank you for sacrificing so much and answering a higher call and also helping a lot of people along the ways. Second.

Yo, what's that shirt, Eli? The two shirts that we are donating 100% of proceeds for. My personal favorite, undiagnosed. And I'm Dead Inside. Nick killed this one, my boy. 100% of proceeds from these shirts are going to three veteran nonprofits. We will pick those three nonprofits throughout the month.

We are doing our research in due diligence to make sure they are causes that actually make change. This is how I feel. We make a difference. It is helping people and giving people a voice that they might struggle with the idea of therapy or asking for help because it's not easy. War can change you and it adds this new layer that you approach life differently. It's hard to put into words. You really do appreciate life, but the hypervigilance, the depression, they do take a toll. War can be hard on a lot of people. I've lost a lot of friends in war, and then I lost more friends outside of war. We want to make a change so it's easier and more normal to ask for help. And I think this is how we start. Again, 100% of proceeds from these two amazing new

shirts, which Nick did kill, go to this amazing cause. And then a portion of all stuff on Unsub Store will also go to that amazing cause. Also, we got some new stuff that's going to surprise a lot of y'all. And this entire month, we are focusing on veteran stories. As the one you're about to hear with Griff and his amazing story, these are the individuals where your jaw will drop with what they've experienced and what they went through and how strong they are in persevering once they got outside of the military. We have Medal of Honor recipient Clint Romaché coming on. We have Cappy from Task and Purpose, Habitual Line Crosser. So many people for this entire month. It's dedicated to y'all and the amazing veterans out there that deserve a pat on the back and a little bit of help. One quick thing.

I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart and all our hearts for this amazing community that we are blessed to have. Y'all go above and beyond so much much and you push us to be better versions of ourselves each and every day. We try and push ourselves harder to never disappoint y'all. That is the standard because we want to be here without y'all and we know that. We work for y'all at the end of the day, not the other way around. So each and every one of you, thank you from the bottom of all our hearts for how you push us, how you make us better men, and how your support never ceases to amaze us.

Thank you, each and every one of you. And now enjoy this episode, because holy moly, it's freaking dope. And because I've said community so many times, cheers. Love you all. Almost tequila dude that is amazing you guys look cute today

fuck off I just released the I know totally not a gay couple and then they subconsciously match today I wish I had a defense Eli

I don't we got nothing we're fucking gay then I guess I wish I had a defense, Eli. I don't. You got nothing. No, I got nothing. All right. Well, we're fucking gay then, I guess. Dude, but strong and powerful. Powerfully gay.

Yeah. It's like military gay right there. Is that green? God. Military grade gay. Green gay. Oh, now hold hands. I notice that you're on top.

Guys, we swear we love... Boo cool i love boobs they feel like bags of sand we are good to go oh yeah we'll get this crackdown going we'll make you pop that one yeah get this okay three two one hi everyone welcome to the unsubscribe podcast i am joined today by eli double tap the head motherfucker in charge of combat flip-flops our friend griff brandon herrera myself donald operator thank you for being here hey it's part of the veterans month thingy that we're doing we're veterans month yeah we're just having a veteran every day. Well, we have you always, Brandon. It's like our fourth podcast in a row having a veteran on.

Well, technically a hundredth with Brandon. Shut up. This is like the one month you're not allowed. I know, Brandon. It's like, just not this month, bro. Just of all the months. This is Brandon's month, man. I'm like, I've got a daisy chain of episodes since

he's made a joke. Damn it, now I've got to rip it down. It's just one. It always stays at one. Days since last... Days since Force Valor. Poor Brandon. You love it. You don't. I love you guys. I know.

I hate that it became that big of a thing we'll have to find it we'll have to find a creative way to kill that joke like it's it's coming soon we'll figure it out me and nick had some ideas but we've got to we've got to wrap it up in the universe i think i still want i the my one ask is we get you a dress green top and then all the medals that people bring you, you have to wear throughout and add throughout the live shows. So by the end, you are that general.

The general Zhukov from the death of Stalin throws back the coat and it's just full of medals. Or you just keep giving his name to recruiters and they just keep calling. I had a recruiter call me yesterday like three times. Really? Yeah. Dead call me yesterday, like over three times. Really?

Yeah. Dead serious. Technically you still could enlist. I don't know if I, I don't know if I can. Brandon does the military. That's the new video they had. Uh,

but he called me like, it was a Fort Bragg recruiter calling me like four times yesterday. Would they, do they, I don't know. I never responded. Do I, I will say they have such bad

well it's government they're not talking i remember getting out being out of the military for a year or two you probably had to have them too and then recruiters would call and like hey you ever thought about joining the u.s military son i'm like huh i just need to fuck with him and just respond back like, you sure I can get into the Patriot Missile Program? Dude, welcome back. I'm so happy you're here, Griff. We've got so many cool things going on right now. It's going to be an unboxing episode.

I'm really excited about this. We are going to unbox a new thing because, oh, man. Okay, you also brought some uh i brought some history yes dude i want i thought i'm so pissed at that box actually let me see if it so yours hasn't shown up yet well i've had yours in the making for months oh no and i flew it halfway around the fucking world and we're like barely missing it on this podcast really oh god i haven't been told about this i don't think you have not no this is actually like it's it's dope when eli doesn't tell me about things i get kind of scared just naturally so i don't know when rich doesn't

tell you stuff is when you get scared i didn't know about that yeah so you guys are actually really hard to shop for i mean like just really like if you guys like got all the cool stuff you guys get to you know go hang out with all the cool like rock stars and shoot all the guns and do all the cool things so like what can i get you guys that would be unique and so i was like sitting there and like i can't like literally i was on my way to the airport i got this I got you some uh some war things we like war stuff war things right so uh I've recently moved to the big island

and um I got a Hawaiian teacher so he's a Hawaiian historian and Hawaiian weapons maker so all the historic Hawaiian tools because they're very like Polynesian like Warren culture. And I met him because my wife's Hawaiian and we were moving to Hawaii and she's like, you gotta be less white, you know? So we gotta, we gotta get you culturally appropriated.

So she like, I went down and I took a class at the four days of Aloha in Washington. They have this big thing. So obviously I took the weapons making class and I took the, poi pounding class and my teacher there was really cool and turns out he lives on the big island he's a fellow hunter and so we made friends and we've been hunting for the last six months and uh he makes some pretty badass stuff so um trout i got you first so no come on now oh shit. I'm trying to find if that got delivered. It might have actually been delivered.

It's just a lot of trout. So I got you some Hawaiian brass knuckles. So these are tiger shark teeth. You wrap around your hand. What? Like this. Do you trout so happy right now?

So it's like it's a hammer fist with a twist but you can slice somebody up so you got some hawaiian brass knuckles you know i'm gonna kill somebody with these tiger shark teeth well that's intent thank you i'm not gonna kill somebody with thanks man these are cool shit that is really cool yeah you made this no i didn't make it no but we made it like actually i could say i made it because i I held onto it as he was braiding it because he had one that he was supposed to give it to his dad. I was going to buy it. He's like, dude, this one's my dad's.

I was like, how fast can we make one? So I literally held it as he was making it. You were involved in the making of it. I was involved in the making of it. That's cool as shit, dude. Thanks, man. You're welcome, man. All right, so I feel bad, Cody,

because I kind of came at you pretty hard about your ostrich boots last night. Do you want to explain that at all? About why ostrich boots are bad? That I didn't know? To make ostrich leather, you have to pluck an ostrich and leave it bald and then it has to heal until the scabs fall off of it. Then you kill it

and then you make the leather. I feel fucking terrible so cody's over there at dinner last night with a single indian tear running down his cheek he kicked up both boots at the beginning of the night and he slowly brought them down at the end of the night so do you know what a hypocrite is slightly yeah who is it right so uh dude trout's wearing his brass knuckles right well his shark knuckles you're gonna make trout punch me right now for my ostrich so i i this is the most trout thing ever though i love it so um he doesn't take them off the rest of the night i actually do at my house if you want yeah so uh when i was doing this weapons class like he brought out uh marlin bills which they form into daggers and i know you've been doing a lot of

videos and people getting stabbed and shit and i was like dude i'm not gonna make this knife he was like why is like because i am like kind of an animal lover and i love marlin and swordfish and things like that and i just i'm not gonna do it but since you've been making all the videos on stabby people i got you a marlin bill shiv oh that is cool, that's a fucking shiv. That is a Marlin Bill shiv, yeah. That's the best drop. I'm totally not going to kill trout with this later. So that is a Paoaahu. That's the name of his Paoaahu.

And then yours is Pu'u Le'aniho. Paoaahu! Just shake that. Yeah. Yours is Pu'u le niho and i'm sorry to all my kanaka brothers and sisters here if i fuck that up so i'm sorry i'm still learning my own level oh trout's gonna type this out oh that's incredibly sharp yeah dude that's a gangster shit and then show i got you because i know you're the one who makes everything happen here. And a car bomb? No.

So these are an OP shell necklace. So if you ever see like the videos of Hawaii and the black sand beaches and the waves crashing up on big vertical cliffs, this is a delicacy kind of crustacean that like hangs onto those cliffs. And for the guys to get them, they put on armor and like knee pads and and everything else i have to get out the right time and they just send down these cliffs to pick these out but i got you ope necklace and then um and then i got you a weapon as well because everybody's gonna have a good weapon but this is a uh a cattle um cattle hair pick so you can throw a nice little hair pick in there but if you need it you can pull it out and ship somebody with it yes yes yeah show the shiver show the shiver did brandon's deliver or no no it has not delivered yet i'm so suspense is killing me it should it's It's really fucking good

It's so good I'm concerned I also get very uncomfortable with gift giving Tell them the gift And we'll reveal it if it gets here in time Or we'll insert it Eli I believe it's your turn I think

I'll do yours first we'll close him out We still got a lot of podcasts I couldn't be more proud of you for running for congressman i appreciate it i really think that we need good people with common sense running for office that are going to represent the needs of the everyday people right people who care about the rights they care about freedom of speech they care about taking care of their families they want to live in a safe environment in america and like it's really awesome to see people like

you being willing to stand up and do the right thing i appreciate it not enough people do that so i'm really proud of you for doing that i just i hope that whatever we did uh with that run inspires more people to go out and do it themselves no uh so i had i commissioned a handmade custom afghan rug that said let's go brandon on it one of one one of one so they literally that is actually so fucking funny yeah i i it's let's go brandon it's a it's a afghan handmade tapestry it is the only one in existence probably the only one ever to be made but that was made in a home they've like sheared the freaking goats they made the wool they tied the knots in a home and it says let's go brand goats they made the wool they tied the knots in a

home and it says let's go brandon and i have you a one of one custom afghan so i know you don't know this and i don't think my friends know this i collect afghan war war rugs do you no shit yeah i did not know well now you have like i straight up like my closet upstairs is full of those motherfuckers yeah we've we started bringing them in like if you want a want a custom one, let me know. I'll make you whatever you want. That's fucking rad, man. Well, I appreciate that. Thank you, dude. Thank you so much. I'm really proud of you, dude. Well done. I appreciate that. We're going to open that on camera and, like,

insert it in this. It's like, yo, this is what we actually, this is what Griff got our boy. Alright, so. That's fucking wild. He told me that. I was like, dude, he's going to love that. I did not know about collecting Afghan war rugs. I have some of the war rugs that they made as, I was like dude he's going to love that I did not know about collecting I straight up do I have uh some of the uh the war rugs that they made as it was like a piece uh piece kind of thing like a um a symbol of peace but there was a bunch of Afghani war rugs that were made commemorating 9-11 and like if you didn't know any better you would think it's kind

of like a rub it in kind of thing but it's straight up it's supposed to be like a peace rug with the uh the dove and everything on it but i've got a couple of those in the closet i think i gave you one for your high lux if it's from saudi arabia then it's rubbing it in yeah a lot of people don't know the history behind the war rugs so when the soviets invaded all of the kids went out of school and the soviets were brutal in afghanistan yeah they like they're still just beautiful mountain ranges if they were in america they would be a national park and outside of those mountain ranges there's just rows for miles hundreds of miles like white rocks that are painted and that represents landmines you just don't go past the white rocks and so they

but before they painted those rocks there were just kids that didn't know any better and you know on one deployment we had some kid who picked up a dud mark 19 and smacked it on a rock and he's now missing his right arm they drug him to the front gate and we had to get him to the medics and get him he load out of there and so unexploded ordinance is a big deal yeah they didn't have paper they didn't have pens they couldn't go to school because of the invasion but what they could do is they could weave rugs in their homes and so the women knew that they had to educate their kids and what to stay away from so they started doing in the patterns of the

landmines i stay away from these landmines stay away from these grenades hey if you see this type of helicopter you need to stay away from it versus this one this is an ak so that's how the war rugs actually got started it was an educational thing to keep kids from getting hurt to tell us and then it turned into the story of wars right because that's the only thing they can do in their homes they got they can shear wool they can do it all in their house they can tie it together and that's one thing they can do in afghanistan so that's to tell their story that's really fucking cool i didn't know that yeah wow god i love cultures and how they like even as you're saying they don't have pen or paper but this is how we get that message into the next generation kids like big no no don't go around this stuff and then also it becomes this thing that brandon collects or like it's wild yeah but when you you know say for example we do a brandon herrera war rug collection

which we're gonna do now oh god to me it's just cool because it's like the history of warfare like no matter what it is it's very cool to me like in my particular tism i guess is is firearms it's like to me it's cool like from the 1700s all the way to modern day every way it's ever been done like that is just so fucking cool It's like to me it's cool like from the 1700s all the way to modern day every way it's ever been done Like that is just so fucking cool What are you doing I'm here to tell you about ghost baged! Is this an ad? It might be an ad. Why are you in my bedroom? I don't know!

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Why are you doing this to me? Four mattresses! Four? Right now, GhostBed is offering 50% off all their products. Just use code unsubscribe at checkout or go to ghostbed.com slash unsubscribe. Please buy some ghostbed.com slash unsubscribe. I'll be under your bed if you need me. This could get past TSA. the new 20 trillion dollar box cutter so so my my kumu which is a hawaiian teacher kapono made all these and if anybody here

leave you guys give him a shout out but it is namea ka'ua so n a underscore m e a underscore k a u a it means war things in in Hawaiian, but that's his Instagram. If you guys want these on your own, you want to support a Hawaiian small business, you guys can get some of these for yourself. I hope everybody does because that's fucking awesome. Chase. Thank you. Put it how he spelled it. I'll take a photo of it and send it to you so you have the proper spelling too.

I love the translation is Just War Things. This is a Joe Bass translation. It's a Pinterest. Just War Things. Just War Things. That's a good things. Joe Bastard. Pinterest. Just war things. Just war things. That's a good shirt. Just war things. It's pretty funny.

Yeah. But I know Rangers and Rangers love Tomahawk. So I brought you a Hawaiian Tomahawk. You got a Tomahawk? I'm not a Ranger. Swordfish bill. That's fucking dope. That is a, that is a Hawaiianian war club a swordfish bill they would

take them dry them out and you would cleave somebody with that thing holy or you could stab them with it we are putting this in the background of this to live on the set forever holy shit brother thank you so much yeah well you guys make a lot of things happen and uh you know with the war rugs or with what we're doing right now we're about to unbox dude dude dude i appreciate that has some heft to it that has heft to it it's got a weight to it it doesn't look like it would but it does i will just i got it yeah if i can say one thing it's like thank you first off thank you for all these amazing gifts and then also just for being such an amazing human like

you are the individuals that we look up to and want to partner with or create these friendships with because you understand like it's camaraderie friendship and what brotherhood should be and like when you're looking to even business partner, you're one of the rare breeds. We could surround yourself like one in a million. Finding individuals like you in our lives is one in a million, and you hold on to those because you understand. You make the best of any situation.

You're giving. You're an amazing human. And then nothing but positivity that you bring around you and and it's it's a rare fucking thing and we are truly blessed to have you at this podcast table and then to call you a friend like i mean that from the bottom of my heart thank you dude appreciate it i appreciate you we appreciate you carving out time to sit here and talk to us and tell stories and bullshit man it's it's been a lot of fun i've enjoyed it i've really enjoyed coming down here and hanging out and learning from you guys too so it's awesome people yeah

it's it's it's hard to explain to somebody how heavy that thing is and if you had any kind of arm speed getting hit in the head with that thing would be fatal yeah absolutely fatal it doesn't look like it should have any weight like that does not look heavy right but as soon as you hold it and you feel it it's like holy yeah it's bone cultures how what they use like they made weapons out of what they trout it it is how cultures adapt to their versions of war. They're like, yo, okay, this kills stuff. Okay, let's fight with this thing. I mean, Cain and Abel with the first rock. Yeah, bro, that could have some swing to it.

If you're really mad at someone. Or stabby to it. No, I have a beautiful bracelet that if I get into an altercation with, they're going to be like, how the fuck did a guy get murdered by a shark in Texas? Sharks needed braces oh yes the famous austin land shark yeah oh dude thank you so much yeah it's been really cool to be out in hawaii and have a have a teacher and like specifically a guy who is historian. You can ask him all the questions. Everybody asks me,

Hawaiian gun laws and weapons and everything else. I tell you, Hawaiians have a very rebellious culture. They love their fucking guns. If you disrespect them, they will always throw hands. If you go to the islands, be very kind to everybody you meet. Do not mistake the aloha for weakness.

That was something you said yesterday that kind of stuck with me. That's really cool. Yeah. I like that. That's good. My new judgment hammer. Your judgment hammer? Yeah.

Stab! That's like shadow box worthy. Oh, dude, that is so gangster. Thank you so fucking much. Yeah, if you ever have daughters, that's the one to club somebody with. Because it's not like they're going to be identified the tool on CSI. Like, what clubbed him? Like, get killed by a swordfish?

Like, what is that? Just drop him off. He fell into the swordfish pool. Just drop him off in the ocean? Yeah. Oh, he got fucking stuck by a marlin. I guess he was an avid swimmer. Yeah.

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already take your daughter's boyfriend deep sea fishing oh no all right steve irwin and VC fishing. Oh no. All right, Steve Irwin. Dude. So we've had the honor actually doing talking months ago, like almost a year.

No, months. We got speed tracked kind of essentially for like, hey, we're going to do this. Known you're probably been wearing it for a long

long long fucking time um and that's combat flip-flops uh we'll go more into you starting that that uh entire business venture which is a wild story but i remember you were the only guys it's like hey it's built for as a better uh combat flip-flops bad for running worse for fighting worse for fighting there it is bad for running worse for fighting i would wear them no matter what and i got i can i can run a mile in your guys's flip-flops every day i have like i've been wearing you guys stuff for maybe fucking five years i'm so tired of people hitting us up with our ak is like oh you should have brandon herrera wearing stuff like yeah i know it i feel like leonardo dicaprio in your videos and like he's wearing it's like

i've been wearing that like before i knew i just saw like i your mission statement was was really cool i didn't know anybody in our crew knew you guys i just thought like oh that's that's just really neat and like you make a great product so i uh i bought my first one ran it through until my uh my dog several years ago chewed it up i remember that and i was very upset because it was my favorite pair of flip-flops ever but she was too cute i couldn't be mad at her but i just you know i've been wearing your stuff i've probably bought three or four pairs yeah i, I know. I see it. I kind of stalk you

on the backside of it. But you don't want to be that guy who's like, hey, Brandon. Because it's so weird because you guys are famous. Right? And it's...

Z-list celebrities. Yeah. Yeah, right? But it's... At Walmart, we might get recognized one time. Although like X minus,

you know. You just never want to be like hey you want to collab and do this and do that and i'm just thankful you guys work right i know people will see it and i'm like all right that's cool you guys have a great company it's a great product well thank you yeah dude we i think i i had a couple pair of ak's and it might be i think i was like brandon you ever seen these i think you were the reason why i found out yeah and then we started doing other people like yo these are fucking dope i had the i don't know if you guys think it was your birthday back in the day yep the first trip

to texas yeah yeah i was like yo you should check out these flip-flops are really dope and uh i also had a pair of the red what was the red talk? Tuk-tuks. Dude, I had Tuk-tuks. So I had those every now and then. Those are fun. Yes. And people are like, what the fuck are those ones? I was like, yo, these are dope. Look how vibrant they are.

Yeah. But then you guys released the black ones. It would introduce it to the friends. And I would always wear it. I'd beat the shit out of them. Brandon beat the shit out of them. So we knew you had this amazing product i was like oh and then finally this year we actually talked me and brandon and i have talked

about doing chanclas for a long ass time we're the two mexicans yeah we need some chanclas we need some chanclas you guys have some up close and personal experience with chanclas well yeah it's called that's it's called childhood yeah white people had one spoons so we had chonkless i'm uh never unarmed yeah exactly so and then cody was into shoes and so we were like, okay, Cody loves shoes. Nick does the shoe thing. Not much of a shoe guy. We're like, reach out to you.

We started actually talking for the first time this year. We're like more in actual talks. And we hopped on a call. It was like, hey, you know what? Maybe we combine forces and do something together. And we hopped on a call, and it went extremely easy. That's when I knew I wanted to work with you. The product's really good, but then you're just positive as fuck, which is a rare thing.

And you were talking about Brandon and him running for election. That was during when you were running for election because he was super positive about that whole thing. Yeah, I remember taking it. It was very, very strange to live that dual life. Cause it was part of, you know, I had a lot of my life focused on, you know,

running for office and everything that, that came with that, which was most of the time, like living life on the road, like throughout the district, especially since it was the biggest district in Texas. It's like, I could massive,

I could leave my house in the morning for an event at the end of my district. That wasn't, you know, until six 30 in the afternoon and barely get there the end of my district that wasn't you know until 6 30 in the afternoon and barely get there on time you need a plane a plane would have been very helpful during that yeah um but i mean it was just like so much of our time was was spent on that but i remember like showing up to lunch meetings and and taking time out of it and and us talking about the shoe thing while we were yeah building the idea and then it was watching that having that conversation and then you and

andy streamlined that process for us we all hopped on a call we're like hey we want to do shoes flip-flops and then shoes because cody had a really good idea it's like oh man this is what police officers leo wants this this would help a lot of us with just an easy product that lasts that you can beat the shit out of plain but looks cool if you just want to wear on casual footwear yeah and then we're adding on to those as we expand into that he's like not next and god bless working with you guys and how fast we can implement something it's like next and God bless working with you guys and how fast we can implement something. It's like something's wrong or we need to change something.

It's like, oh, this, this. And we get to experience this new thing, footwear, which we've never done, but making that as easy as possible. I think that's one of the benefits of working with a company whose founders are still involved in the process. Because as soon as, in my experience anyway, and I'm sure you've got the same experience, like just in the process. Because as soon as, in my experience anyway,

and I'm sure you've got the same experience just in the business sense, as soon as you lose the founder, the original driving force behind something, everything just goes to shit. You will never find somebody who believes in your product or your mission statement more than you do. I can see that. You guys still stand by it and then it was

like hey this this and then fucking months and months of like headache getting through everything fighting through it and then we finally were like the headache is chasing you to get shit done that is really that's the headache this is here hand it off and then i know andy buss is because i'm like doing whatever it is live show what whatever aspect i'm like trying to jump to the next one pepper box was a terrible idea to launch at the same time as everything else so like hey we should do like eight businesses at once that sounds like a great great place it's like just cram it all in dude just get it all over irons in the fire i like irons in the fire let's throw eight more irons in the fire this sound great and then you're scrambling what is it

eckhart tolle the power of now right you can have too much of that if you're if you're not conscious of conscious of oh yeah power now i'm just gonna do this right now and then you you don't finish it right now you start it right now but then you committed to finish it so you have 18 different things in the fire at once and that's the power of now is the side product of adderall is what it is yeah because it is one of the few times i'm pretty good at like having a decent size workload it's like meeting so okay we can structure this out and then finally you do hit that point where it's like oh oh fuck you have plates on plates on plates and then you're thankfully a great team to action on each one andy you have been fantastic to work with because it is

like here's this andy knows i'll send a picture and then we'll go from there i'll be like okay i mean we spent a lot of time talking about it. Let's just show people what we're talking about. That's a great idea. Are you ready? Babe, let's bring out Big Daddy. Love that idea. Who wants better sex?

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So I have yet to see these. Okay, so these are still a prototype box. They're on their almost final iteration. We're just getting all the baselines done. Dude, fucking first off most gangster like all this little work that has went into this we put a lot of work in the box i mean like it's goddamn right it matters right it does like it's the it's the experience the paper it smells good i know i'm like trying to do it service without like okay give us the vanna

come on now boom us the Vanna. Come on now. Boom. Yes. The Vanna white. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't be more proud of the team. And just like the amount of people,

because I've, I've seen, I've been to the factories. I know the people that are working on them is the volume of people that get employed. The number of families that get fed. Oh, I know.

Cause you were edging them the whole time. Like let's show them the fucking shoe this is the fucking so this is the tiger stripes there's a beauts it's that new smell dude your team's like insane everyone everyone's smelling before with the unsub on the rib unsub on the bottom of the shoe like it i'm so the unsub on the rib unsub on the bottom of the shoe like the unsub tag yeah the laces look tight what do you think of the boxing i know when you were saying that you're like you're like holy shit okay i couldn't be happier the the sublimation because that's the thing is people don't get it is you know we had to buy when you're printing on a fabric like oh you know

so we did uh so we were licensed to make cockaflage so we have a multicam pattern that looks like dicks i ran a competition using your cockaflage shoes by the way thank you just this weekend yeah appreciate that and the very first run we did we worked with a sublimator and they came up pink so we had pink dick shoes that we paid for and shipped all the way up and so sublimation i just never understood how complicated it was to actually print something on a shoe but those came out chef's kiss oh my god dude i love tiger stripe like s tier camo pattern it's one of my favorites that's why this was one of the first ones and what's crazy is we have rhodesian we have um are we doing roadie prints the first one yeah oh we got roadies coming in yeah so those are all during the december launch when it actually goes live but we

also have that's hot cockafla shoes how do you like those slip-ons? They were really nice, actually. I was surprised. I went the entire competition. I thought I was going to have to swap shoes at the end. But they were very good. How happy were you when mom took you into Payless to get new shoes every year for school? This is Payless. I know, dude.

You want to smell some Payless? Get in there. Get that Payless. Get that Payless. The BTS on Patreon was just me huffing shoes. It reminds me exactly like Cody said. it's like mom taking you back to pay less to go buy shoes before school you get the one so like i am i wish spalding's you have ten dollar limit yeah i just want chucks mom yeah so Yeah, so speaking of which, right?

Oh, you guys just redesigned chucks. Fuck you. Right? I wish Nick was here to throw the helmet on and throw the keyboard over the side. Because if you knew how footwear are made, you know, chucks are just like glued on the outside. And guys who have worn them in our environment, they blow out the sides and they fall apart often. Like ours are different. We use actual real rubber on our outsole. and they fall apart often like ours are different we use actual

real rubber on our outsole so they're super sticky and that's the one thing i've noticed like when you wear these shoes i mean you got to be careful when you walk up to people because they're really quiet and you're gonna freak people out and then you get really good grip on stuff but our outsoles are actually stitched onto the uppers so that prevents that blowout that you have so they're just built better and i hate to say it but a shoe is a shoe is a shoe and like it may look similar this is way better and it has zero communism zero communism right now nick communism these are the ones that I want. I want these. I'm going to get a set or two of those. The unsub camo?

I think that's literally what it's called on the box. Unsub camo. Unsub camo, yep. Alright, got it. Understood. Have you heard it? If you heard that beat, you'd be like, I've definitely heard that song.

You want to see? I love those so much, dude. This is so cool. The contrast of it. I don't know if the colors are coming through just right, but when you throw them on your foot... Dude, look behind you. It's literally those two, the two lights at the base, and you look at that side.

Look at the sign. It's just unsubcolored. Let's make bright bright vibrant fucking shoes with a dark i did not realize this was that dark blue leather andy chose that these shoes are the first shoes i've seen eli actually wear in a long time like unless it was a formal event and then i try not to wear shoes I wear my nicest pair of flip-flops I really like the the unsub down the back that's the first time I've seen this detail we change that yeah we this print yeah because I think the prototypes had them up here we changed them down to the bottom yeah they show that's your blacks Oh, my blacks. Show the box. So these are still

prototypes. Brandon's like... Can I actually say that in Spanish? Something beans. That's blue. I can't remember the word for shoes.'s super simple zapato zapatos negros all right boom the black shoes though but that's like if you look at the camera like that reflection and then open the other side show the inside so they understand yeah there you go all right

oh yeah that that is a limited run box that's like a defect collection card because the unsub is upside down. Those are literally. Those are one time as we learn how to print those. So they're magnet closed, and you're going to have felt on the interior. So we're doing this limited run box. You guys will know if you get those. There's 100 going out. They'll have an autograph, a challenge coin, all this stuff.

With these 100 autographed autograph a challenge coin all this stuff uh with these hundred autographed photo challenge coin maybe a couple other things just as a way to thank you and it's going out to a hundred of y'all just random randomly you might get one of those boxes and then one of you are getting a gold ticket uh to win a trip to hang out with all of us we're flying you out you're gonna do dinner hang out with the guys probably. We're flying you out. You're going to do dinner, hang out with the guys, probably brunch the next day, and just a good experience. We'll be putting you in a hotel, paying for your flight. Just want you guys to have a great experience

or have an opportunity to come hang out with our dear factories. Because we're part of such a great what now, Eli? Community. I personally love these because they're great jump out boy shoes oh yeah so you know if you're a cop and you're wearing them with the bottom of your pants over them they still look like nice shoes because you can still polish the ends of them but in the meantime they're very comfy and you can still chase the ends of them. But in the meantime, they're very comfy and you can still chase people down.

I think we specifically designed these for that purpose. It's a good police shoe. It's a good police shoe. And your command doesn't have to know when your pants are over it that it's one of our shoes. And minimal. You can chase down bad people while

leaving the unsurprised and we took so and and just for just for reference with when cody built that it was really cool to see his he wanted to do for all of you so we took off all badging like most companies and they allow us like you have combat flip-flops, you have Andy, you have Griff helping with this process. And then Cody's idea, it's like, hey, let's actually let it where they can wear it during work and not get in trouble. So we removed all marking. Show like all the tags. We have tags like this, like this.

That's not on those. There's nothing on these. And that's what we want to see because I have two brothers that are cops. I have great relationships with a that are cops. Um, yeah, I have great relationships with a lot of cops in my hometown and everything else. And you see them,

they're just wearing a hefty boot. That's just unnecessary. It's not breathable. It's not good for their feet. And we just wanted something that they could wear, be comfortable, lightweight and just affordable. Candidly,

you know, that, that actually works for them. And last dude, they're smooth on the inside. You're not going to get a bunch of blisters or anything thick sole like dude these are wide toe box yep all super wide toe box and they don't come on awesome for police work they're just light as hell you can beat the shit out of them and then what brand even my favorite thing the chanclas

it's not having to break them in. Isn't one of the rare times you don't have to break in a chancla? I got mine last night and I have been wearing it since. It immediately broke in. I didn't have to do the typical wear it out for a week and then it feels like it belongs to you.

This actually felt great from the first minute I put them on. Also, we put so many details on the flip-flops. So, the AK-47 has the 7.62x39 casing on it, which is one of the reasons I always fucking loved it.

That and the AK leather on it. But these, I wanted to keep the shell casing, but I wanted to put an unsubbed twist on it. So we actually built a proprietary caliber for these shoes. What is the caliber we decided to go with? 6.9 by 420

millimeter, which is included on every single shoe. Did you know that? Nope. Did you not? I'm so happy right now. I just need to disappoint you. No, I'm not disappointed. I'm like, oh, yes. 6 am so happy right now. I just need to disappoint you. No, I'm not disappointed. I know, but you're like.

I'm like, oh, yes. 6'9 by 4'20. I'm just mad that I didn't think of it first. Fuckers. That's awesome. That makes me so happy. You look so clean. Yeah.

And we changed the emblem. We talked about even stuff like that where it was like shrink it by two centimeters. All those little things. It was so easy to work with. And working with good graphic designers or business partners. So you guys understand the back end and what people already expect. And then being able to just bounce ideas was so fucking nice. So nice to deal with in the business world.

So not used to that. And we just, we like, we try to be the easiest company to work with. I just, that's it. When somebody like, when I always think about being an entrepreneur or a business owner,

when somebody calls you and you see the number on your caller ID, if your first reaction is to pick it up or do you like oh do i have to answer this call right and then that's it as a small business owner you want to be the guy that when they see your caller id they're like this guy is going to solve a fucking problem for me they're going to make life easier on me and that's what we always aim for so i'm glad that this these things are they turned out spectacular way beyond anything like our whole team down in bogota that put these all together they've really been stretching their legs to make this all happen and these look phenomenal did you guys kill it we're so thankful and you guys i i

promise you with all these when you start putting them on and everything it is where we wear them okay i haven't where i have not been just wearing the ones for the last few months i actually wear the shoes to the range now because they're actually comfortable oh yeah you and brandon been wearing these motherfuckers for years now yeah i mean that's the even more for the testament and you guys keep adapting and making them better and better because this is the ones we bought originally and my favorite part and you guys keep adapting and making them better and better because this is the ones we bought originally. And my favorite part is you guys have a very good return policy. Yeah. That is a Testament to how well you stand by your own product.

Cause you guys like people beat them up. It's an amazing return policy because you could just return any shoe at any time and they'll keep it no it's it's like if our shit falls apart we'll make it right with you that's it that's i just want to make it right with you which is why because like again there's zero communism involved you go to any other fucking manufacturer all their it's made in communist countries and we're like no we're veteran-owned company working with rag companies we're putting people to work we're putting girls in school we're clearing landmines we're helping veterans like anytime you buy our product good shit happens which is another reason we literally it was the uh it the non-profits that also are benefited from you guys doing shoes.

It's like, yes, we're helping put Afghan children, females in school, little girls in school, and actually having an education up till when it was an issue. But you were doing that up. I'm still doing it.

Yeah. See, so fucking dope. Like, and then you're out there on, when you got your first pair of shoes from combat flip-flops going on that journey we were talking about it's like riding in a bus this is what 2017 18 when you were in the bus you were talking about like it's isis is a problem and

you're still oh yeah yeah 17 yeah yeah wild to be doing that and you're like no we're good how much more of a problem is that now in afghanistan today than it was when you started it's big yeah yeah it's it's it's really sad um you know we were really like on the come up in afghanistan like things were really turned in the corner and I don't think anybody thought how bad it could get that fast and it really has turned the corner the country's really fallen apart it's been with the pullout with the pullout it's been it's been a super struggle but I will tell you that like our factory is still kicking ass like it's been a struggle but those guys are still working we're still making chamaz we're still making chamaz. We're still making cashmere. We're still doing everything we can to put products together because we think that that's the best way to represent America.

As we're going to go on with business, we're going to do it ethically. Nobody can tell us anything because I've taken $0.0 from the U.S. government. It's all been funded because of our customers and people like you to make all this good shit happen. Proper. That's awesome. Patriotism and then proper capitalism. Yeah. The best parts. Yeah. That's parts of capitalism. It's like we get a benefit and through the individuals, either that's the customer base or there's the people that want to make a difference. They're the ones putting their money in it. And then you're actually making that possible. And then make a difference, they're the ones putting their money in it.

And then you're actually making that possible. And then sticking by it, you're not like, quick payout. You're like, nope, we're gonna do this for the long run. We want to see people succeed, which is why I surround myself with all y'all is, cause it's one of the few times I'm like, oh, they actually care about others first and foremost.

It's not their own selfish interests It's like how do we benefit the people that support us and make this possible? Yeah, it's fucking dope Well, thank you, dude All alone time to trim the old pubes Babe, are you ready to soak up those summer vibes and get the perfect beach bod? I don't have pants on. Yeah I noticed. Well you're in luck because our friends over at manscaped.com have you covered from head to toe. With the Performance Package 5.0 Ultra they'll have you looking and feeling good this summer.

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The summer sun is here to stay, so trust Manscaped to keep those pubes at bay. The worst part is the goddamn internet man everybody's like oh you're just making and trying to fuck you oh no that's gotta hurt no yeah oh it's chinese knockoffs like stop like oh yeah and like the racist stuff that people like throw at us you know just like oh making afghanistan and like the like racial slur racial slur racial slur it's like come on man i'm like really you're not even saying it to be funny yeah come on that's the worst kind we're helping people you putting like a little kiddos like and that's a lot of people don't understand they have the reference of america

poverty and you're like no no no that is the poverty in America is completely different mindset than you are in a village you do not have internet access and you're trying to educate people that unless you go to a third world or war-ridden country you will never know that difference yeah then when anybody says the word poverty to me I know right where i'm sitting i'm in the back of a gun truck and i'm driving my first time south out of agram through cobble and you you drive down these roads and there are these women and they're sitting with like six month old babies in their arms and they're in the middle of the road and they're holding their hands up like this begging for food or for water or for anything because their husbands got killed in the war or whatever and they have no employable

skills and they need something and you think to yourself that woman probably hopes somebody's checking their cell phone yeah yep like imagine like well it's just just the contextualization of $20 US per day. Yeah. What that means to you. Oh, $600 a year is the sustainable, like what you can do for a person. $600 per year. I mean, it's crazy. It's the difference between here. We're just like, oh my God, slave wages.

That shouldn't even be legal. But there, that's quite a lot probably a week of that are slave laborers people are like they balling they they're living a different lifestyle that's less than three hours minimum wage here yeah yeah there is you're balling and that's like going into houses dirt floor dude i remember going like out in those country houses or little villages and you get to see that lifestyle where it is like dirt floors they're still cooking you none they bring your tea like so and they're so happy for what they have and you're like this fucking dope

you're super respectful they make some of the best tea still to this day best weed so good everything just chopped everything is good that's what he said everything but you get to see that different level and i think that's a reality check for a lot of people even like cody you're working in some of the bad areas. And then you see what people complain about you. Like, I assure you. Water ain't got no taste. I don't even know what that means. I was going to ask you to explain that as well.

So would you like me to explain this? Yeah, go on. Love it. All right. When I was a cop, we had a big snowstorm. Like, you know, most people will drive around Hellcats and shit they can't get around and uh that's not where i thought this was going please continue so we had four-wheel drive police vehicles they could get around we were the only people that could drive through the city everything was was, you know, it was a big snowstorm and everything.

And so we were picking up people in communities and taking them to the only place that was open. Thank God we had the QT. The QT was open. It's the only place open. So we would take people there. It's like, hey, we, you know, like, well, I ain't got money. And I'm like, okay, well, we'll buy you some water we'll buy you some some like some cold cuts like you make some sandwiches for your

family and stuff the snowstorm be over like tomorrow day after water ain't got no taste like no we're gonna buy you water well water ain't got no taste it's like uh we're trying to help people survive and that was the response that we got. They didn't. Oh, it was just because they didn't have a taste. They're offended. You're only going to buy us water. Yeah.

Water doesn't have any taste. Yeah, that is. Do we know you would go to the fucking wild? Like the, the entitlement of that is absurd. A stranger is going out of his way to help you. He doesn't have to,

you know, we were, we were, you know, the police department I worked for is like, if you're a lower end guy, you just started You know, we were, you know, the police department I worked for, it's like if you're a lower-end guy, you just started, you're making like, you know, you're making like $16 an hour, hopefully.

It's like we were using, a lot of the times, we were using our personal money to help people. And yeah, it's just like, no, I want Coke. Water ain't got no taste. Like you can't do that. Wendy's most important deal of the day has a fresh lineup. Pick any two breakfast items for $4. New four-piece french toast sticks bacon or sausage wrap biscuit or

english muffin sandwiches small hot coffee and more limited time only at participating wendy's taxes extra okay yeah i'm trying to keep your family alive right now yeah so uh yeah so we can cut that no no no no no it's like based off of kind of where a lot even the idea of you guys would roll into town with a bunch of money and they would give all their food away because they're like oh someone will run to town and then if but if something happens where that person can't run to town and get some supplies like oh yeah we fucked up we used to we were warning the people for a month ahead of time it's like yo there's going to be a very big drought please stop washing your cars do not wash your cars stop washing your goddamn cars still washing the cars like hey you got like a week and there's going to be a massive drought

like there's going to be no water in this area is the diallo river province up to that day then drought happens and then it's like hey we don't have water like god damn it guys how many a month what did we tell all of you not to do and then you continue to this we started bringing water out and trying to offset the problem, but it's, it's those different mindsets, depending on where you're raised, what your culture is,

what's your day-to-day lifestyle. And that's something where it's like water, you, your idea of worth or a product that keeps you alive is based off of taste and flavor. Water doesn't got no taste. It's like, it doesn't keep me alive.

Yeah. Like, like you were saying, you spend a couple hundred dollars a year. You can keep a person alive and keep a family alive. Yeah. It's like, you know,

just sometimes you deal with people. They're like, yeah, well, water ain't got no taste. I don't want water. It's like, damn,

you have no idea how good you have. Yeah. It's so, uh, you know, we, we, we hit this one area is again on that winter strike deployment and we're

all freezing and um our cmo lee you know you've met him um so he was on an outpost and he got dysentery like after he hit the ground right so he's like shitting himself like in his pants as we're clearing an objective and between sergeants like hey man just like just go rest we're gonna like go overnight and he's like oh there's this like shelter like the overhang and so he goes and he lays down and he doesn't realize that's the afghan toilet because it's like the the overhang where all the guys so now he goes and lays down and just passes out and he wakes up and he's like covered in shit human fecal matter and so he's like now we're freezing in a morning and he's sick and he's like shitting himself and he's covered in crap he's so mad and he's like pulling security and doing his thing and this little like eight-year-old girl walks out with this tray with chai and some jelly-filled crackers and gives it to him.

And that was the best. To this day, he's like, that's the best gift anybody's ever given me. It's like clean water and warmth and like a shelter. And that's all that we need as human beings. And he was just so thankful for that. And it's really disappointing to me to hear that like that's the way that cops get treated or you know when you're trying to help somebody like watering got no taste it's like man we're trying we're trying i think everything's about intent

yeah it's like you know i you're going through a tough time i'm trying to help you and to be spitting your face like that's, that's supremely disappointing. Yeah, we are blessed. The majority of the time, I wish a lot of people could experience a deployment. As you were saying, it's earning that lifestyle. Or earning... Who are you talking about? It's earned. We were just talking about...

Adversity builds character yeah oh no it was actually your uh the book sci-fi movie god dang it um we just talked about Heinlein Starship Troopers Starship Troopers it's it's earned yeah so the sequel citizenship yes and so everything is earned at that point and that's your reference point because you did the service now you have citizenship and you're going to appreciate a lot more because you went through that and you seen what other people go through cody has a different mindset you know what this bitch the one that said that to fucking how nice people are treated here in the United States.

Dude, the one that said that water ain't got no taste. We raided her nephew's apartment probably a week earlier. Section 8 apartment. Apartment is paid for. Food stamps everywhere. Food is paid for.

There was like fucking 60 grand in cash sitting on the couch from when they had been selling crack for the past month. And like, you're like, water ain't got no taste. We want more, Mr. Cop Man. So your nephew has 60 grand in cash. This is a free apartment, Section 8 housing. You get fucking welfare every month like you got your food stamps it's like you just this never it's never enough that's and then and then and then

you know you got that girl bringing up tea and like fresh water for your boy who got shit on that was that was awesome and they were happy with that it just drives me a little bit crazy sorry i'll stop now i'm glad that you freaking chimed up here good i like it when you're animated it goes like i don't think any any of us are going to argue with that like it's just it's it's annoying it's having that different it's it's and it's a weird mindset that's why i like the afghan all those people even like you can even taliban whoever it's like oh man they suck because xyz it's like they're they fought hard it's like yeah they fought hard and that is actually

if you were in the same situation you would have done the same fucking thing we all watch star wars and we vote for the jedi like the jedi versus the empire like did we not see the irony? Exactly. Everyone at the end of the day is just fighting for what you believe in. They have very high beliefs in that and they were defending something that they held value in over their property. War and just culture make a huge

difference at the end of the day. I think the one thing I really wish is that we would go back to the days where we would shit on military generals the ones that no and they like i'm like no literally if if you were not a good general and you were not winning a war and you were not doing the right things you were reported in the public to not serving your country correctly. And somehow after Vietnam, that something happened in America where we don't question military leadership. And if you question them for not doing their job appropriately, for not using your resources appropriately and not accomplishing your objectives appropriately,

somehow you're not patriotic. I feel like we stopped linking the results with the people in charge. Agreed. I think. Yeah. erotic i feel like we stopped linking the results with the people in charge agreed i think yeah i just uh got off the phone with uh old sergeant major last week he was the first sergeant major that said i've heard like leadership from higher up say this and he was like man he was complaining about somebody else like taking writing books and uh it was a sergeant major writing books and claiming the army like how he led his troops and everything he's like i fucking hate those dudes you know why quavis was like why it's like that was your guys's war it wasn't ours we were

sergeant majors we didn't have we weren't at the front line we were just telling you guys what to do we don't get to write books about that You guys do because you were at the front line fighting those fights. Never heard a Sergeant Major say that before. I was like, that's why you're a good leader, Sergeant Major. That alone separated you from everyone else that I have talked to in that status. You were the first one that was like, I didn't do a thing. I had you guys walled around me. I was protected no matter what

our majors aren't the front line getting shot dying getting blown up that's all the younger generation leading that front he's like why the fuck do we have a right to write a book about that good leadership right there like true good leadership from that yeah but I I really wish we would go back to criticizing our military the way that we used to during World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam. We spend so much money as a country on our military to not have it go right. Anyone else, CEOs would have been held accountable for that shit. Yeah. If it was a normal job, they would have been held accountable for that yeah if it was a normal job they would have been fired like you would have fired so many what is that pentagon audit they lost the pentagon audit they lost six trillion dollars it's unaccounted for with a t a t since 2001

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Go check out all their reviews and see how many specifically mentioned PDS employees by name. It's incredible. You can get a free debt analysis right now by going to pds.com slash unsub it takes 30 seconds go to pds.com slash unsub go now i'm going it's fucking wild you are one of those dudes it's a phenomenal lifestyle a crazy lifestyle because you're an individual that, for reference, going into combat, you've done the combat thing, you got out of war from Afghanistan, and then you went back for your company

to just go find shoes at the time. A little bit more complicated than that, which we'll get into it, but yeah. I like living adventurously. I like traveling to far off and distant places and meeting new people, shooting them and shooting them. It gets old,

you know, you know, or you can just like go to dinner and have a beer with them. What are the other ways? So that's the right thing to do. That is the right thing to do dinner and then shoot him. Remind me never to go to dinner with you guys that's just it's awesome hearing your entire experience and then starting it off i

like so you are the owner of combat flip-flops you started that adventure in 2016 2017 20 now 2009 to jeez oh my god Which is when it first started. Yeah. Yeah, that was like the... I got out in 2006. I did the standard thing that most veterans do. You get out and you get a regular job and try to be a human being. Fail miserably. Lose your job. Fall back into contracting because you need to make money to support your family.

And they send you back overseas. It's basically my story. That's such need money i need money i'm really good at this one thing yeah uh send me back and um i ended up being over there and in my job i was responsible for putting in clinics and contracting doctors to agencies, different other government agencies who needed people to provide medical care and equipment. So when I showed up, I had a smile and a backpack and some cash, and I had to be alive when I got back on the plane, right? So what do you do? And I'm a map guy because I was an artillery guy in the regiment.

And every night they have this briefing of where all the bombs were off on the previous day like all right here's where all the attacks went off and then they overlay it here's it over a month here's what it's like over three months and you see nodes and the nodes are around the u.s embassy military compounds and convoys and reporters those are where the three in combat zones that's where all the shit happens around those theories well if you're smart like i'm just not going to go to those places and where you go is where there's a local small business flourishing because the local small business owners don't let it happen on their corner so you just stay there and uh there was one time i was getting ready to like walk out of my hotel in the morning and the concierge says,

Hey, Mr. Griffin, you need to go upstairs and have another cup of coffee. And I'm like, noted. Heard. Got it. And so I went upstairs, rooftop place. And this is where all the Russian stewardesses and like pilots would stay in this little hotel, kind of on the outskirts of Kabul. I'm upstairs having a drink of coffee, just kind of rescheduling a few meetings for the morning.

All of a sudden IED goes off, coffee shakes, rumbles, take last sip of it, walk back downstairs. Am I good to go now? He's like, oh yeah, Mr. Griffin, you're good to go. Have a great day. So it just goes to show like the local business owners, they know when shit goes down versus our intelligence agencies and our military.

So my thought was, is like, why aren't we encouraging more business? For the cost of one MRAP, we could turn around entire square blocks of cities. That's why the CIA started opening coffee shops. I wish they would. I wish they would. That would be the more ethical thing for them to do. But that's how I got started is I was looking for a cup of coffee. So I was at a conference for the Afghan National Army.

I'm a weird-looking guy, and I'm a dirty secret. I'm an officer, right? So, boo, everyone, boo. Yeah. And I was at this conference, and it's all the old sergeant majors and the good old boys and they're selling stuff to the afghan national army and i had long hair and a beard and nobody's talking to me and i look across the conference way and there's somebody like you long hair and

a beard nobody's nobody's talking to him and i'm like hey man weird knows weird like what's up and he was a marine captain his name is john boyer. And he got hired to run an Afghan combat boot factory. Because a lot of people don't know this. But the U.S. government, U.S. taxpayer paid for a 340,000 person police force and military force in Afghanistan. From $1,700 to $340,000 in a couple of years. So using the same mentality that we use in America where you want to create jobs and stability. So they need to make the boots in country, need backpacks, but they don't have those factories. So they had a program called Afghan First, Afghan Made. The US government's like, Hey, Afghan business owners.

If you build a factory, we're going to give these contracts heavy incident. Like that's fucking hilarious that the American government is putting forward Afghanistan first policies because they know they work in countries. That's crazy. Isn't that right? That's just, that's interesting.

So they built these huge factories, like on the private business owners paid to build these factories on the bets that they're going to get government contracts to build product. And then they were taking people who didn't know how to do anything and training to be cobblers and tailors to make boots and uniforms for the Afghan national military. Each one of those people supported five to thirteen family members so the social impact of a factory was just massive and i met john he's like dude i built this factory and i bought the most badass espresso machine in afghanistan because when you're there in country

it's nest cafe or it's tea and you're ready to shoot a motherfucker for a good cup of coffee like after a week i'm like dude i'll be there tomorrow morning and i walked into that factory and it changed my life you know i saw all of these people working and they were like from the they took me on the tour and the guys learning to like feed a sewing machine to sewing a straight line and by the time you get to the end of it there's hundreds of guys in a room knocking out badass combat boots that could withstand the rigors of afghanistan which our boot manufacturers couldn't do for years and it was really impressive and i asked him i was like hey man what are you gonna do when the war ends and he's like nothing we're not gonna do anything everybody here is gonna go out of work nobody's gonna want to buy anything in Afghanistan and I went from like

inspiration of fury like pretty quickly and I looked down on this table and there's this combat boots all with a flip-flop thong punch through it I was like it's ugly cool Americans will buy that shit. They might put combat on there. They'll buy it. And the longer story of it is, is that we built this huge multi-hundred thousand person military out of, I think the number was like 60 plus percent of them were illiterate. And they also grew up in a culture without shoelaces.

So now you're taking these kids you're training them to be a soldier and you're making them wear these combat boots but they're also islamic so they have to take their shoes on and off five times a day so if you can imagine taking your combat boots on and off five times a day it's kind of a pain in the dick and then if you don't know how to tie shoelaces it kind of complicates things and you can't read the instructions to do it yeah so they were losing tens of thousands of man hours per day because of fucking shoelaces think about that and so he's like hey i'm going to solve this problem i'm going to make a garrison style combat flip-flop and and like you guys can wear yeah you go on the field wear boots but hey just wear these around garrison never took off but except for us and then we just started and that was it

that's wild yeah i love how businesses can be made like that yours and like lead even leading up to that moment because you can rewind go into uh for the people that what year did you join the military 2001 2001 was it after or was it right before right before so oh shit so were you in uh rip during uh i was in artillery like training course i was doing a fire support course and the instructor comes in slams the back door says everybody shut up and we're like what do we do and he turns on the tv right in time for the second plane to run into the tower and we're like oh shit i guess we're going to ward out huh and my girlfriend at the time worked in manhattan and then i heard about the pentagon and my mom worked at a naval um dental clinic

she was a dental hygienist and she worked right near the pentagon and i'm like mother so now i'm in the dark in oklahoma like while this is going on and this is like back from when we had the old 12 digit like cell phones yeah this is like the back of the day you're trying to get a hold of people and you're getting nothing yeah and that was just scary like they were both fine but you didn't know didn't know and then that was the during uh for a lot of people that don't realize, phone lines were down calling out. You're on like mostly landlines at that time. You'd call and it was just outages because the influx of everyone calling.

Dude, that would have been so fucking wild. Joining, you're there, close that. And is that when you seen a shift in training and basic? Or during your schooling at that time and how everyone was the standard um i think people took it a lot more seriously then i uh i always wanted to go to the regiment like i that's where i wanted to go i like when i graduated school i want to be a ranger fire support officer period that was my aim so i was already in pre-ranger training i was ready to go but then they just ramped it up you know i went through ranger school got to my first conventional unit

and i just walked in and told my first battalion commander is like i will do whatever you want me to do but as soon as i can i'm going to drop my packet to ranger regiment and i just would like your signature and he's like all right cool here's what i expect of you and nine months later i dropped my packet what year was that 2001 okay yeah and uh and it was cool like everybody supported the mission like if you're a motivated guy in the military you're all creaky over there you like fucking tisming right now doing it when i see you do this more than like three times a minute and like all right something's bothering you right now yeah okay wait okay i can live with that one i can live with that

so you did what 2009 or sorry 2001 2001 graduated from college went through officer basic course, went to ranger school, winter phase, like early 2002, got to my first, I knew it was, is what it is, man. I went at 190 pounds, the best shape of my life. I came out at 150 pounds two months later. It's like, I, and then I went to two 15 in two weeks. I gained 65 pounds in two weeks jesus christ dude i you went during winter so you at least got two meals yeah and then but it's you're just fucking freezing a lot of people don't understand i can stand out in the cold

i think we talked about that the other day because cold weather gear is a big no-no for a lot of the time. So people didn't understand. It's like, oh, you just adjust to the cold. There is no – they have cold weather gear. You're not allowed to wear it. And then you just stand there and like, I'm fine. No, I will spoon another man in a heartbeat. I got no –

I will spoon another man so that we can both have warmth. Yeah, come here. Cody, it got no warmth. Yeah. Come here. Cody, it's 90 degrees. Stop. No. You looked cold. I sweat.

But it's funny because, you know, you're an artillery guy and people kind of expect you to not be in shape and to be kind of like round because you're artillery, right? You just don't, you're not infantry. And I showed up my first unit and I was over, I was 20 pounds heavier than I am now. And, uh, I finally started running and I started losing my ranger baby weight and my commander and the, they pulled me on the, like, Hey, we need to send you to the doc. Like, cause do you have cancer or something? He's like, no, man, I'm good. I'm just getting back down to it. So I lost 35 pounds, like in my first couple months in my unit and they were just surprised you had that christian bale career of weight loss yeah it was it was interesting and then um then as soon as i could i went to the i put down my packet and my my first

battalion commander this is you got to imagine like this is right after the invasion of iraq so we have afghanistan and then we go to a convention unit so now we're creeping into 2003 then they did iraq and spring of 2003 and just things are just going off in the army now it's like everybody is going to war yeah it's not just like green berets and the rangers are going to go do a deployment for a year. It's like everybody is going. And my first battalion commander, he came out of the regiment. He was a really good dude, and we had a change of command. And you know when the new colonel comes in,

they want to go out and smoke all the lieutenants and approve their. So the new colonel comes in, and they, we're going to have an officer PT in the morning. And then he trains trains up and they go run you five miles at some like break dick pace and then they give you some motivational hoorah speech and his hero speech is like we're going to combat this summer if any of you guys are thinking to go into the regiment none of you are going to go don't even think about doing this you're staying here and i was kind of shocked like, that was his first comment to me. Well, our change of command ceremony was that afternoon and Colonel Rob Choppa, the guy's the man.

If you're watching this, Rob, you're fucking awesome. So we're literally, you go through the change of command ceremony and I'm shaking his hand. I'm like, grab his hand. I was like, hey, sir. He said like, we're not going to the regiment. Like what's going on?

He's like, meet me in my office in 15 minutes. He left his change of command ceremony drove across base backdated my orders send me to the regiment no shit that's so baller ass leader right cool that is a good leader that was the way the army used to be that's dope to actually do it's like hey i'm gonna put this thing because i made a promise to one of my guys i'm gonna make this happen because you would for reference you would have been fucked you would have just been like three more years just locked in locked in yeah it's not to make a pop culture reference this early but it kind of reminds me of the beginning of

starship troopers where he's trying to quit and then the attack happens on buenos aires and he's just like is this your signature? Tears it up. I love that movie. It's a great fucking movie. I love that book. I always wanted to get around to reading the book because I know it's radically different because the movie's basically satire, but I've never had the chance.

My favorite part about that book is service equals citizenship. I like that. We've got to ask Griff, though. Which girl? Oh, girl yeah that's a good question in search of troopers it was easier dizzy or Carmen Carmen Carmen Carmen really really mm-hmm you just like the permanent proper yeah judge too going to be combative. She puts out on date one, though. It's too much.

It's too much. So the fact that Carmen fucks other guys. You guys are used to it. So the fact that Carmen fucks other guys is not why you're away. The first time you go away, that's not a problem for you. It's a problem for me. I'm just saying that my first response would have been like young guy that's what i probably would i guarantee all at bar it's when you get older like okay young especially

dizzy we're like yeah def or not dizzy uh carmen she's gorgeous she's gonna have my back she just cheated on me she's hot it's fine it's the red ticket It's the red flag. It's how hot she is. Oh, you're a pilot? You make more money? Oh, okay. Yeah, but Dizzy, she liked Rico the entire time. Right up until... Well, something kind of uncool happened. Spoiler for a 30-year-old movie.

Right. Oh, that's close to 30 years old now. I hate that. Yeah, I hate that, too. I look Brandon fucking 30 years old now i hate that yeah i hate that too this is when probably look brandon fucking 28 years old over here i saw something being older i saw something this morning where it was like uh it is it has now been as much time between current day and the early 2000s for music as the early 2000s to the 80s so like you listening to nickelback is the same as your dad

listening to def leppard you're almost listening at michael jackson i listen to def leppard like i listen to def leppard man the fucking um i i found this radio station on spotify i was like bands that you listen to and i put on lincoln park and it was a female singing and i was like this is this is lincoln park they switched yeah well they they didn't really have a choice on switching no that's very true it was uh he'd got something uncool happened there we should have seen that 15 year cry for help yeah i know you're just reading everything you're like ah there were their signs well but he made good music that's all that matters keep singing sad man oh yeah there were signs we got a little sidetracked on that one that's the point of the podcast so you're like okay fucking boom actually had a good leader didn't get locked

in with the suck for due to conventional milk just conventional for three more years you would have i would have lost my mind i i would have lost it because you guys like i've seen like how even for you guys at ranger bat it was always awesome to see you get to see the different echelons being like 2id or anything like that is down the road but it's like oh man you still had like to deal with some shit but at least you got nice stuff i remember like that 2004 or 5 you got the new barracks we're like holy those are dope these world war two barracks though really good they have lead and poison yeah dude asbestos but um and then you watching you guys run all the time or adhere to your standards is like, ugh. But you still, once you made it past that suck period, the first, I don't know, for officer side, I remember one of my buddies, he got in and we ran into each other best buy. And I was like, dude, Campbell, how are you doing, man?

He's like, they hate me. They hate me. Where at? This is the second bet. Oh, yeah. He was brand new private. He just got there. He's like, they fucking hate me. I think this is the second bet oh yeah he was brand new private he just got there he's like they fucking hate me i think they want me dead because wasn't he there getting supplies

for them yeah they just they told him to go do the bitch work yeah so he's just like i was like he's like how's your you know i was like it's dope we're uh i we just got our first first it was an e4 that was standing up and acting as a first art for my battalion. Dude, we had no... It was just brand new people just setting up a battalion. Yeah. And then finally we had first art Jones, who was your second bat, right? Yep.

Yep. So Jones came in. He was first art because he needed to get a first art position and hold it. And then he went to CAG. But yeah, just remember all that. And then watching the flip side of how much you guys went through i was like fucking christ godspeed well it's just nuts to you because i landed there in july of 2003 so second bat had just gotten back from the invasion of iraq so we got privates walking in with scrolls and stereo scrolls on both shoulder.

Lee, my business partner, bird one chalk one on the Baghdad international airport. He was literally my CMO was on the first helicopter on to buy up. No shit. Yeah. Like the invasion force. Like when you think about that, like we are invading there on the first helicopter first humans landing in there and taking it over am i this is them like landing in on the airport like you're securing it and then i think uh italian 174 i forget the one they

170 173 jumped into northern iraq okay northern iraq so you kind of don't know if it's going to be normandy or you, just holding a gun to a secretary. That's where it could be anything. So I'm only repeating the story from hearsay because obviously I wasn't there from it. But what I do know is I got to drink a lot of Johnny Walker Blue Label. When does fast grocery delivery through Instacart matter most? When your famous grainy mustard potato salad isn't so famous without the grainy mustard. When the barbecue's lit, but there's nothing to grill. When the in-laws decide that, actually, they will stay for dinner. Instacart has all your groceries covered this summer.

So download the app and get delivery in as fast as 60 minutes. Plus, enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over deliver because the first thing the rangers did it was they secured all of the fucking bars in the airport they smart they stole a fucking truck acquired acquired what's uh what's nick's term strategically transfer equipment to an alternative location

yeah and they raided every bar and bag because you know Saddam was actually good with Christians you could drink you could go to church you could do all that other stuff so they were stocked with all the high end liquors and Alpha Company's second ranger battalion went into Baghdad International Airport after they had cleared it and they

stole all the smokes all the booze and we kept it and we fucking drove it around in a truck with us for months he protected that truck and they brought it all the way back to our company we had a bar and it was stocked yeah you have the company bar yeah the company bar right and the first sergeant had a jump light switch in his office and like when it flipped on the jump light next to the bar door, we go from red to green and everybody could roll in and just drink.

Cause that's how you keep young guys from not getting DUIs is just have the bar and the barracks instead of having guys roll out into town and spend all their money, you know? And that was just it. But we drank a lot of like blue label for better part of a year. Dude, those stories must've been wild seeing that side where it's like, they're the ones they're like where you get all this amazing stuff we'll talk about that later offline and they just bring it back because they didn't have as many rules this is like war war so they're just cycling chalks out yes like and all they're doing is

they're just pushing those little green square containers that roll under the back of c17 just plain lands a couple guys get off. Their boxes roll out. Ours just get pushed back on. Guys get back in the bird, and we fly home. You're home 72 hours later. It gets pushed off. They pick up the trucks from the battalion.

They drive it back. I'm like, all right, cool. We got it all the way back. Sweet. Good. Holy shit. Yeah. Wild.

Saddam was cool with all that stuff, but not the gold standard. So we killed him immediately they have uh dude um i forget one i maybe evan i forget who but they had the photos of them with the dump trucks of gold bars like that they would find yeah and they would just have like pictures and like and while conventional army would rotate afterwards, and everything was already like picked clean at that point. That's what I was going to say. Sir, we found 300 gold bars.

Oh, you found 200 gold bars? Yes, sir. We found 50 gold bars. Such a shame. What are you going to do with 30 gold bars? I could probably only get 15 sold on the market. This is a wild time. So you got back.

You're prepped for, ah, dude, that would have been a wild fucking time. Because you're like, well, this is going to be my first war. What, four months train up for you? And then you're out? Yeah, we're out so the uh in somebody's infinite wisdom they figured out that taliban fighters had a methodology because fighting in the cold sucks like i don't know if you've read any military history but like nobody likes to fight when it's cold out and uh the taliban fighters what they would do is they would retreat to these high altitude mountain villages on the pac border so 10 10,000, 11,000 feet of elevation.

They would just go hang out all winter. And somebody decided they were going to send three ranger battalions from sea level to fucking 10,000 feet of elevation in the middle of winter to go run these guys down out of their fucking safe havens. Like no winter break for you guys. So it's called Operation Winter Strike. And it's one of two times in history where all three ranger battalions were deployed to the same area at the same time and we did real rangering like we drove the trucks as far as they would go the hyluxes and everything else before armor we didn't have any armor we had no gun trucks zero we had we had gun trucks which were pretty cool hummers with you know roll cages on it but

they look like porcupines because we had a three 240s and a mark 19 or a 50 cal up top and then everybody was armed but like there was usually a couple saws on them so it's just it was like what was that movie the last starfighter if you hit the button it just spins around and shoots everything that's what our vehicles were like if somebody like came at us like the whole thing just erupted in fire and you're like oh we're good fuck left side yeah yeah contact left it just death blossoms yeah just death it goes away what was your experience with the mark 19 did you like it or hate it i loved it there's no in between i've found from guys who've used it they either love it or they hate it i mean no like i was a fire supporter and the reason i liked him is because like hey you're rolling in

an a10 or a ac-130 or a couple of helicopters and that thing makes a huge cloud so somebody is like having a sad face day because they're getting hit with mark 19 shells but what they really don't understand is that they're gonna have a whole bunch of like chain fucking machine gun fire and or 2.75 rockets and or a 500 pound bomb or a thousand pound bomb or a 2 000 pound bomb or 105 millimeter cannon fired from the sky like right up following that and that was the reason why i like this because it was just such a good marking instrument i could just create such a big dust cloud that everybody could see it up to 15 000 feet we're like oh yeah that's where we're gonna fuck up right there let's do it god you're a death chemex or a chemlight it's marking your target oh thank god they missed and then heaven yeah like the hand of God is coming down after you

and just obliterating that entire grid square hypothetically speaking because I know they probably didn't do it like this but just imagine being in a fighting position one round lands 50 feet away 15 feet away and it's just like wow okay we're all good why was the round blue

full of blue chalk oh man yeah two thousand pound jdms is crazy we did 500 we did like two 500s i think never dropped it to what most people don't understand is when those things go off it's not the shock and explosion that's gonna fuck you up it's all the shit falling down from the sky afterwards it's so much energy it blows shit like cars straps and metal windows glass everything like thousands of feet into the sky and you're standing there after it goes off you're like oh wow that was really cool and all of a sudden you start hearing dink dink dink dink dink. Oh, shit. Tire. Stuff's coming down around you. It is a big boom. Damn. Big boom.

Fucking wild, dude. And then so, yeah, the third range, all three Ranger best deployed to a, which is wild to go from that, that much elevation change. You cannot train your body because it takes a week, two weeks to really climatize to a situation. And you guys don't have- Was it sea level to 11 000 sea sea level and within 72 hours i was at 6 000 feet in another like four days after

that we were at 11 walking and this is how how many feet like for reference how far were you guys walking when you dismount it would be anywhere between like we would do anywhere between like 5 to 12 miles a day yeah damn in the mountains and then then in the snow it was snowing at that elevation and so i remember we got to we drove from bagram to asadabad and then then we drove to nangalam which is now fab blessing and we're there like oh dude these mountains are big and me and the the my jtAC, Sandy Lopez, we were sitting there looking at the terrain of where we're going. I'm like, dude, this is steep. Neither one of us are going to be both asleep at the same time. So we're going to ditch one of our sleeping bags because we had to carry all of

our batteries for the week. And we had to have all of our radios to talk to aircraft and it's like okay how are we going to shave weight between the two of us so that way we can walk up and down these hills and um and we ended up getting driving going up this mountain and it dumped like feet of snow on us and we found this goat hut right at like 11 000 feet and literally six inches of goat shit on the bottom of it the things like we're creeping to get in there and we're like i guess we're staying in the goat hut for the next day or two until like things are good and you know we lay out the sleeping bag and he's sleeping and i'm sleeping and we're just freezing and somebody goes like dude then commander said let's start a fire and so we all right so we're like oh fuck yeah so somebody goes

out we're like getting the snow off all the wood we're finding dry pieces of wood and somebody starts a small fire in this little goat hut the smoke floats up hits the lid and you know like when you're inside an enclosed space and you can see a layer of smoke 10 000 spiders minimum descending out of the roof of the goat hut oh Oh, fuck. Stop! People cheetah screaming rangers. Coo-coo-coo-coo-coo! Coo-coo-coo-coo-coo! Coo-coo-coo-coo-coo!

One single Mark 19 round. Coo-coo-coo-coo! And then we're all outside like, oh, we're good, and they're all like little teeny spiders and we're like, what's worse, the cold or the spiders and the shit and i'm like the cold is worse so we went and we endured the spiders and the for like the next day god so we could get out of there oh it's so horrible yeah that was a that was a good one and then for like you're walking

this much distance as you're saying like cutting weight you're still walking with how much how many pounds on you the combat is 35 pounds like give or take but if you're doing multiple days that that increases i had two embedders and a uh and a 117 so i was carrying 40 pounds of radio and battery and 40 pounds of radio just alone before my weapon and ammo and my cold weather gear and my sleeping stuff like that's just radios do my job there's ammo guns all those little things start stacking up so fast and this was before like all the gucci gear you gotta remember we were still in like we were wearing um bdu tops so the green bU top and we're wearing chocolate chip bottoms because that was the best color combo this is prior to multi-cam yeah this is this is pre-multicam because you

look like a bush when you wear like the desert bottom with a jungle top you actually kind of blend in better it really works I've never thought about that interesting it literally would look like a Christmas tree or tree or a bush because it's green up top and then ground yeah it works right and so that was the camo that we were using at the time and uh like this is the best we had was like daner cold weather boots and i'll never fucking forget like we're up there freezing we had the wool the old green wool inserts inside the leather fast rub gloves and that was all that we had that was it and we landed on a helicopter one night and we cleared this valley and i remember like sleeping in this barn on a big pile of shuck corn and i am cuddled next to my jaytac i am like pulling him in i am hemorrhaging

i am so cold hemorrhaging like just releasing i say say hemorrhaging i'm just seizing whatever i'm i'm like i'm releasing inside my jtech you're you're so cold that your back hurts because you're shivering so hard and uh the next morning this 47 comes like rolling up the valley and we're like oh what are they gonna bring what are they gonna bring what are they gonna bring and they rolled in and they kicked out a couple duffel bags and this is back in the day when like guys we call up with a credit card and they go hey man we need like 200 pairs of fucking gloves from the local rei and we need them driven to this airfield right now and they would put them on a c17 and they would be on their way to country immediately. That's what happened is they bought OR gators

and OR gloves from Outdoor Research. Yeah, OR was huge at that. They still are the best glove manufacturers. And we actually could move our fingers during the day to actually work our radios and move our weapons and do our jobs. Yeah. That's why I'm just like,

they're an Uber boy. Ditching everything and then bouncing when we were so high elevation the helicopters couldn't land they had to keep a ford momentum you know to get in and get out of the valley and then turn around and get back out and they were just like kicking it off as they rolled why couldn't they land we were so high elevation i think we were like 11 500 feet i just had a because i don't know what what about the elevation prohibited that from landing it's the thinner yeah thin air and i think how the gas like the motor it's that it's like very rich or it starts the air is thinner so you gotta yeah and so it starts running leanerer, and you hit that point where then it just will... Like taking off is not a thing you can do once you land.

Gas is firing. How it's firing, everything is just fucked at that point. So they have to come in. And we were at the range limitation where they would stop and get fuel. They would climb to elevation, fly out, and we're right at the fringes of where they could get to us. They drop it and turn back around and fly out.'s a wild time so what did they drop off outdoor

research gloves and gators yeah and then yeah oh my god this is the best thing ever put some on my feet dude yeah it was weird uh when i got back jordan wong one of my racing buddies um he was cmo of outdoor research when i said i was like oh fuck your gears thank you overseas we use this we're allowed to he's like oh cool man cool yeah yeah but we were so far out that we were buying all of a village's winter rations from them so we would roll you have a platoon of rangers rolling into an afghan village with like 50 or 60 people in it and they've got all of their rice and stuff stored for the winter and we're like all right here dude here's a few thousand dollars oh and they're selling they're just they're immediately they're selling it to you but you realize like

they don't have food for backup they don't have backup that's what's wild but they don't care because they know how much they can go into town. They'll just send somebody in like, you know, week. Great. And they'll go get more, which is fine,

but I'll never forget. We came back from patrol one day and we walked into the hut that we were staying in and there was a sheep like running around like, Oh, super cute. Right. And I just pick it up and I got this photo of me like holding this sheep next to my buddy.

Oh God. And I set it down and it runs around the corner and the guy's hot. It was, we called him grizzly Adams and he looked like grizzly Adams and Afghan grizzly Adams. And he had this Christmas knit sweater that probably got donated by somebody in America to goodwill. And he grabbed the sheep, opened the front door, 18 inches past the front step, slit the sheep's throat, blood everywhere, cuts its head off, drags it back inside the house. And I've never seen an animal skin this way, but he cut around the butthole,

and then he took his hand, and then he shoved his hand between the finger and the meat, and he worked his way all the way around. And then he pulled it out like a sock and then like hands it to his wife to cook no soap no clean water anywhere didn't clip his fingernails whatever right and then like that's what we're eating with him for dinner that night yeah and like no and that's how you got your first case of dysentery how many times have you had i've had it twice no that trip i got my i thought i was gonna die i uh we were coming back we were we were actually going home so this is at the very tail end of the deployment we made it all the way back from all of these like harrowing adventures up in the mountains.

Yay. Fun. So we're in a Sada bad. It's kind of warm. And I'm like walking back to the truck and there's my JTAC bustle like on the ground in the fetal position with his pants down around his knees and a pool of shit behind him on the ground. And he's, I can't stop shooting. That's just Eli. Anytime he eats cheese

or you know every time we're on Cody's cooking show he's like today we're eating dairy plus more dairy I don't do that on purpose I wouldn't know we need to have an exclusive episode of Let Em Cook where it's just the after action

where it's just Eli and Cody's backyard just behind a tree profusely. I'm so glad toilet paper is so that it turns red when you know you're done. Down and out. I call the medic and I'm like, hey, what do we do? So we load him full of

like Phenogren and Imodium, right? We get him to stop trapping himself. We give him the anti-nausea pills and he was our driver in our truck. So it was the JTAC, the commander, the RTO and myself, the four of us in a Hilux. And we were driving from Assadabad to Bagram. And this is like the trip we got to make to go home for Christmas. You fit four guys in a Hilux? Yeah.

Nice. How long of a drive was that 12 hours it's wild you're doing that it's not up on you or anything nothing cody imagine you're in a war zone in your hylux he has a hylux with a 50 cal i got an 81 hylux attaboy hey so uh so i'm like all right fuck it i'll drive you know and so we leave us out of bad and then we were driving and then i'm starting to feel like a little bit not well the tingle the tingle right and i'm starting to feel like in the back of my jaw and i'm like fuck right we have one of those before we pull in the jaw about anytime you pull into a city you're on actually you're

gonna stop outside the outskirts you're gonna make sure all the drivers are secure you're going to check all the weapons you're going to do everything else before you go into an area where you might make contact and i look at my commander i'm like sir like i'm going to tell you like i think i'm about to be non-mission capable i don't think that i'm going to be able to drive this vehicle and my my commander at the time he was an asshole like he's the worst commander i've ever had in my entire life was my first company commander on the range regiment he's a dick they fell up yeah and like this guy was so bad he was like we'd be on patrol and he'd just sit there and like tell me shit about me that he hated about me like he was he was just not a good person that's motivating yeah really like he's not a good dude and uh he

almost got cleaned off the side of a uh a mountain by like this rock when you want somebody oh yeah rock it's falling like no there was a huge boulder falling like big right i'm watching this motherfucker come down the hill and it's about to hit my commander and i'm like fuck yes dude this is awesome you're like I am not yelling out to say watch out he does love me and like the commander

like turns to the side and the rock sails between me and the RTO and the RTO and I both hated this guy and like it fucking sails between us and the only thing that was like there's a 1500 pound rock that just sailed past us at 40 miles an hour and we're just disappointed it didn't clean our commander off the side of the mountain and um so he starts yelling at me and I'm like sir like I'm telling you I'm not gonna make it

like not a good drive and so he's got to drive right so a commander driving gross yeah gross and so i'm riding a shotgun the rto is behind me the jtac is in the back corner and he's just finally starting to like wake up you know from his issues and when you drive into jalalabad from asadabad the first place you hit is the meat market. It's where they hang the meat like on the side of the road for days and there's that smell. Flies and everything.

And you still buy the meat. You still buy it and there's that smell. It's like they throw the intestines out in the back and you got all the fucking skin and all the stuff rotting. And that's the first section of town that you hit on your way in that hits me and i am out to my waist out of the high locks heaving doing everything that i can to keep myself from shitting myself and my rto has got the window

he's got his window down too and i'm heaving and i'm looking at him and he's just laughing at me and i'm like you and i get to jellalabad we pull into the airbase they load me full of fenugreek and imodium too they throw me in the back and then i don't remember the most of that drive on the way back but we finally we we made it to to bogram i think we went through the um god what is that pass between bogram and jvad but it's one of those like weird like switchback ones yeah yeah death i kind of woke up in the middle of there and i'm looking over like i don't want to go off that and die yeah what's the jake gyllenhaal movie uh that just came out with the terp the the guy starts fuck the Guy Ritchie movie the Covenant Covenant

you were the Covenant coming in and out of consciousness as they're driving you it's okay you're going to make it I hurt so bad though God it's wild so then we were home back then it's just so weird because this is before post traumatic stress disorderatic stress disorder or tbi or any of that all of those things and

you know we literally drove the trucks in cleaned them up did our ar handed off to a different battalion got in our c17 and literally i was sitting on my couch 24 hours later man do that fuck the guy who invented ptsd it was so much better man why did he create that thing and that's what's wild it is that fast of a turnaround where you're there is no decompression or like uh let me normalize myself so you're just there at home on your couch with family, not with family, with friends. And you're like, I think we talked about this on the podcast before. We're talking about just like the Roman wars and things where like people would go to war. They'd see a lot of death.

They'd see their friends die. And then they would have a several week walk home, several months where they are walking home with their boys and kind of like coming down from that before they get home versus just stepping off a fucking plane yeah you get to connect with your friends you get that decompression period for months you get to talk to your buddies you get to mourn the death together and then you get to celebrate you have like that entire process through months of walking home from like a bloody battle and this is go get the go get the milk and you're like i don't trust anyone right now technology accidentally makes our lives worse in unseen ways before that's crazy there's a guy that talked about that one time revolution it's a giant. He was a big fan of voting by mail. How was that?

Like, that's a really good bringing up that. Was that so weird out the gate trying to explain or relate to your girlfriend or family at the time? It was my fiance. And then we learned that I'm not allowed to drive for the first two weeks when I get home. Fucking aggressive watching for a side. Yeah, you go underneath an overpass and you immediately jank a lane over so that nobody hooks a grenade down on top of you. You pull up in front of stoplights and somebody pulls up beside you. I'm reaching for a gun.

That you don't have. That you don't have and you're just reaching for it. I mean, it's an automatic thing. And thing they were like i i need to not drive and you go into it's weird having that mind because you're like where is it and it takes you have to it's a process it was like oh yeah i don't have that you don't need that i think i don't need taper down almost or this association kind of slowly goes away yeah it slowly goes away yeah from commutes that become learning sessions to dishwashing filled with laughs podcasts can help you make the most out of your every day and when it comes to everyday spending you can count on the pc

insiders world elite mastercard to help you earn the most pc optimum points everywhere you shop the pc insiders world elite mastercard the card for living unlimited conditions apply to all benefits visit pcfinancial.ca for details yeah it just it just takes you a while because you're just so into it. Anytime you roll outside the gate, you're just hyper-focused on everything. You can't let it go. You're in a vehicle, you might die any second. Hyper-vigilant. Hyper-vigilant, yeah.

And you get home, it's like, okay, I can let this go. I can let this go. just it just gets there over time but that was the first deployment where i learned that i'm not allowed to drive for the first two weeks when i get home and what's crazy is you're like i'm comfortable and i've healed and then back into war immediately they're like, I'm better. Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb. Cute army commercial. Was she at least understanding through that whole thing? Yeah, she was in the army as well.

Oh, okay. Yeah, so she understood. But it's like, again, this is early on in the war where I knew I was deploying and we couldn't say anything to anybody. Right? So we went to a Halloween party. We dressed up and everything else. I tucked her into bed drunk at night and everything else and then i got up at two in the morning and i went to the unit and i was gone yeah that oh yeah that was during like there is no heads up because you don't talk to anybody about it you know you're going you can't tell anybody what your girlfriend imagine you can't tell your

girlfriend that you're gonna be gone when you straight up couldn't you can oh fuck like you can't mention anything like hey guys we're leaving in a month you're doing all your girlfriend that you're gonna be gone when you straight up couldn't you can't oh fuck like you can't mention anything like hey guys we're leaving in a month you're doing all your train ups you're getting all your briefs you can't say anything to anybody god even day before nothing you're like hey i gotta go to work or hey good night because that was that time it was like opsec was the most important thing oh fucking with higher tier echelon you like they actually treated it proper it wasn't joe schmo me it's second back flying out tonight because it big no no we're flying out of this airport into this airport yeah yeah which is wild you just get a good night family that's wild to me is it that's i've never even heard of that level of opsec for i mean because everybody that i know that at least has talked about it

in that i guess context they they knew when that when it was happening and they could tell their families and stuff i mean that's just later on because like we're always in the war there's always a special operations unit there. It doesn't matter because there's always one there. But before, there wasn't. And so which units went where mattered because we thought the enemy cared. Yeah, and then that was when you have the covering patches, anything like that. And we didn't wear unit patches.

Yeah. That's wild. This is that time because it is adapting to that military and it takes you especially for the army, it takes years to start adopting. It's like, oh, this doesn't matter as much as we thought. OPSEC for the tribes, they're not. Because you're implementing near peer OPSEC for somebody who is not near peer. Yeah.

Yeah. Modern, like a modern fight against china versus that where it's like no they they're just going to live their tribal life to defend the fuck out of that but you don't know that at that time you're just like hey i'm out and then you're overseas in what 72 hours 72 hours later yeah so i was home. On ground. Yeah. So when I got home from that deployment, my fiance at the time told me that she got orders to go to Iraq for a year. So that was like Christmas. And then she deployed the first week of January. What was her?

She was an intelligence. Okay. Yeah. And, you know, she comes back like three weeks later pregnant. So it's like, so like holidays, everything else. So it's just like my kid, you know, everything else. So she came back like immediately and I was like, well, hate to tell you this, but like I'm leaving again. Yeah. So it's like, we got to get married real quick.

We got married and then left like three days later and i was gone for another three months you know we were down in um the coast district on salerno and so we were doing like the whole like pac border security against the taliban creeping across and everything else and that was like the first time we were really understanding how i think we kind of understood before but now we were really thinking about how pakistan was fucking with us and like funding guys back and forth across the border so we were doing a lot of like cross-border work and um that was a high adventure deployment that was a that was a good time. What was one of the craziest things that happened during that one? We had this one objective that had like a tower on it.

And they told us that there was a Dishka in the tower. And for people who don't know, a Dishka is a 12.7 millimeter, like, fuck you up gun. I've always wanted to fire one. I've never gotten to fire one. I've always wanted to fire one. Do you want to? I've always wanted to fire a D've never gotten to fire one i've always wanted to do you want to i i've always wanted to fire a dish can we do that in december yeah dude please we just need to i need to finish repairing mine but i've got one we i've never shot it because whoever rebuilt it was just a shithead but i've always wanted to fire one like when i got f you money and i can go back to afghanistan i'm like we're getting a dishka right and we're gonna go

back to afghanistan we're gonna get like a valley and i'm gonna go have fun for a day like as much ammo as i can buy i'm gonna put some goats out there give me a cow let's go and i've always wanted to fight because i've seen them lined up against us we've captured tons of them and i'm like that looks like a badass gun and especially when you realize it's like a world war ii thing yeah don't thing yeah but they work it doesn't matter yeah no i was about to say yeah we know a guy used to disco one time yeah he was like what you've never killed somebody with a disney hook no dog what oh he sold that publicly yeah yeah yeah i wasn't sure about the name just in case

superhero names oh he's a guy oh we're using our made-up names yeah yeah that's how i know the level of friendship with it's like oh they used his superhero name okay yeah if you're gonna if you come down uh yeah you're coming back in in december oh yeah yeah dude i'll just try to have the dish get back up for you because you know what you want to know my favorite part about the dishka please uh at least owning one in the united states the uh one of the only types of ammo that's available for that because 12-7 by 108 is just it's barely not 50 cal where like it's it's just not interchangeable but it's almost identical uh one of the only brands where you

can still get it is just old stuff i think it's like like Tula made, but the brand that actually sold it commercially to the public was Chris Kyle commemorative ammunition. I swear to fucking God, hand on the Bible, that is 100% a fact. So all of my 12-7 ammo comes in 10 round boxes with Chris Kyle's face on it. That's wild.

That's the only ammo they brought to this. I'm like, did you guys not think about this when you did it? Or just, alright. Whatever, whatever man here's your money so so we're looking at this tower we're looking at it and again i'm not an infantry guy i'm an artillery guy so my whole thing is if you shoot at my guys i'm just gonna fuck your whole world up i will bring everything that the dod has to offer to bear and i will give you generational fucking pain i will make sure your grandkids feel this and so i had fucking ac 130 2810s i had cobras on standby i'm like if this thing lights up i am going to decimate this

fucking grid square and we got dogs and everything else and we fast rope on top of this compound to get the guy and like literally we come off the rope and there's a guy sleeping on a cot right outside of his home we run up and we just grab the dude and we pick him up and we're like fuck this is him like it's the guy and like there's a 47 there's still guys dropping off a rope 100 feet above him and you caught the first the guy the guy was like right there and the first sergeant grabs him and he's like this is the dude but we're still securing the objective and now all i'm worried about is this fucking tower right and i'm just like creeping around the building i'm getting eyes on it like all the aircraft are looking at it all like the gunships are just ready to launch this thing and like the

next dimension and there's no activity like no thermal no nothing we're like fuck send the dog right dog rolls in dog's in there for a bit dog comes out with a hand in his mouth hand it was a mausoleum for all of like their dead family members oh shit oh and the dog went in there and ripped a freaking hand off a skeleton and brought it back out we're all standing there like staring at the dog we're like good job boy good boy like all right guys sorry like call them like the older aircraft like all right i guess we're good here like the rest of you guys can go home like stand by for exfil like we're good to go there yeah that's why he was the only dude there no there was a couple other family members and everything else but he was the top dog that we were after and he just and these guys they just they're asleep they literally land a helicopter like on top of their house and they don't hear it it's so weird

it's crazy that's why and catch them sleeping for reference to half the first aren't the one on hands on be like hey this is the guy it's wild that's wild you no clearing of the little village or anything you're just the first guy you like grab you like oh shit literally off the rope you turn and you see a guy sleeping right there like 10 steps grabs him pulls him up it's like oh crap this is the guy right and rangers are going past him into the house and everything else getting everything else done and then we're still clearing the outbuildings there's a camel like floating around somewhere you know just a good time yeah god that is what i just love the stories is uh it's the most interesting part we're talking

about um i mean you've lived a crazy life i always like hearing the different experiences because you guys did a lot more direct action rates like that's all we did yeah like that is here is we only did a handful of those or we would be attached to a team like sas or something we ran with them a couple times and green berets but very rarely it was like hey here's the guy we pull up grabs and i bounce that's all you guys didn't know. A lot of times you did what vehicles did. How many times were you in, um, like little birds or all the time? Yes. All the time. Like I didn't, we didn't do the little bird stuff until we were in Iraq. So I came back from that deployment and that was, that was, we lost a dude during that deployment was

pretty traumatic and, um, came back. i was home for a month had my honeymoon right my wife was six months pregnant right and then like i'm gone again and they were back to afghanistan and we were in the tst mission which is the time sensitive target so we were at bagram with all of like the gunships and the fighter pilots and everything else and we were like if there's any top tier bad dude that picks up in country that we like get signal on where they're at, it doesn't matter where they're at, where the crew to go get them. And that was a really cool mission. Cause a lot of times we just sit around for a week and like all of a sudden somebody pops and then you're all the

assets, all the A-10 pilots, all the gunship crew, you're all standing next to one another, which is a much different experience than most other guys get because you get to know the navigator you get to talk to them but when they pull up on the radio you now have a relationship with them because you eat dinner with them every night it's it's much there's rapport being built yeah and it's the guys in the sky and they know you and now they care about you on the ground because they they know you by voice and it's it's much different and they know oh hey this is the younger fire you know fo so they're they work with them on the ground because younger guys it's complicated you're dealing with a slow moving ac-130 gun trip hanging left-hand circles and then you get an a10 that might check out and then you get an f-16 and they have different capabilities and the young

guys just don't know what the pilots are so they pull them in and like we'll go sit in the aircraft and the the pilots sitting is like hey man when you tell me this i'm literally flying 400 miles an hour and i'm looking at this screen and it gives the young guy a reference to go okay now i need to know how i need to describe it to the pilot in order to be able to do my job better which is which is really cool that was a environment that i was really thankful to be in because it was the best team effort in special operations that i'd ever been in fuck yeah and so we uh we get this one objective and it's like north of cal so it's near the pac border and um my jtac that so the jtac is the the air force guy because this is before army guys are

allowed to drop bombs off of air force planes so i was in the first wave of guys that was actually certified for that and the gwatt before you always had to have an air force guy with you to say like the jtac to say yeah air force plane this is cool this army guy is calling in this bomb and um your hip yeah so like his name's sandy he's my daughter's godfather like thick as he is we've been friends like forever close rapport and uh we always used to think like you know what snacks are we going to bring for the way back so every night like it was his job or my job his job or my job and my thing on deployments is like his wife always sent him candy so i'd always like raid his hooch and steal all those jelly bellies hell yeah one team one fight yeah yeah and um

so we hit the subjective and it's a really steep terrain and you know the rangers and i think it's fine now but like back then it was you know you always have rangers working with like a tier one group so it's either the navy guys like back then it was, you know, you always have Rangers working with like a tier one group. So it's either the Navy guys or their army guys. And on this deployment, we were working with a Navy guys. And there's always animosity between army and Navy. And so this is one of those things where we go in and we're going to do an objective, but we're going to plant a listening device right on the objective.

And so we put, you know, a 100 guys at risk to go you know foe hit an objective to go plant a listening device well if an afghan guy's got seven things if there's eight he's going to notice kind of deal yeah right and then you got to go in like a couple weeks later to go recover it to hear what it's got to say because this is before like all of it muhammad when we get flat screen yeah she's trying to plant an extra object like and again left on the goat stranger these amerans are so nice um and so this is one of the missions where we went in to like go recover a listening device and we fly in we go hit the objective we grab the garage we grab the listening device but it's so steep we had to fast rope in because the helicopters can't land

and then like now we're kind of scrambling around the objective because sometimes you just got to chase guys between houses and the units are kind of spread out and you got to tell the helicopters where to come in at. And we were the last group of dudes to get picked up because we were on the steepest terrain. And the Black Sea platoon sergeant, Brian Stover, total badass, former RRDI came in, was our platoon sergeant. And he runs up to me. He's this just huge dude. And he's like, I'm going to bring this helicopter in. And he's like, you got them on the radio? Like, yeah, I got them on the radio. And he pulls my mic out of the, like, he pulls my mic from my headset out and he plugs his in and he keys my mic. So he's talking to the helicopter on his radio and i'm not hearing what's going on all of a sudden i see this 47 coming at me and then it turns around slides backwards and

then the the tailgate ramp lands on top of this ledge i'm standing against and he like unplugs it he's like sir and he grabs me and he throws me up the wall i was like get on the fucking helicopter all right so i scramble into the back of the bird and there's the the two minigun guys out of the side door there's an atv in the center and you're piling a bunch of dudes in there so i go and i jump and i'm sitting on the atv like holding the handlebars yeah because everyone's stacking around stacking around right so like i'm between the minigunners and then under night vision when those rotors are going around there's a lot of ferrous material in the dirt and the the rotors hit them and you can see that flash like spark under your sparkles under your nons and i'm i'm looking out the side and i'm like oh yeah there's the sparkles and then

i look down the back and the crew chief of the freaking helicopter the pilot's name is andy i know that for sure but the crew chief was like hanging out the back and he's like yeah a little more a little more because as more guys get in it the helicopter starts like weighing down so he's got to apply more throttle to get it back up and the rear rotor of this freaking 47 was like, this is the ledge. This is the rotor. They had like literally a foot and a half of distance off the rock wall. And I'm just changing. And it's changing because Rangers are just jumping in.

He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Little in like pilot cucumber. Fucking cool. A little bit more. You can't see what's going on. He's like, yeah, that fucking cool. A little bit more. He can't see what's going on. He's like, yep, yep, yep, that's it. A little more. And then as soon as everybody's good, the sweet hop song, we got everybody, the whole

helicopter like falls off the side of the mountain. And one of those, like, I'm so glad that I'm hanging on to the freaking, like the ATV. You're the only person here who's got oh shit yeah that was a uh that was a moment for sure and then brandon's face during that story he's like like he's worried spoiler alert i know i know he's fine but like it's still dude it's like a movie you're like that that's crazy man i was like i swear like still dude. It's like a movie. You're like that. That's crazy, man. I was like, I swear. Like that was one of the, like the, I could,

I had to unclench and like let go of the seat out of my culo. I was like, I was pinched into that seat. And I love how you use one word in Spanish and you look straight at me. Yeah. Hello, Mexican man. It's very inclusive. I appreciate it. you must speak spanish no um so that was that was great and then uh we got like uh six months off right and that was the

first time like after that deployment so you do three on three off three on one off three on and we had just a weird rotation where we were always just like cycling through but by this time our fourth deployment i had really realized that the rangers were just professional fucking kidnappers like nick does this uh he's got that army rangers you know like oh if you're gonna decide to be a problem you're not gonna be a problem that could not be any more true and so now they sent us to northern iraq how do you describe it it's like the sharpest blunt object yeah yeah it's the sharpest blunt object ever yeah when people ask me about like rangers or versus navy seals like dude seals are great.

I got a lot of great SEAL friends. They're awesome. Like their mission set is tremendous. You know, what they do is they're like a surgical, like a surgeon's role of tools. If you need something very specific done, in, out, reconnaissance, all these types of jobs, they're great. Rangers, we're like a dump truck full of sledgehammers. I've always heard Rangers can unroll ball bearings. If you give a ranger two ball bearings and tell him to cross the street, before he gets to the other side, he'll eat one and break the other.

That is fucking true. That's just it. It's a hell of a mission statement. Me hungry. me broke other and um so then we get to iraq and this is the first time that we got to work with the army tier one guys and i will have to say that was a world of difference you're like what what was the biggest shift for you um the biggest shift is they actually talk to us. You build a good rapport. Yeah. And it was, you know, Kyle lamb Viking tactics. So he was the Kyle's Kyle's I love Kyle's one of my favorite humans, Kyle. Love you, buddy. He had Did he make you throw a rock with

left hand? No. It's one of his favorite things is now part of his viking tactical and we go hang out with anyone he's like oh yeah hey but especially like tier one guys like oh yeah by the way i'm gonna record this video i need you to throw something cool he puts in the left hand it's like you left right handed it's like yeah no uh yeah i'm right-handed okay throw it with your left no matter what you look like a like he has this compilation like the hardest dudes trying to throw at their left hand he's like thank you that's all i wanted and uh and like kyle was amazing like we got to interact with him and he was just a tremendous leader you know a lot of those guys from that army unit they come out of the rangers and so they have a lot of rapport they know sometimes

they know guys and they're like yep look young rangers you don't know this you get like i'll never forget because i remember ranger setting objectives i work fast and he goes you guys are so slow because rangers the younger you guys are doing things right but you're just so slow but they would take us out during the day and they would work with us and that was a huge difference what the navy guys never did and um we fucked up northern iraq during that deployment if there was anything in northern iraq you were gone the point is you got you done fucked up son like we crushed northern iraq for that period and And this was that time when YouTube really started taking off, right? The videos and being uploaded to the internet.

So I don't know if you guys remember that contractor, little bird that went down where it was in the glades, where the Al-Qaeda captured that dude and then they stood him up, right? And then they gunned him down right in front of everybody. And then they displayed that to the world. That happened like on our deployment. No and we're like okay now really fuck up shit you're around you're going to find out and uh we did not around that deployment and like like the the assets that we had on station the team that we had the leadership that we had we got a new ranger battalion commander and he was just phenomenal and this is how phenomenal the

guy is and like i i wrote this down i put a star next to it is the skull powerpoint this is a powerpoint i'd actually stay tuned in too so you know bill Gates did not have this in mind when he was creating Microsoft PowerPoint. Not at all. So you have a talk, a tactical operations center, and the commander sits at the center, and then you have his right and left-hand man, and then it goes around in a circle, and you have all the displays with the UAV feeds on it and stuff.

Can you grab me one while you're up there, please? Yes, what would you like? A beer. A beer? Yeah. And we were just kind of getting our rhythm with this new battalion commander of like how things were working and with kyle and thank you sir but you know we're now getting to meet all of the different um the units so we're working with different pilots now and so we're working with the

AH-6 pilots, which are the MD-500s with the miniguns and the rockets on the side of them. So we had, that's the Alpha Company 160th. And then we have the MH-6 pilots, which are the ones you were wearing on your shirt earlier with the platforms on the side. So those are the B company guys

that fly us around to chase squirters. And then we had, we have to have maneuver helicopters you guys know what a dap is no it's a direct action penetrator so me yeah yeah you yeah okay yes okay so it's a it's a it's the u.s military's most badass black hawk so what they do it's like just imagine skywolf on steroids or whatever that show was from the 80s so it's a blackhawk with big wings on it and it's got two 19 shot rocket pods a mark 19 grenade launcher and usually like a couple mini guns like a triple barrel to kill it and the purpose of that platform is when you invade a country these things fly like 15 feet off the ground and they roll in and

they look out all of the surface to air missile sites all the sam sites all the radars so these guys like skim and load to the ground and they are loaded for bear and if you're popping a radar or you get a sam missile they're gonna fuck your shit up it's bothering me i don't know the name you're talking about airwolf or something like that what was it airwolf okay yeah you're gonna how long have the daps been used just like since the start of the invasion or yeah they were yeah they've been around since the late 90s i guess no shit maybe maybe even older that sounds rad as i didn't know what that was yeah and like the first time like i had no idea i was a ranger fire support it's like oh we get like

little birds and gunships and then we showed up for to the 160th to do a training down there and do our familiarization get to meet all the pilots and the platforms and they're like this thing rolls in i'm like oh my god like that is this sad face day for somebody and uh i'm gonna have to steal that a sad face sad face day and um i just reckon i'm not feeling very live, laugh, love today. Yeah, not very much. And, but they didn't have enough helicopters because now it's, now we're like late 2005. And so now we got both wars like rolling at speed. And now all the special operations units,

all the Navy SEALs, all the Raiders, all of the special forces group were all like rotating at speed. And there's only so many helicopters and pilots trained at that level so now we're we're getting really stressed out and unfortunately what they had to do is we needed lift helicopters to move us around so what they did is they neutered the daps they made them transport for us so they took the wings and the guns off of them and that is the most emasculating thing you could do to a doubt

pilot is to take their guns off because they had to carry us for weight oh okay they're just mad now now they're mad and um are they just kind of like taking it out on on you guys no no no it was an inter-rivalry between the pilots because now the ah6 pilots the little bird pilots are like yeah we're the fucking badass ones those guys kill more people than cancer little bird pilots they're they're done and uh so we're going around and when a new battalion comes in like you got all the new staff officers and everybody else but usually they don't rotate all the units over at once so that way you get some sort of like overlap. And the first night you get there, there's a PowerPoint brief and it's like, Hey sir, you know, we've got this many little birds. Here's what

we're carrying for ordinance. Here's our flight time. Here's this, here's our pilots. Here's everything that we can do. And you know, just basic capabilities brief. And the little bird chief, chief Meehan, his name was meat is what we called him he's a big freaking dude you could barely cram him into a little bird but he was the best pilot i have ever seen and he gave the brief very professional sits down and then the dat pilot gets up uh captain brown matt brown was his name and he stands up and he gives the brief and he thinks he's going to be funny and he's like you know i just want to say on behalf of the 160th and the mighty little bird you want to say thank you and do you guys remember that uh ringtone from the 90s like

what is it called blue frog blue frog crazy frog yeah and so that's like everybody makes fun of the little bird because it just sounds like me. It's the go-kart. Yeah. It's a go-kart of the sky. Right. And so everybody kind of giggles and laugh at chief me hand, just quietly like sits there right on carries on.

So every night, everybody's got to give like their capabilities or status. If you've got something down, you got to work on it. Like what your priorities are, blah, blah, blah. And so and so chief mehan says hey you have someone to just say like i want to thank you know captain brown for inspiring us and getting just getting a little bit of you know respect for one another and we just we just wanted to say what we think of dapps and uh and it fires up with the same powerpoint

then all of a sudden it fades into this girl absolutely getting sculled And it fires up with the same PowerPoint. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Then all of a sudden it fades into this girl absolutely getting skull. Makeup running down the face. Whole Miss Pac-Man. Right? And this guy pulls this monster dong out. Waps her across the face. Comes on her face.

And then it fades in daps suck and here you have this cw5 standing there just completely professional big pilot mustache big dude he just sits down and everybody in the talk is just commander cool as a cucumber next slide let's go this story gets better so like as uh you know one team one fight like no nope moving on right and that was back in the day that's how the army used to be you could joke about shit nobody cared right it was fun you guys were killing people on a nightly basis.

You could have some liberties with how you're going to live life and everything else. And so war was proper. War was proper back then. It used to be a proper country. But so as a ranger fire supporter, you're always bringing in new privates, right? There are always new fire supporters coming in. And they've like, you got some kid coming in from california or oregon or tennessee or whatever and you're having to explain to them hey man here's what a little bird is and they're like huh and they just got out of rasp and they just

don't know what they're doing their basic artillery fire support and you're like hey dude here's what a dap is here's what a gunship is and so then you have all these powerpoint slides before you go work with them and they have to memorize all the stats and statistics and all these other things so you're always whenever you're on these deployments you get to meet the guys you download the briefs and so i just downloaded the little bird brief and i just had it on my like unclassified drive get out of the army a couple years later uh my wife or now my ex-wife at the time she went to work for a outdoor company that was supplying stuff to the military. And they were going down to the special operations conference down in Tampa.

And there's a company out of Seattle and she's got her assistant, whether who's like this really good dude, but he's just not into the military. He doesn't know stuff. And they're on a plane flying between Seattle and Tampa. And she's like, okay, we're going to meet with Green Berets. We're going to meet with the Rangers. We're going to meet with the 160th. And here's what they do. And so she opens, does all these slides, and she rolls through the fucking little bird slide,

and they're in a plane, side by side, laptop up, volume on high. And like, next slide. him on high. Next slide. The entire plane looks at her. Like, co-workers? Dude, the call that I got when she got off that airplane? Gold. Gold.

She's an ex now. Yeah. Okay, sorry, babe. Those military guys boys will be boys will be boys this is the stories i love because they're just showing like even in war even like in direct action missions or things like that how wars at that time they still took it like we made the best of it they made the best of you made the best of it because you made that's how a lot of it saving your your mindset or saving your like depression ptsd that's how you got through that stuff is because you're like man why we can take this serious and it would destroy everyone if

everyone just focused on all the negative instead it's like let's put a skull fucking video on during this let's get home let's joke about it might be a little bit of a chicken and egg problem there yeah i don't know if that was the intent but it certainly was the outcome that's how i do it's it's awesome and always refreshing like hanging out with you guys because that in a speaking for individuals out there it is that different mindset it's like hey look you have a bunch of trauma this is how we handled it and look if successful business owners you're happy oh no one would knew running into you on a day-to-day basis it's like oh yeah not the dude to fuck with yeah but it is something because how you carry yourself like the positivity

you bring with it and still you went through like some of the worst somebody go through but you and the people around you made it a a positive experience of humor laughter and then making the best of it yeah the the dark humor it gets us through people just don't understand it unless you've been there like cops get it like gallows humor is the best thing ever yeah because that's the only way you can make it levity like you walk into a situation and that would traumatize most people and everybody's staring at it but all of a sudden you hear somebody crack a joke and you're like okay we can get through this right we can we can find we can we can get centered and make and make this right yeah yeah yeah everyone makes the joke it's like it starts with one and then you get to watch expand when we

had um uh oh dang it jody on when we had jody on that was like plushie yeah when we had jody plushie on watching how we went and we're like oh and then he is the one that led the forefront on. Because we didn't know what he did. Yeah, we were trying to be gentle with whatever the traumatic experience he went through. And then he just, off the bat, started being gallows as fuck with it. So we were like, okay, if homeboy that's went through all this can make these jokes, and then we start lighting. As soon as you realize, like, all right, you're the one who's willing to make the joke.

All right, we'll pile on. But you don't know how to handle that very early on because you want to be as respectful as possible. Because the guy had gone through a lot, clearly, from a young age. But the minute he ripped those first couple jokes, the discomfort in the room immediately went away yeah and this that's what's always and you see how positive they are and what they're doing in life which is that you could be the like you could have this it could be uh what hold you back or soul-crushing experience and then seeing him turn it into a light and laughter about it same for like these stories a lot of people you flip side of somebody's ptsd version of

the helicopter's blades like the rear rotor is almost touching like it's almost touching we almost died and instead you're laughing about that fucking thing all right like i'm alive like everything you look at the pilot and he's like yeah yeah, it's fine. Cool. Cool. Yeah. Okay. I don't Okay. He ain't stressed. I'm not stressed. Yeah. Meanwhile, in 2024, people would be talking about their PTSD experience from sitting next to the person watching the PowerPoint on their fucking laptop on a plane. Like I just wasn't prepared to be that. Someone got skull fucked. People need a hard no.

It's called fun. Someone got skull fucked people need a hard it's called fun someone got fun fucked they look like they're having a great time at least one of them is 9 out of 10 9 out of 10 people enjoy gangbangs get it

oh my god I love just like the stories. Just how... Garrett, how... Griff is good people. What is it? Don't take life so fucking seriously because nobody gets out alive. Yep.

Yeah. You can make the worst of a situation or you can make the best. And then I guarantee people look up to you when you... You went through that shit, whether it's Cody, whether it's you, whether it's Griff. They look up to those experiences. And then they see. If this is a competition, I'm bowing out. Yeah.

But it's still making the best of stressful situations and how you guys handle it or approach it. It's refreshing as fuck. Instead of the victim mindset, it's like, oh, this is really hard. Yeah, laughter. Then overcoming that. And then people are like, holy fuck, that's a dude I want to listen to, follow. You can very easily, maybe this is a thing to say, but in my opinion, you can very easily judge somebody by what they consider to be traumatic.

I agree completely on that. we are i know you don't it's the whole thing you're not supposed to compare trauma but when i hear people talk about certain traumatic things it's like oh you were you were misgendered yeah you're right it is that i stare into like oblivion you're like that stretched i'll put that one out of ten i'll put that at maybe a one and a half we'll pump it up a half point for you i don't think you should be crying about it you said gay that traumatized me you know it's not your trauma to joke about cody my trauma it's like it's just if how weak do you have to be that words can hurt you yeah you're like oh you're

somebody you don't know still Still hilarious to hear out loud. Yeah. I got to bounce out of here, though. Oh, shit. I'm like, I'm 15 minutes past. We're going to leave. Oh, well, fuck. Yeah, we'll close out with this.

We'll do after show with Mr. Trout. Cody, can you close this out? We'll ask you where we can find him. Bye, everyone. Thanks for joining us here on the Unsubscribe podcast. I was joined today by Eli Double Tap Griff from Combat Flip Flops, our boy. Brandon herrera myself donut operator if you want to join the show we'll be on patreon in the meantime where can we find you at combat flip-flops

that's it combat flip-flops one word that's it easy we'll put it right here and then you can check out unsub fucking shoes or whatever here. I'll just give you all the credits. Mr. Brandon has to go. He has a political thingy to do. Are we allowed to say that? You can say that. We'll see where that goes. Now stab him with it, Cody.

Did he just say he's a politician now? That will pass a metal detector by the way. I know. that will pass a metal detector by the way our next plane ride is gonna be the funniest one ever We'll see right back. with a live dealer. From roulette to blackjack, watch as a dealer hosts your table game and live chat with them throughout your experience to feel like you're actually at the casino. The excitement doesn't stop there.

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